Ahead of Brighton '84's arrival at Harrogate Theatre, King Brilliant co-founder Lee Bainbridge talks to Group Editor Andrew Palmer about class, comedy and a writing partnership a decade in the making. Mention the Brighton bombing and most people picture the same thing: Margaret Thatcher, the Grand Hotel, a nation holding its breath.

The introduction to this novel tells us it is ‘the portrait of a middle-aged, middle-class housewife’, but that does it an injustice because it is so much more. The intro also says that ‘even if a literary work concerns unintellectual subjects, it is, nonetheless, the product of intellect’. How true!

Tim Pope is the visionary director behind some of the most famous pop music videos, including Queen’s It’s A Hard Life and Soft Cell’s Bedsitter besides David Bowie’s 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Gardens in New York in 1997. Of all your favourite videos, Pope was probably the director.

He opens with his own arrangement of three songs from Sherman's score for Mary Poppins, and the charm is immediate and disarming. Chim Chim Cher-ee is simply delightful — an earworm, yes, but 'bug' feels the wrong word for something arranged with such loving craft. Feed the Birds unfolds in a long, languorous line that carries the listener somewhere else entirely, its trills and decorations enchanting, every phrase touched with real charisma. Then Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious arrives in staccato flurries and glissandos, tying the suite together with something close to genius. One can only think: I wish I were there.

Westside Cowboy’s It Goes On is the kind of album that makes you want to turn the volume up simply to hear where it might take you next. Across its nine tracks, the Manchester band have refined their scrappy, guitar-heavy sound into something that feels both unmistakably British and remarkably fresh. There is a looseness to the record, but never a lack of purpose. Guitars jangle, grind and collide; melodies appear from the noise; and the songs find poetry in everyday observations without ever making them feel ordinary.

Opening this excellently recorded Delphian disc, the sonata is played with a beautiful sensitivity, its lines phrased with real understanding – nowhere more so than in the Romance slow movement, with its rippling piano accompaniment. Every movement is delivered with delectable expression, Burnside's accompaniment judiciously weighed against Foyle's tone, and the emotional core of the piece is never in doubt.

Mystery Jets has returned with A Hole To See The Sky Through, an album that feels like a genuine rediscovery of what makes them such an enduring proposition. Where their recent work sometimes felt weighed down by its own seriousness, this record finds a far more natural balance between reflection and exuberance, bringing back the melodic sparkle, wit and sense of adventure that first made the band so compelling.

Most importantly, The Roaring Waves never feels like a competition between two legendary guitarists. There is no sense of Hackett and Rothery trying to prove who can shred hardest. Instead, the emphasis is on atmosphere, melody and storytelling. That makes the album considerably more involving than a mere virtuoso showcase.

A reviewer who spends years moving between genres and recordings risks a kind of critical fatigue, where superlatives are handed out too readily and end up meaning very little. That's why I keep a mental scorecard, weighing tone, technique, ensemble and interpretation against one another before I let an adjective like 'outstanding' anywhere near a review. Most of the time this keeps me honest.

There is plenty to admire here. Hazel Eyes is richly produced and, at its best, allows Smith’s extraordinary voice to breathe rather than simply serve as another component in a maximalist pop production. Everlasting Love opens with a gently fingerpicked guitar and sultry minor chords before Smith’s nimble head voice glides over restrained strings and horns. It is sleek and sophisticated, recalling the understated elegance of Sade without feeling like mere pastiche.

Mazzoli's score is nothing short of genius. The music paints pictures with real creativity and power, and her use of instrumentation to depict particular scenes is marvellous, not least the deployment of melodica, piano, synthesiser and electric guitar alongside the more conventional orchestral palette.

Written and recording during COVID-19, Bareilles is in a very reflective mood as she tries to understand the world that surrounds her. As she explores the notion of loss, grief, heartbreak and personal breakdowns, she delivers what many may see as an introspective record but in reality is based on the stories of those she knows and those she has read. And the real beauty of this record is that she showcases such deep empathy that they feel so true to her that it is impossible not to connect with the depth of emotion showcased.

