HOME Manchester is Manchester’s centre for international contemporary art, theatre, and film — a £25 million, purpose-built arts complex at 2 Tony Wilson Place, First Street, Manchester, M15 4FN, opened in April 2015 as the result of a merger between two beloved Manchester arts organisations, Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company. With five cinema screens, two theatres (a 500-seat main house and a 150-seat flexible studio), 500 square metres of contemporary art gallery space, a ground-floor café bar, a first-floor restaurant, a cinema bar, a roof terrace, and a specialist bookshop, HOME is one of the few arts organisations in the UK to commission, produce, and present work across film, theatre, and visual art under one roof. Since opening, HOME has welcomed over seven million visitors, was voted by Lonely Planet as one of the top 500 experiences in the UK and one of Britain’s best arts centres, and ranked in the top ten of TimeOut’s 50 Best Cinemas in the UK and Ireland in 2021.
In this complete guide to HOME Manchester, you will find everything you need: the full story of how HOME was created from the merger of Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company, a detailed guide to every space in the building, what the five cinema screens show and how to book, the theatre programme and the two performance venues, the contemporary art gallery, the restaurant and café bar and bookshop, practical information including opening hours, ticket prices, how to get there, parking discount code, and a comprehensive FAQ section. Whether you are planning your first visit or a regular looking for new angles on one of Manchester’s greatest cultural assets, this is the definitive guide to HOME.
What Is HOME Manchester?
Manchester’s Multi-Artform Cultural Centre
HOME is something genuinely unusual in the British arts landscape: an organisation that produces and presents work across three completely distinct art forms — theatre, cinema, and contemporary visual art — from a single building, with a single artistic identity that holds all three together. Most UK arts organisations specialise in one art form; HOME’s distinctive model, inherited from its predecessor organisations and brought into sharp focus by the merger that created it, is to create a cultural space where the curious can discover theatre, film, and visual art as interrelated rather than separate experiences.
The organisation was created by the merger of Cornerhouse — Manchester’s internationally renowned independent cinema and contemporary art centre, which had operated on Oxford Street since 1985 — and the Library Theatre Company, which had occupied the basement of Manchester Central Library since 1952. Both organisations were beloved by Manchunians and had developed strong reputations over decades. Cornerhouse was known for its pioneering film programming and its commitment to contemporary visual art; the Library Theatre Company for its adventurous and international theatre programme. The merger was conceived as creating something greater than the sum of its parts: a new kind of arts organisation that could hold all three art forms together in genuine creative dialogue.
The project was funded by Manchester City Council, the Garfield Weston Foundation, and Arts Council England, with a total build cost of £25 million. It was overseen by Dave Moutrey, former director and chief executive of Cornerhouse, who became HOME’s founding chief executive and artistic director for film, with Sarah Perks as artistic director for visual arts, Jason Wood as artistic director for film, and Walter Meierjohann as artistic director for theatre.
HOME opened to the public in April 2015, following a period of construction on the First Street development site. Since opening, it has attracted over 650,000 visits per year in normal years — in 2019, the year before COVID-19 disrupted cultural attendance, HOME recorded approximately 900,000 visits in a single year, making it one of the most visited arts attractions in Manchester. The cumulative total since opening passed seven million visitors before the organisation’s tenth anniversary in 2025.
The Building: Architecture and Design
Mecanoo Architecten’s Distinctive Vision
HOME was designed by Dutch architecture practice Mecanoo Architecten — whose portfolio includes cultural and civic buildings across Europe and beyond — in collaboration with local Manchester architects. The building’s most immediately striking visual characteristic is its iridescent facade: a glazed exterior adorned with irregularly spaced fins that change colour as light conditions change, shifting from black to blue to green depending on the weather and angle of view. This quality makes HOME one of Manchester’s most visually distinctive modern buildings and creates an ever-changing visual identity that seems well-suited to an arts organisation whose programme is perpetually in motion.
The building sits on a triangular site between railway arches and the public square of First Street — a geometric constraint that Mecanoo turned into a distinctive design feature rather than a limitation. The triangular footprint creates a series of unique corner spaces within the building: the gallery occupies one corner, the restaurant another, and a cinema a third. The rounded corners of the triangle soften the geometry and give the building a flowing, organic quality at street level. A large overhang above the entrance level creates a terrace beneath it, connecting the café bar to the public square and providing covered outdoor space for cultural events.
The glazed facade opens up most generously at ground level — where public spaces including the café bar and gallery are located — giving the building a welcoming transparency from the street. As the facade rises, it becomes more enclosed, reflecting the more intimate and controlled acoustic requirements of the theatres and cinemas above. This graduated openness is both visually coherent and functionally rational: the most public spaces are the most visible, the most dedicated performance spaces the most enclosed.
The Interior: An Urban Living Room
The interior concept described by Mecanoo is “an urban living room” — an articulation of HOME’s ambition to be a genuinely welcoming, social space rather than a formal cultural institution where visitors feel required to behave with reverence. The materials chosen for the interior — raw concrete floors and walls, warm oak bars, steel and glass — create a characterful environment that manages to feel both serious and relaxed: serious in the quality of the craft and design, relaxed in the absence of grandeur or formality.
