Manchester Music Walking Tour: The City That Refused Permission

Mark Whiteley is an award-winning playwright, director and storyteller. As founder of Hard Graft Theatre Company, he created more than twenty original productions, touring theatres, schools and unusual spaces across the UK. His play Thick As Thieves won a Manchester Theatre Award, while his work has been recognised by the BBC and adapted for screen.

Today, Mark brings the same theatrical storytelling to immersive audio tours, helping travellers discover the people, mysteries, legends and forgotten histories hidden within cities across Portugal and beyond.

I trained as an actor at London's prestigious Arts Educational School where I learnt about the voice and the art of telling stories. I went on to work in theatre, television and film for 10 years eventually running my own theatre company for 20 years. As a company we tried to make the work as imaginative and unique as possible, in one show we walked across the UK with no money, food or accommodation to see if humanity was kind. In another play we emigrated to Poland and used the experience for an award winning UK tour about immigration. I turned shops into theatre spaces, I performed in barns, houses, fields and many of the UK's best theatres.

In 2014 I won a prestigious Manchester theatre award for my play Thick as Thieves. I've taken three shows to the Edinburgh festival winning rave reviews along the way. In 2020 our world changed forever as COVID hit. My theatre company "went dark" and I lost my passion for it. On a whim my wife and I bought a motorhome unseen in an auction and in blink of an eye a new obsession began... travel.

To date I have been to most countries in the European union, I have parked up in woods, on cliffs in car parks. I have travelled far and wide until I picked Portugal to put down new roots. But even that wasn't easy, where do you live in a foreign land? The answer is you go out in the motorhome and look, so that's what we did. From the mountains in the north through the midlands and into Algarve we travelled for two years until we discovered Tomar.

We bought our home in 2025 and because I needed to find work I started studying Tomar's rich history and researching the stories about Templar Knights, Portuguese kings and how Portugal once discovered the world. With my background in performance and storytelling I began take travellers around Tomar sharing not only the history, but Portugal's culture too. This is what brought me to Voicemap and their excellent team and production values.

On my audio tours I take the role of your friend in whatever city we are in, I like to make you smile and see a place as a real city, not a museum piece. Seeing a place warts and all is what makes the difference between an okay tour and a great tour.

This tour begins by the Free Trade Hall on Peter Street, Manchester.