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80s-themed Miami Beach cinema to open on Manchester rooftop this summer

Backyard Cinema is back in town, only this time they've brought along a beach and plonked it on the rooftop.

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 6th June 2023

Backyard Cinema will be back in Manchester this summer, creating a Miami Beach rooftop experience that will transport people back to the 1980s. 

The immersive cinema experience, which debuted in the city centre last autumn, is going to be taking over the roof of Depot Mayfield again.

This time, the industrial space will be transformed into Miami Beach, using 30 tonnes of sand and signature palm tree cocktails to create the UK’s largest pop-up beach.

Ian Brown may have famously said that ‘Manchester has everything but a beach’, but all that’s about to change from 5 July. 

Tickets are on sale now for the summer-long series, which will include cinematic parties and screenings of major summer blockbusters, plus sing-alongs and loads more, all with sand between your toes and ultra-comfy seats. 

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Backyard Cinema rooftop experience
Backyard Cinema Miami Beach
Backyard Cinema rooftop bar
Backyard Cinema Miami Beach (Credit: Supplied)

To fit with the theme, Backyard Cinema’s unforgettable rooftop experience will include 1980s-era classics like Dirty Dancing, Grease, and Back to the Future, plus other hits like Top Gun: Maverick and Pulp Fiction.

Then some of the summer’s most hotly-anticipated releases, including Barbie, The Little Mermaid remake, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will all be on the bill. 

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Every Friday night, there will be recurring Dirty Dancing Beach Parties where guests can dance along to the iconic soundtrack, with special surprises designed to fully immerse everyone into the world of the 1987 film. 

‘Super Sing-alongs’ will actively encourage audience participation, singing your heart out inhibition-free to feel-good film soundtracks, featuring Grease, Mamma Mia and The Greatest Showman. 

where is Backyard Cinema in Manchester?
Miami Beach in Manchester
Credit: Supplied

Backyard Cinema’s Miami Beach will whisk ticket-holders away to the sunshine state, where you’re greeted by staff in the art deco Miami Beach Hotel and palm tree cocktails at the Flamingo Beach Bar. 

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It’s all taking place at Broadwick Live’s landmark Depot Mayfield, the former railway dating back to 1910, with original railway tracks, platforms, ticket office, waiting room and cast iron roof structure transformed into a spectacular summer cinema experience. 

Backyard Cinema, which first began in founder Dominic Davies’ own backyard, has already enjoyed huge success and garnered a fan following in London as well as in Manchester last winter. 

Dominic, founder and creative director said: “After the huge success of our Winter season we are super excited to bring our smash-hit Miami Beach to the roof of Depot Mayfield. We are going to take people back to a retro 80s Miami full of glitz and glamour and create the closest thing to a Summer Holiday in Mayfield.”

Backyard Cinema Miami Beach will open at Depot Mayfield, M1 2PY, on 5 July. Tickets are available on Fever with prices starting from £9.50.

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Popular Manchester Italian restaurant launches great-value express menu and mouth-watering new dishes

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson

One of Manchester’s best Italian restaurants is ready to launch a brand new menu – with a top-value express deal too. 

Italiana Fifty-Five, formerly known as the foodie favourite Cibo, is expanding its offering with even more authentic pastas, pizzas, salads and seafood dishes. 

The restaurant has sites across Greater Manchester, including in the Great Northern, on Liverpool Road, and in Didsbury, all serving up authentic Italian food. 

And now the family-friendly eatery is ready for a new season, with a whole host of new dishes to sink your teeth in to. 

Italiana Fifty-Five’s new menu features a brand new Rigatoni Italiana, a spicy and rich pasta dish that’s baked so that it becomes a bubbling bowl of molten cheese and creamy tomato sauce. 

Meatballs at Italiana Fifty-Five. Credit: The Manc Group
Meatballs at Italiana Fifty-Five. Credit: The Manc Group
Burrata bruschetta and tiger prawns from Italiana Fifty-Five
Burrata bruschetta and tiger prawns from Italiana Fifty-Five. Credit: The Manc Group
Risotto Zafferano with king prawns
Risotto Zafferano with king prawns

They also have a new Risotto Zafferano, a risotto cooked in saffron and pecorino cheese so that it arrives glowing a healthy yellow, with the option to add king prawns on top. 

For starters, there are new dishes like a mozzarella, avocado and tomato salad, meatballs swimming in a hearty tomato sauce, and a seafood stew with gigantic prawns and mussels. 

You can also order huge tiger prawns cooked in garlic and chilli, their tender meat served still in their shells, or a roasted tomato bruschetta topped with fresh burrata. 

All these new menu items (and more) are available at Italiana Fifty-Five now, along with a brand new Italian Express set menu. 

Dishes on Italiana Fifty Five’s express menu. Credit: The Manc Group
Salami pizza at Italiana Fifty Five
Salami pizza at Italiana Fifty Five
Dishes on Italiana Fifty Five's express menu. Credit: The Manc Group
Dishes on Italiana Fifty Five’s express menu. Credit: The Manc Group

If you dine from the Express menu, you can get a delicious Italian dish served with a tea, coffee or soft drink, for only £14.75. 

Choose from a creamy mushroom risotto funghi, the aforementioned Rigatoni Italiana, a classic chicken Caesar salad, pan-fried seabass with parsley, lemon and spinach, or a fiery Diavola pizza covered in spicy salami and red onion. 

To find out more about Italiana Fifty-Five and to book your table, click here. 

