Bradford City of Culture finale
- Alan Hulme
- Sep 20
- 2 min read
Bradford, the UK's City Of Culture 2025, has announced its ambitious end-of-year season, with experiences that honour the city’s radical past, youth-powered present and visionary future.
Some of the more drama-based events include Strike (October 3-5), which will transform the architecture of Manningham Mill, where there was a mass, four-month walk-out by 5,000 workers in 1891. The event will spotlight the radical women who led the strikes, which led to the formation of the Independent Labour Party.
The transformation will use light and projection and an accompanying soundscape to pay tribute to pioneering Bradford women who helped to shape modern politics.
Then there's Built By Sound (November 20-December 14). A new, mixed-reality experience that goes back to a time when young South Asians found joy in defiance, community and music, and stood up to the National Front. Scripted by Nikesh Shukla (The Good Immigrant) and multimedia journalist and filmmaker Shehani Fernando, it will bring together personal stories, archival footage and a soundtrack to explore secret daytime raves, known as "daytimers", in
Bradford in the 1970s-80s.
The finale season also features several new productions at the city centre's Loading Bay space. including Elmet (October 22-November 2) based on Fiona Mozley’s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel and adapted for the stage by Bradford-raised writer-director Javaad Alipoor; We Are Still Asafo (November 7-9) written and directed by Liz Mytton and inspired by the experience of the African diaspora across West Africa, the Caribbean and the UK, and Life Class, a new play
exploring the truth and beauty of getting older, written by 509 Arts’ Alan Dix and Mike Kenny.
Bradford 2025’s Our Patch programme, which encourages cultural participation by bringing the arts to the heart of the community, continues with more than 500 small projects and events in libraries, hospices, playgrounds, cafes and community centres across all 30 wards in the 141 square mile Bradford district.
The year culminates with Brighter Still (December 20-21), a large-scale outdoor event in Bingley's Myrtle Park, bringing together dance, music, light, fire and food, with hundreds of people from across the district, including dancers, poets and a community cast.
More info here
