Meet the Showmen of Bolton
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May 16, 2025•11 min•Season 2Ep. 5
The Manchester Weekly from The Mill
If you live in Greater Manchester, this is the podcast for you. Every week, we tackle a big story in the city region or interview a key figure who provides some new insight into the issues that are shaping this par of the world. It's all produced by the team at The Mill, whose award-winning journalism has won national acclaim and which specialises in in-depth reporting that digs a few levels deeper than regular news. To find out more about The Mill, visit manchestermill.co.uk.
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Episodes
The Salford Matador is still making a killing
Ophira has a story for you — one about Frank Evans, the 81-year-old Salford-born matador who now splits his time between Seville and Worsley like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Yes, that’s right: matador. While the city proudly boasts of luring the BBC up north, appearing behind the Smiths in That Photo, and producing Paul Scholes’ right foot — somehow, Frank slips through the net. But this is a man who traded Eccles cakes for cape work, and against all odds became one of the only Bri...
May 12, 2025•14 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Pyramid scheme
Jack tells the story of his trip to the newly-built Royal Nawaab, the multi-story curry house which has been built in Stockport’s iconic glass pyramid on the Valley of the Kings. But while Mahmood Hussain, the curry maestro with a “strongman’s slab of tache resting on his top lip”, hopes his £15 million renovation will pay off, has he considered the ancient pharaoh's curse which has been said to hang over the valley… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 30, 2025•15 min•Season 2Ep. 3
The folk dancers who refuse to stop blacking up
Our writer Ophira Gottlieb tells the story of the Britannia Coconut Dancers of Bacup, in Lancashire. For over a century the troupe of morris dancers has performed up and down the town’s streets dressed in knitted jumpers, candy-striped kilts, and painted completely black. “I worked in a pub just outside Manchester,” Ophira remembers, “many of the customers felt the practice was racist and badly outdated, but just as many disagreed.” On Easter weekend, Ophira finally met these dancers. Nicknamed ...
Apr 25, 2025•11 min•Season 2Ep. 2
A new Manchester industry: pit stops for delivery riders
In the first of our new series of audio storytelling, Jack tells the story of how the new bike repair shops that have sprung up to offer rapid repairs to Manchester’s legions of delivery riders. “Some Mill stories are the result of months of work and research and planning, and some are born out of necessity,” Jack says, “The story I’m about to tell you was the latter.” But while the story itself was written to replace another story that fell through, it became a reader-favourite, offering an ins...
Apr 25, 2025•13 min•Season 2Ep. 1
What really caused the Royal Exchange's cancelled show?
Late last year, when the Royal Exchange Theatre was forced to cancel its production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the media fallout became one long nightmare. Stef O'Driscoll, the play’s director, accused the theatre of censorship, and its chief executive Stephen Freeman eventually stood down. But there are two sides to every story - over the last month, insiders at the Royal Exchange have been telling us they've been uncomfortable with the narrative that the play's director was censored for a r...
Mar 31, 2025•17 min
The Casablanca Deal: Secret contracts and unexplained payments at the University of Greater Manchester
On a cold day in January, our reporters stumbled upon a strange story about Joseph Wheeler, a car marketing executive from Milton Keynes who had been granted extraordinary power at the University of Greater Manchester (formerly the University of Bolton), whose company had received £8 million in the past six financial years for performing marketing and brand management services, and who was accused of making racist remarks and threatening to sack people if they didn't bend to his will. Then, the ...
Feb 27, 2025•32 min
Sacha Lord resigns as advisor to Andy Burnham
In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack look back on the last two years of reporting on Sacha Lord. With thanks to Manchester Building Society for sponsoring this week's episode. In 2025, Manchester Building Society will be offering a different way to manage your money. We believe in branches, where people can access savings, mortgages and in-person financial advice. We’ll be opening on King Street later this year, before setting up in high streets and towns across Greater Manchester. Now we nee...
Feb 06, 2025•21 min
Did Elon Musk mislead the world about grooming in Oldham?
Tweets by the world's richest man have ignited a furious controversy about CSE. Joshi Herrmann, the founder of The Mill, has been reporting on this story for years now. He talks to the journalist Darryl Morris about the background to the story - and why official inquiries and police investigations have yet to support the theories of an online campaigner called Raja Miah. To read the long read we discuss, click here . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 15, 2025•30 min
Is it time to bin off the Christmas markets?
In this week's episode, the whole Mill team join the podcast to talk about the ever-divisive Christmas Markets. Are they a boon to the city's economy or eyesores tailored to tourists? Jack Walton and Ophira Gottlieb - who recently wrote opposing essays on the subject - expand on their points, with Jack Dulhanty and Mollie Simpson coming in with data and more neutral insight. Thanks to this episode's sponsor, Manchester Baroque. For special two-for-one tickets to their performance at Manchester C...
