LEO BOIX recommends a ravishing, full-bodied drama about the intensely demanding and emotional art of Kabuki theatre
“HERE we go, here we go for the women of the working class!”
Chesterfield Parish Church — The Crooked Spire — rang out with this anthem from the ’84-85 Miners Strike on the evening of Saturday October 12.
The occasion was the inaugural performance of A Northern Requiem, written by local teacher and musician Jonathan Francis. Over 300 people were in the audience. Francis wrote it to commemorate the strike and the communities “who were left to fend for themselves when everything they knew had collapsed.”
DAVID NICHOLSON is thrilled – and shocked – by an opera that seethes and sizzles with passion and the depraved use of power
MIKE QUILLE applauds an excellent example of cultural democracy: making artworks which are a relevant, integral part of working-class lives
The Home Secretary’s recent letter suggests the Labour government may finally deliver on its nine-year manifesto commitment, writes KATE FLANNERY, but we must move quickly: as recently as 2024 Northumbria police destroyed miners’ strike documents



