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More Things To Do in and around York when not banished to ‘see you later, self-isolator’. List No. 41, courtesy of The Press, York

Rick Astley: Soul favourite’s post-racing show is a definite runner at York Racecourse tomorrow evening

IT ain’t worth a thing if it got that confounded ping, but let’s hope this NHS Covid app hazard does not apply to any of Charles Hutchinson’s suggestions as Step 4 starts to kick in.

Outdoor concerts of the week in York: York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, Rick Astley, Friday evening; McFly, Saturday late-afternoon

YORK Racecourse was never gonna give up on Rick Astley performing on a race day, even if the original show had to fall by the wayside last summer. Sure enough, the Newton-le-Willows soul crooner, 55, has been re-booked for tomorrow for a post-racing live set.

McFly: Promising Young Dumb Thrills at York Racecourse on Saturday

After Saturday afternoon’s race card, the re-formed McFly will combine such favourites as All About You, Obviously and 5 Colours In Her Hair with songs from their 2020 return, Young Dumb Thrills, such as Happiness, Tonight Is The Night and You’re Not Special. The County Stand has reached capacity for Saturday already.

Friday’s racing starts at 6pm; Saturday, at 2.05pm. For tickets, go to: yorkracecourse.co.uk.

Rachel Podger: The violinist plays, after self-isolation, for online viewing from the York Early Music Festival. Picture: Theresa Pewal

Online concert home entertainment of the week: Rachel Podger, The Violinist Speaks, York Early Music Festival

WHEN Baroque violinist Rachel Podger fell victim to the dreaded “pingdemic”, she had to forego her July 13 concert performance, condemned to self-isolate instead.

In stepped Florilegium violinist Bojan Cicic to play the very same Bach, Tartini and Biber repertoire at St Lawrence Church, Hull Road, at only three hours’ notice.

Rachel, however, subsequently recorded The Violinist Speaks without an audience at the NCEM for a digital livestream premiere at 7.30pm last Saturday. This online concert is now available on demand until August 13; on sale until August 9 at:  ncem.co.uk/events/rachel-podger-online/ncem.co.uk

Twinnie: Twinning with Velma Celli for tomorrow’s double bill at Impossible York

York’s queen of vocal drag meets York’s country queen: The Velma Celli Show with special guest Twinnie, Impossible York, St Helen’s Square, York, tomorrow, 7pm, doors; show, 8pm

YORK’S international drag diva deluxe, Velma Celli, will be joined by country singer Twinnie at The Velma Celli Show at Impossible York on her return home from recording sessions for her second album in Nashville.

“My mate and fellow Yorky the awesome Twinny is my v. special guest tomorrow night at Impossible – York,” says Velma, the cabaret creation of Ian Stroughair, on Instagram. Like Ian, Twinnie has starred in West End musicals, most notably in Chicago, under her stage name Twinnie-Lee Moore.

Tickets cost £15, £20 for VIP stage seating, at ticketweb.uk.

Michael Lambourne: Fenland storyteller at Theatre At The Mill, Stillington, this weekend

Storytellers of the week: Michael Lambourne and Shona Cowie, Theatre At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Saturday and Sunday

NOT that long ago a familiar bearded face and booming voice on the York stage before heading south, Michael Lambourne will return north on Saturday to present the 7.30pm premiere of Black Shuck, a “responsive storytelling experience” based on the legend of the Demon Dog of East Anglia.

Penned and performed by Lambourne, Black Shuck is the tale of a hound of unnatural size, an omen of misfortune to those who see its eyes, wherein he explores the enduring effect it has on Fenland folklore in a personal account of how a rural myth can become a chilling part of the present day.

Scottish storyteller and physical performer Shona Cowie will open the evening with her Celtic tale of the dreamer and visionary Bruadarach and then present Beware The Beasts, a show for families (age five upwards), at 2pm on Sunday. 

Shona will provide case studies from leading monster evaders and offer instruction on the most effective ways to avoid being squashed, eaten or turned into a nugget. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill/. 

