Category: Theatre

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 8, from Gazette & Herald

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.

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REVIEW: York Settlement Community Players in Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, until Saturday ****

Child’s play: Mark Simmonds’ Willie impersonating a bomber plane in Blue Remembered Hills. Picture: John Saunders

FLEUR Hebditch, former Stephen Joseph Theatre dramaturg for a decade in Scarborough, is making her Settlement Players directorial debut with Dennis Potter’s stage adaptation of his 1979 BBC Play For Today drama.

She brings together actors very familiar to York audiences (Mark Simmonds, Victoria Delaney, Jess Murray), three from York Theatre Royal’s 2025 community play, His Last Report (Andrew Wrenn, Jon Cook and Thom Feeney) and one who moved to York only four months ago (Rich Wareham).

Each is playing a seven-year-old child on a hot summer’s day in the Forest of Dean in wartime 1943, where their child’s play in the woods mimics and mirrors the adult world at war, whether Simmonds’ Willie dive-bombing like a war plane or impersonating the bogeyman figure of an escaped Italian prisoner of war from a nearby camp.

Jess Murray’s Audrey, left, and Victoria Delaney’s Angela in Blue Remembered Hills. Picture: John Saunders

Each is pictured in their programme profile aged seven – the director included – whether with big glasses, bigger teeth, white hair band, a giant Rupert Bear, an apple-cheeked cheeky grin or reading a comic.

No pictorial aid, however, is needed to see their transformation into Potter’s West Country boys and girls, one achieved through movement, mannerism, voice and Judith Ireland’s typically exemplary wardrobe, from the boys’ 1940s’ tank tops and baggy shorts to Murray’s Audrey in dungarees and Delaney’s Angela, forever pushing a pram and carrying a dolly, in cornfield yellow party dress and matching bows in her hair.

Simmonds and Wareham retain full beards but the boy inside emerges through the bristle thicket. Richard Hampton’s set design could be a child’s primitive drawing: to one side, barn doors with a milk churn, pail and straw bale inside; to the other, a painterly tree; in the centre, an expanse of grass, all seen as if through the children’s perspective.

All eyes are on Andrew Wrenn’s John, left, as Jon Cook’s Raymond, Victoria Delaney’s Angela, Mark Simmonds’ Willie, Rich Wareham’s Peter and Jess Murray’s Audrey look on. Picture: John Saunders

As sage ancient Greek philosopher and polymath Aristotle proclaimed: “Give a me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.” In turn, Potter will show you both the man and the woman, and the inner child within both, as he “takes you back to your own childhoods, the laughter, the fun,  the freedom, but also the heartache and pain”.

That heartache and pain is expressed in the absence of fathers, away on war duty, both in tears and the boastful my-dad’s better/bigger/smarter/more important-than-yours fisticuffs of Wareham’s Peter and Wrenn’s John, and in the teasing of Feeney’s loner Donald “Duck”, hiding away, playing on his own in the barn.

There is machismo menace beneath the surface, much like in William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies, as adult traits are forged in the children’s pecking order that finds Cook’s kindly, gentle Raymond always playing second or, rather, fourth fiddle to ringleader  Peter, John  and Willie. 

Victoria Delaney’s Angela and Thom Feeney’s Donald “Duck”

Or fifth fiddle, if you were to include the never-seen but respected leader Wallace Wilson. The girls, meanwhile, don’t compete for such roles, Murray’s Audrey fitting in as a tomboy and Delaney’s Angela as an aspirational mother in the making.   

Hebditch asked her actors not only to connect with their inner child (Delaney incidentally first trod the Theatre Royal boards aged eight), but also to “focus on instinct rather than intellectual consequences”.  Good advice that bears fruit in performances that capture how “emotions flit in the blink of an eye” and “relish in the pure emotions of children”.

Performances are suitably individual too yet collectively excellent, full of the freedom to play like children in Rowntree Park, yet darkened by the claustrophobic shadow of war, even amid the bucolic beauty of the woods.

