Skip to main content

Day: 11 October 2011

Pick of the Manchester Food and Drink Festival

As an avid cook I love spending time exploring the stranger side of food, whether that be snooping round a Chinese supermarket or searching for offal in a butcher’s window. However, I appreciate this isn’t how my flatmates want to spend their weekends. Luckily for us there is the Manchester Food and Drink Festival, which is hosting events aimed at foodies as well as those just wanting to grab a kebab and cheesy chips.

The Food and Drink Festival has been running for over 14 years; this year’s being held from October 7-17th. The main part of the food extravaganza is the Big Festival Hub held in Albert Square, just off Princess Street. The Hub is a collection of stands and events such as the Veltins Oktoberfest where it is possible to get the full Oktoberfest experience – drinking authentic German beer and chowing down on some sauerkraut and sausage to the soundtrack of Bavarian bands. However, if that isn’t your cup of tee mit milch, the Chilli Lovers Fair tempts with treats of chilli toffee and a selection of salsas. You could even risk entering the second annual chilli-eating contest on the 7th. Even if you don’t, head over to enjoy the sight of those who are willing to sweat under the hot, hot heat.

There are many more events, so check foodanddrinkfestival.com to see what takes your fancy. Below I have picked a few of the best to tantalise the taste buds.  One I will definitely be attending is the Whiskey Festival at the Lowry Hotel. For £20 plus a small booking fee you get the chance to sample whiskeys (in a free tasting glass) from across the globe – including a new and critically acclaimed Taiwanese whiskey. Hurry though, as the late session running from 4pm has already sold out.

Treating someone special to a first date? Impress by taking them to the award winning River Bar and Restaurant which is putting on a special menu for just under £20 per person. Sample the best of British food including a heavenly sounding desert – caramelised chocolate mousse cappuccino – guaranteed to get you a second date.

If you happen to have a lot of spare cash lying around, there is a secret Tudor dinner ran by Robert Owen Brown, head chef of the Mark Addy pub in Salford. This spectacular includes unlimited food and drink with an assortment of nine meats and evening-long Tudor themed entertainment. It sounds fantastic, but at £110 pounds it really stretches the student budget.

I hope that I have managed to tempt you into getting involved with the festival, even if it is just to grab some street food from the Festival Hub – it is too great an opportunity to miss!

 

 

 

Sainsbury’s Basics Red Wine

Welcome to the column which takes a hedonistic voyage into the world of wine within the average student’s meagre budget. This week I’m reviewing Sainsbury’s Basics Red Table Wine, which has the slightly ironic tag-line of ‘for the table, not the cellar’, suggesting that someone inside Sainsbury’s marketing department has a sense of humour.

I began drinking this wine in my first Welcome Week – too much was consumed and drinking it now brings back memories that are best forgotten. These days it comes in a plastic bottle, is 11% abv instead of 13% and tragically costs £3.20 rather than £2.29; there are now cheaper and classier ways to predrink.

Another problem I have with this wine is that it has no date, making it impossible to know whether it comes from a vintage year. However I suspect it wasn’t… On inspection, the colour of the wine is a deep, murky purple. Wine connoisseurs know that young wines tend to have a darker hue because with age the pigments degrade. Judging by the colour, this wine was probably brewed in someone’s boot about a week ago.

On the nose (smelling), the wine was underwhelming. After a vigorous swirl in the glass, the only aromas I was able to distinguish were raisins, turpentine and red dye – a sumptuous bouquet it was not. With reluctance, I tasted. Although light and vinegary there were some undistinguishable red fruits smuggled inside the otherwise bland palate. Whilst not entirely unpleasant, the finish was long, bitter and headache inducing. In its defence it’s better than Lambrusco or Superboss and it’s great to serve at a dinner party if you openly dislike your guests.

To conclude, the main problem with this wine – other than its taste – is that there’s no reason to buy it. If you’re a cheap bastard you can buy three bottles of Gaffs’ Special for less or pay £1 more and get something quaffable. I think the only acceptable moment to drink this wine is with a reduced Sainsbury’s steak that’s crying out for liquid accompaniment. Or perhaps when drunk out of a paper bag while lying on top of some bins in an alleyway, wondering what happened to your life.

Taste 1/5

Value 2/5

Hangover factor 4/5

 

 

Overnight. Overrated.

