Issuu

contents

Small talk We catch up with our old friend Kid30, who tells us about his long career in Nottingham street art, and various weird and wonderful exhibitions he’s put on over the years.

Forward thinking Our chat with the Mayor of the East Midlands Claire Ward, who tells us about her ambitions to grow the visitor economy, retain young talent, regenerate Broad Marsh, and more.

Pedal to the metal Finnuala Brett meets various cycling groups and advocacy organisations across Nottingham, who are envisioning how Notts could be transformed via sustainable transport.

Still hustlin’ This month marks twenty whole years of Nottingham city’s biggest independent music and arts festival. Here’s what the team remembers most fondly from two decades of music and mayhem.

Hoppy Birthday Sneinton Market’s Neon Raptor Brewery are celebrating their tenth anniversary. They reflect on the massive footprint they’ve made on Nottingham’s beer scene.

next stage 34 The It’s been 25 years since the Nottingham Arts Theatre opened on George Street.

Having a laugh It’s the return of our city centre’s annual ten days of hilarity. In advance of the Nottingham Comedy Festival, we chat to four performers on the lineup.

was lovely. She was divine! 36 She Divine, arguably the most recognisable drag performer of the 20th century, is less

Diggin’ through the archives A selection of historical events, people, and places, both weird and wellknown, that LeftLion has covered through 200 issues in print.

neighbours 46 Good For fifty whole years, Emmanuel House has been a lifeline for our city’s

Beyond the senses Local author and professional tarot reader Kerry Ward has published her new book, This Book Will Make You Psychic. We chatted to her about mindfulness and intuition.

Director Campbell Kay chats about what they get up to.

remembered for her 70s pop career, which is a disservice, considering it brought her to Nottingham twice…

community of people experiencing homelessness. We learn more about the inner workings of this important place.

Editorial 24-25. We also got a chance to speak to Claire Ward, the Mayor of the East Midlands in this issue on p22-23. At a time of natural reflection on our 200th it’s also nice to see someone looking to thrust Notts forward.

(p34), twenty years of Hockley Hustle (p14-15) and ten years of Neon Raptor (p17). Plus a love letter to cycling (p26-27) and an interview with author and tarot card reader Kerry Ward (p28-29) and plenty more besides.

I was 23 when we began LeftLion and now I'm 47. I’ve told the story of how three (increasingly old) friends first started all this in a flat on Mansfield Road many times, but the fact it’s still going is a very wonderful thing for us - and hopefully for you, our readers, too.

I interviewed Kid30 (aka Small Kid) an artist who’s been active around these parts a couple of years longer even than us. He’s done various bits with LeftLion over the decades and it’s pleasing to collaborate again for our 200th. I'm also really excited about the ‘art dispenser’ we’ve put together which you can find in situ at the Angel Microbrewery this month. More details about all that on p18-19.

The last 200 issues have featured the work of thousands of writers, illustrators, photographers and more. There’s not enough space or time to thank them all properly, but if you’ve ever been part of this I'd like you to know we really appreciate it. And hopefully it did something good for you too?

We’ve picked out a small selection of favourite moments from the 200 issues on pages

There are a few big birthdays in this issue with 25 years of the Nottingham Arts Theatre

Ayup It’s been a while since I've written one of these. I haven’t thoroughly checked, but I think this might be my first LeftLion Editorial since issue 100 back in April 2018? Thus, I now feel like a grandad, telling stories about yesteryear with a sherry by the fire at Christmas.

This issue is dedicated to Richard Arthur Wilson (1948-2026).

See you in February 2035 then when, unless our monthly print run is disrupted, I’ll return for the big 300!

Jared Wilson

where's this? "DON'T BLINK"

Last month: "Cluck You" Barker Gate

Founding Editor

LeftLion Ltd is a carbon neutral company, having reduced our direct emissions by 99% since 2018. We offset the rest via direct air capture from Climeworks. LeftLion Magazine is fully recyclable and compostable, made from recycled or FSC® certified (C015932) sources, and printed using renewable energy. The emissions of this paper are offset via the World Land Trust. leftlion.co.uk 7

New Art Exchange

@newartexchange

@new_art_exchange

hockley hustle ! 0 2 s n r u t

, Al Greer, Alex photos: Nigel King Emma Ford, s, Blades, Lux Gago Galloway, Tom ke Lu , ing Rae Dowl s ne Jo Morley, Lizzie

dent arts and music m city’s biggest indepen This month, Nottingha rating twenty years ckley Hustle, is celeb Ho t an illi br e th al, tiv fes owcasing an eyelour to our streets. Sh co d an d un so ing ing of br more than just d talent, the festival is an es nr ge of ay arr s, as well watering K for 27 local charitie 50 £2 er ov d se rai it’s a good time – m Nottingham and thousands of artists fro for s ge sta ng idi ov pr as beyond. October, bringing is back on Sunday 25 This year, the Hustle the carnival, You’ll be able to catch s. ge sta ty fif to ts ac 500 t disco, enjoy ds, dance at the silen un so c sti ou ac me so chill to e, here’s what the and more. To celebrat punk, soul, Hip-Hop, artists, and central of promoters, mainstay Hustle’s massive team t twenty years of st fondly about the las mo er mb me re s er nis orga music and mayhem… ckleyhustle.co.uk ho

Adam Pickering Memory? What memory? Twenty years of Hustling has all blended into one ecstatic mess – countless moments of music al joy, a lot of day drinking, and many long days and nights getting it ready by many people. Thanks to the thousands of volunteers over the years and core Hustlers, you wild beasts. Two memories stand out: 2024, walking into the incredible Vibe City house band with Jessie Mae on vocals upstairs at Faradays. It’s just so deep – what surprises you can stumble across. For the other, just look up ‘Royal Gala Hockley Hustle 2010’. The Broadway Cinem a Cafe-Bar has never been as packed and sweaty before or since. Christine Katerere I love an intimate setting, so for me it’s easily Acoustickle at Bar Eleven, 2022. Stepping into a botanical paradise and catching Kamar’s set – bliss. On Heathcoat Street, Jamal Sterrett was brukk ing up, and Laura Decorum was making beautiful art, just before Can Sambaaaaa performed on the Broadway steps. What a day, what a Hustl e! Carys Jones So many memories from the archive but I’m going to say the indoor pandemic Hustle where the crew brought together so much talent for a full day of entertainment online when everything was bleak. It was a beautiful celebration of what creativity brings to comm unities in times of darkness when things might feel really difficult.

Roz Colborne It must have been 2018; I watched the UFO Orchestra at Metronome perform an Ibiza classics medley with Rob Green, Natalie Duncan, Motormouf and Nina Smith. It was such an incredible vibe. I was right in front of the mics so it felt like a really imme rsive moment of pure nostalgic joy! Rob Green had already given me goosebumps (not just because it was cold in there! haha) with his performance of Cry Me A River earlier that night, and I was brought to tears by Nina singing her song Time. The talent that the Hustle show cases year after year just blows my mind. Tommy Farmyard There are too many standout moments from over the years – the list is hugggeeeee, and I don’t remember 90% of it. Natalie Duncan with a string quartet in 2015, wow. Duct tapin g four way adaptors down Carlton Street to power food vendo rs in the pouring rain whilst borrowing the electricity from a bar that short circuited shortly after, never happened… PeteBox collabing with Mr Switch, dirty. Jah Digga playing with a full band, EPIC. Sheku Kann eh-Mason and Nina Smith jamming backstage in 2017, more than speci al. The UFO Orchestra in St Mary’s Church in 2025 was an absolute beauty and something we’d been trying to do for years. When 400 peop le started singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody, in that beautiful space … wow, goosebumps. LJ Doohan Bloomin’ eck, my memories merge into one. Years, people and places I can't seperate. Musically, Adam Pickering and Hamish closing one year – I'm pretty sure in Broadway – was wild. Table dancing, cackling, big cheesy grin vibes. The showing of House of Life last year made my heart soar with all the shiny goodness and etern ally the B E A UUUUUTIFUL carnage of the 8am hustle set up with our stellar volunteers. Every year is golden but asking for me to remember specifics is a bonkers request. Sorry guys! Danny Donnelly Around 2023, I remember the UFO Orchestra rehearsing at Pitcher & Piano, private rehearsals with some of Notti ngham’s best soul singers, and Liam Bailey rehearsing with a Notts-mad e band – one of my favourite artists since I was a kid. On festiv al day there were orchestras, secret hip-hop sets from icons who could n’t be named, BassLayerz skanking out to soundsystems, then house and techno at GOAT with queer DJ line-ups. I danced my socks off to DJ Trium before finishing with Liam, surrounded by Notts community singing every word, with my friend Jay joining him as a last-minute surprise. Ash Dilks The Creative Quarter had promised there ’d be power at Lace Market Square for the wristband exchange and card payments. There wasn’t. Thankfully, the guys at the Pelican Club came to the rescue. They were away on holiday, so before leaving they’d gaffe r-taped an extension lead to the inside of their letterbox, mean ing the entire operation was now basically dependent on a two-inch strip of tape. My first job of the festival was reaching through the letterbox to grab it, knowing that if I knocked it loose and dropped the lead inside, we were done for. A slightly sketchy start. Alfie Eyden Ten years in and it's mostly a blur... In 2018, we had a huge Spiegeltent on Old Market Square, watching Hackney Colliery Band get the whole place jumping, then march everyone out the doors and straight into the Hustle parade was something special. In 2024 we filled every square inch of Pitcher & Piano – I was perched up in the rafters with a camera crew listening to the UFO Orchestra and watching Alfie Sharp sing from the spiral staircase. And one very wet 2019: soaked to the skin, trying to cram hundreds of balloons into a tiny garag e off Broad Street that was not going to fit.

Laurie Illingworth . It’s all Nine years of hustling makes it tough to pinpoint a singular memory table uncoun an to leads duties media a beautiful blur. On-the-day social live with number of artists I experienced, but there are a few sets that will in 2025, Church Mary’s St in ra Orchest UFO the me forever. Eyre Llew with ADream with Jalle the same year ripping 31K a new one, Cappo and JayaHad ay stage Rob Rosa’s string quartet in 2024, Liam Bailey headlining the Broadw and Joel in 2023 with an acoustic guitar swinging around his head, LYVIA in 2022, Baker collaborating for the Sofar Sounds stage at Oscar and Rosie’s first my playing and 2019 in Sunflower Thieves in a packed out Jamcafe more. Hustle set at Wired Cafe back in 2017. Here’s to many, many, many Rastarella event as a 2009: my first ever Cultural Vibrations line up (and also my first function promoter) was held at Cape Bar (now Faradays) upstairs in their dedicated a had origin black of music and global year first room. It was the ador for stage at HH. My headliner was Jamaican dub-poet and ambass be in the Rastafarian Livity at the time, Yasus Afari, who happened to and he him to link direct a get to d the country for a short tour. I manage . As my first rammed totally and night c fantasti a was It . perform to agreed the ever event as a promoter it’s a stand out memory because it changed trajectory of my life career wise. One love. Siân Caulfield My Gosh I'm taking it back to Hockley Hustle 2009, in the days when Oh had an records, Royal Gala and 25 Past the Skank were on the scene. We’d before weeks of couple a Road ld Mansfie on Gosh My Oh at up HH warm Bantum with records playing in the early autumn sunshine and Simeon police nity commu the time Every . t-shirts printed of run wicked a doing One KRS dropped Squigz ing, happen was what officers popped over to see year Sound Of Da Police. The festival was getting such a buzz year after the and I distinctly remember 25 Past the Skank and Royal Gala bringing floor! Before house down in Dogma. It was a very sweaty and raucous dance in the I stopped volunteering at the festival in 2015, we'd started to bring ances. It's family friendly events and have more focus on the street perform amazing to see how the festival has developed and thrived. Bridie Squires shop Sue One year we had our Poetry is Dead Good stage in the charity a silly Ryder, so our host Stephen Thomas invited everyone to pick out massive with stage the to droves their in came Poets in. outfit to perform sliced right straw hats, furry jackets and leg warmers. Any earnest verse was of a trip to through, to be honest. Then, a couple of years ago, it was a bit . With me Antenna at Quartet String recite my poetry alongside the Rob Rosa ed music by compos freshly with and sort, the of g anythin done never having day I have no Rob and Dave Fry, we had a half-hour rehearsal and still to this idea how we pulled it off. ts: But when I think of Hustle, I mainly get these flashes of tiny momen curb the on sitting rain; the in Street Broad on disco silent skanking in the riding with my mate Sheb drinking tinnies watching the chaos; Tommy through the crowd on his bike grinning from ear to ear. Kristi Genovese ome when Hosting a sixty piece orchestra (The UFO Orchestra) at Metron ble… and the venue had only been open for a couple of weeks was memora booked I've , LeftLion for festival the about written I've brave! Over the years been a host bands at venues, I've programmed lineups at Metronome, and the space. venue for the last few years seeing all different promoters use my And it's always been my favourite event in Nottingham. As a punter time, same the at on going always is much how just about are es memori Broad watching a band in Lee Rosy's (RIP), while people are dancing on Gunships, 94 watch to venues tiny into ng crammi disco, silent a to Street ine in watching bands at the Music Exchange, DJs playing on the mezzan years. There Broadway… And watching so many great Notts bands over the le achievement are too many to mention. Reaching twenty years is an incredib and the team should be proud of what they have given to Nottingham.

