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REVIEW: Tilted Wig Productions in The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday **

Alex Phelps’s Joseph Surface, left, and Joseph Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal. Picture: Anthony Robling

WHEN The School For Scandal premiered at Drury Lane in 1777, the audience laughed so loudly that a passer-by thought the building was collapsing.

Roll forward to 2024, when Sean Aydon’s 1950 setting of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comedy of manners fails to bring down the house. “They’re finding themselves funnier than we are,” came one barb of Dorothy Parker bite over the interval drinks.

It had looked so promising, from the stellar casting of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air butler Joseph Marcell as the lordly Sir Peter Teazle to the programme design in the style of the Town & Country high society fashion magazine. Anthony Tittle, editor in chief, Henry Tattle, editor at large, Ted Talk, production director; you get the picture. Never judge a play by its programme cover, however.

“We felt that what our audiences needed more than anything was an evening of pure fun,” reckoned Aydon in the wake of the pandemic gloom. “An evening of aural and visual pleasure without a moment of darkness…”

Darkness is indeed absent from Sarah Beaton’s set and costume designs. A plethora of peach drapes, three peach ceiling lamps, and blue-and-white checkerboard floor tiles rather than regulation black and white, set the tone, but that mood board is muted. Peach is not peachy but pallid.

Out go 18th century wigs and ruffles that “can feel like a barrier”, reasons Aydon, but equally “it didn’t feel right to set it in the modern day as the world of the play has very different rules to our own, particularly with regards to marriage as a financial agreement”.

Wanting to retain a sense of Sheridan’s gossip-driven milieu being one of wealth, style and the height of fashion, Aydon settled on the mid-20th century as a “great place aesthetically”, whose vibrant colours and evocative textures could be appreciated “while knowing we are not in our 21st century world”.

For all the witty detail, such as the three phones on a row of plinths that emphasise the ever-bubbling babble of society chit-chat, the new setting remains a barrier to the highly mannered 18th century comedy being funny.

No feeling is more deflating on a night at the theatre than a comedy failing to spark, when laughs are as muted as those peach drapes. Audiences have to connect, to bond, to care, to warm to characters, but The School For Scandal is all surface – and not only in having three characters by that surname – and surface is not enough.

Snappy dialogue matters more than a snappy dress sense. Compare and contrast with Richard Bean’s revitalisation of Carlo Goldoni’s 1746 Italian comedy The Servant Of Two Masters, relocated to 1963 Brighton as One Man, Two Guvnors with a scabrous new script.

It did everything that Aydon craves for Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal: “Theatre is important for many reasons: it can challenge us, provoke us, shock us, teach us to question the world around us. But it can also provide deep and unadulterated joy.” True for that Bean feast of comic chaos, but not here.

Sheridan’s names for his “outrageous characters”, from Snake to Weasel, Backbite to Careless, Lady Sneerwell to Mrs Candour, promise more than they deliver in this slow-moving account of Sir Peter Teazle (Marcell) believing that his young wife, the country maid Lady Teazle (Lydea Perkins), is playing away from home, as Lady Sneerwell’s scandalmongers spread the word. Not true, but if he thinks she is, why not give it a go, she decides.

Characters come and go, come and go again, the words pile up, the laughs don’t, as Aydon’s wish for us to “celebrate the joy of being alive” is unfulfilled, for all the striving of Marcell’s Sir Peter, Garmon Rhys’s Charles Surface/Benjamin Backbite and Emily Jane McNeill’s Lady Sneerwell.  

There is one exception to this frustrating experience. Having delighted York audiences previously in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s Twelfth Night and York Theatre Royal & Tilted Wig’s Around The World In 80 Days, Alex Phelps parades his comic craft once more with delicious timing, peacock elegance and physical  comedy chops worthy of a Chaplin, Wisdom or Wall, both as the manipulative, hypocritical Joseph Surface and in a tipsy, scene-stealing cameo as Bumper.

An Act Two scene with Phelps’s Joseph, Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, involving a chaise longue, a screen and a cupboard, is the one moment of “unadulterated joy”. Elsewhere, alas, Sheridan’s top of the fops comedy feels dated, and it hasn’t dated well.

Tilted Wig in tandem with Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday; 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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Tales of Barrie and the Bard to be told in Shakespeare’s Royals at York Theatre Royal

Barrie Rutter: Going face to face with Shakespeare’s Royals at York Theatre Royal Studio

IN his X profile, veteran Yorkshire actor Barrie Rutter OBE introduces himself as: “Lover of language. Awobopaloobopalopbamboom – everything else is Shakespeare”.

Barrie and the Bard have had a long, long relationship, one that is the subject of his new show, Shakespeare’s Royals, whose 11-date tour sends him to the York Theatre Royal Studio tomorrow (26/4/2024) as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival.

Barrie, founder and former artistic director of Northern Broadsides, celebrates the Bard’s kings and queens – their achievements, conquests and foibles – with tales, anecdotes and memories from a career of playing and directing Shakespeare’s Royals.

Told he could never play a king on account of his Yorkshire accent, Hull-born Rutter, now 77, took the revolutionary step of creating his own theatre company in 1992 at Dean Clough in Halifax to use the northern voice for Shakespeare’s kings, queens and emperors, not only the usual drunken porters, jesters or fools.

It has been said that the Yorkshire dialect most readily matches the Elizabethan language of Shakespeare’s time. “I can’t say that would be the case,” says Barrie. “I never claimed that, but all those short vowels and granite-heavy consonants are great lanes for language to travel down, and the northern voices of our country suit that language, that sound – as we know from all the work I did for Tony Harrison, echoing Ancient Greek dramas [The Mysteries, The Oresteia and The Trackers Of Oxyrhynchus].”

Shakespeare’s Royals was first staged as a one-off in Halifax last April. “The evening was such a success that I’m now touring it,” says Barrie. “The first one was at The Viaduct, the cellar theatre space I created at Dean Clough, which I have a real fondness for, and it worked really well.

