Films, photographs and ephemera showing people having fun in Manchester cinemas, theatres, parks, pubs and sporting venues.
It's impossible to summarise all that goes on in present day Manchester. The pubs, the gigs, the football, the theatre... where do you stop? Looking back through Manchester's archives makes us aware that it's been this way for a very long time. "...Looking for the Apollo music saloon on London Road one Saturday night in 1849... Itinerant bands blow and bang their loudest; organ boys grind monotonously; ballad singers or flying stationers make bold proclamations of their wares. The street is one swarming mass of people. Boys or girls shout and laugh and disappear into the taverns together... From the byways and the alleys and back streets fresh crowds every moment emerge." Angus Reach, The London Morning Chronicle.
Sinbad the Sailor at the Palace Theatre, 1898-1899
YMCA Swimming Team. High Street Baths, Hathersage Road, Manchester, c.1909
"The first time I came here I knew it was a place rich in culture. Italian restaurants in the city centre, China-town, Asian restaurants in Rusholme, the Gay Village, the English pubs, the cafe bars, and then you've got the inner city in Moss Side. Manchester reminds me very much of San Francisco. Even the weather's the same. The thing is that the English don't do a good job selling England - but they do an excellent job selling Florida. There are so many people in America who need to come because they think England's full of cobbled roads. When I go back home to California, people ask me if I'm homesick. How can you be homesick in Manchester? There's so much going on here."Mark Delaney Robinson 29 year old, American captain of Manchester Giants basketball team. Interviewed in the Manchester Evening News, 20th February 1997. Morecambe and Wise arrive at the Odeon, Manchester (1965): Scenes from the world premiere of "The Intelligence Men" starring Morecambe and Wise, at the Odeon cinema, Manchester, 25th March 1965.