Will Jeffery I think I’ve played eve ry Hockley Hustle sin ce its birth, so as you imagine there’s a lot can of blurred memories. The UFO Orchestra in Mary’s with Eyre Llew St last year was awesome . Playing with 94 Gunsh at Faradays a few yea rs back and packing the ips place out was pretty special. Mostly it’s the bumping into people and catching up with friends that you haven ’t seen for a while. It’s great for the kids too that I have family in tow , now . Lots of great memo ries for them at the Young Hustlers. Parisa East Of all the gorgeous Hu stles, 2024 stands ou t. HH funded our Leg Exhibition at FGP, wh acy ere alongside progra mming two floors of we hosted sixteen yea music, rs of Acoustickle memo ries. Photo, video, artefacts, artists and DJs all day in between performing myself at Broadway Cinema and Ruby Tuesdays in Pelica n Club… Thank you for providing such specia l opportunities! Nina Smith My first time perform ing for Hockley Hustle was back in 2009, so hard to pinpoint just it’s one single memory aft er all these years. But me, some of my most for special memories hav e been performing wit UFO Orchestra, partic h the ularly when playing suc h an important song mine, Time, which, wit of hout fail, makes me cry every single time. Ha the opportunity to sha ving re your own music wit h so many other incred musicians on one sta ible ge, in a completely sile nt roo always treasure. The m, is something I’ll community aspect and cause of HH is what ma this festival special. Pe kes ople sharing musician s, sharing instruments running to another ven , ue with a drum kit or piano... there’s nothing like it! And finally I’d have to say that my fav else ourite Hockley Hustle all time will always be act of Royal Gala. Rob.Green My favourite memory is playing Broadway in 2016 (I think?!), just aft I’d released my secon er d EP. I remember the room being crammed people, right out into with the foyer. There were families, kids pushed to the front, and peop right le of all ages singing and having a laugh. When finished, everyone spi we lled out onto the street , where Charity Shop was playing an absolu Sue tely killer DJ set, and we all danced togeth got our faces painted. er and That memory sums up Hockley Hustle for me : brilliant music, unexpected spaces and a whole city on a vibe together. It’s everything I love abo ut live music in one fes tival – it gets better and better every year! Ben Welch Ooftie. Sooooooo ma ny. Petebox vs Mr Sw itch battle at Bodega 2018. Liam Bailey wit in h the wonderful UFO (70 piece) Orchestra Nottingham Contemp at the orary in 2017. The Str eet Ents from through the years, from Can Sam out ba parades to Sax Off’s, the beautiful G.O.A ch to Dhol Drummers to oir. Many a sweaty aft ers at Suede. Ella Knigh after party in 2024. Jay t’s aHadADream at Broadw ay in 2024. The Invisib Orchestra madness ove le r the years. Yazmin Lac ey DJing off Broadway Mezz 2023. Rainy sile nt discos a-plenty. Jay Sandhu There are so many! If not doing comedy and a rap show in a court National Justice Museu at the m. Then definitely las t year at our stage wh Windowkid and Bru-C en casually rocked up to 2Two’s set and shelled The best bit was that it! everyone was so in the moment – mostly, ph stayed in pockets… it ones went off!

leftlion.co.uk 15

interview: Jared Wilson photo: Harvey Tomlinson

Sneinton Market’s Neon Raptor turned ten years old this year. To celebrate they’re also opening another bar just over the road from their current taproom and brewery on Gedling Street. We caught up with Directors and Co-owners Josh Mellor and Tom Ainsley to reflect on the last decade and the changes they’ve seen both in Notts and in the beer industry over that time… Tell us about the early days. How did Neon Raptor begin? Tom: Neon Raptor was originally set up a decade ago by two Scottish guys, Gavin and Adam who both worked at Rolls Royce in Derby. Gavin left around 2016 before it got off the ground, which was when we both got involved. Then Adam left the business in 2020. What jobs did you both do before this? Josh: We were both postmen in Derby and we used to take the same route to work. But we really got to know each other in pubs. Tom: I’d been in various forms of hospitality all my working life and moved around a fair bit. Then I did eight years of postal work, and it was eight years too long. Luckily Josh was also there and we formed a getaway plan. Tell us about opening up the taproom and brewery in Sneinton in 2018? Josh: Tom and I were running a bar in Derby called Suds and Soda. When we saw the space was available we wanted it. We were both physically involved in building the site from the ground up. Tom: We used the experience from opening our own bar to do something similar, but it was way more complicated. None of us had any money so we had to be very creative. Luckily Ikea were selling functional chairs for £4 so our customers had somewhere to sit when we opened. Sneinton Market has since become a destination for food and drink. How have you seen the area change? Josh: When we arrived the site still had lots of empty units and was just finding its feet. Now the market has so many incredible food makers, from coffee, chocolate to baked goods and street food. Tom: Some places are so established now, I forget they weren’t always here. We’ve had such a fluctuation of neighbours over the years, some sadly missed, many gratefully added. Neon Raptor has a strong visual identity. Where did that come from and how do you maintain it? Tom: We have a creative artist called Heather Rudd, who has a broad range of skills and we give her a lot of freedom to do what she thinks is best. In a world of AI slop I think it’s important to work with an actual living artist. Josh: It’s always been important to us to focus on our visual identity. We know what Neon Raptor means within the company. We love nostalgia and we celebrate our geeky and nerdy side.

Give us some of your personal highlights from over the last decade. Is there a beer, collab, or moment you're proudest of? Tom: The recent Jester King collab was not only one of my favourite ever Neon beers, I also loved that we made it happen. Also, any time we’re asked back to a festival is great, as it means we did something right the first time. It’s always great going to Billie’s festival in Antwerp. Josh: Being invited to pour beer in Tokyo was pretty awesome. It then meant I was then invited to Miami the following year by someone I met there. Travelling around the world has been a huge perk.

If you’re trying to become some £1 billion valued company, then good luck to you. But if you work in beer because you love it and can make a living from it you’re winning.. What's changed most about the UK craft beer scene over the years; for better and worse? Tom: It’s gotten both bigger and smaller since we started. Breweries and venues have opened, closed, expanded, downsized and all the while had to adapt and adjust with different trends, changes of government, and loads of quite boring stuff. Josh: Beer duty is more complex than it’s ever been, which isn’t great. But I think the outlook is good if you go with the flow. If you’re trying to become some £1 billion valued company, then good luck to you. But if you work in beer because you love it and can make a living from it you’re winning. It’s taken three years to get the new bar on Gedling Street open. Why so long? Tom: How long is this article? I think you might need a book to cover everything that’s happened! Josh: We were told after twelve months of planning our build that putting a brewery in the new site would be impossible because there’s a basement under the ground floor. This led to us changing our plans and with builder delays and red tape we’re finally getting ready to open. I honestly can’t wait.

Looking on Untappd it says you’ve got nearly 600 different beers on there. Does that sound right? Bleddy hell it’s a lot (more than one new beer every week for a decade)... Tom: That sounds way too high, though before we had settled on a core range we were maybe releasing eight new beers a month! I guess if you include all the collabs we’ve done both home and away then the numbers do start adding up! What’s your personal favourite Neon Raptor beer ever and why? Tom: It might be recency bias but Joyfulness, our low ABV Belgian style table beer collab with Jester King, really hit the brief and was a delight to drink during this ridiculously hot neverending summer! The cans look cool too! Josh: Only A Paper Moon. We made it for my mum’s sixtieth birthday and I just love witbiers! What beer would you never brew again and why? Tom: Doctor Galapagos; a mango milkshake IPA that we got so wrong. It was one of the last beers we packaged before lockdown. Everything about it was dreadful, from the artwork to the final product. Josh: There’s a few… a lot of the early beers were out of spec. ABVs that were much lower than we thought they were. Poor quality control and sketchy brewing techniques. What are your thoughts on the Nottingham beer scene? Tom: It’s easily one of the best in the country, both for quality and variety of the local breweries, and for the bars and pubs dotted all over the city and the outskirts. So many of the bars are walkable too. Josh: It's improving year by year. There was lots going on before we moved to Nottingham and I’d like to think over ten years we’ve made a positive contribution too. Where do you hope to be in another ten years? Josh: I want to take some time off! I want to make things easier for our team by making improvements and to work on some more fun projects. Tom: We want to be the house brewery in a dinosaur theme park on Mars. Honestly, so much has changed in the last decade it’s impossible to predict. Hopefully we’ll be with a beer and friends somewhere. Neon Raptor’s new bar at 7 Gedling Street will open to the public in late October. neonraptorbrewingco.com

interview: Jared Wilson images: Kid30

SMALL TALK

Kid30 (aka Small Kid) has been creating art in Notts for the best part of three decades, including the cover of our 200th issue. We had a chat with him about his history, his exhibitions, the Notts graffiti scene and why he’s been bulk-buying old condom machines… How did you first get into art and graffiti? I've been into art for as long as I can remember. However, my introduction to graffiti was riding the trains with my grandpa in London, that was the first time I ever saw any of it. Then I got into painting banners for raves. I grew up just outside Oxford, in the countryside and painted my first big wall at Oxford Brookes student union. It just said "TIME". We told them we'd done it before, when we hadn't. We used bits of card to get the straight lines because we didn’t have the skill then to do it with the cans.

What brought you to Nottingham? I was putting on parties at uni in Portsmouth with a friend called Adam who was one half of a duo called Transit Mafia. The other half, James Busby, had just moved to Nottingham and was setting up Detonate. I didn't have anywhere to live, so I came up here. I ended up doing about ten years of flyer design for Detonate, and it got me more flyer gigs for other nights like Drum&BassArena and Birmingham’s Progression Sessions. It was a good era; a time of early Mac design. I think I quit doing that after about 1000 flyers. How did designing flyers transcend into painting on walls? With Detonate we also put on a handful of gigs at Rescue Rooms with Coverage, which was the local spray paint shop run by Dilk who now runs Montana. We booked artists like Pitman and DJ Swamp and we painted a lot at the bigger Detonate events too. I started to make friends and become part of a crew. Tell us about your crew Oxygen Thieves. Who’s in it and what do they each bring? Oxygen Thieves is a graffiti crew headed by Mr Deamz, with Mobs, Kaption One, Dregs, me and a few others. I got asked to join around 2000, and Deamz was the one who really schooled me, along with an early artist called Creak. We were all quite different characters, but somehow we all gelled. Although we still do paint together we aren't really an active crew anymore. Deamz has moved away now and we all got older. But we do meet up and eat curries together. Tell us about the Nottingham street art scene. Did you ever think about moving somewhere with a bigger scene, like Bristol or London? Nottingham's scene goes in waves. It's had quieter moments, but it's currently really active. It's also got a genuinely rich history with people like Pulse (ILC), Pops, Dak and others who had real connections to early New York graffiti. I stayed here mainly because my friends were here, and I like an easy, quiet life. If I'd been more careerdriven I might have moved to Bristol when that scene was exploding, but there are loads of good artists and writers in this city. It’s probably more interesting here right now than it's been in a long time.

Before we get into the Nottingham work, tell us about some of what you've done further afield. There was a group show in Bristol last year called War and Peace, with loads of other artists including Banksy? Yes, I sent a piece over for that. It was a painting on slate of a cartoon bomb painting a peace sign, with its other hand's fingers crossed behind its back. You’ve also had art at Glastonbury festival several times. What was that? That was with Oxygen Thieves, through a company called Bassline Circus. We'd go down a week early and paint loads of things, including some stuff we probably shouldn't have. We built a couple of big 3D totempole installations that you'd walk through into the music tent. I remember in 2009 - the year when Michael Jackson died – we made it into the festival catalogue.

