Some of Manchester’s best street food traders will come together at Castlefield Bowl this September, slinging out bagels, burgers, bao and burritos to Laughterama punters across five glorious days.
Local favourites including Triple Bagels, Mi & Pho and T’arricrii will all come together from 21-25 September, slinging out their best-selling dishes as part of Manchester’s new comedy festival.
Featuring big names like Nish Kumar, James Acaster, Rosie Jones, British Comedy Award winner Aisling Bea, Dylan Moran, Phil Wang and Josh Widdicombe, Laughterama will pair award-winning comedy with some of the best food trucks in the city.
The festival will also welcome a number of homegrown Manchester comics including Stephen Bailey, and Josh Jones.
Brought to Manchester by a team of siblings who already run successful comedy festivals in London and the south of England, organisers hope this event will be the first of many.
ADVERTISEMENT
As well as catching some uproarious stand up sets, ticket holders will also get to feast on some of Manchester’s best street food throughout the event.
Alongside some established food favourites, the festival has also booked up and comer Thief Street, Mexican taco truck Nina’s and top-end kebab kitchen Eat Like a Greek.
ADVERTISEMENT
Meanwhile, sweet tooths will be catered to with pancakes from Eat Dutch Lekker or a range of sugary treats from Ravenous Fudge.
Keeping reading for a breakdown of what food to expect to discover as part of this year’s brand new comedy festival.
T’arricrii
ADVERTISEMENT
Image: T’arricrii
Image: T’arricrii
Run by Riccardo and Romeo, two Sicilian brothers with a reputation for making some of the best arancini (Sicilian rice balls) in Manchester, T’arricrii began life at Hatch on Oxford Road in 2018. Over the years, the duo have firmly cemented themselves as a local favourite.
Eat Like a Greek
Image: Eat Like a Greek
Image: Eat Like a Greek
Serving gyros and souvlaki from their beautiful mobile taverna (converted from a horse trailer), these Manchester newcomers are making their mark with delicious wraps dripping with olive oil and seasoning direct from the motherland, alongside other Greek favourites.
Eat Dutch Lekker
Image: Eat Dutch Lekker
Image: Eat Dutch Lekker
Get a load of these amazing Dutch desserts! Mini pancakes, loaded waffles and so much more. Try a new spin on some of your all-time favourite delights with fresh ingredients and an abundance of toppings made right before your eyes.
ADVERTISEMENT
Triple Bagels
Image: Triple B
Image: Triple B
Serving up the best salt-beef bagels and burgers around, if you love New York-style street food then you’ll be making a (Triple)B-line for the house-cured and smoked pastrami, juicy burgers, fries, sides and more.
Thief Street
Combining retro style with handmade potato waffles and restaurant quality toppings, this newcomer has fast become a city favourite. It is the brainchild of Manchester chef Jon Green, who rose up the ranks in some of the city’s finest eateries like Trof, Sugo Pasta Kitchen and The Refuge before spending lockdown masterminding the perfect waffle.
Ravenous Fudge
ADVERTISEMENT
Image: Ravenous Fudge
Image: Ravenous Fudge
This is a long way from your typical fudge. With flavours like banana and chocolate, vegan sea salt and caramel, chilli chocolate or maple and walnut, Ravenous Fudge has revolutionised this classic treat since forming in Essex in 2015 and are bringing all their fudge-y delights to Manchester.
Mi & Pho
Image: Mi & Pho
Image: Mi & Pho
South Manchester’s hugely popular, multi award-winning outfit guarantees its legions of fans fresh and delicious offerings inspired by Vietnam’s street-side vendors. Get ready for an explosion of Southeast Asian flavour with their Buns, …
Nina’s Taco Truck
Image: Nina’s
Image: Nina’s
Serving fully plant based Mexican street food from their lovingly converted retro caravan, Team Nina bring you brimful burrito bowls of smokey seitan chicken, refried beans, guacamole, home-made salsa and lots more besides.
Tickets for each individual comedy event are priced separately at £25 a head (not including booking fee) for general admission. Food is not included with your ticket and must be purchased separately.
