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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Michelle Wright
Michelle Wright – After Eden: A Poetic Journey Into What Remains When Paradise Falls Silent In The Caretaker, Michelle Wright turns her gaze toward one of the oldest stories we inherit: the Fall, the moment when Eden’s perfection collapses and humanity is cast into a world forever changed. But rather than retell the familiar account of Eve, desire, and punishment, Wright positions her poem in the uncanny stillness after the exile. Eden remains, but its…
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Arts and Culture
Creative Spotlight: Caroline Gorick
Caroline Gorick – Holding onto the moment… Caroline Gorick has been painting for as long as she can remember. There is no neat moment of discovery in her story, no sudden realisation that art might become a career, because painting was never really something she decided to do. It was simply there, embedded in her life from childhood onwards, becoming more serious and more demanding as the years passed. “I haven’t stopped painting since I…
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Music
Sumud: A Night of Solidarity and Song Comes to Liverpool
There are plenty of gigs coming to Liverpool this September, but few arrive with quite the sense of purpose surrounding Sumud, a special fundraising concert at The Dome at Grand Central on Friday 11 September, organised by Amos Trust in support of its Gaza Appeal. Bringing together an unusually strong line-up of established names, Palestinian voices and emerging talent, the evening promises music, solidarity and, importantly, a direct contribution towards humanitarian relief. Amos Trust describes itself as a creative…
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Arts and Culture
Beckett in the City: Liverpool Welcomes the Return of an International Festival
For many people, the name Samuel Beckett immediately conjures images of two men waiting beneath a lonely tree, hoping against hope that someone called Godot might eventually arrive. Others picture stark stages, long silences and plays that carry a reputation—often unfairly—for being difficult, enigmatic or intimidating. This September, however, Liverpool invites audiences to look at Beckett rather differently. Returning for its third edition, Beckett: Lieben is far more than a celebration of one of the…
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Arts and Culture
Adrian Dunbar on Beckett, Liverpool and the Power of Feeling
Samuel Beckett has been part of Adrian Dunbar’s creative life for more than four decades. His first encounter came in 1981, when, as a student at the Guildhall School, he saw Waiting for Godot and became fascinated by a writer who was already something of a legend: an Enniskillen schoolboy who had gone on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and create work that seemed to resist easy understanding. That fascination has endured, and…
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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Don Brookes
Don Brookes : A Lifetime of Observing Nature, Language, and the Quiet Comedy Between Them In Talk To The Animals, Don Brookes invites us into a gently comic, quietly reflective world where the familiar sayings we attach to creatures great and small are turned over, examined, and playfully unsettled. The poem has travelled a long road to reach its final form—one that began back in the 1990s, when Brookes was working as a Laboratory Technician. A…
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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Moon
The Power of Performance – why Moon’s poetry truly comes alive when spoken aloud. Project 52 For 26 has always been about voices – singular, striking, often surprising – and this week’s featured poet, Moon, brings all three in abundance. Their chosen piece arrives as an excerpt from a much larger meditation on gender, though it has long since taken on a life of its own. What began as a section within a broader work…
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Arts and Culture
Afloat Theatre: New Songs, New Voices and a New Chapter
Afloat Theatre has been keeping things relatively quiet of late – but, as anyone involved in the organisation will tell you, quiet does not necessarily mean still. Behind the scenes, Afloat has been busy preparing for what feels like a new chapter, one that expands its already distinctive approach to community, creativity and social change into the world of songwriting and music. Now a Community Interest Company, Afloat has unveiled a programme of forthcoming events…
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Theatre in Liverpool
Unity Theatre Announces a Bold Autumn/Winter Season for 2026
Following a summer spent celebrating 100 years of radical theatre in Liverpool, Unity Theatre is looking ahead with an Autumn/Winter 2026 season that feels every bit as ambitious. The Hope Place venue has long occupied a distinctive place in Liverpool’s cultural landscape, combining its reputation as one of the city’s most welcoming theatre spaces with a willingness to take risks, platform underrepresented voices and give emerging artists the same stage as nationally acclaimed touring companies.…
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Theatre in Liverpool
The Archers Come to Liverpool: 75 Years of Ambridge Takes to the Stage
For three generations of listeners, the familiar strains of Barwick Green have been an invitation into another world. A world of village fêtes, family feuds, affairs, farming crises, pub gossip and the endlessly complicated lives of the people of Ambridge. Now, as The Archers celebrates its remarkable 75th anniversary, that world is leaving the radio studio and heading for the stage. On Monday 28 September, The Archers: Live at 75 comes to Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, promising a one-off theatrical…