Two out of five stars

As Manchester Universities Gilbert and Sullivan Society has been running for 60 years now, it seems fitting that, as well as producing one or two Gilbert and Sullivan shows each year, they modernise the 140 year old musicals by mixing them up with modern pop songs. The catch? They only have 24 hours in which to cast, direct, rehearse and perform the entire thing.

It tells the story of four friends on a trip who, surprisingly, get a flat tire and end up in ‘The Village’, a cursed place where the number of people has to remain constant. Only two of the friends can stay, so, through a series of meetings, relationship switch-ups, disagreements and the like, (and a song or two along the way) two of the friends decide to stay.

The plot and script hardly lent themselves to good drama, but it had its moments. Scott Sharp put his absolute all into it as Brian and Kate Lamb was effortless and natural as Alice. The audience seemed to love the cheesy one-liner jokes, however they did seem a little too ‘in’ on everything to simply be just a neutral audience. I felt perhaps their enjoyment was from seeing familiar faces on stage, rather than watching a successful piece of theatre.

As for the songs, they were (just about) relevant enough to the action and identifiable by the audience. A personal highlight was the MUGGS doing what they do best: the one and only Gilbert and Sullivan number, ‘A Policeman’s Lot’ lead by a well-characterised Sergeant, played by Dan Magnone, complete with humorous bobs from the policemen behind. Another enjoyable tune was La Roux’s ‘Bulletproof’, beautifully arranged and even moving at times. They certainly knew how to please a crowd, with an opening rendition of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ and ‘Hot ‘N Cold’. Top notes weren’t reached, lyrics were forgotten but generally the songs were a welcome addition to the action.

Although the show had its awkward, fluffed and often irrelevant moments, a certain quality did shine through: the chemistry and bond between the cast as a chorus. Smiles and positivity never faltered and the energy and commitment was impressive. The main thing I took away from the experience however was ‘Why a 24 hour show?’ It seems an insufficient amount of time to really produce anything worthwhile and production-worthy. Yes it was, good fun and that is perhaps that is the true essence of Gilbert and Sullivan; to be enjoyed and to throw yourself in, rough edges and all.

MUGGS’ ‘HMS Pinafore’ is due to be performed in February 2012 and its not too late to be involved. See www.mugss.org for details.

 

Brutal but honest

Four stars out of five

Crystal Kisses – produced by Contact Theatre in partnership with Comic Relief, Barnardo’s, the Protect Team, Brook, Manchester City Council and NHS Fresh, is a powerful piece of drama which highlights an important issue in Manchester today:  Child Sex Exploitation.

The in depth research and commitment towards giving an honest yet brutal experience for the audience is shocking, however effective it may be. It is a fantastic play although I do warn; it is no Cinderella story and a strong drink may be needed afterwards. The theme is constant throughout and the audience can recognise the different influences that can bring such exploitation.

With the use of subtle lighting, basic staging and interesting props, the audience then can entirely focus on the acting and the theme of the play. The use of a white screen in the middle of the stage enables the actors in creating shadows and movement frames that can highlight the scene in front of it, which is an excellent technique and can seem to make the play more sinister and disturbing, which is what the actors want to achieve.

The play is set apart with three different “acts” you might call it, to present different scenarios in which the exploitation can be seen. “Toyah” whom is in social care and seems to be feisty and independent is however weak and vulnerable, under her hard exterior. “Jay” runs away from home, although has run to a place that is not as caring as he thought. Finally there is the character “Ally” who is the A Star student but faces temptation, sex and betrayal.  Each section of the play is similar but different, using various techniques of drama such as choreographed physical movements, rhyme, metaphors, sound and dance to culminate this lucid piece of drama and emphasize various forms of exploitation.

Although this play mainly had a sombre feel, there are some comic attributions such as the character “Zed” whom lifts the mood with his witty lines and comic mannerisms. Though not long after that, once again the humour is gone and the solemnity continues. However it is a must see, as they do portray the theme extraordinarily well and use an assortment of techniques whilst doing so, just be prepared to hold your breath at times, well I did anyway.

Crystal Kisses ran for eight performances between 4th and 14th October at the Contact Theatre 

 

Fix me another drink

Three stars out of five

David Thacker’s production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? draws out the black humour of the three-act American drama that explores the extremes of a couple’s maliciously destructive relationship. It is the play’s dark comic edge that is used to mock the absurdity of the central characters as they constantly attempt to destroy one another through verbal abuse.