Blue Remembered Hills director Fleur Hebditch

Like Donald, Hebditch lights a match under Potter’s play, then watches it catch fire and burn with increasingly fierce heat.

As the children blame each other, then exonerate themselves of any guilt – it was ever thus in the slithering grown-up world too – an adult voice reads from A E Housman’s poem that gave Potter’s play its title with its account of the happy highways making way for the land of lost content.

The play makes that very same journey, from fun to fear, from afternoon tease to sucker punch, from innocence to experience, all too quickly to need an interval. Short, and sharp as Willie’s cooking apple, Blue Remembered Hills still shocks.

York Settlement Community Players, Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, until February 28, 7.45pm nightly, resuming Tuesday to Saturday, plus 2pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Fisticuffs: Andrew Wrenn’s John, left, clashes Rich Wareham’s bully Peter as Victoria Delaney’s Angela and Jess Murray’s Audrey egg them on. Picture: John Saunders

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REVIEW: Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park, Tour, Pocklington Arts Centre, Feb 20 ****

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.”

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More Things To Do in York & beyond as greatest showman shows up & abbey lights up. Hutch’s List No. 7, from The York Press

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/.

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REVIEW: Jodie Comer in Prima Facie, Grand Opera House, York, and on tour *****

Jodie Comer’s defence lawyer Tessa Ensler in Prima Facie. Picture: Rankin

YOU won’t see a better performance in York this year, but chances are, you won’t see it, as all eight shows sold out within 20 minutes of general sales opening 11 months ago.

Killing Eve star Jodie Comer is completing her Prima Facie journey with a nine-city tour, revisiting the remarkable role that brought her both Olivier Award and Tony Award success in Australian lawyer-turned-playwright Suzie Miller’s solo play.

The Grand Opera House last had such a pre-show buzz when Six The Musical played York for the first time in October 2022, building all the more for Wednesday night’s 7.30pm start as the clock ticked towards 7.45pm.

Then, suddenly, the pre-show music desisted, and there was Comer’s defence lawyer Tessa Ensler, atop a table, frozen for the only moment in silhouette on Miriam Buether’s set of row upon row of case-note files. For the next 100 minutes, she will not stop, draw breath, save for the only costume not conducted on stage, when a drenching in the rain necessitates an exit, also allowing the plotline to move forward 1,016 days.

Comer does everything, and I do mean everything, not only voicing every character in the reportage style of Miller’s writing, but even turning the tables physically as the tables turn on her metaphorically in an adrenalised shock of a performance as Miller’s Prima Facie  “takes us to the heart of where emotion and experience collide with the rules of the game”.  

That game is the game of law, where the playing pitch is the courtroom and Comer’s Tessa is the working-class Liverpool lass-turned-Cambridge-educated defence lawyer hotshot, showing off her case-winning skills to a percussive beat in a razzle-dazzle opening to Justin Martin’s searing production that could swap the wig and gown for top hat and tails.

We learn that a defence lawyer’s modus operandi has one over-riding rule: “It’s not what you know; it’s what you don’t know,” Tessa says. As in, not knowing whether the defendant did in fact commit the crime.

We learn too that in a world where we now have the Donald Trump-trademarked “alternative truth”, as well as half truths, lies, damned lies and statistics, we have “legal truth”. Not “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” of the oath to be taken on the Bible when entering the dock or witness box, but what constitutes the truth in law. A kind of law unto itself.

In a nutshell, Comer’s Tessa goes from defending the defendant at all costs to being put through the prosecution grilling herself after she is sexually assaulted. You forget you are a watching a play; you are living every moment, as Tessa is.

 A barrister is often compared with an actor, with the need to perform, to express skill at delivery of lines, supplemented by a keen sense of the moment, and above all the ability to move an audience/jury. Here, in Comer’s hands, the two fuse into one, her performance so complete that I hesitate to call it a performance.

And yet, of course, it is: acting of the highest quality, a tour-de-force feat of movement and memory and emotion, of initial humour, then horror, steely resolve and despair, a woman operating in what is still a man’s world, where the jury numbers eight men to four women, and the defendant has all his braying buddies in the gallery. 

