A review written by Jonny Kidd and Geraldine Montgomerie.
Ten years ago, Japanese musicians in London created Ura Matsuri, or the Other Side Festival, to celebrate East and South East Asian artists in the UK. This month, we learned whether this energetic event would find an audience north of the border. Ura Matsuri’s latest showcase promised an intriguing collision of folk stories, music, movement and personality… but did it deliver?
On a quiet Sunday night at the back of The Domino Club – a speakeasy-style cellar bar in Leeds City Centre – bartenders displayed a special menu of classic cocktails, from Manhattans to Cosmopolitans, reimagined with Japanese spirits. The stage was decorated with Japanese kanji characters reading “Ura Matsuri” and “Leeds,” while traditional music played in the background as artists tied kimonos, perfected their makeup, and tuned their ukuleles and shamisen lutes.
The variety show began with a welcome from ‘Japan-A-Gran,’ the hostess for the evening, who encouraged the audience to read cards introducing each act and carried a basket of sweets to reward this hard work. First, a trio of ukulele players – the Yokoleles – took to the stage to perform a short set of Japanese ‘golden oldies’. One player was rumoured to be Andy Cox, guitarist from The Beat and Fine Young Cannibals, part of an ongoing theme throughout the night of blurring lines between past and present, folk and pop, Japanese and British culture.
The music was quickly followed by Tomoko Komura, who shared a story passed down through generations called A Tale of a Tub Maker in the centuries-old rakugo style. This approach involves one performer telling long stories with many characters, using great energy and exaggerated expression… and Tomoko didn’t disappoint. As this form of storytelling uses minimal props – in this case, a map of Japan – extra tension was built by asking a member of the audience (Jared from York) to beat a rhythm on a box. This simple approach helped bridge the already small divide between the low stage and the audience, creating a sense of connection and togetherness, preparing them for a deeper dive into Japanese folk music.
You may have had a taste of traditional Japanese music from the soundtrack of films such as Kill Bill, but it is very difficult to hear it live outside of special events like this one, as the night’s performers – Hibiki Ichikawa and Akari Mochizuki – are the only professional Tsugaru shamisen player and enka singer in the UK. The emotion of the music and the confidence of the musicians held the attention of the audience – now around a hundred people, as diverse as Leeds itself – despite the sounds of glass clinking at the bar. For many, this music was a genuine novelty – something truly different – but it could only begin to prepare you for the next act.
Runxuan Yang’s penultimate performance of the night, as a ‘wise woman in a vase,’ was an intriguing mix of drag, horror and cabaret. Initially, she was seen as just a head emerging from a vase, lip-syncing to a 1940s Mandarin song called ‘Rose Rose I Love You’, followed by a series of jokes and heckling of the audience as the woman searches for an Englishman to marry for a visa… before we knew it, we reached her final act (in a scene reminiscent of the Japanese horror film The Ring), in which she emerges from the jar, crawling towards the audience with blood spurting from her mouth. What at first seemed like a surreal and disturbing show was, on reflection, an inescapable yet thoughtful challenge to stereotypes and the objectification of Chinese women.
“It ticked all my entertainment boxes – political satire, visual comedy and musical-hall dramatics.“
Headlining the lineup were Frank Chickens, a music duo formed 40 years ago, who brought together all the artists from earlier in the night for a choreographed and costumed performance that was playful, clever and wonderfully unpredictable. Their energetic rendition of their debut single from 1982, ‘We Are Ninja (Not Geisha)’, echoedthe ‘wise woman in a vase’ in gleefully exposing and challenging perceptions of Japanese women.
Famously one of John Peel’s favourite bands and winners of the Foster’s Comedy God Award, Frank Chickens demanded attention – not least because they were constantly in and out of the audience, singing, dancing and keeping up with constant costume changes.
“I really enjoyed it; eclectic, bizarre… and joyous!”
Leeds has some incredible venues, but in the winter months, a converted warehouse or mill is not always a comfortable place to spend an evening. What worked so well about the night was not just the quality of the acts and how the evening was curated with the audience in mind – sharing language, ideas, food, and drink – but also how unexpectedly well suited the event was to the venue. The Domino Club is usually known for supporting local and touring musicians, but with a capacity of fewer than 200 people, it is both an intimate setting (with the audience barely separated from the stage section at the front) and a perfect place for taking a seat, grabbing a drink and having a chat about what you’ve just seen in the discreet booths at the back.
Ultimately, Ura Matsuri at The Domino Club was one of those Leeds moments that’s hard to categorise – imaginative, unpretentious and rooted in this country’s ever-evolving cultural tapestry, a reminder that you don’t need to travel far from home to experience something new and to see a bit more of the world.
Written by Geraldine Montgomerie and Jonny Kidd.
Photography by Geraldine Montgomerie.
Main image: Frank Chickens at The Domino Club on 1 February 2026
Find out more about The Domino Club here.
Learn more about Ura Matsuri here.
