Matt Tuckey is a writer from Oldham, England. He covers celebrities, night life, Manchester, fitness, creative writing, social media, psychology and events. Some of this may, in some way, help others. Or maybe it'll just entertain you for a while.
Journal Club Wednesday at Hinterland. The last one (the first one) was really interesting. There’s a meetup on Manc Mates. Discussion and practice on the art of journaling, on the theme of Freedom according to Eventbrite. That’s the same theme as last time. Dunno if that’s a mistake.
Thursday night: Poetry night again at Hinterland. I have nothing to read out. I just can’t think of anything that would work. So I’ll probably miss it, but if anyone else likes a good poem...
Saturday Night: Manchester Nightlife is out once again this time to new food outlet Dave’s Hot Chicken in the Printworks. There are a million fried chicken outlets. Will this be better? It’s certainly newer. Come find out. We might do a few drinks around there after.
I didn’t go to that, but I did run a meetup to the Hacienda After Party in Albert Hall, an old converted church in the city centre. I ran a meetup with Manchester Nightlife and got one attendee, a new girl. She’d forwarded me on to a Raving community on WhatsApp, something she’d already joined, and it seemed they were planning to come to the same event. I tried to get the 2 groups to meet, but it didn’t happen on the night.
Still, myself and my attendee got on well and enjoyed the night. DJs and singers included...
Felix Da Housecat
I’ve been trying to see her on stage for years, but every time she’s booked something has got in the way. Well, not this night. Reminds me of listening to Kiss 102 as a young whippersnapper. That’s how I got into house music.
Graeme Park was up next (I worked with him at Key 103 radio briefly back in 06-08).
Great night. I’m going to try to run more house music nights via Manchester Nightlife.
Great Hacienda Classical After Party on 5/7/25. Left: Alison Limerick with Todd Terry on the decks. Right: Graeme Park. #Manchester #alberthall
I realise this is a long shot, but if you’ve ever wanted to win a Ninja Air Fryer to the sounds of DJ Sammy’sFly on the Wings of Love, there is as it happens such an opportunity in Manchester’s Albert Hall, a 115-year-old chapel in the city centre.
The occasion is of course Bongo’s Bingo, an absurd game where the prizes range from a Luke Littler darts set, a giant fluffy unicorn, an electric piano, some Coco Pops (to be thrown around the venue with willing abandon) and a double ended dildo. Towards the end of the games, the prizes get a little more useful, with the last game winner landing a solid £1500.
I was at the Saturday daytime event yesterday with a mate from Manchester Nightlife meetup group. Great fun. No wins for us sadly. Albert Halls upper decks get HOT in the June sun.
After this I ran a meetup with Manchester Nightlife to Hong Thai, a well-regarded Thai / Chinese fusion restaurant in Ancoats. Good chat with new members, great spicy food and was close to Counter House for cocktails. The whole thing wrapped up early enough to get the bus back.
Khao Soi in Hong Thai in Ancoats. Spicy broth. Then a Spicy Margarita in Counter House in Cutting Room Square. Good evening with new #meetup members.
On the blog: the last few Tenerife posts, that I’m sure are keeping you in suspense. Cough. Probably another recipe review. Plus I’ve got a few things that have happened since coming home.
All is not well on the online social group scene. Not just my meetups, but it seems that there’s an issue with other groups on the site, plus groups on Discord too. Manchester Social has proven to be hugely unpopular with certain crowds, if this Reddit thread is anything to go by.
Sadly, I got mentioned in this too. It seems in a meetup with Manchester Psychology Social group I briefly mentioned confidence building as a facet of psychology, and what I said was massively misinterpreted. Some weeks later, I got utterly lambasted for it. I apologised on the Reddit thread, although I’m still not sure what for. I can hardly even remember the conversation in question. It could, I guess, explain attendance dropping off. I did everything I could to bring people together just to share an interest, and it feels like it was thrown right back at me. Obviously, a bit of time has passed since this thread was active. I do want to run another Psychology meetup, but to where, and to do what exactly, I don’t know.
