Showmanship: Lee Mead’s P. T. Barnum in Barnum The Circus Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith
PHINEAS Taylor Barnum may have been “America’s greatest showman” – his biography sold second only to the Bible in his lifetime – but Barnum is not America’s greatest ever musical.
Bill Kenwright Ltd and Watermill Theatre throw razzle-dazzle and razzmatazz aplenty at composer Cy Coleman, lyricist Michael Stewart and book writer Mark Bramble’s show, from Lee Newby’s circus set and costume designs to Strictly Come Dancing alumna Oti Mabuse’s choreography, from circus director Amy Panter’s array of acrobatic talents to the company of actor-musicians playing 150 instruments between them.
All topped off by a star lead turn from Lee Mead, who combines verbal and visual twinkle and tightrope walking with resolute singing, from his opening There Is A Sucker Born Every Minute to Out There, in his personable portrayal of Barnum.
However, in keeping with the essence of Barnum’s infamous spinning of humbug – deceit and lies by another name – director Jonathan O’Boyle’s production is rather more style than substance, especially in Act Two.
This is not to suggest that Barnum is a big flop under the big top, merely that its high qualities in performance cannot compensate for an underwhelming score that pales by comparison with the Oscar, Grammy and Tony-winning songwriting of Ben Pasek and Justin Paul for 2017’s The Greatest Showman.
“Barnum’s the name, P T Barnum, and I want to tell you that tonight, on this stage, you are going to see – bar none – every sight, wonder and miracle that name stands for,” proclaims Mead’s inspirational Barnum, showman, businessman, politician and visionary, whose gift for humbug carries far more eloquence, chutzpah and wit than today’s quotidian, rather than quotable, politicians, even trumping Trump for braggadocio.
His humbug is not of the “Bah, Humbug” variety of Charles Dickens’s misanthropic cynic Ebenezer Scrooge, with his distaste for deception, but more a brand of playful bluster, full of exaggeration and theatrical hoaxing delivered with a showman’s flourish that may be on foreign terms with the truth but is all in the cause of entertainment.
Alas he needs a little of that humbug to cover this biographical 19th century tale’s musical failings: the lack of knock-out songs in the weaker second half, with nothing to match its opening Come Follow The Band, where Mead’s Barnum is dressed as a clown.
That said, the transition from the black-and-white stars and stripes and costumes – reminiscent of Humbug mints – for Dominique Planter’s Blues Singer belting out Black And White to the riot of colours in the reprise of the Act One stand-out The Colours Of My Life is the high point of O’Boyle’s direction.
Acrobatic and circus skills play their part but would benefit from more highlights to match the wow-factor dexterity of the bow-and-arrow routine, and overall they are outshone by the actor-musicians’ prowess on multiple instruments, with the brass playing being a particular delight.
The visual scale ranges from the big to the small, from the life-sized model of an elephant to Fergus Rattigan as General Tom Thumb, singing Bigger Isn’t Better on his return to a York stage for the first time since playing Tudor sleuth Matthew Shardlake in York Theatre Royal’s 2023 community play Sovereign.
Amid the surface-level showmanship, Barnum finds its heart in P. T. Barnum’s relationship with his steely wife Charity (Monique Young), full of her own bright ideas and suggestions, and his six-month fling with opera singer Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale (Penny Ashmore).
Mead shines brightest but Young pulls heartstrings too and Ashmore is the very definition of a polymath with her spectacular singing of Jenny Lind’s Obbligato and Love Makes Such Fools Of Us All, her heavenly harp and piano playing, and even her dancing on point, once serving in the ensemble, for the Finale.
Overall, this Barnum is a better performance than its source material, good in individual parts but not great.
Barnum The Circus Musical, Grand Opera House, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Nick Sephton’s Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm and Jason Weightman’s Fredrik Egerman duelling and duetting in Wharfemede Productions’ A Little Night Music. All pictures: Dan Crawfurd-Porter
“LET’S make romance emotionally devastating and funny,” Stephen Sondheim once said, and the New York lyricist and composer was never more playful than in his 1973 musical A Little Night Music.
Here it forms North Yorkshire company Wharfemede Productions’ third show since being formed by Helen “Bells” Spencer and Nick Sephton in autumn 2024.
“Few writers capture the glorious mess of love quite like Sondheim,” posits director Spencer in her programme director’s note, describing Sondheim’s savvy 1902 Swedish sexual shenanigans as elegant and biting, romantic and relentless, funny and quietly heartbreaking, often all at once, in its rumble-tumble of desire, regret, hope and desperate quest for happiness
James Pegg’s Henrik Egerman: As gloomy as his cello playing in A Little Night Music
Her production, eloquent, waspish of wit, balanced between light and weighty, captures all those qualities most fruitfully and fruitily. Precise in style and movement, her direction places equal emphasis on Hugh Wheler’s fizzing dialogue and Sondheim’s confessional, candid songs that call on quintet, trio, duet and solo performance in equal measure, steered with elan by musical director and Sondheim expect James Robert Ball, in charge of his eight-piece band (split between keys, strings and reeds).
Rooted in Ingmar Bergman’s film 1955 film Smiles Of A Summer Night, whose story of several couples’ interlinked romantic lives it mirrors so smartly, Sondheim’s ever-perceptive depiction of love being “rarely simple, frequently ill timed and deeply human” – to quote Spencer once more – is played out by the juiciest of casts, assembling the cream of York and Leeds stage talent (several having appeared alongside Spencer in Les Miserables at Leeds Grand Theatre last year).
They range from Maggie Smales, Theatre@41 trustee and esteemed York actress and director, as wheelchair-bound grande dame Madame Armfeldt, with her glut of putdowns in the curmudgeonly old-stick manner of her fellow Maggie, Dame Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, to Libby Greenhill, A-level student in humanities and creative subjects, who impressed in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Fun Home last September and now plays granddaughter Fridrika with emotional frankness.
Maggie Smales’s grande dame, Madame Armfeldt
Libby Greenhill as Fredrika Armfeldt and director Helen “Bells” Spencer as her mother, Desiree Armfeldt, in A Little Night Music
Crucial to Spencer’s directorial impact is the prominence of the Liebeslieder Singers, alias The Quintet, omnipresent in white dresses and cream suits as they greet you at the top of the stairs, sell programmes, open Act One with the overlapping la-la-las of Night Waltz, then become a cross between a Greek chorus and Shakespeare’s mischief-making Puck, moving the principals into place as if in a dream or a pictorial tableau at the start of various scenes.
