Star date: 28th June 2011

SALFORD IN NOT PART OF FESTIVAL

Not Part Of
Various Venues
June 30th- July 16th

The Not Part of Festival describes itself as the Fringe of Manchester International Festival which is `totally open and inclusive'. And for those Salford people who can't get to The Lowry's £300,000 opera there's plenty going on around the city at affordable local venues...from Something Like A Fairytale at Salford Arts Theatre to Nice at Studio Salford.

For full details click here…

The Not Part of Festival kicks off all over Salford and Manchester over the next couple of weeks and the highlights for our city include everything from kids shows to adult fairy stories.

The chilling Something Like A Fairytale at Salford Arts Theatre (July 1st and 2nd), performed by undergrads from Salford University Performance School, promises `shock, horror and guilty pleasure' as it takes classic kids' stories and carves them `into a land of our imagination, where you can escape no further than the back of your seat, as it unfolds that you should never believe in fairytales as they end happily never after'.

Also on at Salford Arts Theatre (7th- 9th July) is the Roman romp, A Gladiator On The Town, performed by Salford Theatre Company and a follow up to the successful A Gladiator In The House.

Over at Studio Salford, ten events are being held as part of the Not Part Of fest including political war correspondent thriller, Nice (8th July) and a new staging of one-night-stand drama, Fifteen Minutes With You by Salford writer, Cathy Crabb (7th July).

Indeed, 7th July sees four shows in total at Studio Salford, beginning at 2pm with Mike Heath's Eighteen, closely followed by blacKbird (4pm), The Myth of Escape (6:30pm) and ending with Fifteen Minutes With You at 9pm.

There's also contemp dance at the Robert Powell Theatre with the Reforma Triple Bill (1st July), a 16th Century blue deacon at St Philips Church in A Warning Against Idle Gossip (4th July), music, poetry and art at Islington Mill under the banner of Out With It! (6th July) and a top children's play with puppets, Ruby Flew Too, about a duckling struggling to find her feet (Salford Arts Theatre 10th July).

Meanwhile, Salford's James Foster, always popping up on tv as an actor, directs the Irish comedy, Dev's Army at Taurus (30th June - 2nd July). And a special Not Part Of Embryo at Studio Salford (8th July) will showcase extracts from the top shows at the whole Festival.

This is just a flavour of some of the stuff going off in Salford. But there's loads more plus events happening all over Manchester too.

For full details on all these shows and more go to www.notpartof.org