Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture listings: All the events taking place as Bradford celebrates 2025 UK City of Culture tag

More to be announced in the coming months.

THEATRE AND DANCE

RISE (opening event), Jan 10-11, City Park and Centenary Square.

RISE is an unmissable celebration of the people and the communities who make Bradford magic. Created by Steven Frayne (fka Dynamo) and director Kirsty Housley, RISE will be an astonishing show with local people, voices and stories at its heart.

Performers include a community choir led by the Friendship Choir, the Airedale Symphony Orchestra, and a multi-generational community ensemble of Bradford residents aged from 12 to 65 – as well as Bradford-born poet, spoken word artist and playwright Kirsty Taylor, alongside locally based writers and performers Kemmi Gill, Nabeela Ahmed and Kenzo Jae, composer and conductor Ben Crick, and composer and DJ Jae Depz.

Jungle Book reimagined, Jan 24 & 25, Alhambra Theatre

Akram Khan Company perform in Bradford for the first time as part of Bradford 2025. Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined is based on the much-loved story by Rudyard Kipling.

With a new sense of urgency, Khan has reinterpreted this known story from another perspective, through the lens of today’s children – those who will inherit our world and become our future storytellers.

Embedded in the roots of The Jungle Book is the deep threat that mankind poses towards nature.

Khan and his team have reimagined the journey of Mowgli through the eyes of a refugee caught in a world devastated by the impact of climate change.

They tell the story of a child who will help us to listen again, not to our voices but to the voices of the natural world that we, the modern world, try to silence. Jungle Book reimagined speaks to all generations as a step to remind, to relearn and to reimagine a new world together.

The Dreams I Had: Andrea Dunbar, Mar 12, St George’s Hall

Andrea Dunbar wrote vividly and brilliantly of the Bradford she knew. Born and raised in Buttershaw, she made her name as a teenager when The Arbor, her first play, premiered to huge acclaim at London’s Royal Court, one of the world’s leading theatres for new writing.

She followed it with Rita, Sue and Bob Too and Shirley, two plays that combine domestic drama, social comment and wicked humour to extraordinary effect – and that remain just as relevant and powerful today.

Bradford 2025 is paying tribute to Dunbar, marking 45 years since the premiere of The Arbor and 35 years since her tragically early death.

The Dreams I Had is directed by Erica Whyman, former deputy artistic director at the Royal Shakespeare Company, with dramaturgy from Bradford born and based, Kat Rose-Martin.

The Dreams I Had presents staged readings of selections from her works, celebrating the explosive talent of this once-in-a-generation writer.

Right/s, May 21-31 May, Venue to be announced

Right/s is a major new work about freedom, justice and youth culture in the 21st century.

Created for Bradford 2025 by Common Wealth, and performed by a cast of 20 young people from Bradford, Right/s explores the criminalisation of young people across society – and how knowing our rights can give us the power we need to shape our future.

Right/s takes us on an immersive journey from club night to courtroom and beyond, with testimony and true-life stories from young people – and a sound-score featuring drill, bassline, grime, afrobeat and house from some of the country’s most exciting artists.

Vivid and electrifying, this world-premiere show will capture and celebrate what it means to be young in the UK today.

Memories of the Future, Jul 5, Alhambra Theatre

Memories of the Future is a major dance project with a major difference. The 60 dancers in the show will be drawn from communities across Bradford, spanning cultures and generations – and many of them will be performing on stage for the very first time.

Memories of the Future is a new project from world-renowned dancer–choreographer Akram Khan and the Akram Khan Company, making their first visit to the city, and Helen Linsell of Bradford-based Dance United Yorkshire, one of the country’s leading dance participation organisations.

It’s partly inspired by the themes of identity, belonging and home in Khan’s beautiful Jungle Book reimagined.

The Railway Children Jul 16 – Sep 7 Sep, Keighley & Oxenhope stations

Mike Kenny’s enchanting stage adaptation of E Nesbit’s classic novel has won thousands of admirers since it premiered in 2008.

Now, for the first time, we’re taking York Theatre Royal’s Olivier Award-winning production for a ride along the iconic Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, familiar to millions from the film adaptation of The Railway Children.