No wonder, this tour carries the tagline  “Something Has To Change”, a sentiment topped off by 1 In 3 (I’m Fine), the climactic song of the startling soundtrack by Self Esteem’s Rebecca Lucy Taylor .

Your reviewer – and yes, I did pay for a prime stalls seat, in the absence of press tickets – has not seen such furious, relentless female intensity since Diana Rigg in Medea in more than 40 years of reviewing.

Prima Facie is a Greek tragedy for today, and on her return to a North Yorkshire stage for the first time since her professional debut as spoilt, mouthy but bright Ruby in the Stephen Joseph Theatre world premiere of Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything in November 2010, Jodie Comer affirms she is a talent for the ages.  

Prima Facie, Grand Opera House, York, tonight, 7.30pm; tomorrow, 3pm and 7.30pm. SOLD OUT.

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Wharfemede Productions to waltz its way into Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at Theatre@41 from February 24 to 28

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

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 7, from Gazette & Herald

Victoria Delaney in rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ Blue Remembered Hills. Picture: John Saunders

FROM Dennis Potter to Stephen Sondheim, showman  P.T. Barnum to a Phil Collins tribute, Charles Hutchinson is spoilt for cultural choice amid the incessant rainfall.

Play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, tonight to February 28, 7.45pm, except Sunday and Monday; February 21 and 28, 2pm 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. Their innocence is short lived, however, as reality hits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Blue Remembered Hills director Fleur Hebditch

Spooky adventure of the week: Flying Ducks Youth Theatre in The Addams Family Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow  to Saturday, 7pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee

YORK company Flying Ducks Youth Theatre undertake a whimsical, spooky musical adventure into the delightfully dark world of the hauntingly eccentric Addams Family on a night of unexpected revelations.

When Wednesday Addams falls in love with a “normal” boy, chaos ensues. As the two families converge over dinner, secrets are revealed and the true meaning of family is put to the test. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Kathryn Williams: Opening Mystery Park Tour at Pocklington Arts Centre

Time’s shifting tides of the week: Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park Tour 2026, Pocklington Arts Centre, Friday, 8pm

KATHRYN Williams, the Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based folk singer-songwriter, novelist, podcaster, tutor and artist long celebrated for her quiet emotional depth and lyrical precision, promotes her 15th studio album, last September’s Mystery Park, with support and special guest guitarist Matt Deighton in tow.

Opening her 12-date tour in Pocklington, 2000 Mercury Music Prize nominee Williams marks 27 years of diverse, multi-faceted music projects with a reflective, textured work, made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides. “This is the most personal record I’ve made,” she says. “The 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.” Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Megson’s Debs Hanna and Stu Hanna: Performing at Helmsley Arts Centre on Friday

Folk gig of the week: Megson, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm

FOUR-TIME BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards nominees and double Spiral Earth Awards winners Megson combine heavenly vocals, lush harmonies and driving rhythmic guitars, topped off with northern humour. 

Hailing from Teesside and now based in Cambridgeshire, husband-and-wife folk roots duo Debs Hanna (vocals, whistle, piano accordion) and Stu Hanna (guitar, mandola, banjo) followed up 2023 studio album What Are We Trying To Say with Megson – Live In Teesside, recorded at Stockton-on-Tees Arc in 2025. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Ryedale film event of the week: Summit Stories, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm

THIS evening of adventure films to raise funds for the Scarborough & Ryedale branch of Mountain Rescue England & Wales features a variety of exciting off-piste adventures, such as ski mountaineering, mountain climbing and mountain biking.

Created by elite athletes from around the world, the Faction Collective’s 150 Hours From Home, Blair Aitken of British Backcountry’s 10 In A Weekend, Commencal’s Dolomites and Jessie Leong’s The Last Forgotten Art contain scenes to take the breath away. The mountain rescue team, by the way, supports adventurers when things go wrong and conducts  day-to-day searches and rescues off the beaten track. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.

