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Interview: Hilary Mantel on new book Bring Up The Bodies May 12 2012

HILARY Mantel is like a Mastermind contestant, seemingly ordinary but displaying razor-sharp intellect when focusing on her chosen subject.Read

Review: New Order at Newcastle O2 Academy May 10 2012

DURING a titanic Temptation, Bernard Sumner is briefly bathed in light; rock royalty in a golden crown.Read

Review: Birmingham Royal Ballet at Gala Theatre, Durham May 10 2012

THE full-length Don Quixote (Choreography: Marius Petipa. Music: Ludwig Minkus) has never found a place in British ballet’s repertory and hearts. Its great and technically demanding pas de deux, however, is a regular feature of mixed bills.Read

Interview: Singer-songwriter Amy Holford May 10 2012

ASK Amy Holford what it was like supporting singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner at the Mill Volvo Tyne Theatre in Newcastle on Monday night and she replies, quite simply: “Mind-blowing.”Read

Exhibition: Breaking the Silence by Birgit Skiold at Northern Print May 10 2012

PIONEERING print-maker Birgit Skiold – the artist who inspired the North East’s International Print Biennale – is the subject of an exhibition making a big impression in Newcastle.Read

Exhibition: About Face by Henry Tonks at DLI Museum May 09 2012

PORTRAITS never intended for public display have been put on show at the DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery, shedding light – albeit in a room with very subdued lighting – on one of the many painful themes of the First World War.Read

Music hubs to offer “joined-up” music tuition in North East May 09 2012

ARTS Council England (ACE) has announced the establishment of 122 nationwide music education hubs, including six covering the North East.Read

Preview: Curtains at The Little Theatre, Gateshead May 09 2012

YOU’LL have heard of Cabaret and Chicago...but Curtains? If the name doesn’t ring any bells, a North East musical theatre company is out to educate as well as entertain us.Read

The Royal Opera House comes to Middlesbrough May 08 2012

THE weather might be telling us otherwise but summer is indeed on its way.Read

Review: Hertfordshire Chorus at The Sage Gateshead May 08 2012

IT’S said the English romantic poet John Keats wrote his Ode to a Nightingale in a single day in 1819, inspired by one of the birds singing in a garden.Read

Preview: The Heartbreaks at the Head of Steam, Newcastle May 08 2012

YOU would be hard-pressed to mistake The Heartbreaks for a 1960s American girl band, but that was the thinking behind the name.Read

Review: Comedy at As You Like It May 08 2012

IN the theatre, an imaginary “fourth wall” separates the audience from the actors and, save for panto, never the twain shall meet.Read

Folk and Traditional Music degree celebrates turning 10 May 07 2012

FOR a decade it has nourished and nurtured young folk musicians and now England’s only Folk and Traditional Music degree is having a party to celebrate turning 10.Read

Preview: Gateshead International Festival of Theatre May 03 2012

ALL the world’s a stage and that includes Gateshead town centre where, in the midst of upheaval, GIFT makes a return tomorrow.Read

Review: 10cc at The Sage Gateshead May 03 2012

THEY say nostalgia is not what it used to be. In this case it was an absolute triumph and delight.Read

Review: Jerusalem at the People’s Theatre, Newcastle May 03 2012

AN Englishman’s home is his castle even if it’s a broken caravan washed up in a wood.Read

Preview: Summerhill Spring Fair at Summerhill Square, Newcastle May 02 2012

MAGIC courtesy of Mr Drayton and sparkling comedy from performance poet Kate Fox, pictured, are just two good reasons to take the family along to the upcoming Summerhill Spring Fair in Newcastle.Read

Exhibition: Journeys in Beadwork at Shipley Art Gallery May 02 2012

WHEN I arrive at the Shipley Art Gallery, heavy beaded collars are already on display while other multi-coloured body adornments are being carefully unpacked from a variety of boxes.Read