The building’s central feature is a wide central stairwell at its heart — a dramatic, multi-storey opening that connects all the building’s levels and serves as the primary circulation route through the building, encouraging visitors to use the stairs rather than the lifts. The stairwell is also an informal social space in itself: the bars on each floor are integrated into the areas around the stairwell, creating a series of pauses and social anchors on the journey between levels. This design principle — circulation as social space, movement as occasion for encounter — gives HOME’s interior a dynamism and warmth that makes visiting the building itself a pleasure independent of what is on the programme.
The main theatre on the ground floor contains 500 colourful seats across three levels — the seating designed so that no audience member is more than 15 metres from the stage. This intimacy in a 500-seat auditorium is a remarkable achievement and reflects the importance placed on the audience-performer relationship in the theatre’s design brief. The adjacent foyer functions as a multifunctional space that extends the theatre’s capacity for pre-show and post-show gathering.
The smaller studio theatre on the first floor accommodates 150 seats in a flexible format — walls, seating, and staging configurable to suit the specific demands of each production. The second floor houses the five cinemas, with the gallery occupying the 500-square-metre ground floor space at the building’s base.
The Five Cinemas
An Independent Cinema Programme
The five cinema screens at HOME are the most publicly accessible and highest-volume element of the building’s programme — the area that most Manchunians first encounter when they discover HOME, and the primary reason for many regular repeat visits. The cinemas are located on the second floor of the building, connected by the central staircase and served by the cinema bar at the same level. The five screens vary in size, giving HOME significant programming flexibility: the largest screen accommodates substantial audiences for headline releases, while the smaller screens allow more specialist programming to run simultaneously.
HOME’s cinema programme is positioned firmly in the independent, arthouse, and world cinema sector — it is the kind of cinema that shows films that do not appear at multiplex chains, either because they are international-language productions, because they are experimental or avant-garde, because they are documentary rather than narrative feature, or because they are important older or restored classics. A typical week’s programme might include a new French drama, a Latin American political documentary, a restored classic from the British Film Institute archive, a programme of short films curated around a specific theme, and a family screening of an international animation.
That said, HOME’s programme is not programmatically exclusive of popular cinema: the organisation has a sophisticated understanding that a broad audience base requires programming breadth, and its screens regularly include independent English-language films with mainstream appeal alongside the more specialist offerings. The combination of specialist programming and occasional populist choice reflects an audience-building philosophy that attempts to give new visitors a way in before introducing them to more challenging or unfamiliar work.
The cinemas were named in the top ten of TimeOut’s 50 Best Cinemas in the UK and Ireland in 2021 — a recognition that reflects both the quality of the programming and the quality of the physical cinema experience, including sound, projection quality, and the atmosphere of the cinema bar.
The Cinema Bar
The cinema bar on the second floor is one of HOME’s most praised social spaces, consistently cited in visitor reviews and media coverage as a particular highlight of the overall experience. The bar’s low-lit, intimate atmosphere — wood, concrete, candlelight — creates an environment that is genuinely inviting rather than merely functional. Several reviews specifically recommend arriving early for a cinema visit to sit at the cinema bar with a glass of wine before the screening, and the post-film conversation culture that the bar enables has been noted as one of the distinctive pleasures of the HOME cinema experience. The availability of alcohol in the cinema screening rooms themselves (depending on event type) adds to the sense of the cinema as a social rather than purely passive experience.
Ticket Prices for Cinema at HOME
Cinema tickets at HOME are priced at typical independent cinema rates — generally slightly below what major London independent cinemas charge, and significantly below what West End first-run cinemas charge. Standard adult tickets typically range from approximately £10–15, with concessions available for students, senior citizens, and others. Members of HOME receive discounts on all cinema tickets as part of their membership. The HOME membership scheme provides one of the most cost-effective ways to be a regular cinema-goer at HOME — the annual membership fee is recovered within a modest number of visits and provides additional benefits including priority booking and discounts in the café and restaurant.
Special screenings including Q&As with filmmakers, director introductions, and curated retrospective screenings carry their own pricing which may differ from standard ticketing. The HOME website (homemcr.org) provides the current programme and online booking for all cinema screenings.
The Two Theatres
Theatre 1: The 500-Seat Main House
Theatre 1 is HOME’s principal performance space — a 500-seat auditorium designed with exceptional audience-to-stage proximity (no seat more than 15 metres from the stage) and a warmly colourful interior that immediately signals a different kind of theatregoing experience from the conventional West End or regional repertoire model. The theatre has a strong and consistent artistic identity: it presents an international programme, with a particular focus on UK premieres of foreign-language plays, visiting international companies, and new commissions that reflect HOME’s ambition to be genuinely of Manchester and the world simultaneously.
HOME has co-produced numerous significant productions and has developed a reputation as a Manchester base for touring productions of genuine artistic ambition. Productions that have played Theatre 1 include both incoming touring productions from major UK and international companies and HOME-produced work that has subsequently transferred to London or toured nationally. The theatre’s programming reflects a commitment to work that is “provocative, playful and contemporary” — language from HOME’s own mission statement that accurately captures a theatrical sensibility more interested in risk and experimentation than in the safe presentation of established classics.
