Culture year in review part one: Nnena’s prized works delight cultural world
Here are some of the highlights of events that took place from July to December.
It is just a snapshot of the diverse cultural offer that audiences across Yorkshire are lucky enough to have available on their doorstep.
These are challenging times for the creative sector and our brilliant regional arts organisations need our support now more than ever, so I urge you to try and get along to a theatre production, ballet, opera or musical, an exhibition, live music performance, comedy night, film or literary event at some point in the coming year.
July saw the launch of a brand-new photography festival in Ilkley.
Taking place over a weekend in various venues around the town, the festival was the brainchild of photographer, curator and creative producer Andreea Chitan, who moved from her native Romania to the UK five years ago and is now based in Ilkley.
The work of eight photographers was showcased – Zoe Dixon, Rob Rowlands, Mark Waddington, Laura Mate, Charlie Swinbourne, Cath Muldowney, Benjamin Statham and Chitan herself – who all made work responding to the theme ‘Ilkley: Best Place to Live’, inspired by the town’s frequent mention in polls about desirable locations.
Also in July, a major exhibition of the work of South African artist William Kentridge opened at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
A renowned multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes drawing, animated films, and theatre and opera productions, this was the first exhibition outside South Africa to focus on Kentridge’s sculpture.
A significant highlight for visual arts was the arrival in September of the Turner Prize exhibition as part of Bradford 2025, with the work of the four shortlisted artists – Zadie Xa, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Nnena Kalu – going on display in Bradford’s Cartwright Hall gallery.
Kalu was announced as the winner in a ceremony at Bradford Grammar School earlier this month, and the exhibition continues until February next year; it’s one not to miss.
The ninth BBC Contains Strong Language Festival headed to Bradford in September for a four-day festival of poetry, performance and spoken word at venues across the city as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
In October the wonderful Ilkley Literature Festival returned with another exciting programme of events featuring authors, poets, novelists, journalists, politicians, actors, and comedians. Headliners this year included Hugh Bonneville, Tony Robinson, Alan Davies, Nick Clegg, Simon Armitage, Michael Palin, Irvine Welsh and Mary Portas.
This year Leeds-based independent publisher Peepal Tree Press celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Still based in a humble redbrick semi-detached house in Burley, it is an organisation that punches well above its weight and is the world’s leading publisher of Caribbean and Black British literature.
In November the inaugural Whitby Literature Festival was launched, joining a whole roster of literary festivals around the region.
On the music scene, Sheffield’s Tramlines festival returned in July.
Headliners this year included homegrown South Yorkshire bands Pulp from Sheffield and The Reytons from Rotherham, plus Kasabian, Franz Ferdinand and The Last Dinner Party.
In August musician and composer Nitin Sawhney headlined at the Summer Sounds weekend at Cliffe Castle Park in Keighley, part of Bradford 2025.
The same month saw Bryan Adams play three shows in one day at Leeds Brudenell Social Club to launch his new album, while The Divine Comedy appeared in September at Sheffield City Hall and York Barbican in October.
Also in October, The Psychedelic Furs, on their first UK tour since 2019, appeared at Leeds Stylus.
A range of interesting theatre productions took to the stage.
The first ever in-the-round production of Michael Frayn’s classic theatrical farce Noises Off, which is set onstage and backstage of an amateur performance of a play called Nothing On, opened at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, directed by artistic director Paul Robinson.
It was an ambitious project, which in theory shouldn’t have worked, but it did, brilliantly. A brand-new musical, Military Wives, by Debbie Isitt, based on the 2019 movie, landed at York Theatre Royal in September and was a huge hit.
In the same month, the outstanding new touring production of Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird arrived at Leeds Playhouse.
A superlative production on every level, this was one of my most memorable theatrical experiences of the year.
The other was James Graham’s Dear England, which stopped off at Leeds Grand Theatre in November.
In October writer-director Javaad Alipoor’s powerful adaptation of Fiona Mozley’s gripping 2017 novel had a run at Bradford 2025’s pop-up performance space, The Loading Bay, with specially written music by the Unthanks, who played live during the show.
Significant film releases in the second half of the year included the reboot of the Naked Gun action-comedy franchise starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson and Freakier Friday with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reprising their roles as the mother and daughter body-swappers, while Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman had fun as the warring soon-to-be-divorced Roses.
Bradford filmmaker Jack King’s award-winning film The Ceremony received a Bradford 2025 gala screening at Pictureville cinema in August before going on general release.
Emma Thompson took on her first action thriller role alongside her daughter Gaia Wise in new film The Dead of Winter.
Alan Bennett’s elegiac film The Choral, filmed on location in Saltaire, showed that the veteran writer still had something to say and York’s Aesthetica film festival celebrated its 15th anniversary having become the largest screen and media event in the UK.