TWO DAYS, AND ALL OF THE NIGHT
We've all had tough days at work. Milk gone before 9.10am, there's a fire drill in a downpour and you've just accidentally CC'd in your boss an email in which you call him a 'Tw@t'. Still, you've not had the day that Belgian solar panel factory worker Sandra (Marion Cotillard) is having, two days actually, in Two Days, One Night. Suffering from depression and on sick-leave, the management want Sandra out. To keep her job Sandra must convince the majority of her co-workers to forgo a 1000 euro bonus before the 'Sandra or Bonus' vote on Monday morning.
A tough and emotional story from the Dardenne brothers anbout mental-illness and life on the breadline.
Two Days, One Night | Cornerhouse | Various times | Until 4 Sept | Tickets here
STOCKPORT HAS A FRINGE
Stockport Summer Festival, Stockport Old Town Fringe Festival, millinery, Fred Perry and Tess Daly, Stockport has it all.
While Stockport's Summer Festival does its thing (food, fashion and family fun days), the town will welcome its very first Fringe Festival from Friday 29 to Sunday 31 August around the newly reinvigorated Old Town. The three-day event will be centred around Stockport's Market Hall and see, amongst others: Sellotape Sculptures, Hendrix, Desperate Dan, Henna, street dance, Irish dancing, aliens, music workshops, Hare Krishnas, graffiti, comedians, MCs, DJs, beer and tapas and lots of other stuff that's not listed because we're bored now.
Stockport Old Town Fringe | Market Hall and about | Fri 29 to Sun 31 Aug | More here
ANYTHING STOCKPORT CAN DO...
Birds flying high, you know how I feel. Sun in the sky, you know how I feel. Reeds driftin' on by, you know how I feel. It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life, for Rochdale, and it's feeling good.
The three-day Rochdale Feel Good Festival 2014 from Friday 29 to Sunday 31 August is a FREE music and food bash with TV chef demos from Ainsley Harriott and Andrew Nutter, circus acrobatics, street theatre and main stage headliners Scouting for Girls, who released their Greatest Hits album last summer - the only three-song album ever.
Rochdale Feel Good Festival | Town Hall (mostly) | Fri 29 to Sun 31 Aug | FREE | More here
Feel Good Festival
PICC-NIC
The whole concept of having a picnic is great, sit on your arse and eat food in peace and tranquility. Brilliant. In which case, you may rank Piccadilly Gardens up there with Donetsk as a nice quiet spot for a picnic. Still, in 2013 over 25,000 people turned up to the Manchester Picnic in Piccadilly Gardens, but then, this isn't your archetypal picnic. Now in its fifth year, the Manchester Picnic, spread over three days, will host street-fooders, DJs, ukulelists, Papa Guns and Baby Ballet's Twinkle the Bear. That last bit is a bit picnic.
Manchester Picnic | Piccadilly Gardens | Fri 29 to Sun 31 Aug | 12pm - 7pm | More here
MCR Picnic
FREE GIG, FREE DRINK, WEIRD VENUE
Rising soul star Kwabs, a Ghanaian-born former student of jazz at the Royal Academy of Music, will be performing a free gig on Monday 1 September in an unlikely location, the derelict Chadderton Baths on Middleton Road. The performance is being put on by the Lumia Live Sessions, a series of free gigs across the UK placing emerging artists in unusual locations.
Kwabs has been tipped by both MTV and BBC Radio 1Xtra as one to watch in 2014, and has received praise Jessie Ware, India Arie, Laura Mvula, Emeli Sandé, Joss Stone and Plan B - who Kwabs supported on tour in the summer of 2012. Support on the night comes from Sinead Harnett.
Entry, travel from Manchester Piccadilly and all drink is FREE.
Kwabs | Chadderton Baths | Oldham | Mon 1 Sept | 7.30pm | RSVP to Lumialive@thisismission.com
WOMEN OF THE NORTH UNITE
As part of Manchester-based photographer Paul Wolfgang Webster's major project, Made In The North, the Mezzanine Gallery at the Royal Exchange Theatre on St Ann's Square will be exhibiting a number of portraits as part of a Women of the North collection. Some you may recognize, others you may not, but all have made a significant contribution to life in the North. Four of Webster's portraits are included in the permanent collection in London's National Portrait Gallery.
Women of the North | Royal Exchange Theatre | Opens Mon 1 Sept | Free |More here
A NIGHT OF POST ROCK, MATH ROCK & POST/MATH ROCK...
Texas four-piece post-rockers This Will Destroy You (TWDY) have been banking critical praise for nearly a decade with their atmospheric instrumentals and effect-heavy guitars that slowly snowball into glorious thrashing conclusions. TWDY release their third studio album this Autumn.
This Will Destroy You | Deaf Institute | Tues 2 Sept | Doors 7pm | Tickets £12
A merging of post-rock and math-rock (which Archimedes invented in 243BC with his band, Archie and The Infinitesimals), Rusholme's find-it-if-you-can student rave house of sodom, Antwerp Mansion, is hosting the first of many evening's of post/math rock with LA duo 100 Onces dropping in alongside Young Mountains, Zilov Gaps and The Colours, who describe themselves as 'turbo-prog'. I give up.
100 Onces + guests | Antwerp Mansion | Tues 2 Sept | Doors 8pm | Tickets £3
TWDY
IT'S A SHAM, BODIE
Northern Quarter's weirdest evening returns after they've bothered a bunch of people in Edinburgh who probably wanted them to go away. With live comedy, music, chat, food and other indefinable stuff. Bolton's next top model, Randolph Tempest, will be saying funny stuff, as will the seventh funniest Manc on twitter Danny Sutcliffe. Taylor and the Mason will be doing folk... music, and Cassie Atkinson will be bringing a range of characters to the stage, including a self-help guru that hates women. Oh and there'll be Smug Bullseye, like the gameshow Bullseye, just more of a dickhead.
Sham Bodie 9 | Castle Hotel | NQ | Thurs 4 Sep | 7.30pm | £7.70 tickets here
FIRST FRIDAY FEELING
XFM's monthly First Friday returns to Band on the Wall this Friday 5 September, it being the first friday of the month (funny that). Marshalling the evening will be XFM presenter Tim Cocker, with Brit indie up-and-comers Young Kato and Southend's Nothing But Thieves, followed by a bankable indie disco from Tim and XFM's Hattie Pearson trailing off into the night.
XFM First Friday | Band on the Wall | Fri 5 Sept | Doors 9pm | Tickets £6 here
OH AH CANTONA & CAFU & GULLIT...
The Soccerex Football Festival is a FREE two-day event at Etihad Stadium's City Square, featuring a Legends Tournament with Cantona, Cafu, Barnes, Gullit and Romario, youth tournaments, freestyle workshops, entertainment and stacks of competitions and prizes.
Soccerex Football Festival | Etihad Stadium | Sat 6 & Sun 7 Sept | FREE | More here
WANT TO BE A FOOTBALL WRITER?
The first Manchester Football Writing Festival takes place at venues across the city from Thurs 4 to Friday 12 September. The Guardian's Football Weekly team will be kicking-off proceedings at the Royal Northern College of Music with a live edition of the UK's largest football podcast. There'll be talks, memories, advice and analytics in events at the National Football Museum, Waterstones and St Ann's Church, culminating with the first visit to the city of the influential football periodical The Blizzard.
Manchester Football Writing Festival | Various venues | Thurs 4 to Fri 12 September | Info and tickets here
Ruud Gullit will play in the Legends tournament at the Soccerex Football Festival
