Welcome to The Halifax Arts Podcast for December 2020. It has been an 'interesting' year to say the least but it's good to know that Halifax is looking forward to better times in 2021. An excellent example of this is the Festival of Halifax that will be taking place in May and the podcast has been talking to the man behind the idea, local bar owner and music impresario, Michael Ainsworth. Also this month, Janet Warham has been chatting to local playwright and actor Alan Stockdill about his upcoming play - The Cow Fields of Slack Bottom - at the Viaduct Theatre in Dean Clough and Alex Abel talks about some of the short films that were recently showcased at the online Hebden Bridge Film Festival. Finally, our resident films reviewers Steve Archer, Judy Green and Jeremy Walker have turned their thoughts and their sharpened tongues towards The Queen's Gambit (Netflix), Lyn + Lucy (BBC iPlayer), Time (Amazon Prime), Uncle Frank (also Amazon Prime), Ammonite (the latest film from local director Francis Lee available in cinemas and across streaming platforms) and the Belgian film Patrick (Curzon / Amazon Prime).