Seriously Collins: Taking Phil Collins at Face Value in tribute to solo and Genesis years at Milton Rooms, Malton

Tribute gig of the week: Seriously Collins – A Tribute To Phil Collins & Genesis, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 8pm

RETURNING by popular demand, Seriously Collins relive the hits of Phil Collins and Genesis, taking a musical journey through the songs that defined an era, echoing Collins’s soulful solo sound and re-creating the energy, intricacy and intensity of his more expansive original band. Expect “no gimmicks, just a genuine tribute to one of the greatest artists of our time”. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Lee Mead, centre, as showman P. T. Barnum, surrounded by actor musicians and circus acts in Barnum: The Circus Musical, on tour 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.

Maggie Smales’s Madame Armfeldt and Libby Greenhill’s Fredrika rehearsing 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-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 York company’s hallmark attention to emotional depth, musical high quality and character-driven ensemble storytelling. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Levellers: Revisiting Levelling The Land at York Barbican this autumn. Picture: Steve Gullick

Gig announcement of the week: Levellers, Levelling The Land 35th Anniversary Tour, 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 built in part 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. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 10am from https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/levellers-2026/.

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Neil Wood & Annabel van Griethuysen vow to make each night a good night as Martyn Knight says goodnight to York Light

Neil Wood’s Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks and Hope Day’s Annie in York Light Opera Company’s Annie at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

FOR Neil Wood, playing rich, paternalist 1930s’ Wall Street industrialist Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks in Annie takes him away from the dark side after such York Light Opera Company roles as the villainous Mr Bumble in Oliver!, corrupt lawyer Callaghan in Legally Blonde The Musical and, above all, the cut-throat Sweeney in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.

For Annabel van Griethuysen, the drunken orphanage proprietor Miss Hannigan fulfils her long-held wish to play “one of my favourite characters in one of my favourite musicals”.

Both the leading adult players in the ongoing run at York Theatre Royal are working with director-choreography Martyn Knight for the last time in his swan song to York Light after 22 shows.

“We only found out at the Sunday rehearsal on January 25 when he suddenly announced it,” says Neil. “I’ve only managed six of his shows as I’m a York Light late-bloomer, but he really knows his stuff and is an amazing director. We want full houses all week to give him a fitting send-off.”

Annabel concurs: “Martyn has brought a level of expertise that I’ve not seen in any other director. He brings out the best in everyone, where he has this vision and the practical skills to bring that vision to life, such as in knowing how to move people around the set.

Annabel van Griethuysen’s Miss Hannigan with Martin Lay’s Rooster in York Light’s Annie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

“He’s going to be very sorely missed at York Light. He brings his own style, where you can tell you’re watching a Martyn Knight production because there is such professionalism to his work. He inspires you to want to work hard and you don’t want to let him down. You want to make him proud of you, and it’s such an honour to work with him.”

Annabel is performing under Martyn’s direction for the fourth time. “I made my York Light debut for him as Sarah Brown in Guys And Dolls in 2018, played Widow Corney in Oliver!, then something completely different as Aquata with blue hair and Heelys [roller shoes] in Little Mermaid, and now Miss Hannigan,” she says.

“It’s been a real journey for me. I’m pleased for Martyn that he’s decided it’s time to focus on himself, but I really hope he will still come up to York to see us because he will always be welcome.

“I’m so glad to have been able to work so closely with him on Miss Hannigan for his swan song, having come such a long way since playing Sarah Brown.”

Neil is enjoying playing the larger-than-life Oliver Warbucks, albeit hoping for better luck than he had in Legally Blonde last February. “I had to play Callahan with a broken arm: it happened just a week before we opened, so they’re wrapping me in cotton wool this time,” he says.

Neil Wood’s Professor Callahan in York Light’s Legally Blonde The Musical last February

“Warbucks is a lovely fellow, and what’s nice is that you don’t have to play to the stereotype of the bullish billionaire. Martyn lets you find your own character. It’s about finding the caring side of Warbucks, his vulnerability. For a man who is so important, so rich, and has all these people cow-towing to him, it’s orphan Annie’s humanity that catches him off-guard.

