Curated Culture 03.06.25
Our weekly recommendations round up from North East stages and cultural venues
Hello there - how’s the week treating you so far?
Given that as you’re reading this, I (Sam) will (hopefully) be coming around from a spot of shoulder surgery, I’m betting your week is shaping up better than mine. Sadly a Wimbledon wild card entry seems off the table for another year. Balls! (please)
But enough of all that. We’re back with your Tuesday dose of cultural signposts, pointing you in the direction of gigs, theatre shows, exhibitions, festivals, and all manner of other happenings which we think are worth your attention over the coming days, weeks and months.
Whether you’re looking for something spontaneous this weekend or planning ahead for a treat of an evening out, we’ve got you covered.
New to the list? Welcome aboard! Here’s how it works on Tuesdays. You’ll be getting:
🗓️ A double handful of picks for the fortnight ahead
📌 Still Showing – great stuff we’ve already spotlit that’s still running
📅 Now Booking – a heads-up on things you’ll want to nab tickets for sharpish
🎁 Newsletter prizedraw - an exclusive weekly chance for subscribers to win something excellent.
This week, we’ve got TWO pairs of tickets to an in conversation event at Tyneside Cinema with Gavin and Stacey star, Larry Lamb on June 16. Larry has just brought out his debut novel and is going to be telling, well, me (Sam again) all about it. All the entry details are at the bottom of the mailout.
But remember to take your time getting there. Your next fabulous plan might be waiting just a few lines down.
As always, thanks for reading, recommending, and keeping the supportive fires burning.
Sam (Wonfor) and Dave (Whetstone)*
*Like Chas and Dave, but with less hair and better accents
PS: If you haven’t liked/followed/high fived us on our socials, you can rectify that on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky
THEATRE: Book Of Crow
Where: Live Theatre, Newcastle
When: Tuesday, June 17, 7.30pm
Bookings and info: live.org.uk
Three years ago, beside the River Wear in Durham, Anna Barker recalled the unusual circumstances which gave rise to Book of Crow, ushering an award-winning novelist into the field of poetry.
Having suffered a hemiplegic migraine, a particularly nasty form, she woke up the following morning with the poetic ‘voice’ of Crow in her head – as persistent as the calls of the birds she was fascinated by as a child and even more compelling.
It led to her debut collection, published in 2023 (Indigo Dreams Publishing), in which Crow becomes the manifestation of grief for the character of Rachel who has recently lost her mother – but also a means for Anna to express her own feelings following the death of her much-loved father, an eminent zoologist.
This is a dramatic reading of Book of Crow by Live Youth Theatre graduate Natalie Ann Jamieson (known on TV for playing Amy Wyatt in Emmerdale) with accompanying music by The Shining Levels – whose previous inspiration includes books by novelists Benjamin Myers and Anna’s mother, Pat Barker - and dance from Newcastle-based movement artist Alicia Meehan.
It’s a Durham Book Festival commission in partnership with Live Theatre and supported by Arts Council England.
MUSIC: The Red Hot Chilli Pipers
Where: The Fire Station, Sunderland
When: June 7
Bookings and info: thefirestation.org.uk
Bagpipes with attitude and a live show like no other - The Red Hot Chilli Pipers are bringing their unique mix of traditional Scottish pipes and rock anthems to Sunderland.
Expect big energy, bold sound, and a night that’s anything but ordinary from the a unique bagpipe band. We’d be more than happy to follow them.
SCREEN: Lindisfarne’s Geordie Genius: The Alan Hull Story
Where: The Klurb, North Shields
When: June 13
Bookings and info: Julie Clay Events or 07944 338 026
**Wonfor declaring a double interest alert**
An award-winning BBC documentary about the late Lindisfarne frontman, Alan Hull is to get a special charity screening at The Klurb in North Shields later this month.
Lindisfarne’s Geordie Genius: The Alan Hull Story, which won a North East Royal Television Society Award in 2023, saw North Shields superstar Sam Fender delving into the backstory and back catalogue of the legendary folk rock band’s chief songwriter.
Nice that this event is sandwiched in between Sam’s trio of St James’ dates on June 12, 14 and 15 - more of those later.
Featuring contributions from Alan’s long list of admirers including Sting, Mark Knopfler, Elvis Costello, Dave Stewart, the film was broadcast on BBC Four.