Under Rachel Merry’s slick choreography, they slip seamlessly between foreground and background as Mrs Nordstrom (Emma Burke), Mrs Anderson (Hannah Thomson), Mrs Segstrom (Merry herself), Mr Erlansson (Matthew Oglesby) and Mr Lindquist (Richard Pascoe), their harmony singing delighting in Remember? and the Act Two-opening The Sun Won’t Set, as well as when accompanying the principals in the plot-thickening and summarising A Weekend In The Country.
The sophisticated but Tabasco-saucy Scandi scandals of A Little Night Music are led by Spencer’s Desiree Armfeldt, the darling of the Swedish stage, bored by the chore of touring the same old plays but seeking satisfaction from married men, Nick Sephton’s pompous, blustering, time-keeping dragoon buffoon, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm, forever up for a pistol duel, and middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Jason Weightman), yet to consummate his marriage to 18-year-old, hair-obsessed Anne (Alexandra Mather) after 11 months but still desirous of old flame Desiree’s ample, bewitching charms.
Mind the age gap: Alexandra Mather’s 18-year-old Anne Egerman and Jason Weightman’s Fredrik Egerman, her husband, in A Little Night Music
Spencer’s programme note talks of A Little Night Music asking its performers to “live fully inside both comedy and pain”, a state crystalised in James Pegg’s Henrik Egerman, Fredrik’s troubled son, who is taking holy orders but is wholly smitten by his stepmother, Mather’s Anne, who chides his earnest outbursts as comical, the more he vexates.
Pegg’s outstanding, devastatingly honest performance recalls Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev, the suicidal student in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, and let’s hope the York debut of this Leeds actor and higher education professional service leader will lead to further roles here.
Katie Brier catches the eye in the rumbustiously fetching ‘downstairs” role of Petra, whether introducing Henrik to the birds and bees or romping with fellow servant Frid (Chris Gibson).
Swedish actress Sanna Jeppsson’s Countess Charlotte Malcolm
As Desiree’s weekend invitation to her grand and glamorous country estate leads to much web-tangling amid partner swaps, new pairings, sudden seductions and second chances, Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson comes to the fore as the dunderheaded Count’s exasperated wife, Countess Charlotte, making every ice-cold comic interjection count on renewed home turf.
Sondheim’s romping costume drama is filled with barbed wit, caustic bite and a delicious sense of Scandinavian desperation, topped off by sublime singing, from Weightman, Pegg and Mather’s complex Now/Later/Sooner to Weightman’s Fredrik in his insensitive You Must Meet My Wife duet with Spencer’s Desiree; Jeppsson and Mather’s jilted Every Day A Little Death to the sparring of Weightman and Sephton’s It Would Have Been Wonderful.
Brier maximises her moment in the spotlight in The Miller’s Son; Spencer tops everything with Send In The Clowns, all the more moving for tapping deep into Desiree’s desolation.
Make sure to enjoy Sondheim’s weekend in the country this week in Wharfemede’s combustible combination of courage, comedy, co-ordinated chaos and commitment.
Wharfemede Productions, A Little Night Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, 7.30pm tonight, tomorrow and Friday; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Rachel Merry’s Mrs Segstrom, left, Emma Burke’s Mrs Nordstrom, Hanna Thomson’s Mrs Anderssen and fellow member of The Quintet Matthew Oglesby’s Mr Erlansson in A Little Night Music
Mark Simmons: Expertly crafted one-liners and off-the-cuff jinks with the audience at Pocklington Arts Centre
FISHING community memories, an abbey light installation and an exhibition addressing loneliness make for a diverse week ahead in Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations.
One-liners of the week: Mark Simmons, Jest To Impress, Pocklington Arts Centre, tonight, 7.30pm
CANTERBURY jester Mark Simmons won Dave’s Joke of the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 with this gag: “I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship but I bottled it”. Now he follows up his 200-date Quip Off The Mark two-year UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand tour with Jest To Impress, a new show packed with one-liners, alongside his trademark off-the-cuff jokes based on random audience suggestions.
Simmons also hosts the Jokes With Mark Simmons podcast, where he invites fellow comics, such as Gary Delaney, Sarah Millican and Milton Jones, to discuss jokes that, for whatever reason, would not work. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
The poster for What The Sea Saw’s fishing stories at Helmsley Arts Centre
Rehearsed reading of the week: 1812 Theatre Company presents What The Sea Saw, Helmsley Arts Centre, Jean Kershaw Auditorium, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm
SET in Scarborough’s Bottom End and capturing the verbatim first-hand testimonies of remaining members of the fishing families, Helena Fox’s new play recounts the tragic events of the 1954 Lifeboat Disaster through the eyes of witnesses, as well as capturing the lost cultures and working practices of the coastal community, including the role of women in skeining and baiting.
Directed by Heather Findlay, the fundraising event for Scarborough RNLI features Stamford Bridge’s Big Shanty Crew’s performance of Scarborough 54. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Imitating The Dog light up Selby Abbey for three days of Selby Light 2026
Installation of the week: Selby Light 2026, Selby Abbey, tomorrow to Saturday, 6pm to 9pm
SELBY Abbey will be the setting for Homeward, Leeds company Imitating The Dog’s large-scale installation celebrating our different stories and the unified feeling of finding home, framed by the question How Did You Get Here?
Inside, the installation continues as a walk-through experience, complemented by Jazmin Morris’s Through The Liquid Crystal Display, a series of visual code illustrations inspired by Selby Abbey. The trail then extends into the town centre with works by Selby College students. Admission is free.
The 20ft Squid Blues Band: Combining 1950s’ Chicago style with 1960s’ blues explosion at Milton Rooms, Malton
Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents The 20ft Squid Blues Band, Milton Rooms, Malton, tomorrow, 8pm
THE 20ft Squid Blues Band, from Sheffield, play upbeat, fast, irreverent blues, combining elements of the 1950s’ Chicago style with the more wayward aspects of the 1960s’ blues explosion.
They mix self-penned songs with numbers made famous by Howling Wolf and Little Walter, while throwing in artists not so obviously from the blues tradition, such as Tom Waits and Prince. Expect eye-popping harmonica, thundering bass, intricate beats and choice guitar. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Nick Doody: Topping Hilarity Bites Comedy Club line-up at Milton Rooms, Malton
Comedy bill of the week: Hilarity Bites Comedy Club, Nick Doody, Ed Purnell and Will Duggan, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm
IN the first Hilarity Bites bill of 2026, Nick Doody will be joined by Ed Purnell and Will Duggan. Doody first performed as a student in the 1990s when he supported Bill Hicks at Hicks’ request, since when he has performed all over the world and written for Joan Rivers, Lenny Henry, Dame Edna Everage and Mock The Week regulars aplenty.
