​New Year’s Eve need not be all about big beats and booze – try a little burlesque instead

It’s not all about heavy beats and dubious cocktails come New Year’s Eve. For a more demure and cultured evening, head to Deansgate Locks (there’s a sentence we never thought we’d see in print). In aid of Francis House Children’s Hospice, Pitcher & Piano hosts an evening of burlesque-inspired splendour to see the New Year in. Standard entry tickets start at just £5 (with V.I.P packages available if you’re feeling flash); the bar, meanwhile, will be transformed into a haven of 1950’s glamour that will have you sipping martinis as if you’re a proper gent (or lady). Capital FM DJ Rob Ellis will be playing the biggest house tunes from the last year alongside Pitcher & Piano’s resident disc jockeys. The makings of an interesting NYE, though we’ve yet to be convinced that the Locks can ever really tick the sophisticated evening out box.