“Sarah and Jamie Horsley, who run the True North restaurant at Dean Clough and now The Viaduct, suggested putting things on there and taking things out on tour as Sarah sits on the touring board of Arts Council North, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Barrie stepped down from the artistic director’s post at Northern Broadsides in April 2018 in frustration at what he saw as inadequate Arts Council funding for the company. Since then he has worked as a freelance actor, such as performing with Clive Anderson in the world premiere of Daniel Taub’s Winner’s Curse at the Park Theatre, London, in February last year, as well as coming through treatment for throat cancer in 2020.

A show such as Shakespeare’s Royals gives him a chance to keep squeezing his artistic juices. “You need your ego, the one that doesn’t get in the way, but keeps you going, keeps you being imaginative, keeps the brain working,” says Barrie. “This is a way to say I still have something to offer, something entertaining, something informative…and always pleasurable. This show is a bit of all that…and it’s political too.

Barrie Rutter as Lear in Shakespeare’s King Lear in 2015. Picture: Nobby Clark

“I make no secret of choosing Titania’s climate change speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act II, Scene 1] and the ‘basic anti-Brexit edit’ of John of Gaunt’s This England monologue [from Richard II, Act II, Scene 1].

His favourite speech from Henry VI, Part Three, others from Henry V and King Lear, feature too, bookended by Macbeth, his first show as a “winsome 18-year-old at school” in 1964.

Shakespeare’s Royals combines Rutter’s guide to Shakespeare’s royalty, from Richard III to Henry IV, V and VI and the fairy king and queen of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with humorous anecdotes from his life in the theatre, whether founding Northern Broadsides, directing Lenny Henry in his Shakespeare debut as Othello, portraying assorted royals or encountering Dizzy Gillespie and Rudolf Nureyev.

As he reflects on a career that has taken him from Hamburg to Helsinki, Brazil to Beijing, Shakespeare’s Globe to the amphitheatre of Epidaurus in Greece, he says: “Some stories are very personal, some are instructive of what makes me tick, what I enjoy; hopefully they will be relatable and fun.

“In the case of the Calypso that accompanies Richard II, I was just going along my shelves, seeing what was there, and I remembered this Calypso that I sang in 1966 and didn’t sing again until last year – and yet I could recall every line.”

Barrie will be joined by Emily Butterfield from Northern Broadsides. “I didn’t want there to be no female voice in the show,” he says. “So I have Emily for Titania, Cleopatra and Elizabeth from Richard III, and there’ll be more music: a dirty limerick with Henry V and 12-bar blues with Cleopatra. Emily also plays the flute, and she’ll close the show with the last song from Twelfth Night.”

At school, an English teacher had frogmarched Rutter into the school play because he had “the gob for it”, and feeling at home on stage, he chose his future direction and has never looked back. Now he returns to York Theatre Royal, where he last appeared in November 2017 in his farewell Broadsides tour, For Love Or Money, a typically anarchic theatrical double act with Blake Morrison.

Time for Barrie Rutter to shake up Shakespeare once more.

Barrie Rutter: Shakespeare’s Royals, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow (26/4/2024), 7.45pm;. Also Ripon Theatre Festival, Ripon Cathedral, July 4, 7.30pm. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Ripon, ripontheatrefestival.org.

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More Things To Do in Ryedale, York and beyond the Bard festival celebrations. Hutch’s List No. 12, from Gazette & Herald

Footsbarn Theatre in Twelfth Night: First British performances in 15 years in world premiere at York International Shakespeare Festival

A FEAST of Shakespeare, a musical’s 60th anniversary, Motown magic, smalltown teenage troubles and a Yorkshire rock band’s birthday bash hit the mark for Charles Hutchinson.  

Festival of the week: York International Shakespeare Festival, until Sunday 

SHAKESPEAREAN Identity is the theme of the sixth York International Shakespeare Festival, now an annual event, run by director Philip Parr. Sponsored by York St John University, it features shows, lectures by internationally recognised academics, exhibitions and workshops presented by Shakespeare enthusiasts from all over the world.

Among the highlights will be Footsbarn Theatre’s first British visit in 15 years with Twelfth Night on Saturday and Sunday and York Explore’s exhibition of 300 years of representations of Othello. Tickets and full programme details are available at yorkshakes.co.uk/programme-2024.

Fiddler in the woods: Alice Atang’s Fiddler, Perri Ann Barley’s Golde and Steve Tearle’s Tevye set the scene for NE Theatre York’s Fiddler On The Roof

Musical of the week: NE Theatre York in Fiddler On The Roof, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, running until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

STEVE Tearle directs NE Theatre York in Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein’s musical, taking the role of Tevye, the humble village milkman, for the third time too in this 60th anniversary production.

When three of Tevye’s five daughters rebel against the traditions of arranged marriages by taking matters into their own hands, mayhem unfolds as he strives to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural creeds, against the backdrop of the Tsar’s pogrom edict to evict all Jews from his Russian village in 1905. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

The poster for 1812 Theatre Company’s double bill at Helmsley Arts Centre

Double bill of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in Baby Dolls and Contractions, Helmsley Arts Centre, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm

HELMSLEY Arts Centre’s Young Arts Leaders Charlotte Mintoft and Amelia Featherstone direct the 1812 Theatre Company in Tamara von Werthern’s Baby Dolls and Mike Bartlett’s Contractions respectively. The first is a futuristic comedy about conception, state control and rebellion, wherein three women meet at a baby shower but darker things than cupcakes and babygrows are on their mind. 

The second, an ink-black comedy, focuses on the boundaries between work and play. Whereas Emma thinks she’s in love with Darren, her boss thinks she’s in breach of contract. The situation needs to be resolved. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Barrie Rutter: Reflecting on shaking up Shakespeare at Northern Broadsides and beyond

Breaking down the Bard barrier in the north: Barrie Rutter: Shakespeare’s Royals, York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm; Ripon Theatre Festival, Ripon Cathedral, July 4, 7.30pm

BARRIE Rutter, founder and former director of Northern Broadsides, celebrates the Bard’s kings and queens – their achievements, conquests and foibles – with tales, anecdotes and memories from a career of playing and directing Shakespeare’s Royals.

