Select: things
to do online
An ever growing list of things to keep you and your family entertained, amused and educated
Huddersfield
Lawrence Batley Theatre is showing its online adaptation of Nigel Slater’s Toast – a play relying on its interactive nature through the smell of food on stage. Featuring the original West End cast of Toast, ticketholders receive a recipe card from Slater enabling them to immerse themselves in this sensory and heart-warming play.
Wyoming
Visit the Grand Canyon, mammoth hotsprings and mud volcano on a virtual tour of Yellowstone National Park – 3,500 square miles also home to bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope.
London
Wireless Connect is the online incarnation of this year’s Wireless Festival. There’ll be performances from previous years of the music festival, exclusive footage and pre-recorded performances in 360 degree virtual reality via the Melody VR app.
Buxton
Running throughout July, Buxton Fringe hosts a range of online performances but also offers a novel way of attending for those who might not have internet access. Phone@5 will feature Fringe stars including Mike Raffone, Sam Slide, Will Hawthorne and Debbie Cannon offering five to 10 minute micro-performances down the phone. Anyone interested in receiving a call can ring 01298 79351 to book one of the 5pm slots running on 6-10 July and 13-17 July. They will be able to choose from music, comedy, poetry and stories.
York
Kentmere House Gallery reopens by appointment only, for sales and viewings of current exhibition A Life in Colour: Work from the Studio of Jack Hellewell, including unframed pieces by the local artist never seen before.
Bury St Edmunds
A new online production of Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong is online 1-4 July. The ticketed event finds the cast of previous productions of Birdsong don their costumes in isolation but in full costume with virtual sets, sound design and lighting.
London
Beats & Elements – BAC Beatboxing Academy’s artistic director Conrad Murray and theatre maker/rapper Paul Cree – present No Milk for the Foxes. Filmed live in 2015, it explores Tory England from the perspective of the working class through spoken word, humour, live looping and beatboxing.
Bradford
The National Science and Media Museum is hosting an online photo exhibition to celebrate 50 years of the MacRobert Award for engineering innovation, which recognises not only technical achievement but social benefits. The photos, by Ted Humble-Smith, were commissioned by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2019 for the anniversary.
(scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk)
Macclesfield
Supported by the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, comic artist Marc Jackson, who has been featured in the Beano and Big Issue North’s Kids’ Takeover, is hosting regular cartoon art workshops and activities for families on his Marc Makes Comics YouTube channel.
Manchester
To mark Refugee Week (15-21 June) the People’s History Museum explores migration through a series of online events. Alongside creative workshops events include Have Your Say, asking participants to imagine a world where everyone is welcome, a virtual tour of the museum’s galleries and collections inspired by eight #SimpleActs, and a conversation with the founders of Heart & Parcel*, which brings people together using a love of food to develop English language skills.
North Yorkshire
Forest 100: A Year in the Life is an online photo exhibition by Scarborough-based Tony Bartholomew, reflecting a year in the life of North Yorkshire’s Dalby Forest and marking 100 years of the Forestry Commission.
(forestryengland.uk/forest-100-year-the-life)
Liverpool
Liverpool artist Kiara Mohamed has created a powerful and poetic film, Home, using drone footage shot above the artist’s L8 Toxteth neighbourhood in Liverpool. The film examines notions of home, vulnerability and care during the coronavirus pandemic.
(vimeo.com/417228036/66f703fe50)
Southport
The Triumph of Art is a digital exhibition celebrating the restoration of the painting of the same name, given to the Atkinson in the late 19th century. In the work, by Nicolas Pierre Loir, classical figures representing the visual arts pay homage to Jean Baptiste Colbert, a patron of the arts and a powerful minister who helped Louis XIV rule over France in the 1600s. The exhibition also features highlights from the Atkinson’s collection.
Manchester
4ofUs is a weekly online chat show from Sick! Festival’s new online programme of events. Each Tuesday lunchtime MMU lecturer Lucy Burke and actor and comic Smug Roberts host a conversation with four people whose work or personal experiences place them at the heart of the global crisis.
Glasgow
Makar to Makar is a new series of live-streamed conversation and gigs curated by Jackie Kay for National Theatre Scotland. Streaming on YouTube and Facebook channels every Thursday at 7pm for 16 weeks, events usually feature one or two “makars” – a Scottish word for “poet” or “bard” – paired with a singer. Kay introduces the makar of the week, who will in turn announce the next one.
Sheffield
Sheffield Photography Society hopes to stage its cancelled annual exhibition later in the year but for the moment all 173 images from it can be viewed online, including the best in exhibition trophy winner, Lily-Trotter, African Jacana, by Richard Hall.
(sheffield-photographer.org.uk)
United States
Parks and Recreation star and firm Big Issue North favourite, Nick Offerman has put three of his comedy specials online to rent or download and is donating all proceeds to America’s Food Fund. The trio are Full Bush, Summer of ’69: No Apostrophe and American Ham.
Coventry
Part gig, part play, Reasons To Be Cheerful is about the life and enduring music of Ian Dury and the Blockheads. A Graeae Theatre Company production in association with the Belgrade Theatre Coventry, it’s available to stream until 3 Aug.
(graeae.org/reasons-to-be-cheerful-available-to-watch-online/)
London
Watch Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the stage production that inspired the hit TV series. Fleabag The Play was originally performed in 2013 but this version was put on last year at Soho Theatre and filmed by the National Theatre. Proceeds from rentals go to charity.
(sohotheatreondemand.com/show/FleabagFourPound)
Oldham
Saf hasn’t seen her dad for 20 years. Linda over the road said he went to the North Pole. Her mum didn’t say anything. On the brink of making a life-changing decision, Saf arranges to meet him again in Pop and Crisps, the latest in Oldham Coliseum Theatre’s mini-podcast series, starring Cora Kirk (pictured) and William Travis.
(coliseum.org.uk/minipodcast-e03)
London
Hang out with the Natural History Museum’s scientists on Tuesdays at 12 noon and Fridays at 10.30am for interactive talks and topical discussions. From meteorites to mammoths, evolution to the climate crisis, Nature Live Online is designed to help children explore the natural world from home.
(nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/nature-live)
Liverpool
Culture at Home brings together the best of Liverpool’s historical, creative and academic talent for a series of concerts, shows, readings, lectures, tours and activities.
(liverpool.ac.uk/coronavirus/culture)
Vancouver
Using Google Streetview explore Everywhere is Anywhere is Anything is Everything, the now closed exhibition by Douglas Coupland. Lego sculptures, a narwhal tusk and texts reading “Sorry. I got lost in a YouTube kitten warp” collide to explore modern life and how widespread access to information affects us.
Hull
Walk down a 1940s high street, board a tram or enjoy a carriage ride, and discover 200 years of transport history. The Streetlife Museum of Transport is now admitting online visitors via a virtual tour.
