Enter the eye catching and colourful mind of AJ Jefferies – better known as Moonjam as we explore his menagerie of animated mayhem. Blending playful absurdity with distinctive visuals, and winner of a plethora of awards including our MAFter Dark prize in 2025, we welcome AJ to share more about his inspirations, creative process and […]

If the Young Animator of the Year Awards prove anything, it’s that there is no shortage of enthusiastic talent eager to enter the animation industry. As the world shifts it’s focus to automated A.I processes, animation finds itself one of many industries challenged by the prospect of A.I dominating roles which were once human led. […]

A neon-soaked passion-filled presentation of all things creativity, trying to strike the elusive balance between uncurbed enthusiasm and pragmatic process. Aardman Director & Designer Gavin Strange plots his creative journey through his time in the design and film industry– picking it apart and extracting the lessons and learnings from it all. It’s loud, silly, and […]

For several years in the mid-1960s, the US-built F-111K strike/reconnaissance aircraft was the RAF’s future “spearhead”. It was intended to replace the TSR.2, an equivalent all-British aircraft beloved of test pilots and aircraft industry executives, notoriously cancelled by the Labour government in 1965 and now the focus of much nostalgia. Following a bitter political battle, […]

Shakespeare, Gardens and Rosa Grindon Manchester’s historic Shakespearean Garden celebrates Rosa Grindon’s vision What connects Shakespeare, a 104 year old sunken garden in Platt Fields’ Park and a remarkable suffragist? Our Shakespearean Garden is one of the city’s hidden treasures; a formal, sunken, intimate walled garden divided into four geometric quadrants, surrounded by deep banks […]

John Smeaton was the founder of the British engineering profession, conferring upon a hitherto disparate group of practitioners an identity and a status which has lasted to this day. His career covered an extraordinarily wide range of projects, greater than any of his contemporaries, and included lighthouses, canals and river training, docks and harbours, fen […]

‘The Springfields Nuclear Fuel Site – 80 years of Atomic Achievement’ by Fergus Munro Springfields, near Preston, is celebrating its 80th birthday since its establishment in 1946 as the UK’s production site for uranium fuel. It is the oldest manufacturer of commercial nuclear fuel in the world. This talk explains the origin of the site […]

An Evening with Chris McKinnell: Where the movies end, the real cases begin. Step beyond the Hollywood versions of The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Nun and some of the most famous paranormal cases ever documented for a rare evening with Chris McKinnell, grandson of legendary paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Chris grew up surrounded by […]

Manchester Game Centre is pleased to announce that the third annual Games Workshop Research and Play Convention (note the new name) is taking place on Saturday 19th September 2026 at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester. Games Workshop has been at the forefront of tabletop gaming for over five decades, producing some of the most […]

I am a Stranger Here Myself – The Music of Kurt Weill A Musical Journey Through the Life of Kurt Weill Overview Kurt Weill was a German-born American composer who created a revolutionary kind of opera of sharp social satire in collaboration with the writer Bertolt Brecht. He was born in 1900, into a Jewish […]