Fergal Kinney

Jah Wobble discusses his new Beatles covers album, his recent London-inspired recordings and his unconventional creative life. He recalls forming Public Image Ltd with John Lydon and Keith Levene, leaving the band after Metal Box, and later overcoming addiction while working for Transport for London. The interview also covers his collaborations with Sinéad O’Connor and others, community music work for socially isolated men, Buddhist beliefs, family projects with his sons, and his criticism of punk’s legacy and contemporary social attitudes. Wobble ultimately advocates kindness, sobriety, spiritual reflection and living as an ordinary person.

Andy Burnham has made Manchester’s music culture central to his political identity, using artists, venues and cultural events to promote a vision of “Manchesterism” and to build soft power beyond his formal mayoral responsibilities. His support helped attract major award ceremonies, establish the Greater Manchester Music Commission, promote the Beyond the Music festival and showcase a more diverse generation of artists. Supporters view his genuine fandom and civic engagement as unusual strengths, while critics question whether the city’s property-led growth has benefited musicians and night-time workers and whether his backing of Sacha Lord was influenced by personal ties. As Burnham campaigns to return to Westminster and potentially seek the Labour leadership, the music industry is watching whether his cultural advocacy translates into a broader national platform.

Mark E Smith’s 1986 play Hey! Luciani: The Life and Codex of John Paul I, a surreal drama about the suspicious death of Pope John Paul I and alleged Vatican corruption, was widely derided when staged at London’s Riverside Studios. Nearly 40 years later, collaborator Graham Duff is reviving it in Manchester with professional actors, full costumes and music from a Fall tribute band. A recently recovered bootleg recording convinced Duff that the production was coherent rather than incompetent, reflecting Smith’s deliberately cryptic blend of politics, religion, bureaucracy and popular culture. The revival could lead to a larger staging if successful, although original Fall bassist Steve Hanley has more modest hopes for the event.

Liam Fray reflects on Courteeners’ 20-year career, from their emergence during the decline of British guitar music and dismissal as “landfill indie” to their survival, independent resurgence and ability to sell out major Manchester venues including Heaton Park. He discusses the band’s importance to the city, particularly their unifying Old Trafford performance after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, as well as his struggles with social anxiety, depression, alcohol and the pressures of frontman life. Now a father in his 40s, Fray is embracing domesticity, therapy, gratitude and a more mature songwriting perspective while continuing to perform despite arthritis caused by his stage technique.

Jane McDonald discusses her career from Yorkshire working-men’s clubs and cruise ships to television, arena performances and a new country album recorded in Nashville. She describes sexism, industry rejection and the financial and cultural damage caused by the miners’ strike, while emphasizing her pride in her working-class roots and her loyal female and LGBTQ+ audience. The death of her fiancé Eddie Rothe from lung cancer reshaped her life and inspired songs on Living the Dream, including “How Do I Move On” and “Beautiful Soul.” Her renewed popularity, driven partly by social media’s embrace of her camp performance style, has led to viral attention, major fan events and a new phase of success.

Liverpool electronic band Ladytron are returning in 2026 with their eighth album, Paradises, after evolving from electroclash pioneers into a more dancefloor-oriented act. Members describe resisting industry expectations, changing styles through albums such as Witching Hour, surviving a label collapse and hiatus, and rebuilding after Reuben Wu’s departure. Their 2002 song “Seventeen” found a new teenage audience through TikTok in 2021, dramatically increasing streams and royalties, but the band rejected pressure to exploit the viral moment through social-media self-promotion. Their longevity is presented as the result of musical reinvention, independence and an enduring connection between different generations of listeners.

James B Partridge’s Primary School Bangers has grown from TikTok singalong videos into a sold-out touring show, propelled by a viral performance at Glastonbury 2025. Adults across the UK gather to sing childhood assembly hymns, attracted by shared memories and communal participation at a time when music has declined in many primary schools. Partridge sees the show as a response to the common pre-internet childhood experience and as a form of social rebuilding. The feature also questions whether its popularity reflects a wider conservative nostalgia for simpler times, the decline of churches and other communal spaces, and an experience economy built around adult regression and digitally mediated nostalgia.

In an interview accompanying the restoration and rerelease of Mephisto, István Szabó discusses his 1981 film about actor Hendrik Höfgen, whose ambition leads him to collaborate with the Nazi regime while friends and colleagues are arrested, killed or exiled. Szabó praises Klaus Maria Brandauer’s psychologically revealing performance and explains that the film’s warning extends beyond dictatorships: talented people can be exploited by business, ideology or other forms of power. He reflects on Central European history, his own work on Nazism, the Holocaust and Hungary’s communist dictatorship, and declines to comment substantively on Hungary’s 2026 election. Now 87, he is uncertain whether his physical condition will allow him to direct another film.

Saint Etienne—Bob Stanley, Sarah Cracknell and Pete Wiggs—are preparing to release International in September as their final album after 35 years together. The trio says the decision is amicable and intended to let them stop creatively at their peak, with the album bringing together collaborators including Nick Heyward, Xenomania, Erol Alkan, the Chemical Brothers and Confidence Man. They reflect on their formation, dance-music influences, London-focused songwriting, avoidance of Britpop, the success they turned down by rejecting the song that became Cher’s “Believe”, and their decision to avoid extensive touring. Stanley argues that pop music has lost its centrality to culture, while the band emphasizes that friendship and complementary personalities were central to its longevity.