Told he could never play a king on account of his Yorkshire accent, Hull-born Rutter, now 77, created his own theatre company in 1992 in Halifax to use the northern voice for Shakespeare’s kings, queens and emperors, not only the usual drunken porters, jesters or fools. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Ripon, ripontheatrefestival.org.

Soul Satisfaction: Four Tops and Motown hits here they come at Milton Rooms, Malton

Ryedale tribute show of the week: Soul Satisfaction, The American Four Tops Motown Show, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm

DIRECT from the United States, Soul Satisfaction combine powerful vocals, sweet harmonies and high-stepping dance routines in the American Four Tops Motown Show.

This celebration of Motown’s golden era revels in Reach Out (I’ll Be There), Walk Away Renee, It’s The Same Old Song, Loco In Acapulco, I Can’t Help Myself and Bernadette, complemented by The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Marvin Gaye and Ben E King hits. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

The trials of growing up in a small country town: Henry Madd’s Henry and Marc Benga’s Jake in Land Of The Lost Content at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Picture: Ali Wright

Touring play of the week: Henry Madd’s Land Of Lost Content, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

NIC Connaughton, the Pleasance’s head of theatre, directs Land Of Lost Content, Henry Madd’s autobiographical insight into friendship, adolescence, forgiveness and life not going to plan in an empowering coming-of-age story about the trials of growing up in a small country town and its ongoing effects on two estranged mates.

Henry (Madd) and Jake (Marc Benga) were bored friends who grew up in Ludlow, where friendships were forged in failed adventures, bad habits and damp raves as they stumbled through teenage days looking for something to do. Then Henry moved away. Now he is back, needing to face up to the memories and the people he left behind, as Madd draws on themes of mental health and substance abuse in rural areas in his blend of theatre and spoken word. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Joe Martin: Troubadour tales at the Milton Rooms, Malton

Troubadour of the week: Joe Martin, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 8pm

INDEPENDENT singer-songwriter and modern-day troubadour Joe Martin captures stories of people and encounters picked up on the road in his tales of friends, strangers and his own experiences.

Before his solo venture, Lancashire-born Martin fronted a country band while studying at university in Leeds, opening for The Shires and appearing at the Country to Country festival. Now he performs in Europe and the United States, such as at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

The Cult: 40th anniversary tour heads to York Barbican in October. Picture: Jackie Middleton

Gig announcement of the week: The Cult, The 8424 Tour, York Barbican, October 29

SINGER Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy mark the 40th anniversary of The Cult, the Bradford band noted for their pioneering mix of post-punk, hard rock and melodramatic experimentalism, by heading out on The 8424 Tour.

Once dubbed “shamanic Goths”, Astbury and Duffy will perform songs from The Cult’s 11-album discography, from 1984’s Dreamtime to 2022’s Under The Midnight Sun, in a set sure to feature She Sells Sanctuary, Rain, Love Removal Machine, Wild Flower and Lil’ Devil. This year they have begun a vinyl reissue series. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Kay Mellor’s The Syndicate, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Sunday ****

Grappling brothers: Benedict Shaw’s Stuart, left, and Oliver Anthony’s Jamie in Kay Mellor’s The Syndicate at Leeds Grand Theatre

THE celebs were out in force on the first night of this stage conversion of Kay Mellor’s BBC drama series The Syndicate, in memory of the late Leeds playwright, screenwriter, actress and producer.

From Bradford pantomime stalwart Billy Pearce to Jodie Prenger and a coterie of Emmerdale soap stars, they gathered in celebration of Kay, who died on May 15 2022 at the age of 71.

Originally Kay was to have directed this premiere with actress daughter Gaynor Faye, who said beforehand: “It is extremely special to be a part of this new theatrical version of The Syndicate and one which my mum was excited to stage.

“Having acted in the last series on TV, when she asked me to assist her in directing the show, I jumped at the chance. Now, it has become my first solo directing role and whilst I am so sad not to be doing it with her, I am also very proud and excited to bring mum’s vision to the fore in her hometown of Leeds.”

The Syndicate cast with Kay Mellor’s grandson, Oliver Anthony, outside Leeds Grand Theatrre. Picture: Aaron Cawood

Playing to a home crowd, so appreciative of council estate-raised Kay’s work on stage and screen, from A Passionate Woman to Fat Friends, Band Of Gold to In The Club, found the Leeds Grand bathing in a mood of nostalgia and reflection but of anticipation too.

The Syndicate ran for four series on the Beeb from 2012 to 2021, each with a different ensemble of six lottery winners, tracing what happened next, the good and the bad.

In the wake of stage adaptations of Band Of Gold and Fat Friends, Kay’s final stage play reprises the comedy drama format from the TV series, this time with a syndicate of five supermarket workers, whose lottery syndicate numbers come in, just as their jobs and livelihoods are under threat from a prospective new superdupermarket next door.

We meet them before Gaynor Faye’s bubby lottery company rep Kay delivers their £24 million jackpot. In the store team are phlegmatic check-out stalwart Denise (Samantha Giles, from Emmerdale); reserved, is-she-hiding-something Leanne (Rosa Coduri-Fulford); old-school, kindly manager Bob (William Ilkley, a familiar face from so many John Godber plays and beyond), and two brothers, struggling Stuart (Benedict Shaw) and jack-flash Jamie (Oliver Anthony, in his highly impressive stage debut, having played Theo in season four of the TV series).

The cast for Kay Mellor’s The Syndicate on Bretta Gerecke’s set design

In trademark Kay Mellor style, the characterisation is both intriguing and fully realised, and the dialogue fizzes with northern truth, observational humour and the warmth of familiarity in its patterns of behaviour. As ever, she draws in her audience to the point of complete connection with what ensues.