Exclusively for Bradford 2025, the show begins when you board a steam train at Keighley, then travel the full length of this historic railway.

When you reach the end of the line at Oxenhope, you’ll find a purpose-built auditorium within the station’s Engine Shed – and a new version of this classic production, which tells the story of three children forced to move from London to Yorkshire after their father is falsely imprisoned.

Suitable for theatregoers of all ages and playing for a limited run only, this wonderful production is not to be missed.

So far, So good, various locations throughout 2025

So far so good… is a playful look at ageing: the achievements we celebrate, the mistakes we make and the wisdom we pick up on the way. It’s a reminder that no matter how old we are, there’s always more to follow, more to discover and more to enjoy.

So far so good… is created by choreographer TC Howard with the artists and participants at of Dance On Bradford – 13 weekly dance groups for Bradford residents aged 55+, run by Yorkshire Dance in partnership with One Dance UK.

Participants will work with TC Howard to create the show during 2025, before it premieres later in the year.

Sing, Dance, Leap

Sing, Dance, Leap is a major 4-year schools programme to inspire the creativity of young people across Bradford.

Led by the Royal Ballet and Opera with Northern Ballet and Opera North, the programme launches in schools this month leading up to a mass singing and dancing celebration in June 2025.

The project gets under way in September 2024 with ‘Dreamcatching’ sessions in nearly 50 schools, capturing the hopes and dreams of more than 2,400 young people which will shape and inspire the project.

The three companies will then run over 80 workshops in writing, singing and dance, working with students across the district. Schools and teachers will also be offered training and digital resources designed to support music and dance education in schools – creating a tangible legacy from the programme for future years.

The 2024–25 programme will culminate in June 2025 with a mass performance of opera, ballet, song and dance celebrating the hopes and creativity of the cities young people – with pupils and students performing alongside artists from the three companies.

Royal Ballet and Opera, Opera North and Northern Ballet have committed to delivering education programmes here in future years – ensuring young people will continue to experience the life-giving joy of creativity and the arts in schools across Bradford.

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC + CLASSICAL & OPERA

La Haine – Live, Jan 15

Asian Dub Foundation make a welcome return to Bradford to reprise one of their most acclaimed projects – their powerful soundtrack to cult classic French thriller La Haine, performed live to a screening of the film for one night only.

La Haine (‘Hatred’) chronicles 24 hours in the lives of three friends from a poor suburb of Paris, where tensions are at breaking point following the death of a local man at the hands of the police.

Directed by Mathieu Kassowitz, the film celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2025 – and with ADF on hand to provide a live soundtrack, it’s never sounded better.

BBC Introducing, Feb 28, May 30, Aug 29 & Nov 28, The Underground

BBC Introducing, the BBC’s music discovery platform, will be shining the spotlight on the region’s best unsigned and emerging artists for Bradford 2025.

Across four gigs at Bradford’s Underground, we’ll be hearing from some of the most exciting new bands and singers from Bradford District and around – hand-picked by the tastemakers at BBC Introducing.

They’ll be following in the footsteps of Florence + the Machine, Olivia Dean and Sam Fender, just some of the acts who received BBC Introducing support at the start of their careers.

BBC Introducing has been supporting unsigned, undiscovered and under-the-radar artists since 2007 – on regional radio shows, on national stations from BBC Radio 1 to the BBC Asian Network, and through BBC Introducing stages at festivals such as Glastonbury, Leeds and Latitude.

Big Brass Blowout, Apr 11 – 13, various venues

The Big Brass Blowout brings together the very best brass acts for three glorious days and nights of music across Bradford District.

From traditional tunes to afrobeat rhythms, much-loved classics to one-off collaborations, expect the unexpected as we spotlight the power, versatility and all-round brilliance of the great British brass band.

Celebrating Bradford’s bass scene, Yorkshire’s own Richard Hawley will join the Black Dyke Band for a special performance (12 April), BD1 Brass will score acclaimed archive film Echoes of the North (11 April), and City of Bradford Brass Band will soundtrack family favourite Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (12 April).