“If it were not for Grace Farrell [his personal secretary] being that solid foundation in his life, goodness knows how he would be. Myself and Sarah Craggs [playing Grace] have sat down with Martyn and Kathryn [assistant director Kathryn Addison] to settle on how their relationship should play out, as they need to be seen as real people, rather than being cartoon characters, so that you empathise with them.”

Central to his characterisation is the decision to include the rarely used Why Should I Change A Thing? “I’ve not seen it in a previous production. In fact, the only time I found a version was from a 30th anniversary recording where they included everything, but it’s a delightful song that follows Easy Street and finds Warbucks at his most vulnerable.

“It’s lovely to be able to sing it and it reflects how his philanthropic side develops the more the show progresses,  how he changes from being almost frightened of children to inviting all the orphanage children to his mansion at Christmas.”

Annabel is revelling in playing the villainous Miss Hannigan. “She’s one of those roles I’ve always wanted to play,” she says. “I first fell in love with Carol Burnett’s performance [in the 1982 film adaptation], when I nearly wore out the VHS watching it again and again.

Annabel van Griethuysen’s Lithuanian vamp of a show hostess, Marlene Cabana, in York Light’s Eurobeat: Pride Of Europe

“Miss Hannigan is just such fun because she’s so horrible but so lovable in being so horrible – and I love interacting with the children so much, trying to get them to giggle at me in rehearsals.

 “I definitely feel like they were scared of me at first, but as the weeks and months have gone by, that’s disappeared and they’re now giving it so much energy.

“On top of that, the songs that Miss Hannigan gets to sing are some of the best songs in musical theatre [from Little Girls to Easy Street], so it’s an absolute honour to play her.”

As for playing a drunkard, Annabel says: “I’m just method acting. What’s important is that you don’t go over the top and stumble just because she’s a chronic drinker. It’s in her physicality that her drunkenness comes out: that sense of imbalance, rather than staggering around as you don’t want her to be a caricature.

“She mustn’t become a pantomime villain, when she does have some small redeeming features, however small. When things gets tough, that’s when she reaches for the bottle, as she lurches from one emotion to another.”

On Easy Street: Chloe Jones’s Lily St Regis, left, Martin Lay’s Rooster and Annabel van Griethuysen’s Miss Hannigan in York Light’s Annie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

Her big number is Little Girls. “That’s my favourite. I’ve worked with Paul [musical director Paul Laidlaw] to really put some light and shade into it, so it’s not just a belter, but there’s some comedy in there too,” she says.

Annabel previously played an equally tyrannical loose cannon as spoof Eurovision hostess Marlene Cabana, the glamorous Lichtenstein singing star with an Alpine European accent befitting a Bond Girl of Sean Connery days, in York Light’s Eurobeat: Pride Of Europe at Theatre@41, Monkgate, last July, directed by Neil incidentally.

“What’s similar is their need for control. Marlene was guiding things and Miss Hannigan is the same,” she says. “She’s trying to control the children, trying to control the orphanage and trying to control Grace Farrell too.

“But audiences love seeing someone get their comeuppance – and right at the end she gets her full comeuppance!”

York Light Opera Company in Annie, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus.  Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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Lee Mead walks the tightrope in most challenging role of career as showman P. T. Barnum in Barnum: The Circus Musical

Lee Mead’s American showman P. T. Barnum in Barnum: The Circus Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith

LEE Mead will lead the cast as legendary circus showman, businessman and politician P. T. Barnum in Bill Kenwright Ltd’s tour of Barnum: The Circus Musical at the Grand Opera House, York, from February 24 to 28.

West End performer and television star Mead, now 44, made his breakthrough when winning the BBC One reality show Any Dream Will Do in 2007, going on to star in the Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat tour that brought him to the Cumberland Street  theatre in 2010.