Let's talk about some of the big Nottingham pieces people will know of yours. There's the mural near Broad Street, which is the "small kid" logo mashed up with Dennis the Menace. Yes, I self-funded that one ahead of a big show; I wanted one mural that was entirely mine, with no compromise. We hired a cherry picker and I had some help from Kaption One. It was one of the first "mega murals" in Nottingham, before that became a common thing.

I wanted to see how far I could actually push my painting technically; whether I could make something like a pig's head look right, and to stop worrying about whether people actually liked it You also had access to a billboard on Huntingdon Street for several years. Yeah, we had a studio in that building – that's where Shrunken Heads, an illustration collective, came from. The manager, Brendan, couldn't get anyone to rent the billboards, so I offered him free promotion for his carpet company in exchange for painting on them. That grew from one billboard to two, then the whole thing. It was horrible to actually paint; so high up and the boards would wobble about, but we had loads of different artists through it. That whole stretch of road is skyscrapers and student flats now. Let's talk about your exhibitions. Relic (2025) was one of the best art shows I went to last year. What was the thinking behind it? It came from two places: my concerns about the future of AI, and being a dad, plus looking back at my own late teens and early twenties, which were full of pirate radio and rave culture. I included original audio and footage from a joke pirate station we ran as kids.

It's strange looking back now: when I started planning that three-year body of work, if you’d said "AI" to someone, they'd just think of Terminator. But by the time it opened, it was a conversation everybody was having. I wanted to see how far I could actually push my painting technically; whether I could make something like a pig's head look right, and to stop worrying about whether people actually liked it. Quite a lot of that work sold after and it helped me break even on the costs of the exhibition, but why anyone would want to display it in their home baffles me. I've got all the stuff that didn't sell hidden up in my loft. You invited some other artists to take part in that show too. Tell us about a few of them…

Roadman Rails built a dystopian model railway car-chase scene that you experienced by going into a tent in neartotal darkness with a kid in a balaclava sitting next to you. Mark Evans did a big metal sculpture and Boaster and Grimfinger both painted onto paintings that I gave them. The venue itself was a building that was still mid-renovation, so there were piles of sand and bricks, half-built toilets and someone's actual cement mixer left on set. I liked that. People couldn't tell what was staged. A year before there was also a taster of that in an earlier show, Mind Your Head (2024)? Yeah, that was in Bikes Love You on Haydn Road, which is my friend’s bike shop. It featured 100 silver clay heads, all made in the evenings when I was going through a rough patch. I wanted to test how people would respond to something genuinely weird. Everyone who came had to wear a hat, there was green lighting only and a smoke machine that stunk the place out. Some people queued for an hour and a half to get in. That response is what pushed me towards doing a bigger version. Going back further was Misspelt Youth (2019), a show of cartoon mash-ups that many people probably remember best. I did two shows around that. The first was a load of mash-ups painted in reverse on glass. The second was a retrospective of things I loved like Calvin and Hobbes, Tintin and Asterix mixed in with my logo. I was raised on that kind of imagery and my kid had just been born, so I was looking back at my own childhood, half-remembering and twisting it. I was riffing on popular culture and it was quick, enjoyable to paint, and gave me a structure. Obviously I've gone back to it to do the 200th cover of LeftLion. Always a pleasure to come back. I remember the first cover I was part of, which I think was issue three in 2005, working alongside a load of other artists. We’ve done a few more along the way since too. You've also recently been placing ‘art dispensers’ in pubs? Tell us about that. Yep. They’re Rotten Johnny's Art Dispensers. I met a bloke whose family has run condom vending machines in pubs for years, but with fewer people buying those now with

coins he had a few spare retro-looking machines going. I bought one off him, then about ten more since. If you see one and drop in three quid and you get a little box crammed with mini artwork – bits from illustrators like Quick Style and Shifter, craft kits, art pins and a LeftLion-themed one coming to mark issue 200. They sell out fast. You can find them in the Angel Microbrewery, Goose in Boots, Lost Property, Bunkers Hill, Montana, Bikes Love You and Robin Hood pub in Sherwood, plus some custom ones that turn up at art shows. What else do you have coming up? I’m running an event called Between The Lines on 10 October at Sneinton Avenues, a live illustration event with forty-plus artists, everyone drawing in black and white on a board. It's inspired by the old Secret Wars battles, more penand-paper illustration than spray paint, with open drawing walls for anyone to join in. I've also done a couple of street art tours on bikes through Zigzag Tours and ArtFest recently, focused on Nottingham graffiti culture. When might we see something on the scale of Relic again? In a couple of years, maybe. It goes in waves; I can't force it. Right now I'm just drawing, not painting, and I don't have the urge to set myself a brief like that. After Relic I told my wife, "That's it, you won't have to put up with this again." She wasn't convinced though and I guess never say never. Between The Lines, a free day of live art and illustration is at Sneinton Avenues on Saturday 10 October. smallkid.co.uk

The LeftLion X Rotten Johnny’s Art Dispenser will be at the Angel Microbrewery from early October. Place 3 x £1 coins into it to get one of only 75 limited edition art packages produced to celebrate our 200th issue.

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FORWARD THINKING interview: Sophie Gargett photo: Harvey Tomlinson

In May 2024, there was a fairly big change in the way that Nottinghamshire, and the East Midlands at large, were run. As part of the government’s ‘devolution’ agenda – giving more decision making power to local authorities – Labour's politician Claire Ward became the very first Mayor of the East Midlands. For this special 200th issue of LeftLion, we sat down for a chat with her… A lot of people in the East Midlands still don't really know what a regional mayor does, or that they have one. How do you explain your job to the average person? I would say that when we look at smaller areas, like council areas or smaller towns, we don't get the best of the investment, and we aren't able to shout as much for that area. But when we bring it all together into an area that makes sense, like the East Midlands, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, then we can plan things that bring more money in. Every day is different, so part of my job is to be an ambassador for the region, talking to government, and trying to secure new powers that we can bring locally – and that's quite a lot about the devolution agenda at the moment – so that we can make decisions closer to people, instead of government making decisions, whether that be on transport, or skills, for example. One of the areas that we've been arguing with the government – and I’m really pleased the new Prime Minister understands it because he was a mayor – is that when you're looking at skills for sixteen year olds, those pathways shouldn't be determined from Whitehall. They should be determined locally because mayors and their authorities have a better understanding of what the local labour market

is, what the transport systems are like, who the employers are, where the colleges are, what the travel routes are, and what the needs are. That's really important. And so, being a regional mayor allows you to represent your region, and make decisions based upon the communities that you know.

Visitor economy is really important to me. I've got an ambition to grow it by a billion pounds in the next ten years Just over two years in, how has the job matched (or not matched) what you expected when you ran for it? I think it's probably exceeded what I thought, because there's always more that can be done and suddenly you realise that to fix one thing you need to look at wider issues. I came into this because I felt frustrated that lots of younger people in this region were leaving. They didn't feel they had the right jobs in the region, they didn't feel that there were opportunities, I felt that as somebody who was, at that time, the Chair of a hospital trust in Nottinghamshire, we were seeing so many people arriving at our front door needing

healthcare, but actually, much of that was determined by other things going on in their lives that we didn't have control of – maybe whether they had a good house, what kind of environment they lived in, or whether they had jobs or skills and all of those determinants of good health, for which I didn't have any levers. We do have more levers doing this job. What's actually changed in that time on the ground for someone living in Nottingham or Derby that they'd notice? Well, for a start we are seeing lots of change around Broad Marsh. That sat like that for far too long, so I'm excited about the partnership that we've got with Homes England, and Nottingham City Council. People are already starting to see building of homes, for example, on Nottingham War Rooms in Beechdale. Those would not have happened if it wasn't for the Brownfield Housing Fund. We are allocating money to make those sites viable, not just in Nottingham but right across the region, which will bring us thousands of homes. As a result of being able to unlock Brownfield land, we're seeing investment into transport systems. For example, we're now promoting the Ride app in the city, both in Nottingham and Derby, and using that as the basis to think about how we want transport to work across the region. So,

we've got a pilot that we're working with the government on in the Hope Valley in Derbyshire, which is about rural transport. That is a demonstrator called ‘Mini Switzerland’, because in Switzerland, they have a very carefully timed timetable of trains and buses so that they interact properly with each other – as you get off one, there's one waiting to take you onwards. Young people in the city, just in August, will have seen a real benefit as the Government introduced a summer of free travel for five to fifteen year olds, but I topped that up in the region because I wanted sixteen to eighteen year olds to have it. I really feel that age group have a very tough time, and it's costly to get around. You're at that stage when you've just finished GCSEs, you want a bit of freedom and you may not have a lot of money. There’s also the UK Youth Guarantee – we've got a high proportion in this region of NEET young people – not employment, education or training, so we're providing programs working with Nottingham College, which means that some of those young people are being brought back closer to the workplace, that help them to get that confidence to get those skills that mean, they can go volunteer, and that's another pathway into work or into training or apprenticeships. Who or what shaped your politics before you first stood for office? Was there a specific moment growing up that pushed you towards it? For me, what shaped a lot of my politics was coming from a family where my dad and subsequently, my mum, was involved in local politics in the Labour Party as local councillors. It was the time of the miner’s strike, and having lived in pit villages we were really keen to support miners' families. So that was a real eye-opener for me about how political decisions get made, and how things that impact local communities and families. I was involved in the Labour Party from a young age and involved in the National Executive Committee as the youth representative. I also think being an MP during that time of a Labour government, from 1997 onwards was exciting. We brought in the minimum wage, we invested into schools, we had Sure Start, waiting lists for hospitals and operations came down. It was a fantastic time to be able to see that delivery. I think since 2008, the financial crash really changed so much for the majority of people - not for everybody in this country. We went through austerity from 2010 under the Conservatives, and we've seen so many cuts to our public services in that time. Now a Labour government has come in and we’re trying to deal with a more dangerous, difficult world, with a high cost of living, but also institutions and public services that have been under-invested in for so long. We have a desire to do politics differently and that's why I'm so excited about the devolution agenda. We are too centralised and this rewiring of our country is an absolute necessity. In July, Andy Burnham became the first of the new regional Mayors to become Prime Minister. What’s your relationship with him like? And do you see this as an opportunity for regional Mayors to work more closely with the central government? I've known Andy for a very long time, I knew him before he became an MP. He became an MP four years after me. Obviously we were in the same government and I was his whip at one point. I even played football with him. I think the role that he undertook in Manchester shows that devolution works - that when you put a place first, when you connect all of the decisions you make around that place, you can make a big difference. He's certainly done that in Manchester, and I think he's bringing that experience, plus his experience of having been in government in the past. I think sometimes people forget that he was a member of the cabinet as Secretary of State, so he knows how government works, he knows the levers that need to be pulled and the things that don't work in government. What I'm getting that sense of, certainly in the last two months, is that he listens to people, and he is responding

to people's need for hope. It's really difficult to get on in life if you constantly feel that the skies are grey and there isn't enough money at the end of the week, but if you feel that there's a bit of blue sky ahead, and somebody is showing you things that they're doing to make that difference, I think that lifts the country. You moved to Nottinghamshire fifteen years ago and raised your family there – what's your local life like? Favourite local spot, regular haunt, guilty pleasure? We actually live in north Nottinghamshire, so for some time I didn't really come as much into Nottingham because it felt like such a distance for me, but I think it's a great place to live. I live quite close to Clumber Park, which I think is the most popular National Trust place in the country. I like to go sailing at Danehill Lake. I'm a frequent shopper around Retford, which is probably my nearest market town, or Newark sometimes, and I’ve started going for brunch in Edwinstowe. The thing I miss about living in Watford or London, is what you have here in Nottingham – there's the diversity of food, drink, and entertainment on your doorstep, so I'm an hour away from that.

We have a desire to do politics differently and that's why I'm so excited about the devolution agenda. We are too centralised and this rewiring of our country is an absolute necessity You've talked about the region historically missing out on funding because there was no single voice pitching for it. Can you point to one concrete thing – a project, a building, a bus route - that exists now because of that collective pitch? So with transport, the Ride app, that we’re adopting now for the region and we'll invest into that to expand it and make it work much wider outside of the cities. But if we didn't have the East Midlands Mayor and the combined authority that goes with it, we wouldn't have the two billion transport settlement that we've got, that will allow us over the next few years to invest into our transport infrastructure, to our bus network. So we're already buying new buses for Nottingham City Transport – that's a huge part of what will help us with transport, but it will also help with our emissions, having electric buses.

