Simon Duke

Simon Duke builds a bridge between TV and showbiz coverage and the everyday ways people go out, eat, drink and take part in local entertainment. He works as a TV and showbiz and What’s On editor at ChronicleLive, leading coverage that blends screen culture with nightlife, hospitality and local events. His work stands out for how often it turns readers into participants, using polls, shortlists and vote tallies to decide the “best” venues and experiences. He writes fast-turn stories on openings, closures and rebrands in the bar and restaurant scene, alongside updates on gigs, queues and student nights. Alongside this, he maintains a steady stream of TV and reality-show reporting plus celebrity and culture pieces that sit within the same entertainment frame. Taken together, his output positions leisure, hospitality and popular culture as one joined beat.

Food, drink and venue changes

Duke reports closely on changes in the local hospitality landscape, treating new venues, closures and rebrands as hard entertainment news. He covers stories such as a “build your own meal” Chinese restaurant taking over a shut-down café, detailing what the concept offers and where it fits into the wider food scene.

He writes on major bar changes like the closure of Revolucion de Cuba, explaining the timing, the reaction and the confirmed replacement concept in detail.

In that case he tracks the venue’s swift transformation into Barbara’s Bier Haus, setting out its apres-ski theme, dancing bartenders, DJ lineups and food offer, so readers understand both the loss of a familiar brand and the arrival of a new one. His hospitality pieces often foreground what a venue will be like to visit - menus, entertainment, atmosphere - rather than just the business mechanics.

Coverage of late-night crowds, including queues forming down city-centre streets when bars reach capacity, shows he treats busy nights and student influxes as stories in their own right. Short, direct copy and clear detail about what people can expect on a night out are a consistent hallmark.

Reader-led ‘best of’ lists and polls

A defining feature of Duke’s coverage is the way he builds interactive “best of” lists around reader nominations and votes. In his Sunday dinner series, he first runs a nominations stage, then filters those responses into a shortlist of 11 venues and invites readers to pick a winner. He reports the mechanics of the poll - deadlines, how to nominate, when shortlists will be revealed - and then follows up with pieces announcing the champion and the vote totals.

In one recent instalment, he crowns the “best Sunday dinner in the North East” after more than 11,000 votes, naming the winning venue, quoting its share of the final tally and noting the geographic spread of contenders. He reinforces this by reminding readers of past years’ results and teasing the next poll, for example launching a new vote to find the best curry ahead of National Curry Week. The tone in these articles is straightforward and numbers-led: he tells readers how many people took part, how many nominations were received and how close the competition was, making participation feel consequential.

This recurring format - nominate, shortlist, vote, crown - is central to his beat and distinguishes him from straight listings writers.

Nightlife, gigs and live entertainment

Duke regularly turns the nightlife rhythm of the city into entertainment coverage, from busy student nights to big-ticket gigs.

His report on late-night queues outside a city-centre bar frames the scene visually, describes lines down the street and explains that returning students drove the surge in demand. He follows venue news not only when a bar closes but also when it hosts “one final fiesta” or a farewell weekend, tracking how regulars react and what kind of send-off is promised. On the live music side, he covers social media hints that UK group N-Dubz are about to announce a major gig, linking their previous sold-out shows at the local arena with new teaser posts.

These pieces show his habit of monitoring social channels for early signs of tour announcements and then translating those hints into accessible news for local fans. His expertise in nightlife and the city’s leisure offer is recognised beyond ChronicleLive, where he is described as a What’s On journalist and asked to comment on how the city compares with European hotspots such as Barcelona and Prague in terms of atmosphere and food.

Across these stories, he treats nightlife, big gigs and local crowd behaviour as core parts of the entertainment beat rather than peripheral colour.

TV, showbiz and culture coverage

Duke’s formal role is rooted in TV and showbiz, and he describes his focus as spanning music, theatre, Eurovision and “trashy” TV along with celebrity content. His output includes frequent reporting on reality TV shows, which readers notice as a regular presence in ChronicleLive’s entertainment feed.

This sits alongside his hospitality work rather than replacing it, giving him a dual track of screen-based and in-person entertainment stories.

He also writes culture pieces that engage with how audiences respond to events and coverage, such as a column on comments left under Pride stories and why those reaction threads matter. In that work he looks at how online responses can affect people’s willingness to attend events and express themselves, keeping the focus on the impact of coverage and conversation. Taken together, his TV, showbiz and culture writing rounds out a portfolio that treats entertainment as both something watched and something experienced in local venues.