Theatre ticket prices range from approximately £10 for concessions to £30–35 for full-price premium seats for major productions. Student and young person discounts are actively promoted. Preview performances — typically the first one or two public performances of a new production — are usually priced more accessibly than the main run, giving budget-conscious theatregoers a way into productions that would otherwise be beyond their means.
Theatre 2: The 150-Seat Studio
Theatre 2 is HOME’s flexible studio space — 150 seats in a configuration that can be adjusted between productions to suit the specific staging requirements of each show. This flexibility is the defining characteristic of a studio theatre: unlike a fixed-proscenium main house, the studio can be arranged as a thrust stage (audience on three sides), traverse (audience on two sides facing each other), in-the-round (audience encircling the stage), or end-on (conventional audience-in-front format). The choice of configuration for each production is an artistic decision that affects the audience’s relationship to the performance and is often itself part of the theatrical meaning of the work.
Theatre 2 is the home for the more experimental, intimate, and risk-taking work in HOME’s theatre programme. New writing, solo performances, physical theatre, dance-theatre, and productions by emerging artists who may not yet be programmed in Theatre 1 all find their natural home in the studio. The reduced capacity also makes it accessible for smaller-scale touring companies for whom Theatre 1 would be an impractical proposition. The intimacy of 150 seats creates a quality of theatrical encounter that the larger auditorium cannot replicate — in Theatre 2, there is nowhere to hide for either the performer or the audience.
The Contemporary Art Gallery
500 Square Metres of Gallery Space
The gallery at HOME occupies 500 square metres (approximately 5,400 square feet) of ground-floor space with four-metre-high ceilings — dimensions that allow HOME to present ambitious contemporary art exhibitions including large-scale installations, immersive environments, and works that require significant physical space. The gallery presents work by both emerging and established artists, with a specific focus on talent development across Greater Manchester, the North West, and beyond. It operates as a free-to-enter gallery, maintaining a commitment to accessibility that reflects HOME’s broader democratising ambition.
The gallery programme at HOME is not a commercial gallery (it does not sell work) but a commissioning gallery — one that works directly with artists to produce new work rather than simply presenting existing pieces. This commissioning role means that a significant proportion of what is seen in the gallery has been made specifically for HOME, often responding to the specific dimensions and character of the gallery space itself, or to Manchester as a city and cultural context. This approach gives the HOME gallery a distinct editorial identity: its exhibitions tend to feel purposeful and specific rather than being assembled from available touring work.
The gallery has presented artists working across a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance, and sound installation. A consistent thread running through HOME’s visual arts programming is an interest in socially engaged practice — work that engages with communities, political conditions, or social realities rather than existing purely in the aesthetic realm. This orientation reflects HOME’s position as an organisation funded partly by public money and committed to generating social benefit for the communities it serves.
The gallery is free to enter during opening hours — one of the most accessible cultural offers in Manchester city centre.
The Bookshop
Specialist Arts and Culture Titles
HOME operates a specialist bookshop within the building — a small but carefully curated retail operation stocking titles in contemporary visual art, theatre, cinema, cultural studies, music, architecture, and related disciplines. The bookshop is not a general interest retailer but a deliberately specialist resource for the kinds of readers who engage seriously with the art forms HOME presents. For visitors who have just seen an exhibition, a film, or a play, the bookshop provides an immediate extension of that engagement through reading — catalogues of artists whose work has been seen in the gallery, scripts of plays, monographs of filmmakers whose films are being shown, and critical theory that contextualises contemporary creative work.
The bookshop has been consistently praised in descriptions of HOME as one of the small pleasures of the building — a reminder that HOME is not merely a presenter of artistic events but an intellectual and cultural environment. The bookshop’s curation reflects the same editorial sensibilities as the artistic programme: international in scope, adventurous in content, genuinely specialised rather than stocked to meet mainstream retail demand.
Food and Drink at HOME
The Ground Floor Café Bar
The ground floor café bar is HOME’s most public and highest-traffic social space — the first point of entry for most visitors and a destination in its own right, entirely separate from the theatrical or cinematic programme. The café bar occupies the glazed ground floor area at the building’s base, with views onto the First Street public square through the open facade. Tables inside and a terrace outside connect the venue to the life of the square, giving the café bar a genuine street-level presence that distinguishes it from the enclosed world of the theatres and cinemas upstairs.
The café bar serves coffee, teas, soft drinks, and alcoholic beverages throughout the day, with a food menu of café-style options. It is frequently used as a workspace, meeting place, and casual destination by people in the First Street creative district who may or may not have any engagement with the arts programme. This openness — the deliberate choice to make HOME’s spaces welcoming to people who are not there to attend a specific event — reflects the “urban living room” philosophy articulated in the design brief. The café bar’s accessibility to non-arts-event visitors is part of how HOME builds relationships with people who might become future audiences.
The First Floor Restaurant
The first-floor restaurant at HOME occupies one of the building’s most architecturally distinctive spaces — a corner location with views over First Street and the surrounding area, accessed via the central staircase. The restaurant’s menu is described as “hearty classic meals with a contemporary twist, chosen to accompany your cultural explorations” — language that positions the food as seriously conceived rather than merely functional, but also as genuinely accessible rather than challenging.
