Some inspiration for your weekend entertainment
26th – 29th April
Harrogate Spring Flower Show
Amble along The Avenue to admire the stunning new 2018 spring show gardens, offering the very best in design as well as plenty of great ideas to take home. The spring flower show also hosts Britain’s biggest exhibition by florists and flower arrangers, with hundreds of fabulous individual works of art and spectacular large scale displays.
Great Yorkshire Showground, Harrogate https://www.flowershow.org.uk
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April 23rd-28th
Hairspray
Big, serious themes about the struggle for racial equality and the importance of being yourself jostle alongside frothy songs and comedy in this not-very-serious smash hit musical, based on the John Walters film.
Hull New Theatre 01482 300306 hulltheatres.co.uk
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April 20th–May 19th
Sunshine on Leith
Whether or not you’ll enjoy this musical depends on whether or not you like the music of The Proclaimers. Personally I would rather hammer corks into my ears with a mallet than listen to I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) or Letter from America but there’s no denying that this is a massively popular show which was, in turn, made into a hit film. This production is directed by WYP artistic director, James Brining.
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds 0113 213 7700 wyp.org.uk
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April 23rd-28th
Sunset Boulevard
Even if you don’t much care for Lloyd Webber’s oeuvre, you have to admit that this is a magnificent musical with characteristically big ear-worm songs including With One Look, As If We Never Said Goodbye and The Perfect Year. Ooh, by the way, the young writer who inveigles himself into Norma’s sad, mad life is played by Danny Mac, otherwise known as ‘Him Off Strictly’. It’s Ria you’re drawn to, though. Glenn Close? Never heard of her.
Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield 0114 249 6000 sheffieldtheatres.co.uk
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Until May 7th
Thresholds
This is brilliantly discombobulating virtual reality artwork by Mat Collishaw. Visitors wear VR headsets to walk through a digitally reconstructed room featuring prints of British photography pioneer, William Henry Fox Talbot.
National Science and Media Museum, Bradford 0844 856 3797 scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk
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