Leeds: the city so creative that it gave itself an award
It has got the Kaiser Chiefs, but the UK’S fourth biggest city hasn’t been renowned for its culture – until now. By Rosa Silverman
To many outsiders, – Chumbawamba’s most famous and arguably most annoying song – would have been best left in the 1990s. But the lyrics, “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” could be viewed as something of an unofficial anthem for Leeds. The hit single was written there; it was reworked by a community cast during the pandemic, as “Leeds got locked down…” The original lyrics were emblazoned on Leeds Playhouse.
For the UK’S fourth biggest city (after London, Manchester and Birmingham), it’s rather apt. Because although us “Loiners” (as we Leeds people are, obscurely, called) have suffered multiple knockbacks, the city has not been defined by any one of them; quite the reverse.
Among the recent disappointments for Leeds was the collapse of its European Capital of Culture bid. This imploded when the European Union decreed, post-brexit, that British cities could no longer compete – a decision announced in 2017, just before the team behind Leeds’ bid was about to set off to pitch it. That might have been the end of it, but the city decided otherwise. Instead, this weekend kicks off its year of culture, branded Leeds 2023, and inspired by the European version. The money that was intended to fund the Capital of Culture bid – around £10million from Leeds City Council – has been diverted into the year-long project along with another £10million from Arts Council England, corporate sponsors and others.
“[The city] wanted to be European Capital of Culture, we left Europe, and Leeds just went, ‘OK, we’ll do it anyway,’ which is very much a Leeds attitude,” says sports presenter Gabby Logan, who grew up in Leeds and co-hosts the festival’s opening event at Headingley Stadium today. Called The Awakening, the live show features local stars, including singer Corinne Bailey Rae and poet Simon Armitage.
The question, though, is why was Leeds not already awake? It has long been among the most popular student destinations in the UK, and a major retail, finance and nightlife hub since the 1990s. Yet, culturally, it has lacked the international fame of its northern cousins: Liverpool, with its Beatles legacy, and Manchester, home of a musical heritage spanning Factory Records to Oasis. Where is the Leeds equivalent? We have the Kaiser Chiefs; but for a city of Leeds’s size and stature, this never seemed quite enough.
“People say it’s the city that always takes the last seat on the bus,” says Irena Bauman, co-founder of Bauman Lyons Architects Leeds, and one of those involved in the Capital of Culture bid. “[It’s said] they don’t innovate, they prefer to follow others. It plays safe… despite the amazing energy in the city, the universities, its rich economy and creativity.”
In fact, any seat on any bus would be welcome since Leeds missed out on the tram system that was planned for it around the turn of the 21st century and then scrapped, and more recently HS2, when the northern leg of the highspeed rail network was binned in 2021, cutting it down to London-birmingham.
It now has the unenviable status of the biggest city in western Europe lacking a built-in mass transit system. Until 2013, it also lacked an indoor arena – something its Yorkshire neighbour Sheffield has had since 1991. (It also wouldn’t have gone unnoticed that just along the M62, £211million has been spent on Manchester’s Factory International – a new multi-use arts and event space, which is due to open in June this year.)
“We just haven’t had this ambition to create a really good public realm,” says Bauman, who suggests what’s also missing is a “strong tradition of loyalty or identification with the city.” She says: “For Mancunians, Scousers and Geordies, there’s a tradition of loving and promoting your city.”
So perhaps Leeds hasn’t been good at shouting about what it does have. Which is a lot. Though its pop music heritage lacks the instant recognition of, say, Merseybeat or Madchester, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Leeds was a key player in the acid house dance music scene, with Back to Basics claiming to be Europe’s longestrunning weekly club night. The city has run its own international film festival since 1987, lays claim to being the site of the filming of the first moving images in 1888, and since 2021 has been home to Channel 4.
Its art spaces include the Henry Moore Institute and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. If it’s local cultural heroes you’re after, there’s Alan Bennett and Damien Hirst for starters. And what Leeds once lacked in arenas, it made up for with the majestic Roundhay Park, where the Rolling Stones, Madonna and U2 have all performed.
“There has always been that idea that big bands, big acts come to Leeds,” says Logan. “Yet partly because certain northern neighbours have been noisier, it’s been slightly misjudged and had not quite the image externally that perhaps it should have had. People are always surprised by Leeds and say it’s amazing. You can never get bored [there].”
James Brown, the Leeds-raised former editor of Loaded, agrees. “Musically, it’s very healthy, and you’re now in a situation where Manchester and Liverpool are both retrospective looking ,” he says .“Their big important points are in the past, whereas Leeds is very fertile ground for new bands and clubs. I don’t agree it’s overshadowed [by other northern cities].”
Although Brown writes in his new memoir, Animal House, about leaving Leeds in the mid-1980s for livelier parts of the country, he believes it’s changed enormously since the days when certain northern cities were associated with “serial killers, unemployment and drug problems”. He says: “When I go up there [now] I see a really vibrant city. It constantly regenerates and because it’s not weighed down by its past, it’s always got a promising future.”
In the next 12 months, this future will include a literary festival, a “soundwalk” created by Opera North and a range of family events. The programme will showcase an ambition that some feel was previously lacking to be seen as an international city; “and for the UK to know more about us and the joyful energy that’s [here] and that’s sometimes hidden its light,” as Kully Thiarai, creative director and chief executive of Leeds 2023 puts it.
“A lot of our cultural activity was happening in communities and below the international radar,” says Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire. “Leeds 2023 gives us an opportunity to show the world what we’ve got to offer. We have this creativity bursting through the cracks in the pavement.”