There will be Afrobeat from KOKOROKO (13 April), as well as an array of free events and activity taking place at City Park across the weekend.

Bassline Symphony, May 9, St George’s Hall

Four-to-the-floor legends Jamie Duggan, DJ Q and TS7 join arranger Katie Chatburn and the Orchestra of Opera North to celebrate the sound of Bradford in this one-night-only spectacular, curated by Tanya Vital.

Bassline is among the most thrilling musical subcultures of the 21st century and Bradford is a hotbed of the electrifying style, but it’s never sounded quite like this – with the trademark crackling rhythms and pulsing low end supercharged by Opera North’s magnificent orchestra.

Alongside new symphonic versions of classic cuts from our trio of headliners, a galaxy of guest vocalists and DJs will be bringing tunes both new and old to a special showcase set – all presented within the stunning Victorian splendour of St George’s Hall. We’re all about the bassline.

Simon Boccanegra, Apr 24 – 26, St George’s Hall

Simon Boccanegra is a former pirate chosen to become the head of state in Genoa. Jacopo Fiesco is a nobleman exiled from the city.

The two men are bound together by the strongest of family ties – but they’ve been sworn enemies for decades. As their poisonous rivalry plays out in power struggles and revenge plots, can they bury the hatchet before it’s too late?

The brilliant Opera North follow their concert stagings of Turandot, Aida and other Italian classics with their first ever performances of Verdi’s intense drama of love, loss and reconciliation – powered by the thrilling sound of the on-stage orchestra.

Simon Boccanegra premieres at St George’s Hall as part of Bradford 2025.

Earth & Sky, May – Oct, Penistone Hill Country Park

Penistone Hill Country Park is one of the wild glories of Bradford District, an untamed upland site soaring 1,000 feet above Haworth.

Earth & Sky invites us to take a fresh look at this expansive landscape – with music as our guide.

Bradford 2025 and Opera North have invited composers Caterina Barbieri, Nyokabi Kariũki and Gwen Siôn to create new music and sound works inspired by this landscape – and by the music of Bradford-born composer Frederick Delius, which is so rooted in the natural world.

The dramatic soundscape will take in everything from electronic innovations to African influences, woven together with field recordings by Sarah Keirle and performances of Delius’s music by the Orchestra of Opera North.

This ever-changing sound world uses state-of-the-art geolocation technology: as you walk through the park, what you hear through your headphones will be triggered by every step you take – creating an unforgettable experience for every listener.

Earth & Sky is part of Wild Uplands, a series of exciting new artworks created for the vast skies and epic moorland views of Penistone Hill.

The Bradford Progress, May 17 & 18, various venues

A musical journey created by Paraorchestra, Charles Hazlewood, Jeremy Deller and the people of Bradford.

The Bradford Progress celebrates the glorious variety of music made in Bradford – and the people who make it.

Over a weekend in May, the Bradford District will come alive with music made by musicians and singers who call our district home – a sonic journey ending in the centre of the city.

The Bradford Progress is created with and for the people of Bradford in collaboration with Paraorchestra, the pioneering ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians led by conductor Charles Hazlewood, and artist Jeremy Deller, the Turner Prize-winning artist behind works such as We’re Here Because We’re Here and Acid Brass.

New Music Biennial 2025, Jun 6 – 8, various venues

New Music Biennial is a three-day festival celebrating the best new music aross all genres from the country’s most exciting composers – and in 2025, for the first time, it’s coming to Bradford.

From Bradford Cathedral to the Underground, the festival will be taking over venues across the city centre for three days and nights of performances, showcasing 20 pieces of new music, all of them absolutely free.

Along with live performances of outstanding new works, many being performed in Bradford for the first time, there will be brand new commissions receiving their world premieres at the New Music Biennial.

The works will then be performed at London’s Southbank Centre, be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and be released by NMC Recordings.

Dialled In, Aug 2, Venue to be announced

A huge celebration of South Asian music and culture from one of the UK’s most dynamic music collectives.