The central protagonists Martha and George, played by Margot Leicester and George Irving, entertain a young couple, Honey and Nick, played by Tammy Joelle and Kieran Hill, for the evening after a faculty party. This ‘after-party’ provides the setting for the three-act play that is driven by Martha and George’s malicious ‘games’, acts that are essentially attempts to savagely humiliate one another and at points both of their guests.

One of the most noticeable directorial decisions, certainly in terms of the set, is David Thacker’s use of a circular stage. Staging George and Martha’s living room on a circular stage in the middle of the auditorium makes the play seem less of a performance of fiction but rather makes the audience feel they are being given an intimate view of the couple’s world. In fact there is actually something about the self-contained staging that makes you feel as though you are almost intruding on the couples’ developing hysteria. This intensifies the tension, which is present throughout the play, as George and Martha speak in coded terms about ‘the kid’. From the outset ‘the kid’ is the drama’s central mystery – as Martha initially threatens ‘I’ll talk about him if I want to’ – a mystery that symbolises one of the play’s central themes: the conflict between reality and façade.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the performance is how the drama translates, from being so inherently set within its American context into a modern day theatre in Bolton. There are moments where the play’s most distinctive ‘American-isms’ – most noticeably George’s use of the word ‘smucks’ – for some reason sound a little awkward and unnatural. However the performance doesn’t fail to convey the sadistic way in which George and Martha psychologically tear one another apart. It is these sadistic games that lead to the drama’s pinnacle moment where it becomes clear that Martha’s obsession with illusion has led her to take extreme measures to escape reality.

The way in which this performance presents the hollow meaninglessness of the four characters lives could be seen as proof that ultimately Edward Albee sees it as his job as a playwright to ‘ask some interesting questions and expect the audience to provide some good answers’.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ran at the Bolton Octagon from 22nd September until 15th October.

Black history month is still not history

With Black History Month approaching, black historians  are yet again spending this time of the month cringing with embarrassment or despair at what they are seeing: images of Beyonce and Denzel Washington crowding the mainstream as representatives of this significant month.

The problem is the mass misunderstand of the meaning behind Black History Month. It’s important to understand its origins and its relation and significance in light of us as students.

Students are well known for their enthusiasm and activeness in, well, anything! And why should this month be any different? Involvement may not seem crucial; but awareness is binding.

The city of Manchester boasts year on year activities and events that promote and celebrate this month; and this year is no different.

The activities are an opportunity for the public as well as students in Manchester to engage and celebrate with other cultures within our diverse population at not only at the University of Manchester, but the city as a whole. It will give students the opportunity to expand their knowledge base of other cultures through the arts, culture and music events we will be running.

Coherently with Black History Month, The University of Manchester have an array of talks and activities organised; from a lecture presented by Marika Sherwood about Malcolm X and his visit to Manchester, to how Salsa dancing has its roots embedded in Africa.

The key theme of all events running throughout the city is about encouraging self expression and celebrating individuality in a creative way. Regardless of race, everyone can participate.

Black History Month offers the chance for the uniting of different cultures as well as knowledge of a new one.  It encourages awareness and facilitates conversation among the student body. The month should be taken as an encouragement to learn about (or promote yourself) those around you through different mediums such as lectures, debates and other forms of entertainment.

Check out this link for all events. 

FFAF – Urban Outfitters

By the time we made it to the fourth (our third) stop on the crawl, we felt we had consumed more than our fair share of art for one evening. And we had read one too many cue cards explaining artists’ mission statements and modus operandi. In fact, I now feel confident enough in the art of the blurb to make bold generalizations about the categorization these cues fall under. There is the PR bullshit, which either makes no sense and/or seems to bear no relevance to the art on show. There is the ‘A-ha’ card, which shakes your heart with the insight those few words afford you into the mind of the creator. And there is the blurb that you really don’t want to read because you’re enthralled by not knowing what this art is about, and yet you can’t stop yourself leaning over and learning about the processes by which this mysterious piece was conceived; and the mystique is shattered. Urban Outfitters: Basic Shapes, a fittingly trendy exhibition, introduced a new, wildly left-field approach to the cue card: Confusion. The placing of a card on a wall or beam, around which there is more than one contender for the recipient of this informative insight. This one is pretty locale-specific, it can’t be used just anywhere. But it does mean that I could have been looking at, and now reviewing, art, or I could have been transfixed pondering home furnishing. And this made it very difficult to concentrate. I was just about sure that some of the people there knew which things were art.

