John Anson

Bolton Octagon’s Young Octagon Company is staging Dawn King’s climate-change drama The Trials on the theatre’s main stage. Set in 2040, the play puts older generations on trial for their role in creating a resource crisis, with young performers portraying jurors and community actors playing the defendants. Director Ruth Allison and actors Dalton Bradley-Hampson and Allanah Haslam describe the production’s demanding approach, contrasting teenage behavior with the gravity of the trials. Two casts will share four performances, which run for 90 minutes without an interval.

An archival photograph shows Marks & Spencer staff relaxing in the store’s staff room in Bolton in March 1962. The image captures period details including the employees’ uniforms and hairstyles, sugar dispensers on the tables, and a transistor radio, offering a glimpse of workplace life and social fashions of the time.

A June 1969 fire destroyed the wooden church hall belonging to St George the Martyr’s Church on Church Avenue in Daubhill, Bolton. The blaze was so intense that it melted window lead, shattered windows and burned woodwork in nearby homes, and blistered the paint on a fire engine.

The K's will headline the reopening of Blackburn's King George's Hall on September 26, becoming the first band to perform there after a £13.5 million transformation. The event will support local homelessness charity Nightsafe. Blackburn with Darwen Council leader Phil Riley welcomed the announcement and said the investment would secure the venue's future as a major cultural and live-entertainment destination. Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday through the Blackburn with Darwen venues website.

Bolton-born broadcaster Vernon Kay discusses taking Dance Sounds of the 90s from BBC Radio 2 to venues across the UK. He explains the enduring appeal of 1990s dance music, recalls clubs and venues including Legends in Warrington, The Hacienda and Manchester’s Boardwalk, and describes the live show’s four- to five-hour sets with DJ Darren Noguerol. The tour is presented as a nostalgic opportunity for middle-aged audiences and parents to reconnect with the freedom of their clubbing years, with a Liverpool performance scheduled at Hangar 34.

Harwood Methodist School closed in 1958 after a snap inspection found its condition dangerously poor, following concerns raised by headmaster J Alston. All 93 pupils were sent home and temporarily transferred to Eagley Primary School, while plans were made to build a larger replacement school to serve the area's growing population.