From London’s Southbank Centre to the Glastonbury Festival, Dialled In champions the sounds, stories and voices of the South Asian creative underground. Now they’re bringing their artist led festival to Bradford 2025 for a special northern outing.

Dialled In promises a stellar array of musicians, singers, DJs and more from home and abroad across two stages, taking in the full spectrum of South Asian music and club culture.

Mix in creative workshops and the all-important South Asian food and drink stalls, and you have the recipe for an unmissable day out.

VISUAL ART & EXHIBITIONS

DRAW, from Jan

Bradford-born artist David Hockney has drawn the world around him for 60 years, using everything from pencils to iPads.

The artist spent four years studying at the Bradford School of Art, which he joined in 1953 at the age of 16. The focus was on life drawing and he went on to discover a love of painting, often using the streets of post-war Bradford as a subject.

Inspired and supported by Hockney, Bradford 2025 is inviting people of all ages across the UK to take part in a drawing project to reflect our everyday lives.

Nationhood: Memory and Hope, Impressions Gallery Jan 11 – Apr 26; Belfast Exposed, Jun 5 – Jul 11; Ffotogallery, Cardiff, Jul 26 – Sep 4; Streetlevel, Glasgow, Sep 20 – Dec 21

Aïda Muluneh, the acclaimed Ethiopian photographer, celebrates the diversity of the UK in 2025 with Nationhood: Memory and Hope.

This outstanding collection of new photography serves as a modern-day insight of the UK’s four nations – and shines a spotlight on those individuals who quietly but tirelessly work to make our world a better place.

Nationhood: Memory and Hope includes the portraits of community heroes that featured in A Portrait of Us, first exhibited on billboards around Bradford in September and October 2024.

Alongside them are striking new photographs inspired by these local legends, shot during 2024 in iconic locations around Bradford, Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow. Nationhood: Memory and Hope opens in January 2025 at Impressions Gallery before travelling to Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow, Ffotogallery in Cardiff and Belfast Exposed – making this the first ever UK City of Culture project to take place in all four nations of the UK.

Fighting to be Heard, Jan 17 – Apr 27, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery

The ancient art of calligraphy and the noble art of boxing are an unlikely pairing, but they share a surprising amount of common ground.

This free exhibition explores connections between the two disciplines through the eyes of a group of British South Asian Muslim men living in Bradford today. Razwan Ul-Haq is an acclaimed calligrapher and one-time boxing trainee.

Tasif Khan is current world champion boxer and founder of Bradford’s Tasif Khan Community Boxing Academy.

Together with boxers and trainers from the Academy, they have chosen a selection of rare items from the British Library’s Arabic and Urdu collections, and from the collections of Bradford District Museums & Galleries – from ninth-century calligraphy to extraordinary contemporary work.

Fighting to be Heard also features the men’s personal stories and their reactions to the collections – offering fascinating new perspectives on these objects.

People Powered Press, March, venues to be announced

The People Powered Press is a non-profit company based in Shipley, formed in 2021 around the largest letterpress printing press in the world.

It engages communities through creative writing, typography and letterpress printing to amplify the voices of local people with important and interesting things to say about the world and their place in it, co-creating prints, zines and large-scale murals for exhibition in indoor and outdoor public spaces.

The Press is working with members of four groups from around the district: People First Keighley & Craven, students at Co-op Academy Grange, Bradford’s Gypsy and Traveller community, and a girls’ group based at MAPA Bradford community centre.

Through creative writing workshops with Antony Dunn, the Press’s Poet in Residence, the participants will write a collection of poetry, and each will collaboratively create a single phrase that gets to the heart of the issues they’ve explored in the workshops.

Each group will then visit the Press to help hand-print the letters of their phrase into four giant murals, which will be seen in venues around Bradford in March 2025.

Wild Uplands, May – Oct, Penistone Hill Country Park

Out on the wily, windy moors, we’re building an extraordinary open-air gallery inspired by the natural world.

Wild Uplands is a series of new artworks created for the vast skies and expansive moorland views of Penistone Hill Country Park, high above Haworth.

From sculptures and site-specific installations to a new sound walk, we’re reimagining this untamed landscape as a hotbed for contemporary art.