But this should just be the start – we want more companies to think about locating there, more retail businesses moving in there, and we want the city to be a vibrant place that people enjoy. They can come and enjoy the nightlife, they feel they can shop, and they've got a choice of places to go and eat. The cultural scene of the city is something I think we need to enhance as well, and we really need to promote that. What are your thoughts on promoting tourism in the region? Visitor economy is really important to me. I've got an ambition to grow it by a billion pounds in the next ten years. That means I want more people coming and spending their money and staying. We know that the planning application for the expansion of the City Ground is imminent and I'm really supportive about that. My team is working closely with the local councils on that because we see that expansion as the catalyst for change around the rest of that Trent ‘Sports District’ as we're calling it. Very few areas have top flight sports all within walking distance – whether it be the two football clubs, the cricket, the Panthers, the tennis, the Watersports Centre. We really ought to promote it more and it needs to be connected as a destination for people who come and spend their money here. We’ve brought Visit Nottinghamshire and Visit Derbyshire together under an umbrella called Visit East Midlands and next month we're launching a Visit East Midlands strategy. We need to think about what some of those [tourism] products are, particularly around Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest and the caves. That's a challenge – we don't promote enough of the gems that we've got in this region. Things like Warhammer, as well – people travel hundreds and hundreds of miles to come to Warhammer World, so it's such a huge asset. And then linking it up with the Peak District. It's gorgeous and an hour at the most – to Americans and Australians that's down the road. How involved are you in the Local Government Reform project ? Now the new boundaries are settled (in Notts at least) what do you see as the biggest challenges for the next few years? And what do you see as the opportunities this will bring in future? I've never been involved in the details of where those boundaries are. I do think it's right that we should have local government reorganisation, because our city does need to expand. But also because with two layers of councils out in the counties, it's not the best use of resources. It's confusing for people as to, for example, which council does what, who looks after the bins and recycling, who deals with highways.

So I think, when you bring it together, there's more money coming into the East Midlands, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, than there would be otherwise, and it means that we can co-ordinate and have a bigger strategy about how we use that to grow the economy. Because that's ultimately my job – how do I grow the local economy and do that isn't just about those businesses, it's about people. It's about the skills that they need, the infrastructure, the transport they need, and a great environment to live in.

So I think making that more streamlined would be better value for people. Fewer politicians in the process. We've got a pause at the moment because of legal advice to the government, so they're going to be reviewing the options that have been chosen in this region and then we'll see what happens. But a huge amount of effort has been put in and I do think in principle we need to get on with local government reorganisation. I will work with whatever that option is, because my job is to do something slightly different and work with the people who get elected in those councils.

Broad Marsh in Nottingham appears to finally be moving after years of false starts - what does success actually look like there, and what happens if it stalls again?

You can find out more about the Mayor of the East Midlands and the combined county authority at eastmidlands-cca.gov.uk

So we've outlined what we want to see in partnership with Homes England, and with the City Council, which is retail, community space, and homes. And as a result of all of those things, we will improve that public area, provide jobs and lift the city. I think it will be the gateway that the city needs as you come out of the train station. It's taken too long before but we've made those decisions, the investment has been agreed, we've already got the NHS Urgent Treatment Centre, which will be opened first, and that's really exciting.

Pedal to the Metal

What could Nottingham look like if people, not cars, came first? This is a question posed by cycling groups throughout the city, including Critical Mass, Pedals and Ridewise, who demonstrate that cycling isn’t just a healthy, green and economical way to get about, but activism on wheels. Speaking to riders, campaigners and charity workers along the way, Finnuala Brett uncovers a city-wide movement bigger than any single ride.

words: Finnuala Brett illustration: Rachel Rourke

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On the last Friday of August, cyclists of all ages, backgrounds and abilities appear from the corners of Nottingham for a mass ride. I’ve joined for the first time, and in the aftermath of a latesummer deluge I’m unsure if many people will want to brave the rain. But soon a congregation of bicycles has assembled, new and old introductions are made, and the tinkling of bicycle bells fills the clearing air as we set off. A hint of sun comes out, and as Sam, one of the ride’s unofficial leaders, arrives with an enormous speaker wedged onto the back of his bike, it already feels like a party. Unlike Dom Whiting’s recent Drum & Bass on the Bike ride, Critical Mass Nottingham is something that happens every month – the local iteration of a global grassroots movement promoting cycling. Dating back to 1992 in San Francisco, the movement has spread to 300-odd cities around the world. David Lally, who’s been involved since 2014, tells me that Critical Mass Nottingham has been going strong since the late 90s, echoing a local cycling legacy built by Raleigh and the now-elapsed Great Notts Bike Ride. He explains how the ride works, and what it stands for. Cyclists ride together in a group large enough to claim a space on the roads for themselves, and to be seen by other road users as a rightful part of ‘traffic’. Evolving from frustration with dangerous conditions on city roads, the point is to experience, and demonstrate, what cities designed for people, not cars, could feel like. In the majority of cities in the UK, cyclists navigate infrastructure designed primarily for motor vehicles, not active travel. PeopleForBikes, who score cities for quality of biking, finds most UK cities to lag far behind European leaders like France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, despite ambitious visions for cycling and walking laid out by the Department of Transport. Only a minority of people use bikes as regular transport, with as little as 14% of UK residents cycling once a week, the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust found in their 2025 report. In Nottingham, the building of cycle lanes including the 2016 Castle Boulevard ‘cycle superhighway’ have been part of an effort to contribute towards a greener, more active city. Nottingham-based organisations including Pedals, Ridewise, as well as Bikeworks, Women in Tandem and more, put in extraordinary legwork to get change happening. Hugh McClintock, former Chair of Pedals for thirty years, tells me why infrastructure is at the focus of the Pedal’s campaigning work. “People’s resistance to taking up cycling comes from worrying about safety on the roads,” he says. “We campaign for cycle routes that make up a coherent network, not just bits and pieces.” Better cycle parking provisions, lower speed limits, and increased awareness of the impact on cyclists of transport policy are some of Pedals’ other aims. Progress is often painstakingly slow. The recently opened Waterside Bridge is the result of twelve years of campaigning, Hugh tells me, but the Council have already found roughly 500 cyclists using it per day, over the first six weeks. There’s still a big task ahead to better connect it to wider cycling and walking routes, but it’s clear that there is a felt demand for dedicated active travel infrastructure. As a cycle commuter myself, I know how infrastructure can make a big difference. With Critical Mass, the sensation of riding through city-centre roads empty of motor traffic is

exhilaratingly novel: for once, safety isn’t a primary concern. I have a glimpse of what the city could feel like, if people – walking, wheeling, cycling – were the priority. The hope is that the benefit of this is understood by the public, too. “As more people choose to walk, wheel and cycle, there is often greater demand for safer infrastructure and better-connected routes,” Helen Berry from Ridewise, a Nottingham-based charity dedicated to cycling education, tells me. It’s a relationship that works both ways. To encourage more people to choose active travel, Ridewise provides training to develop cycling skills and confidence. “We aim to make cycling something that feels achievable and accessible for everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances,” Helen emphasises, recognising that access to active travel opportunities are not distributed equally. “Learning to cycle safely and confidently can be genuinely life-changing… cycling can offer an affordable, accessible and sustainable way to travel, as well as opportunities to improve health and social connection.” Kidical Mass, the family-friendly branch-off of Critical Mass, was organised in Nottingham for the first time in 2023, and David is enthusiastic about its potential. “The Kidical Mass concept is fundamental, it emphasises what it’s all about: giving people, and especially kids, independence.” It’s also perhaps the most impactful element of the wider Critical Mass demonstration, summing up the questions the movement poses about how we want our city to be experienced, if this includes future generations, and what benefit this can have for the community as a whole.

I have a glimpse of what the city could feel like, if people – walking, wheeling, cycling – were the priority As an undeniably positive demonstration, Kidical Mass is hard not to like. Critical Mass, David admits, is a little more provocative, but only because it’s so normal that cars are the priority. “The important thing about Critical Mass is to make it a definite presence, which makes a point,” David explains. “It’s temporary, but very visible.” It’s important to cycle as a single group, effectively making one ‘body’ of traffic. Lanes at junctions are ‘corked’ by members – organised amongst themselves – to allow the length of the group to safely ride through major roads in town. Though David emphasises that this is only temporarily disruptive, rather than permanently obstructive, it doesn’t always go down well with other road users. Just like the Mass, part of the problem with campaigning for better cycle infrastructure is that it is often seen as an inconvenience to drivers – particularly if it requires sacrificing road space. Low transport zones have been crucial to promoting cycling in cities like London, but can produce opposition. Cycling provisions can also come into conflict with bus lanes, which has been one of the problems with an ongoing project to establish a North-South Active Travelway connecting Sherwood and West Bridgford through the city centre.

But better infrastructure isn’t something that only benefits existing cyclists. It also contributes to a healthier public environment, less dominated by traffic and noise and air pollution. “Cycling can support local economies, improve social inclusion and help create places that are safer and more pleasant for everyone,” Helen elaborates. “Active travel is part of a balanced transport system that benefits an entire city, including people who never cycle.” Patrick Hort, who runs the Mammoth Climate Action Cinema, tells me about a poll board put out during this summer’s Green Hustle and Sneinton Festival: ‘Should we have a car-free day in Notts?’. As hundreds of sticker-votes show, the answer was an overwhelming ‘yes’. Critical Mass is not content to wait for policy change to make this happen. Instead – and where it is most effective – it enacts the future it envisions, demonstrating what this could look like, and offering participants a brief and tantalising experience of it. It’s a great example of ‘prefigurative politics’: gaining recognition amongst researchers and practitioners as an effective imagining and acting-out of the societal changes that participants want to see. Where we desire safe and child-friendly cities, for example, Kidical Mass puts this into action in the form of hundreds of children blocking off the most central and visible roads in the city centre. It’s clear that many of Nottingham’s cycling advocacy organisations have overlapping goals, strategies, and sometimes even personnel. As I meet cyclists at the Critical Mass ride, I soon realise many of them are involved in other cycling campaigns and groups. Patrick tells me about his work-in-progress integrating the disparate groups via a central platform, Cycle Notts (cyclenotts.uk). Stemming from an initial meeting of council and organisation representatives in May 2025, the goal is to provide opportunities for better dialogue between cycling organisations, a centralised calendar promoting cycling events like Critical Mass, and a general synthesising of the efforts towards transforming Nottingham into a city of cyclists, for cyclists. Critical Mass is just one sign of the enduring call for cycling to be taken more seriously if Nottingham is to reach its Carbon Neutral targets. It poses the question, visibly, of what we want our cities to look like and be experienced as, and offers active travel as a particularly salient way to imagine alternatives to the fuel economy, and cities better equipped for climate change. But it’s also an empowering celebration of bikes, and welcoming everyone. As David tells me, it’s this that has kept him coming for twelve years. “It’s such a diverse group. The only thing that brings us all together is the love and promotion of cycling, the belief that cycling is a great way to get about. It’s just getting out there and doing it, showing that it can be done.” This is a case of activism at its best; part of a global movement, taken up by a diverse set of local people who care about making the city a safer, more accessible, and simply nicer place to be. Critical Mass leads by example, and its optimism is contagious.

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practical focused. I like to make things accessible. It's just how my mind works, because if it's not simple, I won't remember it. So, activity is important because you only learn by doing, and you're only going to discover what your fingerprint is by trying out these things and keeping what suits and discarding what doesn't. It’s about adapting it to your own life; everybody’s psychic adventure should be totally unique and come from themselves – how they perceive the world and interact with it. There’s a really nice element of mindfulness and noticing in the exercises, what benefits do you find in connecting with the senses in this way? Connecting the senses slows you down and makes you take in your environment. It can make the most mundane of activities, such as going shopping, interesting. If you add a psychic adventure element to it - ‘I'm going shopping, but send me a sign. What do I need to know? What have I missed?’ If you prime your radar to notice something, it will spark. Humans are pattern creators, and the patterns create stories and meaning. Meaning creates comfort and assurance - this is right or this is how I'm thinking about my life and my world and my day. Just paying attention, pausing, and giving yourself permission to join the dots between random things that you've seen, and believe that they mean something to you on this day, in this moment. And it is fun to see the world as a more playful, interesting realm, with hidden layers. It is just a bit more whimsical. Since the Industrial Revolution we have lost connection with natural light, sound and the rhythms of nature, and it’s getting worse. They just want us all in boxes; go to work, pay the bills, come home, hook into Netflix or whatever. We’re more like battery hens - we're not free range anymore. So I guess it's a bit of a rebellion against modern urban life.