In a clever spin, Purnell, Ecuador’s numero uno comedian, delivers his set in Spanish with a sprinkling of English, whereupon audiences realise they can understand him without speaking his mother tongue. Duggan is a quick and witty host. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Phoenix Dance: Presenting world premiere of Interplay at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Drew Forsyth
Dance show of the week: Phoenix Dance Theatre, Interplay, York Theatre Royal, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2pm, 7.30pm
LEEDS company Phoenix Dance Theatre’s world premiere tour of Interplay opens at York Theatre Royal, featuring dynamic works by Travis Knight and James Pett (Small Talk), Ed Myhill (Why Are People Clapping?!) Yusha-Marie Sorzano & Phoenix artistic director Marcus Jarrell Willis (Suite Release) and Willis’s Next Of Kin.
Across duet and ensemble works, Interplay explores themes of duality and shared authorship, revealing how distinct artistic voices can intersect to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Each piece offers a unique perspective, united by a bold physicality and a deep curiosity about human relationships, rhythm and collective experience. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Holly Taymar: Performing the best of Eva Cassidy’s back catalogue at Milton Rooms, Malton
Tribute gig of the week: Holly Taymar Sings Eva Cassidy, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 8pm
YORK singer-songwriter Holly Taymar turns the spotlight on Eva Cassidy, one of the most beloved voices of the 20th century. Revelling in Cassidy’s blend of folk, jazz and blues, she performs renditions of Fields Of Gold, Songbird, Over The Rainbow and Autumn Leaves.
“My show show is not an impersonation,” says Taymar. “It’s a heartfelt homage to an artist who left a lasting impact on my development as an artist and on the world of music.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Loneliness Is Not A Dirty Word: Exhibition collaboration between Hannah Turlington and local and wider community at Helmsley Arts Centre
Exhibition launch of the week: Hannah Turlington, Loneliness Is Not A Dirty Word, Helmsley Arts Centre, March 3 to May 1
LONELINESS Is Not A Dirty Word is a collaboration between artist Hannah Turlington and the local and wider community, involving sessions where participants were invited to share their own experiences of loneliness by creating pieces of visual art in a variety of mediums.
The resulting exhibition aims to create space for the viewer to consider their own narratives of loneliness and reduce the stigma associated with being lonely.
Del Amitri’s Justin Currie, left, and Iain Harvie: Cherry-picking from four decades of songs at York Barbican in November
Gig announcement of the week: Del Amitri, Past To Present UK Tour 2026, November 16
GLASGOW band Del Amitri will open their 17-date Past To Present autumn tour at York Barbican, where core members Justin Currie and Iain Harvie will mark four decades of songs, stories and live shows. Ticket will go on general sale on Friday at 9.30am at www.gigsandtours.com, www.ticketmaster.co.uk and www.delamitri.info.
The career-spanning set list will chart their early breakthroughs, classic singles such as Nothing Ever Happens, Always The Last To Know and Roll To Me, fan favourites and recording renaissance after an 18-year hiatus with 2021’s Fatal Mistakes.
Hera Hyesang Park as Susanna in Opera North’s The Marriage Of Figaro at Leeds Grand Theatre
IT was odd that in an updated version of Figaro, ostensibly set in an English country house, Opera North should choose to perform the work in Italian for the first time in the Leeds company’s nearly half-century of existence.
Not least because this show would have benefited from the variety of defining accents and characters the English class system can offer.
Louisa Muller’s production took a safer option. Her valuation of the overture’s musical worth permitted her to unleash all her principals as they returned from a rural ride to hang up their clothes in a boot room, hardly the most inviting quarters for Figaro and his bride. So much for the pre-wedding ‘scene painting’ the programme encouraged us to hear in the overture.
However, Madeleine Boyd’s set offered a view through to a fine staircase behind, down which trooped tourists and guides, which aptly summarised the Count’s financial needs along with the buckets catching the drips.
James Newby’s Count in Opera North’s The Marriage Of Figaro. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Muller also gave us a pregnant Countess preparing crib and layette for the happy event, which maybe helped to explain her husband’s more than usually roving eye. That was part of a cleverly split stage, with the Count simultaneously in his billiard room.
Act 4 took place in the stables, with plenty of fresh straw bedding to encourage a roll in the hay (especially with so few signs of any horses); Malcom Ripperth’s lighting lent clarity to the shenanigans.
The concept may have grated occasionally, but there was no denying the flair throughout the cast, only four of whom had ever graced this stage before. Muller, too, was a newcomer to Leeds but melded them into a considerable team.
The brightest star in this constellation was Hera Hyesang Park’s energetic Susanna, a dynamo whose acting and singing were in ideal harness. One might have wished that she had not protested quite so much at Figaro’s hug with Marcellina over his parentage, although it chimed with her personality.
Gabriella Reyes’s Countess Almaviva in Opera North’s The Marriage Of Figaro. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Her charismatic Figaro was Liam James Karai, his strongly focused baritone often laced with a laugh. James Newby’s Count covered the ground well but needed to exert more authority, more gravitas from the start: his downfall was too predictable.
Gabriella Reyes, his Countess, found creamy legato in her arias to match her gracious presence. Hongni Wu lacked enough chest tone or boyishness for Cherubino, although not for want of trying. Jonathan Lemalu and Katherine Broderick were warmly well matched as seen-it-all-before Bartolo and Marcellina, with Daniel Norman a sprightly Basilio.
Jamie Woollard’s disgruntled beekeeper Antonio, Charlotte Bowden’s charming Barbarina and Kamil Bien’s thwarted Curzio all made the most of their roles: Muller certainly had an eye for detail.
Valentina Peleggi started the overture at such lightning pace that even this orchestra’s much-vaunted violins were caught slightly off guard. But they settled quickly and there was much stylishness to savour.
First-night adrenaline was doubtless to blame for the finale getting a touch out of kilter. The chorus’s enjoyment was infectious: they especially relished Rebecca Howell’s amusing choreography for the wedding dance. It was an exciting and excitable evening that just needed to settle down.
Review by Martin Dreyer
Hera Hyesang Park as Susanna and Liam James Karai as Figaro in Opera North’s The Marriage Of Figaro. Picture: Tristram Kenton
SUNDAY afternoons with the Guildhall have in a short time become a much-loved feature of York’s musical landscape. A Mozart overture, a Weber concerto and a Mahler symphony offered something for everyone here.
You can tell a lot about a musical organisation’s view of itself by the calibre of soloists it invites. In Julian Bliss they had a clarinettist who was more than a match for the taxing demands of Weber’s Second Clarinet Concerto in E flat.