Channel 4’s closure of The Box, 4Music, Kiss, Magic and Kerrang! on 1 July marks the decisive decline of UK linear music television, driven by falling audiences, rising costs and collapsing advertising revenue. The channels once gave isolated young viewers access to an eclectic mix of genres, introduced groundbreaking music videos and helped grime artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and Ghetts reach mainstream audiences. While TikTok, YouTube and filmed DJ sets provide new avenues for discovery and participation, algorithmic recommendations and reduced video budgets offer less chance of the serendipitous, cinematic encounters that defined music TV. What remains on television is portrayed largely as nostalgia programming for an ageing audience.

The Weekend podcast features John Crace’s satirical analysis of the Conservatives’ efforts to avoid explicitly condemning Lee Anderson over an Islamophobia controversy. Anna Moore speaks with a survivor of Ted Bundy about the lasting impact of her experience and her journey toward happiness. Fergal Kinney examines how the poorly received comedy film Sex Lives of the Potato Men affected the British cinema industry.

Sex Lives of the Potato Men became a national scandal after its 2004 release, attracting some of the harshest reviews ever directed at a British film and prompting politicians to condemn the use of national lottery funding. The filmmakers argued that the backlash reflected class prejudice and a refusal by critics to recognize an unvarnished working-class comedy, while defenders including Stewart Lee and Mike Leigh saw it as an ambitious, if unsuccessful, experiment. The controversy damaged the reputation of the UK Film Council, whose support for the film was repeatedly cited when the Conservative government abolished the body in 2010. Two decades later, the film remains critically reviled but serves as a case study in the risks of public arts funding, the policing of cultural taste and the decline of experimentation in British cinema.

Wendell B Harris Jr discusses the troubled history and belated revival of Chameleon Street, his 1989 true-crime comedy about identity fraudster William Douglas Street. Despite winning the 1990 Sundance grand jury prize, the film struggled to secure distribution, which Harris attributes to Hollywood's resistance to an uncompromising Black perspective on race, power and exploitation. A 4K restoration and new releases on Mubi and BFI Player have brought the film renewed critical attention, though Harris says the recognition has not erased its financial failure. Harris also reflects on the harm caused to Street's victims, the collapse of his subsequent film projects, and his new documentary in progress.

Ed Sheeran’s first headline performance at the Royal Albert Hall presented Autumn Variations with a six-piece string section, but the review finds its national elegies vague, stereotyped and weaker than his earlier work. The intimate setting and late performances of hits including “Shape of You” and “Thinking Out Loud” eventually energize the audience, while an a cappella rendition of “The Parting Glass” provides a strong finale. Overall, the concert is judged to have been rescued by familiar favorites rather than the new album.

The Wicker Man soundtrack, composed and arranged by New Yorker Paul Giovanni, was initially neglected after the film’s commercial failure and remained unreleased for decades. Its rediscovery and reissues helped inspire the acid folk and hauntology movements, while singalong events and festival rituals turned the film’s imagined pagan culture into a real influence on British music and festival life. Contemporary artists now use the soundtrack to explore English identity, occultism, gendered violence and the cultural dislocation associated with Brexit, highlighting how constructed ideas of folk tradition can become culturally authentic over time.

A Certain Ratio discuss their 45-year career, from their formative New York experiences and Factory Records releases to their influence on indie dance and later generations of musicians. The band rejects nostalgia and the idea of becoming a Factory tribute act, emphasizing continued experimentation on their new album 1982. They also reflect on the death of vocalist Denise Johnson during lockdown, Jez Kerr’s recovery from addiction and serious illness, his bisexuality and cross-dressing, and the arrival of vocalist Ellen Beth Abdi and rapper Chunky as the group looks toward the future.

Gabriels open their sold-out UK tour at Manchester’s New Century Hall with a cinematic gospel-soul performance centered on the immense vocal power and charisma of Jacob Lusk. The trio blend 1940s jazz, Motown and gospel influences with darker contemporary production, moving between brooding atmospheres and euphoric releases. Although an extended reflection on bereavement is judged somewhat sentimental, songs including “If You Only Knew,” “Bloodline” and “Love and Hate in a Different Time” provide major highlights, with Lusk’s theatrical stage presence driving the show.

Andy Partridge recounts how childhood trauma, OCD, Valium addiction and a breakdown during XTC’s 1982 US tour ended his live career. Retreating to the studio, he helped create acclaimed records while the band endured commercial setbacks, internal departures and prolonged conflict with Virgin Records before splitting in 2006. Now approaching 70 and coping with heart problems, tinnitus and declining creative drive, Partridge says he has stopped writing songs but remains proud of XTC’s legacy, fan base and eventual independence from the music industry.

The Piccadilly Rats became a beloved, chaotic street-theatre band in Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens, using animal masks and improvised covers to attract audiences amid homelessness, addiction and austerity. Founder Garry Stanley and fellow performers including Ray Boddington and Tommy Piggott built a local following and secured television appearances and an opening slot at the 2018 Parklife festival, but injuries, bad weather, cashless payments and council restrictions undermined their livelihood. Boddington's death after being struck by a tram in 2019 effectively ended the band and contributed to Stanley's severe alcoholism, self-harm and suicide attempt; he later recovered and became sober. Nathan Cunningham's documentary The Piccadilly Rats: Live in Moderation memorializes the group while highlighting the pressures facing buskers and the displacement of working-class communities as Manchester is redeveloped.

At Manchester Academy, HER—also known as Gabriella Wilson—delivers a confident, varied set that showcases her strengths as an R&B vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. Despite an uneven recorded catalogue and an enigmatic stage persona, she excels on songs such as “Could’ve Been” and “U,” combining sensual R&B with guitar flourishes. Covers and rock-inflected arrangements initially seem calculated for a stadium audience, but “Glory” gives the medley force, while the climactic “We Made It” establishes her as an especially formidable live performer through rapping, drumming, diva-soul vocals and a dramatic Prince-style guitar solo.