Ralph Fiennes in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, on tour at York Theatre Royal next week

First full-capacity shows at York Theatre Royal since mid-March 2020: Ralph Fiennes in T S Eliot’s Four Quartets, July 26 to 31

YORK Theatre Royal will return to full-capacity audiences with effect from Monday’s performance of T S Eliot’s Four Quarters, performed and directed by Ralph Fiennes.

Good news for those who had missed out on tickets for the most in-demand production of the reopening Love Season when it was first put on sale with social distancing in place. This week’s unlocking of Step 4 frees up the sudden availability of seats aplenty.

Please note, however, the wearing of face coverings will be strongly encouraged; some safety measures will continue too, but not temperature checks on the door.

Wall art: The poster for Miles And The Chain Gang’s first gig in York in 18 months. Picture: Jim Poyner

Back on the Chain Gang: Miles And The Chain Gang, supported by King Courgette, The Fulford Arms, York, July 29, 8pm

AFTER an 18-month hiatus. York band Miles And The Chain Gang will return to the concert platform next week, tooled up with new material.

In the line-up are singer, songwriter, storyteller, published poet and radio presenter Miles Salter, on guitar and vocals, Billy Hickling, drums and percussion, Tim Bruce, bass, and Alan Dawson, lead guitar, augmented for this gig by Fay Donaldson’s flute and saxophone.

The Gang have been working on a debut album, recording with producer Jonny Hooker at Young Thugs Studios in York. Tickets cost £7 at thefulfordarms.co.uk or £8 on the door. 

Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s poster for next week’s brace of Gilbert and Sullivan shows

Fundraiser of the week ahead: Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company Does Gilbert And Sullivan, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, HMS Pinafore, July 29, 7.30pm, and July 31, 2.30pm; The Mikado, July 30 and 31, 7.30pm

THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company, the JoRo’s in-house performing troupe, are producing concert versions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s biggest light opera hits, HMS Pinafore and The Mikado, next week.

The shows will be brimful of popular tunes and brilliant characters, with all profits from this topsy-turvy musical madness going straight back to the Haxby Road community theatre.

Rachel Croft: Cafe concert at Forty Five, with Reap What You Sow EP to follow in September

Music Café society gig of the week ahead: Rachel Croft, Forty Five Vinyl Café, Micklegate, York, July 31, 7.30m

NEXT Saturday at Forty Five, York singer-songwriter Rachel Croft will showcase tomorrow’s release of Reap What You Sow, a cinematic, moody taster for her four-track EP of the same name on September 9.

Exploring a more potent, bluesy style throughout, further tracks will be second single Time Waits For No Man, Roots and Chasing Time.  

Rachel will be supported by Kell Chambers and Evie Barrand. Tickets cost £10 via fortyfiveuk.com/whatson.

The Trials Of Cato: Tomos Williams and Rob Jones with new trio member Polly Bolton, playing Primrose Wood Acoustics in early August

Going down in the woods next month: The Trials Of Cato, Primrose Wood Acoustics, Pocklington, August 5, 7pm

BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winners The Trials Of Cato will headline the third Primrose Wood Acoustics session in Pocklington on August 5.

Organised by Pocklington Arts Centre, the outdoor concert series will complete its summer hattrick by popular demand after sold-out sylvan shows on July 1 and 8.

Leamington Spa singer-songwriter Polly Bolton joins co-founders Tomos Williams and Rob Jones for the showcase of imminent second album Gog Magog. Tickets cost £14 on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

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Re-grouped and refreshed, McFly are ready to rock York Racecourse gig on Saturday

McFly: McFlying out of the starting stalls at York Racecourse on Saturday

THE glorious summer weather may be on the downturn by the weekend, but McFly’s Danny Jones will be hoping for more clement conditions than on one past visit to North Yorkshire.

