10 Things In Leicester Other Than Richard III

Leicester buried a king and don't we know about it. What else has the city got up its sleeve?

1. Leicester Comedy Festival

Europe's longest running comedy festival. Leicester is home to all sorts of laughs every February. It's so good it's even sponsored by Dave (the channel, not my mate).

2. Kasabian

Oh, you knew that? Yeh, because they bang on about it all the time!

3. The Fattest Man in the World

In 1805 Daniel Lambert weighed 50 stone and was the fattest man in recorded history. Leicester are obviously so proud of this that they have his chair in a museum. You can go and visit it at Newarke Houses if you stop by.

4. The National Space Centre

If you're not from Leicester or haven't been on a school trip then you probably didn't even know that we have a National Space Centre. But we do. And it's in Leicester. You can see real spacecraft and play on interactive games. The Beagle 2 Mars spacecraft was controlled directly from here too. It failed, but that's not the important bit.

5. The Elephant Man

The real life elephant man, Joseph Merrick, was born in Leicester in 1862. Severely deformed, he became well known after being exhibited in a Victorian freak show as The Elephant Man. His story is actually being told in the West End this year in a play starring Bradley Cooper.

6. Sam Bailey

"Who?"
"She won X Factor."
"When?"
"Only a year ago!"
"Oh..."

Yeh, we forgot all about her too. She's from Leicester though.

7. Handmade Festival

All cities have a music festival these days and Handmade Festival is Leicester's offering. A nice little 3 days festival with a whole bunch of acts that you've probably never heard of but will inevitably love after the weekend and then tell all your mates you saw them before they were massive.

It happens in May and it's only £30.

8. The largest Diwali celebrations outside of India

Leicester's hugely multicultural and celebrates it, as it should. Regularly attracting over 30,000 people, there is music, dance and fireworks galore each year for Diwali. Plus excellent curry houses across the city to keep everyone happy all year round.

9. Pork Pie

Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire in the home of Pork Pies and who doesn't love a good Pork Pie? Not your cheap old supermarket packaged pies, the people in Leicestershire know how to do them properly and stay proud of their pie heritage.

10. Adrian Mole

For a certain generation he was one of Britain's best loved characters. The author of the books, the late Sue Townsend, hailed from Leicester and anyone from the Midlands will tell you that the books are littered with subtle references to her hometown. The city's theatre, Curve, have recently turned the book into a musical that's receiving rave reviews so keep an eye out for it hopefully coming to other cities in the future.

So there you have it, there's more to Leicester than you think. We even got through a whole article without mentioning Gary Lineker or crisps.

Oh.

Shit.