The charity screening at the Cecil Street venue, which will benefit the Sunday for Sammy Trust, will see the documentary’s director Ged Clarke and producer (and Lindisfarne drummer) Ray Laidlaw in conversation with…. me! (Sam Wonfor - and anyone else who wants to ask a question) afterwards.
There will also be unseen footage and anecdotes aplenty… and given that I’ll also be representing my late dad, film maker Geoff Wonfor who was executive producer on this project - which turned out to be his last - there may also be a smattering of well-worn jokes and a few tears.
COMEDY: Katherine Ryan – Battleaxe
Where: Middlesbrough Town Hall and Sunderland Empire
When: June 13 and 14 respectively
Bookings and info: livenation.co.uk
Comedian, actor, presenter and podcaster, Katherine Ryan brings her latest show, Battleaxe, back to the North East for a duo of dates.
A regular on the stand-up circuit since the mid-noughties, she’s known for her sharp, self-assured delivery and unfiltered takes on everything from relationships to politics.
With several Netflix specials under her belt and a growing list of TV credits, Battleaxe sees Ryan back doing what she does best - live, unfiltered stand-up.
THEATRE: The Archive of Dread: Revisited
Where: Lit & Phil, Newcastle
When: Friday, June 13, 7pm
Bookings and info: litandphil.org.uk
It had to be Friday the 13th, of course – the day Robert Lloyd Parry was fated to bring his “documented tales of madness, possession, monsters & the living dead” to Newcastle’s reputedly haunted members’ library.
All are welcome, members and non-members, to an evening with more potential ‘trigger warnings’ than a Texas shooting range.
Lloyd Parry is a devotee of M.R. James (1862 to 1936), a man less vividly remembered for his eminent scholarship or years as vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge and provost of Eton College than for his ghost stories.
He wrote them and read them aloud as chilling ‘entertainments’ – and the latter job has now been taken up by Lloyd Parry who has been touring his M.R. James-inspired one-man shows for 20 years.
After graduating form Oxford with a degree in classics, Lloyd Parry got a job at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum where James had been director in the 1890s. The idea to perform his stories as monologues thereby took root.
“In late 2019,” goes the promotional spiel this time around, “Robert Lloyd Parry inherited the contents of a flat belonging to a dead man that he’d never met.
“The property was full of boxes, which were themselves stuffed with chilling documents: letters, diaries, newspaper cuttings, notebooks, postcards. Filed in disarray, they all told impossible tales of terror.”
EXHIBITION: Going Back Brockens
Where: The Warehouse, Newgate Centre, Bishop Auckland
When: June 13 to July 5 (Thursday to Saturday, 12 noon to 3pm)
Bookings and info: nomorenowt.org
The title recalls Coming Back Brockens, the 1994 book Mark Hudson wrote after spending a year in Horden, the County Durham village where both his grandfather and great-grandfather had worked as miners.
The interviews he recorded for the book will form a soundscape accompanying 40 new paintings by Hartlepool artist Narbi Price to mark the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike.
Exhibiting Narbi’s distinctive photo-realist style, they show the industry’s poignant legacy, the old colliery sites as they are today – often bearing little trace of their original purpose.
The exhibition - full title Going Back Brockens: Monuments and Rhetoric After the Miners’ Strike - was commissioned by No More Nowt, the Peterlee-based Creative People and Places project, and produced by County Durham-based Building Culture CIC.
After its showing in The Warehouse, fashioned from vacant shop units, the exhibition will be shown in Durham during the 139th Durham Miners’ Gala on July 13 and at St Mary’s Church, Horden, as part of the village’s 125th anniversary celebrations on August 22.
Accompanying the exhibition will be six new short films by Carl Joyce telling the stories of people who live in County Durham villages today.
Havisham comes to Gosforth Civic Theatre on June 12. We talked to its writer and star, Heather Alexander
CLASSICAL: Mozart’s Symphony No. 40
Where: The Glasshouse, Gateshead
When: Sunday, June 8, 3pm
Bookings and info: theglasshouseicm.org
This concert, featuring one of Mozart’s most popular works, is among those in the current season specially recommended by Classic FM.
Under the baton of Italian conductor (and violinist) Riccardo Minasi, it will feature Royal Northern Sinfonia in a programme which opens appropriately with Schubert’s Overture in the Italian Style No. 2.
In a similarly appropriate pairing, the acclaimed French soprano Véronique Gens (Gramophone Artist of the Year two years ago for an outstanding contribution to classical music) will then take centre stage for Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights) by her late compatriot Hector Berlioz.