Stuart’s girlfriend Amy (Brooke Vincent, from Coronation Street) is pregnant and expectant of a lifestyle he can’t fund. Find a place for them to live, or that’s it, she demands. Cue Jamie suggesting the brothers should make off with the day’s takings from the safe, but the robbery goes wrong when Bob turns up and is hospitalised by a blow from Jamie.

Jerome Ngonadi’s offbeat copper, Newall, starts his investigations just as the syndicate strikes lucky as two storylines then overlap. Will the truth emerge and how will each winner react to sudden wealth, especially as one was not up to date with weekly payments.

Faye’s Kay drives the publicity drive but both brothers have something to keep hidden and so does Leanne, from her past. Giles’s Denise embraces cosmetic surgery; Jamie laps up the sharp suits and the even smarter car; Bob faces crucial surgery; Amy spends, spends, spends like Viv Nicholson, new house, new décor, new clothes. In the best performance of all, and Mellor’s best writing to boot, Shaw’s Stuart is troubled by his conscience.

Life’s a lottery for Brooke Vincent’s Amy in The Syndicate

For all the humour, Mellor is ultimately questioning the cost, the price, of craving money and fame. On the one hand, the self-destructive Jamie flies too close to the sun, but on the other, love will out for Bob, blossoming with new partner Annie (Jade Golding), and the burgeoning feelings of Stuart and Leanne.

Snippets of pecuniary pop songs, from Pink Floyd to Money’s Too Tight To Mention, pop up throughout, like a Greek chorus: one more canny detail in Faye’s well-judged, strikingly uncomplicated direction.

The glitter is to be found in Bretta Gerecke’s set and costume designs for Vincent’s Amy, but all that glisters is not gold, as a lonely, empty Amy discovers in Mellor’s cautionary finale.

Kay, how we miss your wit, your humanity, your Yorkshire nous, but how glad we are that your plays live on.

Kay Mellor’s The Syndicate, Leeds Grand Theatre, 7.30pm tonight, tomorrow and Friday; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Thursday and Saturday; 4pm, Sunday. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

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How Florence Poskitt stepped in to play Kate in Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes The Taming Of The Shrew for YSP

Florence Poskitt: Taking on principal role of Kate

WHEN University of York student Chesca Downes had to pull out of playing Kate in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew, up stepped Florece Poskitt at short notice.

The York actor-musician and member of musical comedy duo Fladam had only a fortnight to learn and rehearse Shakespeare’s problem play for this week’s run at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from tomorrow to Saturday.

YSP chair Tony Froud says: “We’re delighted to welcome someone as talented as Flo into the cast and thank her for stepping into the role after Chesca had to withdraw for personal reasons.”

“We are very sorry to lose Chesca, but entirely understand her decision to leave the production,” adds director Maggie Smales.

Florence is a familiar face to York theatregoers, latterly appearing at Theatre@41 as Vera Claythorne in Pick Me Up Theatre’s staging of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Mishka and a gormless Shopkeeper in York Settlement Community Players’ Government Inspector last autumn.

York Shakespeare Project’s psychedelic poster for The Taming Of The Shrew

Now she is reuniting with Maggie Smales, who first directed Florence in November 2019 in Andrew Bovell’s apocalyptic play When The Rain Stops Falling, again at Theatre@41.

“I was due to have a couple of weeks off after doing my own stuff with Fladam for the past two months, going down to the Greenwich Theatre in London with our Green Fingers show, and then suddenly I got a call from Maggie to say, ‘Can you do this role, Flo?’, and she’s one of those people you just can’t say ‘No’ to!” says Florence. 

“So the second I got back, I threw myself into playing Kate. She’s one of those roles that are such a treat to get to play – though ideally with more rehearsal time! I had just a week’s notice to get it learnt before joining the last week of rehearsals.

“With Shakespeare you can’t just make it work like you can with a modern text; it’s not just knowing your own lines; you’ve got know the feed lines; you have to be able to cue in other actors; you’ve got to become familiar with the blocking.”

Last Thursday night was the first full run, leading to the tech rehearsal on Sunday and dress rehearsal tonight (22/4/2024). “Everyone has been very welcoming, especially Rosy Rowley, who plays Kate’s mum [Baptista Minola] and Jim Paterson, who’s brilliant as Petruchio, as well as doing the music for the show. The chat-up scene up scene with Kate is so funny, it’s been difficult not to laugh in rehearsals.”

Maggie Smales: Directing York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew

As the multi-coloured psychedelic poster proclaims, Smales is setting Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes in 1970 in her first YSP production since her all-female Henry V in 2015.

The Sixties have shaken off the post-World War Two blues; the baby boomers are growing up, primed and ready to do their own thing; the world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality. Surely, “The Times They Are a’Changin’” and the old order is dead. Or is it, asks Smales.

“As a play it’s not designed for a modern audience. Petruchio can be seen as a kind of abuser, and what Maggie and co-director Claire Morley have done with Kate’s monologue is to find a way around the awkwardness of her saying she can do whatever she wants now she is tamed,” says Florence.

“In this version, the ‘shrew’ [Kate] is a normal person and everyone else is abnormal, and you see what she has to go through and how these gaslighters can get to anybody.

“You don’t have to change the text. You have to change the meaning, and Maggie and Claire have been very clever at doing that. There’s very much a stereotype of what a ‘shrewish woman’ would be. We’ve decided that she fits the shrewish stereotype in wanting to fit in, but she doesn’t want to be wed. That leads to her being isolated for not being understood.”

Fladam’s Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter

The 1970 setting has led to a more open attitude. “Kate gets her comic moments, so does Petruchio because he’s so ridiculous. Once he was perceived as heroic, definitely not so now, but even though his behaviour is not right, Jim’s Petruchio is still endearing,” says Florence.

