On Friday evening, after the City Art Gallery had closed before he'd had time to examine an unexpectedly large exhibition properly, Mr Monkey trotted down to the Royal Exchange Theatre for the private viewing of the latest exhibition in the Mezzanine Gallery.
Ed Swinden Photography is an exhibition of photgraphs taken by Ed Swinden (there's a clue in the title, really) during Pride marches in Manchester.
There have been Pride events in Manchester since 1990 (though they were probably Gay Pride events that long ago), and Ed Swinden has been photographing them for the last two years. The exhibition is based on his book
Manchester Gay Pride (ISBN 978-1-84114-484-9).
Mr Monkey was pleased that there was both black & white and colour photography in the exhibition, and he thought the mixture of subjects - individuals, groups, cityscapes and some oddities - was interesting. He had a certain amount of fun arguing with his humans about where some of the pictures had been taken (and was proved right later).
Mr Monkey noted that both the exhibition and the Royal Exchange's current production,
Charlie's Aunt, feature Englishmen dressing up as women, but he suspects that the motives differ somewhat.
After he'd looked at all the pictures Mr Monkey scampered back down to the main floor. Every Friday evening The Royal Exchange has an hour of free entertainment of some sort, under the Special FX banner.
Mr Monkey stopped to tap his paws and wave his tail to
Dr Butler's Hatstand Medicine Band and their morally uplifting songs of drink, debauchery and Victorian cycling.
Ed Swinden is on display in the Mezzanine Gallery until September 4th.
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