Connecting the senses slows you down and makes you take in your environment. It can make the most mundane of activities, such as going shopping, interesting The book encourages readers to understand and trust their intuition. Where is the line for you as to what is a psychic signal and what is coincidence? When I was writing the book, I got in a right tiz with asking what is intuition, and what is a psychic experience? What's the difference? Are they the same? I think intuition is your inner voice – it's instinct, wisdom and it is often protective. Whereas psychic experiences, I think, are an external trigger. Something happens from the outside in that may awaken intuition and the two may then join and merge. I think, if you notice it, it's meant for you. But coincidences are sort of psychic experiences – maybe the purpose was to create a little chink. What I do recommend people do, and what I do now, is discard nothing and record everything. I take pictures and videos, and I write stuff down, because I don’t think psychic experiences come to you complete or all in one moment. They can go on for weeks and months and decades and there can be long periods of time where it's dormant and nothing's happening. And then something will happen again. If you've kept photos and notes, you can start to build these amazing psychic adventures. It's like a never-ending thing. Just as your personality changes, as you get older, I think my psychic

fingerprint will as well and the way that I create psychic adventures for myself and what I make of them, what I interpret from them. There’s a mention of Wollaton Hall in the book. Can you talk about your connection to the hall? Well, I'm a bit obsessed with the hall. My mum's house overlooks the park, so I grew up there. My sister once saw a monk at the bottom of the garden – and of course, Lenton Priory was on the other side of the park, where the monks all got hung, drawn and quartered by Henry VIII. The stones from the Priory were purportedly used in the foundations of Wollaton Hall. And we had the Wollaton Gnomes, which was just near the bottom of my garden. I did my work experience at Wollaton Hall, and I volunteered at the Industrial Museum for about seven years, and I’ve just finished a six-year voluntary thing helping restore the taxidermy So I go there about twice a week and have my psychic adventures walking around the park, taking pictures, filming and just breathing. There are parts of it that feel like a time slip. I’ll be putting on a psychic workshop there in November; it’s something I have put together for the Waterstones’ Women in Horror weekend in October. I thought if I've learnt the damn thing, I may as well do it again, so what better location. Kerry Ward’s psychic workshops run at Waterstones Nottingham on Friday 30 October and at Wollaton Hall on Sunday 15 November. Her book This Book Will Make You Psychic is available to buy now.

@mytarotbella

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ater Nature & W Sapphire by Heather

Werewolves of Nottingham by Dani Bacon

A Drinking Hole by Heer Thacker

Ref lections of Mapperley by Nigel Addison

screen

IN THE CLUB words: Thomas Daniel Ince photos: Stuart James Davidson McIntyre at Photo Nottingham Limited

Club Jok is a Nottingham-based film curation team that is bringing cultures from around the world to the big screen through films both new and old. We speak to film enthusiast and Club Jok’s lead programmer Samuel Leary, to hear more… Club Jok is named after ‘jok ’, a traditional Thai dish of porridge-style rice. The film club’s name reflects the cultural values and diversity that the curation team wishes to promote with their screenings. With two very successful screenings having already taken place at Broadway Cinema, and a third underway for later this year (2026, stay tuned!), the Club Jok team is planning to put on events biannually, so keep an eye out on their socials for more events. The decision of which independent films are chosen for Club Jok’s screenings stems from the Club Jok team’s passion for cultural and historical heritage as displayed in independent cinema. Prior to the screenings, Samuel and other Club Jok members meet to discuss the films they are planning to show and think about how to introduce them. The first screening was the Thai independent film How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, which took place in July 2025 and was well received. Extra touches were included, such as providing tissues to the audience members beforehand, as the team knew viewers would be taken on an emotional journey throughout the film. This film was selected as the collective’s first screening due to its significance to Elevate’s founder, Naphat Boonyaprapa, being of Thai heritage. Boonyaprapa, who is a writer, director and producer based in Nottingham, previously had his film Lazar (for which he served in a producing role) shown at last year’s Beeston Film Festival.

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cinema, comes across clearly when discussing Club Jok’s events. As well as challenging audiences and teaching them about new cultures through the films themselves, Club Jok screenings aim to demonstrate a variety of film styles and genres, connected by the universal language of storytelling. Beyond his role in Club Jok, Samuel aspires to be a film critic. “Like many of the arts, films speak to me as a deeply subjective and personal medium,” he tells me, explaining how he particularly liked Take Out’s exploration of both current and historical social issues.

Extra touches were included, such as providing tissues to the audience members beforehand, as the team knew viewers would be taken on an emotional journey throughout the film

Club Jok’s second screening of the film Take Out, which took place in March this year, was preceded by an exclusive video introduction by one of the codirectors of the film, Sean Baker, director of Anora.

One of Samuel’s film heroes was and still is David Lynch, whose filmmaking and philosophy inspire him to this day. “Films are as much the audience’s as the filmmakers,” Samuel says, going on to discuss how once a film has been released to the public, it is out of the filmmaker’s hands. At that point the film morphs itself to the experience of the individual viewer, something that Lynch consistently embraced in his work.

“It is personally gratifying to stand up and talk before the screenings,” Samuel says. His passion and enthusiasm for film, especially independent

I ask Samuel for his favourite work by David Lynch. For him it’s Twin Peaks: The Return, an eighteenhour epic split into TV episodes, set 25 years after

Twin Peaks Season 2’s cliffhanger ending, and bookending a story that’s a police procedural drama, soap opera, horror, and surrealist fairy tale all at once. For Samuel The Return is both terrifying and life-affirming in its existentialism. He feels that David Lynch didn’t want the entire audience to come to the same conclusion, instead preferring that each person bring their own life experience to his work. There are rarely clear-cut answers to big existential questions, and Lynch wished for his art to reflect this unknowable aspect of existence. These ideas also connect with what Club Jok hopes to achieve through its screenings, expanding audiences’ understanding of what cinema can offer and opening their eyes to the art form as a subjective medium, where both the concrete and the abstract can co-exist. I ask Samuel for a David Lynch quote to live by. “Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole,” he says, which he interprets to mean that the absence of a thing is not always cause for despair, but to find beauty in what is there. Samuel also recommended that I may enjoy some of David Lynch’s short films, which he describes as avant-garde. His back catalogue of shorts fluidly covers all bases, from the more ‘conventional’ but surrealist works that maintain some semblance of a narrative, to the truly stripped back, intensely experimental works, sometimes showcasing a singular action or object in under a minute. Samuel then finishes our interview by saying people should “support local cinema and buy physical media.” I couldn’t agree more. Follow Club Jok on Instagram to keep up with the latest news and check out their next screening 1985 Japanese film, Tampopo, taking place on Tuesday 24 November. @clubjokuk

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art

Dabbling in Dark Arts

artworks

words: Natalie Coe photos: Benjamin Kay

words: Maisie Burgess photo: Sarah of Curio Creative Studio

For this month’s Art Works, Natalie Coe (aka Talia) tells us about her new public mural which features as part of the Broad Marsh redevelopment, in collaboration with Art Fest…

It’s officially the spooky season, but for Fiona Holmes and Elyssa Fleming, the eldritch, strange and eerie is more than just an aesthetic that ends with Halloween. They talk to LeftLion about how they created The Dark Arts Market, a place where all ‘alt’ artists and creatives, at all stages of their creative career, can feel seen and supported. The Dark Arts Market opened its doors for the first time in 2021. Elyssa and Fiona had been drifting between every local craft market, the “normie markets, the pretty markets”, and repeatedly finding themselves next to each other, wondering where all the people (and art) like them had gone. In their words, they “were just the little weirdos in the corner”. What the Dark Arts Market has transformed into now, however, is something which has brought together an incredibly strong, incredibly supportive community of people who exist in a self-identifying “alt” world.

Whilst the art and artists they work with are the biggest cogs in their gothic machine, it is this extremely nurturing environment they have created which has made it such a continually well-loved and successful market The very first Dark Arts Market was hosted over in the Long Eaton Art Rooms. There were twenty makers and, whilst the fear about whether or not it would be a success was high (“it was terrifying”, admits Fiona), the turnout was massive. The coming Samhain market this month will have 34 makers, whilst the iteration in Derby now hosts fifty. Soon, too, the market will be finding its way over to Lincoln - very exciting news for a space with such a fantastic gothic heritage. But Nottingham is where it all began; a city which has always been something of a safe space for people who want to fly a different flag.

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“Nottingham made me feel safe and helped me come out of my shell as an alt person,” says Fiona. With such a continually rich arts scene, and with so many people from different backgrounds living on top of one another, it can

be a beautiful place for alternative, grassroots initiatives to flourish.

This mural is about change. It’s bold, abstract, immersive and inspired by the feeling of change, hope for a greener future. The site which Broadmarsh is stood on is Narrow Marsh and it has always been a site in transition. Its history is defined by cycles: building, use, decline, renewal. That's what I wanted to reflect in the mural. This is not an illustration of Broadmarsh; it's a feeling of it.

The approaching Samhain market in October has an incredibly exciting lineup of makers on the way. Elyssa and Fiona’s enthusiasm as they look through the list is impossible to ignore. There’s the illustrator and graphic artist Vector That Fox, ceramicist Jillian Riley, corset maker White Phantom, silversmith Una the Wimper. The list goes on. It will be a market welcoming many new faces as well as plenty of old familiars. It’s always important for the pair to “leave a few spaces for people who have never done a market before.” As Elyssa points out, with NTU’s thriving art school on our doorstep, markets like these are some of the best places for new artists to find their feet and to find their people. Supporting their community in the most loving and accepting way possible has always been at the forefront of Elyssa and Fiona’s ethos with the market. Whilst the art and artists they work with are, of course, the biggest cogs in their very gothic machine, it is this extremely nurturing environment they have created which has made it such a continually well-loved and successful market. “We wanted to make sure people feel comfortable,” says Fiona. “We both have anxiety and a lot of creatives do.” Putting yourself out there, out of the safety of your studio or workspace, can be daunting, but as Fiona puts it, what is vital is “making people feel wanted and accepted at our markets. Whether they’re customers or they’re traders. Or dogs. And cats if we can get them.” This is a place to be amongst friends, celebrating talent and beautiful objects in the most supportive way possible. The Dark Arts Samhain market will run from the 24-25 October at the Old Cold Store at the Vat & Fiddle.

Q @the_dark_arts_market

waterway heritage of the Narrow Marsh area. These are animals of transition and change, which is precisely what Broadmarsh is undergoing. The intention is to create a multidimensional shifting scene that is visually compelling and enticing with textures, tones, energy and detail that add richness and intrigue. This piece is exceptionally large, and the building was still being renovated as I painted it, so it’s not your average ‘show up and paint’. It’s taken careful planning to design it to flow, once the base set is, we mark it out the key areas and from there build it into full colour. I have always enjoyed making artwork: my Grandma inspired me as a young kid. She encouraged me to be curious and was always into new things. As a teenager I can remember walking round near the docks in Bristol to go see a street art exhibition called Walls on Fire. I guess it all began from there. I studied Art Foundation at UWE then went onto do a photography degree. Whilst working in design for many years I was drawn back into the murals and illustration. So now I am somewhat of a multidisciplinary creative. My inspirations: French abstract artists, Nelio and Satone. Uk: Paris MMX, Will Gates (Roids) Will Barras, Duncan Jago, Petro.

I love it when I overhear passers-by enjoying the transformation of what was a bland dull wall into something with colour to brighten up the place My practice explores the intersection The mural operates on two visual registers. The abstract layer: colour gradients, shifting forms, tonal transitions and abstract blocks. These carry the emotional and temporal narrative of the site moving through past, present and future; always in a state of change. The sunrise backdrop underpins this; a shard of a shifting moment in time, dawn awakens, a fresh start, a new possibility. A hope for more greener spaces within the city and an expansion of the Green Heart, where nature is nurtured and allowed to thrive.

of humanity, nature, environment and technology. Drawing on graffiti handstyle and an abstract European visual language, I build compositions from tonal clashes and colour harmonies, a reminder of the connections between each, and to nurture that which deserves protection for the greater good of all.