Miroir 13 - Jump, by Sarah Bryan

But the best thing we discovered after wading through clothes, and then Sci-Fi ‘installation’ and blurbs, were Sarah Bryan’s unassuming black and white stills. They were tucked amongst the denims, but these old Miroir (sports mag) covers jumped up with multi-medias by Bryan where just what we needed to set us back into the aesthetically pleasing comfort zone. Good enough to rival Ines’s Place-stealers.

Free for Arts Festival SPECIAL – The price of art

The night began at 4pm, as all good nights do. But the sheen of heat that hung in the air stuck us to our seats. Finally the haze settled and we gathered our strength. We lost, then found the free bus. But too late, we decided to cut our losses; first venue be damned we were hot. Luckily this meant we were in plenty of time for venue 2 and took a leisurely stroll there.
Venue 2: Cord, Dorsey Street.
We were late. A ‘live performance/installation’ was presented to us in a hushed corner. It was actually just a man with a guitar, which confused Dani. We cornered the musician slash artist; ‘Was it just what it was?’ Yes, it was just what it was. Music. I asked a searingly insightful question meditating on the nature of performance. The musician looked confused, scanning the crowd behind us nervously. ‘Um, yeah…I think we’re going for a few drinks afterwards’. After scoring this date, we left.
Back on the street the haze descended one more. A stream of cyclists swam by, blocking our path. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘A critical mass…once a month’
A gentleman with a booming box on his bike might have shouted back to us.
Venue 3: Piccadilly Place
In amongst the office blocks, we found art. But so did a lot of other people. We drank a nice refreshing cup of Kopparberg, proud sponsors of free art. We spent much time pondering the significance of the collection. We talked to Mrs. Mill, of Mr. and Mrs. Mill, who reliably informed us that Arnie and the Egg was one of her favourite pieces. I liked it too. Especially the Arnie bit (yes, Schwarzenegger). This art may be free to all, but it’s not free to take it home, as we discovered.
I wanted a refreshing blast of Vitamin Water before we trekked on to rooms 2 and 3, preferably the pink one, but they had all been drunk by other thirsty crawlers. Understandably so. We entered a brave new world in room 2. One that required blue polythene shoe protectors and a tussle with some overbearing sheets. The curator was going for ‘Narnia’. Room 3 and the brother of the guy who did some of the furniture informed us his ‘brother’ had done this. His eyes were wild on Kopparberg (drink responsibly kids). We exited the new world to look for a toilet. But we couldn’t leave quite yet; a world where the doormen are artists, and the bartenders are critics, and the critics are drunk. We swayed on into the night, in search of more art and sponsorship.
Venue 4: Urban Outfitters.
We were ushered upstairs. I had a Kopparberg from a plastic cup. It was warm. We were somewhat confused where the art stopped and the urban trinkets began. A kindly girl showed us to the door. She wasn’t an artist as far as I could tell.
Venue 5: AfterParty
We hustled to the Soup Kitchen for a nourishing bowl of wine. The girl in front was thrashing her head about and batting her lashes in the hopes of buying the bartender a drink. He took a shot on her. The crawl ended much like any other kind of crawl. It ran on liquid, and brought us to our knees. We felt the real personal cost of all that art the next day.