The restaurant has been specifically praised in visitor reviews for providing good value alongside quality — several TripAdvisor reviewers have noted that prices are “not mad” for a first-floor restaurant with views at a major arts venue in Manchester city centre, a comparison they clearly make against the expectation of premium pricing in cultural venues. Pre-theatre menus and set-price options are available, timed to allow comfortable dining before an evening performance. The combination of good food, a distinctive space, and the cultural environment of HOME makes the restaurant a destination in its own right for Manchunians looking for a dinner that combines well with an evening programme.
The Cinema Bar and Roof Terrace
The cinema bar on the second floor — already described in the cinema section — is one of HOME’s most celebrated spaces. Its low-lit, intimate character makes it a natural gathering point before and after film screenings, and its position adjacent to the cinema screens means that transition from bar to screening is seamless rather than requiring navigation through the whole building.
The roof terrace is one of HOME’s most underappreciated spaces — a genuine outdoor terrace at height that opens on fair-weather days and provides a completely different kind of visit opportunity from the interior spaces. On a warm Manchester evening, the roof terrace is one of the most pleasurable outdoor venues in the city centre — a quiet space above the street with views across the First Street development and the Manchester skyline, where a pre-theatre drink or a post-film debrief can happen in genuinely atmospheric conditions. Its seasonal availability (weather-dependent) makes it something of a discovery for many regular visitors, who may have been to HOME many times without encountering the terrace in useable conditions.
First Street: HOME’s Neighbourhood
A Creative Quarter in Manchester City Centre
HOME sits at the heart of the First Street development — a 20-acre mixed-use creative and commercial district that has been developed over the past decade as Manchester’s attempt to create a distinctive creative quarter in the city centre. First Street is positioned between Oxford Road and Deansgate, connecting the two most significant axes of central Manchester, and its development has been explicitly conceived as an environment that brings together cultural organisations, creative businesses, technology companies, and innovative enterprises in a setting that supports cross-fertilisation between them.
HOME is the cultural anchor of First Street — the organisation that gives the district its public cultural identity and its reason to be visited by people who are not working there. The surrounding development includes office buildings occupied by technology and creative companies, the Hotel GOTHAM (one of Manchester’s most distinctive boutique hotels), and various food and drink businesses that have developed in response to the daytime and evening footfall generated by the district’s workers and HOME’s visitors.
The public square on which HOME fronts — Tony Wilson Place, named after the legendary Manchester impresario and Factory Records founder who died in 2002 — gives the district a genuinely public outdoor space that can be used for outdoor cultural events, community gatherings, and the everyday life of the area. The square has hosted outdoor screenings, performance events, and cultural programming associated with HOME and with the broader First Street development’s cultural ambitions.
The Oxford Road Corridor
First Street and HOME sit within the wider Oxford Road Corridor — a three-kilometre stretch of the A34 running south from Manchester city centre through a concentration of academic, cultural, scientific, and creative organisations that represents one of the most significant knowledge economy clusters in England. The corridor encompasses the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester Royal Infirmary, the Manchester Aquatics Centre, multiple NHS trusts, and a series of cultural venues including HOME, the Manchester Academy, and the Alan Turing Institute among others.
HOME’s position within this knowledge corridor is not incidental: it places the arts centre within a daytime population of tens of thousands of students, academics, researchers, and creative professionals who represent natural audiences for HOME’s programme. The connections between HOME and the university sector — through education programmes, community engagement, and formal partnerships — reflect a relationship between cultural and academic Manchester that is one of the defining characteristics of both.
Practical Information: Everything You Need to Know
Location and Address
HOME Manchester 2 Tony Wilson Place First Street Manchester M15 4FN
The building is visible on the First Street public square, adjacent to the railway arches that run alongside Deansgate. It can be approached from multiple directions — from Oxford Road, from Deansgate, from Great Bridgewater Street, and from the Whitworth Street West Metrolink stop.
Opening Hours
HOME operates a complex schedule driven by its diverse programme, but the following general pattern applies:
Building open (café bar, gallery, bookshop): The building is generally open from approximately 11:00am to 11:30pm on performance days, with the gallery typically open from 12:00pm to 9:00pm Tuesday to Sunday and closed Mondays. Specific gallery hours and building access times vary with the programme — check homemcr.org for current timings.
Box Office: 12:00pm to 8:00pm in-person at the venue. Online booking is available 24 hours a day via homemcr.org. Phone booking is available during box office hours.
Cinema programme: Screenings typically begin from early afternoon (sometimes late morning for weekend daytime screenings) through to late evening. HOME runs multiple screenings daily across its five screens.
Theatre programme: Evening performances typically begin at 7:30pm or 8:00pm. Matinee performances (Saturdays and some Sundays and weekdays) typically begin at 2:00pm or 2:30pm.
Restaurant: Lunch and dinner service with pre-theatre menu options. Booking for the restaurant is recommended for busy performance evenings.
Ticket Prices
Cinema: Standard adult tickets approximately £10–15; concession prices approximately £8–12. Members receive discounts. Some special screenings are priced differently. Check homemcr.org for current pricing.