“When we played Dalby Forest [June 26 2009], if I remember right, there was a huge, thick fog all around us that night, and people at the back could hardly see a thing,” recalls the re-grouped London band’s lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist, ahead of Saturday’s post-racing concert at York Racecourse: their first show in 18 months.

McFly, the boy band formed in 2003 by Bolton-born Jones, Tom Fletcher, Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd, returned last year with album number six, Young Dumb Thrills, after a ten-year gap and a detour into boy-band supergroup McBusted.

Why “Young Dumb Thrills” when Danny, for example, is 35? “I think it’s partly about reminiscing, but you know what, we always say ‘what do we want to do, where do we want to go with our music’, just as we did when I was 17 when I moved down to London, and Dougie was 15, and we thought we knew it all,” he says.

“But when we-reformed and we were making the album, I said, ‘Guys, we’re still young; we could still be a young band starting out’.”

McFly’s Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones performing at the York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend concert in July 2012

Danny never doubted McFly would return one day from their hiatus that began in 2016. “I knew it was never going to stop. We just needed a holiday; after 13 years you need a break, after 13 years of carnage, you really do, but this way we can come back for 15 more years,” he says.

In the boy-band 2000s, McFly flew to the pop peaks regularly, making chart history as the youngest ever band to have a debut album go straight to number one in the UK, when July 2004’s Room On The 3rd Floor beat The Beatles’ long-standing record, set with Please Please Me in March 1963.

They have chalked up seven number one singles and ten million album sales, and their high-energy York Racecourse set could parade 5 Colours In Their Hair, Obviously, That Girl, All About You, You’ve Got A Friend, I’ll Be OK, I Wanna Hold You, Don’t Stop Me Now, Please, Please, Star Girl, Baby’s Coming Back, Transylvania and One For The Radio.

Saturday’s set definitely will combine past and present, after their 2020 renaissance with the singles Happiness, Tonight Is The Night and You’re Not Special from the number two-charting album Young Dumb Thrills.

They are busy recording again. “Young Dumb Thrills was more ‘one song is this, one song is that’ stylistically; it wasn’t sonically together, but now I’m finding the new album we’re working on is more collective sonically,” says Danny.

Bridegroom Danny Jones leaves St Mary’s Priory Church, Old Malton, on his wedding day after marrying Malton model Georgia Horsley in August 2014

“It’s still in the really early stages. We’ve built this amazing studio in West London, where we used to rehearse downstairs, and after the business run by the guy who owned the building didn’t survive, we’ve taken over the rehearsal room to make a recording studio down there with a hang-out space upstairs.

“We’re working with friends and new people to find our new identity for the new record, and it’s kind of ’70s and ‘80s’ rock.”

Why draw on ’70s and ’80s rock, Danny? “We’re working on that line of ‘where do guitars belong in the pop world now?’, and we thought we should be influenced by pop bands who do ‘rock’ really well, like The Who and Oasis, because though we all have such different musical influences, we can agree to pull on Springsteen, Bryan Adams and Van Halen,” he says.

McFly, who had to forego playing Scarborough Open Air Theatre last July in the first Covid-crocked summer, will be returning to York Racecourse after their previous Music Showcase Weekend show in July 2012, having played York Barbican already that April.

Lancastrian Jones is no stranger to the Broad Acres of Yorkshire. “My sister Vicky lives in Leeds and my in-laws are in Malton,” he says.

Rick Astley: Opening the York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend tomorrow evening post-racing

Should you need reminding, he is married to Malton model Georgia Horsley, a former Miss England, their wedding ceremony having been held at St Mary’s Priory Church, Old Malton, on August 2 2014.

Malton, of course, is synonymous with racing or, more precisely, racing stables. “Behind my in-laws’ house are the stables of a really well-known Irish trainer [although the name escaped Danny’s recollection,” he says. “I’d never seen a racehorse before or seen the veins on a horse close up. Amazing!”

Don’t bet on Danny having a bet on Saturday afternoon. “I’m just not a fan of losing!” he says, but McFly fans will be on to a winner. “You give them what they want. We’re not self-indulgent. If they’re not having a good time, we’re not having a good time, and vice versa.”

