Lichfield on the main routes from London to the north-west and Birmingham to the north-east. It also became a centre of great intellectual activity, being the home of many famous people including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward; this prompted Johnson's remark that Lichfield was "a city of philosophers". In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described Lichfield as 'a fine, neat, well-built, and indifferent large city', the principal town in the region after Chester. During the late 18th and early 19th century much of the medieval city was rebuilt with the red-brick Georgian style buildings still to be seen
Garrick Theatre (Stockport) Stockport's twin town in Germany, Heilbronn. Since the bar refurbishment the Garrick Studio has produced a wider variety of plays, presenting intimate, exciting and sometimes controversial plays by playwrights such as David Mamet, David Harrower, Jean-Paul Sartre, Yasmina Reza, Andrew Bovell, John Godber, Laura Wade, Dennis Kelly, Joe Penhall and Simon Stephens. It also enabled the theatre to encourage the development of new writing for the stage in Stockport. The Youth Theatre has flourished in the past few years, presenting main stage productions and showcase performances each year. In recent years, Garrick Youth has grown from 1 weekly group of