Theatre: A range of prices depending on the production and seat location. Main house productions typically run from approximately £10 (concession) to £30–35 (full price). Studio productions from approximately £8–25. Preview performances are usually priced at the lower end of the range. Student, under-26, and senior concessions available.
Gallery: Free admission.
Bookshop: Standard retail pricing for specialist arts and culture publications.
HOME membership: Annual membership is available at varying levels and provides cinema ticket discounts, priority booking, and other benefits. Check homemcr.org for current membership rates.
How to Get There
By Metrolink tram: St Peter’s Square is approximately a 4-minute walk from HOME. Deansgate-Castlefield is approximately a 6-minute walk. Both stops serve multiple Metrolink lines connecting from across Greater Manchester.
By train: Oxford Road station is approximately a 9-minute walk from HOME. Deansgate station is approximately a 6-minute walk. Both stations serve routes south of Manchester city centre. Manchester Piccadilly is approximately 15 minutes on foot or a short Metrolink journey.
By car: HOME does not have its own car park. The nearest car park is Q-Park First Street, which offers a 25% discount with the code HOMEMCR25 when pre-booked online — making it one of the most practical pre-booked parking options for HOME visitors. Without the code, city centre parking rates apply.
By bus: Multiple bus routes serve Oxford Road and Deansgate. National Express coaches to Manchester arrive at Chorlton Street coach station, approximately 10–15 minutes on foot from HOME.
On foot from Manchester city centre: HOME is approximately a 10-15 minute walk from the Arndale/Market Street area — heading south-west along Deansgate or south along Oxford Road/Peter Street will bring you to First Street.
Accessibility at HOME
HOME has invested comprehensively in accessible provision across all areas of the building. All floors are accessible via the lift (in addition to the central staircase), and step-free routes exist throughout most of the building. Assistive listening systems (hearing loops) are installed throughout the theatres and cinemas — a key accessibility feature given HOME’s theatre and film programming. The hearing loop system was specifically highlighted in the building’s development as essential for HOME’s theatre with its international focus on foreign-language productions and premieres.
The gallery is step-free and accessible throughout. The café bar and restaurant are fully accessible. Accessible toilet facilities are available. Assistance dogs are welcome throughout the building. For specific accessibility queries or to pre-arrange support for a visit, contact the HOME box office directly.
HOME also offers relaxed performance screenings and events designed for visitors with autism, sensory sensitivities, or other access needs — check homemcr.org for the schedule of relaxed performances across the theatre and cinema programme.
HOME’s Cultural Impact in Manchester
Seven Million Visitors and Counting
The statistic that HOME has welcomed over seven million visitors since opening in 2015 is not merely a bragging-rights number but an indication of the genuine role the organisation has assumed in Manchester cultural life in under a decade. To put it in context: seven million visits across approximately nine years of normal operation represents an average of around 780,000 visits per year, with the 2019 pre-COVID peak of approximately 900,000 visits representing a benchmark that very few regional arts organisations outside London approach.
This level of engagement reflects HOME’s success in building an audience that is both broad and deep: broad in the sense of including first-time visitors, tourists, and occasional attenders; deep in the sense of maintaining a substantial core of regular visitors who return week after week for cinema, theatre, and gallery programming. The combination of the free gallery, the multiple-programme cinemas, and the affordable café bar creates multiple access points for different types and frequencies of visit, removing the barrier that a purely ticketed arts centre would present.
The Merger Legacy: Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company
The two organisations from which HOME was created both have their own histories worth understanding, as they shape HOME’s character. Cornerhouse — founded in 1985 on Oxford Street, Manchester — was for 30 years one of the most important independent cultural venues in Britain: an arthouse cinema that championed world cinema, international film festivals, and British independent filmmaking alongside a gallery programme that introduced major international contemporary artists to Manchester audiences. Cornerhouse had a particularly strong reputation within the film world and its programming influenced a generation of Manchester film-goers, many of whom now form the core of HOME’s cinema audience.
The Library Theatre Company occupied the basement of Manchester Central Library from 1952 until it ceased operation in the building (pending the Library’s renovation) in 2010. For 58 years it produced theatre in a unique and intimate setting, developing a reputation for strong ensemble work, adventurous programming, and a genuine connection with Manchester’s communities. Its audience was the foundation of the theatregoing public that HOME inherited in 2015.
The merger’s success has been in holding both legacies together while creating something greater: a new organisation with its own identity that is recognisably rooted in both predecessors but not simply the sum of them. The integration of film, theatre, and visual art under one roof — genuinely integrated rather than merely co-located — is what HOME achieves that neither Cornerhouse nor the Library Theatre Company could do independently.
HOME’s Artistic Programme: What to Expect
International Focus and New Commissions
The artistic programme at HOME is shaped by a consistent set of values that distinguish it from most regional arts venues in Britain. The most important of these is internationalism: HOME describes itself as “Manchester’s centre for international contemporary art, theatre and film,” and the “international” in that description is not decorative — it reflects a genuine commitment to bringing work from outside the UK to Manchester audiences and to presenting Manchester-based artists and work in an international context.