Shanaz Gulzar, Creative Director of Bradford 2025 and the curator of Wild Uplands, is inviting four leading national and international artists to create new works in response to Penistone Hill.

They’ll be inspired both by the natural attributes and by the industrial heritage of these former quarries – and by the future of our natural world in light of the ongoing climate crisis. We’ll be announcing the four commissions in spring 2025.

Tu i Tam/Tyt i Tam, June 2025

Exile, identity and the nature of home come into focus at this captivating exhibition exploring Polish and Ukrainian communities in Bradford and beyond and created in partnership with Lodz Fotofestiwal.

More than 150,000 Poles and 35,000 Ukrainians resettled in the UK following the Second World War – and the thriving local textiles industry helped make Yorkshire a popular destination.

Bradford soon became home to large, proud and tight-knit Polish and Ukrainian communities – joined in the last two decades by economic migrants from Poland and, more recently, people displaced by the war in Ukraine.

Tu i Tam/Tyt i Tam (respectively, Polish and Ukrainian for ‘Here and There’) explores the fascinating histories of these communities through unique objects, rare archival materials and photographs – including many by Bradford’s own Tim Smith, who’s been documenting the city’s Polish and Ukrainian communities for more than 40 years.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of special events exploring the nature of migration, exile and social change, both then and now.

Frontline 1984/1985, Apr, venue to be announced

Victor Wedderburn Jr arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1971 at the age of 16, joining his Windrush Generation parents here in Bradford.

When redundancy took his job at Crofts Engineers in the early 1980s, he used his pay-off to buy a second-hand camera and film developing kit, then set about documenting life in the city.

Frontline 1984/1985, the first ever exhibition from this self-taught photographer, vividly evokes Afro-Caribbean life in Bradford 40 years ago.

From Lumb Lane landmarks such as Roots Record Shop and the Perseverance Hotel to sound system parties and anti-apartheid marches, these photographs tell a story that’s sometimes written out of Bradford’s history.

Don’t miss this powerful evocation of a lost era – a striking snapshot of a community that Victor Wedderburn knew from the inside out.

Marshmallow Laser Feast, Apr 2025 – Feb 2026, National Science and Media Museum

Marshmallow Laser Feast, the experiential artist collective who work at the cutting edge of art, science and technology, are creating an immersive experience for Bradford 2025.

It’s a playful exploration of the invisible rhythms that underpin life on Earth, and it has Bradford running through its DNA – taking inspiration from Born in Bradford, a major research programme that’s been tracking the lives of more than 40,000 people across the district since 2007.

Ice Age Art Now, Jun 21 2025 – Sep 14, Cliffe Castle Museum

This visually stunning exhibition shows how artistic creativity existed thousands of years before traditional art histories suggest – as an essential part of human life.

Ice Age Art Now presents work by people living in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age, some as much as 32,000 years old.

These astounding works reveal the deep roots of drawing, sculpture, realism, abstraction, signs, symbols and more – and the extraordinary skill and imagination of these early image makers find echoes in modern and contemporary art.

This family-friendly exhibition features a wealth of rare items from the British Museum and local treasures from the collections of Bradford District Museums & Galleries, arranged into such themes as decorating the body, drawing animals and abstracting the female form.

The exhibition also features an installation reimagining cave art and other imagery from thousands of years ago for the 21st century. The exhibition will be supplemented with a programme of talks, family activities and other special events.

Turner Prize, Sep 2025 – Fe 2026, Cartwright Hall

The annual Turner Prize showcases and celebrates the most exciting new developments in British art. In the year the UK celebrates the 250th anniversary of JMW Turner’s birth, the Turner Prize heads to Bradford.

In spring, we’ll announce the names of the shortlisted artists. And then in autumn, their work will be presented at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, with the winner announced in December 2025.

New Focus: Bradford Young Curators, Sep, Impressions Gallery

Ten young people are curating a major photography exhibition at Impressions Gallery – and creating Bradford’s biggest digital family album.