Rooted in over fifteen years in the graffiti and street art scene, my aim has always been to elevate a space and to leave it a little brighter, lighter and welcoming. The landscape we live, work and move through shapes our mood Within it there are also elements of and outlook. I love it when I overhear change: the deer, and the dragonfly emerge from that abstraction as symbols passers-by enjoying the transformation of what was a bland wall into something of human presence, natural life and with colour. I paint to make spaces more transformation. Together they create a welcoming to all. multi-layered work. The deer connects to Nottingham's identity, Robin Hood, Natalie Coe’s mural is located at the top Sherwood, the city's heraldic history. of Middle Pavement, NG1 7DX. The dragonfly, with its lacewings, Q @tali_talia_ signals ecological renewal, the canal and

What's on THIS Month THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER

Lagosphoto: Stories Of Movement and Belonging  Lakeside Arts Free, 10am-4pm

It’s a Wonderful Protest  Bonington Gallery Free, 10am-5pm

A new exhibition by the Velvet Acronyms – the collaborative project of artists Anna Li and Simon Raven – exploring how LagosPhoto Festival is one society perceives disability. This of Africa's most significant will be a unique, participatory international contemporary arts kind of exhibition, with films, festivals. Founded by the African photographs, and posters, plus an Artists' Foundation in 2010, this ‘exclusion zone’ for performances, month-long event biennially where people attending it are celebrates both emerging and invited to take part in a ‘Wonderful established photographers through Protest’ and a ‘Psychic Music’ photography installations, largeritual: not stuff you get to do scale outdoor prints, exhibitions, just any day, to say the least. The workshops and talks. This Velvet Acronyms are inspired exhibition brings together artists by the ‘Disabled Advantage’: an from across the African continent arts collective founded in 2006. and the diaspora, alongside You should certainly consider a selection of international attending if you value having practitioners, who are part of the your perspective expanded, LagosPhoto Festival network. and sometimes challenged. Runs until: Sunday 10 January Runs until: Saturday 12 December Robin Hood Adventure Trail  Various Locations Free, 10am Runs until: Saturday 5 December

Beyond Capture  Broadway Gallery Free, 12pm-6pm Runs until: Sunday 4 October Goose Fair  Forest Recreation Ground Free, 4pm-11pm Runs until: Sunday 4 October

The Harley Open  The Harley Gallery & Museum Free, 10am-4pm The Harley Gallery is on the Welbeck Estate, near Worksop. It’s part of the Harley Foundation, an educational charity which since 1978 has championed high profile visual art, from Nottinghamshire and beyond. Their biennial ‘Open’ exhibition is happening throughout this month, and it’s certainly worth a visit, not least because, this year is the first time the gallery is accepting submissions for heritage crafts like basket making, leather work, and glass blowing. If you live closer to Nottingham City, it’ll certainly be worth the short bus or car ride – the Gallery is in a great location, which guarantees a peaceful and memorable day out. Runs until: Sunday 3 January The Flower & The Wall: Byron Mohammad Hamzah  Lakeside Arts Free, 10am-4pm Runs until: Sunday 10 January The Caribbean Kitchen  New Art Exchange Free, 5pm-7pm

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Film Screening: Pressure  New Art Exchange Free, 6pm-8pm Pots and Pints: Pumpkins!  Rough Trade £33, 6pm We Are Scientists  Rock City £27.50, 6.30pm-10pm Jason Byrne: 30 Years Byrning  Metronome £32, 7pm-9.30pm Spitalfield  The Bodega £20, 7pm-11pm UMS: First Social of The Year House / Garage  Movers 7pm-12am Lounge experience  Nottingham Playhouse 7.30pm Runs until: Saturday 31 October X Lace Market Theatre 7.30pm Runs until: Saturday 3 October Jeremy Bowen  Nottingham Playhouse £41.50-£48.50, 7.30pm

Mamma Mia!  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall £64-£70, 7.30pm Runs until: Saturday 10 October

Brickworks X Georgia: Captain Wallop & Rtk Tarantino  The Brickworks £13.50-£20, 10.30pm-4am

Bridge City Sinners  Rescue Rooms £22, 7.30pm-11pm

Latino Fest  NG-One £10-£12, 11pm-3am

The Phantoms: Lee Mead  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm

Off Campus VS Heated Rivalry  Tunnel Club £7-£9, 11pm-3am

Radiohead X Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror  Savoy Cinema 8pm

SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER

Fear Factory - Cybernetic Domination Tour  Rock City £28.50, 5pm

Making Dreams  The National Justice Museum 10am-12pm Ian Prowse & Amsterdam  The Bodega £22.50, 7pm-10pm Cowtown  Fisher Gate Point £9, 7pm The 9075 (Tribute)  The Nest £12.50-£15, 7pm-11pm Spirited Followers  The Grove £8-£16, 7pm Keo: Album Release  The Level 7pm Michael Mania  Nottingham Playhouse £32-£34.50, 7.30pm Legend: Music of Bob Marley  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm Neil Delamere  Nottingham Arts Theatre £24, 7.30pm-9.20pm Nottingham V Coventry  Nottingham Rugby Club 7.45pm-9.05pm Groove City: COTU  Secret Vault £5-£40, 9pm-3am Square One 360 - A.M.C  Stealth £4-£14, 10pm-5am Ten Twenty Vision presents: Sam Girling  The Model 10pm-3am

Joel Foster  Rescue Rooms £15, 6pm Nontaines D.C.  The Palais £15, 6pm-10pm Dig Deep  Rough Trade £15, 6pm 1st Birthday: Pbr Streetgang  Mssng Pieces £8-£100, 6pm-2am

FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER

Revenge of Calculon LP launch  Rough Trade £12.36, 6pm-9pm

Skream, Traumer, Wheats  The Nest £15-£18, 5pm

Stagestars Showcase  Mansfield Palace Theatre 6pm Oxjam Beeston Music Festival  Various Locations Free, 12pm-11.59pm

Robert Jon & The Wreck  Rock City £27.50, 6.30pm

A charity music festival taking place across Beeston town, with all proceeds going towards Oxfam GB, and two great Nottingham charities: Mishmash and Forever Stars. It’s going to be a big occasion – it takes place from 12pm to 12am at cafes, bars, pubs, and other community locales around Beeston. The line-up features a diversity of local artists, who are guaranteed to demonstrate how exciting Notts music can be: some names you might recognise, if you often attend local gigs, are Jimi Strange, Jeanie Barton, Romy, Hurtsfall, Joshua Todd, George Nash, and quite literally dozens of other acts. The team is looking for volunteers, so if you’re free on the day get in touch with them via oxjambeeston.org, and in return you’ll get a free wristband.

Rusty Shackle  Rock City £17.50, 6.30pm-10pm

Panthers Vs Coventry Blaze  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham

Blood Wizard  The Bodega £12.50, 6.30pm-10pm Black Bordello, Cruel Blue, Trianglecuts, Liight & Sinners  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel £13, 6.30pm Garth Marenghi's Darkplace  Broadway Cinema 6.30pm NOWAR  JT Soar £15, 6.30pm Rusty Shackle  Beta £17.50, 6.30pm-10pm

Mansfield v Spalding  Mansfield Rugby Club A Message For The Future  Lakeside Arts £18, 11am Magical Garden  Lakeside Arts Free, 11am-2.30pm Art Café: Canvas Painting  The Carousel £5, 11am-2pm A History of Graffiti Nottingham Walking Tour with Dilk  Montana Shop Nottingham £3.50, 1pm-3pm The Selfish Giant  Nottingham Playhouse £12, 2pm Rewind - Day Disco  The Windmill (Keyworth) Free, 3pm-12am

The Smyths  The Level £20, 7pm-10pm A popular tribute act to The Smiths is coming to Notts this month. The show will be part of a tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of the band’s third studio album: The Queen is Dead, so there’ll be some great renditions of Smiths songs we all love such as The Queen is Dead, Frankly Mr Shankly, and Bigmouth Strikes Again. These guys aren’t just your everyday tribute act – they’ve been around for twenty years, and stand out amongst many other Smiths live legacy bands due to their worldwide acclaim.

ACTIVATING INTERSECTIONS BY QUILLA CONSTANCE 10 OCTOBER 2026 – 16 JANUARY 2027 ACTIVATING INTERSECTIONS SEEKS TO CREATE EXCITING NEW NARRATIVES, EXPLORING – WHAT IS BRITISH SOCIETY NOW AND WHERE ARE WE GOING? NEW ART EXCHANGE 0115 924 8630 | NAE.ORG.UK | INFO@NAE.ORG.UK 39—41 GREGORY BOULEVARD, NOTTINGHAM, NG7 6BE New Art Exchange

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Wear Your Protest  The National Justice Museum 10am-12pm

Music Of Phil Collins & Genesis  The Albert Hall 7.30pm

Sherwood Vegan Market  Sherwood United Reformed Church Free, 10am-2.30pm

The Rocket Man  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm

Simon Amstell: I Love It Here  Nottingham Playhouse £25-£29, 7.30pm

Live at Lunch: Shakespeare  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 12.30pm

Ultimate Classic Rock Show  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm

Saturday Art Club  New Art Exchange 10.30am-12.30pm

Please, No Photos  Nottingham Playhouse £15, 8pm

Girl in the Year Above  The Bodega £15, 7.30pm-10pm

Talk: Alfred Monson And The Ardlamont Murder  Lakeside Arts

Ay Kash  Nottingham Playhouse £15, 8pm

Twisted: UK Rap  The Nest £10-£33, 8pm-2am

MONDAY 12 OCTOBER

Launch Party: Activating Intersections by Quilla Constance, Familiar Strangers by Rastarella Falade  New Art Exchange Free, 6pm-9pm

CUE: DJ Cosworth b2b Oldboy, Wodda  Stealth £10-£25, 10pm-4am

Express & Explore: Send-friendly Arts & Craft Workshops  Lakeside Arts £10, 11am-12.30pm

Tyber & Pete from The Dualers  Rescue Rooms £18.50-£23.50, 6.30pm-10pm

Cold Brewed 2nd Birthday: K Means, Toura, Jimmy Rocket & M75  The Model 10pm-3am

Death Warmed Up  Ye Olde Salutation Inn £10, 6.30pm

Atmosphere DnB  Secret Vault £8, 10pm-3am

The Rezillos  Metronome £25, 7pm-10pm

Fandom: Music, Fashion, Fandom - Charli XCX Night  Rescue Rooms £6, 10.30pm-3am

Suave  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel £6.50, 7pm

Just Like Heaven  Tunnel Club £7-£9, 11pm-3am

SATURDAY 10 OCTOBER

Paradise: The Coldplay Tribute  The Nest £12-£20, 7pm-10pm Sunny Grace  The Grove £8, 7pm Disko Kix 2  Movers 7pm-12am Antony Szmierek  The Level £20, 7pm Lucy Beaumont  Nottingham Playhouse £26, 7.30pm Abba Sensation  Nottingham Arts Theatre £24, 7.30pm-9.50pm

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Aftershockevents x Nudance Grooves  Blindspot £9-£100, 8.30pm-4am

Notts County v Oxford United  Meadow Lane Stadium 12.30pm-2.15pm

Bush Doctor Meets Jungle Cakes  NG-One £6-£30, 9.30pm-6.30am

Familiar Strangers: Walk & Talk  New Art Exchange Free, 2pm-3.30pm

Afta Dark: Joss Dean  Secret Vault £8-£15, 10.30pm-3.30am

Basslayerz  Rock City £35, 3pm-10pm

SUNDAY 11 OCTOBER

Mansfield Town v Bromley  Mansfield Town Football Club 3pm-4.45pm Bed By 10pm  NG-One £20, 4pm-9pm Lovezoo 28th Birthday: Tall Paul & Allister Whitehead  Unit 13 £15-£20, 4.30pm-10pm Rat Fest  Rough Trade Free, 6pm

Natalie Holmes  Fisher Gate Point £7-£14, 7pm-11pm Natalie Holmes brings her album Opposite Day to Nottingham for the first time, accompanied by her violinist Boci, who will also perform her own set. Holmes’ music explores themes of mental health, self-reflection and the effects of nature on both, aiming to help listeners feel heard, grounded and uplifted through the complexities of modern life. Both Natalie and Boci are known for their warm and intimate performances, so you can expect to enjoy mesmerising vocals, violin loops, the sounds of organic piano and acoustic guitar.

