The Nottingham Culture Review of 2025

January

The usual January quietness and Nottingham events lull is smashed once again by Beat The Streets festival. Their line-up includes Do Nothing, Evil Scarecrow and The Hoplites. They also cross the barrier of a whopping £500k raised for homeless causes since the festival’s inception in 2018.

February

The Gedling Inn Pub makes national news by offering a free pint for every goal that Forest score against Brighton in their Premier League clash. Forest win 7-0! Everyone gets very merry as 300 pints are distributed.

Nottingham-based murder squad policeman turned TV screenwriter and producer Nigel McCrery dies aged 71. He was the creator of the long-running BBC crime dramas Silent Witness (1996–present) and New Tricks (2003–2015).

The Standing in this Place statue is unveiled in the Green Heart park that occupies the old Broad Marsh site in town. It’s a beautiful looking piece that pays tribute to the thousands of unnamed women who worked in our city’s cotton and textile industry.

Nottingham City Council orders the closure of the Marcus Garvey Centre in Lenton, because of fire risks. However, the residents fight on to keep it open for the rest of the year and the legal action remains unresolved to this date. 

Nottingham rock duo ALT BLK ERA win the award for ‘Best Alternative Music Act’ at the MOBO awards. We’re dead chuffed for them!

Sneinton’s King Billy pub landlord Jon Blyth gets nominated for a BAFTA award for his voiceover as Big Ron in the computer game Thank Goodness You’re Here! He doesn’t win it, but knowing him he wouldn’t have wanted to give up the day job even if he had.

March

It’s a big month for former students at Nottingham’s Television Workshop. The TV drama Get Millie Black premieres on Channel 4 and HBO with Nottingham actors Joe Dempsie and Anjli Mohindra in leading roles. It’s decent if you haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. Fellow graduate Aisling Loftus also wows at the Nottingham Playhouse in Girls and Boys: a one-woman show that runs for three weeks.

The film Sister Midnight is released in cinemas and appears in many critics ‘Best of the Year’ lists. It’s all filmed in Mumbai with a cast of Indian actors, but produced by Notts-based companies Wellington Films and Griffin Pictures.

April

The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on HBO with Notts actor Bella Ramsey shoving Pedro Pascal out the way to finally claim the lead role all to themself.

Nottingham nightclub The Palais celebrates 100 years of putting on parties. We celebrate this in our mag with a deep dive through its history in our magazine from tea parties to TV stars and more.

Nottingham Arena and the National Ice Centre also celebrate their joint 25th birthday and, right on cue, Nottingham Panthers beat Cardiff Devils in the Elite League Play-Off Final, lifting their first silverware since 2016.

It’s in Nottingham launch the first ever Duckies Awards to celebrate the city’s high street businesses. It’s a fun and swanky affair held at St James church in the Lace Market.

May

Dot To Dot Festival, which ever since its first inception has felt like a precocious melomaniacal teenager, turns twenty! Taking place in both Notts and Bristol, headliners include Big Special, The Horrors and Fat Dog, as well as a lot of talented local acts.

Gedling boxer Leigh Wood challenges Anthon Carace for his IBO super-featherweight title, but loses in a ninth-round stoppage. Notts County bow out of the League 2 football play-off semi-finals, losing 2-0 on aggregate to Wimbledon and relieve manager Stuart Maynard of his duties, later to be replaced by the 300% more angry Martin Patterson.

The Reform Party wins the majority of seats in the Notts County Council elections. The party secured 40 of the council's 66 seats, having needed 34 for an overall majority. The Conservatives now sit in second place with 17 seats, and Labour in third with four seats.

June 

The drama series What it Feels Like For a Girl is released on BBC Three. Based on the memoirs of Hucknall-born author and transgender activist Paris Lees, it’s a brilliant watch featuring several cast members from around here.

Well-known Nottingham creative entrepreneur and arts champion Debbie Bryan passes away. Known for running her eponymous shop with craft workshops, a tearoom in Nottingham city centre, and an art gallery in Ruddington, she will be missed.

Nottingham Poetry Festival hits a serious roadbump in its tenth year as it loses its Arts Council England funding. Undeterred the show goes on anyway and they also plan a new birthday event for November.

The England men’s football team play a friendly against Senegal at the City Ground. To put this in perspective – the last men's full international in Nottingham was back in 1909. Harry Kane scores and Forest’s Morgan Gibbs White comes on as a sub, but to spoil the party they lose 3-1.

July

Splendour Festival returns to Wollaton Park after a year off. Jake Bugg, Vicky McClure’s Dementia choir and many others feature but the moment many will remember is Kaiser Chiefs and Travis singing that song about rain together – in the rain.

