Free things to do this weekend ft. Bad Language, Frontier Fridays + more

Good grief, there’s a lot going on this weekend on the freebie radar. Luckily for you, we’ve rounded up the best and condensed them into bite-size chunks. With club nights, pub crawls, spoken word evenings and more on offer, feel free to dive right in and take your pick.

Bad Language at the Royal Exchange
As part of its Special FX series, this Friday the Royal Exchange hosts an evening of spoken word, poetry and new writing from Manchester’s pioneering literature organisation Bad Language. We’re quite big fans of Bad Language nights – and this one seems unlikely to disappoint with performers including Fat Roland, Abi Fernandez-Harias Hynes, Keiren King, David Hartley and Joe Daly. Expect a strange and wonderful mix of surrealism, comedy, cheap drinks and more to make up one very eclectic evening.
Fri 21 Feb, Royal Exchange Theatre, St Anns Square, M2 7DH, 6pm – 7pm, FREE, www.royalexchange.co.uk

Frontier Fridays launch at Kosmonaut
Freebies often fall into the arts and culture category, but less so into nightlife. However, this weekend Kosmonaut launches Frontier Fridays, a brand new end-of-week knees-up that boasts an impressive roster of DJs playing a selection of innovative, fresh beats and legendary party classics. You’ll find Dance Lady Dance, Damien of Clique, Jon of Now Wave and Frameworks each playing on rotation – but the launch night sees them all team up for the special occasion, along with Kosmonaut resident Pasta Paul.
Launch night Fri 21 Feb, Kosmonaut, 10 Tariff Street, M1 2FF, 5pm – late, FREE, www.kosmonaut.co (Weekly club nights every Friday, 8pm – 1am, FREE)

1978 exhibition at Beehive Mill (pictured)
Head down to Beehive Mill (just a stone’s throw from the Northern Quarter), where a Grade II-listed cotton mill has been transformed into an interactive playground for the rather intriguing 1978 exhibition. Exploring Manchester’s rich history of subcultures, 1978 looks through the punk movement of the 1970s, acid house and recreational drugs of the 1980s and the sense of creative euphoria that seeped from the 1990s and beyond. The exhibition embraces a range of artistic forms and exhibits works from students with varying backgrounds, all seeking to prove Manchester’s worth as the UK’s ‘second city’.
Sat 22 Feb, Beehive Mill, Jersey Street, M4 6AY, 6pm – 10pm, FREE, www.1978exhibition.wix.com

Whitworth Pub Crawl at Big Hands
The doors of The Whitworth Art Gallery remain closed, but while we wait for renovation to finish up this autumn, the folks from the gallery are rising from the ashes with a series of ‘pub crawls’. On Sunday they’re heading to nearby boozer Big Hands for a ‘music knit hack’, which involves artist and videosmith Sam Meech, Marie Young and Iris Cooper all joining forces for an ambient textile experiment, or ‘Knitronica’, incorporating art, music and knitting. This one won’t be your bog-standard pub crawl. Read our full preview here.
Sun 23 Feb, Big Hands, Oxford Road, M13 9NS, 1pm – 6pm, FREE, whitworthpubcrawl.com