Nov 29, 2024•17 min
The inside story of Afflecks
How did Afflecks go from a quirky indie bazaar filled with "vulgar tat" to a tourist destination owned by a big property firm? In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack explore the history of a Manchester institution, including the role it played in supporting generations of hopeful artists and entrepreneurs, the myth of two missing Banksys, and the "eccentric hippies" who dreamed it up in 1982. With thanks to RHS Glow for sponsoring this week's podcast. If you find it a struggle every year to get...
Nov 15, 2024•19 min
At Manchester’s African and Caribbean social clubs, dominoes are both leisure and lifeline
In this week's episode, the writer Jordon Francis tells us about Manchester’s African and Caribbean Over 50s clubs in Stretford and Moss Side, where dominoes allow members of the Windrush generation to relax, unwind, and share stories of the old days. It's a lovely story about community building, the importance of storytelling and why it's essential to preserve community spaces, filled with great insights about the game of dominoes itself (Did you know the game of dominoes originated in twelfth ...
Oct 01, 2024•16 min
What went wrong at the Carlton Club?
The Carlton Club, a beautiful social club in Whalley Range, is a phenomenal south Manchester success story, drawing in hundreds of attendees at its wellness, foodie and clubbing events every week. So why has an eviction notice been served to the Carlton Club? And how come some of the social club's own members are behind the eviction notice? Mollie and Jack discuss some of the key points from our two-part investigation into this topic, which you can read in more depth via the links below. With th...
Sep 25, 2024•13 min
Has Didsbury lost its way?
In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack talk about his recent long-read about Didsbury - "Village people" takes a look at how residents of Didsbury village are handling their area's changing character, as independent shops fall away and a local pub crawl explodes in popularity. From today's sponsor: Big ambitions for your business? You need much more than just a place to work. Bruntwood SciTech offers spaces tailored for your team, while connecting you to a 1,100-strong national community of sci...
Sep 10, 2024•18 min
Should Manchester Pride be a party or a protest?
Manchester Pride, a large-scale music event with huge headliners and a packed schedule filled with music, dance and drag performances, returned last weekend. The city was filled with colour and thousands of people turned up to celebrate in Gay Village. But this year, Manchester Pride also faced fresh criticism over its relationship with Booking.com, a key sponsor of the festival who have faced criticism for listing rooms in the occupied West Bank, and many, including performers, withdrew from at...
Aug 28, 2024•13 min
Exclusive: Salford Council is investigating the White Hotel
The White Hotel, a world-famous nightclub in Salford that has hosted some of biggest DJs in the world and has been described as a "nurturing influence" on new artists, is every Mancunian's favourite nightclub. But the iconic venue could be facing some complications due to a dispute involving planning permissions, as well as the development of its once-derelict but evolving neighbourhood. What does this all mean for the future of the legendary nightclub? Mollie and Joshi discuss. With thanks to t...
Aug 24, 2024•20 min
Can Manchester’s nightlife survive the student exodus?
It’s mid-August, and the students who buy so many of the tickets for local club nights are away. They aren’t coming back any time soon, and when they do, they’re less likely than their forbears to even go to clubs in the first place (and drinks aren’t cheap anymore). So how do we keep the city partying hard, and what’s it like to be a DJ right now? Mollie sits down with Finn McCorry, NTS resident, club promoter, and DJ best known for his critically-acclaimed EP Everything is alright. He plays So...
Aug 16, 2024•15 min
Manchester's week of riots
Last weekend saw the continuation of violent far-right riots that have erupted across the country in the wake of a devastating attack in Southport that left three children dead and eight injured. A man was pictured raising a Nazi salute in Piccadilly Gardens, where a black man was chased and attacked by a gang of white men and women, protesters in Bolton set off missiles and threw bricks at police, and rioters gathered outside hotels housing asylum seekers in Bredbury and Newton Heath. Greater M...
Aug 07, 2024•21 min
Do we know what caused the police attack at Manchester Airport?
Last week, a video emerged of a Greater Manchester Police officer forcefully kicking a prostate man in the head and kneeing him in the stomach at Manchester Airport. The story dominated national news coverage and triggered an investigation by the Independent Office of Police Conduct. But a lengthier video, released over the weekend, has fuelled further debate. It shows the run up to the confrontation, with a man attacking at least two police officers before he was tasered and restrained on the g...
Jul 31, 2024•16 min
The strange death of Levenshulme Market
Levenshulme Market was a local success story, cementing a narrative of a neighbourhood on the rise. For ten years, it ran weekly markets on a council-owned car park near the train station serving everything from craft beer to books, cocktails and gifts, and the market became celebrated for its role as an incubator for small businesses that managed to make the jump from a market stall to a spot on the high street. Then, in 2023, the directors announced that the market would have to cease trading ...
Jul 25, 2024•17 min
How did a semi in Harpurhey sell for £1.8m?