This ambitious 18-month project is part of Impressions Gallery’s award-winning New Focus programme, which supports young people aged 18–25 to gain the knowledge and skills they need to become the creatives of the future with workshops and mentoring from some of the UK’s leading photography experts and creative professionals.

At the heart of the project is the handover of curatorial control from Impressions Gallery to the group, who are commissioning new work by five cutting-edge photographers from Bradford and beyond for a new exhibition to open in September 2025.

The collective will also go out into communities around the district to unearth Bradford’s cherished family photos and preserve the stories behind them, creating an online family album, a powerful tribute to the people and communities of Bradford.

BD:Walls, throughout 2025

Over the next two years, we will be inviting street artists from home and abroad to create new artworks on different walls across Bradford District.

As well as paying vibrant tribute to Bradford’s heritage these new artworks will also celebrate the dynamic street art culture of the UK’s youngest city.

BD: Walls opened in July 2024 with Polish artist NeSpoon in Bradford city centre, and was followed by Roots, a bold and expressive new work from street artist Peachzz that celebrates community spirit inspired by and located on Bradford’s MAPA Cultural Arts Centre. New artworks will emerge regularly during 2025.

LITERATURE

Wandering Imaginations, Sep

Four writers revisit the Brontës’ imaginary world of Angria for a new collection of stories and animations.

Before there was Wuthering Heights and Thornfield Hall, there was Gondal – and there was Angria. As children in Haworth, the Brontë siblings dreamed up a series of imaginary worlds.

Among them was Angria, a fantastical kingdom that maps directly on to the coast of West Africa.

Now, nearly 200 years on, we’re inviting four emerging writers – two from northern England, two from Ghana – to create four new stories inspired by Angria yet rooted in the writers’ own imaginations.

Written following residencies at Pa Gya! A Literary Festival in Accra and the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, their creations will be published both as stories and as digital animations as part of the annual Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing in September 2025 and at Pa Gya! the following month.

BBC Contains Strong Language, Sep 18 – 21, Bradford City Centre

The UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival for new writing is coming to Bradford for the first time. Contains Strong Language is the BBC’s annual celebration of poetry, performance and the spoken word – and next year, it’s coming to Bradford for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.

There’ll be four days of performances, readings, events and activities at venues across the city, and a host of BBC radio programmes will be recorded or broadcast live from Bradford – including The Verb, BBC Radio 4’s ‘cabaret of the word’. Much of the weekend will be free.

Book of Bradford, throughout Summer

Read all about it! Ten short stories by Bradford writers feature in a new anthology from Comma Press.

Bradford 2025 is coming to a bookshop near you. We’re delighted to be teaming up with Comma Press for The Book of Bradford: A City in Short Fiction, a new collection of stories from local writers offering fresh perspectives on Bradford past, present and future.

The Book of Bradford, edited by Bradford-raised author Saima Mir, is the latest instalment in Reading the City, Comma Press’s popular series of short-story anthologies that’s previously journeyed as far and wide as Barcelona, Beijing, Ramallah and Rio.

Ahead of the book’s publication, Comma Press and author David Barnett will be presenting a six-month creative writing course for Bradford-based writers, with stories written during the course considered for inclusion in the anthology.

The book’s publication will then be marked by a series of special launch events in Bradford and online – check back in 2025 for more details.

Poetry Slam, Jun – Jul

We’re joining Authors Abroad to bring the joy of poetry to 2,000 pupils across Bradford – and find the region’s most exciting new voices.

Matt Abbott, Donavan Christopher, Andy Craven-Griffiths and Sharena Lee Satti will be hosting poetry workshops in 25 primary and secondary schools.

After performing their own work and offering tips on writing, they’ll then invite the pupils to create poems on the theme of play.

At the end of each day, the poets and teachers will pick a team of six pupils to represent their school at the Slam Finals 2025 – where they’ll battle it out in front of a packed house for the title of Bradford Poetry Slam champions.

Bradford 2025 x Penguin Books

A year-long partnership is set to provide advice to budding writers, guidance to English teachers – and nearly 5,000 books to schools across Bradford.