In theatre, this international focus manifests as a regular presence of visiting companies from continental Europe, South America, Asia, and beyond. HOME has historically been one of the UK’s leading venues for foreign-language theatre — plays performed in French, German, Arabic, Spanish, and other languages, typically with surtitles to allow English-speaking audiences access. This commitment to foreign-language performance is genuinely unusual in UK regional theatre, where most venues rarely programme anything other than English-language work. HOME’s assistive listening systems were specifically designed with this programming ambition in mind, ensuring that surtitle presentation and hearing loop compatibility are fully integrated.
In cinema, the international dimension is equally apparent: a significant proportion of the films on HOME’s five screens at any given time will be international-language productions — French drama, Korean thriller, South American documentary, Japanese animation — that receive no or minimal multiplex distribution. HOME functions as the gateway to world cinema for a large proportion of its audience, introducing viewers to filmmaking traditions from cultures and cinematic systems they may not have encountered.
In visual art, the gallery programme combines international and local perspectives — presenting work by internationally recognised artists alongside commissioning and developing the work of Greater Manchester and North West artists who are at earlier stages of their careers.
Education and Talent Development
HOME’s commitment to education and talent development is built into its mission and funded accordingly. The organisation describes education, informal learning, and talent development as core components of its programme rather than supplementary activities. This commitment takes several forms across the three art forms.
In theatre, HOME has developed multiple routes for emerging artists to develop their practice at the venue — through supported productions in Theatre 2, through residencies, through the HOME Takeover initiative (which gives access to the building to young and emerging artists), and through partnerships with Manchester’s universities and theatre training institutions. Home has a track record of identifying early-stage talent and providing the producing support and platform that allows emerging artists to make work at professional scale before they have the commercial profile to attract large-scale investment.
In film, HOME has been involved in talent development schemes for young and emerging filmmakers, including local and regional film competitions, educational screenings with filmmaker introductions, and partnerships with Manchester-based film production and education organisations. The ambition is to create a pipeline from screen education into professional practice, with HOME as an anchor institution that provides early-career professionals with the context and connections the industry requires.
In visual art, the gallery’s explicit focus on talent development — particularly for artists from Greater Manchester and the North West — reflects a deliberate investment in the local ecology rather than purely in the presentation of internationally established names. The ratio between commissioning new work by emerging artists and presenting established international names is carefully calibrated to serve both community development and artistic quality simultaneously.
HOME and the Manchester Cultural Ecosystem
Relationships with Other Manchester Venues
HOME exists within one of the richest regional cultural ecosystems in England. Manchester’s arts sector encompasses major organisations including the Hallé Orchestra at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester Camerata, the Royal Exchange Theatre, Contact Theatre, Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth, the Manchester Museum, the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester International Festival (MIF), and many others — each with its own distinct mission and audience, each contributing to a cultural ecology that is substantially different from London’s but that is, within its own terms, extraordinarily productive and ambitious.
HOME’s specific relationship with the Royal Exchange Theatre — one of the most celebrated theatres in Britain, situated in Manchester’s historic Royal Exchange building — is particularly interesting because the two organisations programme theatre of comparable ambition and profile but with meaningfully different aesthetics and traditions. The Royal Exchange is embedded in the grand civic tradition of British regional theatre, housed in one of the most spectacular performance spaces in the country (a 1970s pod theatre suspended within the great Victorian commercial hall of the Royal Exchange). HOME brings the international, contemporary, and experimental edge of a newer, purpose-built institution. The two venues complement each other more than they compete, offering Manchester theatregoers two genuinely distinct kinds of theatrical experience within walking distance of each other.
Manchester International Festival: A Natural Partner
HOME’s relationship with Manchester International Festival — the biennial festival founded in 2007 that commissions and presents world-first events and exhibitions across every art form — reflects shared values around internationalism, new commissioning, and artistic ambition. MIF and HOME are both organisations that position Manchester as a participant in global cultural conversation rather than merely a recipient of touring work from elsewhere. During MIF years, HOME typically presents festival-associated programming and benefits from the influx of international cultural visitors that the festival brings to the city.
HOME’s Role in Manchester’s International Reputation
The consistent critical recognition that HOME has received — Lonely Planet’s “one of Britain’s best arts centres,” TimeOut’s top-ten cinema ranking, Lonely Planet’s top 500 UK experiences — has contributed to Manchester’s international cultural reputation in ways that are easy to underestimate. International visitors to Manchester — for business, tourism, or specifically cultural tourism — increasingly include HOME in their visit, and the presence of a world-class multi-artform cultural centre in the city centre contributes to Manchester’s ability to attract the internationally mobile creative professionals, students, and visitors who now circulate through cities partly in response to their cultural offer.
Notable Productions and Screenings
Landmark Moments in HOME’s Programme
In its decade of operation, HOME has built a record of notable productions, screenings, and exhibitions that illustrate the range and ambition of its artistic programme. In theatre, HOME has co-produced and premiered numerous significant works including productions that have subsequently transferred to London venues including the Young Vic, the Barbican, and West End theatres. HOME’s role as a co-producer — investing in productions at the development stage and sharing creative responsibility alongside the lead producing company — has allowed it to be part of some of the most significant new British and international theatre work of the past decade.
