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LeftLion Issue #188 October 2025

Featuring Wolf Wytch Apothecary, ghost stories from the National Justice Museum, Hockley Hustle 2025, Sisterhood Photography Collective, Trancesexuals club night, Nottingham Comedy Festival, Nottingham's new nature poet laureate, Primary, the Nottingham Women's Centre, George Gadd, Adam Curtis, and loads more...

Left Magpie: September 2025 - Sun Sets On Mid Table

Our Notts County columnist Julian McDougall, is back with a report on this month's action at Notts County FC and is somewhat confused to see the pies in mid-table...

The Thompsons on street art, Rocky Horror, and Notts venues

In late August, Nottingham's most opinionated grocers told us their opinions on September's hot topics - spanning street art, Nottingham venues, and surreal two trips that they made to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Theatre Royal...

Celebrating 160 years of the Theatre Royal

We look back on 160 years of Nottingham’s Theatre Royal and some of the famous productions and people it has brought to the city…

Wok This Way: The Seafood Guy Brings Hong Kong to Notts

There’s a new café in town serving Hong Kong classics. Our Food Co-Editor, Julia Head, AKA Nottingham Food Guide, met up with owner Johnny Tam to find out how he brought the flavours of Hong Kong to Nottingham with The Seafood Guy.

Seven great Notts spots for thrifted and vintage fashion

In celebration of Second Hand September, fashion editor, Addie Kenogbon-Harley gives us the lowdown on how to grab a bargain, look after the planet and get your hands on the best thrifted treasures this month.

From the Kitchen: With Luke Matterson, chef at The Pudding Pantry

For this instalment of From the Kitchen we reached out to Luke Mattherson, who works at The Pudding Pantry - an independent, coffee and desserts restaurant popular across the city.

LeftLion's Latest Listens #31: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, our music team reviews new releases from Sancho Panza, Parisa East, Fools & Sages and Blackadder...

How the Sound Sanctuary is keeping Notts ravers safe

A lover of music and the underground rave scene, Magda realised the parties they were attending were under-delivering on safety. In 2023, they began The Sound Sanctuary: a travelling stand, a bunch of supplies and a few passionate people providing first aid and drug education to help partiers feel safe in the rave… 

Life without liquor: the best activities for teetotal people in Notts

“What’s your drink of choice?” No, sadly I’m not Emma D’Arcy, instead a thirty-year-old who’s chosen to live alcohol-free for the past two years. So I’ll take a lime and soda, or a ginger beer if I’m feeling a little bit fancy. Truth be told, it’s one of the best things I’ve done; I feel far from the ‘boring one,’ in fact it’s the opposite - there’s such an abundance of alternative activities to do, right here in Nottingham, so grab a 0% brew and get comfy... 

Locating D.H. Lawrence: September 1925

In another life, D.H. Lawrence could have worked for Thomas Cook...

Comedy Review: Nightmare! Nightmare! Kill! Kill! at the Lord Roberts

Benthic Zone and Doxxie Phisher are back and with a UFO theme. Will the audience be probed?  

Lola Young, Day Fever and the Festival of Food and Drink: Here's what's on in Notts this week 15-21 September 2025

Nottingham is hosting a diverse range of events this week, from back-to-back musical performances arranged by Rough Trade to a majestic murder mystery dinner night and a 2000s emo festival. Be it enjoying comedic nostalgia with Friends on stage or witnessing an epic confrontation between local poets, there is something for everyone and this week's top picks from our city are...

Night Creatures Podcast #1: Felix Coulton (aka OK Flex) on founding Swing Dash Radio and opening Movers in Hockley

Night Creatures is a new LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him over twenty years of experience of putting on great parties in the city...

Follow the stickers: Notts filmmaker Matt Watts on the stories behind sticker art on the streets

Hidden amongst the barrage of commercial advertisements and billboards that dominate our city landscape, the more curious among us may be drawn to some unusual markings; the plethora of quirky stickers plastered on lampposts, signs and electrical boxes. Follow the Stickers is a short film by Nottingham-based documentary filmmaker Matt Watts. Here he shares his journey of tangents, discovering artists, events and more obscure messages of the underground sticker world, and telling us why we should keep an eye out for them too… 

Blood Brothers, Tom Grennan and RELIC: Here's what's on in Notts this week 8-14 September 2025

This week Nottingham is hosting loads of events for you to get out and be entertained. Whether you're a theatre enthusiast, a fan of live music or here for a bit of cultural celebration, there's something for you to get your teeth stuck into. Here are our top picks of the week...

Whose streets are they anyway? How street art crossed the pond from New York to the East Midlands

Graffiti, tags, murals, stenciling, paste-ups… street art is a diverse artform with many subcategories and styles. While some might deride the practice under the blanket term of vandalism, for proponents of the artform, taking art out of the gallery and into the streets is about civil disobedience, ownership of space, and creative expression outside of the mainstream. We dip into the origins of graffiti in NYC and speak to artist Richie ‘Pops’ Baker about how the medium came to Nottingham in the 1980s…

Theatre and TV legend James Graham talks bringing Notts to the screen and writing about Gareth Southgate

James Graham is one of British theatre’s most popular and prolific writers and also the creator of BBC TV drama Sherwood. He was born and brought up in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, in the 1980s -his first job was working the stage door at the Theatre Royal. Twenty years on, James returns to the city with the epic Dear England, a play about football manager Gareth Southgate, which headlines the theatre’s 160th birthday celebrations…

Cabaret, tug of war and speed skating: Here's what's on in Notts this week 1-7 September 2025

This week brings you a brilliant range of events in Notts, whether you are a theatre lover or a sporting fanatic, there's plenty in store to kick off your September. Here are our top picks for the week...

Art is the heart: what to expect from year two of Art Fest in Notts

With its first year in 2024 bringing 34 new murals to Nottingham’s streets, Art Fest is back this month to splash more colour and creativity on walls throughout the city. Festival Director Benjamin Kay, who co-runs The Carousel in Hockley, tells us why he set up the festival and what to expect from this year…

LeftLion Issue #187 September 2025

Locating D.H. Lawrence: August 1925

Lawrence would rather be a penniless tramp than a Duke of Portland…

Out of time: a idiosyncratic history of adult cinemas and shops in Notts

Sex sells….or so we’ve heard. We take a look back at Nottingham’s history of ‘adult’ entertainment cinemas and shops.

From grassroots to Fields: we speak with rising local band Drury Hill

Nottingham born-and-bred Drury Hill are one of the emerging bands repopulating the local grassroots music scene with a softer rock, post-folk influenced sound. Transitioning between softly lilting, storytelling tracks and jangly, spirited choruses you find yourself humming days afterwards, the four-piece’s live gigs and recent EP Fields capture a fittingly self-described "soft rockin’, slacker poppin’’ voice. But their DIY, offbeat and grassroots ethos runs deeper than their distinct sound; Drury Hill have always been shaped by the band members’ shared adolescence in Nottingham. We met with Charley to talk about the ways a sense of place seeps into their songwriting, the nostalgia that infuses Fields, and the support of the grassroots music scene...

Overheard in Notts: September 2025

It's another instalment of Overheard in Notts - this month we focus in on pork pies, cable cars, and the Morrisey of Mapperley...