3D Clay Model Making  The Carousel £5, 11am-2pm

Quilla Constance: Activating Intersections  New Art Exchange 10am-4pm This is an exhibition from a British Jamaican artist called Quilla Constance, which uses rebellious principles, wild theatricality, and surreal comedy to challenge historical power structures and gender norms. Constance’s work focuses on anarcho punk feminism, carnivalesque play and absurdist humour across performances, large-scale oil painting, costume and video. She aims with her work to disrupt structures that she feels restricts and marginalises global ethnic majorities, female, LGBTQ+, and working-class identities. Runs until: Saturday 16 January Belters Sing at St Peter’s  St Peters Church (next to M&S) £10, 7.30pm-9pm The Best Of Hans Zimmer And Film Favourites  The Albert Hall £32-£48, 7pm-8.10pm Familiar Strangers  New Art Exchange Free, 10am-4pm Runs until: Saturday 16 January Free Dr Bike  Sneinton Market Avenues Free, 10am-2pm

Madra Salach  Rescue Rooms £17.50, 6.30pm-10pm The Cheap Thrills  The Bodega £12, 7pm-10pm Breezeway Presents: Skeptic  Fisher Gate Point £5-£15, 7pm-3am

The Lemonheads  Rock City £35, 7pm-11pm Boston act The Lemonheads, who formed way back in 1986, are coming to Nottingham this month as part of their Love Chant World Tour 2026, for a big headline show at Rock City. You might be familiar with their biggest hit Into Your Arms which reached number one on Billboard’s Modern Rocks Tracks in 1993. Either way, if you like the sound of an engaging performance from an established punk-rock and melodic guitar band, with decades of touring under their belt, then you should certainly have a look at this one.

Lights Camera… Animate!  Lakeside Arts 12.30pm-1.30pm

Sjbravo  The Grove £7, 7pm

Irish Trad Sessions  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel Free, 3pm

Control. x Movers: Radioactive Man, Aaron Dynamic b2b Dennis Roswell & dj sneaze  Movers 7pm-2am

NPO: Awakening and Farewell  The Albert Hall 3pm

Live Dj Social – Mista Shotta  The Malt Cross 7.30pm James Mcmurtry  The Old Cold Store £24, 7.30pm

Stewart Lee takes to the stage at Nottingham Playhouse for a distinctive comedy performance in his latest show. Lee shares the spotlight with an unconventional comedy partner: a tough-talking werewolf comedian emerging from the dark forests of the north. This unique collaboration promises an engaging evening of live comedy, blending Lee's characteristic style with an unexpected twist. Audiences can expect a performance that challenges conventional stand-up formats. Perennial  JT Soar £10, 7.45am Cabaret Voltaire  The Palais £35, 6pm The Long Ryders  Metronome £27.50, 7pm-11pm

TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER

Panthers Vs Fife Flyers  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham

Idolvein: “This Place I Leave Behind” EP Release Show  Mist Rolling Inn £10, 7pm

Flo and Joan – With Feeling  Nottingham Playhouse £30.50, 7.30pm

Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf  Nottingham Playhouse £33.50, 7.30pm

Jess Silk, Joe Solo & Matt Johnson  The Old Cold Store £15, 4pm Queer Sundays- In Out Five Leaves Bookshop £5-£14.99, 4.30pm-6pm Rule Brit-HA-nnia  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Dan Goatham  The Grove £5, 7pm-11pm

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall £44.50-£49.50, 7.30pm A new, theatrical adaptation of coming of age, mystery novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, written by Mark Haddon. The story is about a young person called Chris Boone, who is a mathematical genius but unsettled by the unpredictability of people and everyday life. One day, she discovers her neighbour’s dog killed, and is drawn into strange revelations about other people's lives and her own. This should be an interesting new take on this famous story, as it’s the first time the main character will be depicted by women: Alex Keenan, and Imi Price. Also in the cast are celebrated actors Joe McFadden and Charlie Brooks as Chris’ parents. Runs until: Saturday 17 October

Perennial  JT Soar £10, 7.45am

Harker & Sunliner  The Grove £10, 7pm

Hemulen Soundz  The Malt Cross 7.30pm

Lime Garden  Rescue Rooms £15, 6.30pm-10pm

Cabaret Voltaire  The Palais £35, 6pm

African Soul Rebels  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm

Nottingham V Bedford Blues  Nottingham Rugby Club 7.45pm-9.05pm

Whisky Stain: Ep Launch  The Grove £8, 7pm

The Long Ryders  Metronome £27.50, 7pm-11pm

OPUS13  Lakeside Arts £26, 7.30pm-9.30pm

Lost In The Groove  The Secret Garden Free, 8pm-2am

Sister Sounds  George Street Working Mens Club Free, 7pm-11pm

Cabaret Voltaire  Rock City £35, 7pm

NCF: Laura Lexx: Yo-Yo  Canalhouse £18, 7.30pm

Mr Scruff  The Brickworks £15, 9pm-2am

Macca & Golden Lights  Movers 7pm-12am

Night Flight  The Bodega £16.50, 7pm

Tell Me Where It Hurts  Nottingham Playhouse

FMS 6 Deck  Stealth £8-£16, 10pm-4am

Huey Morgan  The Level £30, 7pm-10pm

The Witching Hours with Evil Woman & Kay Fabe  The Model 11pm-3am

Nigel Havers: Talking B*ll*cks  Nottingham Playhouse £37.50, 7.30pm

Sundayclub  The Grove £10, 7pm Owen Jones: The Fall of the West  Himmah Hub £5-£20, 7pm-8.30pm

Mansfield Town v Oxford Utd  Mansfield Town Football Club 8pm-9.45pm

FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER

Pet Needs  Rescue Rooms £17.50, 7.30pm-11pm Legends In Vegas: After Hours  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm

WEDNESDAY 14 OCTOBER Scott C. Park  The Grove £15, 7pm Pub H.D.  Barley Twist £0-£3, 7pm-10pm Mike Wozniak: The Bench  Nottingham Playhouse £25, 7.30pm Beth Orton  Rescue Rooms £35, 7.30pm NDR Radiophilharmonic Hannover  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm Jasdeep Singh Degun  Lakeside Arts £22-£26, 7.30pm-8.50pm Illusion Impossible  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm

THURSDAY 15 OCTOBER Conversation: It’s In Our Blood  New Art Exchange 6pm-8pm Pots and Pints: Ghosties!  Rough Trade £33, 6pm Codefendants  The Palais £24, 6.30pm-10pm Tooth  The Bodega £13, 7pm-11pm

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Troy Hawke: Never Stop, Never Change!  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm Steve Steinman: Anything for Love  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm

Print Fair Contemporary 2026  Nottingham Contemporary Free, 10am-5pm

Thea Gilmore  Metronome £27.50, 7pm-11pm

The Tangerine Eclipse  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel £7.50, 8pm-2am

Nottingham Contemporary’s Print Fair is back again for another year. This charity event offers art from over 35 stalls, spread across two floors, showcasing independent printmakers, illustrators, and artists. A range of different art will be available, from screen print, lino, risograph, etching, photography, and digital print to other print techniques and original art pieces There will be a launch party on the Friday offering music, drinks and late-night gallery access - with regular trading commencing throughout the weekend. It’s a great way to see what local artists have on offer.

If folk, rock, and alternative pop music is your jam, this event is for you. Thea Gilmore is an acclaimed English singer-songwriter known for her soulful, introspective folk-pop-rock music and fiercely independent career. Operating largely outside the traditional music industry machinery, she has quietly built a dedicated global audience. Her first album was Burning Dorothy in 1998, as a teenager. Since then she’s released over 20 more albums and also sometimes records under the artistic moniker ‘Afterlight’.

Born on Road  The Brickworks £9-£15, 10pm-3am

Poetry Masterclass: Sarah Howe New Art Exchange 2pm-4pm

Panthers Vs Steelers  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham

The Big 80s Festival  The Nest £15, 6pm-10pm The Men They Couldn't Hang  Rescue Rooms £25, 6.30pm Courtney Barnett  Rock City £30, 6.30pm-10pm Skating Polly  The Bodega £17, 7pm-10pm Boneyard’s Halloween Bonanza  The Grove £5, 7pm The Story of Guitar Heroes  Nottingham Playhouse £32, 7.30pm Natural Behaviour  Lakeside Arts £18-£24, 7.30pm-8.55pm

SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER Draw to live acoustic music  The Carousel £5, 11am-2pm Offcuts pop up exhibition  The Lord Roberts Free, 12pm-7.30pm Dropp Junkiez & Stiffy  Ye Olde Ramme Inne £5, 1pm-1am Moonsmile  Nottingham Playhouse £12, 2.30pm DJ Ez, TS7, Riria  The Nest £12-£42, 5pm-2am Notts Family Launch Laceworks Free, 6pm-11pm Stornoway  Rough Trade £18.74, 6pm

MONDAY 19 OCTOBER Fat Freddy's Drop  Rock City £40, 7pm Suzannah Lipscomb & Kate Williams  Nottingham Playhouse £41-£45, 7.30pm Christian Horner  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm Words Of Wisdom  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel Free, 7.30pm

TUESDAY 20 OCTOBER Underneath The Lintel  Nottingham Arts Theatre £15, 12am Runs until: Saturday 24 October Black Stone Cherry  Rock City £39.50, 7pm New Dawn Fades  Nottingham Playhouse £30, 7.30pm Notts County v Shef Weds  Meadow Lane Stadium 7.45pm-9.30pm

WEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER

SUNDAY 18 OCTOBER

Potions and Prescriptions:…  The National Justice Museum 10am-12pm

Joan and the Dragon  Lakeside Arts £9.50-£11, 2pm-3pm

Climate Cafe  Sherwood Library 4.30pm-5.45pm

Gareth Malone  Nottingham Playhouse £32.50-£35, 3pm

Brown Horse  The Bodega £14, 7pm

MAYHEM 2026: Short Film Showcase #2  Broadway Cinema

Hibbett & Christopher  The Grove £11, 7pm

Nottingham Forest v Arsenal  The City Ground 4.30pm-6.15pm

Collage N Cocktails  The Carousel £5, 7pm-10pm

Halloween Tales  Fox and Grapes £10, 5.30pm-9pm

Hannah East: Express Yourself  Nottingham Playhouse £26.50, 7.30pm

Damian Lewis  Rescue Rooms £30, 6.30pm-10pm

The War of the Worlds  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall £25-£75, 7.30pm

Brandon Flowers  Rock City £55, 7pm-11pm

Suntou Susso & The Gambian Superstars  Lakeside Arts £22-£26, 7.30pm-9.30pm

Where Dere's a Will, Dere's a Criminal  The Albert Hall £32.50, 7pm Halloween in Concert  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm NCF Comedy: Ania Magliano & Peach Fuzz  Canalhouse £20, 7.30pm

THURSDAY 22 OCTOBER Latin Quarter Live  The Running Horse £14.90, 7.30pm-10pm Deadly Live! Hosted by Steve Backshall  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham £25-£50, 2pm

Panchiko  Rock City £26, 6.30pm-10pm The story of Panchiko is one of the craziest you’ve ever heard. A late nineties band formed by Notts teenagers. they lasted a few years and released an EP in 2000. Then they disbanded. In 2016 one of their CDs was bought in Sherwood’s Oxfam shop. The new owner posted online wanting more info. His posts went viral worldwide on 4Chan with people wondering if it’s a secret Radiohead release. It snowballs and takes the internet 4 years to find the band members. Due to public demand they reform twenty years later. Last month they had 5million listeners on Spotify and now they’re playing Rock City. SexyTadhg  The Bodega £12.50, 7pm-11pm Josh Pugh: Ha Ha, Yeah Sound  Nottingham Playhouse £27.50, 7.30pm The ELO Show  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm Steve Malley & Raymond Macdonald  By Our Hands We Make Our Way £10, 8pm Interstellar Audio: Transmissions  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel Free, 8pm-1am

My Life with Kenneth Williams  Mansfield Palace Theatre £25, 7.30pm For the younger ones reading this Kenneth Williams was an iconic British actor, comedian, and diarist known for his flamboyant persona, nasal voice and sharp wit. He was particularly famous across the UK for his appearances in the ‘Carry On’ films between 1950-1970. In 1996 (8 years after Williams’ death) comedian David Benson took a show to Edinburgh Fringe and beyond where he impersonated Williams and it was universally well-received. Thirty years on Benson brings a new version of the show back on tour just in time for what would have been William’s 100th Birthday.

