Local comedy legend Jason Manford has just added a tonne of new tour dates to his 2025 UK tour, and when we say a TONNE, we mean a big metric mega-tonne of them.
To be honest, there are so many he might as well be doing a whole extra tour and a half.
Jason already had plenty of gigs scheduled all throughout the year but now the Salford-born comic, presenter and all-round performer will be pretty much doubling his work rate and then some with an additional 89 new dates – 89!
Better yet, a good old chunk of them are in and around Greater Manchester, so if you’re mad for Manford, we’re going to go out on a limb and say you will absolutely be able to grab yourself a ticket.
Jason, 43, will be bringing his ‘A Manford All Seasons’ tour to a laundry list of new locations up and down the country.
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Having already booked in a whopping 88 dates before deciding to hit copy and paste, this takes his total 2025 UK tour dates to a staggering 176 tour dates. Unreal.
Wouldn’t expect anything less than from a Northern lad putting the graft in, though, would you?
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The now Stockport-based showman’s latest comedy offering has had a warm reception from fans and critics, with The Guardian hailing it as “expert observational comedy” and the Daily Telegraph applauding his “laid-back charm and sharp turn of phrase you can’t manufacture”.
Manford has had standing ovations most nights and as for the Manc funny man himself, Jason said: “I’m absolutely blown away by the response to this tour so far. I love touring and bringing some chuckles in these difficult times and so adding these dates means I can see even more of you all over the country.”
Having amassed a following through various projects on stage and screen, be it stand-up, acting, presenting, panel shows and even singing, he’s not only a household name but a pretty family-friendly one at that – a bonus that can go a long way with audiences.
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I’m so pleased the ‘£15 for a single seat’ promotion is working! Come by yourself and have a chuckle https://t.co/BDy3xczF5T
Adding dates at the Stockport Plaza, Middleton Arena, The Albert Halls in Bolton; The Storyhouse in Chester, Parr Hall in Warrington, The Opera House in Buxton (let me catch my breath) and literally dozens more reaching far beyond the North West, he’s going to a busy man next year.
Oh, and there’s a big Co-op Live Arena gig thrown in there on 24 October 2025 too.
Put it this way, if you live in a place, he’s most likely coming somewhere near your direction.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, 29 November at 10am. You can get ready to grab yours HERE.
Lady Gaga is a tour-de-force of talent at the Co-op Live Manchester
Clementine Hall
Lady Gaga proves she’s a truly world-class act after two sold-out nights at the Co-op Live Manchester, as if we needed any reminding.
The city of Manchester has been flooded with harness-wearing, mesh-sporting little monsters over the past two days.
And that’s because the absolute icon that is Lady Gaga brought her ‘Mayhem Ball’ to the Co-op Live for two nights.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone who doesn’t know who this fabulous woman is. Over the past decade, she’s won an Oscar, headlined the Super Bowl, performed in blockbusters alongside Al Pacino, no less, and her songs are literally ingrained into our minds.
It’s been a whole 11 years (yes, really) since she performed in Manchester, and it’s safe to say she was back with a bang.
The performance was split up into five distinct acts, and each one was as exhausting and exhilarating as the next.
She begins the show by bopping out of a comically huge red dress, but this staging was only the start of what madness was about to ensue.
Luckily, we’d been prepared by the other half of the Audio North team, who had the equal privilege of seeing her on night one and were left similarly speechless.
Throughout the 30-song epic, we had crutches, sand pits, cages, skeletons, enough wigs to produce an amateur production of Annie, and we didn’t question any of it. Why would we? It’s Lady Gaga.
Kicking things off with ‘Bloody Mary’, the two and a half hour marathon didn’t leave any stones unturned.
We had all the bangers, from ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Paparazzi’ to ‘Bad Romance’ and ‘Applause’, it had us wondering why any other superstar even bothers putting a song out these days.
Pop is in a good place at the moment with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish and so on, but you can make a strong case for Gaga having helped pave the way for every lady in the business ever since.
Gaga truly had us in the palm of her hands (or claws at one point), even more so when she left the stage to de-robe and show her more vulnerable side for the last two songs – beanie firmly on.
It wasn’t just a concert: this was a fully-fledged tour de force of talent that Manchester won’t forget any time soon.
Sometimes there’s no point in intellectualising why someone has that ‘X-factor’; sometimes you just have to take a step back and say WOW.
Trailer released for new Harlan Coben thriller series Lazarus filmed in Manchester
Emily Sergeant
The trailer for Harlan Coben’s newest thriller series filmed in Manchester has been released ahead of airing later this month.
You may remember that, back in January of last year, Netflix confirmed it would be creating two more new Harlan Coben shows, following the smash-hit success of Fool Me Once starring Manchester’s-own Michelle Keegan – titled Missing You and Run Away.
Missing You went on to air on New Year’s Day this year, and it was announced in late January that Run Awaywas set to begin filming, again in Manchester, very soon.
But it turns out it’s not only Netflix that Harlan Coben fans need to be keeping their eye on, as Amazon Prime Video is now getting in on the action too.
First look images have been shared ahead of the release of Harlan Coben’s new thriller series filmed in Manchester / Credit: Ben Blackall (via Prime Video)
Prime Video has now released the official trailer for the highly-anticipated new thriller series Lazarus, which is based on an original story idea and written by the New York Times best-selling author, Harlan Coben, alongside his regular writing collaborator, BAFTA-winner Danny Brocklehurst.
Coben has worked with the critically-acclaimed Hyde-born screenwriter – who is most-famous for being the creator and writer of Sky One’s Brassic – for the creation of Lazarus, and it’s expected to be around the sixth time the pair have collaborated, with their previous successful works including Safe, The Stranger, and Stay Close.
Lazarus is set to follow title character Joel Lazarus who returns home after his father Dr Jonathan Lazarus dies by suicide, and begins to have disturbing experiences that can’t be explained.
He quickly becomes entangled in a series of cold-case murders as he grapples with the mystery of his father’s death and his sister’s murder 25 years ago.
The six-part thriller series stars big names like Sam Claflin as Joel Lazarus, and Bill Nighy as his father Dr Jonathan – with supporting performances coming from Alexandra Roach, David Fynn, Karla Crome and Kate Ashfield, to name just a few.
The show will be executive produced by Harlan Coben and Danny Brocklehurst, alongside star Sam Claflin, BAFTA-winner Nicola Shindler and Richard Fee for Quay Street Productions – which is part of ITV Studios.
All six episodes of Lazarus are set to be exclusively released Prime Video on Wednesday 22 October in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
Danny Jones -
26th November 2024 