The upshot is, you can’t please everyone.
I took a break from running meetups as I had a ton of conventions to go to, plus a holiday, so I was too busy anyway, but I really just didn’t want the heat.
But I did run a meetup to the Northern Quarter Friday for Happy Hour in Pen and Pencil, Before the start time, Get Social launched in Banyan in Spinningfields. This Meetup group is ran by the same guy who does the Manchester WeRoad meetups, and seeems to have a similar purpose: just bringing people together whether they’re travelling or local. I had a look. Pleasant enough evening, good people, still a bit of a sausage fest. 3 of us met in Pen and Pencil, which was utterly dead, so we tried a few other bars but called it early.
The rumour on the night was that the heads at WeRoad cancelled the Manchester group because of an offensive comedy night that Manchester’s WeRoad branch apparently attended, hence the Manchester team launched GetSocial.
Saturday night: There was supposed to be something happening in Freight Island, although I can’t find it on Meetup. Freight weren’t letting in anyway, so we tried 186 but I was in pumps so they weren’t having me. BLVD nearby hosted a hen do of mostly Irish girls from Crewe. The DJ got everyone into what he called a ‘Congo line’ (conga?) that threaded through the bar and out into the Spinningfields Avenue. Then my friend and I shot off to Ocasa, formerly Australasia (samba music) and Lawn Club, which was pumping out cheesy pop for another hen do. Mostly women. Can’t complain.
So what’s happening this week?
Friday night: looks like WeRoad meetup still exists in some form in Manchester, as they return to Box bar on Deansgate, booking the upper level out. I’ll be there to see which familiar faces I can spot, and also to try to badger a few people into my own meetups.
Magna Science Adventure Centre, the former steelworks built in 1915, with its ominous giant metal pillars and brick walls, sits on the outskirts of Rotherham, east of Sheffield, Yorkshire. The location serves as a fittingly ominous backdrop to Horrorcon, a horror movie convention. The family museum hosted the event on 17-18th May. I got Saturday tickets. Cosplay, a short film festival, Q+A panels and photo ops all amalgamate into a horrifyingly fun day.
As I walk in, the ticket scanner machine gives me an Evil Dead 2 quote as it validates.
Hellraiser panel
First panel of the day is a Hellraiser Reunion: Doug Bradley (Pinhead), Ashley Laurence (Kirsty Cotton), Nicholas Vince (Chatterer) and Simon Bamford (Butterball Cenobite) take to the stage in the Face of Steel Theatre to discuss the 1987 horror classic.
COMPARE: What does Clive Barker (Creator of Hellraiser ) mean to you?
SB: Nothing. He’s the sweetest man. Clive Barker is a diamond geezer!
AL: Clive Barker is one of the great loves of my life.
DB: I met him in school. I spent 10 years in theatre working with him. I once saw him sitting in front of the TV, watching Ken Dodd, weeping with laughter. He was the best man at my wedding.
The roaming mic goes out into the audience.
Audience Question: What was your fondest memory of working on Hellraiser?
SB: Clive wanted me to wear these dentures. It makes you constantly salivate. Clive tried them and was dribbling into his hand.
CB: Seeing the chains, blood, guts… and watching Nick salivate. Being thrust up against a wall, and asked to urinate against a wall. Everyone was in hysterics. A happy moment indeed!
AQ: There’s’ a picture from Hellraiser of you wearing a hospital gown that wasn’t in the film.
DB: It depends what’s written on the page. Peter had written ‘Kirsty and Peter are trying to escape. 2 masked figures emerge.’ One asks what they’re doing, and reveals himself to be Pinhead. The crew realised they could do practical effects, but it was regarded as too horrible to show. We completed the scenes but it wasn’t shot, so wasn’t in the movie.
NV: My fondest memory was going to the toilet for the first time (in the prosthetics), being blind.
AL: Someone took their head off and did the can-can.
AQ: Did anyone take a box (the interdimensional portal device) after filming?
AL: I asked, and was laughed at. But Claire (Higgins, Julia) did!
