The month brings with it with St Andrew's Day, American Thanksgiving and spring in the southern hemisphere but, according to Morrissey, November also Spawned a Monster. Perhaps he was thinking about the spectre of Christmas shopping looming large as the night's get longer and colder and the shops stay open later. Still, like the fireworks that will be bursting over the skies on Guy Fawkes night, Manchester has a November full of wondrous delights. Here goes...
Things to Do
6 Nov-4 Jan: Spinningfields Ice Rink Go for a spin on the ice in the crisp open air or, if you're not feeling so sporty and just want to laugh at people falling over, visit the viewing platform instead. Skating penguins are on hand to help. Seriously.
Nov 7: Christmas Lights Switch On Watch Albert Square explode with light and music as celebs like Jason Manford, Shane Ward and Shrek fight to flick the switch.
Nov 21-22: The Whisky Sessions A music festival and a whisky festival. Together. As one big music and whisky festival. Genius! I Am Kloot and Gomez head-up an impressive line-up.
All month: get a trim for Movember Thinking of getting a charitable trim? Looking forward to being pampered in the salon? Fancy a razor cut and something for the weekend, sir? We've done our homework to bring you some of the best moustache and beard trimmers in the city centre.
See much more in our Things to Do section
Music & Nightlife
Tuesdays throughout the month: Distrkt Factory 251's weekly club night is bound to keep the winter cold away, and you can always pretend you're in a scene from '24 Hour Party People' in between the DJ sessions.
Nov 1: #HookedonMusic Late
Silent disco, pizza and beer with DJ Dave Haslam spinning the tunes at MOSI.
Nov 1: Lamb
Albert Hall will be the perfect place to hear the new album from Manchester's own folk-inflected electronic act. Plus the album is rather good.
Nov 1: Northern Quarter Working Men's Club Bingo, raffles, naff prizes and a star of Wigan Casino as guest DJ? See you there. We'll be wearing a flat cap and clogs.
Nov 2: Amp Fiddler Jump in the deep-end with Detroit's Amp Fiddler, a soulful soul who has collaborated with the likes of Only Child and Theo Parrish.
Nov 4: Motorhead You know you're a legend when you've got The Damned supporting you. Lemmy and the boys celebrate nearly forty years of metal so hard it'll make your ears bleed.
Nov 5: The Knife They're siblings. They're Swedish. They sing sublime and sometimes hard as nails electro pop. And it's on bonny night. You lucky people.
Nov 6: The Hallé Soprano Rachel Nicholls joins conductor Sir Mark Elder for an evening of Elgar, Sibelius and Butterworth's 'A Shropshire Lad.'
Nov 6: Soulection With a DJ set from 19 year old singer-songwriter Tim Misch.
Nov 8: Jah Wobble and The Invaders of the Heart The former bassist with Public Image Limited come to Manchester complete with band and guest guitarist, Aziz Ibrahim of The Stone Roses. Mr Wobble really should be a lot bigger.
Nov 14 Bollox The monthly night for bi, gay and straight queers brings a much needed lift to the mid-month lull. Where else can you fight for space on a sticky rammed dance floor to bop to Madonna via Le Tigre followed by some loud hip hop you don't really know? Nowhere, that's where.
Nov 16: La Roux 'Trouble In Paradise' is an electro pop marvel and La Roux will be belting it out, plus tracks from her debut album, 'Bulletproof', which is now five years old. Jeez.
Nov 18-22: Opera North As a partner company to The Lowry, Opera North bring their touring product to the Salford venue each season and November brings us the most popular of operas, 'La Traviata', as well as 'The Bartered Bride' and 'The Coronation of Poppea'.
Nov 21: Joey Bada$$ Anyone aged 19 with dollar signs in their name isn't shy, so expect one of hip hop's leading new lights to show us that he is indeed a badass.
Nov 29: The Human League Responsible for some of the catchiest synth pop ever, one of Sheffield's best exports surprise with the quality of their live performance. If you can hear them above the sound of the crowd at the Apollo, get ready to join in.
Nov 29: BBC Philharmonic Berlioz, Brahms, Stravinsky and Ravel in one programme will round off your classical month nicely.