The piece is a setting of six poems by Berlioz’s friend and neighbour, Théophile Gautier.
After an interval will come Mozart’s 40th, one of many examples of the Austrian’s brilliance and extraordinarily prolific output.
It was completed in July 1788, just one month after the 39th and a month before the 41st, leading to suggestions that Mozart intended the three to be regarded as a unified piece. If that was the case, this concert offers the meat in the musical sandwich.
Twisting Ducks Theatre Company bring a new show to Newcastle Theatre Royal’s Studio space at the weekend.
MUSIC: Sam Fender
Where: St James’ Park
When: June 12, 14 and 15
Bookings and info: newcastleunited.com
Sam Fender’s heading home - again. And it’s going to be memorable.
The North Shields singer and die-hard Newcastle United fan returns to St. James’ Park for three massive nights, following his unforgettable and historic 2023 gigs at the stadium.
This time he’s back on June 12, 14 and 15 with support from CMAT, The Pale White, Ernie, Hector Gannet and Olivia Dean across the dates. Expect belting anthems, a crowd that knows every word, and a very emotional hometown hero moment (or 12).
FILM: 28 Days Later + 28 Weeks Later
Where: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
When: June 13
Bookings and info: tynesidecinema.co.uk
Ahead of the release of 28 Years Later* - filmed across the North East and landing later this month - Tyneside Cinema is inviting audiences to revisit the story so far with a double bill of dystopian horror.
Catch Danny Boyle’s genre-defining 28 Days Later and its nerve-shredding follow-up 28 Weeks Later, as survivors battle the aftermath of a viral outbreak in a ravaged UK.
Cillian Murphy, Jeremy Renner and Robert Carlyle star across this gripping, rage-fuelled - and pretty scary saga.
*If you’re minded to, and you have your strong trousers on, you can watch the latest 28 Years trailer here ahead of its general release on June 20.
THEATRE: Penguin
Where: ARC, Stockton
When: June 5
Bookings and info: arconline.co.uk
The inspiring and excellent Penguin - presented by Hamzeh Al Hussein and Amy Golding - is back in the region where it was created as it continues on tour.
And we’re betting it will have audiences on their feet once again as it recounts Hamzeh’s extraordinary true story with humour and beauty.
Taking audiences on a journey from Hamzeh’s village in the Syrian mountains, through the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan to his arrival in Gateshead, it’s a very special and uplifting way to spend time in the theatre.
STILL SHOWING
Theatre: & Juliet, Newcastle Theatre Royal, Jun 2-7
Theatre: Homebake, Gosforth Civic Theatre, June 5
Exhibition: Guiding Entities, MIMA, Middlesbrough, until Nov 23
Music: Martha Wainwright – 20th Anniversary Tour, The Fire Station, Sunderland, jun 3
Music: Cat Power Sings Dylan ‘66, Sage One, The Glasshouse, Jun 4
Exhibition: Cedric Morris, Artist, Plantsman & Traveller, Granary Gallery, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Jun 7 to Oct 12
Music: Shakespeare’s Music, St Mary’s Church, Wooler, Jun 8
Exhibition: The Coal Town Collection – Mik Critchlow Gallery, Woodhorn Museum, Ashington, permanent display
Theatre: The Bench, various North East venues until Jun 21
Exhibition: North East Emerging Artist Award, Seaton Delaval Hall, until June 22
Exhibition: With These Hands, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, until September 27
Theatre: RUM, Live Theatre, Jun 6-7
Exhibition: Shakespeare Recovered, Palace Green Library, Durham, until Nov 2
Audio-Visual: The Mother Goose Series, The Glasshouse, Gateshead, until July
Exhibition: Richard Hobson retrospective, South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, until Nov 2
Exhibition: Sheila Fell – Cumberland on Canvas, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, until Jun 28
Exhibition: Ali Cherri/Laura and Lancaster, BALTIC, until Oct 12
Exhibition: Joséphine: A Woman of Taste and Fashion, Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, until March 2026
