Chris Park

What with our obsession with Netflix’s GLOW and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson starring in just about every damn blockbuster to hit the silver screen in recent years, the topic of wrestling has seen somewhat of a resurgence in recent times. But while audiences can’t get enough of Zoya the Destroyer and the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, The Rock on the other hand has mostly left his persona back in the 80s where it belongs. No matter how much we relish the slamming costumes of Netflix’s hit show, w...

What have Justin Lee Collins, Alec Baldwin and Curly Watts got in common? Give up? Well, they have all made the character Dennis Dupree from Rock of Ages their own.
Kevin Kennedy, who many know as Curly, the infamous bin man from Coronation Street, is taking on this role for a brand new production which hits the road at the end of September. But who is Dennis?
“He is a guy who owns the Bourbon Rooms in LA in the 80s which is the mecca for rock music,” explains Kennedy on a break from rehearsa...

It’s hard to believe that Emmerdale, or Emmerdale Farm if you’re as old as me and can remember that far back, has been on our screens for 46 years. In that time we’ve had plane crashes, floods, storms, murders and more Dingles than you can shake a stick at.
But there are still so many unanswered questions in the nation’s favourite Yorkshire village. For instance, who wore the same hat for 15 years? Whose pinny is mounted on the wall in pride of place? Who hides her script in the kitchen drawe...

The Brontë Parsonage, nestled on the Yorkshire Moors in Haworth, is a magical place. I first went as a Brontë mad A-level student when they opened up the archives for me and, since that early formative experience, I’ve never left it too long between trips.
However, over the past two years it’s been even more special. In 2016 it was the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth and last year was the turn of the sisters’ brother, Branwell. This year the focus is on Emily.
Emily Brontë’s great wor...

…it is, it really is.
I’m a bit of a new kid on the Hebden Bridge block having lived here for just one year. For those who glance at this market town, it could be said that Hebden Bridge teeters on cliché having had the hippy revolution and then the LGBT revolution (we’re known as the lesbian capital of the UK, don’t you know?). This makes it a mishmash of people, thrown together into a small community, and yet something magical is undeniably here. The town is dissected by a beautiful stretch...

OK, so I haven’t found some sleepy, quaint fishing town totally unspoilt by tourism. But this is a lovely little resort resting quietly among some of the big hitters. Just down the road is Albufeira which welcomes the neon-bedecked permatans dancing to dodgy dance music and whooping at the lasers.
As I’m now the wrong side of 40 (or is it the right side? I change my mind daily), I wasn’t looking for a holiday spent dancing til dawn under flashing lights. Thankfully, Armacao de Pera caters mai...

Hollinghurst may have started his career back in 1988 with The Swimming Pool Library but he cemented himself as one of the UK’s leading writers in 2004 when he won the Booker Prize for the wonderful Line of Beauty, an exploration of gay life in the 80s written against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis and Tory politics.
Now he is back with a new novel, The Sparsholt Affair. It is familiar territory for Hollinghurst, a work that spans through the ages from World War Two to present day, set again...

“I don’t think you should be snobby about reading,” says Punam Ramchurn, director of Rochdale Literature and Ideas Festival which is returning for the fifth time this month.“It’s good that people read.”
For a festival still in its infancy, Rochdale is attracting some big names including Michael Parkinson, Alan Johnson, Tony Walsh and Jenny Eclair. “Jenny came last year,” says Ramchurn. “And she said, ‘don’t forget to ask me back next year’.”
Ramchurn adds: “It’s hard because there are so many...

This was the main reaction whenever I mentioned I was seeing the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra open their 2017/18 season at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. I’ll admit that I’m probably better suited to critiquing Madonna over Mahler, but along I went with absolutely no preconceptions.
I’ve been lucky enough to attend a BBC Philharmonic concert before when I reviewed the Scary Fairy with Craig Charles. But this was my first ever foray into a full-on classical concert. To say I was entranced is an ...

It’s December 2015 and West Yorkshire’s beautiful Calder Valley is celebrating Christmas. Then the rain comes. By Boxing Day, whole communities are submerged in some of the worst flooding in years. More than 4,000 businesses and 2,500 homes become water-logged, causing millions of pounds worth of losses and decimating the local economy.
Fast forward 18 months and Alan Dix of Shipley-based 509 Arts is immersed in something quite different – a hugely ambitious arts response to those challenging...

It’s the early 80s and I’m on my first school trip. Everything is going swimmingly. No coach sickness, I haven’t cried (due to the fact my entourage includes mum, auntie and two older cousins) and I’m reasonably excited to visit the rail museum. Then disaster strikes. I take my eye off my posse for a split second to concentrate on my ice cream cone, and they are all missing. Instead of calmly studying the faces around me until I find one I recognise, I panic and set off at breakneck speed int...

Those of us who have been in Manchester for many a year wistfully remember the restaurant Reform, one of the city’s leading eateries until its closure in 2003. Sadly, the venue has since lurched from one incarnation to another until Living Ventures, the kingpins of Manchester’s food scene who brought us Australasia, Artisan and Manchester House, snapped it up in 2015.
Lo and behold Grand Pacific was born and what a fantastic place it is. I was lucky enough to rub shoulders with the glamorous ...

I’ve done organised trips on my own before but this time I was going to be full-on independent. I’m not the nervous sort, but neither am I Bear Grylls, so I reckoned the rainforests of Costa Rica and the mountain trails of Tibet could wait for another year. I’d be better off taking the smaller step of jetting off to sunny Spain.
Like many people who grew up in the 80s, I’ve already visited quite a bit of Spain and so have resisted it for other – seemingly – more exciting locations. It was hig...

What do you get if you take Craig Charles, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Hansel and Gretel and shake them all up together? You get an invitation into the world of the Scary Fairy.
On a cold winter’s night in mid-December we were ushered into the BBC Studios at Salford Quays for an experience that was less Christmas and more Halloween: Craig Charles’s version of the Brothers Grimm classic fairy story.

Howard Jones rode the crest of the electronic wave of music in the early 80s with iconic hits such as New Song, What Is Love and Things Can Only Get Better. Fresh from spending his summer touring the US, Howard is coming back to these shores and hits Manchester’s The Ritz on Friday 24 November.
Canal Street’s Chris Park chatted to Howard about his new tour, stage fright and what is next in the world of music.