Hollie McNish, poet
It’s lucky I don’t live in Chester because if I did, I might try to move into Storyhouse permanently. If you haven’t been yet, it is a beacon of architectural and artistic beauty, and one of the most welcoming, inclusive cultural buildings I’ve ever been in. As someone who’s often daunted by places we call “cultural”, that’s a big thing. Housed partly in an old Odeon cinema, it combines the city’s library, theatre and cinema in one, and each year invites a different poet to exhibit their words in gigantic poems all across its walls. Among others, there’s been Imtiaz Dharker, Lemn Sissay and myself (a poem of mine still lingers in the gorgeous children’s section). It’s one of the few places that appeals culturally as much to my child as to me, so it’s easy to go together. Go, grab a (very fancy) chair, a book, a glass of wine and wander round to feast on the poetry, the architecture and, of course, the books – until 11pm. It’s got the longest opening hours of any library in the UK.
Gemma Cairney, broadcaster and author
Summerhall gallery bar, Edinburgh
The gallery bar in the heart of a place I think of as “Charlie’s chocolate factory” (but one for exhibited art, curios, get-togethers, community, live music and culture rather than newfangled candy) – otherwise known as Summerhall in Edinburgh – is somewhere I’ve watched fast become a space of delight since it was reopened under new management in January. You can wrap yourself up in a blanket in there, slowly sip on lovingly made coffee and soups while an Ethio-jazz soundtrack rolls. It’s become a pop-up space for knitting groups, life-drawers and book lovers to meet round the gigantic central communal table. If you become a regular, you may spot a live cellist one afternoon or fiddle playing jam the next, plus there’s a regular spoken-word open mic night and a pub quiz with sign language. It’s a truly special spot and my heart has been captured by it.
Ian McMillan, poet
The Maurice Dobson Museum, Darfield, South Yorkshire
This, as I always tell everybody, is the only museum in the world named after a gay ex-miner. Maurice Dobson ran a shop with his partner, Fred, and a swearing parrot in Darfield, the former pit village near Barnsley, where I’ve always lived. When Maurice and Fred (and the parrot) died, the shop, an old Georgian building, was given to the village as a museum in 2000 and we’ve been here ever since. It is open on Saturdays and Wednesdays and you can look around the gallery, sit on the patio and, if you want to spend money [£2 entry fee, 50p for children], you could go upstairs, or come to the cafe, where I volunteer once a month in a fetching green pinny!
Elizabeth Alker, broadcaster
The film viewing pods, ground floor, Manchester Central Library
The most novel cinema experience in Manchester can be had via the North West Film Archive and BFI Replay viewing pods on the ground floor of Manchester’s glorious central library rotunda. More than 1,750 titles are available to view, including the earliest known footage of a professional football match (Blackburn Rovers v West Bromwich Albion in 1898), and feature films and documentaries starring the likes of LS Lowry, Yuri Gagarin, George Best and the Beatles. A friend and I once took popcorn and found ourselves lost in the history of the cooperative movement, a cricket match filmed in Rochdale in 1914 and life at a rural Cheshire school during the second world war. The forgotten landscapes of the region and stories of its heroes, famed or otherwise, brought a lot of poetry into our payday-pending lives.
Kathryn Williams, singer-songwriter
Play areas at Newcastle upon Tyne’s galleries and museums
The beauty of Newcastle with small children is that you can take a bus ride any rainy day to a gallery or museum that has a special kids’ play area with free entry. My children are past that age now, but I’ve had years of joyous times at the Laing gallery’s Playspace, the Baltic art centre’s play, learn and sensory area, water play at Play Tyne in the Discovery Museum and the Mouse House at the Great North Museum. Now, I still take my 12-year-old to the galleries, but instead of using the play areas, we take a sketchbook each and choose a painting to draw. It is amazing how you notice so much more this way and how you end up talking and working things out together. I get a really peaceful feeling hearing his thoughts and ideas from looking at works of art.
Night Drives by Kathryn Williams is out now on One Little Independent Records. Her podcast Before the Lights Go Out explores the time between being awake and asleep
Eleanor Nairne, curator, Barbican Art Gallery
When I’m in need of rest and cultural nourishment, I head to the Camden Art Centre. Confusingly, it is sandwiched between Hampstead and Finchley Road in north London, just a stone’s throw from the house on Maresfield Gardens where Sigmund Freud once lived. Nestled among a garden of ferns and hellebores, the building has the feeling of an oasis: a wonderful bookshop and cafe spill out across the ground floor, while there are studios and galleries above. All its exhibitions are free and they are always worth seeing. Until 28 May, Mohammed Sami is showing some of his remarkable, haunting paintings.
Eleanor Nairne’s latest show, Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle, is at the Barbican Art Gallery until 21 May
Russell Tovey, actor and co-host of podcast Talk Art
Chisenhale Gallery, east London
I’d love to recommend the Chisenhale Gallery in east London, a space that I am proud to be a patron of, as it always presents the most ambitious, exciting and considered solo exhibitions helmed by the amazing Zoé Whitley. Rachel Jones’s Say Cheeeeese was one of the highlights of my 2022 art experiences. The gallery has just opened an exhibition with Johannesburg-based painter Ravelle Pillay titled Idyll, which looks fantastic.
And to blow my own trumpet, Close at the Grimm Gallery at 2 Bourdon Street in central London. It’s a group show of 13 contemporary artists I’ve lovingly curated, connecting all to a curatorial theme of “quiet moments of domestic joy”. I’m very proud of it.
Talk Art: The Interviews by Russell Tovey and Robert Diament is published by Ilex Press on 11 May (£25)
Huw Stephens, DJ and broadcaster
The archives at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
There are plenty of pleasant things to do in Aberystwyth, not least walk the prom and possibly kick the bar at the foot of Constitution Hill, a tradition started by the students of Aber. Past the prom and Aber’s winding streets you’ll find the National Library of Wales, an enormous, beautiful building dating back to 1907. Its archives are vast, with more than 6m books and every map, photograph or piece of music contained in the impressive building. It’s essentially the story of Wales, with a reading room and exhibitions bringing everything alive. I recommend it for a day of digging and discovery.
Jade Anouka, actor
Check out the ever-growing number of farmers’ markets and try out all the free samples. You can taste bread, cheese, chutneys, drinks – all free! My top one is at Beckenham Place Park in Lewisham and I suggest following it with a long walk around the huge grounds and woods. The architecture of the mansion building is quite beautiful; it was built in the 1700s and in the grounds you can wander through the bluebells in spring, splash about in the river in summer and sledge down the multiple hills in the snow. I love a woodland walk, so would also suggest Dulwich and Sydenham Hill woods in south London for a good wander and a wonder.