“I also gathered from Maggie that she chose 1970 as it was then that women started to be working women rather than housewives – and that connects with Kate not wanting a husband and wanting to be just herself.”

Playing Kate will be Florence’s first Shakespeare work since doing a training project at Newcastle Theatre Royal, performing snippets from Much Ado About Nothing in the role of Beatrice in 2021.

“The last time I worked with York Shakespeare Project I did the costumes for The Winter’s Tale and that’s when I first met Maggie, who was playing Paulina. “I’m really grateful for the opportunity. I did originally audition for Kate, but I would have been too busy with Fladam, but now it’s worked out well, even if I wish I’d had more time,” says Florence.

“I love doing comedy and musical theatre, but it’s lovely to do something different, to break the mould, to prove I can do more than Victoria Wood – though I would say I do play Kate quite like a Last Of The Summer Wine character. She’s quite grumpy!”

York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, York International Shakespeare Festival, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk

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More Things To Do in York and beyond “the carriage ride of your life”. Hutch’s List No. 17 for the spring scene, from The Press

Footsbarn Theatre’s Twelfth Night: First British performances in 15 years in world premiere at York International Shakespeare Festival

BUCKLE up for Austen’s sister act, Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes and Sheridan’s scandalous comedy of manners, plus music, art and poetry in the library, advises Charles Hutchinson.  

Festival of the week: York International Shakespeare Festival, until April 28 

SHAKESPEAREAN Identity is the theme of the sixth York International Shakespeare Festival, now an annual event, run by director Philip Parr. Sponsored by York St John University, it features moving shows, lectures by internationally recognised academics, exhibitions and workshops presented by Shakespeare enthusiasts from all over the world.

Among the highlights will be Footsbarn Theatre’s first British visit in 15 years with Twelfth Night, American actress Debra Ann Byrd’s powerhouse solo show Becoming Othello and York Explore’s exhibition of 300 years of representations of Othello. Tickets and full programme details are available at yorkshakes.co.uk/programme-2024.

Katherine Lea: Making her Hotbuckle Productions debut in Pride & Prejudice at Helmsley Arts Centre

Ryedale play of the week: Hotbuckle Productions in Pride & Prejudice, Helmsley Arts Centre, tonight, 7.30pm

IN artistic director Adrian Preater’s humorous, multi role-playing adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, Hotbuckle Productions enter the world of the Bennets.

From headstrong Elizabeth to proud Mr Darcy, rich characterisations abound as five sisters deal with marriage, morality and misconceptions. “Hotbuckle up for the carriage ride of your life” with Joanna Purslow, Tomas Mason and company newcomer Katherine Lea. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Carl Hutchinson: Storytelling Geordie comic appearing at The Crescent, York

Comedy gig of the week: Carl Hutchinson: Today Years Old, The Crescent, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm

YORK’s Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Geordie comic Carl Hutchinson in his third consecutive back-to-back tour show, Today Years Old. Expect a night of storytelling, rich in observation and physical comedy. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Fiddler in the woods: Alice Atang’s Fiddler, Perri Ann Barley’s Golde and Steve Tearle’s Tevye set the scene for NE Theatre York’s Fiddler On The Roof

Musical of the week: NE Theatre York in Fiddler On The Roof, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

STEVE Tearle directs NE Theatre York in Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein’s musical, taking the role of Tevye, the humble village milkman, for the third time too in this 60th anniversary production.

When three of Tevye’s five daughters rebel against the traditions of arranged marriages by taking matters into their own hands, mayhem unfolds as he strives to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural creeds, against the backdrop of the Tsar’s pogrom edict to evict all Jews from his Russian village in 1905. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Lydea Perkins’ Lady Teazle and Joseph Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal, on tour at York Theatre Royal next week

Touring play of the week: Tilted Wig, Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 7.30pm Saturday matinees

JOSEPH Marcell, fondly remembered as Geoffrey the butler in the American comedy series Fresh Prince of Bel Air, stars in Seán Aydon’s new production of Richard B Sheridan’s comedy of manners The School For Scandal, where gossip never goes out of fashion.

Marcell plays Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but if her husband believes it, maybe she should give it a go. After all, if you are going to cause a scandal, you may as well enjoy it. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Florence Poskitt: Stepping into Kate’s shoes in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew

Seventies’ Shakespeare play of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday

IN a late change of cast, actor-musician Florence Poskitt, from the York musical comedy duo Fladam, is taking over the principal role of Kate in Maggie Smales’s production of Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes, now set in 1970.

A psychedelic world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality, but Kate was born to be wild and wants a voice of her own. The times they are a’changin’ and the old order is dead…or is it? Let battle commence. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Barrie Rutter: Shaking up Shakespeare at Northern Broadsides and beyond

Breaking down the Bard barrier: Barrie Rutter: Shakespeare’s Royals, York Theatre Royal Studio, April 26, 7.45pm; Ripon Theatre Festival, Ripon Cathedral, July 4, 7.30pm

BARRIE Rutter, founder and former director of Northern Broadsides, celebrates the Bard’s kings and queens – their achievements, conquests and foibles – with tales, anecdotes and memories from a career of playing and directing Shakespeare’s Royals.

Told he could never play a king on account of his Yorkshire accent, Hull-born Rutter, now 77, created his own theatre company in 1992 in Halifax to use the northern voice for Shakespeare’s kings, queens and emperors, not only the usual drunken porters, jesters or fools. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Ripon, ripontheatrefestival.org.

Kai West’s poster for Bull’s Live At The Library day on May 19, based on the Cluedo board game design

Gig announcement of the week: Bull present Live At The Library, York Explore Library & Archive, Library Square, York, May 19, from 12 noon

YORK Explore and Please Please You team up with York band Bull for a day of music, art and poetry to celebrate Explore York’s tenth birthday and raise funds for York’s libraries. The climax will be a 6.30pm to 10pm gig by Bull, Marnie Glum, Rowan and performance poet Stu Freestone (tickets, tickettailor.com/events/exploreyorklibrariesandarchives/1216274).

