What's on in Manchester: Easter Bank Holiday 2016
Spring's got us all sprung with its long Easter weekend, perfect for brewtaps, seafood pop-ups, A-Bound Festival at Islington Mill, retro video gaming event PLAY it! and more. If you're looking for things to do at Easter in Manchester, search no further.
Food and drink
No doubt many of us have bold plans to eat and drink our way through the long weekend, driven by the fact that if it's OK to have Easter eggs for breakfast, then, hell, it must be OK to spend all four days with a pint in your hand.
In steps Track and Squawk's Easter Brewtap on Saturday 26 March to sate that bank holiday-induced thirst, plus another brewtap bash from the ever-reliable folk of Blackjack from Friday 25th straight through to Sunday 27th, with the food curated by GRUB, and Goff on music curation duties once again.
Meanwhile, new kids on the block Holy Crab will be stepping out from behind their much-loved market stall (often seen at Altrincham Market, Levy Market and the various Makers Markets complete with their already-famous Bloody Mary oysters) to throw a pretty tempting pop-up at Redbank Co on Friday 25th. They'll be making Good Friday even better with the likes of their 'party boat', oysters and their new Hawaiian crayfish, which comes served with pineapple salsa, lime, chilli and lettuce on a cider dough bun.
And if you've not been too busy chowing down on your Easter egg at the crack of dawn, your sweet tooth might appreciate a trip to Chocomania chocolate festival at the Lowry Outlet (Fri 25-Mon 28 Mar). Probably one of very few things that might tempt you down there, let's face it.
Indulge in an Easter-themed tea with an Easter Beer Dinner at Brewdog (Mon 28 Mar), where four seasonal courses are each paired with craft beer, or a special bottomless brunch as part of Pen and Pencil's Down the Rabbit Hole shenanigans, where you can get all the food and drink you can muster for £30 while DJs Dan Wainwright, Joey T and Tim Lawton play a 14-hour set.
Gigs
Over at Islington Mill, unorthodox music and interactive arts festival A-Bound reaches its climax with live music and clubbing crossing over at the hands of Lumisokea and Kink Gong (Thu 24 Mar), a Supernormal party (Sun 27 Mar) and more, while over in Spinningfields the Oast House gears up for its regular bank holiday bonanza of live music and booze with Spinfest. Different vibes there, though, for sure.
Other highlights include Submotion Orchestra at Gorilla (Thu 24 Mar, sold out so returns only), surfy garage-pop trio The Orielles at Soup Kitchen (Fri 25 Mar), UK grime from Kano at Academy 2 (Fri 25 Mar), the alter-ego of artist, musician and writer Nick Currie, Momus, at Gullivers (Sun 27 Mar), Nile Marr-fronted Manc trio Man Made at Aatma (Thu 24 Mar), longstanding punk-rockers The Stranglers at O2 Apollo (Sat 26 Mar) and Moshi Moshi-signed Anna Meredith at Soup Kitchen (Thu 24 Mar).
Art
Plus, the remnants of this year's Wonder Women festival, which bows out as Big-Up Female Boffins at the Town Hall and Feminism is Dead at People's History Museum draw to a close.
Meanwhile, the Museum of Science and Industry welcomes PLAY it!, an interactive exhibition of retro video games featuring over 180 games and consoles from the last three decades which opens on Good Friday – though if you don't fancy spending your treasured time off with hyped-up children, you can wait until the week after, when there are adults-only sessions available (Fri 1 and Fri 8 Apr).
Theatre
There's lots on at Manchester's theatres this Easter, too, with big productions including Quarantine's Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring series at Old Granada Studios (watch all four on Sat 26 Mar, Sat 2 Apr or Sun 3 Apr; also available individually), as well as The Passion at Upper Campfield Market Hall (Fri 25 and Sat 26 Mar, sold out) and Easter panto Beauty and the Beast, which features ultimate cheese icon Keith Chegwin, at the Dancehouse (Sat 26 Mar).
[Quarantine: Spring]
Less big but equally tempting options include La Navet Bete's production of Dick Tracy (Thu 24 Mar) and Three Generations of Women (Fri 25 and Sat 26 Mar), both at the Lowry Studio, or a good opportunity to take a nosy into the city's newest theatre space, Hope Mill Theatre, as it becomes the setting for a cabaret celebration of music by Rodgers and Hammerstein with Something Wonderful (Sat 26 Mar).
Film
If you're up for a bit of Soviet miserablism, your go-to guy this Easter is Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker at HOME (Sat 26 Mar), which charts one man's travels through a stunning but bleak dystopian world. It may not grant any life-affirming happiness, but it is bloody good – and worth it for the eery, metallic score alone.
However, we wouldn't blame you for wanting something different, so you can either go retro with Empire of the Sun (Sun 27 Mar), catch the This is Not a Cartoon animated short film programme (Sat 26 Mar) or see 1963 Japanese comedy The Elegant Life of Mr Everyman (Thu 24 Mar) – all also at HOME.
And away from the HOME-centricity, Manchester also gets its own screenings of The Railway Children, the stage-to-screen flick of York Theatre Royal's Olivier award-winning production, filmed last summer at the National Railway Museum in Yorkshire with the original locomotive from the 1970 film. Catch it on Easter Sunday as it rolls into ODEON Printworks and Trafford Centre, Heaton Moor Savoy, Stockport Plaza and Cineworld Didsbury and Stockport. Oh, and it's at HOME, too.