NUMBER 9.................. Reviewing The Arts UK-wide: The Greater Manchester Fringe Festival starts in July for a whole month

The seventh Greater Manchester Fringe opens on Sunday 1 July with Story Time with Mama G at 1pm and 2.30pm at Tribeca in the heart of Manchester's gay community.

Combining panto, drag and the traditional art of story-telling: Mama G will be sharing tales with children and their families.

Petite Pantos is a theatre company that specialises in pantomimes with a social conscience - championing LGBTQ+ issues, feminism and positive representation of race and gender.

Story Time with Mama G stars Robert Pearce, who played Bungle in Rainbow Live, shared the stage with Tommy Steele and memorably played a tree on a rural tour of Scotland.

Maisie Adam will be presenting her show Vague on Sunday 1 and Monday 2 July at 7.30pm at the King's Arms in Salford.

Within a year of starting stand up she won the biggest stand-up comedy newcomer competition, So You Think You're Funny, only the fourth woman to have done so in its 30 years.

Since then she has opened for major comedians and claimed a Best New Comedy nomination at Brighton Fringe.

In Vague, a preview for this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival's Gilded Balloon, Maisie navigates the recklessness of youth whilst dealing with epilepsy - a medical condition that requires her to be a "Sensible Susan".

Maisie recently appeared in the latest series of Urban Myths from Sky Arts, playing Siouxsie Sioux in The Filth & The Fury alongside Danny Mays, Steve Pemberton and Kayvan Novak.

A Surgeon's Photograph, Sunday 1, Monday 2 and Tuesday 3 July at Footlights in Media City, is a PREMIERE of a new LGBT musical.

In 1956 Robert’s father disappeared after a storm ravaged Loch Ness, 20 years later he is seeking answers.

Haunted by the myth of the monster and facing questions of faith, sexuality and trust, A Surgeon's Photograph, Rising Shadows Productions, is a coming-of-age story set in 1980s Scotland.

With a haunting original score by Jacob Dufton, from Bury, directed and produced by his sister Ella Dufton, who has created work for the Octagon Theatre (What Matters), alongside training with the Royal Exchange.

Ella has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe (An Unexpected Electric Nativity and Macbeth) and Jacob in Not the End of the World.

They seek to challenge the stagnant nature of regional musicals. Starring Christian Fuchs, Sophie Rush and Joe Davies.

On Behalf of the People by Ray Castleton is being staged at three venues during Greater Manchester Fringe - People's History Museum (1 July), International Anthony Burgess Foundation (3 & 4 July) and Waterside arts centre in Sale (10 July).

Set in a Yorkshire mining town, the play follows miner George Mason, his wife Connie, their son - returning solider Tom - and Tom's fiancée Liz; from the immediate aftermath of the war to Coronation year, 1953.

Tom Mason returns from the war to the arms of his grateful mother and fiancée - and to the bosom of the pit. George fights his own battles and an election.

Connie mourns, loves and unites as Liz sees a new world brim-full of opportunity. In a new Britain, will their hopes and dreams be reconciled? Read more here.

Getting Out of Your Own Way on Sunday 1 July at 4pm at the King's Arms in Salford is staged by Dancing the Blues Research Group - a joint project involving Edge Hill University, University of Salford and Cambridge University.

This duet explores four key concepts in the work of dance movement psychotherapy with people with depression: embodiment, relationality, movement metaphor and narrative.

Developing out of improvisations between a dancer/choreographer and a poet, the aim is to translate dance movement psychotherapy concepts into movement, text and sound and back.

Cheaters: A Play About Infidelity (Sunday 1, Sunday 8 and Sunday 22 July at 7.30pm, at King's Arms in Salford) is a fast-paced, and dynamic comedy. Echoing the classic farces by the likes of Noel Coward, but updated for modern audiences. It’s a frantic, silly and raunchy take on marriage, monogamy, and infidelity.

From the writer and performer of GM Fringe's 2016 show - The Book of Northern: The entire history of the North West, told in under one hour.

King of The World, Sunday 1 and Monday 2 July at 9.15pm, at the King's Arms in Salford, reunites writer Brian Coyle and director Emma Bird.

They won Best Play and Best Director awards with their previous collaboration Welcome to Paradise Road (Liverpool Page to Stage Festival 2016).

King of the World, a satirical/political comment on despotic power, was nominated for Best Director, Best Actor, Best New Writing and Best Overall Production at Liverpool Fringe Festival 2018.

The play stars Pea Lee, Keith Hyland and Manchester actor Sean McGlynnn.

Emma is also directing the great classic Northern play, Two by Jim Cartwright, at Footlights Theatre in Media City, on Wednesday 4 and Thursday 5 July at 7.30pm.

Jim asked two of his students at his academy to perform it and asked them to find a director.

Emma Bird's most recent production New Dawn Fades: A Play about Joy Division and Manchester, performed at Manchester's Dancehouse Theatre (April 2018), sold out every night, received standing ovations and excellent reviews.