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Manchester Nightlife
Be warned, Manchester's nightlife is constantly reinventing itself and like every city, it's the clubs that are most in constant flux. It is home to some of the most creative promoters and DJs in the country, so if one club disappears, there's bound to be two more along in its place!
If clubbing is not your scene, the bars are almost as lively and filled with music, great food and cool ambience. There's an area for everyone such as the environs of Canal Street and most pop between them on a fine night out! With the bar scene in such an ascendancy, it could be easy to forget the traditional pub, but given the beauties on offer around the city centre and beyond, there's a vibrant selection of real ales, Belgian beers, fruit brews and whatever else takes your fancy.
For the foodies, there'll be something to satisfy even the most jaded of palates, from modern British to Thai; from Japanese to Armenian; Spanish; Italian and beyond. In Chinatown, the curry mile and the square mile of brilliant fine dining restaurants in the city centre, whatever you want, Manchester has it. If it's theatre you're after, then from highbrow and literary to popular and musical, venues like The Royal Exchange, Library Theatre, The Lowry, the Contact and the Palace Theatre cater for all tastes. Keep your opera glasses peeled too for signs of a theatrical renaissance if the rumours that Manchester hope to rival the Edinburgh festival in a few years time. The biennial event would have a huge effect on Manchester's theatrical life.
Of course it would also impact on the existing comedy scene, which laughs its way around the city. The tradition of top comics is just as long as that of fine music, and at the likes of the Comedy Store, Jongleurs, The Buzz and Zzub clubs, and the Frog and Bucket, that tradition is alive and kicking.
The City of Manchester
Manchester is a relatively new city; born of the Industrial Revolution, it took the lead in the world's textile manufacture and production in the late 18th century, a position it held until its decline in the 1960s. Leaders of commerce, science and technology, like John Dalton and Samuel Arkwright, helped create a vibrant and thriving economy - most of the nation's wealth was created in this region during Victorian times. But it was undoubtedly textiles, and other associated trades, which dominated and created a young dynamic city, whose very symbol is the worker bee - an emblem repeated in mosaics all over the floor of the Town Hall.
Manchester is one of the largest metropolitan conurbations in the United Kingdom, justly proud of its history and heritage, its culture, enterprise and its entrepreneurial spirit. In more recent times, it has had to reconfigure its traditional manufacturing base to develop thriving new technologies. It has rebuilt itself as a leading centre of modernist architecture since the terrorist bombing of the city in 1996. This new sense of vigour and dynamism is evident in the appearance of an ever-increasing number of city centre hotels, luxury apartments and self-catering accommodation. It is a tribute to its people and planners of Manchester that the city arose again out of the ashes of this atrocity, phoenix-like, to become a thoroughly modern city - a leading light of the 21st century.
In the 1970s, Greater Manchester was born - a still controversial grouping of 8 boroughs and 2 cities, which were subsumed into one large administrative conurbation, the Metropolitan County of Greater Manchester. Two of these, Tameside and Trafford, were newly created (again, quite controversially) for the purpose, while other former County Boroughs like Bury, Oldham and Rochdale (in Lancashire) and Stockport (in Cheshire) lost their administrative independence to a large degree to the new Metropolitan County.
This "county" still produces more than half of Britain's manufactured goods and consumables, though manufacturing continues its steady decline.
Greater Manchester is a big place. While 2.6 million people live within its actual boundaries, over 7 million others live in the wider region, making it second only to London in Great Britain. For 11 million people living within 50 miles of the City of Manchester, it is the place where they come to work, or to shop or to visit the many attractions and entertainments that only a large dynamic city such as this could hope to offer.
Class Fees
Individual Class: £12 per class (paid on arrival and no booking is required)
6 Class Block: £60 (booked and paid for in advance though classes do not have to be taken consecutively)
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