Liverpool Lifestyle
what’s on
It won’t escape anybody’s attention that Liverpool has won the right to the title of European Capital of Culture in 2008. Banners proclaiming it flutter from every lamppost, the local newspapers and radio press talk of little else and expectations are high that 2008 will be the beginning of a culture-led “Golden age” for the city and its environs.
The precise roster of events has yet to be decided, but 2008 promises to bring an extravaganza of art and culture to Merseyside, if the experience of Glasgow, the last British city to be given the honour, is any guide. The image of the Scottish city was transformed by the experience, losing its image as a tough industrial city to a Mecca for culture-hungry tourists. Disused warehouses and office blocks were put to use as theatres and concert halls, new galleries were created and old ones revitalised and a rash of cafes and restaurants sprang up to serve the new hordes visiting, and moving to, the city.
While you wait for 2008, there’s plenty to satisfy the needs of the most demanding culture consumer. Liverpool won the Capital of Culture award despite some pretty stiff competition from cities such as Newcastle, Birmingham and Oxford thanks to its already considerable cultural assets.
Its mercantile past (Liverpool was once the richest city in the country after London) and generous benefactors mean that the city is already well endowed with galleries and museums and the city’s long literary tradition means that it claims to have more theatres than any other city in the UK.
art scene
Notable amongst the former are the Walker Gallery, which has collections of pre-Raphaelite art (as does the Lady Lever Art Gallery over the Mersey in Port Sunlight) and impressionist paintings by Cezanne, Matisse and Degas. The Tate is the permanent home of the National Collection of Modern Art in the North as well as visiting collections of contemporary art from its sister museums in London, Cornwall and elsewhere.
The Liverpool Museum, due to be a major beneficiary of 2008, is a mixture of natural history, a planetarium and ancient artefacts from Greece and the Middle East. The city also houses an impressive Maritime Museum and, inevitably, a museum dedicated to the Beatles. Meanwhile, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has its home at the art deco Philharmonic Hall and both mainstream and arthouse cinema can be found at the FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) Centre in Wood Street.
The city’s former wealth is also reflected in its architecture, and the waterfront (displaying the Three Graces, The Cunard, Liver and the Port of Liverpool Buildings) is particularly spectacular. Liverpool has over 1,000 listed buildings, more than any UK city other than London. In 2004 it became a UNESCO world heritage city. Its other architectural gems include the Albert Dock, which is the largest group of Grade I listed buildings in Britain, the Anglican and Catholic cathedrals, the Georgian town hall, St George’s Hall (a neo-classical Victorian concert hall), the Tudor Speke Hall and Port Sunlight.
theatre
Liverpool has a proud tradition of producing distinguished playwrights, such as Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell. The Playhouse and Everyman Theatres which first gave them their breaks remain two of the leading theatres in the country for new productions. Musicals, and more established plays on their way to London, are put on at the Liverpool Empire.
The city is also famous for its poets and hosts an annual literature festival, the ‘Writing in the Wall’. It is also home to the Liverpool International Street Festival, the Liverpool Biennial (which is the UK’s largest festival of the contemporary arts), the Mathew Street Music Festival and an almost incessant number of Beatles’ fans conventions.
bars
But for those whose pleasures in life are simpler, there remains plenty to do in Liverpool. The number of bars in Liverpool has doubled in the last 5 years, and the city came top of a 2004 NME student poll to find the best bars in the country. The beautiful people (and the city’s professional footballers) tend to gather at the bars and restaurants in the restored Albert Dock, such as Blue and Bar Monaco. City centre bars such as the Newz Bar and the Baa Bar, the first in Merseyside’s new wave of bars and owned by Tom Bloxham, Chair of trendy property developers Urban Splash, also attract a fashionable crowd.
More conventional vertical-drinking chain bars (Rat & Parrot, JD Wetherspoons et al) are clustered around Slater, Seel and Wood Streets. A more raucous experience is available around Mathew Street – the traditional epicentre of Liverpool nightlife – which is also home to the Cavern Club (not the original, but a fairly accurate recreation of where the Beatles played their first gigs).
clubs
Club culture is perhaps not the force it once was as the bar culture has thrived and Cream, once one of the country’s most famous clubs, is no longer a regular fixture in Liverpool, although the annual festival it runs at Speke on August Bank Holidays, Creamfields, survives. Nevertheless, the city still has a healthy number of clubs including Society, Garlands and The Barfly.
The music scene is livelier although the biggest bands tend to bypass Liverpool in favour of the bigger venues available in Manchester. The same NME student poll described Liverpool second only to the capital for gigs, listing the top three gig venues as the Barfly, the newly-opened Carling Academy and the Liverpool Academy, where recent turns include Fat Boy Slim, Motorhead, The Beautiful South, Coldplay and the Hives.
The Royal Court Theatre still attracts a good rota of bands, as does the Philharmonic Hall (which hosted artistes ranging from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals to Chris Rea to Acker Bilk in 2004). Up-and-coming bands play in the abundance of smaller venues around the city, and, in-between Beatles tribute acts, at the Cavern Club.
In the city where everyone’s a comedian, you might think there’s no need for a comedy club, but a few brave souls are willing to brave what must be the country’s toughest audience at The Rawhide, Central Hall. The more established turns play The Neptune Theatre and the art deco Royal Court Theatre, which has hosted the likes of Bill Bailey as well as somewhat more old-fashioned stand-ups like Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown in recent times.
eating out
Food-wise, things are a little more cosmopolitan. Liverpool’s maritime history does mean that its dining options are extremely diverse, including Greek, Italian, Chinese, Indian, French, Japanese, Thai, Spanish, Mexican as well as what claims to be the country’s only Russian restaurant outside London.
As with the city’s bars, many of the most upmarket restaurants and brasseries are found in the Albert Dock, although the city’s leading restaurant, according to the Good Food Guide, is the London Carriage Works at the Hope Street Hotel, near the Anglican Cathedral. 60 Hope Street, the restaurant credited with pioneering gourmet dining in Merseyside has been named as the local restaurant of the year 4 times by the local tourist board.
sports
Finally, no rundown of the entertainment scene in Merseyside would be complete without mentioning the city’s sporting offerings. Football is a religion on Merseyside, to the detriment of most other sports. Liverpool FC is the most British football club in history, having won 4 European cups, 18 English championships and 6 FA cups, while near-neighbours Everton have spent more years in the top division than any other and have 9 championships and 5 FA cups.
Liverpool’s Aintree racecourse is the venue for the country’s most famous horse race, the Grand National, while Haydock Park also regularly hosts top rank race meetings. Merseyside also abounds with golf courses, including 2 of the country’s leading professional courses - Royal Liverpool and Royal Birkdale. The latter regularly hosts the world’s top golfing tournaments such as the Ryder Cup and the British Open, which is next due at the course, not entirely uncoincidentally, in 2008.
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