The theatre programme has included the UK premieres of major European productions by companies including Schaubühne Berlin and other major continental European theatre companies. Productions by Manchester-based artists developed at HOME have included work by Eve Steele, a Manchester writer and actress specifically cited in HOME’s own retrospective accounts, and numerous other local and regional creative figures who have used HOME’s producing resource and platform to develop careers that have subsequently achieved national and international recognition.
In cinema, HOME has programmed major retrospectives of internationally significant filmmakers, hosted the Manchester Film Festival, and served as the main Manchester venue for multiple international film festivals including the SAFAR Arab film festival and other culturally specific programming strands. The cinema’s regular programme of restorations — classic films presented in new digital restorations that allow audiences to see canonical cinema works with the clarity and quality that those works deserve — has been particularly praised.
Mischief Theatre and Thespians
Among the most significant production relationships that HOME has developed is its co-production with Mischief Theatre on the new musical comedy Thespians. Mischief Theatre — the company behind The Play That Goes Wrong franchise, which has achieved extraordinary international success in the West End and on Broadway — brought their new production to HOME as a touring stop in July 2025. This kind of partnership — with a commercially successful, high-profile company seeking a prestigious regional venue for an important new production — illustrates HOME’s standing as a producing partner of choice for companies at the top of British comedy theatre.
Planning the Perfect HOME Visit
Making the Most of Your Time
For visitors who want to experience multiple dimensions of HOME in a single visit, the combination of an afternoon gallery visit, pre-theatre dinner in the restaurant, and an evening performance in either theatre or cinema creates the ideal multi-element visit. Allow approximately one to two hours for the gallery, depending on the scale of the current exhibition. The restaurant is at its most atmospheric for pre-theatre dining — booking a table for 5:30–6:30pm before a 7:30pm or 8:00pm performance is the optimal schedule. After the performance, the cinema bar and café bar both remain open, providing a natural post-show social space.
For regular film-goers, the most cost-effective strategy is HOME membership, which provides discounted tickets on all cinema screenings and priority booking. Given HOME’s programming quality and the variety of its five screens, a regular cinema-goer can make very significant savings over the course of a year through membership.
For those interested specifically in the gallery, the free entry removes all financial barrier — the gallery is one of the best free cultural experiences in Manchester and deserves to be visited far more regularly than many Manchunians manage. Checking the homemcr.org gallery page before visiting ensures you know what is currently showing and can research the artists and exhibitions in advance.
FAQs
What is HOME Manchester?
HOME Manchester is an arts centre, cinema, and theatre complex at 2 Tony Wilson Place, First Street, Manchester, M15 4FN. It opened in April 2015 following a merger of two beloved Manchester arts organisations — Cornerhouse (an independent cinema and contemporary art centre) and the Library Theatre Company. HOME has five cinema screens, two theatres (a 500-seat main house and a 150-seat studio), a 500 sq m contemporary art gallery, a café bar, a first-floor restaurant, a cinema bar, a roof terrace, and a specialist bookshop. It is one of the few UK arts organisations to commission, produce, and present work across all three art forms — film, theatre, and visual art.
Where is HOME Manchester?
HOME Manchester is located at 2 Tony Wilson Place, First Street, Manchester, M15 4FN. The venue is on the First Street development site between Oxford Road and Deansgate. The nearest Metrolink stops are St Peter’s Square (4 minutes’ walk) and Deansgate-Castlefield (6 minutes). The nearest train stations are Deansgate (6 minutes) and Oxford Road (9 minutes). The venue is approximately a 10–15 minute walk south-west from Manchester city centre.
When did HOME Manchester open?
HOME Manchester opened in April 2015. It was formed by the merger of Cornerhouse — the internationally recognised independent cinema and art centre that had operated on Oxford Street since 1985 — and the Library Theatre Company, which had occupied the basement of Manchester Central Library since 1952. The building was specifically constructed on the First Street development site at a cost of £25 million, funded by Manchester City Council, the Garfield Weston Foundation, and Arts Council England.
How much does it cost to visit HOME Manchester?
The gallery at HOME is free entry. Cinema tickets are typically £10–15 for adults, with concessions. Theatre tickets range from approximately £8–35 depending on production and concession status. The café bar is open throughout the day and priced as a standard café/bar. The restaurant is a full sit-down dining option with full menu pricing. HOME membership is available and provides cinema discounts, priority booking, and other benefits — it represents good value for regular visitors.
What films does HOME Manchester show?
HOME’s cinemas focus on independent, arthouse, world cinema, documentary, and classic/restored films — the types of films that do not appear at multiplex chains. A typical programme includes new international-language films, UK independent productions, documentary features, short film programmes, and retrospective screenings of important older films. HOME also hosts special events including filmmaker Q&As and curated festivals. While the programme is primarily specialist rather than mainstream, HOME does show accessible independent films with broad appeal alongside more challenging or niche material.
How do I book tickets at HOME Manchester?
Tickets for cinema, theatre, and events at HOME can be booked online at homemcr.org, in person at the HOME Box Office (open 12:00pm–8:00pm), or by phone during Box Office hours. Online booking is available 24 hours a day and is the most convenient option for advance planning. The Box Office is located at the ground floor entrance of the building. Some events sell out quickly — early booking is recommended for popular productions and special screenings.