Free activities include open mic-style performances run by Bull frontman Tom Beer in the Marriott Room from midday, featuring Gabbie Lord, Maggie, Gilles, She Choir, Filipe, Old Time Rags, Eve Thomas & Co and more,  plus art workshops for all ages hosted by Izzy Williamson (lino printing, 1pm) and Bull bassist and illustrator Kai West (T-shirt design and screen printing, 12 noon to 2pm) in the Garden Room, with donations welcome.

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2024 Yorkshire Schools Dance Festival cancelled after 242 per cent rise in hire charges at University of York since 2021

THE 2024 Yorkshire Schools Dance Festival will not go ahead.

“A significant increase in venue hire fees puts delivering the event beyond our financial capacity,” says producer Colin Jackson, who describes the annual November event as “the jewel in York’s children and young people’s creative crown”.


In an official statement released today, he states: “The festival has been held at the University of York since 1999. Our long-established and positive relationship with the university combined with the event’s strong community focus saw us attract a subsidised rate for the hire of Central Hall for many years.

“The charges made to cover building hire and staff costs made it an affordable and viable event to run. It meant that we were able to charge schools a reasonable rate to participate, offer wraparound enrichment activities for school staff and students and make the event accessible for all by keeping ticket prices low. It was very much a partnership between us and the university.”

The event was last held at Central Hall, University of York, in 2022. “Despite a 130 per cent increase in the hire rate from the previous year, we were able to balance the books through generous financial support from Yorkshire Dance and other sponsors/donors,” explains Colin.

The festival organisers entered into discussions with York Conferences, who manage bookings for the university, in 2023 and were informed that the hire charges would again rise by another 51 per cent.

“This represented a 242 per cent increase from the 2021 rate,” says Colin. “To provide an illustration, were the hire rates £1,000 in 2021, in 2023 they would have been £3,420. The actual figures and financial increase are, of course, far more.”

The 2023 festival was relocated to the Carriageworks Theatre in Leeds with the hope that the hire rates could be renegotiated for a return to the University of York this year.

“At the end of last year we were told that the figure quoted still stood,” says Colin. “Despite our best efforts since then to achieve additional sponsorship, we have not been able to plug the gap.

“Passing the increased costs on to schools would mean significant increases in the fee to participate and ticket prices. While some schools and families could have afforded this, many would have struggled to either take part or come along to watch and removed our core objective to make the festival wholly inclusive.”

The festival organisers wrote to the University of York’s vice chancellor last year, stressing the festival’s importance for the 1,200 children and young people that took part every year and emphasising the value of the event in supporting the university’s Strategic Vision to exist for public good and the founders’ vision for strong social purpose, combating inequality and opening up access to the campus. “Our approach made no impact,” says Colin.

“Central Hall is the perfect location for the event,” the statement continues. “A large auditorium, backstage areas and additional rooms meant that we could comfortably accommodate the children, young people and staff from schools, as well as the families that came along to watch.”

While the model at The Carriageworks was successful, limited space made for a far smaller event with a reduced number of schools taking part and reduced capacity for audiences.

“At this stage, we feel we have no choice but to cancel the event,” says Colin. “We continue to hope that the university can reconsider their position and see the event for what it is.

“Not only does it have huge benefits for schools, teachers, students and pupils, its impact upon the local economy is marked. The event provided significant employment opportunities for freelance dance artists, freelance event staff and wider providers.

“We know that the festival has put dance on the map in many schools and resulted in enhanced curriculum provision for the subject. It has long been the jewel in York’s children and young people’s creative crown.”

“We have done all we can,” Colin concludes. “If you feel it appropriate to do so, you can make contact with the University of York or York Conferences.

“We must stress that we do not expect the event to make a loss for the university and we recognise that there are financial challenges for them as well as us.

“We suspect, however, that the two weekends in November that are normally earmarked for the festival will see Central Hall either dark or holding events that are not for social purpose, designed to combat inequality or open up access to the campus.”

CharlesHutchPress has contacted the University of York press office this morning for an official response and is awaiting a reply.

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More Things To Do in Ryedale, York and beyond “the carriage ride of your life”. Hutch’s List No. 11, from Gazette & Herald

Katherine Lea: Making her Hotbuckle Productions debut in Pride & Prejudice

BUCKLE up for Austen’s sister act, Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes and Sheridan’s scandalous comedy of manners, plus music, art and poetry in the library, baroque and blues concerts and tragic opera, advises Charles Hutchinson.   

Ryedale play of the week: Hotbuckle Productions in Pride & Prejudice, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

IN artistic director Adrian Preater’s humorous, multi role-playing adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, Hotbuckle Productions enter the world of the Bennets.

From headstrong Elizabeth to proud Mr Darcy, rich characterisations abound as five sisters deal with marriage, morality and misconceptions. “Hotbuckle up for the carriage ride of your life” with Joanna Purslow, Tomas Mason and company newcomer Katherine Lea. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Patricia Qua: Ceramicist and graphic designer taking part in York Open Studios for the first time in Hempland Drive, York

Art around every corner: York Open Studios, Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5pm

AS many as 156 artists and makers who live or work within a ten-mile radius of York will be welcoming visitors to 106 workspaces to show and sell their art, ranging from ceramics, collage, digital, illustration, jewellery and mixed media to painting, print, photography, sculpture, textiles, glass and wood. Among them will be 31 new participants. Full details and a map can be found at yorkopenstudios.co.uk. Look out for booklets around the city too.

Keeping an eye on things: English Touring Opera in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at York Theatre Royal

Opera of the week: English Touring Opera in Manon Lescaut, York Theatre Royal, Friday, 7.30pm

ENGLISH Touring Opera returns to York in Jude Christian radical production of Giacomo Puccini’s heartbreaking Manon Lescaut, for which she brings incisive direction to her sharp, poetic new translation.

