Bobby Long’s intimate gig at the Northern Quarter’s Night & Day Cafe was the perfect venue for what he described as a homecoming show.

Fledgling Liverpudlian quartet Clean Cut Kid carved a post-Halloween indie triumph at the Soup Kitchen last night with a stirring performance exhibiting vigour and versatility.

Most performers take decades to become masters of their craft, but the same cannot be said of forensic mind reader Colin Cloud.

Every year fireworks are lit across the city to celebrate Guy Fawkes’ failed plot to blow up Parliament and kill King James I.

Sam Mendes brought us something rather special three years ago with Skyfall. He executed cool, clear and crisp thrills, while weaving an audacious unique story which we had never seen in a Bond film before.

Books exploring magic, bereavement and landscape are among the fiction and nonfiction shortlisted for a £10,000 writing prize dubbed the ‘Booker of the North’.

Enter Shikari, known for their high energy live shows and outspoken lyrics are looking to continue their ‘hobby that’s now got out of hand’ with their new remix album.

What if I told you I know a place where all your troubles will turn to glitter? It’s Disney On Ice and, as the fellow adult who came along to the show at Manchester Arena with me pointed out, it is the campest thing you will ever see in your life.

Inherently bold in nature, a ballet adaptation of Orwell’s classic Nineteen Eighty-Four is extremely courageous and venturesome to say the least but translated into a huge success for the Northern Ballet.

Salix Homes housing association, who now own the Duchy Road home where Delaney wrote her most famous play A Taste of Honey, are teaming up with Kersal Vale Beekeepers to produce commemorative honey pots for the second year running.

Metric used a plethora of digital tools to let Manchester know that the fusion of man and machine, if done right, can put on an incredible show.