All but one of his solo clarinet works were composed for Heinrich Baermann, a pioneer in the field and principal with the Munich Court Orchestra: they rank amongst the instrument’s most important repertory.
Bliss launched into the opening runs with panache, but managed to include echo effects and even a distinctive tremolo in the clarinet’s chalumeau register, its lowest octave. A couple of top notes verged on the shrill, laid down skilfully head-to-toe with much lower ones.
Weber’s slow movement, a Romanza, attempts to introduce an elegiac tone, not entirely successfully, but Bliss delivered it with smooth legato, which enabled satisfying contrast with the outer movements. The closing polonaise, virtually a rondo, was delightfully crisp, superbly articulated. All the while the orchestra danced in close attendance, providing a feather-bed underlay.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, in C sharp minor, is widely considered a journey from bleak darkness and tragedy towards reassurance and light, although the composer himself vowed that its three parts had no programme as such. Nevertheless this account had that feeling.
The opening Funeral March was made the more stately by the low trumpet, and the frenetic storm that followed, heralded by shrieks in the winds, was enhanced by the six gritty horns.
Thereafter, Mahler leans on them heavily. The concertante solo horn role in the Scherzo was nobly handled by Janus Wadsworth. The movement grew edgier as it progressed and the acceleration into its coda was undeniably exciting.
It was good to hear the Adagietto, so often heard on its own, in proper context. Here some ethereal violin phrasing imparted an air of numinous spirituality, despite its more earthbound central passage.
The closing rondo, the most intricate movement Mahler ever wrote, was rhythmically incisive, an immense aid to clarity. Especially enjoyable was the way the overlapping fanfares came together in the brass chorale, before the triumphant finale for which Wright had kept something in reserve.
The evening had opened with Mozart’s overture to The Impresario. The strings overcame some early sluggishness to deliver fine counterpoint. It conjured anticipation for the larger works to follow.
Kathryn Williams: Taking a late change of support and special guest in her stride at Pocklington Arts Centre
WEDNESDAY broke with the news that guitarist Matt Deighton, support and special guest on the first leg of Kathryn Williams’s Mystery Park Tour last autumn, would not be available for the second. All the shingles’ Hades, poor lad, had come his way. Get well soon.
Opening night in Pocklington was only two days away. Crumbs. Here’s where the rules of six degrees of separation came into play. Liverpool-born Kath and West of Scotland guitarist Memphis Gerald – so called after someone misheard his real name of Ben Fitzgerald – both live in Newcastle but had never met on the folk circuit.
However, they share a mutual friend in Louis Abbott of Glaswegian folkies Admiral Fallow, who put Kath in touch with Memphis. A few emails later to rearrange his diary, and Memphis was on board for Kath’s travels.
Three hours of rehearsals on Thursday introduced Kath to Memphis and Memphis to her songs, whose guitar parts he was still practising studiously in the still chill of night until 4am, nevertheless grateful to be “thrown onto this bill at the very last minute”.
“I can’t believe I met you only yesterday,” he would say to Kath between songs as they settled into their Pocklington groove. “I don’t think I could have learned these songs so quickly if they weren’t so gorgeous.”
Memphis had opened the show beneath his peaked cap with a solo set in the low light of three chintzy lampshades brought to Pock by Kath in the tour van driven by best friend Sarah Williams (who will be doing sterling work on the merch stall each night too).
His lyric “Flowers don’t decide where they grow from” caught the ear early on, and the politest protest song ever to grace these isles, We Will Die On This Hill, stood out with its celebration of the Right To Roam protestors’ UK Supreme Court triumph over their Dartmoor landlords, Alexander and Diana Darwall, in May 2025.
Memphis, by the way, has felt emboldened to send the ramblers his song; let’s hope they now sing it lustily as they ramble on, like Led Zeppelin were once wont to do.
Fuelled by a visit to Atlas, Pocklington’s artisan sourdough bakery and cafe in St Peter’s Square, Kath took to the stage where she had first played 25 years ago and had performed too when pregnant with son Ted (now present in long-haired teenage form in Friday’s audience with his shared love of music, especially T Rex and Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker).
As the tour title indicated, Kath concentrated her set on last September’s Mystery Park, her 18th album (if you include collaborations) in a career launched with cassette tapes at early gigs and her 1989 debut Dog Leap Stairs, made for £80.
For all her collaborations with Paul Weller, Ed Harcourt, Polly Paulusma, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Neil MacColl, Withered Hand’s Dan Wilson, Beth Nielsen Chapman and The Pond, her 12 years of hosting songwriting retreats for the Arvon Foundation, her bed-themed podcast Before The Light Goes Out, her 2021 novel The Ormering Tide and her art exhibitions at Start-Yard, Birkenhead and the Biscuit Factory (from May 8), there is still a delightfully cottage industry vibe to polymath Kath.
After all these years, her performance demeanour remains natural, at times almost apologetic, not afraid to fluff a guitar line, to consult her notes when setting up her Mellotron, or to make light of a request to adjust its M-shaped light to pink after its white brightness had dazzled one front-row occupant.
Kath loves a joke, a wry observation, a conspiratorial quip, a local reference or two, putting everyone at ease when faced both by Pocklington’s notoriously quietly appreciative audience and the first-night bedding-in of an admirably unflustered Memphis.
“I have a hole in my lip…I always drip,” she said with disarming rhyming candour. “It’s humbling when someone who’s played your songs for a day knows them better than you do,” she admitted after one sudden stop.
Turning 52 on Monday this week, Kath is now writing her most personal songs, rooted in motherhood and memory. “I think this album, more than anything, is a reflection of where I am in my life,” she told CharlesHutchPress in this week’s interview.
“A lot of songs on my other albums are works of imagination, flights of fancy, with fragments of what I’ve been doing. But this one places me on the bridge between parents getting older and kids getting older, and feeling that pull both ways.”
Alongside such high points as Goodbye To Summer, Gossamer Wings – co-written with “a young man who really needs your support, Paul Weller” – and a Big Thief cover, at the core of Friday’s set were three family reflections. Firstly, Sea Of Shadows, with its time-travelling account of eldest son Louis growing up in a story built around a sheriff’s star.
Next, This Mystery, a beautifully tender response to her father’s dementia and Parkinson’s Disease, in part inspired by the sight of a lorry driving over a vinyl record, smashing into fragments like dementia’s impact on our minds. “Well, that’s the happy songs over,” she deadpanned.
Lastly, Servant Of The Flame, for son Ted, with his love of playing computer games again and again, as she watched by his side, a line Kath repeated over and again as she pulled away from the microphone, until falling silent, just as Ted would fall into slumber.
Yes, these songs are personal, but they have that quality that Kath cherishes above all others in concert: connectivity.