That rules out any colts bolting out from the latest studio sessions but guarantees plenty of favourites coming home triumphantly.

Rick Astley plays York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend tomorrow evening post-racing; McFly, Saturday late-afternoon, post-racing.

Tickets for these combined racing-and-concert events are on sale at yorkracecourse.co.uk. As well as free car parking, no booking fees apply, but please note, admission is not available on a concert-only basis; the gates will be closed at the time of the last race.

UPDATE: 24/7/2021 McFly arrive at York Racecourse, ready to play to more than 30,000 racegoers after the Saturday race card.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Rick Astley and McFly on track to play York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend

Rick Astley: Biggest favourite of the summer at York Racecourse this season

NEVER gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, and sure enough, Eighties’ pop icon Rick Astley will play the York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, albeit a year later than first planned.

Originally booked for July 25 last summer until Covid sent race days behind closed doors, Astley, 55, will take to the stage on July 23 after the Friday evening race card.

Less than 24 hours later, re-formed London boy band McFly will perform the second Music Showcase Weekend concert, post-afternoon racing, on their return to the racetrack where they first played in 2012. Like Astley, they had to forego a 2020 outdoor gig, in their case at Scarborough Open Air Theatre on July 21.

Newton-le-Willows crooner Astley is enjoying a career resurgence on the back of his 50th birthday-triggered album, the self-penned, chart-topping, platinum-selling 50 in 2016, after a decade-long hiatus, followed by Beautiful Life in 2018.

In 2019, he released a career-spanning compilation, The Best Of Me, a top-five success with 11 additional reimagined tracks and new single Every One Of Us. That year too, he undertook a 38-date stadium tour as special guest to Take That, playing to 500,000 people.

Showing his cross-genre appeal, Astley graced Reading Festival’s main stage to sing Never Gonna Give You Up with Dave Grohl’s rock band, Foo Fighters. Just before the pandemic, he toured Australia and New Zealand with a-ha.

Far from quiet during lockdown, he has amassed nearly two million YouTube followers with a series of Lockdown Covers from his home studio and become a major force on TikTok with 1.7 million followers, being selected as one of Louder’s top ten “must follow” artists on the digital platform.

During this time, he has supported the NHS publicly support and has organised free concerts for NHS staff at this October’s upcoming UK arena tour.

His July 23 set will be built around such Astley favourites as Never Gonna Give You Up, Whenever You Need Somebody, Together Forever, When I Fall in Love, She Wants To Dance With Me and Cry For Help. 

McFly: Back on track at York Racecourse this summer after first playing there in 2012

In their early-evening Saturday show, McFly will combine past and present, drawing on songs from their six studio albums.

Last year, after a ten-year gap and a detour into boy-band supergroup McBusted, the familiar McFly line-up of Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd returned with Young Dumb Thrills, charting at number two.

The singles Happiness, Tonight Is The Night and You’re Not Special received BBC Radio 2  airplay and the band played on Britain’s Got Talent, The Graham Norton Show and and Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, as well as making their own ITV1 documentary about their hiatus, All About Us.

Formed in 2003, McFly became the youngest ever band to have a debut album go straight to number one in the UK, when July 2004’s Room On The 3rd Floor beat The Beatles’ long-standing record, set with Please Please Me in March 1963.

McFly have chalked up seven number one singles and ten million album sales, and their high-energy York Racecourse set could parade 5 Colours In Their Hair, Obviously, That Girl, All About You, You’ve Got A Friend, I’ll Be OK, I Wanna Hold You, Don’t Stop Me Now,  Please, Please, Star Girl, Baby’s Coming Back, Transylvania and One For The Radio.

McFly last played live in November 2019 in a stand-alone show, One Night Only, at the London O2 Arena to mark their re-formation.

Tickets for the Music Showcase Weekend combined racing-and-concert events are on sale at yorkracecourse.co.uk. As well as free car parking, no booking fees apply, but please note, admission is not available on a concert-only basis; the gates will be closed at the time of the last race.