Nov 30: Erasure Expect new songs in amongst the classic hits from the pop duo who never seem to age. Or maybe they've always looked old.
Need more? Really? Go tour Music & Nightlife section.
Theatre
Nov 4–8: Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense Starring John Gordon Sinclair, this Olivier Award-winning adaptation of the comic books by PG Wodehouse should be spiffing fun.
Nov 4-15: Barnum Great big musicals don't come much bolder and bigger than this. Quite right too when your subject is the greatest showman on the planet, as portrayed here by the affable Brian Conley.
Nov 5-8: No Guts, No Heart, No Glory Based on interviews with female boxers who are Muslim, this newly commissioned site-specific piece from Contact sounds ambitiously fascinating. And it's in a fire station.
Nov 13-14: Akram Khan: Desh The always fascinating choreographer's most personal work so far examines the theme of homeland. Khan will be dancing too, in a piece which sees him once again working with interesting collaborators - this time with Oscar-winning visual artist Tim Yip (‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’).
Nov 13-15: A Farewell to Arms An experimental and multi-media approach to the telling of this adaptation of the Hemingway World War One novel. Still resoundingly moving.
Nov 18-22: Cinderella With an Imperial Russian setting, this new version of the story by Northern Ballet should be a lavish spectacle.
Nov 18–29: Othello Frantic Assembly return to the Lowry with their impressive and accessible version of the Shakespeare tragedy, here set inside a pool hall. It's certainly frantic and very well done.
Nov 25–29: Saturday Night Fever A truly great movie featuring some of the best pop songs ever written (thanks to Chorlton's own Bee Gees), this stage version is sure to be a lot of fun.
Find out which are our best theatres in Manchester
Comedy
Mondays throughout the month: Beat the Frog The regular open mic night sees members of the public, who want to be comics, face members of the public who don't. Or who haven't been brave enough to get on a stage yet and try it.
Nov 21: An Evening With Noel Fielding Whether one half of 'The Mighty Boosh', a team captain on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks', creepy cupboard-living colleague in 'The IT Crowd' or star of 'Luxury Comedy', Fielding offers a surreal take on the world around us.
Nov 25–27: Hi, Anxiety Debs Gatenby's wonderful one woman show looks at how her own fragile mental state was affected when her mum, having a breakdown of her own, came to stay. Contender, too, for the best show title of the year.
Film
Nov 7: Interstellar Nolan's sci-fi epic gets the full five stars from us and it will be everywhere from the 7th. IMAX screens will be showing it, too, if you like your cinema BIG!
Nov 14 The Imitation Game A man who should be a national treasure and who makes Manchester proud in more ways than one, Alan Turing gets the recognition on film he deserves with a star turn from Benedict Cumberbatch.
Nov 20: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 As the saga draws to a close in the same way that Harry Potter did, with a two-parter, it's anyone's guess as to how this will turn out. Unless you've read the hugely popular books that is.
Nov 21: Winter Sleep Rave reviews and a Palme d'Or from Cannes, this slow-burning drama from Turkey will be showing at Cornerhouse later in the month.
Nov 28: Paddington And to end the month at cinemas, a cast including Nicole Kidman, Hugh Bonneville and Julie Walters will be doing their best to make a CGI bear in a raincoat seem real.
Galleries
Nov 15-Feb 1: One Side to the Other The second in The Lowry's 'Performer as Curator' strand (the first was Alison Goldfrapp) sees dancer and choreographer Akram Khan bringing a personal selection of work to the galleries which has inspired him throughout the years.
Nov 22-Mar 15: Playtime This ambitious group show will be the very last in the Cornerhouse galleries - a collection of work inspired by the film of the same name by Jacques Tati.
See our list of Manchester's Best Galleries.
Food & Drink
Fri & Sat throughout the month: B.eat Street Food Fight Feast on fantastic street food and listen to some beats down at The Great Northern.
Nov 1-2 Cup North If you like coffee, you can party all weekend and celebrate everything to do with the magic bean, from music to exhibitions to drinking lots of it.
Nov 5: Fazenda It's always good to welcome a new restaurant to our city and this Spinningfields venue will be opening early in November.
Visit our Restaurants section for more places to eat.