She will remember Pocklington, February 20 2026 as “the night of the floppy plectrum” (when replacing a harder one that she gave to an audience member”, but also as the night when another commented the gig had made her “very happy”.
“I hope to see you in another 25 years,” Kath said at the close. “Hopefully they’ll have put some stair lifts in.”
Child’s play: Andrew Renn, Jon Cook and Jess Murray, back row, with Mark Simmonds and Victoria Delaney in York Settlement Community Players’ Blue Remembered Hills. Picture: John Saunders
FROM Dennis Potter to Stephen Sondheim, showman P.T. Barnum to Selby Abbey’s light installation, Charles Hutchinson is spoilt for cultural choice.
Play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, until February 28, 7.45pm nightly, except Sunday and Monday, plus 2pm Saturday matinees
FLEUR Hebditch, former Stephen Joseph Theatre dramaturg for a decade, makes her Settlement Players directorial debut with Dennis Potter’s stage adaptation of his 1979 BBC Play For Today drama.
Seven children are playing in the Forest of Dean countryside on a hot summer’s day in 1943. Each aged seven, they mimic and reflect the adult world at war around them, but their innocence is short lived as reality hits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Cole Stacey’s social media posting for his Rise@Bluebird Bakery gig
Folk gig of the week: Cole Stacey, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York tonight, doors 7.30pm
VISCERAL singer-songwriter Cole Stacey weaves together British folk, 1980s’ pop, spoken word and ambient electronics, as heard on last February’s debut album with its symbiosis of “lost” places and forgotten words, stretching back to the 13th century, paired with his lyrical songwriting and field recordings.
“I’d like to invite you to come along with me on the next chapter as I head out to share Postcards From Lost Places in some unique and inspiring settings, beginning in York tonight,” says Stacey. “I loved my time and bread last year playing at Bluebird Bakery, so I’m very delighted to be invited back for an intimate gig in their fully working bakery. It’s a special setting and one I’m thoroughly looking forward to!” Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk.
Dnipro Opera in Carmen, on tour at York Barbican
Opera of the week: Dnipro Opera (Ukrainian National Opera) in Carmen, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm
THE Dnipro Opera, from Ukraine, performs Georges Bizet’s Carmen in French with English surtitles, accompanied by an orchestra numbering more than 30 musicians.
Feel the thrill of fiery passion, jealousy, and violence of 19th century Seville in Carmen’s story of the downfall of naive soldier Don José, who falls head over heels in love with seductive, free-spirited femme fatale Carmen. Whereupon he abandons his childhood sweetheart and neglects his military duties, only to lose the fickle Carmen to the glamorous toreador Escamillo. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Showman extraordinaire: Lee Mead’s P. T. Barnum in Barnum: The Circus Musical at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith
Touring musical of the week: Bill Kenwright Ltd in Barnum: The Circus Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
MUSICALS leading man Lee Mead plays the most challenging role of his career, stepping into P. T. Barnum’s shoes and on to the tightrope as the legendary circus showman, businessman and politician in Jonathan O’Boyle’s touring production of the Broadway musical.
Mead leads the cast of more than 20 actor-musicians (playing 150 instruments), acrobats and international circus acts as, hand in hand with wife Charity, Barnum finds his life and career twisting and turning the more he schemes and dreams his way to headier heights. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Alexandra Mather’s Anne Egerman and Jason Weightman’s Fredrick Egerman in rehearsal for Wharfemede Productions’ A Little Night Music
Sondheim show of the week: Wharfemede Productions in A Little Night Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
SET in turn-of-the-20th century Sweden, A Little Night Music explores the tangled web of love, desire, and regret through Stephen Sondheim’s signature blend of sophistication, humour and hauntingly beautiful music, not least the timeless Send In The Clowns.
Directed by Helen “Bells” Spencer, Wharfemede Productions’ show combines the North Yorkshire company’s hallmark attention to emotional depth, musical high quality and character-driven ensemble storytelling. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Disney In Concert: The Sound Of Magic, celebrating music from Walt Disney’s animated films at York Barbican
Movie music of the week: Disney In Concert: The Sound Of Magic, York Barbican, February 25, 7.30pm
THE Novello Orchestra’s Disney In Concert: The Sound Of Magic performance is a symphonic celebration of Disney music, animation and memories, a century in the making, under the direction of creative director Amy Tinkham, music director Giles Martin and arranger and orchestrator Ben Foster.
Favourite characters and music from across the Walt Disney Animation Studios catalogue come to life on the concert hall stage and screen in new medleys and suites on a magic carpet ride through Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Moana, Alice In Wonderland, Aladdin, The Jungle Book, Frozen, The Lion King, Fantasia, Encanto, Beauty And The Beast and more. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Homeward bound for Selby Abbey: Imitating The Dog’s large-scale installation
Installation of the week: Selby Light 2026, Selby Abbey, February 26 to 28, 6pm to 9pm
SELBY Abbey will be the setting for Homeward, Leeds company Imitating The Dog’s large-scale installation celebrating our different stories and the unified feeling of finding home, framed by the question How Did You Get Here?
Inside, the installation continues as a walk-through experience, complemented by Jazmin Morris’s Through The Liquid Crystal Display, a series of visual code illustrations inspired by Selby Abbey. The trail then extends into the town centre with works by Selby College students. Admission is free.
Phoenix Dance Theatre in Interplay: World premiere opens at York Theatre Royal next Friday and Saturday. Picture: Drew Forsyth
Dance show of the week: Phoenix Dance Theatre, Interplay, York Theatre Royal, February 27, 7.30pm; February 28, 2pm, 7.30pm
LEEDS company Phoenix Dance Theatre’s world premiere tour of Interplay opens at York Theatre Royal next Friday and Saturday, featuring dynamic works by Travis Knight and James Pett (Small Talk), Ed Myhill (Why Are People Clapping?!), Yusha-Marie Sorzano & Phoenix artistic director Marcus Jarrell Willis (Suite Release) and Willis’s Next Of Kin.
Across duet and ensemble works, Interplay explores themes of duality and shared authorship, revealing how distinct artistic voices can intersect to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Each piece offers a unique perspective, united by a bold physicality and a deep curiosity about human relationships, rhythm and collective experience. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Levellers: Levelling The Land anew at York Barbican this autumn
Gig announcement of the week: Levellers, York Barbican, October 29
BRIGHTON folk-rockers Levellers have been among Britain’s most enduring and best-loved bands for nearly 40 years, their success in part built on the anthems that comprised their platinum-selling second album Levelling The Land, whose 35th anniversary falls on October 7.
