The beautiful building, one of Bradford's jewels, looks particularly stunning when lit up with hundreds of lightbulbs around the building at night.

Recently it has been looking less than impressive – it appears that air conditioning aluminium tubing has been discarded and left all over the building.

Vigilant litter wardens need not panic. The silver tubes which have been chucked – sorry, carefully placed – all over the building are part of a clever marketing stunt. Apparently the tubing has been arranged by the marketing department to promote the new show coming to the theatre next month, Aluminium.



Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, it must be an amazing life being a band member.

All those nights on the road, living the life of a hedonist.

Now imagine being in a rock band and having a manager like novelist, artist and one of the original punk performance poets, Joolz Denby.

That's the dream come true for New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack. They must be partying really hard, drinking themselves daft, taking all kinds of substances and... snuggling up under a knitted blanket.

Denby, it seems, is more mother hen to the young band she is managing. The artist apparently knits a new blanket for all band members when they are out on tour. "When you're on the road, you get run down and that's how you get colds and end up feeling awful, a blanket to keep you warm is essential," says Denby.

And somehow, the alternative artist actually makes it sound cool.



LIfe is much harder now for Ronald Harwood.

Not that old age has had much effect – the master screenwriter's mind is sharp as ever at 73 – as attested to by an rapt audience at the National Media Museum last week, who turned up to hear tales of the filming of his career-defining movie The Dresser. No, Harwood's life is considerably more miserable since the smoking ban.

The writer refuses to say how many he smokes a day, but it's fair to say that he would struggle to go much longer than half an hour without a cigarette. Which is why he was probably very grateful that a fire alarm went off halfway through last week's talk.

He was spotted chain-smoking at least three cigarettes during the 15-minute evacuation.

We think it was probably just a coincidence that the fire alarm was set off by someone smoking in the ladies' toilets. Surely Harwood wouldn't have set that up...



Hero of the indie movie scene, Shane Meadows is about to upset quite a few people, it seems. Somers Town is Meadows's new movie, out today, and features Thomas Turgoose, the Grimsby teenager unearthed by Meadows and turned into a star when he was given the leading role in This is England, the director's last film.

The movie also features the line: "Today, I went on a fast train through the tunnel, under the sea. It only takes a couple of hours either way. Not bad, eh?"

The line is said by Piotr Jagiello, the Polish actor who plays Marek, to Turgoose's character – the film is about their burgeoning friendship.

What's the problem with this line? The movie was funded by Eurostar. There are already plenty of rumblings that Meadows has sold out – to the tune of the £500,000 Eurostar gave him to fund the film. He insists there was no input from the company, but will that satisfy indie film fans?