Nottingham’s lost pop and R&B music star of the early 1990s Whycliffe makes a remarkable live comeback on stage at Fisher Gate Point. This comes three decades after his last gig and following several years of rehabilitation. It’s a beautiful moment and we hope to see him play more in 2026.  

Nottingham’s beloved ice dancers and Olympic and World Champion figure skaters Torvill and Dean play their final shows to adoring crowds at Nottingham Arena.

Raucous local music promoters I’m Not From London celebrate 20 years of gigs and 15 years of their awesome charity fundraising Waterfront Festival.

August

Cara Thompson is announced by Nottingham City of Literature as Nottingham’s First Nature Poet Laureate, beating off some tough competition from a city which punches hard in aesthetic and rhythmic prose. 

Local TV channel Notts TV announces their closure after more than a decade of broadcasting. Owned and run by Nottingham Trent University, it’s an early victim of a serious year of squeeze across the higher education sector.

Now in control of Notts County Council, the Reform Party and its local leader Mick Barton decide to ban the Nottingham Post from their press conferences. The story later gets the attention of a US congressman. It’s an obvious attack on local democracy from a party that is elected on a pledge of saving money and yet also decides to spend £75k installing Union flags – just in case we all forget which country we are in.

September

Nottingham’s Theatre Royal and Concert Hall celebrates its 160th birthday! Their headline act for the celebrations is the return of hometown hero James Graham – who once worked the doors at the theatre. His play about Gareth Southgate Dear England is the biggest show of the year. However, another of his plays Punch! – about a man from the Meadows who kills another man with one punch – makes even bigger waves, transferring from the Playhouse to both the West End in London and Broadway in New York in the same week.

Nottingham’s premiere street art event ArtFest celebrates its second year commissioning dozens of local artists to paint on city-centre walls, all of which contribute to making our city centre look that little bit more beautiful.

Despite seriously over-achieving in the previous year Nuno Espírito Santo is sacked as Nottingham Forest Manager, basically because he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the chairman. Shortly after they appoint Australian Ange Postecoglou, but after an awful start he also gets sacked after just 39 days in the post and replaced with Notts-based Sean Dyche. Hopefully that’s the end of the managerial merry-go-round for now?

The film Anemone is released with the film world holding its breath at the return of acting powerhouse Daniel Day-Lewis. However, we’re more interested in the supporting roles played by Notts actors Samantha Morton – who in the same month is also awarded an OBE – and Safia Oakley-Green.

Prince Harry comes back to Notts to hang out at Community Recording Studio in Sneinton and dish out some money. Lewis Capaldi does an impromptu gig on top of Wilford’s Aldi supermarket. My wife turns up to do our weekly family shop at the same and is rather annoyed to not be able to get a parking space.

October

The whole city goes dance mad with the launch of Nottdance 2025 across the city. Dozens of events are put on at various venues in a calendar so packed that local dance aficionados have to learn to riverdance between them all. 

The 15th incarnation of Hockley Hustle takes place with over 400 acts playing across various stages, all in one day (and a Sunday too!). As usual half of Nottingham phone into work sick and hungover the day after.

House and techno DJ and promoter Matt Tolfrey dies at the tender age of 44. A former NTU graduate, he was loved by Nottingham audiences for his residencies at The Bomb and Stealth. In the same month we also say goodbye to Karl Routledge-Wilson, a local psychotherapist and entrepreneur best known for founding Sherwood late bar The Pillar Box.

To complete a miserable month for local talents, surrealist artist and I’m Not From London collaborator Maximillion Speed also passes away. 

November

A new annual publication the New Nottingham Journal is born featuring the work of 44 contributors from the city and beyond. City Arts announce they will leave their building in Hockley in early 2026, due to economic pressures.

Nottingham University announces the potential closure of its modern languages and music departments due to financial issues. Many of its students and staff are unhappy for obvious reasons and it’s likely this issue will roll on into 2026.

BBC TV drama Sherwood begins shooting its third – and we believe final – season in the city, due for release next year. I know there’s lots of mixed opinions on it, but I quite like it. Calling it ‘Ashfield’ may have been more appropriate though, since that’s where lots of it seems to be based, but that’s obviously less of a Robin Hood angle for the national audiences. If anyone sees David Morrissey or Lesley Manville in Greggs, let us know. 

December

Local music heroes Divorce play at Rock City as the final date of their mammoth Drive To Goldenhammer tour. The biggest star of the local panto season is Craig Revel Horwood who is playing the Wicked Stepmother in Cinderella at the Theatre Royal. He’s also due to judge the Strictly Come Dancing grand final on BBC One on 20 December, so let’s hope the Nottingham-London train service is working okay then.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!