In this week's episode, Mollie and Joshi discuss the curious case of a semi-detached house in Harpurhey that was bought for £575,000 and sold for £1.8 million on the very same day. Manchester City Council cited the sale as an example of market manipulation, but the property company involved happens to be a major council partner. Mollie and Joshi talk about how the story showed up on our radar, and what the situation tells us about Manchester's housing crisis. Subscribe to read the full long-read...
Jul 19, 2024•21 min
Do Manchester's theatres have a class problem?
Do Manchester's theatres have a class problem? Robert Pegg, a playwright and police station representative, seems to think so. In a remarkable long read for The Mill , he argues that working-class creatives have been confined to the fringe scene, with commissioning editors mainly looking towards their own narrow class to fill vacancies. So how do we address these imbalances, and how do we ensure we hear from more great working-class writers like Shelagh Delaney and Trevor Griffiths in the future...
Jul 12, 2024•38 min
Britain doesn't have a second city
Has the question of whether Manchester or Birmingham is Britain's second city distracted us from another possibility: That Britain doesn't have a second city at all? David Rudlin, director of urban design at BDP, thinks so. A little-known law states that neither Birmingham nor Manchester are big enough to claim the title of Britain's second city, which brings us onto an interesting question: How have both cities fallen short? And what would it take for them to catch up? With thanks to Manchester...
Jun 28, 2024•19 min
Clinging on in east Manchester
Writer Alec Herron's gran’s house was on the Grey Mare Lane estate in Beswick, east Manchester. He can still remember Sunday afternoons "filled with rice pudding, sucking bone marrow and hours sat around the table hearing stories of tragedy and petty gossip told with the same veracity". It will all be coming down soon. The regeneration of Grey Mare Lane estate was initiated after a 2017 public consultation concluded the estate was being “left behind”. Late last year, a £70 million masterplan for...
Jun 21, 2024•22 min
General Election preview: Keir Starmer gets his candidates in Greater Manchester
It’s been a frantic few days of political shenanigans as Sir Keir Starmer’s ruthless operation in London moves to impose its favoured people on the safe seats that are up for grabs in Greater Manchester, the Lib Dems attempt to remove any Tory blue from the Greater Manchester map and the Tories fight to hold on in Bolton. So who are the people vying to be the next MPs of Greater Manchester, and what's going on with Labour's candidate selections? Mollie and Jack take a look. Recommendations: ‘It’...
May 31, 2024•13 min
Sacha Lord has withdrawn his legal threat against The Mill
Last Thursday, The Mill revealed that Primary Security, a company controlled by Sacha Lord, had obtained more than £400,000 of public money from an Arts Council scheme that was supposed to support culturally significant organisations during the pandemic. Our story presented evidence that the application was deeply misleading and that Sacha Lord’s company Primary Security had recently changed its name to Primary Events. Fast forward to 5.04pm on Friday, and an expensive law firm in the capital se...
May 24, 2024•30 min
Co-op Live has finally launched. Now, it has to win back the public's trust
Co-op Live is finally live! Bury rock band Elbow performed at Manchester's new £365 million arena to a crowd of thousands on Tuesday night, after a series of disastrous mishaps where gigs were postponed or cancelled and an air conditioning vent fell from the ceiling. What was behind the delays in the first place, and what does Co-op Live have to do to win back the public's trust? With thanks to Manchester Museum for sponsoring this week's episode. Manchester wants to become a 'greener' city that...
May 17, 2024•15 min
Manchester's homeless camp had good intentions. Was that enough?
On Friday 22nd March, tents started gathering under the porticoes outside Manchester Town Hall in St Peter’s Square. An activist named Emma was protesting the government not halting arms sales to Israel, and seeing the sleeping bags under the porticoes gave her an idea. Within a few days, dozens of tents were outside the town hall and there was a waiting list of rough sleepers hoping to join the camp. Manchester’s most pressing social problem was playing out right in front of the council’s nose....
Apr 22, 2024•18 min
Who is to blame for the Night & Day Cafe saga?
In late 2021, a noise complaint filed to Manchester City Council about the iconic Northern Quarter venue Night & Day Cafe caused a city-wide row that lasted more than two years. In today's episode, Jack and Joshi discuss Jack's recent piece, that took a deeper look at what, until now, had been quite a simple story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 28, 2024•42 min
The mistreatment of Manchester's homeless community
When a video emerged of a Greater Manchester Police constable kicking and stamping on a homeless refugee, there was a huge public outcry. Andy Burnham demanded an internal investigation and homelessness charities called it "appalling, unacceptable and degrading". What does this incident tell us about the police's attitudes to the homeless community in Manchester, and what will it take for the authorities to regain the trust of some of society's most vulnerable? Mollie speaks about her reporting ...
Mar 21, 2024•15 min
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