Puccini’s 1892 breakthrough hit presents a devastating depiction of a woman wrestling with her desire for love on her own terms and the rigid double standards imposed on her by society. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

London Obbligato Collective: Opening the York Baroque+ Day at the NCEM

Classical concert of the week: London Obbligato Collective, York Baroque+ Day, National Centre for Early Music, York Saturday, 12 noon  

FORMED by Masumi Yamamoto, the new London Obbligato Collective focuses on “accompanied harpsichord sonatas”, where the harpsichord is given the solo role within the trio sonata texture, highlighting and enriching the colours and nuances of the instrument.

Next Saturday’s programme includes 18th century music by Felice Giardini, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Lydea Perkins, as Lady Teazle, and Joseph Marcell, as Sir Peter Teazle, in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal. Picture: Anthony Robling

Touring play of the week: Tilted Wig, Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 7.30pm Saturday matinees

JOSEPH Marcell, fondly remembered as Geoffrey the butler in the American comedy series Fresh Prince of Bel Air, stars in Seán Aydon’s new production of Richard B Sheridan’s comedy of manners The School For Scandal, where gossip never goes out of fashion.

Marcell plays Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but she is starting to think that if her husband believes it, she should give it a go. After all, if you are going to cause a scandal, you may as well enjoy it. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Florence Poskitt: Stepping in to play Kate in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew

Seventies’ Shakespeare play of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday

IN a late change of cast, actor-musician Florence Poskitt, from the York musical comedy duo Fladam, is taking over the principal role of Kate in Maggie Smales’s production of Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes, now set in 1970.

A psychedelic world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality, but Kate was born to be wild and wants a voice of her own. The times they are a’changin’ and the old order is dead…or is it? Let battle commence. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Redfish Blues Band: Returning to Milton Rooms, Malton

Blues gig of the week: Redfish Blues Band, Ryedale Blues Club, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 25, 8pm

NOMINATED for Blues Band of the Year and Blues Album of the Year in the UK 2024 Blues Awards, Redfish Blues Band return to Malton with Christian Sharpe on vocals and guitar, Steve McGuckin on Hammond, Rod Mackay on bass and Steve Gibson on drums.

As witnessed on their Together Is Better album and Soho Rising (Girls, Girls, Girls) single, they play a delicious, bubbling gumbo of blues, soul, gospel and funk in live performances defined by energy and restraint. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Kai West’s poster for Bull’s Live At The Library day on May 19, based on the Cluedo board game design

Gig announcement of the week: Bull present Live At The Library, York Explore Library & Archive, Library Square, York, May 19, from 12 noon

YORK Explore and Please Please You team up with York band Bull for a day of music, art and poetry to celebrate Explore York’s tenth birthday and raise funds for York’s libraries. The climax will be a 6.30pm to 10pm gig by Bull, Marnie Glum, Rowan and performance poet Stu Freestone (tickets, tickettailor.com/events/exploreyorklibrariesandarchives/1216274).

Free activities include open mic-style performances run by Bull frontman Tom Beer in the Marriott Room from midday, featuring Gabbie Lord, Maggie, Gilles, She Choir, Filipe, Old Time Rags, Eve Thomas & Co and more,  plus art workshops for all ages hosted by Izzy Williamson (lino printing, 1pm) and Bull bassist and illustrator Kai West (T-shirt design and screen printing, 12 noon to 2pm) in the Garden Room, with donations welcome.

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York International Shakespeare Festival is under way for 11 days of shows, talks, workshops, exhibition and scratch night

Footsbarn Theatre in Twelfth Night: Making their first British apperance in 15 years at the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival

FOOTSBARN Theatre will premiere their new production of Shakespeare’s bittersweet comedy Twelfth Night in a triumphant return to British soil after 15 years at the York International Shakespeare Festival.

April 27’s evening performance and April 28’s matinee will be followed by a UK and European tour throughout the summer, taking in the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival in Romania next month and Verona International Shakespeare Festival, Italy, in August.

Directed by Sadie Jammett, this will be the first full-scale Shakespeare show to be performed by the iconic travelling theatre company in Great Britain since A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 15 years ago.

Footsbarn began life in Cornwall in 1971 when a group of young performers started rehearsing in the barn of Trewen, a farmhouse near the village of Trewidland. Born out of a dream to create a form of theatre that would be “popular, generous and accessible to all”, the company is noted for performing in its circus big top across the globe. 

In more than 50 years – the last 25 based in Maillet, France – Footsbarn have put their name to most of Shakespeare plays, but this will be their first staging of Twelfth Night. Now, perhaps more than any other time, this play comes into its own by exploring the themes of gender identity that younger generations are bravely bringing to the world’s attention.

Artistic director Sadie Jemmett says: “It was important to choose a production that would continue the great legacy and style of the company while also appealing to a new generation of theatregoers, and I believe that Twelfth Night does just that.”

Established in 2014 to “showcase York adaptations of Shakespeare’s works alongside international  interpretations and to make global Shakespeare accessible to UK audiences from York and beyond”, this month’s event will be the festival’s sixth staging and the first since it became an annual event.

Residents and visitors to York from today until April 28 will find the city filled with powerful, moving shows, lectures by internationally recognised academics, exhibitions and workshops presented by Shakespeare enthusiasts from all over the world.

The festival is in the first year of a three-year sponsorship by York St John University, resulting in the theatre in the new Creative Centre becoming the principal location.

Other partners include York Theatre Royal, York Explore Library, York Shakespeare Project, the Grand Opera House, York, Theatre @41, Monkgate, Riding Lights Theatre Company, Rise @ Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, and many volunteers.

Two world premieres will bookend the festival. Opening the event today will be the European Shakespeare Festivals Network’s ShakeSphere Award Winner 2024, Hamlet: Double Bill from Italy, featuring Hamlet & The Grave Diggers and Hamlet & The Players, selected from 76 proposals. Footsbarn’s visit will be the closing act.

