What's On Northwest 4-11 Feb: Chinese New Year

Each week The Skinny team hand pick a selection of the best events from the Northwest cultural calendar to provide you with this here top ten guide to the most exciting goings on for the week ahead. From gigs, plays, and exhibitions, to spoken word, pop-up foodie events, and one-off film screenings, we give you the insider's guide to things to do in Liverpool, Manchester and beyond every Thursday morning.

Chinese New Year
Various locations, Manchester. Thu 4-Sun 7 Feb, times vary

Manchester's holding its biggest Chinese New Year party yet, with four days of light shows, workshops, live music, parkour and dance, plus street food from Yang Sing, Mei Mei's Street Cart, The Hungry Gecko and more. Aside from Sunday's spectacular parade, this year's biggest highlight is that it coincides with the launch of the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Arts' 30th anniversary celebrations – a programme of exhibitions and events that will take you through 'til June. Meanwhile, over in Liverpool, the Year of the Monkey is marked with a parade on Sunday.

Photo: Carl Sukonik

Loyle Carner
24 Kitchen Street, Liverpool. Thu 11 Feb, 7.30pm

Loyle Carner (real name Bejamin Coyle-Larner, confusingly) is a UK rapper from south London, whose credits include support slots for MF Doom and Joey Badass, collaborations with the likes of Kate Tempest and various shows across last year's festival circuit. You may recognise his sultry, jazz-infused single Ain't Nothing Changed from the sturdy stream of airplay it's received, but it's his ability to eloquently battle difficult issues like family problems and growing up that's been getting tongues wagging.

Photo: Laura Coulson

Queer Contact Festival
Various venues, Manchester. Thu 4-Sun 14 Feb, times vary

Queer Contact returns for its eighth festival, once again commandeering a bunch of Manchester's favourite venues with a ten-day celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender arts and culture. Highlights to get psyched for include A Queer Revue at Band on the Wall, AL and AL's Icarus at the Edge of Time (pictured) at RNCM, along with a whole series of theatre productions, art exhibitions and comedy shows at Contact. Read our interview with festival performer Kate Bornstein.

I am Not Myself These Days
Liverpool Playhouse, Liverpool. Until 6 Feb, times vary

Adapted from the autobiography by Josh Kilmer-Purcell, this one-man show, written and performed by Tom Stuart and wittily told against a backdrop of the excesses of 1990s New York, details Josh's double life, which saw him working at an ad agency by day and as a drag queen by night – with darker secrets filling the spaces between.

Photo: Manuel Vasson

Youth Lagoon
Band on the Wall, Manchester. Thu 4 Feb, 7.30pm

One of our gig highlights for the month, Boise-based Youth Lagoon (aka Trevor Powers) returns to Manchester with stacks of new, lush pop soundscapes under his arm, thanks to the release of last year's Savage Hills Ballroom on Fat Possum Records. A good alternative to the equally tempting but very sold-out Eleanor Friedberger gig at the Eagle Inn on the same night.

Photo: Richard Manning

---

Sign up to our Zap! newsletter to get our top ten events guide in your inbox every week

---

Liverpool Biennial Artist Talk
The Bluecoat, Liverpool. Fri 5 Feb, 6pm

Gear yourself up for the return of the Liverpool Biennial by joining several of the artists participating for 2016. Featuring insight from Andreas Angelidakis, Yin-Ju Chen, Oliver Laric, Rita McBride and Sahej Rahal, the artist talk will set the tone for July and beyond, as each discusses their work, their first impressions of the city and plans for the coming year.

Photo: Natasha Linford

Zutekh 7th Birthday Pre-Party
Eastern Bloc, Manchester. Fri 5 Feb, 4pm

So a fair few of this weekend's high profile clubbing events may have sold out (well done if you were one of the ones that thought fast for Gilles Peterson), including Zutekh's 7th birthday bash at Soup. Luckily, though, they're having a warm-up over at Eastern Bloc, with Kyle Hall, Zutekh DJs and others spinning records into the evening to get everyone into high spirits, whether you can make it down to the main event or not.

Vinyl Station: Blackstar
Metal, Liverpool. Mon 8 Feb, 6.30pm

The national mourning for Bowie continues. Metal and Bido Lito! are teaming up to help streamline those tears into something positive, using the first Vinyl Station of the year to play Blackstar in its entirety. As always, the album will be followed by a discussion hosted by Liverpool muso and DJ Bernie Connor, who'll be helping the audience explore, critique and celebrate Bowie's parting gift.

Photo: Jimmy King

The Solid Life of Sugar Water
The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. Tue 9-Sun 13 Feb, 7.30pm

A tender portrait of loss, hurt and recovery, this new play from the award-winning Jack Thorne (previous credits include Let the Right One In, Glue, Skins, Shameless and the This is England series) follows Phil and Alice as they deal with the heartbreak that follows a stillbirth. Cleverly staged with a vertical life-size bed, all performances also feature audio description and creative captioning.

Photo: Patrick Baldwin

Beginnings One
Camp and Furnace, Liverpool. Fri 5 Feb, 10pm

The bods at Abandon Silence have a promising year of clubbing ahead of us, having just announced Mount Kimbie as headliners for Beginnings Two later this month. But first, it's the turn of crowd fave Joy Orbison (pictured) and Amsterdam-based Hunnee, who'll be overseeing the first in the series alongside Denis Sulta, Andrew Hill, Harry Sheehan and Owain Gwyn.

Photo: Amy Muir

---

Read more news from across the Northwest cultural scene at theskinny.co.uk/news
Find out how you could win some lovely prizes at theskinny.co.uk/competitions

---