Covering the arts in North West England and Yorkshire: a critic's guide

Regional magazine publishing in North West England and Yorkshire is a two-region job. The patch runs from Tate Liverpool and Manchester's Whitworth to The Hepworth Wakefield and the Ferens in Hull, and the two halves keep separate calendars, separate funding maps and separate audiences. This guide sets out where they diverge and how to plan coverage that holds up.

What to take away

Two arts scenes, two funding maps

Money and geography run along the same lines in both regions. Most of the year-round programme sits in the largest cities.

Arts Council England keeps the bulk of its National Portfolio in the big city regions, and regional arts funding compared sets out what that concentration means for critics working outside London. National Lottery Project Grants run alongside it, funding the single shows, festivals and touring dates that never reach a multi-year portfolio list.

Portfolio status is worth knowing by name: Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield Theatres all hold National Portfolio Organisation funding, which brings a funding agreement, a published annual report and a press office that expects coverage.

Funders publish where the money lands. Arts Council England reports its investment by region, and the National Endowment for the Arts does the same state by state in its published research; reading one makes the other legible.

North West England centres its activity on Manchester and Liverpool: the Whitworth, HOME and Manchester Art Gallery in one city, Tate Liverpool, FACT and the Bluecoat in the other, with the Harris in Preston and Tullie House in Carlisle holding smaller, steadier programmes. Yorkshire spreads wider still, from Leeds Art Gallery and the Henry Moore Institute to Sheffield's Millennium Gallery and Site Gallery, Cartwright Hall and Impressions Gallery in Bradford, the Ferens in Hull and York Art Gallery, with The Hepworth Wakefield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park out in the county.

Recurring events give each calendar its shape. Liverpool Biennial, Manchester International Festival and Sheffield DocFest announce programmes months ahead, which is when a preview pitch has to go in, and Light Night Leeds shows how a one-night programme is covered differently from a run.

That geography sets travel time, and travel time sets how many pieces a freelance critic can file in a month. A Manchester gallery is twenty minutes from the centre by tram; a show in the Dales can cost a day.

Audiences decide the format

Audiences differ as much as venues do, and that difference decides length, images and turnaround.

A county museum such as the Yorkshire Museum in York keeps an older, loyal readership. Urban North West audiences skew younger and arrive through a late opening or a social feed.

Print listings still carry weight in county towns, and a preview can run for a fortnight before opening. A live performance review is a different job from a hung show: there is no object to return to, so the piece has to carry the production's shape as well as its argument.

That changes the pitch before a word is written. A long essay on a Yorkshire painter can hold a county readership. The same length on a Manchester graduate show often will not.

Image rights and interview access follow one question: who is this piece for?

Venues, heritage and access

Access shapes a review as much as the work does. Step-free routes, low light and small print rooms decide how long a visitor stays and what they can see.

Many venues in both regions sit inside listed buildings, which limits what a refit can change. A critic who knows the building asks sharper questions about a hang, a closure or a delayed reopening.

Those questions belong to the press officer as much as to the curator. Listed building consent sits with the local planning authority, with Historic England as the statutory adviser and the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as the framework, and heritage listing rules explain what a venue may change about lighting or a hanging wall.

That knowledge travels to any city, and it saves arguments later.

Example: one touring show, two reviews

Say a retrospective opens in Leeds in March and travels to a Liverpool gallery in June. The Leeds version may draw on local lenders and private collections, which gives the piece a provenance angle.

The Liverpool version may swap two rooms and drop the chronology, so it is a second assignment, not a repeat.

Getty Education publishes practical guidance on reviewing exhibitions, including how to describe a hang without leaning on adjectives.

Ask both curators what changed in transit, and why. Those answers usually explain the argument of a show better than the wall text does.

A survey show that leans on chronology needs a different structure from a single-artist show; start with what the hang argues, not with the first room. Credit lines change between venues, and a review that ignores them dates quickly.

A loan agreement lets a lender pull a work before opening, and the piece then has to be rewritten around the gap; handling a loan withdrawal is worth knowing before you file.

A coverage routine that holds

The routine only works if the patch list stays current, so revisit it twice a year.

Common questions

Which city should a new critic start with?

Start where three venues sit within one afternoon's travel. Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool all pass that test.

How often should the same gallery be revisited?

Twice a year for a funded gallery, and less for a space that changes its programme every month.

Do you need a press pass at a fair?

Accreditation helps at fairs, though most regional galleries simply ask for a name on the list.

How do you check what an organisation claims about its reach?

Compare the annual report with fact-checking an institution's accounts, which covers the Charity Commission and OSCR checks.