The dates in late-July fall well after the scheduled “Step 4 of the roadmap” on June 21, so York Racecourse is taking a “positive approach to the occasion”.

However, “given both the circumstances and that operating details for large venues are still awaited from Government, racegoers are offered a guaranteed refund in the event of Covid-related alterations, as well as the reassurance that all Covid-19 protocols that are applicable at the time of the event, will be followed,” York Racecourse states.

James Brennan, head of marketing and sponsorship, says: “Everyone at the course is really excited that these magical racing and music events are scheduled to return. With a northern boy set to play, then a band that bring a smile to many faces, add in the spectacle of the racing itself and we hope it will prove a summer weekend to savour.”

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REVIEW: Big Ian’s A Night To Remember at York Barbican…and what a night it was!

Heather Findlay, left, Jess Steel, Beth McCarthy and Annie Donaghy relishing I Feel Like A Woman at A Night To Remember. Picture: David Harrison

REVIEW: Big Ian’s A Night To Remember, York Barbican, February 29

DEMENTIA is a team game, says Ian Donaghy, now as much a motivational speaker at conferences as a showman, fundraiser and event host.

Not only Dementia Projects in York, but also St Leonard’s Hospice, Bereaved Children’s Support in York and Accessible Arts and Media benefit from these nights to remember.

Saturday, sold out as ever, was the eighth such night, nights that had raised £150,000 so far. Big Ian is yet to confirm this year’s total, but £5,700 was taken in bucket collections alone.

Torch singer! Big Ian Donaghy has the phones out for Lionel Richie’s Hello at A Night To Remember at York Barbican. Picture: David Harrison

Yes, the fundraising is important, but Big Ian puts the fun into that fundraising, as well as the heart and soul, in a community event that, no matter what hell of a world is going on outside right now, always brings out the best in York.

Here’s the news, delivered in a specially recorded Look North spoof bulletin from Phil Bodmer, devotee of Big Ian’s Guestlist nights at York Racecourse. This would be the biggest gathering of A Night To Remember yet: not only the old father time of musical directors, George Hall, on keyboards with his band of bass, guitars, drums and percussion, but 14 brass players to boot, four from Big Ian’s band Huge and a whole heap of shiny young players from York Music Forum, gathered under the tutelage of Ian Chalk.

What’s more, the musicians and singers had an 80-year age range, from those fledgling brass talents to 93-year-old Barbara from the Singing For All choir, a force of nature who summed up everything joyful about this celebration of the power of music throughout our lives.

River deep, mountain high: Graham Hodge conquering Cry Me A River. Picture: David Harrison

Big Ian took the lead, brass assisted, on Elton John’s I’m Still Standing and, yes, he would still be standing three hours later, still urging us to fill those buckets.

Simon Snaize’s rendition of Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer, with the brass section  breathing fire, was an early highlight; Boss Caine’s mine-deep voiced Dan Lucas turned Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 from daytime to night-time hours; Jess Steel, as vital to these nights as Big Ian, climbed the first of several vocal mountains with Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were.

Songs were interspersed with Dementia-themed video clips, usually recorded on Ian’s phone, some bringing tears, others cheers, all indeed making it a team game.

Thank you for the music: A Night To Remember’s singers and musicians take a bow at the finale. Picture: David Harrison.

Kieran O’Malley’s fiddle bow was a wand of magic whenever he played, whoever he accompanied; Heather Findlay and Simon Snaize’s duet for Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain had exactly The Chain reaction it deserved, guitar solo and all.

Ken Sanderson, alias Las Vegas Ken, normally restricts himself to a solo slot, but for the first time, he was joined by Hall’s band, at Big Ian’s urging: another hit at this “Gang Show with people we really like”.

Later, a fellow staple of these shows, 6ft 3 folk stalwart Graham Hodge, newly turned 70, would be seen as never seen before, again at Donaghy’s suggestion, as he eschewed folk balladry for a dinner jacket to knock Cry Me A River out of the park with the vocal performance of the night. Better than Bublé? No troublé!

Jessa Liversidge, front, centre, leads one and all in I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing..and she did! Picture: David Harrison.

What better way to open the second half than radiant York singer Jessa Liversidge leading her Singing For All group, ebullient Barbara and all, in fact all the audience, as we sang I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing. In perfect harmony, of course! “I’m a bit c**p these days,” said Barbara, but singing is about so much more than the act of singing, and you could see how much it means to her after all these years.

From Annie Donaghy’s Careless Whisper to Beth McCarthy’s U2 and Guns N’Roses mash-up, Hope & Social’s Gary Stewart turning into Paul Simon for You Can Call Me Al, to Annie, Beth, Heather and Jess, all in black  and white, for Shania Twain’s I Feel Like A Woman, the show-stoppers kept coming.

Out came the phone torches on Big Ian’s command for Lionel Richie’s Hello and a big, big finale followed up the apt Don’t You Forget About Me with Jess does Dusty for You Don’t Have To Say You Love M and, what’s this? A video message of support from Rick Astley that arrived in Ian’s in-box from Sydney, Australia, at quarter to five that morning.

Cue a Never Gonna Give You Up singalong, and no, you just know Big Ian is never gonna give up on these special nights, his belief in making every life vibrant and vital to the last. Well done big fella, well done sound techie Craig Rothery, well done York.

Even the audience’s shoes were shining stars on A Night To Remember at York Barbican on Leap Year Saturday

Charles Hutchinson

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Winner takes it all at Bjorn Again, karaoke and Silent Abba Disco day at York Races

Super troupers Bjorn Again say thank you for Abba’s music

BJORN Again can pick a host of Abba winners when rounding off the day’s racing at York Racecourse on June 27.

First up, Money, Money, Money will be The Name Of The Game as the runners and riders invite you to Take A Chance On Me and The Winner Takes It All (along with other winning bets too, before pedants start writing in) from the seven-race afternoon card on Summer Music Saturday.

Next, the long-running Abba tribute act will take to the stage, notching up another addition to a list of 7,000 shows in 100 countries since forming in Melbourne in 1988 en route to Bjorn Ulvaeus saying the Aussie doppelgangers single-handedly initiated the super-Swedes’ revival.

Bjorn Again’s post-racing set will be preceded earlier in the afternoon by Abba karaoke singing and a Silent Abba Disco.

Prizes will be awarded in the 1970s’ Fancy Dress Contest, for which racegoers are invited to create a stylish look from such fashion favourites as flares, platform boots, 1970s’ jackets and kipper ties. Look out for the “selfie stations”, on hand to help share the good times with the wider world.
 
On the Knavesmire track, £150,000 will be won over the seven races. Tickets for the racing and music double bill are on sale from £25 (for an advance booked group of six), with no booking fees and no parking charges. Under 18s will be admitted free of charge with an accompanying adult.
 
James Brennan, head of marketing and sponsorship at York Racecourse, says: “We wanted to offer people the chance to have fun, we hope in the sun, and what better way than in celebrating all things Abba.

“You only have to remember how popular the Mamma Mia films and Mamma Mia The Party have been to understand the affection across the country for the famous Swedish quartet. Obviously, they aren’t able to join us, but the rave reviews for Bjorn Again demonstrate the show is a great performance.”
 
Brennan continues: “There’s a lot of choice for music events around Yorkshire this summer, so we think this offers something different, a little more relaxed and at a more affordable price.

“Of course, we have the additional excitement of Pussycat Dolls and Rick Astley set for late-July, so a little bit of ABBA fun seems a great way to kick off our music events.”
 
The York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend will bring the re-formed Pussycat Dolls to Knavesmire for the July 24 evening race meeting, followed by Newton-le-Willows crooner Rick Astley at the July 25 afternoon card.

Tickets can be booked at yorkracecourse.co.uk and on 01904 620911.