A lot of us will have noticed that there’s a new feature on the skyline – and it’s not yet another skyscraper, but something much, much taller.
The skies above Manchester city centre have been dominated since the new year by an enormous beam of light, which gently pulses.
And, as dozens of people have pointed out, it looks unnervingly like an alien invasion…
Others have questioned if it’s a bat signal trying to summon Batman (if it is, he’s ignoring us).
Despite it launching back on New Year’s Day and being quite widely-publicised, some people have still said they had no idea it was happening – or what it represents.
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The light beam is actually a huge, free art project – arguably the city’s largest-ever – created to celebrate babies.
The incredible spectacle has been commissioned by Factory International, the brand-new, £186m arts venue that’s set to open later this year.
The artist behind is is Luke Jerram, famed for his large-scale art installations – he was also behind the 10m Floating Earth at MediaCity last year, which sadly deflated in the bad weather, as well as the giant Museum of the Moon at Bluedot Festival.
First Breath pulses gently every time a baby is born in Greater Manchester, and is meant to represent their first breath.
You can get right up close and walk around Manchester’s light beam, with Factory International sharing a handy video guide of how to get there (down Liverpool Road past the Science and Industry Museum; turn right onto Water Street; pass through the security gate; head up the ramp).
Mancs who have gone down to the installation, or spotted it from across the region, have been full of praise for the project.
One person wrote on our Instagram post: “We were walking the dog on salford wetlands and the beam perfectly lined up with the full moon !!!!! It was amazing.”
Someone else described it as ‘absolutely stunning’.
One Facebook, someone said about the beam of light: “Went to see this tonight…astounding and the start of something very beautiful in Manchester.”
And on Twitter, a user posted: “Visited the new temporary art installation ‘First Breath’ on my way home from work. Needless to say I’m not a spiritual person in the slightest but standing under those lights on my own in silence I felt so moved. Worth a visit for those in Manchester.”
Luke Jerram said: ”I want to reveal, celebrate and connect the hidden community of people giving birth each day in Greater Manchester. Disconnected and yet going through the life-changing experience at the same time, there are on average over 70 babies born each day in the city.
“This new artwork is designed to celebrate the moment a child is born – the extraordinary moment when they take their first breath and a new life arrives in the world.”
First Breath will take place between 4pm and 10pm, every day between 1 and 29 January 2023.
Expectant parents due in January 2023 from all backgrounds and pregnancy journeys can sign-up to First Breath at factoryinternational.org/first-breath.
Featured image: The Manc Group / Factory International
Art & Culture
Government announces all national museums in UK will remain FREE for everyone to visit
Emily Sergeant
Dozens of national museums across the UK are set to remain free for everyone to visit, it has been confirmed.
Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the 14 national museums of the UK are all located in England – including the Imperial War Museum North, and the Science and Industry Museum in our region – and free entry to was first introduced all the way back in 2001, with millions of visitors having benefitted since.
National museums are said to add more than £1 billion a year to the economy, and bring in visitors from all over the world.
In fact, seven of the UK’s 10 most visited museums are national museums, and 7.1 million people visited the Natural History Museum and 6.4 million visited the British Museum in 2025 alone.
The Government has announced that all national museums in the UK will remain free for everyone to visit / Credit: Science Museum Group | Wikimedia Commons
Earlier this year though, the Government committed to working with local leaders and the museum and tourism sectors to explore whether charging overseas visitors could help museums’ finances.
But following this, it’s now believed that charging could deter visitors, and that the impacts and benefits would ‘not be felt equally’ across the sector.
Instead, the free entry will be funded by the £1.5 billion Arts Everywhere Fund – which is providing £760 million for museums – while £600 million of infrastructure funding is supporting national museums and DCMS-sponsored cultural organisations.
The latter funding will be used to address critical maintenance and works to estates, and enable institutions to deliver on their commitments to share collections with visitors from around the world.
A further £160 million is coming from The Museum Estates and Development Fund to help museums tackle maintenance backlogs.
On top of that, the Government will work with Arts Council to develop a long-term strategic plan for the future of museums.
Featured Image – Science Museum Group
Art & Culture
Dirty Dancing at Palace Theatre, Manchester – at least one audience member had the time of her life…
Daisy Jackson
For anyone who has watched Dirty Dancing so many times they can practically recite the dialogue, taking on the Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey roles is no small feat – and turning that lakeside romance into a live musical comes with even bigger expectations.
The stage production at the Palace Theatre in Manchester has all the familiar ingredients: the dancing, the music, the forbidden romance and, of course, that lift. But while there are moments when the theatre version captures the exuberance of the original, it doesn’t always manage to recreate its magic.
Charlie Varlet as Baby does a great job of embracing the knock-kneed awkwardness of the teenage star, slowly blossoming into a beautiful dancer who is almost eerily similar to the film’s Jennifer Grey.
And Joel Benjamin plays a striking Johnny, moving lightly for such an enormously muscular actor.
But there are moments where their chemistry fizzles out, too much of the script that focuses on their bickerings and misunderstandings to make you buy into their love story.
At points, it feels almost slapstick, and the result is a restless audience that keeps hooting and hollering at a topless Benjamin when he’s trying to deliver a serious monologue about Johnny’s upbringing. One woman shouts ‘LUCKY YOU’ and cackles as Baby sits in bed with him. It’s not a Magic Mike show, guys.
Where Dirty Dancing the musical shines is when it really makes the most of its full ensemble, with huge dance numbers that see limbs and skirts flying right across the stage.
Ellie Ferguson as Penny in Dirty Dancing. Credit: Danny Kaan
And it’s hard to take your eyes off Penny (Ellie Fergusson), even when she’s lurking in the crowd, so impressive is her stage presence and the execution of her dance routines.
Having a lot of the musicians on the stage is a fantastic touch too – you spot people playing saxophones and clarinets and guitars in a lot of the scenes and it adds a real party atmosphere.
The set design does its best to replicate the iconic moments of the film, but the cast shaking themselves dry under a blue light can’t come close to the magic of the lake scene.
If you’ve watched the film so often you can recite it word for word (guilty), you won’t find a lot of surprises up on the stage – the theatre adaptation sticks pretty tightly to the original plot and script.
Baby (Charlie Varlet) and Johnny (Joel Benjamin)Dirty Dancing is at the Palace Theatre in ManchesterCredit: Danny Kaan
It means that a lot of the moments that would translate best to stage – the underground dance party in the staff quarters, the montage of Baby learning to dance, the Hungry Eyes scene – are condensed into the first half of the musical.
The second half feels a little flat in comparison, just a lot of bickering and storming around the stage… up until that grand finale, when Johnny bursts from the back of the theatre and storms the stage to complete that iconic lift.
It’s worth all the trundle just for that final euphoric moment.
Dirty Dancing is at the Palace Theatre in Manchester until Saturday 3 October, then will return next summer. You can grab tickets HERE.
Daisy Jackson -
13th January 2023 