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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Chloe Jones
Chloe Jones : Finding Freedom in the Limits of Creativity Creativity often reveals its sharpest edge when it’s hemmed in—when ideas are shaped not by limitless freedom but by the curious discipline of constraint. For Moreton-born writer Chloe Jones, that edge appeared in the form of a playful but demanding exercise at the Spider Project: a list of unrelated words, each contributed by someone in her writing group – Owl. Electricity. Death. Light. Recovery. Cake. Stand. Time. Unicorn.…
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Arts and Culture
Poetry Has Plenty To Say: Liverpool Poetry Space Looks Ahead To An Autumn Of Words, Voices And Collaboration
Poetry can sometimes be made to sound like a rather serious business. Books arrive with solemn covers, readings take place in hushed rooms and the word poetry itself can still carry the slightly intimidating suggestion that somebody, somewhere, is about to make you feel inadequately educated. But as you know, Liverpool has never been particularly good at that sort of thing. And this autumn, Liverpool Poetry Space is offering another reminder that poetry can be…
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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Suswati Basu
Suswati Basu – A Poetic Testament to Resilience and Adaptation Suswati Basu’s contribution to the 52 for 26 poetry project – Hide and Seek – is a piece that sits quietly at first glance, yet carries a profound emotional resonance. It is a poem shaped not by abstraction but by lived reality — an intimate reflection on what it means to navigate the world when the tools you rely on begin to slip through your fingers. Basu…
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Arts and Culture
Creative Spotlight: In Conversation with Pete Carr
Pete Carr: The Art of Looking Closer… Photography began for Pete Carr as a creative outlet, but the reasons they were drawn towards it reveal something fundamental about the way they sees the world. The technology appealed to their autistic fascination with how things work, while the immediacy of pressing a shutter and seeing something you have made appear on the back of the camera provided a form of creative gratification that drawing had never…
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Arts and Culture
Grindr: The Opera! Writer Erik Ransom on Love, Lust and the Search for Connection
When Erik Ransom first began writing Grindr: The Opera!, Grindr wasn’t even the subject. The piece began life as Manhunt: The Opera, inspired by Ransom’s fascination with the wildly contrasting intentions he encountered on early online dating and hook-up sites. Some users were looking for sex, others romance, some something considerably more complicated. Beneath all those different desires, however, Ransom recognised a common thread: connection. With a background in classical music and a taste for…
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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Pauline Smith
Pauline Smith – Unearthing the Family Stories We Inherit Poems arrive with a depth that stops you mid-stride, and Pauline Smith’s The Point of No Return is one of them. Written for Liverpool Noise’s 52 for 26 poetry project, this poem unearths a story long buried beneath family silence and the heavy legacy of the Suez Crisis. Smith turns her attention to her uncle John, once a young swimming attendant whose life was abruptly rerouted by conflict in…
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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Laura Ferries
Invisible Structures: Finding Poetry in the Overlooked – THE SCAFFOLDER by Laura Ferries Scaffolding is meant to be temporary. It rises, supports, and disappears—essential to creation, yet almost always ignored. For Liverpool poet and spoken word artist Laura Ferries, this became the perfect lens through which to explore permanence, impermanence, and the hidden frameworks in our lives. The poem draws inspiration from her brother James, a scaffolder whose work took him high above Bramley-Moore Dock during the construction…
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Arts and Culture
Sean Street’s Candlelight Finds Beauty, Memory and Hope in Everyday Moments
Sean Street’s Candlelight: Finding Light in the Fleeting Moment… A candle flame is one of life’s simplest images. It offers warmth, illumination and companionship, yet it also reminds us of how fragile existence can be. For acclaimed poet, broadcaster and author Sean Street, that delicate balance between light and shadow forms the emotional heart of his latest poetry collection, Candlelight. Street has long been recognised as one of Britain’s most distinctive literary voices. Alongside an…
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Music
Only Child Reimagines Bruce Springsteen Songs on New EP
Only Child shines a new light on Bruce Springsteen’s enduring songs… Bruce Springsteen’s songs have never belonged solely to Bruce Springsteen. Throughout a career spanning more than five decades, his music has travelled far beyond the streets of New Jersey, finding a home wherever ordinary lives are shaped by hope, hardship and resilience. It is that universal quality that lies at the heart of the latest release from Liverpool songwriter Alan O’Hare and his acclaimed…
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Arts and Culture
52 for 26 Poetry Project: Jack Horner
Punk Energy, Political Fire: The Evolution of Jack Horner A particular voltage that runs through Jack Horner’s work—an electric, post-punk charge that feels as though it’s been wired directly into the national mood. Better known to many as Leon the Pig Farmer, Horner has built a reputation as one of the North’s most uncompromising performance poets, delivering verse with the urgency of someone who’s stared down the worst and decided to speak anyway. Three books…
