The food, drink and music lineup for the Manchester International Festival (MIF) Festival Square 2021 has officially been revealed.
Moving into the square’s outdoor kitchens this year will be pizzaiolos Honest Crust, a new vegan offering Stellar and a selection of traders from Mary Ellen McTague’s Eat Well MCR.
Heathcote&Co will also be in attendance serving up a selection of affogatos, ice cream floats and speciality coffees.
New venture Stellar by Dan Hope (of Firebird Hope and Pepperoni Playboy) will see the plant-based chef slinging out barbacoa sandos, falafel burgers and, of course, his legendary homemade seitan ‘fried chicken’ burgers.
Firebird Hope
Meanwhile, Mary Ellen McTague’s social enterprise Eat Well MCR Marketplace – formed in the first lockdown to turn food waste into healthy meals for the vulnerable – will be well represented at the square with a slew of daily specials from the collective’s members.
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Local Eat Well traders and chefs such as ISCA and The Refuge will look to create limited edition specials for ‘build your own’ picnic boxes – with all profits going back into the initiative’s community support work.
Eat Well MCR favourites Chorlton Cheese Shop, Beehive, Holy Grain, Plucky Pickle and Acorn Dairy are all expected to make an appearance.
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McTague is no stranger to MIF, having hosted an Alice in Wonderland-themed dinner in 2019.
MIF
Speaking on the new collaboration, McTague said: “Manchester International Festival is the perfect platform to showcase our wonderful marketplace of suppliers – the chefs and restaurants in our amazing collective – so we can tell our story to the wider community, all whilst raising much-needed funds to continue our support work.”
The festival hub will move to Cathedral Gardens for 2021 due to ongoing renovations at the Town Hall.
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On the music front, a busy programme will be split across three stages – with different nights curated by the likes of Homoelectric, Dave Haslam, DJ Paulette, Jamz Supernova, Mr Scruff and BBC Music Introducing.
Performances by emerging talents, meanwhile, have been curated through MIF Sounds.
Formed to encourage creatives to keep going through last year’s turbulent events, it will see DJ collective All Hands On Deck, Swing Ting label boss Balraj Samrai and singer One Da all take over the square at different points.
Manchester International Festival 2021 runs from July 1 – 18, with tickets available from May 20.
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High School Musical at Lowry, Salford – a night spent reliving our childhood | Review
Amy Williams
What a night spent reliving our childhood.
Now, I don’t want to exaggerate or seem biased, considering this is one of my favourite film trilogies of all time, but this could be the best stage show I’ve seen in a long while.
We all know how High School Musical goes, right? Set at East High, we follow Troy and Gabriella (the star basketball player, and the geeky new girl) who meet over New Year, and then become ‘star-crossed lovers’ when back at school as they’re part of two different ‘cliques’.
The duo mess with the ‘Status Quo’ when they audition for the school musical. But will they stick to what they know? Or become stars of the stage? I’m sure you know the ending.
High School Musical is currently on stage at Lowry, Salford / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
From the costumes and the characters, to the memorable songs (there’s actually 52 songs in this production, including a mega mix at the end), they’ve kept right to the script of the films – and that’s exactly what we wanted to see.
Of course, the biggest throwback of them all is Kaycee Stroh – who originally featured as Martha Cox in the film trilogy – taking the role as Ms Darbus, and she was just as incredible as we expected her to be. And to see her do the iconic dance in the finale was unbelievable, 13-year-old Amy was screaming.
Also featuring Jason Donovan as Coach Bolton, Tobias Turley as Troy, Leonor Correia as Gabriella, Caitlin Tipping Sharpay, and Luke Bayer as Ryan, it was a proper impressive cast all round.
It’s a night to properly relive your mid-00s childhood / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
There was crowd interaction right from the off, as they taught the crowd a cheerleading routine to be included later in the show, plus for the finale, they had the lyrics on the big screen too so everyone could sing-along.
If we could go and see this show every single night, we would – it is absolutely brilliant.
Fontaines D.C. announce massive return to Manchester on new European tour
Daisy Jackson
Fontaines D.C. have just announced their biggest headline tour to date, including a massive arena gig here in Manchester.
The wildly popular Irish rock band are set to play a whopping 20 arena shows across Europe and the UK this autumn.
The tour has been announced in celebration of their upcoming fifth studio album, Dopamine Chamber, which is set for release this October.
Fontaines D.C. will hit the road just five days after the album drops, kicking off their European tour in Lisbon on 21 October.
Then they’ll make their way over to the UK, with shows in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham and London.
Fans in their home country of Ireland are told to stay tuned for live news very soon.
As we speak, Fontaines D.C. are warming up to play one of the country’s biggest festivals, with headline slots at Reading & Leeds Festival.
They’ve already released Marianne, the first single from their new album, and frontman Grian Chatten says of the album: “The album itself is a dopamine chamber. You step inside and we test these different mind- or mood-altering pieces of music on you.”
The new record has been recorded between London, the English countryside, and Palermo, where Chatten recorded vocals in a makeshift booth built from mattresses and cushions.
He said: “There’s a poignant sense of us being on the brink of some other kind of form of humanity, or non-humanity.”
Tickets will go on general sale at 10am on Thursday 3 September, with pre-sale live from 10am on Tuesday 1 September.
You can access tickets for Fontaines D.C. in Manchester HERE.
Fans who pre-order Dopamine Chamber from the official store by 6pm on Monday 31 August will gain access to the UK pre-sale.
Fontaines D.C. UK tour dates in full
Friday 20 November – Liverpool, UK – M&S Bank Arena
Saturday 21 November – Manchester, UK – AO Arena
Sunday 22 November – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro
Tuesday 24 November – Leeds, UK – First Direct Bank Arena
Wednesday 25 November – Birmingham, UK – Utilita Arena
Georgina Pellant -
4th May 2021 