We’re proud to be partnering with Penguin Books during our year as UK City of Culture, working together to inspire the next generation of readers, writers, and publishers across the district.

This collaboration is focused on making books more accessible to young people and fostering a deeper engagement with literature in our community.

FILM

La Haine - Live, Jan 15

Asian Dub Foundation make a welcome return to Bradford to reprise one of their most acclaimed projects – their powerful soundtrack to cult classic French thriller La Haine, performed live to a screening of the film for one night only.

La Haine (‘Hatred’) chronicles 24 hours in the lives of three friends from a poor suburb of Paris, where tensions are at breaking point following the death of a local man at the hands of the police.

Directed by Mathieu Kassowitz, the film celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2025 – and with ADF on hand to provide a live soundtrack, it’s never sounded better.

Northern Soul, Jan 30 January - Feb 9, Pictureville Cinema at the National Science and Media Museum

Northern Soul is a celebration of northern women in cinema – as writers, directors and trailblazers behind the camera, and as the subjects of some of the most compelling stories in contemporary cinema.

Presented at Pictureville in the newly reopened National Science & Media Museum, the season is curated by Clio Barnard, the West Yorkshire-raised writer director of The Arbor, centred on Bradford writer Andrea Dunbar, The Selfish Giant and Ali & Ava, a moving romance set in the city.

The selections in Northern Soul span six decades, from a ’60s British New Wave classic to the latest feature from one of our most exciting directors.

Screenings include Gurinder Chadha’s Bhaji on the Beach, Carol Morley’s Typist Artist Pirate King and Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights and will be complemented by discussions, interviews and other special events.

The Local (working title)

The new feature from the makers of A Bunch of Amateurs raises a glass with the regulars at one of Bradford’s oldest pubs.

Jacobs Well is a Bradford landmark, but it’s not one you’ll find in any guidebook. Fast approaching its 200th birthday, this storied city-centre pub has watched Bradford change and grow around it.

But time stands still in the Well, as it does in all the best pubs, and the regulars aren’t in any hurry to face the future.

A Bunch of Amateurs, Kim Hopkins’ previous film, followed the members of Bradford Movie Makers as they fought to keep their cherished club from collapse.

Now, Hopkins is turning her lens to another band of Bradfordians outside the mainstream in a film that pays affectionate tribute to community, humanity and the great British pub.

The Ceremony

A fight over stolen property and a tragic death brings together two very different men in Jack King’s award-winning film – shot in Bradford and the Yorkshire Dales.

Bradford 2025 is hugely proud to be supporting the debut feature by Bradford-born writer–director Jack King, ‘The Ceremony’, a powerfully atmospheric road drama that received its world premiere in August 2024 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival – where it won the inaugural Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence.

When young asylum-seeker Nassar (Mo’min Swaitat) commits suicide on car wash grounds, two migrant workers (Tudor Cucu-Dumitrescu, Erdal Yıldız) agree to bury his body in the nearby hills.

Conflicted by their different opinions on the man’s death, the two men head out on a journey like no other – a spiritual reckoning with their lives, with each other and with the mystery of the landscape. Beautifully shot in black-and-white,

The Ceremony is set for further screenings in Bradford and beyond during 2025.

Flesh & Flamingos (working title)

Queer life in the ’80s and ’90s comes under the microscope in Dominic Leclerc’s hybrid drama-documentary.

Bradford 2025 is supporting the first feature film by Dominic Leclerc, the Bradford-born and Bradford-based director of Sex Education, Skins, The Teacher and other acclaimed TV dramas.

Flesh and Flamingos reveals the hidden history of northern queer culture through the photographers who bravely caught it on camera – particularly the pioneering work of Yorkshire photographer Stuart Linden Rhodes, who celebrated northern queer life in all its glory.

Persecuted, demonised, criminalised – the ’80s and ’90s was a turbulent era for the UK’s gay community. Homophobia was not only prevalent across society: it was also legitimised by Section 28, government legislation to outlaw the so-called ‘promotion of homosexuality’ by local councils.

The queer community faced constant discrimination – but they also faced it down with defiance, solidarity and pride.

