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Festival review: LeftLion at Download Festival 2025

Rock and metal fans from around the world descended again on Donington Park – just a short drive from Nottingham – for the ultimate celebration of rock music. LeftLion's Natalie Owen was right there in the thick of it, soaking up the chaos, the riffs, and the raw energy of Download Festival – a true titan of the UK festival scene. Here's how it went down...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #24: Notts music we're currently spinning

In the latest edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens for 2025, our music team reviews new releases from Cappo, Dorothy Ella. GIRLBAND!, The Doctor's Orders Collective and We Are Sovereign...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #23: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this week's edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, we review new releases from Lucy Crisp, Pretty Windows and Rhythm Eaters...

LeftLion Interviews Podcast #11 LaQuarn Lewis on BBC mini series What It Feels Like For A Girl, Television Workshop, and LGBTQ+ Notts

Notts born actor LaQuarn Lewis is one of the stars of a new BBC mini-series, What It Feels Like For A Girl, which tells the story of Byron, a Queer teen who is desperate to escape the confines of Hucknall. We caught up with LaQuarn on the podcast to chat about the show, his time at Television Workshop and growing up Queer in Notts...

Want to Contribute to LeftLion?

Ever since we launched in 2003, LeftLion has been created, maintained and enhanced by writers, designers, photographers, illustrators and techies from Nottingham. Although we now have a strong team of creatives and backroom staff, we're always looking for new blood in practically all areas. If you want to be down with the ‘Lion, read on...

The Official LeftLion Guide To 2025 Festival Season

Can you hear that? It’s finally in the air – instruments reverberating across wide open fields, the chimes of communities singing and laughing together, the sound of footsteps as friends stumble back to their tents or homes, ready to do it all over again the next day, or the following weekend. That’s right, the 2025 summer festival season is finally here, and with the return of Splendour Festival right here in Nottingham, it’s shaping up to be a big one!

To give you the lowdown, here’s our ultimate guide to the best local festivals taking place in the city of Nottingham and the surrounding areas over the next few months…

LeftLion Issue #184 June 2025

This month featuring our guide to local summer music festivals, Nottingham Poetry Festival, actor LaQuarn Lewis on BBC's What It Feels Like For A Girl, the Nottingham Attacks Two Years On, Nottingham Playhouse's Adam Penford, Nottingham Craft Beer Festival, the Lenton Centre, Future Makers and more...

Novelist Alison Moore and LeftLion's Andrew Tucker Leavis talk connecting Notts to Melbourne in a month long digital residency

For all of its flaws, the internet has become a wonderful tool of cross-country collaboration, allowing the movement of ideas between far-flung time zones and territories. Last year, in a month-long virtual City of Literature residency, LeftLion Literature Editor Andrew Tucker Leavis took a virtual trip down under to explore the imagined meeting of outlaws Robin Hood and Ned Kelly. Here he recounts his experience and talks to fellow Notts writer Alison Moore about what they got up to.

LeftLion's Latest Listens #22: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, our music team reviews new releases from Blackadder, Mollie Ralph and Set In Motion...

LeftLion Interviews Podcast #10: Comedian Matt Forde on His Early Life In Notts, Kier Starmer, Spitting Image, Forest, Cancer and The End of An Era Tour

Originally from Lenton, Matt Forde is a comedian, TV and radio presenter, writer, impressionist and quite a lot more. He’s perhaps best known for his podcast The Political Party, but he's also a regular face on TV and currently on his End of An Era Tour...

Did LeftLion save the Sheriff in Escapologic’s Robin Of Lockskey escape room?

Last week as Escapologic celebrated their 10th birthday, the LeftLion team were invited down to try out another of their fantastic escape rooms, Robin Of Lockskey. But did we manage to save the Sheriff and escape? Read on to find out…

LeftLion's Latest Listens #21: Notts music we're currently spinning

We're back once again with a pre-Bank Holiday edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens. This week, our music team reviews new releases from Swallowtail, highspeedpeach, MCØ and Drew Thomas...

LeftLion Issue #183 May 2025

Featuring 20 Years of Dot To Dot, comedian Matt Forde, boxer Leigh Wood, Igloo Hostel, Nottingham Restaurant Week, NottAlone, Dom Gourlay, the 1525 Collective, The Amazons, A Projectionist in Notts and more...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #20: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this Easter weekend edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, our music team reviews recent releases from Katie Keddie, Joey Collins, Blu Syrup, Lace Thief and Karen Macleod...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #19: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this week's expanded edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, our music team reviews new releases from Keane Baldwin, KALIKO, Pretty Windows, No Setting Son and Dusty 4 Track...

LeftLion Interviews Podcast #9 DJ Jonathan on The Palais, the changing art of DJing, Northern Soul, Jazz Funk and Tiswas

Our first podcast of 2025 and we're back with a chinwag with a veteran DJ, talking through the 1970s Nottingham scene at The Palais De Danse, as well as the changing face of music, festivals and more...

LeftLion Issue #182 April 2025

LeftLion's Latest Listens #18: Notts music we're currently spinning

In our latest edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, our music team reviews a selection of recent new releases. This time it's the turn of ROB.GREEN, Dead Mint, Drew Thomas, Sam Oakley and Stuart Pearce...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #17 special edition: Divorce

In this special edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, we sample the debut album Drive to Goldenhammer from Nottingham's own Divorce...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #16: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, our music team reviews new releases from Otala, Sam Shaw & The Real Eyes, Green Grango, Fallowed and Divorce...

LeftLion Issue #181 March 2025

This month's edition of LeftLion features Fisher Gate Point, Marcus Garvey Centre, Doves, playwright Jane Upton, A Foster Carer in Notts, wild swimming at Colwick Park, Ay-Up Market, The Lace Market Theatre, Bulwell Forest Garden, Sister Midnight and much more...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #15: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens, our music team reviews new releases from Confyde, Idolvein, Cara Flynn, Marseille and ALT BLK ERA...

Film Review: Companion

A Barbie girl, living in a non-Barbie world...

LeftLion Issue #180 February 2025

This month featuring Gary Younge, Aisling Loftus, Revinyl Sessions, Tom Dale and Barret Hodgson on Light Night, Sobar, Nottingham Cinema Round Table, Notts County photographer John Anderson, Sarah Bard, Bellydancer Marija Zinkevica, Girl Scout, House of Pain Wrestling, Linden Archives and lots more...

LeftLion's Latest Listens #14: Notts music we're currently spinning

In this, the first edition of LeftLion's Latest Listens for 2025, our music team reviews new releases from Rainbow Frog Biscuits, Bad Milk Blood Robot, Eleanor McGregor and Divorce...