Exhibition: Ted Holloway - A Bevin Boy Remembered, Mining Art Gallery, Bishop Auckland, until June 8, 2025
Exhibition: Magna Carta and the North, Durham Cathedral Museum, Jul 11 until Nov 2
Music: Nick Cope – I’ve Lost My Bobble Hat, The Glasshouse, Gateshead at 11am on Oct 29
Theatre: Mary Poppins, Sunderland Empire, Oct 1-25
Music: The Young’uns Big Boro Bash, Middlesbrough Town Hall, Nov 15
Big screen: Expo Sunderland Pavilion, Keel Square, Sunderland, throughout 2025
NOW BOOKING
Comedy: Jack Dee - Small World, Gala Theatre Durham, June 21 and Tyne Theatre and Opera House, Newcastle, Oct 9
Event: 25 Years of Wylam, Wylam Brewery, Exhibition Park, Newcastle, Jun 21
Theatre: The Last Laugh, Newcastle Theatre Royal, Jun 24-28
Theatre: What Next? Performed by Josie Lawrence, Live Theatre, Newcastle, Jun 20-21
Festival: Coast Fest, Percy Park, Jun 27-29
Music: Billy Ocean, Stockton Globe, Jul 2
Comedy: Kai Humphries - Fringe Preview, Darlington Hippodrome, Jul 9
Festival: Newcastle Fringe, various venues across the city, Jul 22 to Aug 2
Comedy: Ordinary Decent Criminal (Mark Thomas), Live Theatre, Newcastle, Jul 23-26
Festival: Durham Fringe, various venues across the city, Jul 23-27
Music: BBC Proms, various concerts and performances, The Glasshouse, Jul 24-27
Dance: ESD presents Robert Cohan - Gala Performance, Dance City, Newcastle, Aug 2
Theatre: Chicago, Sunderland Empire, Aug 4-9
Music: Tom A Smith, The Fire Station, Sunderland, Aug 15
Music/Dance: Art of Andalucia, Northern Stage, Newcastle, Sept 5
Comedy/Music: Grace Petrie - This is No Time to Panic, The Stand, Newcastle, Sept 23
Music: Destination - Rolling Stones, Wylam Brewery, Exhibition Park, Newcastle, Oct 17
Comedy: Rosie Jones - I Can’t Tell What She’s Saying, Northern Stage, Newcastle, Oct 25
Music Kathryn Williams - Mystery Park Tour, Sage Two, The Glasshouse, Oct 30
Music: Beth Nielsen Chapman & Judie Tzuke, The Fire Station, Sunderland, Nov 2
Music: Jez Lowe’s Winter Wanderings, Sage Two, The Glasshouse, Gateshead, Dec 21
2026
Comedy: The Eternal Shame of Sue Perkins, Tyne Theatre and Opera House, Newcastle, Feb 4
Comedy: Ian Stone is Looking for the Now, The Stand Newcastle, Feb 22
Music: The Very Best of Kenny Thomas, Sage One, The Glasshouse, Gateshead, Mar 19
Comedy: Ardal O’Hanlon - Not Himself, Gala Theatre Durham, Mar 25
Theatre: Legally Blonde The Musical, Newcastle Theatre Royal, May 12-17 and Sunderland Empire, Dec 1-5
COMPETITION TIME
Welcome to our latest newsletter prizedraw, offering our subscribers an exclusive opportunity to win tickets to see or do something great.
This week, we’ve got TWO pairs of tickets to attend an In Conversation event at Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle with Gavin and Stacey star - and now author - Larry Lamb on the evening of June 16.
The 77-year-old has made sure Newcastle was on his list as part of a UK tour promoting his debut novel, All Wrapped Up.
Best known for his portrayal of Mick in the aforementioned BBC sitom as well as criminal Eastenders villain, Archie, Larry will visit the city for a live event blending film nostalgia with personal anecdotes from his career in television and cinema.
The evening gathering will see him discuss the inspiration behind All Wrapped Up, a behind-the-scenes thriller set on a troubled Caribbean film shoot.
The book, which draws on Larry’s decades of TV and film industry experience, centres on Killian Wilde, a first assistant director trying to keep a chaotic production afloat amid political upheaval and personal tensions.
HOW TO ENTER:
To be in with a chance of winning, simply email MePlease@culturednortheast.co.uk using the subject line: Happy as Larry by noon, (12pm) on Sunday, June 8, 2025.
The winners, who will be selected at random, will be notified within 48 hours of the entry deadline.
Terms and conditions: Only subscribers to the Cultured. North East newsletter are eligible to enter the Newsletter Prize Draw competition. Prizes are as stated - subject to availability - and non-transferable. No cash alternatives will be offered. You must be over 18 years of age to enter. The Editor’s decision is final.