Andrew Davies gives regular talks about the gangs of Victorian Manchester and Salford at venues across Greater Manchester. Please keep an eye on this page for details of forthcoming talks.
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Gangs of Manchester guided walk with Emma Fox: Sunday, 7 September 2014.
Manchester tour guide Emma Fox is leading another ‘Gangs of Manchester’ walk on the morning of Sunday 7 September, 2014. Previous walks led by Emma have attracted rave reviews. You can find details here. For details of Emma’s other walks, including a fabulous tour of Manchester Southern Cemetery, click here.
Gangs of Manchester walking tours
Emma Fox will be leading another series of Gangs of Manchester walks this summer. Tickets are now available for walks on 21 August and 25 September. For booking details, click here.
Yer wot?
Manchester poet and novelist Mike Duff has just brought his third book out. Yer wot? is set in the heartlands of North Manchester and it’s as close as you could get to a twenty-first century story of scuttling. It costs £10, and you can order a copy by emailing yer_wot@yahoo.co.uk.
Angels with Manky Faces
To see some audience feedback on Angels with Manky Faces, visit Aidan O’Rourke’s website here.
As one of the posters points out, the show is ideal introduction to live theatre for younger people who might not have been to the theatre before.
Additional performances of Angels with Manky Faces
Following a hugely successful week of sell-out performances at Manchester’s Library Theatre, MaD theatre company is arranging two additional performances of Angels with Manky Faces. Details will be posted here as soon as the dates are confirmed.
Thanks to everyone who came to the shows at the Library; double thanks to the people that started the sing-along to Dirty Old Town!
Angels with Manky Faces
MaD Theatre Company’s production, Angels with Manky Faces, now opens at the Library Theatre in Manchester on 17 August. Five performances were originally scheduled (19-22 August). These have all sold-out; extra nights have been added on Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th. There are a few tickets left at the time of writing, so if you’d like to come along give the box office a call: 0161 236 7110.
The first two performances – at Liverpool’s Unity theatre on 22-23 July – went down a storm. The cast performed to packed houses both nights, and everyone was delighted with the warmth of the response. A few people suggested it was a risky move to open a production by a community theatre company from Manchester in Liverpool. Not at all: the issues raised in Angels resonate in both cities and MaD’s mix of tragedy and comedy clearly struck a chord with Liverpool audiences. We hope that future productions will likewise be previewed at the Unity, whose staff were a pleasure to work with.
Angels is generating a fair bit of media interest. Karl Marginson, manager of FC United of Manchester, discussed the club’s contribution to the production on Talksport on 24 July. Margy appears in one of the scenes filmed for Angels by Paul Cliff, along with FCUM captain Dave Chadwick, goalkeeper Sam Ashton, and a host of the club’s junior players and supporters. FCUM followers should keep an eye out for a hilarious cameo by Vinny Thompson. Vinny’s making a habit of this kind of thing, having recently done a cameo in Looking for Eric.
Actor Christian Bradley previewed Angels on Dotun Adebayo’s late-night show on Radio 5 Live on 1 August, but managed to get the title wrong: Angels with Monkey Faces indeed! Cheers for the heads-up, Christian, but you’ll need to learn your lines properly if you want to work with MaD …
Preview of Angels with Manky Faces at the Bluecoat, Liverpool
A special preview of Angels with Manky Faces will be held in the upstairs bar of the Bluecoat, Liverpool, on Wednesday 24 June from 6.30-7.30 p.m. The preview will feature a talk on the historical research that went into The Gangs of Manchester, an introduction to Angels with Manky Faces by script-writers Rob Lees and Jill Hughes, and screenings of two of the film sequences specially made for the play (introduced by MaD film-maker, Paul Cliff). The films feature Clint Boon, Martin Coogan, Phil Beckett – and many more … This is a free event; tickets for the Liverpool performances of Angels with Manky Faces (Unity Theatre, 22-23 July) will be on sale on the night.
Thinking Allowed
The Gangs of Manchester is the subject of a special edition of Thinking Allowed to be broadcast on New Year’s Eve at 4 p.m. on BBC Radio 4.
Hosted by Laurie Taylor, Thinking Allowed offers a weekly review of social research. Recent programmes covered topics such as the “cocaine girls” of 1920s London and the relationship between sexual repression and social progress.
For the New Year’s Eve edition, Andrew Davies is joined by Geoff Pearson of Goldsmiths College, University of London (author of the acclaimed Hooligan: a history of respectable fears) and Tara Young of London Metropolitan University, an expert on youth in present-day London.
Book signing at Borders, Manchester Fort, and some plans for 2009
One more book signing has been arranged: at Borders, Manchester Fort (Cheetham Hill) on Sunday 21 December from 11.00 till 1.00.
More events are in the pipeline for 2009. These include a reading from the book in Strangeways (HM Prison, Manchester) and an illustrated talk at the Manchester Histories festival, to be held at Manchester Town Hall.
Work on the play, Angels with Manky Faces, is well underway: the first costumes will soon be ready, songs are being recorded, and locations have been scouted for the scenes to be filmed. One of the gang scenes is to be filmed on “the flags” in Angel Meadow, the site of some of the incidents described in the early chapters of The Gangs of Manchester.
Gangs of Manchester: on sale now
Available from the 'Buy Gangs of Manchester' webpage (see links on left), Amazon, Milo Books and all good bookshops
Gangs of Manchester 