Flesh and Flamingos sees director Dominic Leclerc explore this world, which shaped him as a young queer man: the prejudice he faced, the community he found, and the photographers whose work documented and celebrated the thrilling northern queer culture that thrived against the odds.

Produced by the BAFTA-nominated, BIFA-winning Ameenah Ayub Allen (Rocks, Ali & Ava, The Arbor), Flesh and Flamingos is scheduled to go into production during 2025 – and we’ll bring you updates as the work progresses.

FOOD

The Bradford Selection, Spring

Pull up a pew, grab a brew and take a bite into Bradford with our magnificent biscuits. No food is more central to UK culture than the humble biscuit, so we’re cooking up our very own selection – made right here in Bradford especially for you.

Food-as-art pioneers Edible Archives have been touring Bradford, collecting stories, histories and recipes from people across the district. The result is The Bradford Selection: six biscuits inspired by six different Bradford communities and cultures, from local growing projects groups to the Sikh community to Bradford’s radical political history.

Presented in a limited-edition collectible tin with a beautiful ’zine, featuring interviews and articles – all inspired by research into the British Library’s collections. The Bradford Selection will be available in selected stores across Bradford District from spring 2025.

Meet Our Mothers, Autumn

Bradford’s cultural heritage, diversity and pride are explored in the pages of a gorgeous interactive cookbook.

Meet Our Mothers is a tribute to family, to community and to the unifying power of food. Artist Deepa Mann-Kler is collecting dozens of treasured family recipes and stories from communities across Bradford District – from mothers and fathers, grandparents and great-grandparents, daughters and sons.

Passed down from generation to generation, these treasured recipes will show how cooking brings and binds together our families and communities – and how it allows us to take a little piece of home with us wherever we go.

ACROSS THE DISTRICT

Bradford on Foot, from April

Explore our landscapes large and small, urban and rural – with the people of Bradford pointing the way. Bradford on Foot is a rich collection of themed walks and tours around 2025’s UK City of Culture, from secret streets and hidden gems to the great wide open.

They’re being selected especially for Bradford 2025 by a cast including walking groups and historians, schoolchildren and artists, professional tour guides and the people of Bradford District. There’ll be 25 routes to follow in 2025, from country hikes to neighbourhood strolls.

Download the walks to your mobile device or pick up free paper copies, tie your laces, then get walking in your own time and at your own pace – or join your fellow ramblers on one of the special guided walks we’ll be hosting throughout the year. Why not walk a mile (or more) in our shoes?

PLAY, Feb – Dec

PLAY is a year-round programme of free events and activities for children, families and curious adults. Throughout 2025, we’ll be inviting audiences to take part in a series of playful interventions and magical moments of discovery – presented in partnership with Play Bradford, and co-produced with artists, architects, designers, theatre makers and the people of Bradford District.

Grue: Feb 8–23 Feb

In this enchanted landscape, you’ll take on an important mission: helping our historian to solve the mysteries of Damart Mill. You’ll pass through secret doors, a fairy forest and even go underwater on your quest – and perhaps you’ll meet some special guests along the way.

Woodland Tribe: Apr 3–9 & Aug 11–17

The Great Adventure Build is a unique construction project where the children are in charge. We’ll provide the tools – hammers, saws, nails and a truckload of wood – and the children provide the imagination.

Supported by the team at Woodland Tribe, the UK’s masters of constructive play, they’ll get to build their very own epic play space… and then try it out for size.

The Beacon, Wibsey Park, Bowling Park, Cliffe Castle Park and Lister Park

The Beacon is a venue like no other – a performance space that will be touring the district during Bradford 2025.

This super-versatile venue can be built and rebuilt anywhere – and next year, we’re taking it for month-long stays in Wibsey Park, Bowling Park, Cliffe Castle Park and Lister Park.

We’re working with the people of Bradford to create bespoke programmes in each location. There’ll be headline acts: music, comedy and much more.

There’ll be weekday shows and weekend festivals. But there’ll also be clubs, classes, family activities, neighbourhood get-togethers… you name it.

Everyone’s welcome at The Beacon – and (almost) anything goes.