Selfridges Manchester to host an out-of-hours dinner in the middle of the shop floor, plus the city’s chicest book club
Daisy Jackson
Selfridges will be hosting a series of exclusive events in the coming weeks, including a supper club in the middle of a shop floor, and an evening with the city’s chicest book club.
Up first, on Thursday 23 April, Selfridges Exchange will welcome acclaimed local supper club A-Kin for an exclusive dining experience on the menswear shop floor.
Guests will enjoy a five-course menu inside the luxury department store, long after the doors have closed.
You’ll be tucking into dishes like short rib doughnut with horseradish cream, breadcrumbs and chives; bone-in ribeye with cafe de Paris butter and shoestring fries; and a tarta de Santiago.
A-Kin will be bringing together like-minded guests for an evening of exceptional food, music, and style, fittingly in the surrounds of Selfridges Exchange’s menswear department.
Club Culture is Selfridges’ take on what’s bringing people together, now, building on the new movement of hobby-led and community-centric social gatherings and clubs.
But Selfridges has always had its roots as a social space – when the London store first opened in 1909, founder Harry Gordon Selfridge opened a Journalist’s Club with a room equipped with typewriters, telephones and a bar, later hosting an All-Girl Gun Club on the roof in the 1920s and 1930s; and even later, hosting screenings with Club Cine.
Run clubs, a comedy club, boxing club and nightclub have all featured as part of Selfridges creative programming in recent years – and now, a book club and supper club.
Selfridges customers can collect keys for attending Club Culture events and experiences, as part of its membership programme, Selfridges Unlocked. Customers join and collect keys by shopping and spending time at Selfridges to unlock perks at every level.
The Akin Supper Club has now sold out, but you can still book tickets for The Read Room HERE.
Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum announces FREE programme of space-themed activities
Emily Sergeant
National Space Day is coming up, and you can celebrate with a bunch of free space-inspired activities in Manchester this bank holiday.
Ever wondered what astronauts eat in orbit? How they use the loo in zero gravity? Or why crumbs are bad news on the International Space Station? Well, to celebrate National Space Day – which is taking place this year on Friday 1 May – you’ll now get to discover the answers to those questions and so much more down at the Science and Industry Museum early next month.
The popular Manchester city centre-based museum has unveiled a programme of free ‘out-of-this-world’ events and activities this upcoming May bank holiday weekend.
The programme of free events are set to accompany the museum’s latest special exhibition, Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos – which you do have to pay for – and will give visitors more ways to explore the ‘wonders and weirdness’ of space.
The Science and Industry Museum has announced a free programme of space-themed activities / Credit: Drew Forsyth / Science Museum Group
Launching on National Space Day (Friday 1 May) and running through to Monday 4 May, the special bank holiday weekend programme is especially timely following the recent return of Artemis II astronauts from their history-making mission around the moon.
Families can get a taste of space during new live shows by sampling real foods used to feed astronauts, and discover more about how humans live and work beyond Earth, while budding space explorers put their skills to the test in interactive activities designed to ‘spark curiosity’ and ‘stretch imaginations’ to the moon and back.
Stargazers can enjoy the night sky as its projected across super-sized screens, or get creative by crafting their very own constellations and designing a mission patch for an astronaut’s spacesuit.
The events accompany the museum’s latest special exhibition, Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos / Credit: Drew Forsyth / Science Museum Group
“2026 has already been a stellar year for space,” commented Tash Camberwell, who is the Interpretation and Content Developer at the Science and Industry Museum, as the programme of free events was announced this week.
“We’ve been so inspired by the amazing Artemis II astronauts, so I’m especially excited to bring space back down to Earth with an action-packed programme for the May bank holiday.
“Just like the exhibition, our holiday activities have been created for young people and their grown-ups to enjoy together by blending humour, hands-on science and spectacular experiences to spark curiosity in space and inspire the next generation of space explorers.”
More information on the bank holiday weekend activities can be found on the Science and Industry Museum’s website here, and free general admission tickets, as well as £10 tickets to Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos, can also be booked online too – with under threes going free.
Following what was a popular spring school holidays, museum staff say early booking is ‘advised’.
Featured Image – Drew Forsyth / Science Museum Group