His playing is thrilling, especially in the third movement, where the registrations traded between manuals draw the listener deep into the acoustic. He darts around the manuals with formidable technical dexterity, particularly through the trickiest chromatic passages, while the low pedal growls around the building like a Norwegian troll and the mixtures positively shimmer. He captures the opening movement's dark, brooding Grave with real atmosphere too

Stella Lefty has had a massive 2026. The breakout success of her Noah Kahan-interpolating single, Boston, has seen her achieve the longest-running ever #1 single on the UK country radio charts, but it has also seen her included on the prestigious Country Mount Rushmore for 20

Having cited The Beatles, The Stone Roses and David Bowie as key influences, it is clear that Beckham is happy to wear these sounds within his own context, but at one stage does this EP try to simply emulate those artists? He rather marries his key influences with his own Britpop leanings to craft an EP that feels very much his own.

As the CBSO swaps Symphony Hall for shopping centres, tram loops and the Bullring, chief executive Emma Stenning tells Andrew Palmer why a great orchestra's real stage might be the platform at New Street.

The village of Ambridge is packing its bags for a nationwide tour, as The Archers marks its 75th anniversary with a brand new live theatrical production bringing Radio 4's best-loved drama out of the studio and onto the stage.

Best-selling author, historian and broadcaster Professor Tracy Borman OBE chats to Sue Crawford about her forthcoming tour Tudors on Tour What do you find so fascinating about the Tudors? It’s the soap opera that keeps me coming back; the endless drama and the larger-than life personalities. So much happened during this 118-year period.

Lancaster Music Festival returns this October, fully refreshed after a year’s break with new features and more than 500 events to enjoy. Festival organisers are also excited to offer new venues, including Lancaster Castle’s keep and chapel and the Westfield War Memorial Village, among more than 50 others hosting more than 300 acts playing a wide variety of music from October 8-11.

In September, legendary performer and writer Bryony Kimmings brings her new one-woman show to the Dukes! Fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe, Bog Witch is the powerful, genre-bending story of Bryony’s reluctant move from the city to the countryside.

Today feels like the end of an era. Dolly Parton wasn't simply a singer I loved. She became part of the soundtrack to my life — and, in so many ways, the lives of the people around me. I fell in love with Dolly's music years ago. I was lucky enough to see her in concert, and her songs became woven into some incredibly special memories.

There is an obvious risk in committing a live Verdi Requiem to disc: strip away the theatre of the hall and a performance can shrink. Not here. Captured in spatial audio during three January 2026 performances at Severance Music Center, this new Cleveland Orchestra release loses none of the immediacy of the room, and gains something the audience in the stalls never had — the chance to sit inside the balance itself, with strings and voices arriving from every direction rather than simply from the front.

Grieg, born in Bergen in 1843 and long celebrated as Norway's National Composer, turned to the piano throughout his career but had little appetite for the German sonata, preferring instead the short forms he called Lyriske stykker — published across ten volumes and steeped in the folk idiom of his homeland. Donohoe has resisted the temptation to record them in sequence, instead ordering the pieces to his own design. The gamble pays off. This second volume is every bit as delightful as the first, with poetry springing from Donohoe's fingers with a delicacy that borders on illusion — his left hand so controlled you barely notice its work until you try to imagine the music without it.

There are interviews where you arrive with a notebook, a list of questions and a vague sense of professional composure. And then there are interviews where you are speaking to someone whose music has been part of your life for three decades. I was 13 when I first heard Vonda Shepard.

Texas red dirt country singer-songwriter Wade Bowen is finally letting go of an album that has been sitting quietly in the vault. His eleventh studio album, The Version Of Me You Get, arrives on 25 September 2026 via Thirty Tigers, with ten tracks that reveal a grittier, more vulnerable and soulful side of the artist.

Pretending not to Sleep The waiting rooms are full of ‘characters’ Pretending not to sleep. Your eyes are open But you’re far away At home, am Rhein, with mother and the cats. Your hair grazes my wrist. My cold hand surprises you. The porters yawn against the slot-machines And watch contentedly; they know I’ve lost.

Heaton Jenius Tracks: Can't Get Next To You, Favourite Kind Of Idiot (ft. Rianne Downey), I Want The Job (ft. Rianne Downey), Sad Songs and Lawsuits, She Ain't Pretty (ft. Rianne Downey), One Eye Open, Send In The Clowns, Do Not Ask Me (ft. Rianne Downey), Don't Lean On Me (ft. Rianne Downey), Jet Black Sky, The Whisky Did (ft.