GET GRILLED
Up In Your Grill/Brownsfield Mill/Tariff Street/Fri 5pm-midnight, Sat 2pm-midnight/FREE entry/@beatstreetmcr #upinyourgrill
Having adopted Brownsfield Mill in Ancoats for ten summer weekends, the fellas behind Castlefield's hugely popular Friday Food Fights, B.Eat Street, are primed for the next installment of Up In Your Grill - their ever-changing food, drink and DJ line-up this Friday and Saturday. This weekend sees Italian from La Dolce Dolls, hotdogs from Diamond Dogs, patties from Patty Smith, Thai from Holy Basil, Caribbean from Eat'n'Sweet, pig from Piggy Smalls, street everything from Love From The Streets and naughty stuff from the ever-present Solita. Buttressed by a choca bar and DJs floating high overhead like beat pigeons, it's a guaranteed stomper to start the night. Oh, and it's all FREE again.
CHILLY
Cold In July/Cornerhouse/Various times/Tickets here
While investigating noises in his house one balmy Texas night in 1989, Richard Dane puts a bullet in the brain of low-life burglar Freddy Russell. Although he’s hailed as a small-town hero, Dane soon finds himself fearing for his family’s safety when Freddy’s ex-con father, Ben, rolls into town hell-bent on revenge.
WARNING
Hazard/St Ann's Square/Sat 12 July/12-5pm/FREE/HazardMCR
Something obscure is taking to St Ann's this Saturday, 'a micro-festival of intervention'. A micro-biennial of bizarre behaviour and random sprees of eccentricity, the square plays host to the world’s slowest fairground ride, a creative beanfeast, a car boot disco, apple portraits and a hammock lifeboat. Nineteen different pieces, mostly daft but all completely FREE.
DISCO & THE TRAMP
Simian Mobile Disco, Will Tramp, Ellesse/Gorill/Sat 12 Jul/11pm-4am/Tickets here
Next up at (quickly-becoming-everyones-favourite-bar) Gorilla's Summer Vacation series are the former darlings of the electro scene and Manchester forged duo, Simian Mobile Disco, who caused more of a stir in 2007 with their debit LP than a Rhino in a half-pint glass. SMD will be buttressed by Warehouse DJ and Homoelectric resident Will Tramp and Kaluki maestro Ellesse. No idea what that last bit means. Must be good.
LARKING ABOUT
The Lark Ascending: An Evening of English Classics/Sat 12 July/7.30pm/Bridgewater Hall/Tickets from £16 here
One of the city's finest culture nuggets, the Hallé presents an evening of English classics by some of the nation's greatest composers at the Bridgewater Hall. Music will include pieces by Vaughan Williams, Britten, Elgar, Arnold, Delius and Holst.
SUPER MARKETS
Urban Markets/Old Granada Studios/Sat 12 and Sun 13 July/11-5pm/@_urbanmarket
The second Saturday and Sunday of every month down at Old Granada Studios is a quadruple threat market showdown, with all breeds of vendor piling in for one supreme market offering: street grub and take home produce from 'Bite', home and garden gubbins from the 'Makers Market', pieces from indie and emerging local artists in the 'Art and Design Market', and antiques collectables from 'Finders Keepers'. With free craft workshops, cookery lessons and live music throughout, you'd have to be an utter ninny to miss this one. Unless you don't like markets and prefer Aldi and Ikea, in which case, fair enough.
The Bridgewater Hall
TROFHY
Trof Trophy/Ardwick Powerleague and Deaf Institute/Sun 13 July/3pm At Ardwick, 6pm at Deaf Institute/FREE entry
NQ and Fallowfield stalwarts of booze, grub, music and love are set to host the second installment of the Trof Trophy, a five-a-side football tournament that pitches musicians, promoters and venues against each other to raise money for charity (Lifeline Project). This time will see Band on the Wall, Deaf Institute, Warehouse Project, Hoya Hoya, Dutch Uncles, Murkage and The National Curriculum go head to head at the Ardwick Powerleague. Spectators can enjoy a post-tournament party from 6pm with DJs and a live screening of the World Cup final.
WELL OLD-HALL
Bloomin' Great Garden Party/Ordsall Hall Gardens/Sun 13 July/12-4pm/FREE/More here
Ordsall Hall is old, well old. Salford's Grade I listed Tudor manor house (restored in 2011 for £6.5m) was first recorded in 1177, making it three years older than Brucie. It's been home to medieval gentry, Tudor nobility, Catholics loyal to the crown, butchers, farmers, an Earl, an artist, priests, scout troops, mill workers, cows, ghosts and a bitchin' garden party. This free to enter family garden bash will see a performance by BBC Philharmonic, birds of prey on display, as well as games, food, prizes, Tudors, gnomes, bouncy castles, raffles, fairies, plants, ducks, grass, hopes, dreams and tomatoes from the 1600s - probably give you a dicky tummy, mind.
Ordsall Hall
STIRRING STUFF
Syria: Humanity in Conflict/Imperial War North/Until Sun 14 September/FREE/More here
The eyes of the world have been focussed on the continuing atrocities taking place in the Syrian civil conflict since it began during the uprising of March 2011. This display of powerful images by award winning Italian-Syrian photographer, Ibrahim Malla, depicts the work of Red Cross and Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers who are putting their lives on the line in the current conflict and humanitarian crisis.
JAMMIN'
Video Jam/Manchester Art Gallery/Thurs 17 July/6-9pm/FREE/More here
I'll let the Jammers explain this one:
'We take short films submitted to us or films made specifically for our events by amateur and professional filmmakers, remove them of their soundtracks and pair them with musicians/sound artists/poets who are then free to use their creative license to compose an original score to be performed live. What occurs is a 'blind collaboration' between filmmaker and musician.
This Video Jam explores the themes raised in the current Ryan Gander exhibiton at Manchester Art Gallery, Make every show like it's your last.
GRIM THING
Grimmfest: The Thing/Dancehouse Theatre/Thurs 17 July/Doors 7.30pm, Start 8pm/Tickets £6.50 here
MCR's purveyors of all things horror, cult, fantasy and sci-fi are coming to the end of their John Carpenter season, with the finale being 1982 classic The Thing. The film follows a group of scientists at an arctic research station who discover an alien spacecraft under the thick ice, and thaw out the alien body found aboard. What they don’t know is that the alien can assume any human form, and before long the scientists can’t tell who’s real and who’s a deadly alien threat.