To mark the occasion, Levellers will head out on a UK and European tour from October 16 to November 21, playing many songs from that album, alongside fan favourites from their extensive catalogue. Hotly tipped Essex punk duo The Meffs will support. Box office: https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/levellers-2026/.
And isn’t she iconic: Seven-time Grammy winner Alanis Morissette heads to Yorkshire coast this summer. Picture: Shelby Duncan
ALANIS Morissette is the 28th and final headliner to be announced for Scarborough Open Air Theatre’s 2026 summer season.
The seven-time Grammy Award winner will play on the Yorkshire coast on Sunday, July 5 on the last night of the Canadian-American alt-rock singer-songwriter’s seven-date UK tour.
After signing up Morissette to complete Scarborough OAT’s biggest ever concert season, Julian Murray, of promoters Cuffe and Taylor, said: “We are absolutely delighted to reveal Alanis Morissette as our 28th and final headliner for 2026. What a massive name to add to the bill for our already record-breaking summer here in Scarborough.
“Alanis is a cultural phenomenon. Her shows are huge and we now get to welcome her to the Yorkshire coast. This will be an incredible night in what will be a sensational summer here at Scarborough OAT.”
Her Grammy-garlanded 1995 debut album Jagged Little Pill has been followed by nine albums, and her hits Ironic, You Oughta Know, Hand in My Pocket and Thank U remain as current as ever today.
In 2019, Jagged Little Pill The Musical made its Broadway debut and was nominated for 15 Tony Awards, winning two at the 2021 ceremony.
In 2021, Morissette’s sold-out world tour was the number one female-fronted tour of the year. Her 2024 North American Triple Moon Tour sold more than half a million tickets and packed every venue to capacity, followed by her sold-out 2025 UK tour and first ever Pyramid Stage set at Glastonbury.
The poster for Alanis Morissette’s July 5 gig at Scarborough Open Air Theatre
TK MAXX PRESENTS SCARBOROUGH OPEN AIR THEATRE 2026: the full line up
JUNE 5, Rick Astley and Lottery Winners
JUNE 6, Madness plus Hollie Cook and The Beat featuring Ranking Jnr
JUNE 12, Paul Weller
JUNE 18, The Kooks
JUNE 20, Skunk Anansie and Garbage
JUNE 21, Anastacia and Heather Small
JUNE 26, Pete Tong Ibiza Classics and Danny Rampling
JUNE 27, Richard Ashcroft, Tom Meighan and Apollo Junction
JUNE 28, Billy Ocean and Marti Pellow
JULY 2, Bowling For Soup and Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls
JULY 3, James Arthur
JULY 4, David Gray and The Divine Comedy
JULY 5, Alanis Morissette
JULY 6, Michael Bublé
JULY 10, Deacon Blue and Lightning Seeds
JULY 11, Bastille and Nectar Wood
JULY 17, Alex James’s Britpop Classical
JULY 18, CMAT
JULY 22, Teddy Swims and Jordan Rakei
JULY 23, Teddy Swims and Jordan Rakei
JULY 25, James Taylor & His All-Star Band
JULY 26, Tom Jones and Stone Foundation
AUGUST 1, The Streets
AUGUST 2, Sex Pistols, The Stranglers and The Undertones
AUGUST 8, Scissor Sisters
AUGUST 14, Holly Johnson, ABC and Heaven 17
AUGUST 15, Hollywood Vampires (featuring Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry) and The Damned
AUGUST 22, Nile Rodgers & CHIC and Brand New Heavies
Sanna Jeppsson’s Countess Charlotte Malcolm, left, Jason Weightman’s Fredrick Egerman and Alexandra Mather’s Anne Egerman in Wharfemede Productions’ A Little Night Music
NORTH Yorkshire theatre company Wharfemede Productions follows up 2025’s Little Women and Musical Across The Multiverse revue with Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, next week.
Director and company co-founder Helen “Bells” Spencer says: “Sondheim has always been one of my favourite musical theatre writers. His work captures the full spectrum of the human experience; messy, beautiful and deeply relatable.
“What I find most inspiring is how his music doesn’t simply accompany the story; it drives it. Every note, rhythm and lyric reflects the emotional journey of the characters in a way that is both intricate and profoundly moving.”
Continuing to build its reputation for delivering high-quality, character-driven musical theatre, Wharfemede Productions brings together talent from across Yorkshire to present Sondheim’s witty, romantic and elegantly crafted 1973 musical.
Fan fare: Jason Weightman’s Fredrick Egerman and Alexandra Mather’s Anne Egerman in a scene from A Little Night Music
“Directing A Little Night Music has long been a dream of mine, and I’m thrilled to bring it to life with such an exceptional company,” says Bells, who will play Desiree Armfeldt, alongside Alexandra Mather as Anne Egerman, fresh from her outstanding Christmas performance as nightclub singer/evangelist Reno Sweeney in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes.
In the company too will be Jason Weightman as Fredrick Egerman, James Pegg as Henrik Egerman, Maggie Smales as Madame Armfeldt, Libby Greenhill as Fredrika Armfeldt, Nick Sephton as Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm and Sanna Jeppsson as Countess Charlotte Malcolm.
Completing the cast will be Katie Brier’s Petra, Chris Gibson’s Frid, soprano Emma Burke’s Mrs Nordstrom, soprano Hannah Thomson’s Mrs Anderssen, mezzo-soprano Rachel Merry’s Mrs Segstrom, tenor Matthew Oglesby’s Mr Erlansson and baritone Richard Pascoe’s Mr Lindquist.
“We’re drawing together an incredible mix of Yorkshire talent, particularly from York and Leeds, including actors I worked with in Les Miserables at Leeds Grand Theatre last year, and the chemistry within this cast is something truly special,” says Bells.
The Quintet in Wharfemede Productions’ A Little Night Music: Emma Burke, left, Richard Pascoe, Rachel Merry, Matthew Oglesby and Hannah Thomson.Picture: Matthew Warry
Joining her in the production team are musical director James Robert Ball, choreographer Rachel Merry and wardrobe mistress Suzanne Perkins. “It was so important to me to have a musical director who not only shares a passion for Sondheim’s music but also understands how to shape the dramatic journey alongside me,” says Bells.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be working with James, whose knowledge, enthusiasm and expertise in Sondheim’s work are second to none. A true Sondheim super-fan, academic and all-round expert, James is breathing such magic into this incredible score and as an assistant director.
“He is a joy to work with and has an extraordinary gift for bringing out the very best in the people around him, both musically and creatively.”
Set in turn-of-the-20th century Sweden, A Little Night Music explores the tangled web of love, desire and regret through Sondheim’s signature blend of sophistication, humour and hauntingly beautiful music, topped off by the timeless Send In The Clowns.
