About this issue: Overview
Summer’s just about upon us and with it festival season. We have a comprehensive guide to the best of the north’s events, interviews with the big acts – and the great chance to win tickets for Latitude, V Festival, Leeds, Download and more.
ALL FM, BCB 106.6 FM and Phoenix Radio – in Manchester, Bradford and Calderdale – are just three of the hundreds of community radio stations in the country. Mark Metcalf tours the studios and finds unique programming, talented presenters, a committed audience – and unfortunately a funding crisis.
In our arts and entertainment section you’ll find a preview of Liverpool’s Light Night, a one-night, late-night culture festival across the city’s venues, an interview with acclaimed Irish author Donal Ryan and reviews of TV, on demand, albums and independent cinema.
The news pages bring you reports on Tom Rhattigan, the Manchester sex abuse survivor who was inspired to write a new memoir after giving an interview to us a decade ago, and on a new drive to help homeless people register to vote so they can have their say in the general election.
Actor Dennis Quaid writes a letter to his younger self, columnist Roger Ratcliffe wonders how pensioners will fare after the general election, there’s our crossword and Sudoku, and a competition to win Big Issue North merchandise.