Family - things to do in Leeds with kids

Preview Ice Cube Returning to Leeds

The giant skate rink returns to Millennium Square from 27th January

Here’s one reason to feel less gloomy after the excitement of the festive period has resided. Ice Cube is coming back to the city centre for the 12^th year running, and this time it’s had a makeover.

The Ice Cube, organised by Leeds City Council, will be back at Millennium Square between 27^th January and the 26^th February and due to customer feedback, will now include a main, more family focused rink as well as a conjoining nursery rink for younger children.

These are not the only changes which have been made; the event will include a 30-metre dry…

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Feature Opera North's Little Voices

Tom Goodhand attends a drama and music group designed for parents and their babies or toddlers in the wonderful Howard Assembly Room

Opera North has long been established as one of Leeds’ premier arts companies, and the opening of the Howard Assembly Room in January 2009 gave them a home, a venue that they can call their own. The room has acted in the past as a musical hall, a cinema and an adult cinema, before closing in the mid-80s until Opera North reopened it.

As a built-for-purpose venue which has had significant acoustic work done on it by Opera North, the Howard Assembly Room is an acoustically superb space, built to make the very best of the sounds that…

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Preview Yorkshire Christmas Theatre Shows

A look at the seasonal offerings at West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Carriageworks, Harrogate Theatre, Leeds City Varieties, Alhambra, Sheffield Lyceum and York Theatre Royal

Typically Christmas theatre is a jaunt through the familiar. So it proves at West Yorkshire Playhouse, but not in the typical sense. For the festive hegemony of Mike Kenny (author) and Gail McIntyre (director) in the Courtyard auditorium continues for a fifth consecutive year.

When we interviewed Kenny in 2008, he spoke of an urge to adapt Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen in a fashion indebted to neither Disney nor panto. Paradoxically, that piece was the only one of his five ‘Big Stories for Little People’ that isn’t a stock panto, and the reflection hence applies more…

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Feature LILAC

We find out about a pioneering project in Leeds creating a first of its kind low-impact, affordable and community-focused living space. And what's more, they're looking for people to join them

"LILAC is a community of 20 homes in Bramley, built out of super-sustainable materials like straw and timber, and we are structured in such a way that the homes will be affordable forever, which will help ensure that there’s a mixture of people living in the community, and whilst we have lots of shared facilities and share some of our lives together, we also all have our own flats and houses and can do our own thing as well."

This is how Alan Thornton, a founder member of LILAC, describes the exciting communal project he and some 20-odd other passionate…

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Feature Leeds Waterfront Festival 2010

The festival will be back again in July, and promises to be bigger and better than ever

Leeds can boast of hosting many festivals, some better-known than others. Live at Leeds, Unity Day, the International Film Festival, the Food and Drink Festival, that one Melvin Benn does…we could go on. They are all anticipated by locals on an annual basis, and consist of a richly diverse set of celebrations.

In July, Leeds Waterfront Festival will return for a full weekend of al fresco entertainment. After last year’s success, organisers are expanding and aiming to exceed expectations. The location will be provided by four riverside settings, namely Thwaite Mills, Clarence Dock, Brewery Wharf and Granary Wharf.

Last year there…

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Interview Scott Ramsden, MediaFish

We speak to the MediaFish member and Leeds Young People's Film Festival organiser

“MediaFish is a committee of young people from Leeds aged between 15 and 19, who are passionate about film. We were put together by Leeds Film - who host the Leeds International Film Festival and other film events in Leeds - initially to help organise the Leeds Young People’s Film Festival, but we are now involved in film related projects all year round.

“We organise everything to do with the the Leeds Young People’s Film Festival. We decide what films are screened, whether they are suitable age-wise, we plan the workshops and help design and market the brochure. The films…

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