DB: Claire was asked where the earrings were. ‘I have them, darling, they may have fallen into my handbag!’
AQ: Was the film about addiction? To pain, drugs, etc?
NV: It could be an addiction to pain, to love. Julia can’t love without this man. She’s addicted to love, like Robert Palmer.
AL: Trauma bonding.
DB: I’ve always seen it as auto crucifixion. I don’t know, you’ve stumped me. Faust said, ‘I’ve started everything. It’s not enough.’ That’s what the cenobites are doing. It’s never enough. Clive Barker would tell me that Hellraiser 3 was going to be set in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Then I thought, you bastard, you told me that just to tell me I wasn’t going to be in it!
COMPARE: I’ll put the cenobites back in the box! Thanks!
Doug Bradley, Pinhead from Hellraiser
Ralph Ineson
Next to stage: Yorkshire actor turned Hollywood star Ralph Ineson, William from Robert Eggers’ period horror The Witch. Through questions from the compare and the audience, we learn about his inspirations – Pete Postlethwaite is a personal hero of his – and his processes – lots of garlic got him into the character of The Green Knight.
RI: I was falling out of love with acting, then I got the script for The Witch. I read it, and thought it was incredible. The director sent me some magazine images of the film.
COMPARE: The Witch was groundbreaking!
RI: It was marketed as a horror film. It was filmed like a family drama; it didn’t feel like a horror film. We went to Ontario Canada and lived together the whole time. We bonded as a family. To believe the family was torn apart, we have to believe they were together, with a family dynamic.
COMPARE: William fights a goat called Black Phillip. How does that work?
RI: Black Philip was a specific thing: we had 3 dogs for the scene, each trained to do one of three things: one to lie down, one to run. The team had to create horns for my death scene. It put me in ER 3 times.
Ineson lifts up his shirt and shows a tattoo of a goat on his rib.
RI: That was the rib he broke. Then I went to the pub and had goat.
COMPARE: Is it welcoming to be brought back by directors?
RI: Always. I credit Eggers for the 2nd half of my career.
COMPARE: The crew of 1979 movie Alien didn’t come to set on off days as they were freaked out. Do you ever get freaked out by the set?
RI: The First Omen… So many things happened on that. I got bitten by a smelly dog. I thought, oh, there’s something strange going on here. I love horror, and think I’ve got the face for it. I don’t want to just do that, but it works.
COMPARE: Have you ever been asked to change accent to be more posh?
RI: I’ve never been asked, and I’m grateful for it. Because I have an accent, I wouldn’t be considered for certain parts. When I started working in America, I got cast as FBI. Americans don’t hear class in British accents. They don’t judge.
AQ: How do you deal with accents?
RI: It depends how you judge my success with accents! I feel I coped better with American accents.
COMPARE: What are the challenges when using your voice only?
(Ineson voiced Asmodeus in The Pope’s Exorcist.)
RI: Being real. The process is kinda similar. I try to be fresh.
The compare then reads out some random industry names for Ineson to give his perspective.
COMPARE: Steven Spielberg.
RI: I worked with him on Ready Player One. He said, ‘that scene where you’re scratching your nose: your daughter doesn’t like it.’ I said, and you?’ ‘ I fucking love it!’ I thought, that’s fucking Steven Speilberg! I had to read through my notes, because I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying.
COMPARE: Ricky Gervais.
RI: Pain in the arse. Ricky liked to pinch your bum before the take. He makes you laugh, but it works. I wouldn’t like to see him do it on a film set.
COMPARE: Joel Coen.
RI: Lovely guy. He paid me the greatest compliment I’ve ever had, at a convention.
(He doesn’t divulge.)
COMPARE: Jenna Coleman.
RI: Tiny. She came up to my belly button. Lovely girl though.
Horrorcon returns next year for the 11th time.
Predator cosplay
Senator Palpatine cosplay
Killer Klownz from Outer Space cosplay. Great outfit, terrible film
This week:
Backpacking brand WeRoad returns to Box bar on Deansgate. I won’t be there as I’m laying low from the meetup scene for the moment. I’ll blog on this later. Too busy for one thing.