Is HOME Manchester accessible?
Yes — HOME Manchester has comprehensive accessibility provision. All floors are accessible via lift and step-free routes. Assistive hearing loops are installed throughout the theatres and all five cinemas. Accessible toilet facilities are available. Assistance dogs are welcome throughout the building. Relaxed performances are scheduled across the theatre and cinema programme for visitors with autism, sensory sensitivities, or other access needs. HOME’s accessibility commitment was built into the design of the building from the outset and is considered by the organisation as a core rather than an optional element of its public offering.
Is there parking near HOME Manchester?
The nearest car park is Q-Park First Street, adjacent to the venue. HOME visitors can receive a 25% discount when pre-booking online at Q-Park using the discount code HOMEMCR25. Without pre-booking, full city centre rates apply. Public transport is strongly recommended as the most practical option for most visitors — both Metrolink and train provide direct connections to the venue from across Greater Manchester and beyond. For those driving from further afield, Park and Ride from outlying Metrolink terminus stations is the most cost-effective approach.
Can I just visit the café or gallery without booking an event?
Absolutely — HOME’s building is designed to be open and welcoming to visitors who are not attending a specific event. The gallery is free and open during gallery hours (Tuesday–Sunday, typically 12:00pm–9:00pm, though hours vary so check homemcr.org). The café bar is open throughout the day and welcome to all visitors regardless of whether they have tickets. The bookshop is open during building hours. This openness — the deliberate policy of welcoming people who may have no immediate plans to attend a performance or film — is a key part of HOME’s philosophy of being a genuinely public space.
What happened to Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company?
Cornerhouse, which had operated as Manchester’s independent cinema and contemporary art centre at 70 Oxford Street since 1985, closed at that location in 2014 to merge with the Library Theatre Company and form HOME. The Oxford Street building now houses Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre. The Library Theatre Company, which had occupied the basement of Manchester Central Library since 1952, ceased operation at that location when the library closed for renovation in 2010 — it operated in temporary spaces before the HOME building was completed. Both organisations’ programmes, artistic missions, and audiences were absorbed into HOME, which opened in April 2015 as their joint successor.
What is the Theatre at HOME known for?
HOME’s theatre programme is known for its international focus — it is one of the few regional UK theatres that regularly presents UK premieres of foreign-language productions and invites international companies to perform. The programme is described by HOME as “provocative, playful and contemporary” and has a particular interest in new commissions and work by emerging artists. HOME has co-produced productions that have transferred to London and toured nationally. Theatre 1 (500 seats) presents the main programme; Theatre 2 (150-seat studio) presents more experimental, intimate, and risk-taking work. Both venues have a strong reputation for the quality of the audience experience, with the main theatre designed so no seat is more than 15 metres from the stage.
HOME’s Environmental Commitment
Carbon Literacy and Sustainability
HOME has made a genuine and publicly documented commitment to environmental sustainability — a commitment that goes beyond the kind of rhetorical commitment to environmental responsibility that many organisations profess without substantive action. The most distinctive element of HOME’s environmental programme is its carbon literacy training: HOME trains all staff to be carbon literacy champions, giving every member of the organisation a baseline understanding of climate science and the carbon impact of their actions at work and at home. This staff-wide training — rather than delegating environmental responsibility to a single sustainability manager — reflects a cultural approach to environmental change rather than a compliance one.
HOME won the award for “Promotion of Environmental Sustainability” at the Manchester Culture Awards 2019, a recognition that reflected both the substance of its environmental programme and the leadership it was exercising within Manchester’s cultural sector. The award was particularly significant as an arts sector sustainability recognition in the year before climate consciousness broke into mainstream British public discourse with unprecedented urgency. HOME’s recognition positioned it as ahead of the curve rather than reactive.
Environmental commitments at HOME include reducing energy consumption through LED lighting and building management systems, minimising single-use plastics across food and drink operations, sourcing food sustainably for the restaurant and café bar, and reducing the carbon footprint of touring productions that HOME co-produces and presents. The organisation also considers the environmental impact of its international programme — the travel miles associated with bringing international artists and companies to Manchester — as an area of ongoing challenge and active mitigation.
The environmental commitment is consistent with HOME’s broader social mission: an organisation that understands itself as accountable to the communities it serves, and that recognises environmental sustainability as a core dimension of that accountability rather than a peripheral concern. Manchester’s status as one of the UK’s cities most seriously engaged with the climate emergency — through its Science-Based Target Initiative commitments and its Zero Carbon 2038 aspiration — provides a civic context in which HOME’s environmental leadership is both recognised and expected.
HOME Manchester stands as one of the most genuinely purposeful arts centres in the United Kingdom — an organisation that has earned its place as a beloved Manchunian institution in under a decade, through the quality of its artistic programme, the openness of its spaces, the warmth of its welcome, and the seriousness of its commitment to the communities it serves. From its extraordinary iridescent facade to the intimacy of Theatre 2 to the low light of the cinema bar, every dimension of HOME rewards investment — of time, attention, and curiosity.
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