Matty Healy portrait puts North East photographer in the frame
A portrait of Matty Healy taken during a brief photography shoot in a Newcastle record shop has earned North East photographer Neil Ferry a place on the shortlist for the British Photography Awards.
The photograph of The 1975 frontman was taken at Beyond Vinyl, based at the John Marley Centre, during a break in rehearsals for Sunday for Sammy in February.
Matty is a patron of the North East charity and went on to headline its 25th anniversary fundraising concerts with a memorable acoustic set.
Neil had only a short time with the singer to capture the image, which is shortlisted in the Portrait category. Read more
Royal Northern Sinfonia prepares to return to The Glasshouse stage after £4m revamp
Audiences will return to Sage One at The Glasshouse this weekend following a £4m programme of work which has brought the concert hall its most significant improvements since opening more than 20 years ago.
The Gateshead venue will reopen tomorrow (September 19, when Royal Northern Sinfonia launches its new Classical season with Mozart’s Così fan tutte.
A tale of two tapestries
Newcastle’s historic copy of the Bayeux Tapestry is coming out of storage – with a rather different, and dare we say flaky, take on the concept to join it.
While the Bayeux Tapestry is attracting sell-out visitor numbers in London, panels from the North East’s own 174-year-old version are to go on show.
Antiquarian and historian the Rev John Collingwood Bruce commissioned the copy in the early 1850s from pupil John Moffat at his school in Percy Street in Newcastle.
Moffat, a relation of David Livingstone, the missionary and explorer, set to work to complete drawings of the tapestry in a series of paper panels, now the subject of a restoration programme to remove decades of dirt after many years in storage.
Now Newcastle University’s Great North Museum: Hancock will open a free exhibition from October 10 until January 17, titled Bayeux-on-Tyne: Drawing the Bayeux Tapestry.
A few days later, the museum will welcome Greggs’ take on concept, which comes in the form of an eight-metre Ta-Pastry and charts the bakery chain’s “conquest of the British high street” through six embroidered chapters. Read more
Sunderland’s year-long soundtrack prepares for its final notes
A year-long musical portrait created from the sounds, movement and changing environment of Sunderland is preparing to fall silent.
SonOrbitUs has been running continuously since October 2025, transforming sounds recorded around the city alongside live data into an evolving piece of music.
Now the project will come to an end with a free event at Culture House Sunderland on Saturday, October 17, when residents will be invited to help compose its final hours before it is switched off at 5pm.
Commissioned by Sunderland Music City and funded by Arts Council England, SonOrbitUs was created by Sunderland musicians and artists Peter Brewis, Ed Carter and Tim Shaw, with research and technical input from Becky Allen.
Rather than producing a fixed composition, the project has continually responded to the city around it, combining recordings made in Sunderland with real-time information about its environment and activity. Read more
Weaving a natural connection
Women who have worked with a horticulture project and natural materials to plot the changing seasons are to stage an exhibition of the creative works they have fashioned.
The Gateshead-based Dingy Butterflies community interest company joined artist Savannah Rios-Wills and Newcastle-based photographer and filmmaker Saya Naruse to develop the year-long project called Weaving for Wellbeing.
Participants are from Gateshead’s Comfrey Project, which provides a safe, welcoming place for people who have fled conflict and persecution, and the wider community, to improve physical and mental wellbeing, develop new skills and put down roots in their new community.
Comfrey uses horticultural activities including gardening, bee-keeping, cooking, crafts and construction to better people’s lives through its allotment and garden site.
The Weaving project, funded through Arts Council England, will conclude with an exhibition at the Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead from October 10-24.
Our Friends in the North cast gets to work
Rehearsals are under way for a new stage adaptation of Our Friends in the North, which will receive its world premiere at Newcastle Theatre Royal next month.
The production, Our Friends in the North: The Thatcher Years brings Peter Flannery’s acclaimed story back to the city which inspired it, 30 years after the BBC series starring Christopher Eccleston, Daniel Craig, Mark Strong and Gina McKee first aired.
Rather than retelling the entire nine-part television drama, Flannery’s new adaptation concentrates on 1979 and 1984, following friends Nicky, Geordie, Tosker and Mary as their lives are shaped by friendship, politics, class and ambition during a period of major social and political change. Read more
Shindig appeals for clubbers’ photos and memories
Generations of North East clubbers are being invited to dig through drawers, old phones and hard drives for material documenting almost 35 years of Shindig nights out.
Photographs, flyers, videos, stories and other memories of Newcastle’s legendary rave and dance culture institution are being sought for These Walls Remember, a new project, event and living archive built around the people who were there.