Lee is no stranger to Barnum, first playing the show-hosting Ringmaster in a school production when he was 13 or 14 in his home town of Southend-on-Sea.

“I had such a brilliant time and I thought the story and the characters were wonderful. And it had all these fantastic songs, like Come Follow The  Band, The Colours Of My Life and There Is A Sucker Born Every Minute.”

Lee’s friend Chris was cast in the lead role. “And he was a great Barnum, but I remember thinking, ‘It would be lovely to play that part one day’.”

Now, three decades later, his wish has come true at last as he headlines a lavish new UK tour of the 1980 musical by Cy Coleman (music), Michael Stewart (lyrics) and Mark Bramble (book).

Barnum: The Circus Musical tells the story of legendary American showman, marketing genius and master of spectacle P.T. Barnum, who revolutionised entertainment in the 1800s through the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the Greatest Show on Earth.

Premiered on Broadway in 1980 and fronted by Michael Crawford at the London Palladium in 1981, ahead of a UK tour, the show has been revived numerous times since, both here and around the world.

As he steps into the ring for the 2026 tour, Lee says: “It’s an absolute classic and I can’t quite believe I now get to play Barnum some 30 years after that school production. I think I must have somehow manifested it.”

“This is definitely my most challenging role,” says Lee Mead of playing P. T. Barnum

Barnum’s tour show is directed by Jonathan O’Boyle, choreographed by Strictly Come Dancing alumna Oti Mabuse and features more than 20 actor-musicians, alongside acrobats and international circus acts.

Starring as Barnum is not only a dream come true for the Any Dream Will Do winner but also an homage to his grandfather Bert and grandmother Lil, who did not have much money, meaning that a trip to the theatre was very rare for them.

“But they saved up for a year and a half to see Barnum at the London Palladium and they loved it,” says Lee. “It stayed with them their whole lives. Sadly they’re no longer with us, but I know they would have been so proud to see me in it. Every performance is going to be for them.”

Since Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Lee has starred in Wicked, Legally Blonde, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chicago and Sister Act and plenty besides. “But this is definitely my most challenging role,” he says.

“It’s one of those rare roles for a leading man. It’s an enormous part, with huge monologues and so many songs, and I don’t think I leave the stage for two hours, apart from the interval of course.”

Then add the tightrope walking, a discipline that has required several months of intense training for Lee. “It’s the kind of thing you learn at 24, not 44,” he says. “I’ve had to get myself fit and put in the work. The rope is about 7ft off the ground and, although I trained with a harness on, there’s no harness during the show itself.

“You have to use your whole body, your whole core and every ounce of your focus and energy to get across that wire, but I like a challenge.”

Does he play an instrument too in this actor-musician show? “I don’t, no. I already have enough to do with the acting, singing, dancing and tightrope walking!” he says.

Lee Mead in the poster image for Bill Kenwright Ltd’s tour of Barnum: The Circus Musical

As with Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman, the musical looks at the real man behind the on-stage showman, not least how he had a wife named Charity but became infatuated with Swedish singer Jenny Lind.

“So he’s a flawed character, as most human beings are,” muses Lee. “As an actor, it’s interesting to explore that side of him alongside all the spectacle. It makes for great drama.”

When researching the role, “it was interesting to learn about Barnum’s tenacity and his drive, which I think you have to have to be as successful as he was,” says Lee. “At times he kind of put his wife to one side, even though she was so supportive and loving, so I guess you could say that he was very selfish.

“But he wanted the world to see all these amazing acts that he brought together, like the oldest woman in the world, Joice Heth and General Tom Thumb. It was his passion.”

Lee picks The Colours Of My Life as his favourite song in the show “because the melody is beautiful and it’s about him trying to explain to Charity why he is the way he is, with all the different colours to him as a person and why he wants to light people up, entertain them and make them happy,” he says.

Since his schooldays productions of Barnum and Grease, Lee has enjoyed the camaraderie of the stage life and the chance to lose himself in different characters. “Then, as time went on, I discovered I had a bit of a talent for it and I worked really hard, trying to get better and better,” he says.