Free for Arts – Piccadilly Place

Free for All (Part 1) showcased the best of the festival’s open submissions. The varied and eclectic works were pieced carefully together by curator Emily Songhurst, comprising an Aladdin’s Cave of viewing. There was video installation, painted portrait, photography, sculpture, interactive sound-art. And all in one barren, concrete vacuum; divided into a complex of almost-rooms, maze-like that encaved the works and created a semi-private capsule for each artist. There were nooks to be discovered, perfect for the deeply personal pieces that were on display. If there was an overarching theme this was it – soul-bearing. Some of it was confusing, some of it bad (in my opinion) and some of it funny – which is rare. I craned to read the small print of a ‘sculpture’s title – the miniature pram with tubes coming out of it feeding into big bourbon bottles – ‘Wet Nurse’, and laughed. Apart from small titles, the smallest photographs overtook the whole rest of the show. Ines Elsa Delal’s photographs: personal, beautiful, and almost missable – the man handing us our beers hit it in one – ‘they got me’.
We had heard tell of the polystyrene balls before we entered room 2. But fortunately the anticipation did not breed disappoint when we finally peeled back the curtains on Child’s Play and skated off in our polythene shoes, tiny, packaging filler balls underfeet. I laughed for the second time, and raced off like a kid in a candy shop. That is, until I ran into the sweet shop installation which presented a disconcerting choice: to take a sweet out of the jar or not. What kind of person am I that I didn’t take a sweet? I think it says more about what kind of child I was, but that child is clearly still master puppeteer of at least some of my actions. From exciting, to contemplative this room threw up a whole load of sweet nuggets for the audience to chew over whilst moonwalking on polyballs. The tone of the exhibition was reset when the monkey-bar on tree trunks installation in the centre of the room, a piece by Sonny J. Barker entitled Gemini, was explained to us. It charted the death of the artist’s twin in his childhood, and just like that the fantasy of being a child splintered away from us. So much of childhood is about loss. And childhood in hindsight can often be seen only in negatives; landmarks thrown into relief by the pain they caused. But childhood is really the least of the issues facing you in Child’s Play. The use of a theme is a jumping off point for exploring how different artists, and therefore different people, interpret the same thing. And this itself is a jumping-off plank for how art documents the human experience. Is art itself child’s play? And if so does the exhibition subvert or add to this notion of art? Like most ‘good’ art, the room created more questions than it answered. And, much like childhood, the more I reflect on Child’s Play, the more disturbing it appears to be.
A wise man once said that art ‘is supposed to make us confront things’. And a lot of the stuff that needs confronting isn’t palatable, or fun to look at it. Some of it is. The Piccadilly Place free for all presented us with a wide scope of reality, as much of it from the art as from the people looking at the art. We were bumped up cheek to wall with people of all brush-strokes and veins of art but the thing we really looked at was ourselves.

Southern Eleven

Barbecue no longer has to mean blackened burgers, scorched sausages and your dad’s God complex coming to the fore over a bag of charcoal from the supermarket.

Southern Eleven, which opened in July this year and is located in the modern Spinningfields, promises its diners a ‘new style American BBQ experience’ with ‘home-style favourites reinvented with a contemporary twist’. Visiting as part of a family meal, we arrived twenty minutes early and were encouraged to sit at the bar and try out some of their extensive drinks menu. Beers, wines and soft drinks are followed with the option to ‘mix your own cocktail’ – upon picking your favourite tipple you are given the ingredients, ice and a shaker to enable you to assemble your drink yourself. Half of our party regarded this as an excitingly interactive feature, while the others saw it as a lazy ploy on behalf of the bar staff.

When shown to our table in the small dining area we were offered a selection of ‘while you waits’ (smoked nuts, olives, tortilla chips, chicken wings and so on) but our wait at the bar had allowed us to decide on mains so we ordered straight away. The menu is based largely around meat, which is, of course, barbecued. Pulled pork, beef brisket, short ribs and spatchcock chicken jostle for place against traditional Southern sides of cornbread, macaroni cheese and coleslaw. Vegetarians are not massively catered for here: while there are a couple of choices including salads (butternut squash sounded particularly good) and hot potatoes with various toppings, all of the main plates contain meat. Luckily enough, our party were all meat-eaters and rather hungry, so we ordered a wide selection. The food arrived promptly and looked exciting, served on wooden boards with fries in buckets and coleslaw in jars. The pot of tangy barbecue sauce which comes with almost every dish is served with an accompanying brush to paste it onto your ribs or slabs of pork or beef. Particular highlights of our order seemed to be the brisket: rubbed in the ‘S11 mystery mix of herbs and spices’ and cooked low and slow for up to twenty hours it is mouth-wateringly succulent, and the deep-fried pickle spears in their crispy batter were a surprising success. Desserts followed: Knickerbocker Glories satisfied with creamy ice cream, nuts, fruit and chocolate brownie pieces.

Overall it was an extremely successful family meal: the atmosphere was pleasant, while the restaurant is small it feels homely and warm, the service was fine and the food excellent. Value was also good as we happened to have a 40% off voucher thanks to one of the voucher books given out at the start of the year (otherwise mains range from £7.50 to £15.95). If your Freshers’ Fair loot is hidden under a pile of essays or books I would encourage you to get it out, find the voucher and go down to Southern Eleven to avoid your next barbecue experience being one of drizzle, paper plates and too much tomato ketchup.