Organisers are looking for everything from disposable-camera and early phone photos to memories of queues, dancefloors, journeys home and venues including Foundation. You can find out more and upload your contributions here.
Faces that launched a million journeys
Thirty years ago Tyneside artist Bob Olley faced one of the oddest challenges of his creative career.
Bob, a former miner at Whitburn Colliery who is well known for his pit paintings, had to choose 14 famous North East faces for a mural.
Now the artwork at the Metro’s Monument station in Newcastle is celebrating its 30th anniversary as one of the region’s most viewed images.
The chosen few from 1996 are depicted looking out of the window of a Metro train carriage.
The Famous Faces mural was commissioned by Metro operator Nexus through its Art on Transport Programme.
The celebrities range across the worlds of sport, entertainment, broadcasting, literature, music, acting and the church – with Dame Catherine Cookson flying the flag solo for North East women.
Get inside North Shields’ creative spaces
Studios, workshops and creative spaces across North Shields will throw open their doors later this month for the town’s first Open Quay weekend.
More than 20 venues will take part on Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, giving visitors the chance to meet more than 40 artists and makers and explore some of the places where the town’s creative work happens.
The free weekend stretches from the Fish Quay to Howard Street, Northumberland Street and Nile Street, with visitors encouraged to make their own trail between participating venues.
Along the way there will be working artist studios to explore, exhibitions, demonstrations and workshops covering everything from ceramics, photography and textiles to sculpture, stained glass, illustration and vinyl record pressing. Read more
Northern Stage and Michael Harrison show earn UK Theatre Awards nods
There’s some North East interest in the newly announced shortlists for the UK Theatre Awards 2026.
Newcastle’s Northern Stage is a finalist for Excellence in Inclusivity, while Julianne Pundan is shortlisted for Best Performance in a Musical for her role in Miss Saigon, the production from Newcastle producer Michael Harrison and Sir Cameron Mackintosh. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on October 12.
Elephant Kind go wherever the music takes them
Moving almost 7,000 miles across the world in pursuit of your ambitions is one way of demonstrating you’re serious about them.
For Indonesian band Elephant Kind, relocating from Jakarta to London in 2022 was about discovering how far they could take a career which had already made them one of their home country’s best-known alternative acts.
Four years later, that journey brings them to Newcastle for the first time, with a date at Gosforth Civic Theatre on September 25 as part of their latest UK tour, which kicked off this week.
It comes during a particularly busy period for the trio, who have spent the past couple of years playing festivals and radio sessions, touring to sold-out audiences and making their latest album, More Time.
But while there is a sense that things are moving up a gear, frontman and founder Bam Mastro says there’s little danger of Elephant Kind feeling they have arrived.
“I think we’ve always tried to be the best version of ourselves as a band by pushing the bar we’ve set for ourselves higher every day. The result is starting to show, and that’s really exciting. But at the same time, we’re still very hungry. Every milestone just makes us want to see how much further we can take it.”
Unfolding Theatre is ‘Uniquely North East’
Newcastle-based Unfolding Theatre has been recognised at the North East Charity Awards, taking home the Uniquely North East award.
The theatre company, whose work is rooted in the places, people and communities of the region, was shortlisted alongside 4Louis, Bensham Grove Community Centre and Recovery Connections.
Celebrating the win, Unfolding Theatre said being “uniquely North East” reflected its belief that theatre can be “rooted in everyday life and make a meaningful contribution to the places we call home”.
New international film festival planned for Gateshead
A new film festival bringing together North East filmmakers and international independent cinema is set to launch in Gateshead next summer.
The inaugural Gateshead International Film Festival (GIFF) will run from July 16 to 18, 2027, with screenings at venues including Vue Gateshead and workshops and industry panels at Gateway Studio on Gateshead High Street.
Organised by ANBOC Ltd – A New Breed of Cinema – the festival is being developed by filmmaker and programmer Catarina De Cèzanne, Gateshead-born actor and writer Steve Wraith and County Durham producer and filmmaker Neil Jackson.
They report more than 140 submissions from over 40 countries have already been received, although the programme itself is still to be selected.
Meanwhile North East filmmakers are being offered free entry to submit their work for consideration.
Young artists invited to reinvent the future
A UK-wide art competition for young people is being launched to coincide with the arrival of the Turner Prize 2026 at MIMA in Middlesbrough.
The Reinvention competition is inviting artists aged between five and 25 to create work imagining a greener future, taking inspiration from environmental themes explored in this year’s Turner Prize exhibition.
Entrants can paint, sculpt, stitch or work in other media and materials, with one notable exception: artwork created using artificial intelligence will not be accepted. Read more