Bradford 2025 announces new pop-up arts space and a film partnership with BFI and the National Science and Media Museum
Published January 20, 2025
- Further programme for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture is announced today, housed at a repurposed city-centre warehouse taking in comedy, visual art, live music and performance.
- Also announced is a new partnership between the British Film Institute (BFI) and the National Science and Media Museum with special cinema screenings at Pictureville, drive-in movies at surprising outdoor locations and a mobile cinema truck showing films across the district.
Loading Bay
A pop-up arts space created specifically for the city’s tenure as UK City of Culture, Loading Bay takes over an empty storage depot on Duke Street to bring a true Bradford 2025 buzz to the heart of the city. Featuring two performance areas and a gallery spread across three atmospheric floors, Loading Bay is set to present everything from gigs and comedy nights to art, immersive theatre and even live video games.
The temporary venue is being programmed and operated by Bradford 2025 until December 2025. It will open in March with an exhibition of artwork from Extraordinary Portraits with Bill Bailey (13 Mar – 6 Apr) in partnership with the BBC and Chatterbox Media, following the new series airing on BBC One this winter. Extraordinary Portraits with Bill Bailey pairs national artists with extraordinary sitters to create breathtaking portraits that highlight their personal and powerful stories.
Opening Loading Bay’s performance space, Loaded Laughs (14 Mar) is the first in a comedy series which will run throughout the year. The first event will be headlined by Harriet Dyer and Don Biswas, alongside rising comedians from Bradford presented by BFD Comedy. Cabaret from RuPaul’s Drag Race series 5 winner in Ginger Johnson’s Fun House (15 Mar), and a double-bill concert by folk luminaries Lady Maisery with O’Hooley and Tidow (16 Mar) complete Loading Bay’s first week.
The venue will also host immersive and site-specific performances including Public Interest (21 – 31 May), a vivid and electrifying show by Bradford-based political theatre pioneers Common/Wealth, commissioned by Bradford 2025. Taking audiences on an immersive journey from club night to courtroom and beyond, with true-life stories from young people with experience of being imprisoned for joint enterprise – and a sound-score featuring drill, bassline, grime, afrobeat and house – this world-premiere show will capture what it means to be young and criminalised in the UK today.
Commissioned by Bradford 2025, The Javaad Alipoor Company (TJAC) will bring ambitious and experimental contemporary theatre to Loading Bay with the world premiere of Elmet (October 2025). Based on the 2017 Booker Prize-shortlisted novel by Fiona Mozley, the production is conceived and directed by TJAC’s founding Artistic Director, Bradford-raised Javaad Alipoor. Elmet is an epic northern noir – an explosive story of family, revenge and the ultimate price of holding on to your dignity – set in the wilds of the West Riding.
Further events for Loading Bay’s 200-capacity seated theatre space include Blackeyed Theatre’s touring production of Dracula (21 – 23 Mar); Toxic, the critically-acclaimed new show from Dibby Theatre and Nathaniel J Hall (First Time, It’s A Sin) (9 Apr); and asses.masses, an epic video game for live audience created by Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim (5 Apr).
Exhibitions commissioned by Bradford 2025 for Loading Bay’s gallery include Frontline 1984/1985, the first exhibition of work by local photographer Victor Wedderburn, which brings Black Bradford in the 1980s vividly back to life (17 Apr- 11 May). A captivating exhibition exploring Polish and Ukrainian communities in Bradford and beyond, Tu i Tam / Tyt i Tam (respectively, Polish and Ukrainian for ‘Here and There’), including many photographs by Bradford’s Tim Smith, takes over the gallery floor from 3 – 27 July.
Unspun Stories (26 – 30 Mar) is an immersive digital portrayal of Bradford’s late 20th century textile heritage, created by 509 Arts and the Colour Foundry. The installation blends archive film footage, audio recordings, projections and soundscapes with recorded interviews from those who worked in the mills during the ’70s and ’80s, collected by 509 Arts as part of their Lost Mills project. The result is an evocative journey back to a pivotal moment in Bradford’s history – just as it fades from memory.
In Tape Letters (23 May – 15 Jun), artist Wajid Yaseen looks back on life in Bradford for new arrivals in the days before technology connected us all. This free exhibition, produced by Modus Arts, unearths the practice of recording messages on cassette and sending them to friends and family, popular with Pakistani migrants to the UK from the 1960s to the ’80s.
