The Guardian

How do you bring a derelict Manchester train station back to life?

59 Productions’ adaptation of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities will transform Mayfield depot for the Manchester international festival
Manchester’s Mayfield depot shut to passengers in 1960. Photograph: Ben Hopper

Manchester, like most cities, is in constant flux. Cranes crowd the rapidly changing skyline as redevelopment reshapes the city centre. Not least at Mayfield; a vast 1910 goods depot and train station abandoned in the 1980s, £1.1bn will be spent over the next decade to turn this 24-acre site into a new neighbourhood.

Where better during MIF to think about cities? How they are built, how they mould individuals and societies, what cities really mean. These are subjects that preoccupy London’s 59 Productions, whose Invisible Cities will transform Mayfield depot.

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