The Friday Night Club with The Unthanks
Discover. Enthuse. A proper Friday night out with family and friends.
Hosted and curated by Tyneside music pioneers The Unthanks, this new quarterly series brings together unexpected lineups, from local legends to the best touring artists. Don’t be surprised to find singers alongside poets, comedy followed by classical music or short films next to jazz sets.
Think of it like heading round to a friend’s on a Friday night – good food, good company, and music you didn’t expect but won’t forget. A space for discovery, conversation, and shared experience.
There’ll be surprises, singalongs, a pie and mash social before the show, and even the playlist in the bar will put together by the artists behind the evening.
Come curious – leave inspired!
This month’s line up features ‘almost folk’ artist Clara Mann, prize-winning author Fiona Mozley, the unique Tim Dalling, and the Royal Northern Sinfonia Ensemble playing a powerful piece by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. All this and more, hosted by The Unthanks who will also provide opening and closing songs.
Need to know
Venue: Sage Two Club Layout
Price: £22.50
Stage times: Full times TBA nearer to showtime. First artists onstage 8pm; doors, bars and kitchen all open early.
Age: Ages 14 and under must be accompanied by an adult.
What they say...
“We firmly believe in the cultural intelligence of modern audiences. And healthy mischief!
– Adrian McNally -The Unthanks
“It’s the sort of night we want to go to!”
– Becky Unthank
The Friday Night Club with The Unthanks illustration by Jon Mackay
Clara Mann
Possessing the prickly intensity of Aldous Harding and described by The Independent as already having “gone from one-to-watch to one of the best songwriters in the country”, Franco-British ‘almost-folk’ newcomer Clara Mann presents her debut album, Rift.
Rift navigates the fractured environment of the in-between—those liminal spaces exposed between light and dark, growth and remorse, loss and reclamation. It is a record that makes a strong case for hope, those luminescent silver linings in the dark. Mann’s music reflects the people and places that have shaped and held her—physically, emotionally, and creatively. Raised in the Lot Valley in rural France before moving to the UK for her teens, these formative years provided her with a deep sense of belonging, identity, and growth. Yet, it is in motion, in placelessness, that Mann feels most at home: “Just the sun above me and my keys and my car.”
Fiona Mozley
Yorkshire author Fiona Mozley will be revealing the new journey that her Booker Prize shortlisted novel, Elmet, is undertaking as a site specific theatre piece for Bradford City of Culture this Autumn, featuring music performed by The Unthanks.
Fiona is the author of two novels, Elmet and Hot Stew, and several short stories. She is the winner of a Somerset Maugham Award and The Polari Prize, has been shortlisted for The Booker Prize, The Ondaatje Prize and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and The Women’s Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The New Statesman and British Vogue. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in Edinburgh.
Tim Dalling
“The only person you can go and see doing Tim Dalling is Tim Dalling”, says Kris Drever of Lau. You will never forget the first time you witness Tim Dalling. Combining the intellect of the great bards with the mania and mischief of music hall, via plaintive songs about death and gratitude, Tim can turn laughter to tears on a sixpence. All descriptions ultimately, fail to prepare.
Tim Dalling was a busker after leaving Glasgow School of Art in 1982. He became a member of Kneehigh Theatre in its formative years and spent 25 years entertaining as part of comedy/folk trio the The Old Rope (later New Rope) String Band and has since worked as a solo artist recording two song-albums, Blossom and Eve’s Bonie Squad with Ian Carr and Neil Harland. He works regularly in theatre shows eg Wise Children’s The Little Match Girl, Sally Cookson’s La Strada, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In 2024 he worked as composer and performing as Ben Gunn in Treasure Island for Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh He has lived in Newcastle upon Tyne since 1987.
Royal Northern Sinfonia Ensemble play Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara’s String Quartet No.1 doesn’t hold back. It’s moody, meditative, and brimming with the kind of eerie beauty the Finnish composer is known for – echoing folk tunes one minute, veering into something much darker the next.
An ensemble from our home orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, takes on this powerful piece. In the intimate setting of Sage Two, you’ll be close enough to catch every breath and bow stroke. The music selection for this series has been chosen by violinist and The Glasshouse’s artistic partner Maria Włoszczowska.