Another recommendation is American actress Debra Ann Byrd’s powerhouse solo show Becoming Othello, chiming with the festival theme of Shakespearean identity, in a Wednesday evening performance and Thursday matinee for schools.

“If we’re talking about an international festival of Shakespeare, we’re talking about Shakespeare morphing with other cultures and then taking shape in their own work,” says festival director Philip Parr.

“Becoming Othello is about a black woman’s journey into theatre – and Debra Ann has had as rough a journey as you could imagine, in New York, where she was told ‘you can’t go to drama school; black women don’t go, and certainly not from Harlem. If you do go, you play maids and servants and certainly not Shakespeare leads’.

“Yet 20 years ago she founded the Harlem Shakespeare Festival. So Becoming Othello is her story, and it’s a brilliant piece of theatre that she worked on at the Shakespeare Institute, with Shakespeare specialists both here and in the United States. The show is really grounded in the nature of Shakespeare.”

In her week-long stay in York, Byrd will be mentor of honour at a Shakespeare Scratch Night at the Grand Opera House and will host workshops in schools too.

Further highlights will include first readings of English translations of Shakespeare inspired plays from Bulgaria and Turkey, and a first-time visit by two Ukrainian actors and a director to work for a week with Philip Parr, leading to two performances tomorrow (20/4/2024).

Literature fans can look forward to a variety of talks and lectures delivered throughout the festival by Shakespearean academics from Europe, Asia, and the Americas, while York Explore will play host to an exhibition of 300 years of representations of Othello.

York youngsters and families will have free or low-cost opportunities to become involved with the festival “to enjoy a bit of Shakespeare”.

Philip says: “This will be the only time this year you will be able to see international theatre in our city. In our fast-changing world, the plays of Shakespeare provide a shared body of work, which explores essential values, and which is capable of infinite reinvention.

“They create a space in which we can exchange ideas, explore our differences, and find our common ground. We’re excited to be creating such a space in York.”

Tickets and full programme details are available at yorkshakes.co.uk/programme-2024.

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Husthwaite Players head to the woods in Lottie Alexander’s staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Husthwaite Village Hall

Effie Warboys’ Helena, Sam Strickland’s Lysander and Rachael Williams’s Hermia in rehearsal for Husthwaite Players’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream. All pictures: Jack Wells

LOTTIE Alexander directs Husthwaite Players in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Husthwaite Village Hall, near Easingwold, from April 25 to 27.

“What happens when characters – and audiences and readers – are moved from the known to the unknown, from order to disorder?” asks Lottie. “When they step outside their everyday life and enter into a strange dimension, such as the island in Lord Of The Flies, or Neverland, or the wood in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

“The wood is the centre of Shakespeare’s play, a place inhabited by fairies, ruled over by Titania and Oberon, whose quarrel has had the effect of altering the seasons. The disruptive interaction of the fairies with the mortals who dare to enter the forest, the lovers, and the artisans rehearsing their play, forms the major part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Despite the play being set in Athens, the wood and the fairies are thoroughly English, as are the artisans who perform their play for Duke Theseus. “Our production is set in 1918 – and the setting is appropriate,” says Lottie.

Marcus Pickstone’s Oberon stands overThomas Jennings’s Demetrius as they rehearse for Husthwaite Players’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“In 1917, in England, the photographs, taken by two young girls, of cut-out paper fairies deceived many in England, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. From the 18th century, England was changed forever, as the Industrial Revolution drove the change from rural life to the new mechanized society, and the countryside was swallowed up by railways and urban and suburban sprawl.

“As a reaction, the interest in stories of fairies and magic abounded, folk tales and ballads were collected by antiquarians, and Spiritualism flourished, particularly post-war.”

Lottie continues: “In the play, Theseus explains to Hippolyta that it is easy for mortal minds to be confused by unusual images and experiences, and, as Puck reminds the audience at the play’s end, it may all have been a dream.”

Casting an eye over her company, Lottie says: “We are a village with a small community, and most of our players are local, but we have been lucky enough to be able to attract outside talent in several of our previous productions.

Thisbe, left, The Wall and Pyramus in the “Wall Play” finale to Husthwaite Players’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“For A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we have four talented and dedicated players as our young lovers: Effie Warboys (Helena), Thomas Jennings (Demetrius), Rachael Williams (Hermia) and Sam Strickland (Lysander). Effie and Thomas have most recently performed with the York Shakespeare Project.”

Look out too for Ray Alexander, past director of York Mystery Plays and York Settlement Community Players productions, making an ass of himself in the role of Nick Bottom, the weaver.

“We hope audiences will enjoy our production. After all, as Philip Henslowe says in the film Shakespeare in Love: ‘Comedy, love and a bit with a dog. That’s what they want’!”

Husthwaite Players in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, April 25 to 27, 7.30pm; doors 7pm. Tickets: £10, children £5, family £25; 07836 721775 or email sheila_mowatt@btinternet.com.

Husthwaite Players’ poster for Lottie Alexander’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Cast

Duke Theseus: Paul Hampshire

Hippolyta: Rachael Bice

Philostrate: Euan Crawshaw

Egeia: Lydia Ebdon

Hermia: Rachael Williams

Demetrius: Thomas Jennings

Lysander: Sam Strickland

Helena: Effie Warboys

Polly Quince: Stella McDevitt

Nick Bottom: Ray Alexander

Francis Flute: David Aspinall

Robin Starveling: Jane Cluley

Sally Snug: Sheila Mowatt

Puck: Scott Lammas

Celandine: Bethan Simpson

Oberon: Marcus Pickstone

Titania: Emma Kissack

Conker (the dog):  Himself

Fairies and sprites played by Hustwaite children.

Production team

Director: Lottie Alexander

Set design: Ray Alexander

Scenic artists: Sorrel Price, Emma Kissack

Wardrobe: Lynn Colton, Julia Hampshire

Props: Liz Walton, Doreen French

Stage management: Stephen Barker, Simon Eedle