What's on

An Evening with Claire Mooney and Special Guests

Performance Space

Join Claire Mooney and special guests at Central Library for a night of music and poetry like no other. Claire Mooney is a singer songwriter with numerous albums and international airplay to her credit. Described by NME as ‘a real talent’ and Music Week as ‘a people’s songstress’ Claire mixes the political with the playful […]

£5

RETRO SILENT DISCO IS BACK!!!

Performance Space

You may have been living on a prayer that our super popular Silent Disco was ever going to return, but we were never gonna give you up! If you're desperate to strut your funky stuff to the best retro pop, rock and soul, Central Library is the place you wannabee. Since you've been gone, the […]

£6 – £10

Salford and Cheetham Hill – iconic photos from the 1950s and 60s

First Floor Exhibition Hall

This unique collection of photographs shows aspects of life in Cheetham Hill and Salford in the 1950s and 60s. There are images of whit walks , shops, factories, schools, family snaps, products and fashions of the period. There are also photo's of the diverse  migrant communities who came to live in Cheetham Hill and their […]

The Prostate Gap

Lower Ground Floor Exhibition Space

Photographer Ian Smith presents this exhibition with the objective of raising awareness of prostate cancer in the under-represented. It focuses on the lack of understanding of how prostate cancer affects minority groups. The message is aimed at the general public to dilute the stereotyping of ‘the under-represented section of the population – groups with cultural […]

History of Carnival Workshops by Linford Sweeney

Performance Space

The history of Caribbean Carnivals is much more complex than many realise.  Carnival has origins based in colonialism and religious conversion, but it has now become a festival and celebration tied to freedom and emancipation from slavery.  Learn about how established African-Caribbean communities transferred the traditions associated with carnival to Manchester as we explore the […]

Jan Carson & Louise Kennedy

Performance Space

Two award-winning stars of Irish writing join us to discuss their acclaimed novels. Jan Carson’s The Raptures is a playful, inventive whodunnit set in the small town of Ballylack. Hannah’s classmates are dying of a mystery plague to which she’s immune. As each of the dead children visit her, Hannah begins to question her religious upbringing as […]

£8

Kit de Waal

Performance Space

‘I live with the dread that one day when my young muscles rebel, can take no more stillness and the brutal confinement of my very self, I will stand and strip naked and burst out of my skin.’ Without Warning and Only Sometimes is Kit de Waal’s memoir of a childhood of opposites and extremes. Raised in […]

£10

Paterson Joseph in Conversation

Performance Space

It's 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man, especially one who has escaped slavery. So how does Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the King, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain and lead the fight to end slavery? In his captivating debut novel, The Secret […]

£12

Damon Galgut in Conversation

Performance Space

One family, four decades, four funerals, one unfulfilled promise. Winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, Damon Galgut joins us to discuss his masterpiece The Promise, a gripping, beautifully written family saga based around a farm in South Africa. Through the members of the Swart family, Damon explores personal and political change as the family splinters and […]

£12

Monica Ali

Performance Space

The bestselling and much-loved author of Brick Lane, Monica Ali visits MLF to celebrate her brilliant new novel Love Marriage, her first book in a decade. Yasmin’s engaged to fellow Junior Doctor Joe, but when they bring the two families together – one love-matched, long-married Bengali immigrants who thrive on home cooking and the other a single white […]

£12

Nihal Arthanayake: Let’s Talk

Performance Space

Award-winning BBC broadcaster Nihal Arthanayake brings a defibrillator to our ailing ability to connect through conversation. In Let’s Talk: How to Have Better Conversations, Nihal considers what’s happened to discourse, both public and private, over recent years. How Brexit, lockdown and social media have led to division, monologues, and a lack of in-person discussions. Through skills honed by […]

£10