A directorial flash of inspiration for Helen “Bells” Spencer as she rehearses her role as Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music
“A Little Night Music is a lot of people’s favourite Sondheim work – and a lot of cast members have said that too,” says Bells.
“You introduced me to it when Opera North did it in Leeds,” recalls company co-founder Nick. “Yes, I made Nick go and see it!” rejoins Bells.
“I really wanted to do this show, because I think it’s one of Sondheim’s most accessible musicals. It’s more classical in style, taking its inspiration from Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik. The very clever thing about it, and the very unusual thing too, is that apart from a few bars, it’s written in triple time (3/4 time), which is very rare, particularly in musicals.
“The show is made up predominantly of triangles of love interests, and therefore it reflects those tangled trios in the musical structure, while also reflecting wealthy family life and their servants at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century in Sweden.”
Maggie Smales’s Madame Armfeldt makes her point to Libby Greenhill’s Fredrika Armfeldt
Crucial to the structure too is Sondheim’s use of The Quintet, alias the Liebeslieder Singers, here comprising Burke, Merry, Thomson, Oglesby and Pascoe. “They act like a Greek chorus, and they’ve been represented in very different ways in various versions of the show, but I was really clear when I started that I wanted them to do more than just come on and do their pieces,” says Bells.
“I was really keen for them to be more integral to the plot and the structure, so I wanted them to feel they were part of the decision-making about who The Quintet were. Right at the beginning, I gave them materials about Greek choruses and how they worked in theatre.
“I also researched Swedish folklore, in particular Freya, the goddess of love, beauty, fertility and sex. We then had a few rehearsals where the quintet decided who they should be, and while not wanting to spoil it for anyone, I can say that essentially they’re the driving force of our show. They’re in control; they can change things as an agent of fate, an agent of Freya.”
Bells continues: “They are in no way an ensemble. They are exceptional, doing the most difficult singing in the show, and they’re so on top of it. It’s so good to have such a strong quintet, and I’m really excited for audiences to see what we’ve done with the concept.
James Weightman’s Fredrick Egerman, left, and James Pegg’s Henrik Egerman raising eyebrows as well as glasses in A Little Night Music
“When the quintet is on stage, the lighting will be set for night-time, very ethereal, so it’ll be mysterious and nocturnal, and we will go in and out of that state, depending on the scene.”
Looking forward to a waltzing week ahead, Bells concludes: “Promising emotional depth, musical excellence and ensemble storytelling, Wharfemede Productions invites audiences to experience an evening of charm, laughter and lyrical brilliance, further cementing its place as one of Yorkshire’s most exciting rising theatre companies.”
Wharfemede Productions presents A Little Night Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Wharfemede Productions: back story
CO-FOUNDED in 2024 by Helen “Bells” Spencer, chief artistic director, and Nick Sephton, chief operating officer, the company is dedicated to bringing high-quality musical productions and events to Yorkshire, with respect and openness at the heart of their artistic philosophy.
After gaining a Drama degree from Manchester University, Bells co-founded and company-managed Envision Theatre Company, and now Wharfemede marks a return to those roots. Drawing on decades of logistics, managerial and computing experience, Nick uses these skills in Wharfemede’s work, combined with his love for music and theatre.
Wharfemede Productions’ poster for A Little Night Music at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Kathryn Williams: “Making songs in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides”. Picture: Emma Holbrook
KATHRYN Williams launches the second leg of her Mystery Park Tour at Pocklington Arts Centre tomorrow, fresh from celebrating her 52nd birthday on Monday.
“I was always disappointed I wasn’t born on Valentine’s Day, but I’ve discovered my birthday falls [a day later] on Lupercalia, the she-wolf festival, ancient Rome, Romulus & Remus and all that,” says Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based folk singer, songwriter, Arvon tutor, novelist, Before The Light Goes Out podcaster and watercolour and portrait artist.
Released on One Little Independent Records last September, Mystery Park is Kathryn’s 18th album: a deeply personal collection marked by emotional depth and lyrical precision in 11 reflective songs, “made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides”.
“This record is for anyone who’s felt something and kept it quiet,” says Kathryn. “For those private echoes. I hope these songs give people space to hear their own.
“The cover artwork is my own painting, based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets. Each part of it ties into the songs: a map of memories.”
Kathryn expands: “I think this album, more than anything, is a reflection of where I am in my life. A lot of songs on my other albums are works of imagination, flights of fancy, with fragments of what I’ve been doing. But this one places me on the bridge between parents getting older and kids getting older, and feeling that pull both ways. So I would say it’s my most personally revealing album.
“Writing these songs, you have the responsibility towards the people who the songs are about. It’s a pressure you feel, like if you were writing a memoir, where you want them to recognise themselves, as well as not hating you [for what Kathryn has written].”
Twenty-seven years since she self-released her debut album, Dog Leap Stairs, made for £80, working through the night in various studios, she sees a weightier significance in Mystery Park’s songs. “This far into my career, when I’m only two years off 30 years of putting music out, I kind of feel it’s a legacy record, with songs about my dad, my sons, other people in my life, and I hope these songs cast their nets out long after I’ve gone.”
“That song then walked towards me like in a mist,” says Kathryn Williams of her experience of writing This Mystery
Centrepiece song This Mystery utilises the metaphor of Kathryn seeing a record being shattered by a lorry driver as a symbol of her father’s dementia, or “memory being unplayable in the form that it was in,” as she puts it. “But this is a song for him, not the disease. Anyone who has had a loved one diagnosed with this cruelty will know how you just want to paint their skies blue and make everything all right,” she says.
“I wrote the opening words of that song a few years ago at an Arvon Foundation songwriting retreat at Lumb Back where I was tutoring. I was waiting at these traffic lights just before Hebden Bridge, when the lorry drove over the record,” she recalls. “That’s when I got a phone call from my mum.”
Pulling over to one side, she received the message that her father had been diagnosed with dementia, compounding the image in her head of the shattered vinyl. “That song then walked towards me like in a mist,” says Kathryn. “It’s been hard to sing it when they’ve come to a gig.”
Yet her father’s love of music, rooted in his own days as a singer in a folk group, is a solace. “Even now I’ll start singing a Paul Simon song to him and he’ll know the pitch and the tune, though he won’t necessarily know what day or what time of day it is,” says Kathryn.
As her father’s dementia progresses – he no longer attends Kathryn’s concerts – “it’s like holding someone, trying to stop them from falling off the cliff, so it’s really difficult.