FRIDAY 23 OCTOBER Festive Gift & Food Show  Newark Showground £5-£13, 10am-4pm

Ghøstkid  Rescue Rooms £22, 6.30pm-10pm

Kytes  The Bodega £14, 7pm-10pm

Ritual King  Ye Olde Salutation Inn £10, 6.30pm

Anna McLuckie  The Grove £10-£18, 7pm

Seb Rochford's Finding Ways  Metronome £15, 7pm

Soul Buggin' 22nd Birthday with Jamz Supernova  Movers 7pm-2am

Paul Merton & Suki Webster’s Improv Show  Nottingham Playhouse £28.50, 7.30pm Northern Ballet: Cinderella  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall £62.50, 7.30pm Alison Moyet  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm

Our Yard: Channel One Vs Sinai Sound System  The Brickworks £12, 7pm-11pm The Comedy Store 2026 (16+)  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm I Was a Teenage Bisexual  Nottingham Playhouse

Dirty Disco Sound System  The Malt Cross 7.30pm

A Sound Place For Sound  The Model 9pm-3am

Nottingham V Leicester Tigers  Nottingham Rugby Club 7.45pm-9.05pm

Feral Fairytales: Rufftek X Ithax  Fisher Gate Point £6-£33, 10pm-3am

Lemonade Bangs  Stealth £6, 10pm-4am

Micah Baxter  The Cell £5-£7.50, 10pm-3am

Fasta x Club223: BOTBs The Secret Garden Free, 10pm-3am

SUNDAY 25 OCTOBER

TUESDAY 27 OCTOBER

Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised  The Malt Cross £7.50, 5pm This Black History Month, the Malt Cross welcomes writer and filmmaker James Maycock for a special evening exploring the life, work and enduring influence of Gil Scott-Heron. James worked on the 2003 BBC documentary and spent time with Gil making the film. James will share firsthand stories and insight from that experience, exploring the music, poetry, protest and cultural legacy of an artist whose influence continues to resonate today. This is a unique opportunity to hear a personal perspective on the man behind the music. Daniel Kitson: Thrum  Nottingham Playhouse Harry Enfield: And No Chums!  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm

MONDAY 26 OCTOBER

SATURDAY 24 OCTOBER Future Concepts Contemporary Floral Arts Club  Oxton Village Hall £35, 10am-3.30pm Threads Of Resilience-Red Carpet 6 Edition (A Skilled Hands Production)  Djanogly Theatre £12-£20, 2.30pm-6pm Notts County v Stockport  Meadow Lane Stadium 3pm-4.45pm An Evening With Chicane  The Palais £24-£32, 4pm-10pm Skindred  Rock City £38, 6pm-10pm Ibibio Sound Machine  Rescue Rooms £25, 6.30pm-10pm Legends Of Manchester  The Nest £13.50-£20, 7pm-11pm Michael Portillo  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7pm

Opening the 2026-2027 Royal Ballet and Opera season, Manon is a dramatic ballet performance about a girl, Manon, who is torn between true love and Parisian riches. This performance is understood to be intense, emotional and a deep look into love and human psychology. This performance is said to be an embodiment of Kennith Macmillan at his best, who was a leading choreographer in Royal Ballet for just under 40 years. This will be an entertaining and special live broadcast to watch, whilst supporting a local and independent cinema. Animorsels - Video Nasties  The Old Cold Store £8, 6pm-10.30pm Basht.  Rescue Rooms £16, 6.30pm-10pm Two Blinks, I Love You, CJ Pandit & Tonia  The Bodega £12.50, 7pm-11pm

Wintour B2b Contact Ghost  The Model 10pm-3am

Mansfield v Bourne  Mansfield Rugby Club

The Royal Ballet – Manon  Arc Cinema (Beeston) £15.95-£17.95, 7.15pm-10.45pm

Hockley Hustle 2026  Various Locations £7.50-£15, 12pm-11.59pm Where did all the time go? It’s the 20th anniversary of our city’s well loved independent music and arts charity festival. The event spans 50+ venues across the city centre, and over 500 acts, which don’t just include bands and solo artists, but also various other arts groups. Set to make an appearance this year is the 70 piece UFO Orchestra at St Mary’s Church, the Step N Groove Flashmob, the traditional ‘Hockley Hustle parade’ featuring samba, stilts and more, plus all of the talented local musicians you’ll probably expect. If you’re able to, the event is certainly one worth taking the Monday off work for, to say the least.

Tremors  Savoy Cinema 8.30pm Perfect for the spooky season, the Savoy Cinema will present a special one-night screening of the classic 1990 horror film, Tremors, to celebrate the film’s enduring appeal. In partnership with the Loft Movie Theatre and Straight To Video / The '80s Video Shop, this event will show the iconic film about residents of a small town who must confront giant underground monsters in their community. The film stars Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward and is considered one of the classic B movies of the 90s. The Princess Proms  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall

Young Hustlers 2026  Various Locations £4-£11, 11am-7pm

The Tale of the Loneliest Whale  Nottingham Playhouse £12, 2pm

Panthers Vs Cardiff Devils  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham

Any Young Mechanic  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel £12.50, 7pm-11pm

The Hideout  Lakeside Arts £10.50-£12, 1.30pm-2.15pm Queer Craft Club: Counter Concious  By Our Hands We Make Our Way £0-£5, 6.30pm-8.20pm

Larry Dean: Hellbent  Nottingham Playhouse £25.50, 7.30pm Titus Andronicus  Lace Market Theatre Runs until: Saturday 31 October

Write Night  The Malt Cross £0-£10, 7pm villagerrr  Rough Trade £15, 7pm-10pm Jake McElvie  The Grove £10, 7pm The Proclaimers  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm The Furrow Collective  Lakeside Arts £19-£23, 7.30pm-9.30pm

WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER Fern Veh  JT Soar Funny Sods  The Robin Hood Pub Free, 7.30am-10am Chess The Musical  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall £35, 2.30pm Runs until: Saturday 31 October ROUTE 65  The Grove £10, 7pm Drink 'N' Draw  The Carousel £5, 7pm-10pm

Stornoway  Rescue Rooms £25, 7.30pm-11pm

Halloween Tales  Horse and Plough £8, 7pm-10pm

Jack The Ripper  Nottingham Arts Theatre £15-£17, 7.30pm-9.10pm

Ruth Lyon + Eliza Hull + Anna Smyrk  The Grove £12, 7pm

Kevin Bloody Wilson (16+)  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm The £2 Comedy Night  Canalhouse £2, 7.30pm-10pm Little Bit Of (almost) Everything  By Our Hands We Make Our Way 7.30pm-10.30pm

NCF26: Star-Crossed Lovers and Vox Pops Takes Two  The Malt Cross £7-£8, 9pm-10pm

Alex Watt & TJ McDonald: Laughter Party  Canalhouse Secret Stage £7, 2.30pm-4.30pm

Thread the Needle: Halloween  The Model 9pm-4am

Mr Traumatik Halloween Party Ft Elro  Tunnel Club £10-£20, 3pm-9pm

Once Upon a Time in Sokoto  Nottingham Playhouse £21.50-£26.50, 7.30pm

Groovin' Halloween  Stealth £17-£23, 10pm-4am

The Makings of a Murderer: The Undercover Detective  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm

Cirque Du Soul: Halloween  The Palais £12.50, 10pm-4am

FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER

Big Fat Rave X Psyked: Halloween The Brickworks £10-£20, 10pm-4am

Detonate Halloween: Kings Of The Rollers + More  Unit 13 £15-£25, 4pm-10pm

Nottingham Panthers Vs Belfast Giants  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham

THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER

CarousHELL Halloween party  The Carousel £12-£20, 6pm-2am

Nafe Smallz, Ellia Jaya  The Nest £12-£70, 5pm-2am

Square One Halloween: Kanine, Delta Heavy +More  The Nest £7-£20, 6pm-2am

Bounce Underground Halloween Special  Lexis Nightclub £7-£20, 5pm-5am

Professor Brian Cox: Emergence  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham £46-£145, 7.30pm After performing his smash-hit show Horizons to nearly half a million people across the world, Professor Brian Cox is back with his new world tour Emergence. This tour celebrates the universe the laws of nature that sculpted it, galaxies in the cosmic web, black holes and the earth’s interlinked ecosystems. This experience offers something for everyone science, history, music, creative displays and nature - providing an innovative and engaging evening for all who choose to attend. Read by the Dead Horror Stories  The People's Hall £13, 7.30pm-9pm Iridescent Beetles  Lakeside Arts 10.30am-12.30pm

Cancer Bats  Rescue Rooms £25, 7pm Halloween Party  The National Ice Centre £0-£13, 7pm-8.30pm Jeff's Gym album Launch  Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel £7, 7pm-11pm Swing Dash Halloween  Movers 7pm-2am The Shamrocks  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm

Celebrate the coming of the dark, contemplative half of the year and the thinning of the veil: this year on 31 October, Halloween itself! MinorOak is organising this year's Samhain market in cooperation with Pagan Pride, the Nottingham Shakespheare Company, Chronic Insanity, and of course the tennants at Sneinton Market. Expect a full schedule of live music, dance and storytelling, an entire Shakespheare play in three parts, with a new twist (a Midautumn-Night's Dream?), and an immersive play by Chronic Insanity happening within the market space.

BATTY!  Lakeside Arts £16-£20, 7.30pm-9pm

J. Cole: The Fall-Off Tour  Motorpoint Arena Nottingham

NCF26:Comic Harmonic  The Malt Cross £7-£8, 7.30pm-8.30pm

Stone Carving With Alan Micklethwaite  Lakeside Arts £50-£60, 10am-3.30pm

Simon and Garfunkel Story  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm

Sinfonia of London  Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall

Nottingham Samhain Market  Sneinton Market Avenues Free, 12pm-6pm

Home: Dance for the Disadvantaged  Mssng Pieces £8, 2pm-2am

s t o l s ’ e r the n o g n i o g m o c . s t t at no

The most up-to-date events guide in Nottinghamshire. Updated daily, free to use.

Motown’s Greatest Hits  Mansfield Palace Theatre 7.30pm

Mansfield Town FC v Notts County FC  Mansfield Town Football Club 3pm-4.45pm

Blockbuster Film Quiz  Broadway Cinema £2, 8.30pm-10pm

SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER

The Skas Live  Beeston Victory Club £5, 7.30pm

Henry Michael Will See You Now  Canalhouse £5, 4pm-5pm

Matt Hobs: 200 Percent Badgers: Badgers vs Hedgehogs  Canalhouse £5, 5.30pm-6.30pm Bloodworm  Rescue Rooms £15, 6.30pm-10pm Venus Grrrls  The Bodega £14, 7pm

Kanneh-Masons at the Minster  Southwell Minster £27-£42, 7.30pm An opportunity to see the internationally renowned Braimah and Jeneba Kanneh-Mason playing a full programme together at Southwell Minster. This event also includes the final of the Young Virtuoso Competition, where you can see four of the region’s brightest young talent compete for a prize of £1,000. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to immerse yourself in the beautiful surroundings of Southwell Minster, while listening to some of the country’s finest musical talent. Paranormal Disco  The Model 8pm-5am The Freakhaus  Bierkeller Free, 8pm-3am R&B Mania  The Pitcher and Piano £12.50-£30, 8pm-2am

Torus  The Grove £5, 7pm Keep Hush: Halloween w/ Daisy Moon, Stargirl, Seen & Aysha  Movers 7pm-2am Rachel Podger, Violin & Lucie Horsch, Recorders  Lakeside Arts £28-£30, 7.30pm-8.40pm NCF26: Mockbusters  The Malt Cross £7-£8, 7.30pm-8.30pm

NCF26:Ben Pals  The Malt Cross £7-£8, 9pm Lemonade Bangs - The Garden Of Horror w/ Joey London Style  The Secret Garden £10-£25, 10pm-3am Afta Dark Halloween: Emily Nash  Secret Vault £8-£15, 10.30pm-3.30am Halloween Envy Night  Liquid Library £10-£40, 11pm-5am

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