Thirteen from Bradford hoping 2013 proves lucky for them

After cutting her teeth on a couple of episodes of Shameless, Denholme actress Natalie Gavin came to a lot of people’s attentions when she took on the role of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar in the 2010 film The Arbor. More TV success followed in 2012 when she took on a starring role in Prisoners’ Wives.

That in turn springboarded Gavin to the recurring role of Faith in three episodes of BBC1’s long-running medical drama Casualty, and after a busy 2012, Gavin is now looking forward to some major projects in 2013.

She’ll appear in the feature film The Knife That Killed Me and return to our TV screens in the second series of Kay Mellor’s Lottery-winning comedy-drama, The Syndicate.

Jermaine Springer, who boxes for the Barkerend-based Karmand club, claimed the light-heavyweight medal at the ABAE senior novice championships in Sunderland last year... and is in 2013 set to be unleashed on the senior stage.

The victory was all the sweeter for Springer, who the year before had to drop out of the same national competition at the semi final stages after losing a bout – with illness, not an opponent.

Trainer Dave Cariss has decided 2013 is the year for Springer, now an 81-kilo powerhouse, to go to the next level – the senior ABAs.

Purveyors of tight guitar fare that runs the gamut from power ballads to indie-folk, Guiseley band The Dunwells (brothers Joseph David Dunwell, cousins Jonny Lamb and Rob Clayton and mate Dave Hanson) might keep it in the family but they also cast their net wide... after being named HMV’s Next Big Thing 2012 they recorded an album, Blind Sighted Faith, in the Texas studios of Willie Nelson and performed a tour of the States that took in LA, New York and Memphis.

Last year The Dunwells appeared on JBTV, Chicago’s longest-running music television show, alongside They Might Be Giants, Moby and Soul Asylum. With a new EP available now, Leaving The Rose, their star is definitely in the ascendant.

It might be tough for Bradford-born actor John Hollingworth to have a better year than 2012. He’s clocked up an impressive CV recently across a range of thespian disciplines, including as an oily TV executive in the BBC2 1950s-set newsroom drama The Hours.

Perhaps his smallest role, but certainly the one that will impress in the pub, was a handful of scenes as a CIA analyst in Christopher Nolan’s final instalment of his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises.

Bursting on to the music scene last decade with the ultra-glam electro-pop outfit the Soho Dolls, lead singer and songwriter, Bradford’s Maya Von Doll, seemed destined for guaranteed stardom, then the Soho Dolls seemed to quietly disappear.

Now Maya’s decided to return to the limelight with her own solo career, and at the end of 2012 released the storming Is This Love? single with Robs and Duke, hinting at an absolutely massive electronic assault to come in 2013.

Based in Bradford, Michael Stewart has written several plays for the stage and has worked in radio and television. But it’s his debut novel King Crow which marked him out as a major new literary talent.

He is currently senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield, as well as running or co-running a number of arty projects and organisations, including Huddersfield Literature Festival, of which he is director, and Grist Books.

Here’s hoping that 2013 is the year Stewart follows up his phenomenal fiction debut about a disaffected teenager who escapes from the real world into his interest in birds – a Kes for the 21st century.

A contemporary version of an Oscar Wilde story – turned into a fable about teenage copper thieves in Bradford by Otley writer-director Clio Barnard – was filmed in the city during 2012 and is now in pre-production for a release this year.

The Selfish Giant is based on stories she was told and people she met while filming The Arbor, the drama-documentary about Buttershaw playwright Andrea Dunbar.

Miss Barnard interviewed residents on the Buttershaw estate, where much of bafta-nominated The Arbor was shot, and used local people in the film.

The Selfish Giant stars Siobhan Finneran – who was in Rita, Sue And Bob Too, the 1986 film based on Andrea Dunbar’s play – and Shameless actor Sean Gilder.

A former health care assistant on a local acute psychiatric ward, Keighley’s Darryl Cunningham used his experince as the basis for his debut graphic novel, Psychiatric Tales. A prolific cartoonist and former student at the Leeds College of Art, Darryl not only dealt with different aspects of mental health but detailed his own personal past battles with mental illness, which led to the curtailment of his mental health nurse training.

For his follow-up book, Science Tales, Darryl took something of a step back from his subject matter, in that it wasn’t so overtly personal, being about myths and untruths in the science world, but it also stamped his own unique voice – in both words and pictures – on his topic. His style is cartoony and raw, but manages to be full of expression and also very evocative.

Bradford singer Nindy Kaur last year teamed up with Canadian producers Culture Shock – who have worked with the likes of Lady Gaga and Rihanna – for her last single, Save The World, described as a feelgood dance anthem “with a Punjabi kick”.

Signed to independent label Three Records, Nindy mixes traditional bhangra beats with mainstream dance music, R&B and pop. Growing up in Bradford, she was influenced by the bhangra scene and R&B.

George Green was just 15 when he signed for Everton from Bradford City’s youth team, making headlines across the country for the mega-bucks deal that banked the Bantams up to £2 million.

Everton beat off interest from more than 20 clubs, including some from abroad, to sign 15-year-old midfielder George, who is seen as one of the hottest prospects in the country.

In December, Bradford-born artist Elizabeth Price won the prestigious Turner Prize. Price’s award-winning artwork is a 20-minute film installation entitled The Woolworths Choir Of 1979. It fuses looped segments of footage of a devastating blaze at a Woolworths store in Manchester in 1979, in which ten people died, with a performance by 1960s girl band The Shangri-Las.

Aged 46, Price only came to her discipline four years ago, and is now the name on everyone’s lips.

Bingley-born director Daryl Goodrich’s film about a 7/7 survivor-turned-ath-lete was broadcast during the opening of the Paralympic Games. The Channel 4-commissioned short film, called The Journey and narrated by actor Sean Bean, charts the inspirational story of Martine Wright.

Born in Bingley, Mr Goodrich studied graphic design for film and television at Bradford Art College before embarking upon a career in TV production and advertising.

Denholme’s Rebekah Tiler can now lay claims to be Great Britain’s strongest schoolgirl. The Bingley Grammar School pupil broke an astonishing nine British records last year at the Northern Weightlifting Bergson Trophy at Mytholmroyd Community Centre, including two at under-15 level.

The versatile teenager also produced top performances in athletics earlier last year.

She is earmarked among the next generation of potential Olympians after attending the first of six talent camps at the (British Weightlifting) High Performance Centre in Leeds.