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Featured image: The Manc Group

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First-ever RHS Urban Show to take place in Manchester this month

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson The inaugural RHS Urban Show will take place at Depot Mayfield in Manchester. Credit: Supplied

A plant paradise will be created at Depot Mayfield in Manchester this month when the inaugural RHS Urban Show takes over. 

The huge event – the charity’s first large-scale indoor show – has been created to celebrate the growing urban gardening movement.

Whether you’re cramming a tropical jungle onto your balcony or trying to bring a little plant life into your home, the RHS Urban Show will have exhibits that will educate and inspire you. 

You can learn the secrets to growing happy houseplants, see vertical structures for awkward urban spaces, and explore a seven-garden vision for a greener city. 

There’ll even be a horticultural exhibit celebrating the heyday of Manchester’s Hacienda days. 

The RHS Urban Show wants to answer the question of ‘what is urban gardening’ through this huge event, which will run between Thursday 18 and Sunday 21 April. 

Major exhibits will be filling the gigantic industrial space at Depot Mayfield, like the RHS City Spaces: Cloudscape, by Manchester’s Cloud Gardener Jason Williams, which will challenge local authorities and developers to think and envision greener towns and cities. 

The inaugural RHS Urban Show in Manchester will be a plant-lover’s paradise

It will bring together four balconies, each facing north, south, east and west, plus a north-facing shaded patio, an urban farm, and a communal garden. 

Created in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University’s Rise programme and Notcutts Garden Centre, RHS City Spaces: Cloudscape will showcase how to bring plants into your space, regardless of needs, microclimate, or budget. 

Williams said: “The concept as a whole is an ambitious blueprint of how we can bring a city together. These are not show gardens, they are learning exhibits designed to teach residents, local authorities, retail and developers how we can all improve to make our towns and cities greener.”

Four-time RHS Chelsea Flower Show medal-winners GrowTropicals will be explaining which houseplants – including rare and exotic ones – are best suited to which home environment. 

Visitors to the RHS Urban Show will be able to learn the secrets to growing happy houseplants
Visitors to the RHS Urban Show will be able to learn the secrets to growing happy houseplants
There'll be exhibitions, talks, shopping opportunities and more at the RHS Urban Show in Manchester
There’ll be exhibitions, talks, shopping opportunities and more at the RHS Urban Show in Manchester

They’ll group dozens of plants together, from shade-loving plants who’ll be happy in north-facing rooms, to those who love a bit of humidity, to the sun-worshippers begging for a sunny windowsill. 

Midlands-based designer Amanda Grimes’ exhibit Pop Culture Planting: Punk Rockery, the New Wave and 24-Hour Party Planting, will be a two-part installation set over three years, showing a design at the time of planting, one year on and two years on. 

Her aim is to give new and inexperienced gardeners the confidence and inspiration to ‘just go for it’ by showing visitors what they can expect as a garden develops naturally over time, even with poor soil or rubble.

She said: “Punk Rockery hits Manchester in the same way the Sex Pistols did in June 1976, though possibly with less swearing and a bigger audience. 

“That now-legendary gig was the spark that lit the touch paper of the whole Manchester New Wave music scene which included the Buzzcocks, Joy Division/New Order, The Fall, Magazine, The Smiths and Factory Records, and went on to inspire so many more. 

“The installation is named in honour of all that creativity which was, and still is, uniquely Mancunian.

“24-Hour Party Planting is a celebration of Manchester’s thriving nightlife, restaurant and entertainment scene. 

Garden designer Tom Wilkes-Rios dusts between leaves of succulents on his balcony garden 'The Blue Garden', during build-up of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022, Thursday May 19, 2022. The show returns for the first time in spring for three years and opens to the public May 24...RHS / Luke MacGregor
Garden designer Tom Wilkes-Rios dusts between leaves of succulents on his balcony garden ‘The Blue Garden’. Credit: RHS / Luke MacGregor

“It references the Happy Mondays’ track of the same name, and with it the hedonistic days of the Hacienda. It traces that legacy through to 2024 and the incredibly diverse, vibrant and endlessly creative energy of the Gay Village, Northern Quarter, Salford and beyond.”

The RHS Urban Show, sponsored by Mad About Land, also debuts ‘content cubes’ for gardeners with small spaces.

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That includes RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2023’s People’s Choice and gold medal-winner Conal McGuire’s Urban Shade, which utilises modular ‘grow frames’ offering a flexible solution for growing in awkward urban spaces.

As well as all the exhibits to explore, there’ll be a programme of talks that will run through everything from cut flowers to juggling plant life with work and family life. 

RHS-run workshops where you can make your own terrarium will be taking place, and you can join a free guided tour of the neighbouring Mayfield Park. 

And you can browse through a variety of indoor and outdoor plants that you can take home with you, with pots, macrame, and even a new clothing range by Mad About Land for sale too. 

Lex Falleyn, show manager for the RHS Urban Show, said: “Urban Gardening is diverse and dynamic and the inaugural RHS Urban Show is an exciting opportunity to explore the important role gardening plays in greening up cities.

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“We’ve chosen to work with a wide range of gardeners, from award-winning designers to community groups to enthusiasts who juggle gardening with day-to-day life. We hope this will bring a balance of relevant yet realistic advice to get people growing.”

The RHS Urban Show will take place at Depot Mayfield between Thursday 18 and Sunday 21 April. You can buy tickets here. 

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Featured image: Supplied

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