He attended Whitehall Performing Arts College in Essex, performed on the Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry and at Bridlington Spa Theatre, played Levi and the Pharaoh in a touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and was in the The Phantom Of The Opera ensemble in the West End.

Any Dream Will Do then launched him to stardom. “It was a bit of a blur, although I remember certain moments in detail, so it was very surreal,” he recalls of competing on the BBC One talent show in front of a panel that included composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and impresario Bill Kenwright, winning the public vote and then playing the lead at London’s Adelphi Theatre.

Oh what a circus: Lee Mead’s P. T. Barnum, centre with actor-musicians, acrobats and circus acts in Barnum: The Circus Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

“You never think anything like that would ever happen to you, and the TV show was seen by around 13 million viewers every week. Even now, more than 18 years later, I get people stopping me in the street or at the supermarket and saying that they voted for me. I feel very blessed, because it opened up all the parts that have come my way since.”

His subsequent career highlights include performing at the London Palladium on his 40th birthday with a full orchestra as he followed in the footsteps of legends such as  Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland.

Singing in front of H.M. The Queen and the Royal Family at the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2019 is way up there too, along with playing Caracticus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

“I remember seeing it as a teenager, with Michael Ball in the lead and thinking ‘I’m going to play that role one day’. Again, as with Barnum, I must have manifested it somehow,” says Lee.

His television work has included stints as Nurse Lofty Chiltern on Casualty and Holby City, but his appearance as himself on Motherland drew the biggest response from the public. “I played Lofty for five years in total but I’ve had more people stop me and ask about Motherland, even though I was only in one episode. That’s the one thing in my career that I haven’t done yet that I would love to do:  to have a recurring role in a sitcom.”

For now, however, Lee is focusing on Barnum. “I get to be in one of the greatest, most iconic musicals ever,” he says. “I’m still in shock that I’ve landed the part, to be honest, and I can’t wait to take it around the country and to see the smiles on the audience’s faces.”

Lee Mead stars in Barnum: The Circus Musical at Grand Opera House, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york. 

Also Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, March 31 to April 4, 7.30pm plus 2pm Wednesday & Thursday matinees and 2.30pm Saturday matinee, 01274 432000 or https://www.bradford-theatres.co.uk/;  Hull New Theatre, June 2 to 6, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees, https://www.hulltheatres.co.uk/

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REVIEW: York Light Opera Company in Annie, York Theatre Royal, the sun’ll come out, tomorrow to Saturday ****

Harriet Wells’s Annie with Primrose’s Sandy in York Light Opera Company’s Annie at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

ANNIE is Watford-based director Martyn Knight’s swan song with York Light Opera Company after 22 shows over two decades of working with “such a wonderful theatre ‘family’”.

All that travelling north to make the Light shine brightly has been rubber-stamped by Knight being made an honorary life member, and he leaves with a sparkling account of Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan’s 1977 musical.

He knows Annie so well – this is his fifth production – but by comparison, York Light has not revisited the show since 2001 when the late titan of the York am-dram stage, Bev Jones, was at the helm as director, choreographer and conductor. “No nonsense but great,” as Gemma Kirk, one of his Annies, described him in her 2026 programme recollections, grateful for his guidance into “what it’s like in the real world of performing”.

In turn, Martyn Knight believes the greatest joy of Annie is the chance to see young talent blossom, in this case in the nine-strong Yellow Team (on press night) and Blue Team of orphans, being nurtured under the erratic, maladroit tutelage of Annabel van Griethuysen’s ever-tipsy Miss Hannigan under the shadow of the Wall Street Depression in 1933 New York City.

Martin Lay’s Rooster and Annabel van Griethuysen’s Miss Hannigan. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

Among those orphans is the precocious, wilful Annie, a role shared between Harriet Wells, so impressive as Young Alison in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Fun Home at York Medical Society last year, and Hope Day, whose stage credits list already takes in the Grand Opera House pantomime Beauty And The Beast, Opera North’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jemima Potts in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and York Theatre Royal’s 2023 community play Sovereign.