Daniel Bates, Executive Director, Bradford 2025, comments:
“UK City of Culture offers a once in a lifetime opportunity to create lasting change in Bradford, through significant investment in the district’s cultural infrastructure. Bradford has many excellent performance venues and galleries, and we’re excited to add to the creative landscape by repurposing a derelict warehouse in the city as a pop-up arts space.
“In addition to hosting events from comedy, music and cabaret to immersive theatre and exhibitions, Loading Bay will create further jobs and volunteering opportunities throughout the year, attract additional visitors into the city centre, and generate greater demand from local audiences. Our mission is to ensure that millions of people experience Bradford in 2025 and are inspired to return for years to come, as the city’s cultural legacy continues to enrich both its visitors and its communities.“
Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant said:
“This year is a fabulous opportunity for Bradford to tell its distinctive and fascinating story to the nation. The events, exhibitions and activities announced today show that the city is grabbing this opportunity with both hands to make what will be a truly unforgettable year.”
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, Bradford Council Leader said:
“Loading Bay will be a great addition to the city centre offer and night time economy. Bradford 2025 aligns with some of the most significant regeneration projects our district has ever seen. These initiatives, backed by millions in private investment, are reshaping the way we live, work, and move through our district.
The district is already home to a thriving community of artists, filmmakers, and innovators, and 2025 provides an opportunity to amplify their work, by investing in skills, infrastructure, and opportunities for our creative sector, we’re not just putting on a show, we’re building a legacy. Culture isn’t an afterthought, it’s how we’re shaping a district that’s vibrant, dynamic, and ready for a successful future.”
The Beacon
In addition to Loading Bay, a travelling pop-up venue, The Beacon, will take Bradford 2025 across the district throughout the spring and summer, spending around a month in each location. The Beacon will visit Wibsey Park (From 3 Apr), Bowling Park (From 22 May), Cliffe Castle Park (From 10 Jul) and Lister Park (From 28 Aug).
There’ll be headline acts, music, comedy and much more, with bespoke programmes in each location, from weekday shows and weekend festivals to clubs, classes, family activities and neighbourhood get-togethers. The Beacon will be a true hub for each neighbourhood it visits with a programme that reflect the communities of Bradford District, with an invitation for local people to present their own events in this versatile space. Programme for The Beacon will be announced in the coming months.
Bradford: A City of Film
Bradford’s proud heritage as a leading centre of filmmaking saw the city become the first UNESCO City of Film in 2009.
Working with key partners including the National Science and Media Museum and British Film Institute (BFI), Bradford: A City of Film is an ambitious year-long film programme. It aims to build diverse audiences across the district for film and moving image and to further strengthen the region’s independent film culture. An extensive programme of talent development and training run alongside the artistic programme and will continue to develop and embed film production skills within the region.
Bradford: A City of Film will present a series of outdoor, site-specific and immersive screenings of films in spectacular and unexpected locations across the region, both rural and urban. The first location will be a drive-in cinema experience at Cannon Mills in Little Horton, overlooking the dramatic cityscape of Bradford’s historic textile mills. A weekend-long series of screenings will be on offer during the Easter holidays.
The Moving Cinema, a unique cinema experience inside an articulated lorry, will also visit several locations across Bradford district, including areas currently underserved by cinema provision. When parked up, The Moving Cinema transforms into a fully enclosed cinema auditorium seating 100 people. Locations to be announced soon.
Curated seasons and special events at the National Science and Media Museum’s Pictureville Cinema during the course of 2025 start with Northern Soul, a series of films from working-class northern women chosen by award-winning West Yorkshire-raised writer/director Clio Barnard (30 Jan – 9 Feb).
Meanwhile film screenings with live music form an integral part of the wider Bradford 2025 programme. As part of upcoming The Big Brass Blowout weekend (11-13 Apr), BD1 Brass will score acclaimed archive film Echoes of the North (11 April), and City of Bradford Brass Band will soundtrack family favourite Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (12 Apr), both at Victoria Hall in Saltaire.
Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture is supported using public investment from HM Government, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, West Yorkshire Combined Authority and through National Lottery funding from Arts Council England, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, National Lottery Community Fund, British Council, Spirit of 2012, as well as private investment and donations from a number of trusts, foundations and corporate sponsors.