Nine great things to do in Leeds and West Yorkshire this autumn

Love the arts? Check out these nine events being held in Leeds and West Yorkshire in September and October
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ROAD

The opening production in Leeds Playhouse’s new pop-up theatre season is Jim Cartwright’s seminal 1986 play Road, chronicling the lives of neighbours living on one street, somewhere in an unnamed Northern town.

Using the Playhouse’s specially gathered ensemble company – they will be appearing in several productions over the course of the 2018/19 season, the production explores class, identity, northerness as well as joy, despair, love, sex and death.

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The play opened last week and runs until September 29. Tickets from the box office on 0113 213 7700 or online via www.leedsplayhouse.org.uk

LEEDS ART GALLERY

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Bradford-born, innovative abstract painter’s death, Leeds Art Gallery will be showing all of the work in their collection in a new exhibition which opens on September 28. Watercolours and drawings which have not been exhbited before will be on display, along with previously unseen work.

The exhibition will run until January 2019

CIRCUE DU SOLEIL

Cirque du Soleil’s latest show, OVO, is a celebration of nature and co-existence is a fun-filledproduction for the whole family.

The cast is comprised of 50 performing artists from 17 countries specializing in many acrobatic acts and they present a colorful ecosystem teeming with life, where insects work, play, fight and look for love.

At LeedsFirst Direct Arena, September 19-23.

FURNACE FESTIVAL

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Leeds Playhouse’s Furnace Festival champions local artists and showcases awardwinning new theatre. This year featuring Selina Thompson’s multi award-winning exploration of grief, ancestry

and the Transatlantic Slave Triangle, salt.; and Charley Miles’ atmospheric and debut play Blackthorn. Both are being staged next month. www.leedsplayhouse.org.uk

SHAKESPEARE DOUBLE BILL

Over the last two years Merely Theatre, who specialise in Shakespeare, have toured with a company of ten actors, with a cast of five taking to the stage each evening.

For 2018 they return to the Theatre Royal Wakefield with a double bill of the Bard’s works – bringing Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing to Wakefield on September 24 and 25. theatreroyalwakfield.co.uk

TOM ALLEN

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The waspish wit of Tom Allen will be to the fore in his new show Absolutely in which he addresses the elephant in the room that he is still living at home with his parents, because he can’t afford not to, in Brmley in Kent – the hear of Theresa May’s Brexit Britain.

Allen mines his personal experiences of suburbia to great comic effect. At City Varieties on September 15.

PHOENIX AT HOME

Phoenix at Home is an annual production by Leeds contemporary dance company Phoenix Dance Theatre. Utilising its own dancers, choreographers and Youth Academy it is a celebratory showcase of the company’s work. The eighth production of Phoenix at Home takes to the stage at Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre next month October 18-20.

BATLEY FESTIVAL

Batley Festival this year features a fun-filled line-up of musicians, artists and street theatre performers.

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This year’s event is set for September 29 with most of the action taking place in Batley Market Place and Memorial Gardens, 11am to 5pm. The event, now in its seventh year, attracts big crowds with its family-friendly activities and free entertainment. batleyfestival.co.uk

BIG CITY SHORTS

Big City Shorts is the first event from Leeds

theatre company

Monkey Don’t and features

four short plays, all around the

theme of Life in a 21st Century

British City. Using writers and

directors based in the North,

the night will be a showcase of the next generation of

talent, and will present a collection of thought-provoking

stories . At Seven Arts Leeds, on September 22.