Arts Diary: Will Marriott

It's cold, dark, miserable and we're all sick of the weather. So let's talk about... Christmas.

That's right, the tinsel has only just gone back in the attic and here we are, ready to make an announcement about a Christmas Yet to Come.

This year – the West Yorkshire Playhouse, in Leeds, has announced – will see audiences enjoy a production to gladden the heart, when A Christmas Carol comes to the theatre.

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The new adaptation, by award-winning writer Bryony Lavery, will be directed by Yorkshire's own Nikolai Foster.

The show played to packed houses in Birmingham last year, and will be the perfect Christmas treat for Yorkshire audiences in December.

Which gives us something to look forward to in these miserable first months of the year.

This, we are very excited about. Although excited seems a slightly inappropriate word, given the gravity and sheer solemnity of the announcement.

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Back in 2007, Sheffield Theatres staged a brilliant season focusing on the work of Harold Pinter. The master playwright was delighted, although his illness at the time prevented him from visiting Steel City.

To demonstrate his gratitude, Pinter penned a new poem, Laughter, specially for the city, which has been turned into an installation art piece in the newly refurbished Sheffield Crucible.

Laughter, which is eight lines long, with letters six inches high, will be unveiled on Monday at the theatre.

Sad that Pinter himself, one of our greatest ever dramatists, isn't around to unveil it himself.

Kids, eh, where do they get the energy?

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This month will see the City of Leeds Youth Orchestra performing 12 solid hours of music to raise money for their forthcoming summer tour.

The orchestra, which features Yorkshire's finest young musical talents, has a reputation as one of the leading ensembles of its kind, offering fantastic opportunities to musicians aged between 12 and 19, such as their exciting excursion to Spain, scheduled for July this year.

The play-a-thon will feature the outstanding talents of local musician Alex Mitchell, who also plays for the National Youth Orchestra, as the soloist in Walton's viola concerto.

Artistic director Dougie Scarfe will conduct the repertoire, consisting of a number of small ensembles as well as pieces from the forthcoming Town Hall concert, on February 27.

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The play-a-thon will take place at the West Park Centre, in Leeds, between 8am and 8pm on Tuesday, February 16 – and we're sure they'll appreciate your support.

Writers-in-residence can pop up in all sorts of places, but the Bowery Caf, in Headingley, Leeds, thinks it could be among the smallest establishments to have appointed someone to capture the essence of the place in words.

Suzanne McArdle, a Leeds-based writer, was already running fiction and poetry workshops at the caf when she was approached by the owner with an unusual suggestion.

Sandra Taberner suggested that McArdle become the caf's writer- in-residence and McArdle has since been hard at work capturing the essence of the little place with her words.

The writer is currently working on a pamphlet of "The Bowery Writer's Collected Works".

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