“We Do Things Differently Here”: Manchester as a Cultural Region in 24 Hour Party People

In this essay I examine the representation of Manchester in 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002) as a cultural region. I argue that in dramatising the emergence and development of the regional music scene in Manchester, from the advent of punk in 1976 to the decline of Madchester and the closure of the Hacienda in the early 1990s, the film appropriates a “punk style” to represent the Manchester music scene. This scene is associated with an ambivalent attitude to Northern identity, with new cultural spaces in the city that develop free of the centralising influences of the London-based music industry, and where the distinction between producers and consumers of cultural products is blurred.