It was all Wells that starts Wells on press night ­– Day’s nights would follow – as Harriet affirmed all that promise in Fun Home in a musical production on a much grander stage and scale. She looked every inch at home as much as Primrose, the four-year-old Golden Labrador, in the role of Sandy, the stray dog she befriends on the Big Apple’s impoverished streets.

Harriet’s Annie, she of the ginger hair and eternal optimism, is the show’s driving force, determined to find her long-missing parents. Her opening song may be Maybe, but she has the positivity of Definitely, not Maybe. Harriet has the nascent singing chops, the American accent, and all the indefatigable energy, reminiscent of Judy Garland’s Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz.

Director-choreographer Knight and assistant director Kathryn Addison bring out the full characterisation in Miss Hannigan’s cheeky, defiant orphans (Yellow Team members Elizabeth Reece’s Duffy, Sophie Helme’s Pepper, Perdie Rolfe’s July, Belle Sturdy-Flannery’s Tessie, Bea Wells’s Kate, Lottie Barnes’s Lizzie, Leonore Thornton’s Lilly and the particularly exuberant Emilia Cole’s Molly). Their dancing is so full of joy; their singing in It’s The Hard Knock Life a thrill rather than shrill.

Neil Wood’s Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks with Hope Day’s Annie in York Light’s Annie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

Knight’s first instinct was that Annabel van Griethuysen – who he first directed in her York Light debut in Guys And Dolls in 2018 – might be a little young for the sozzled sourpuss role of Miss Hannigan, but her audition had “Cast me”  written all over it, he said.

As her programme profile states, Miss Hannigan is “one of my favourite characters in one of my favourite musicals”, and that assertion is matched by van Griethuysen’s woozy headache of a performance: that skill of ‘drunk’ acting, flask in hand, but without overplaying it, so that there is still humour, even pathos, in her villainy: at once a lush, but louche. She’s a mighty fine singer too, caustic in Little Girls, full of bravado in Easy Street.

From Mr Bumble in Oliver to Callaghan in Legally Blonde and especially cut-throat Sweeney in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, Neil Wood has put the dark into York Light shows aplenty, but here he shines as principled industrialist Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, influential friend of the President.

Warbucks may have a house full of servants and famous paintings (latest acquisition, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa), but something is missing from a life fuelled by making money and the need to reopen his factories. Annie, the orphan he gives a home for Christmas, opens his heart with her belief that “the sun’ll come out tomorrow”.

Lottie Barnes, Sophie Helme, Belle Sturdy-Flannery and Emilia Cole from the Yellow Team’s Orphans

Wood’s partnership with Wells’s Annie is delightful – Warbucks blooms as she blossoms – while his singing is full of warmth, conviction and resonance, assertive in N.Y.C, questioning himself in Why Should I Change A Thing? and reflective in Something Was Missing.

Sarah Craggs’s unflappable Grace Farrell is ever supportive of Annie and Warbucks alike; Martin Lay’s Rooster and Chloe Jones’s Lily St Regis bring bags of wrong’un personality to grafter duo Rooster and Lily St Regis; Richard Weatherill makes a dapper radio show presenter, Bert Healy, performing Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile so perkily with Pascha Turnbull, Clare Meadley and Rhian Wells, who amuse as vintage harmony act The Boylan Sisters.

Fifty years after his York Light debut in Showboat (“when half the cast ‘blacked up’,” he recalled in conversation post-show), John Hall  brings gravitas to President Roosevelt, his singing as powerful  as ever. Paul Laidlaw’s orchestra enrich every number, Scenic Projects’ set design and The Loft Costumes’ costumes are colourful and smart, adding to the high quality of Knight’s fantastic finale to his York Light years.

York Light Opera Company in Annie, York Theatre Royal, resuming tomorrow until February 21, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Chloe Jones’s Lily St Regis, left, Martin Lay’s Rooster and Annabel van Griethuysen’s Miss Hannigan performing Easy Street in York Light’s Annie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography