LEEDS/TOURING JAZZ
Hugh Masekela and Larry Willis
Howard Assembly Room
New Briggate
May 28
Iconic South African musician Hugh Masekela (pictured) is one of jazz’s great lyrical brass players, with the ability to tug at the heartstrings and feed the soul with music that ranges from jazz standards to his own inimitable songs. 2013 marked the release of a sumptuous series of duets between him and master pianist Larry Willis, revisiting a friendship stretching back to the 1960s and through Masekela’s years of exile during the apartheid era and this gig is a great opportunity to witness two legends sparking off each other.
operanorth.co.uk

LONDON FESTIVAL
London Festival
of Architecture
Citywide
June 1-30
Community is the theme of this year’s London Festival of Architecture, which aims to connect with as many people as possible to demonstrate architecture’s relevance to London and its diverse communities. A highlight of the programme is the New London Walking Tours. Happening every Saturday of the month, the walks — in Bankside, Fitzrovia, Olympic Park and Kings Cross St Pancras — will explore interventions being implemented across the capital to enhance, enrich and encourage interaction, engagement and community growth in areas of huge development.
londonfestivalofarchitecture.org

LONDON THEATRE
The Government Inspector
Theatre Royal Stratford East
Gerry Raffles Sqauare
Until May 28
This new adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s classic 19th-century farce by David Harrower captures the spirit of the Russian original and reminds us how Gogol’s play still packs a contemporary punch. In it, a mayor in a rural backwater who’s been somewhat lacking in his official duties goes into a panic when he learns that a government inspector is about to visit. The only possible solution is bribery — it seems to have resolved many a sticky situation for he and his team in the past. But a simple case of mistaken identity leads matters to spiral hysterically out of control, with hilarious consequences.
stratfordeast.com

MANCHESTER EXHIBITION
Grafters: Industrial Society in Image and Word
People’s History Museum
Left Bank
Until August 14
Nothing compared to photography when it came to capturing the industrial revolution. As Britain’s society changed, techniques in photography developed, enabling workers to capture their own lives for the first time. This exhibition, accompanied by new poems from Ian McMillan, shows how the working classes went from objects in photos to heroic representations of industry and finally to photographers themselves. Curated by leading documentary photographer Ian Beesley, the exhibition highlights unseen images from important photographic collections.
phm.org.uk