There is plenty going on at the Yorkshire coast to help chase away any November blues. The month kicks off in flamboyant fashion with the annual Whitby Goth Festival (November 1st-3rd). Now in its 19th year, the festival attracts not just Goths, say organisers, but ‘punks, steampunks, emos, bikers, metallers and people of all genres of the alternative lifestyle’. Expect high drama…
The same weekend (October 30th- November 2nd), Whitby Abbey is illuminated, bathed in coloured lights after dark when visitors are invited to walk through the ruins. At various times throughout each evening there is the chance to meet costumed characters and discover the darker side of the past, with dramatic presentations on grave robbing, Victorian undertakers, Jack the Ripper and witch trials.
There’ll be plenty of sparkle at various Guy Fawkes events along the coast. The annual Lions’ bonfire and firework displays take place on November 5th. There are more fireworks at Filey at West Avenue car park beginning at 5pm and the Scarborough display is at Weaponness car and coach park from 5.30pm. Further along the coast at Skinningrove, it’s bonfire night with a difference – each year’s event is themed. This year ‘Jet in Skinningrove’, starting from 6.30pm, is a celebration of the history and industry of jet mining on the coast.
Three venues should be on your must-visit list in Scarborough after being shortlisted in this year’s Yorkshire Life Food & Drink Awards. At the Lanterna Ristorante (Restaurant of the Year category), chef Giorgio Alessio will have just returned from his homeland where he travels every year at the end of October to buy precious truffles at one of Italy’s biggest truffle festivals in his home town of Moncalvo. Eat Me Café (Newcomer of the Year category) is positively groaning under the weight of this year’s awards, having also been named as national Café of the Year in the Good Food Guide Editors’ Awards for 2014, and best café in the Morrison’s Great Grub Awards 2013; and the coast’s only four-star hotel, the Crown Spa, was nominated in the Hotel of the Year category.
The big event in Scarborough this month is the Art Party Conference at the Spa (November 23rd). Organised by leading British artist Bob and Roberta Smith (that’s one person, by the way – yes, it’s confusing!) with Scarborough’s Crescent Arts, it’s attracting some of the biggest names in British art, including the Turner Prize-winning Jeremy Deller and Mark Wallinger. Tickets are just £5 for the 12-hour event, and you can dip in and out as much as you want – not to be missed.
There is a feast for dance fans at the Spa, too, with the week-long Scarborough Dance Festival (November 5th-10th), and the not-to-be missed Russian State Ballet and Opera House production of the Nutcracker on November 25th.
And folk fans will want to catch the gorgeous ‘Barnsley Nightingale’, Kate Rusby, at the venue on November 10th. And there is more great folk music in Saltburn on November 22nd with a celebration of influential Middlesbrough folkie Graeme Miles who died earlier this year, headlined by the Unthanks and the Wilsons. And it’s all beer (and maybe even some skittles) at the CAMRA-organised fourth Saltburn Beer Festival (November 15th and 16th).
Janet Deacon is the North Yorkshire area director, Welcome to Yorkshire
Website contacts
whitbygothweekend.co.uk
english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/events/the-illuminated-abbey-whi-30-oct/
lanterna-ristorante.co.uk
eatmecafe.com
crownspahotel.com
artpartyconference.co.uk
scarboroughspa.co.uk
saltburnarts.co.uk
