Queue-less Entertainment: Arts and Culture this Semester
After a late summer period of precipitously enforced mourning, ranging from prolific tears to #mournhub, is it not time that we had some ceremonious fun? Looking ahead beyond the backs of heads in the queue forming already at Eddy B; with fracking bans lifted, caps on bankers’ bonuses being lifted, is it not high time that we, the people, could do with a bit of lifting? So, instead of waiting around ponderously for another heaving, stately event, indulge me – let’s look at my anointed quarter of Leeds’ top artistic spots. While I cannot provide a generous Southwark Park-Westminster length culture crawl, I can promise spaces within a 5.1-mile radius of Hyde Park, if that will suffice, your majesty.
Hyde Park Book Club
Fancy a romantic spot that isn’t a queue? The love you might have thought you found in a 5.1-mile London line isn’t real, but Hyde Park Book Club encourages all kinds of seemingly literarily-inclined relationship types, fact or fiction. Not too pomp given its stacked shelves of pre-loved paperbacks, Book Club is a great spot for a quiet read during the day and remains a devoted mainstay for students near and far. It offers regular exhibitions, live music, student-run theatre performances as well as some tasty bites. So, you never know what you might love at Hyde Park Book Club. Keep an eye out.
Leeds Art Gallery
Now, while you might not see Becks walking round Leeds Art Gallery, at least you won’t need to camp out for it either. Their current gallery temporary exhibit named ‘Shifting Perspectives’, one I reviewed for The Gryphon earlier this year, is extremely diligent in its curation, striving to rewrite local and national top-down prevailing narratives. A key selling point of ‘Shifting Perspectives’ is its distinctive lack of passersby compared to the relatively high footfall inside the Ziff Gallery, the gallery’s main space, formerly known as ‘the Queen’s Room’. The Ziff being home to numerous works noted for their imperialist overtones, therefore perhaps comes as less of a surprise.
The Tiled Hall Café within Leeds Art Gallery provides ample ornamented room for respite from any stretch of standing you might have endured. Both Leeds Art Gallery and Tiled Hall Café are ‘a friendly, accessible environment for all our visitors and the widest possible access to our building, exhibitions and collections’, so, none of that Holly and Phil-style hijacking allowed.
Hyde Park Picture House
While one might be tempted to endure thirteen hours of homogenous activity standing, you simply don’t have to. Instead, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds’ student local indie film favourite is soon to be re-crowned the beacon of independent film in the Leeds area again, and you can log those numbers sitting.
Bestowing a cinematic Counsellor of the State capacity upon venues such as Wharf Chambers (Camilla), Leeds University Union (William), and Heart Centre (Princess Beatrice – ((we can forget about that last one))) and with their inherited proxy status, Picture House will be picking up the On the Road mantle from previous years. If you survived the previous three monarchically-steeped puns, you are in perfect headspace to watch some serious international cinema or some kids’ classics at Heart Centre. Q&As abound also.
Left Bank Leeds
I may have queued regrettably for poutine for quite some time here during Covid times, but that doesn’t mean it’s the norm now! Visit Grade II listed Left Bank Leeds for sporadically lively and cozy spaces that harbor life drawing sessions, sketching workshops, craft and flea, exhibitions, and much more. Left Bank also doubles as a convenient alternative study space during the harsher winter months, when you find yourself retreating indoors from the oppressive West Yorkshire winds. You might be thinking to yourself, no, this is not July 26, 1949, when the queen visited Yorkshire ‘bathed in sunshine’. However, to our credit, no doubt Lizzie did not get to experience the visionary I See You Naked Mondays. And hey, at least now the summer queues for the potential poutine truck will be gone.
An end of the line?
For some, (myself certainly included), first to final year accession might feel like one long dutiful slog to reach the intended final goal. With dissertations looming, the royal tenure is never easy. Even more reason to treat yourself to some largely queue-less entertainment to keep yourself occupied throughout the sometimes colder, sometimes heavier parts of the inevitable wait. And Cheer up Charlie, (should I say Charles?) perhaps you might meet your David Beckham along the way.
(Image Credit: Vogue)