“Even though we don’t have the answers, the only thing we can do is live each day in love – and some beautiful things come from his inability to find the words like he once did. Like when he couldn’t express the wonder of the pink skyline, he said, ‘Look what’s come downstairs’.”
Sea Of Shadows, co-written with Neill MacColl and producer Leo Abrahams, is a tribute to eldest son Louis, in response to watching him grow from infant to adult. “Parenthood isn’t fixed,” says Kathryn. “We think we will have small kids forever, but time quickens and before we know it, we have huge humans living with us where once there was a little baby. I love singing this song and thinking of him through the different images and travelling through time”.
Kathryn Williams’s artwork for her Mystery Park album cover. “It’s based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets,” she says. “Each part of it ties into the songs – a map of memories”
Kathryn adds: “It’s not only about Louis; it’s also about me as a mother – and the amount of mothers who come up to me after a gig with tears in their eyes to say they really relate to that song. When listening to music, the one thing that really matters is if they connect with the song.
“That connectivity: that’s why I still continue to perform, despite finding it very difficult. I love the connection with the audience, so it’s about keeping up the energy and momentum on a tour, in spite of all the soul-sucking motorway travel.”
Closing track Servant Of The Flame was written for younger son Ted, capturing the act of sitting beside him while he plays video games: choosing presence, even in small moments, as an act of love, where Kathryn is “watching them evolve into their own identities. Seeing them struggle and hoping that they can navigate the ups and downs that we all face in life”.
Polly Paulusma is among Kathryn’s co-writers, penning Goodbye To Summer together on an Arvon retreat. “[We were] outside on two wooden chairs watching the dying sunlight tip off the wings of the swallows and the swifts,” Williams recalls. “The last hurrah of summer before they fly away. The seasons begin to mark more and more. How many summers do we have in one life? Will the birds fly back home? Polly writes in open tunings so the new paths to melodies felt giddying and fresh.”
One name leaps out from the credits above all others, Mr Paul Weller, Kathryn’s collaborator on Gossamer Wings, a song built from voice notes and texts, capturing a moment of creative chemistry born at a distance.
“This was the first thing we did together, working remotely,” she says. “Paul came up with the idea for the song and the title,” she says. “Then I researched ‘gossamer wings’, and I sent him quite a lot of texts, where he would reply, ‘well, that sounds like a lyric’.”
Such was Kathryn’s enthusiasm to show “I’m not lazy, I’m a good girl”, she recalls Paul once commenting, ‘that’s great, but you haven’t really involved me!’.”I was just trying to do my part!” she says.
Paul Weller: Co-writer of Gossamer Wings on Kathryn Williams’s Mystery Park album
“My eagerness to show him I was diligent made me barge on ahead without him on this one, but we pulled it together and I calmed the heck down for the second sitting. This was based on the title that Paul had and an idea of spirits breaking free from the constraints.”
Paul contributed vocals and Hammond organ to the recording, and they went on to write So Quietly together for Weller’s October 2024 EP Supplement: 66, featuring Kathryn on lead vocals and the late double bassist Danny Thompson on his last recording.
“Even yesterday [this interview was conducted on February 15], he sent a text to say lyrics I’d sent should be the first line of our next song together.”
Songs from Mystery Park will be predominant on her tour set list. “The majority of the gig will be the new material because I always think it’s a special thing to play them for the first time, when they also take on a different life from the record,” says Kathryn.
Songs from the back catalogue will feature too in the set, “though while some people forget songs they’ve written, I forget whole albums!” says Kathryn.
As on the tour’s first leg from October 5 to November 15 last autumn, She will be accompanied on guitar by Matt Deighton after he opens each show with a solo set. “For this tour, we’ve made a double A-side of our versions of Sea Of Shadows and Servant Of The Flame, from The Glasshouse [formerly Sage, Gateshead],” says Kathryn.
Look out for limited-edition seven-inch vinyl copies, housed in sleeves in five colours designed and made by Kathryn’s family, on the merchandise stall, run by her “wonderful best friend”, Sarah Williams, who will be driving the tour van too.
Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park Tour, with support and special guest Matt Deighton, Pocklington Arts Centre, tomorrow (20/2/2026), 8pm. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Kathryn Williams: Folk singer-songwriter, Arvon songwriting tutor, novelist (The Ormering Tide, 2021), Before the Light Goes Out podcaster, watercolour & portrait artist
Mystery Park track listing:
Thoughts Of My Own; Goodbye To Summer, co-written with Polly Paulusma; Gossamer Wings, co-written with Paul Weller; Tender, co-written with Polly Paulusma; This Mystery; Sea Of Shadows, co-written with Neill MacColl & Leo Abrahams; Move Me, co-written with Beth Nielsen Chapman; Knew You Forever; Sunsets and Servant Of The Flame.
Musicians on Mystery Park:
Kathryn Williams, vocals; Leo Abrahams,guitar, bass, keyboards, ukulele & piano, also album producer, arranger and mixer at The Shelter; Neill MacColl, guitar, vocals; Polly Paulusma, vocals, guitar (track 2 & 4); Paul Weller, vocals, Hammond organ (track 3); Ed Harcourt, piano (tracks 5, 6, 7 & 10), mariachi bass (track 7), vocals (track 10); Chris Vatalaro, drums, piano (track 9); David Ford, harmonica (track 7); Emma Smith, violin (tracks 5, 6 & 7).
Did you know?
KATHRYN Williams is hosting her Striking Features art exhibition at Start-Yard in Birkenhead, from January 16 to February 20 to coincide with the Mystery Park Tour (opening hours, Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm). Among the tour dates from February 20 to March 29 will be Future Yard, Birkenhead, on February 24.
Showcasing her work as a painter, the show features an intimate collection of portraits painted on matchboxes, alongside delicate watercolours and limited-edition prints. The collection captures character, emotion and quiet beauty, reflecting Kathryn’s style at the intersection of music and visual expression.
“I’ve been offered another exhibition in Newcastle, where it will open at the Biscuit Factory on May 8,” reveals Kathryn, who trained at art school in Newcastle and has designed the artwork for several of her album covers, such as Dog Leap Stairs and Mystery Park.
Kathryn Williams’s podcast
Did you know too? KATHRYN is working on the third series of her bed-themed Before The Light Goes Out podcast, lining up her latest interviewees to explore the gap between wake and sleep.
In each episode, Kathryn talks to a special guest from the world of music or literature about “what they do as they enter the realm of sleep, what has changed for them over the years and other things”.
What is Lupercalia?
THIS ancient Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 15 with its rituals to drive out evil spirits, promotes health, fertility and purification. It is tied closely to the founding legend of Rome and the Lupercal cave, where Romulus and Remus were nurtured allegedly by a she-wolf.