The first of 2 Liverpool conventions this year, the May run of Comic Con Liverpool was loaded with Hollywood stars of today and yesterday. I got tickets for the Sunday, just before the 40,000-strong venue of Exhibition Centre Liverpool sold out, along with a few photo ops.
One arena inside ECL, presumably a sports hall, featured a stage with a Blues Brothers tribute band and some of the guests.
Ricco Ross, Frost in Aliens. One of the first casualties in the hive. He liked my t shirt.
Exhibition Centre Liverpool is a vast, multi-room, sprawling venue, so there’s no way you could fit everyone into the main hall for the panels. I gather these are ticketed like the photos. These Q+A sessions are broadcast around the building on the TVs. I found a spot near the photo areas to watch the Starship Troopers panel on the screens, and plonked myself down surrounded by the cosplayers and people queueing for photos.
DM: We thought it would do better sooner. It didn’t have the reputation we’d like, but over time…
CVD: in The States, they’d watch Mr Bean, then sneak in to see Starship Troopers. It made $23 million. People bought tickets to see The Little Mermaid.
MI: It bombed in The States because people didn’t get the story. Europe got it. Like, what the fuck? What movie did you see?
DM: Children, Michael! Mind your language! I stole the gun I was using on set, and the director’s chair with my name on it. My advice is always take something, because you never know if it’s going to be big.
CVD: Blink 182 sent me a piece of a spaceship from a music video.
The roaming mic goes out into the audience.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: When Dizzy and Xander land in the bug nest, why did you have 2 guns and only one knife?
CVD: The Fleet didn’t need a knife. They’re fleet. They’re in space.
MI: You’re asking questions to a guy with a massive bug on his shoulder.
(None of the cast have actual bugs on their shoulders, so I’m not sure what he meant.)
AQ: In the punishment scene, were you actually whipped?
CVD: Some people would like to! It was the longest whip they had. The guy was freaking out. He was, ‘I’m so sorry!’ It didn’t hit me, but I felt the wind on my back. That marine married the girl (in real life) who had shot him in the head (in the film). She really blew his mind!
Another question relates to how the cast gelled together on set.
DM: It was my 3rd film. Everyone except Michael (Ironside) was new to movies. It was awesome.
CVD: Michael was like a mentor to me. I still hear his voice. Even now!
MI: A good director knows exactly what he wants all the time.
I ducked out here to get to my last photo op of the day: Richard Chaves, Poncho from Predator. He liked my t-shirt from Last Exit to Nowhere!
On the day, I was weighing up spending even more than I already had by shelling out for some phone pictures with a few celebs. Paul Reiser, Burke in Aliens and Jim the dad from Whiplash, he was £60. Denise Richards, £50. Casper Van Dien, £40. There was also Daniel Kash, Spunkmeyer from Aliens, although I didn’t even get a photo *of* him.
Bryce Dallas Howard, director Ron Howard's daughter. Claire Dearing in Jurassic World, Kate in Terminator Salvation, Lacie in Black Mirror Nosedive
Gaming area
Return of the Jedi set
Aliens cosplay
Rainn Wilson, Dwight Schrute in The Office (US), Gallaxhar in Monsters vs Aliens, smaller roles in House of 1000 Corpses, Galaxy Quest, Almost Famous, Juno, CSI, Star Trek.
Denise Richards. Cindy in Loaded Weapon 1, Carmen in Starship Troopers, Kelly in Wild Things, Dr Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough
Fiery salt & pepper chips
Jake Busey, Gary Busey's Son, Ace Levy in Starship Troopers
Jenette Goldstein, Vasquez in Aliens, Janelle in Terminator 2, Irish mum in Titanic
Michael Winslow, voice actor. Larvell Jones in Police Academy, voice of Mogwai and other Gremlins, small roles in Spaceballs, Robot Chicken, Cadbury ads.
Michael Ironside
Cameron Monaghan. Ian Gallagher in Shameless, Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska in Gotham
Dirk Bededict, Face in The A-Team, Lt Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica
