Author: Charles Hutchinson

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More Things To Do in York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 42, from The York Press

In the spotlight: Frankie Bounds’ Jamie New, front, in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

FROM added grit in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie to a piratical twist on The Comedy Of Errors, Brandon Flowers in full bloom at York Barbican to drag diva Velma Celli rocking out, Charles Hutchinson spots pearls aplenty.

Bold and unapologetic musical of the week: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, until October 24; 7.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinees and 4pm Sunday

TOM MacRae and Dan Gillespie’s Sheffield musical plays the Grand Opera House for the first time in Nik Briggs’s production for York Stage that restores the grit to both complement and counter the glitz in the uplifting underdog story of Jamie New (Frankie Bounds), a 16-year-old schoolboy from a Steel City council estate with big dreams and the courage to stand out when it would be easier to stay quiet.

Equipped with the strength to face the world head on, Jamie fights prejudice, finds his voice and discovers the freedom of stepping into the spotlight on his own terms. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Greek tragedy twist of the week: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Odyssey: Her Story, York Theatre Royal, until October 31

BOOKER Prize winner Margaret Atwood revisits Homer’s The Odyssey in an exuberantly irreverent and darkly humorous retelling where she gives voice to Odysseus’s silenced wife, Penelope – still awaiting his return 20 years after the Trojan War – and her chorus of maids in a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge that exposes the truth behind the myth. Creative director Juliet Forster’s cast is led by Happy Valley and Riot Women star Amelia Bullmore. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Recommended but sold out already: An Evening With Kristin Hersh, National Centre for Early Music, York, tonight,7.30pm

OVER  three decades, Atlanta, Georgia singer, songwriter and guitarist  Kristin Hersh, 60, has been heralded queen of the alternative scene with Throwing Muses, 50Foot Wave and on her own, releasing her latest 12th solo album, Sugar On Blackstone, on Fire Records on September 18. Recorded at Stable Sound Studio in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, with Steve Rizzo, it features Rob Ahlers on drums and Pete Harvey on cello.

Since signing to Fire Records in 2018, the prolific Hersh has released tenth studio album Possible Dust Clouds, Throwing Muses’  Sun Racket in 2020, 50Foot Wave’s Black Pearl in 2022, her book Seeing Sideways in 2022 and self-produced 11th solo album, the cinematic road trip and personal vignettes of Clear Pond Road, in September 2023.

Velma Celli: Drag diva delights…including a tribute to Dolly Parton RIP

Drag delights of the week: The Velma Celli Show, with special guest Jessica Steel and guitarists Stuart Allan and Olly Chilton, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 6pm

YORK vocal drag act deluxe and international cabaret superstar Velma Cell moves to a new location for her camp, spectacular song and comedy home-city performances. “My last two shows at York Theatre Royal – Snow Queen and Rock Queen – had been among my favourites, so this one will be a mixture of Snow Queen and Rock Queen and musical theatre material,” says Velma’s creator, actor and West End star Ian Stroughair.

 “The first set will be musical theatre favourites, songs from my career in West End musicals – Cats, Fame, Chicago and Rent – and an homage to Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. In the second set we’ll rock out with York. There’ll be songs by David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Bryan Adams, Bonnie Tyler, Guns N’ Roses, Roxette, Alanis Morissette, Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game – and I’ll do a Dolly Parton section too. There has to be!” Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Ballet of the week: Imperial Classical Ballet presents Swan Lake, York Barbican, October 19, 7.30pm

IMPERIAL Classical Ballet  performs Swan Lake, the powerful tale of Princess Odette, cursed to live as a swan by day and a woman by night. When Prince Siegfried discovers her under the moonlight, he vows to break the spell, yet the evil sorcerer Rothbart and his daughter Odile plot a deception that threatens them both.

From the haunting beauty of the lakeside scenes to the electrifying Black Swan pas de deux, Swan Lake is a visual delight, performed to Tchaikovsky’s soaring score, played live by an orchestra. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Gig of the week: Brandon Flowers, York Barbican, October 21, 7.30pm

THE Killers’ frontman, Brandon Flowers, plays York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue on his nine-date UK and Ireland tour, promoting Thrasher, his third solo album and first since 2015, which peaked at number three on release in August.

Fans can look forward to hearing songs from Thrasher, played live for the first time, alongside highlights from his British chart-topping solo albums, 2010’s Flamingo and 2015’s The Desired Effect, as well as beloved tracks from The Killers’ catalogue. No support. Ticket update: Sold out; for returns only, go to https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/brandon-flowers.

Shakespeare shake-up of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Comedy Of Errors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 21 to 24, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

KATIE Leckey and Emily Carhart co-direct York Shakespeare Project in “ an exciting take on Shakespeare’s shortest and possibly funniest play”, giving a piratical, gender-swapping twist to The Comedy Of Errors in a convergence of the original text with slapstick, farce and physical comedy and a “celebration of relationships of many kinds, platonic, familial and romantic”.

“The morally questionable, yet still comedic, nature of many (if not all) of the characters put us in mind of some of our favourite piratical anti-heroes,” they say. “We felt like the framing device of piracy gave us the chance to include slapstick violence between ‘masters and servants’ in a way that wouldn’t seem too brutal or alien to a modern audience.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Going back to Back To Black: The Amy Winehouse Band, York Barbican, October 22, 7.30pm

AMY Winehouse’s original band, who played with her from the very start, are marking the 20th anniversary of her iconic second album, Back To Black, the one that brought her five awards at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Performing with Amy that evening, as these musicians had done since her earliest gigs in London pubs, was her band. 

Led by Amy’s long-time musical director and bass player, The Amy Winehouse Band features members who both toured and recorded with her throughout her career. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, The Odyssey, Her Story, York Theatre Royal ***1/2

Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope, left, comes face to face with Charlie Russell’s returning Odysseus. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

THE Penelopiad is the heavyweight centrepiece of York Theatre Royal’s autumn programme, Wednesday’s press night being marked by the presence of Arts Council England luminaries.

Creative director Juliet Forster’s plans to mount Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood’s re-spinning of Homer’s yarn in 2020 were scuppered by Covid’s clenches. Roll on to 2026, when Forster’s all-female production finds its counter-Homer home at last with the self-explanatory full title of The Penelopiad, The Odyssey: Her Story in the city where Actors Of Dionysus and Wright & Grainger’s Greek tragedies have made their mark.

Not only is The Penelopiad “her story” but “their story” too. After The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood delivers a multitude of Maids here, Penelope’s hand-picked slaves’ daughters: wronged, vengeful and constantly meddling in Penelope’s wishes to re-tell her tale, post-death, in the Underworld.

The glacial Penelope may want to miss out chunks, just like Christopher Nolan’s film made no mention of Odysseus’s philandering ways in his 20-year avoidance of coming home from the Trojan Wars, but the Maids have other ideas, and they will do anything to re-route The Penelopiad’s journey, from child puppetry to a rather short tap dance, girl group singing to acrobatic aerial skills, macho masks to more macho masks.

Pena Iiyambo’s Helen goes full Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch mode with the masked Maids in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal. Picture:  Pamela Raith Photography

Riot Women actress Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope is still at the core, still an honourable figure of loyalty and  restraint, but the restless riot women of this piece, the Maids, keep breaking her poised rhythm, shattering her sang froid and melancholic air.

Nevertheless, especially in Bullmore’s honeyed tones and elegant white jumpsuit and coat, Penelope’s dry-witted putdowns are the embodiment of Atwood’s own irreverent humour, becoming a particular joy of her ice-queen performance. 

Her spat with Pena Iiyambo’s preening Helen, trollop of Troy, could launch a thousand quips, but one withering epithet suffices, although Iiyambo’s pulchritudinous Helen still has her Marilyn Monroe moment in screen goddess frills in the face of Penelope’s enmity.

Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope, surrounded by her Maids with their macho masks to portray aristo Suitors. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Atwood had been haunted by the fate of the Maids, under Odysseus’s orders, prompting the vengeance of The Penelopiad, where the horror counters the jesting humour that mocks Charlie Russell’s Odysseus for having short legs, much as Eric Morecambe would tease Ernie Wise.

Atwood’s Penelope comes across as “methinks she doth protest too much” with her First World problems, complaints of being busy without being so and eating only asphodel flowers in Hades, while using the Maids’ wiles to stave off the unwanted attentions of the Suitors, whereas the Maids are up against it, putting themselves at risk on her behalf.

They do, however, find common ground when working together to weave and unpick Penelope’s tapestry to ward off those pesky Suitors. Ropes emerge as the motif that weave their way through Forster’s production and Sara Perks’s design, whether in the tapestry, the aerial circus skills of assorted Maids, pulling Penelope’s bed upwards or downwards, becoming a hissing snake or, spoiler alert, a hangman’s mode of execution.

Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope, right, in discussion on her bed with her Maids. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Bullmore’s Penelope has a stillness and depth of character that contrasts with the Catherine Wheel fizz of the octet of multi-rolling Maids, especially when they play the leery, lecherous aristo Suitors, very much 2D stereotypes. Having women taking these roles is a further way of Atwood taking revenge on Homer’s misogyny, all the more forceful for the choreography of Frantic Assembly’s Michelle Edwards.

These graphic caricatures climax in the form of Russell’s Odysseus, mocked by Atwood not only for short legs, but in no longer being a mighty physical specimen, full stop, but a mendacious trickster with dubious moral values.

The Maids (Iiyambo, Russell, Nell Baker, Danielle Bird, Olivia Burton-Laws, Faye Campbell, Kat Johns-Burke and Syakira Moeladi) achieve both individuality and collective vigour the more they come to the fore, while Bird stands out as Eurycleia, the Odysseus loyalist who besmirches the Maids and cuts Penelope out of nursing her son Telemachus.

The Maids displaying rope and aerial skills in The Penelopiad. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

What are the plus points beyond Bullmore’s elegance with Atwood’s eloquence and the Maids’ zest? Perks’s design, described as chic by Bullmore in her interview, is startling, bright, white, modernist and minimalist, but timeless too, countered by Alexandra Stafford’s palette of colours in her lighting, most notably red to evoke the night of the Trojan Horse.

Edwards’s movement direction maximises the physicality of women playing men; Kate Marlais’s compositions, varying from rousing declamations to quieter underscoring and laments, are at their best when haunting.

The negatives? Whereas the humour in Bullmore’s Penelope is assured, polished and consistent in tone, elsewhere it is more erratic, uneven, sometimes pushing too hard. Given the harrowing denouement to come, it is a difficult balancing act for Forster to achieve, especially when comedy has a tendency to undermine tragedy and outrage, rape and execution. Ultimately, this account of The Penelopiad plays more to the head, the senses of sight and sound, than to the heart.

The Penelopiad, York Theatre Royal, unravelling the strands until October 31. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.  

Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope and Charlie Russell’s Odysseus in The Penelopiad. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

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York author and musician Miles Salter goes behind-the-scenes to investigate the tragedy that rocked The Pretenders

York author Miles Salter holding a copy of his investigative rock biography A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 ahead of the book launch and signing session at Topping & Company on November 10

YORK author, journalist, songwriter, band leader, podcaster, storyteller, festival organiser and poet Miles Salter will launch his new book, A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, at Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York, on November 10 at 7pm.

“I hope you will join me as I talk to poet and author John Goodby about The Pretenders and their remarkable, strange, dark, sad tale,” says Miles, introducing his no-holds barred account of ego, bust-ups and drug usage that forms his  first narrative non-fiction work and first book since 2020.

As long ago as December 1991, Miles wrote and recorded the song Voice Of A Dead Man at Old Dairy Studios in York. “It was all about rock stars who were no longer with us: Freddie Mercury, who had died the previous month, Roy Orbison, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and it also mentioned Pete Farndon, so I was aware of the Pretenders’ story already, but then I became really interested in it.”

Thirty-five years later, A Dangerous Band is the result. “It tells the compelling true story of The Pretenders, one of New Wave’s most exciting bands,” says Miles. “Chrissie Hynde arrived in London from America in 1973. Tucked under  her  arm were the three albums she most treasured.

“She wrote for the NME [New Musical Express] and fell in with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood via Sex, the provocatively named shop they ran on King’s Road. She hung out with The Sex Pistols and The Clash. After numerous near-misses, she formed The Pretenders in 1978 with three young men from Hereford: guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers.”

Within 18 months they had released “one of THE great albums of the era”, as Miles bills 1980’s “incredibly aggressive” Pretenders, whose chart-topping single Brass In Pocket launched the band to international success and fame.

Chrissie Hynde: Lead singer of The Pretenders

“But tragedy ensued: by mid-1983 both Farndon and Honeyman-Scott were dead from drug abuse, dying within ten months of each other,” says Miles. “Beginning in February 2025, and drawing on previously recorded interviews , including one with Martin Chambers, I spent 18 months writing and researching the book, returning to Honeyman-Scott and Farndon’s home city, interviewing band members, romantic connections, family members, friends, record company staff and music journalists.”

In his three poetry collections, Miles writes of garden gnomes, strange neighbours,  a bloke who shouts at the moon, a Brummie vampire, global catastrophe and near-death experiences, so what drew him to the story of The Pretenders, with its “rise of Chrissie Hynde from Akron outsider to London rock royalty, the sonic genius of their self-titled debut and the chaotic drug-fuelled spiral that tragically cut short the lives of James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon”?

“The story was a gift to a writer,” says Miles. “Every time I thought ‘this can’t get any stranger’, something else came up. The more I talked to people, the stranger it became, the darker and darker it became.  A story of totally living that rock’n’roll life but to their detriment as it cost them their lives.”

Miles found the writing experience “emotional”. “It’s just such a sad story. I wept often as I wrote. People told me how funny and charming and likeable Jimmy and Pete were, and they both died in the most appalling ways. I sent some of it to Lyn Honeyman Scott (sister of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott) and she said the same thing: ‘It’s desperately sad’.

“In terms of telling a story, I got lucky.  Every time I thought things couldn’t get weirder, something more shocking emerged. It’s a real-life tragedy packed with all the elements of a compelling story.”

York author Miles Salter and the cover artwork for his book A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, published by Winter & May on November 1

That story has a Faustian element, suggests Miles. “They made a deal with the devil. It’s a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Chrissie Hynde wrote in one of her later lyrics, ‘what’s the price of fame?’. I think that sums up the book. It’s a question that has haunted her.”

Salter’s meticulous research uncovers the personal lives, conflicts and rivalries behind the hits, while exploring Hynde’s driven yet complex personality and the childhood trauma that shaped three of the band members.

“The book makes some pertinent observations about the psychology of creatives, showing how fame can destroy even the most talented,” says Miles of his behind-the-scenes look at the cost of success that weaves John Lydon, Sid Vicious, Ray Davies, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Lowe and music executive Seymour Stein, as well as McLaren and Westwood, into the tale.

“I learned that Pete Farndon felt nothing when Brass In Pocket went to number one,” says Miles. “It just felt anti-climactic, after watching footage of The Beatles at Shea Stadium and thinking that was the life he wanted.”

Miles did not interview Chrissie Hynde. “People kept asking, ‘have you spoken with Chrissie’, but the Pretenders’ story is not just about her, it’s about band members, brothers, sisters, family, friends, the whole community affected by Pete and James’s deaths.”

Book launch: A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 author Miles Salter, in conversation with poet john Goodby, followed by signing session, Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York,  November 10, 7pm (doors 6.30pm). Tickets cost £17.95, including hardback book or £5 “if you just want to come and listen”.  To book, go to: https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/york/miles-salter-the-pretenders/.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North, Eugene Onegin, Leeds Grand Theatre, until October 29 and on tour until November 21

Verity Wingate as Tatyana in Opera North’s Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop

IMAGINE, if you will, a black-tie party, with long dresses and lots of fizz, taking place in the cramped space between two sets of bleachers in a gymnasium, where the paint is peeling off all the doors.

Then again, the same setting has earlier accommodated a young girl writing a letter to her putative lover, scribbling with a ball-point pen in a ring-bound notebook, from which she tears off a page to send.

These scenes may not sound like the stuff of opera, but they are taken directly from Opera North’s new Eugene Onegin, a co-production with Irish National Opera and with Opera Queensland, whose artistic director Patrick Nolan leads this production. They are respectively the ball in Act 3, Scene 1 and Tatyana’s Letter Scene, Act 1, Scene 2.

Tchaikovsky’s setting of Shilovsky’s libretto, in turn derived from Pushkin’s verse novel, inhabits both a country estate and St Petersburg in the 1820s. The current production is set in the 1980s, before and after the time of Gorbachev’s perestroika. In the spirit of glasnost – greater openness – we must seek an explanation.

John Brancy’s Eugene Onegin and Joshua Bloom’s Prince Gremin in Opera North’s Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop

The creatives involved, primarily Nolan, along with set designer Leslie Travers and costume designer Elizabeth Gadsby, begin their production in a small rural community in 1980, as it prepares its contribution to that summer’s Olympics in Moscow, in a gymnasium festooned with portraits of Lenin. It closes in 1991 as the new Russian Federation supplants the collapsed Soviet Union.

While admitting that the correlation between this period and the 1820s is not exact, the group expresses a “desire to bring a contemporary energy to the piece.” It is not immediately apparent that Tchaikovsky’s original lacked energy. Nor is the raw human emotion of that time any less forceful than it was in the 1980s. Indeed general director Laura Canning highlights Tatyana’s resilience as “straight out of Austen”.

While this drab setting may be visually unappetising, there are some musical compensations. Verity Wingate, one of six principals Opera North debutants, makes a properly vulnerable teenage Tatyana.

Although she started uneasily on this opening night, she suddenly found a higher gear for her Letter Scene, which is very much the touchstone of the role. She also achieves a smooth transformation into society’s upper reaches, so that her ultimate rejection of Onegin carries moral weight.

Jingwen Cai as Olga with members of the Chorus of Opera North as villagers in Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop

He is John Brancy, another debutant, whose haughty demeanour is matched by a clean-cut baritone that speaks of self-assurance linked to insensitivity. His friend and ultimate foe, Lensky, is a less appealing figure in Caspar Singh’s hands. While he paces his pre-duel aria delicately, there is also a disturbing unevenness in his focus, now forward, now back, so that the voice comes and goes.

Jingwen Cai is a sparky Olga, Tatyana’s younger sister, full of mischief. Hannah Mason is charming as their mother, Madame Larina, and Claire Pascoe makes a personality of Filipyevna, both amply justifying their elevation from the chorus. So too does Simon Grange as Zaretsky. Florian Panzieri makes pleasingly light work of Triquet’s aria. Joshua Bloom’s dry bass as Prince Gremin lacks aristocratic authority.

The chorus projects with its customary vigour but looks uncomfortable with some of the 1980s vibe that Maxim Braham’s choreography is presumably intended to convey, not helped by casual dress. Even the orchestra under Garry Walker was less than compact in Act 1, but was in impressive stride thereafter on this occasion, as doubtless it will be throughout the run.

Opera North, Eugene Onegin, Leeds Grand Theatre, until November 29. Box office: operanorth.co.uk. Sung in Russian with English subtitles.

Review by Martin Dreyer, Leeds Grand Theatre, 9/10/2026

John Brancy’s Eugene Onegin, front left, in a punch-up with Caspar Singh’s Lensky as Chorus of Opera North members look on. Picture: James Glossop

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Shed Seven to play biggest ever York gig at LNER Community Stadium on May 29 2027

Shed Seven’s Rob ‘Maxi’ Maxfield, left, Paul Banks, Tom Gladwin, Rick Witter and Tim Wills at LNER Community Stadium, York, where they will play to 14,000-capacity crowd on May 29 2027. Picture: Tom Oxley

SHED Seven are to headline a stadium show for the first time at York’s LNER Community  Stadium on May 29 2027, a stone’s throw from where a teenage Rick Witter and Paul Banks first composed songs at Huntington School.

Joining the Sheds for this hometown gig – at the football ground where Chasing Rainbows rings out before every York City home match and has become a “Chasing City” terrace anthem too – will be special guests The K’s, Reverend And The Makers and The Mersey Beatles.

“Our ambition, even as school kids, was to one day play our own stadium show,” says lead singer Witter, now 53. “What kid who dreams of being in a rock’n’roll band doesn’t want to do that? Now, almost 40 years later, we’ve reached the point where we thought… it’s now or never. And if we were going to do it, it had to be York.

“What will make it even more special is that the stadium is a stone’s throw from where me, Paul and Tom [bassist Tom Gladwin] met, went to school and where we first formed a band. We’re coming back to pretty much where it all began – I remember when it was just fields – to play the biggest show of our career and that is a proper full-circle moment.”

Speaking in York City’s dressing room at Wednesday morning’s press launch, Rick adds: “This gig has been mooted for about a year. We were approached by Cuffe & Taylor, who we’ve done shows for at Scarborough Open Air Theatre last summer and Halifax Piece Hall this summer, so we have history and a good working relationship with them already, and why would we not want to do a concert like this in our home city?

The poster for hometown heroes Shed Seven’s May 29 2027 gig at LNER Community Stadium featuring lead singer Rick Witter in SHED 7 York City shirt

“It’s always been a thing, growing up here, to play at York City’s ground, because it’s so connected with us. We always talked about playing Bootham Crescent,  but that ground went, and there was even talk of us doing a last hurrah there [before its conversion into housing], but this show makes more sense.

“It’s a new ground; we’ll be the first band to play there, just like we were the first rock band to play at York Museum Gardens in many years [since Roxy Music in 1973], and fingers crossed it will set up the stadium for more gigs.”

To promote the gig with a 14,000 capacity, look out for a special pre-sale for people in York that will see the city being flooded with Shed Seven posters and beer mats carrying QR codes to give local fans access to tickets before they go on general sale at 10am on Friday, October 23 via ticketmaster.co.uk.

In addition, an exclusive Shed Seven artist pre-sale will open at 10am on Tuesday, October 20 for anyone signed up to the Shed Seven mailing list at https://shedseven.os.fan/sign-up?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Fans wishing to access the artist pre-sale must sign up by 12 noon on Monday, October 19.

Next spring’s stadium extravaganza will build still more on the momentum of two number one albums, January 2024’s A Matter Of Time and September 2024’s Liquid Gold, in a year when Shed Seven heralded the launch of Futuresound’s Live At York Museum Gardens concerts with two sold-out July shows.

The green, green grass of a hometown stadium show: Shed Seven look forward to playing the LNER Community Stadium next May. Picture: Tom Oxley

The Sheds have since been crowned Best Live Act at the AIM Independent Music Awards; returned to Glastonbury Festival last July after a 30-year hiatus since their NME Stage debut; played the BBC Radio 2 Piano Room, backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, and opened Cuffe & Taylor’s 42-gig 2026 calendar at The Piece Hall, Halifax, on June 6, when playing 1996’s hit-laden A Maximum High in full to mark its 30th anniversary.

In the in-tray for the Sheds are their biggest UK winter tour to date, Shedcember X, climaxing with Leeds O2 shows on December 12 and 13, ahead of chasing a hat-trick of number ones with the January 8 2027 release of their self-titled seventh studio album on Cooking Vinyl, showcased already by the singles Stand Together and The Centre Of My Everything .

Looking forward to returning to the York outdoors, Rick says: “The York Museum Gardens shows in 2024 were incredible…and to see Shed Seven fans travelling from all over the country to our hometown was amazing.

“Our fanbase has been incredibly loyal to us and they’re the reason we’re even in a position to attempt something like this. We really hope they’ll travel from all over again, make a weekend of it and let us welcome them to our wonderful home.

“Expect a huge career-spanning set and for us to push the production further than we ever have before. If we’re going to do it, we want to do it properly and make this the biggest and best Shed Seven show we’ve ever put on.”

CharlesHutchPress editor Charles Hutchinson talking tactics with Shed Seven frontman Rick Witter in the York City dressing room on October 14. Picture: Sarah Rhodes

What will “pushing the production further” entail, Rick?  “It’s out first stadium headline show, so we’ll be pulling out all the stops with a hit-filled show with guests, and we’ll have to ramp up the spectacle, but these are the things we always enjoy doing,” he says.

To mark the landmark show, Shed Seven will release a special limited-edition York Edition of their forthcoming album, featuring unique artwork and live versions of fan favourites Let’s Go Dancing, Talk Of The Town and Chasing Rainbows, the anthem that fans take delight in sending Witter videos  of their train-journey renditions from York City away matches.

From every York Edition CD sale, £1 will be donated to York City Foundation, supporting its work with communities across York. To buy, go to: https://store.shedseven.com/.

Furthermore, at the May 29 gig, Shed Seven will support York’s next generation of musicians, with a fan zone stage ahead of the main stadium show featuring up-and-coming artists from the city.

To listen to Rick Witter and Paul Banks performing an acoustic version of Chasing Rainbows at the LNER Community Stadium, go to: https://app.box.com/s/bh3e5njp2mbxri6cmza9zu9vcib3tqhh

Introducing the special guests at Shed Seven’s LNER Community Stadium concert

The K’s: Album chart toppers from Earlestown

The K’s

EXPLOSIVE four-piece from Earlestown, near St Helens, Merseyside, riding the crest of a massive wave that has been building over the past few years. Debut album I Wonder If The World Knowsreached number three in UK charts in April 2024;  sophomore album Pretty On The Internet hit the top spot on August 1 2025. Headlined sold-out shows this summer at The Piece Hall, Halifax, and Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl this summer.

Jon McClure: Putting “the Reverend” into Reverend and The Makers

Reverend and The Makers

FORMED by Jon “The Reverend” McClure and Laura McClure in Sheffield in 2005, their continual evolution has seen them cut across the creative spectrum and across many genres. June 2023’s seventh studio album, Heatwave In The Cold North, was their first Top Ten hit since 2007 debut The State Of Things, featuring fan favourites Heavyweight Champion Of The World, He Said He Loved Me and Open The Window. Laura McClure duetted with Rick Witter on Shed Seven’s Tripping With You, from the Sheds’ 2024 chart topper A Matter Of Time.

The Mersey Beatles

LIVERPOOL tribute to the Fab Four, resident at Cavern Club for more than a decade. Toured the world many times over the past 25 years.

The Mersey Beatles: Opening Shed Seven’s stadium gig with tribute to The Beatles

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York Stage pumps up the grit on the path to the glitter in return to Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Grand Opera House

A shoe-in for standing out: Frankie Bounds’s Jamie New, centre, with his classmates in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

WHY will York Stage be returning to Everybody’s Talking About Jamie from tomorrow to October 24 only three years since staging the Teen Edition?

“‘Jamie’ is one of my favourite musicals,” reasons director Nik Briggs. “Having seen it in its early development at the Sheffield Crucible, I always knew I wanted to bring it to York, which we did with the premiere of the Teen Version in June 2023 at Theatre@41, Monkgate, but when the full version became available I knew I had to bring it to the Grand Opera House.

“Having spoken to the then theatre director, Laura McMillan, she knew we’d create a truly beautiful production. Being able to bring this story to York’s biggest theatre for the first time ever is truly an honour, and the bold and gritty new production we’ve created is one I can’t wait to share with York.”

Director Briggs re-imagines Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells’s award-winning musical with a raw, authentic edge to “capture the electricity, humour and heart that has made ‘Jamie’ a modern British classic”.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie director Nik Briggs

Inspired by a north-eastern true story, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie follows the path of 16-year-old council estate schoolboy Jamie New, who never quite fits in. Supported by his loving mum and his friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, defeats the bullies and, spoiler alert, steps into the spotlight to become the star he was born to be.

Staged by a vibrant cast and professional production team, Briggs’s 2026 show will blend Gillespie Sells’s infectious pop score and MacRae’s fearless, funny book and lyrics with York Stage’s trademark theatrical grit and emotional honesty.

“This is a story about identity, courage and the power of self-expression,” says Nik. “Our new production will dive deeper into Jamie’s world – its highs, its heartache and its hope – and celebrate the beautiful mess of growing up different in a small city,” says Nik. 

Taking the role of Jamie New will be professional Huby actor Frankie Bounds, still boyish looking at 25. “Playing a 16-year-old schoolboy will be a good challenge,” he says. “It’s a real beast of a role as Jamie doesn’t ever really leave the stage – and it’s not like anything I’ve done before, having played these super-muscular men!

“I said ‘it’s not my usual cup of tea’, but Nik said he wanted to bring something of that broody demeanour back to Jamie,” says lead actor Frankie Bounds, front

“So when Nik messaged me, I replied very honestly and said ‘it’s not my usual cup of tea’, but he said he wanted to bring something of that broody demeanour back to Jamie, which definitely adds to it as it goes back  to the core of the original Sheffield Crucible production, with Jamie being gay and having to find himself when his mum’s going through difficult things and his [absent] dad has said terrible things about him.

“There’s a lot of myself in my performance, where I like to challenge myself and other people too – the audience – at the shows.”

York Stage’s design for ‘Jamie’ will be “ever-circling”. “The show has the feel of everything unravelling around Jamie and the set mirrors that,” says Frankie, who has carried that sense of unpredictability into rehearsals.

“Working with Jo [Joanne Theaker-Spencer], who plays Jamie’s mum [Margaret] is just so inspiring. We’ve had several conversations where we’ve built up the trust to try things out.

Ryan Addyman’s Jamie New in York Stage’s June 2023 production of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie: Teen Version at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

“I trained in the Meisner Technique [before graduating with an MA in musical theatre from Mountview Academy of Performing Arts], which is all about being different each time and responding to what’s in front of you. Jo gets that, knowing that I’ll do the work, but it will be different each night, to make it both joyful and heartbreaking.

“There’ll be belly laughs one minute, then you’ll get gut-punched the next, with that special energy in the room, where we’ve really bonded together as a cast that comes from different generations.”

Frankie has been familiarising himself with wearing Jamie’s high heels. “They’re in the car right now!” he says, mid-interview at the Angel on the Green, in Bishopthorpe Road. “For the first ‘performance’ we did at York Pride, Nik said, ‘I’ve got something for you’ – and I saw the shoebox!

York Stage’s cast for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, including Joanne Theaker-Spencer’s Margaret (striped top) and Frankie Bounds’ Jamie New (front, centre)

“Bearing in mind I’d never worn heels before, it was almost like a rites of passage. You don’t walk ‘heel first’; it has to be ‘toe first’ – and it means I’m now over six feet tall! They’re much more comfortable now; bright red, of course. What else could they be?!”

Frankie’s dogs Billy and Bob [both of the small white Coton de Tulear breed, originally from Madagascar] were initially circumspect on encountering him in six-inch heels. “They didn’t like the sound of the shoes, or maybe it was my height in them. Hearing me stomping around in them as I cooked lunch, they would cower away,” he says.

Audiences surely will react very differently at the sight of Frankie, when everybody will be talking about more than Jamie’s shoes at the Grand Opera House.

York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, October 16 to 24, 7.30pm except October 18 and 19; 2.30pm Saturday matinees; 4pm, Sunday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

York Stage’s poster for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Grand Opera House, York

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REVIEW: York Settlement Community Players in Underdog: The Other Other Brontë, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

Lara Stafford’s Charlotte Brontë, the narrator spinning her yarn in Sarah Gordon’s Underdog: The Other Other Brontë. Picture: John Saunders

YORKSHIRE’S most famous yet still mysterious sisters, the literary Brontës of Haworth, turn out to be as much about scrapping as scribbling in Sarah Gordon’s irreverent, coruscatingly honest yet unreliable witness of a play, here making its York debut after its 2024 premiere in a National Theatre-Northern Stage co-production.

We’ve had teenage Kate Bush’s chart-topping Wuthering Heights,  Lip Service’s comedic spoof Withering Looks and even an uncredited Sinead O’Connor walking the moors as Emily Bronte in a hooded cloak to book-end Peter Kosminsky’s 1992 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, the one starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.

Above all, we have had and still have the Brontë books, books that broke their Victorian shackles to speak for themselves, beyond us knowing that the daughters of the Irish-born parson of Haworth, out on the wily, windy West Riding moors, all died all too young, along with their wastrel artist-poet brother Branwell, the first to exit stage left in a white nightgown.

Jess Murray’s Emily, right, and Millie Rhodes’s Anne: The ‘other’ Brontë and the ‘other other’ Brontë in Settlement Players’ Underdog: The Other Other Brontë. Picture: John Saunders

Just as Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss mash up history with punk modern sensibilities  in enabling Henry VIII’s wives to give their side of the story in a competitive concert to be head girl in Six The Musical, so Gordon gives licence to Charlotte, Emily and Anne to do likewise in Underdog’s sisterly rivalries and jealousies and battles with the male-dominated Victorian publishing world of London, 17 hours away by horse and carriage.

As in Six, this introduces competition – flawed sisters doing it to themselves, rather than for themselves – but not on equal terms because Lara Stafford’s Charlotte is designated the role of narrator. Consequently, she tends to dominate, when ostensibly the title suggests the focus should be on the “other other Brontë”, Millie Rhodes’s sweet-natured Anne, “the one who died,” as Anne puts it.

That said, Gordon counters the narrator’s status by showing the ambitious, ruthless, envious Charlotte in anything but the best light, full of withering slights and maternally over-protective of Anne in particular, refusing permission for a posthumous re-print of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall (and editing Emily’s poems for publication after her death to boot).

Underdog: The Other Other Brontë director Claire Morley. Picture: Tom Barker

Jess Murray’s Emily is an undiluted firebrand, with a temper and potty mouth, but somewhat underwritten by comparison with Anne and especially Charlotte.

Nick Patrick Jones’s Branwell can be heard shouting at his father in the background and in his infrequent appearances he feels like a ghost in this play, even before he is consigned to that status.

Alongside Jones, Jon Cook, Pamela Gourley and Maggie Smales are on multi-rolling duty, Smales taking the honours with her spoilt child, coconut-clip-clopping carriage driver and biographer Elizabeth Gaskell.

Maggie Smales’s spoilt brat Cunliffe and Jon Cook’s Mrs Ingham in Settlement Players’ Underdog: The Other Other Brontë. Picture: John Saunders

Claire Morley’s witty, wily and waspish production is played out with fiery pace and passion on Richard Hampton’s three-sided set of suspended wheat sheafs, page after page torn from books, three boxes bedecked in yet more words and the backdrop of a frame filled with flowers.

At its base is a sign reading “Liar” that Stafford’s Charlotte then places around the neck of Rhodes’s Anne, and yet not everything that Charlotte says can be taken as the truth. Literary licence, maybe; playwright’s impish, knowing humour, certainly.

The sisters are even more fun company than in Lip Service’s Withering Looks, full of surprises, sassy putdowns (not least of Jane Austen’s face being on a bank note) and sisterly interplay, played out to a soundtrack of Self Esteem, Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish snippets.  It could have been deeper, it could have been darker,  but that is the one story that has been told before.

Sisterly rivalries and jealousies in Sarah Gordon’s Underdog: The Other Other Brontë, as played out by Lara Stafford’s Charlotte, right, and Millie Rhodes’s Anne. Picture: John Saunders

On reflection, all the Brontë sisters can be seen as the underdog of the title, sisters with blisters, but fighting against cramped writing conditions, the Yorkshire chill that did for their health, and the inequality and cold shoulder of the book world’s stuffed shirts. The “other” here is as much the other side of their story as a desire to put Anne in the spotlight.

“Young women judge older women more harshly than anybody else…they are conditioned to,” says the spiky Charlotte, in one of her jibes delivered so deliciously by Stafford, whose outstanding performance is befitting of a professional stage.

York Settlement Community Players present Underdog: The Other Other Brontë, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Lara Stafford’s exasperated Charlotte holds her head in her hands as she listens to Maggie Smales’s over-zealous biographer, Elizabeth Gaskell, in the closing chapter of Underdog: The Other Other Brontë. Millie Rhodes’s Anne, back, left, and Jess Murray’s Emily look bemused. Picture: John Saunders

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 42, from Gazette & Herald

Weaving a different spin on The Odyssey: Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

FROM The Penelopiad’s feminist twist on The Odyssey to Miller’s Death Of A Salesman, the Brontë sisters’ other story to Jamie’s blossoming, Charles Hutchinson watches autumn find its fifth gear.

Greek tragedy twist of the week: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Odyssey: Her Story, York Theatre Royal, until October 31

BOOKER Prize winner Margaret Atwood revisits Homer’s The Odyssey in an exuberantly irreverent and darkly humorous retelling where she gives voice to Odysseus’s silenced wife, Penelope – still awaiting his return 20 years after the Trojan War – and her chorus of maids in a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge that exposes the truth behind the myth. Creative director Juliet Forster’s cast is led by Happy Valley and Riot Women star Amelia Bullmore. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Jess Murray’s Emily, left, Lara Stafford’s Charlotte and Millie Rhodes’s Anne Brontë in York Settlement Community Players’ Underdog: The Other Other Brontë. Picture: John Saunders

York premiere of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Underdog: The Other Other Brontë, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

CHARLOTTE Brontë (played by Lara Stafford) has a confession about how one sister (Emily, Jess Murray) became an idol and the other became known as the third sister. You know the one. No, not that one. The other, other one: Anne (Millie Rhodes).

Claire Morley directs Settlement Players in Sarah Gordon’s irreverent retelling of the life and legend of the Brontë sisters as you have never seen the Yorkshire scribbling sisters before. Premiered at the National Theatre in 2024, this is not a story of well-behaved women but of the power of words, sisters and sisterhood, love and jealousy, support and competition. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

The poster for Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds – Live! The Concert Experience! at York Barbican

Iconic score of the week: Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds – Live! The Concert Experience!, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm

FOR the first time, audiences can experience a concert rendition of Jeff Wayne’s score for The War Of The Worlds, presented by Kilimanjaro, who bring the double album to life with West End performers, live band, orchestra and animation.

“For this concert tour, I’ll be stepping back from the podium,” says Wayne. “But the production will showcase exceptional artists from the West End and other major performing mediums, supported by a band, orchestra, animation and other concert elements. It will stand as a true companion to my arena tours.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Andy Studdart, as Willie Loman, and Linda Tester, as The Woman, Willy’s mistress, in 1812 Theatre Company’s Death Of A Salesman. Picture: Joe Coughlan

Ryedale play of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in Death Of A Salesman, Helmsley Arts Centre, tomorrow until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

DIRECTED by Julie Lomas,  Helmsley’s 1812 Theatre Company presents Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman, charting the last 24 hours of struggling salesman Willie Loman (played by Andy Studdart), who cannot understand how he failed to win success and happiness.

Through a series of tragic soul-searching revelations of the life he has lived with his wife, sons and business associates, we discover how his quest for the “American Dream” kept him blind to the people who truly loved him. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.  

Jonathan Agnew: Cricket chat in An Evening With Aggers at Kirk Theatre, Pickering, tomorrow

Not just cricket: Jonathan Agnew, An Evening With Aggers, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, tomorrow, 7.30pm

TEST Match Special broadcaster and former BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew presents an evening of candid insights and anecdotes packed with humour and cricketing gold, iconic archive clips and previously unseen footage. 

From covering the Olympic Games in Rio to commentating on the unforgettable Super Over finale of the 2019 Cricket World Cup, he reflects on the defining moments of his career and his days in the commentary box with Brian Johnston and Sir Geoffrey Boycott, with surprises aplenty too. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk

York Stage’s cast for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, led by Frankie Bounds as Jamie New, the Sheffield schoolboy with dreams

Bold and unapologetic musical of the week: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, Friday to October 24; 7.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinees and 4pm Sunday

TOM MacRae and Dan Gillespie’s Sheffield musical plays the Grand Opera House for the first time in Nik Briggs’s production for York Stage that restores the grit to both complement and counter the glitz in the uplifting underdog story of Jamie New (Frankie Bounds), a 16-year-old schoolboy from a Steel City council estate with big dreams and the courage to stand out when it would be easier to stay quiet.

Equipped with the love of his mum, the support of his friends and the strength to face the world head on, Jamie fights prejudice, finds his voice and discovers the freedom of stepping into the spotlight on his own terms. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Tom Stade: Dismantling rules and redefining them his way at York Barbican

Come and see for yourself why…Tom Stade Rules, YO1 Radio Live Lounge, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm

CANADIAN free spirit Tom Stade takes aim at the absurdities of modern times with his incisive, gloriously unfiltered wit as he grapples with rebellion, responsibility and the tension between the old and the new. From unspoken social codes to cultural divisions, identity to marriage, Stade dismantles all the rules and redefines them his way. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Ben Bowman in Michael Starring Ben

Recommended but sold out already: Michael Starring Ben, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm

TAKE a journey back in time to recall Michael Jackson’s music and magic in Michael Starring Ben, featuring “the UK’s ultimate Michael Jackson tribute star”, Ben Bowman.

Neither associated with nor endorsed by the Michael Jackson Estate, this tribute to the King of Pop features a live band, dazzling costumes and Jackson’s iconic dance routines in its showcase of Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5’s greatest hits.

Samuel Moore: Flamenco guitarist in concert at Milton Rooms, Malton

Flamenco guitarist of the week: Samuel Moore, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 7.30pm

MESMERISING West Yorkshire flamenco guitarist, tutor and author Samuel Moore transports you to the heart of Spain in Saturday’s concert. Winner of the Manhattan International Music Competition in 2023 and Vienna International Music Competition in 2025,  he has performed across the UK, Europe and North America, playing solo at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London.

Bringing to life the rich colours, rhythms, and sounds of Andalucía, his repertoire encompasses original compositions, traditional flamenco forms and masterworks by Ramón Montoya, Niño Ricardo and Sabicas. His 2019 debut album with classical guitarist Michael Christian Durrant, Guitar, The Heart Of Spain, was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London; his solo debut, Camino Flamenco, will be released on November 20. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Alex Voysey: Leading Faux Bonamassa blues concert at Kirk Theatre, Pickering

Blues gig of the week The Alex Voysey Blues Band presents Faux Bonamassa, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Saturday, 7.30pm

ALEX Voysey was nominated for Contemporary Blues Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Emerging Artist of the Year in the 2025 UK Blues Federation Awards. Now his band re-imagines the musicianship of blues titan Joe Bonamassa, blending Bonamassa’s greatest songs of the past two decades with Voysey’s virtuosity, improvisation and contemporary blues mastery. Expect to hear Sloe Gin, The Ballad Of John Henry, Athens To Athens, Woke Up Dreaming, Dustbowl, A Conversation With Alice and Stop. Box office: kirktheatre.co.uk/events/alex-voysey.

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Julie Lomas fulfils ten-year dream to direct Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman, staged by 1812 Theatre Company in Helmsley

Andy Studdart as Willy Loman and Linda Tester as The Woman, Willy’s mistress, in 1812 Theatre Company’s Death Of A Salesman. Picture: Joe Coughlan

ARTHUR Miller’s Death Of A Salesman will be staged by 1812 Theatre Company at Helmsley Arts Centre from tomorrow to Saturday with a late change of cast.

“Rehearsals have not been without event,” says director Julie Lomas. “Unfortunately our leading lady, Sam Hughes, was involved in a serious horse-riding accident on October 5, requiring hospitalisation and surgery. She is now in recovery at home but is unable to perform this week.

“However, we have a first-rate replacement in Kate Cawte, who will be very skilfully taking the role of Willie Loman’s long-suffering, devoted wife Linda, book in hand.”

Written in 1948, when Miller finished the first act in a single spring day in Roxbury, Connecticut, and premiered on Broadway in 1949,  Death Of A Salesman is performed only rarely by amateurs. “It’s been complex and hard work, but rewarding, with both new and regular performers for the company starring in this clever and layered masterpiece,” says Julie.

Dylan Canton as Happy Loman, Willy’s youngest son, in 1812 Theatre Company’s Death Of A Salesman. Picture: Joe Coughlan

“We have a very strong leading cast, some of whom have not acted with the company before, plus the return to the stage of drama teacher Jonathan Lewis as Biff Loman.”

Miller’s play focuses on the last 24 hours in the life of Willy Loman, the struggling salesman of the title, who , who cannot understand how he failed to win success and happiness. Through a series of tragic, soul-searching revelations of the life he has lived with his wife, sons and business associates, Miller reveals how his quest for the “American Dream” kept him blind to the people who truly loved him. The plot is set mainly in the 1940s, complemented by Loman’s  idealised memories of happier times in the 1930s.

Andy Studdart is making his first appearance with 1812 Theatre Company as Willy Loman. “The title role is a tour de force and it will be a remarkable debut by Andy,” says Julie. “He is not the only newcomer in the cast: Dylan Canton, is playing Happy, one of Willy’s sons,  while the other son, Biff, is played by Jonathan Lewis, who is making a welcome return to Helmsley after a prolonged break raising his young family.

“I feel incredibly lucky to have such talented and committed actors on the stage at the same time and working with them has been a joy.”

Regular 1812 players will be in the cast too: Oliver Clive plays the sons’ nerdy friend, Bernard; Beaj Johnson is Charley, said by Willy to be “the only friend I have got”; Richard Noakes is Uncle Ben, Willy’s  recently deceased elder brother; Robert Perry is Stanley, the obliging waiter, and Mike Martin plays heartless boss Howard Wagner.

Andy Studdart’s Willy Loman and Kate Cawte’s Linda Loman in 1812 Theatre Company’s Death Of A Salesman. Picture: Joe Coughlan

The role of Willy’s seductive mistress goes to Linda Tester and Vicki Mason plays both Charley’s secretary and the very glamorous Miss Forsythe.

“Far from being a miserable play, as the title may suggest, this powerful, fast-moving play is peppered with humour and surprises,” says Julie. “It is energetic and passionate throughout, culminating in emotional scenes, the likes of which are rarely seen on stage. There is some beautiful music and performances are worthy of the highest praise.”

In his introduction to the play, Miller described the setting as being “wholly or – in some places – partially transparent”. This has provided inspiration for 1812’s  set, with Julie being guided by Sue Elm in its design and its construction, carried out by a five-strong set-building team led by Michael Goslin and Peter Ives.

Music is integral to Julie’s production too, in particular the melodies, played on a flute to represent Willy’s state of mind. The many sound cues and lighting effects will be operated by Helmsley Arts Centre technical manager James Bentley.

Andy Studdart’s Willy Loman, left, and Richard Noakes’s Ben, Willy’s recently deceased older brother, in 1812 Theatre Company’s Death Of A Salesman. Picture: Joe Coughlan

The evocative costumes and properties are supervised by Julie Wilson and Pauline Noakes respectively and the actors have been guided throughout the rehearsals by production assistant Jean Sheridan. The experienced David Tester is the stage manager, assisted by the ever-positive Billie Billington.

Julie has wanted to put on this play for “at least as many years as it took Arthur Miller to write it – ten”. “Miller carefully thought through the impact his inventive, theatrical elements would present on stage, for example, the co-existence of past and present, and the visualisation of Willy’s hallucinations,” she says.

“This challenge appealed to me, together with the sharp detailing of the characters’ emotional states and the relevance the play’s themes still have today.”

1812 Theatre Company presents Death Of A Salesman, Helmsley Arts Centre, October 15 to 17, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

The poster for 1812 Theatre Company’s production of Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman

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Lightning strikes twice for Beth Orton in Leeds. Here’s why…

Beth Orton: Promoting new album The Ground Above at Leeds Howard Assembly Room. Picture: Kasia Wozniak

WHAT were the chances?  Beth Orton last played Leeds on October 16 2022 at the Brudenell Social Club on her Weather Alive tour. Now she will return on…October 16 2026, this time making her Howard Assembly Room debut at Leeds Grand Theatre as part of her eight-date British tour.

The Norfolk-born singer-songwriter will be showcasing The Ground Above, her ninth studio album (if you include 1993’s SuperPinky Mandy, produced by William Orbit and released only in Japan in a limited-edition print).

Self-produced by Orton, the June 26 album bridges the gap between folk, spiritual jazz and the Great American Songbook and is described by record label Partisan Records as her “most direct and unapologetic music to date; urgent, raw, embodied and emotionally fearless, moving between subconscious expression and expansive, timeless song craft.

The cover artwork for Beth Orton’s The Ground Above (Partisan Records)

“Her voice, as distinctive as ever, delivers melodies reminiscent of classic songbook form. Throughout the album, Orton documents survival and renewal, motherhood and identity, political unease and the ongoing choice to stay – in love, in art, and in the world.”

The slow-building, life-affirming first single, Waiting, with its shades of Laura Nyro, Carole King and early collaborator Terry Callier, is “a celebration of moving out of the holding pattern fear keeps us in,” says Orton, now 55.

“We are all vulnerable beings living out invincible lives,” reckons Orton, whose songs “look through a prism of many years at once” The track listing comprises The Ground Above, Before I Knew, Cigarette Curls, Waiting, Celestial Light, I’ll Miss You, Love You Right and Otherside, crafted in her London home studio, one that houses a battered old piano that she saved from Camden Market.

“We are all vulnerable beings living out invincible lives,” says Beth Orton. Picture: Kasia Wozniak

Through the years, BRIT Award winner Orton has accrued genre-defying collaborations with not only Callier and Orbit but also Chemical Brothers, Andy Weatherall, Red Snapper, Bert Jansch and Jim O’Rourke.

For The Ground Above, she began with live recordings, then sculpted and expanded the songs over a year-long process, working with multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, Vernon Spring’s Sam Beste, drummers Chris Vatalaro (Antibalas and Radiohead) and Vishal Nayak (Nick Hakim), trumpet player Christos Styliandes and The Invisible’s bassist, Tom Herbert.

Future Sounds presents Beth Orton, Howard Assembly Room, Leeds Grand Theatre, October 16, doors 7pm for 7.45pm start. SOLD OUT. More details: https://www.operanorth.co.uk/whats-on/beth-orton-2/.

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