THREE top comedians take to the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club stage in the YO1 Live Lounge at York Barbican on Saturday.
After a lifetime as a comedian, Dave Johns was tipped for Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his lead role in Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, having won at the Cannes Film Festival and picked up a BAFTA.
A string of further awards followed, culminating in Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards.
Appearing on the stand-up comedy circuit since 1989, North Easterner Johns is a regular guest on comedy panel shows Never Mind The Buzzcocks (BBC2) and 8 Out Of Ten Cats (Channel 4).
Scottish comedian Paul Pirie: from the bitchy to the silly
Johns no longer tours the country or the world and is highly selective about where and when he performs comedy these days, so Saturday’s show will be a rare chance to catch him in York.
Joining Johns on the 8pm bill will be Paul Pirie, Josh Sedman and regular host Damion Larkin, the Laugh Out Loud promoter.
Pirie took up stand-up after giving up acting to pursue the funny man that lies within, establishing himself on the Scottish comedy circuit as long ago as 2004. Soon after, he was runner-up in the Scottish Comedian of the Year awards and he now combines live performances with television, film and radio.
Yorkshire comic Josh Sedman with his “Wetherby Teeth”
A physical, theatrical presence on stage, he specialises in rapid-fire comedy that blurs the lines between real-life anecdotes and flight of fancy. “It has been observed that he channels the late Robin Williams at his most excitable and many regard him as the natural hierarchy to Billy Connolly,” says Larkin.
“With a set that jumps from bitchy to silly, you’re never more than a line away from a great pun, insight or well-crafted punchline, delivered with a ferocity that makes Paul’s humble beginnings on the Scottish circuit seem such a long time ago,” says Larkin.
Award-winning Yorkshire comedian Sedman has enjoyed fast career progression since 2022, equipped with “Wetherby Teeth”(apparently Yorkshire’s superior version of “Turkey”, and a lovely head of hair.
Great Ayton photographer Joe Cornish, left, and Gisborough counterpart Simon Baxter at last Saturday’s launch of All The Wood’s A Stage at Nunnington Hall. Picture: Celestine Dubruel
NORTH Yorkshire photographers Joe Cornish and Simon Baxter’s exhibition All The Wood’s A Stage takes its inspiration as much from Shakespeare as nature.
The title is a spin on All The World’s A Stage, the opening line of Jacques’ Seven Ages Of Man soliloquy in As You Like It, prompting Joe and Simon to mirror theatre’s format by present their show in four acts, or four ages/stages of trees, in three top-floor rooms and the linking corridor against the backdrop of Nunnington Hall’s gardens and trees in late-summer seasonal change.
“Trees and woodland may seem sedate, but drama unfolds slowly, staged over seasons, years, decades, even centuries,” reads one statement on the exhibition walls, where the photographs are divided into Emergence, Interference, Transience and Performance.
Joe, from Great Ayton, and Simon, from Gisborough, present trees as “actors on the woodland stage”, representing the three forms of Shakespeare’s plays: comedy in their branch formations; history in their rings of life; tragedy in their fate, whether deforestation, heat stress, climate change, or the crass felling of the Sycamore Tree Gap near Hadrian’s Wall in September 2023 that led to prison sentences for Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers.
“We must learn to reconnect with nature, and woodland is a good place to start,” say the photographers. “Trees are critical actors in nature whose time on this planet far exceeds our own.” 360 million years, to be precise.
All The Wood’s A Stage, by Simon Baxter
Joe and Simon had first used the term “All The Wood’s A Stage” in their Woodland Sanctuary exhibition at the Moors Centre, Danby, in 2022. This time their focus spreads beyond Yorkshire to take in the South, Snowdonia, the Lake District and Scotland too in “celebration of the beauty and vital significance of trees, woodland and forests across the UK”.
Exhibition curator Laura Kennedy, Visitor Experience and Programming Manager at Nunnington Hall, says: “All The Wood’s A Stage invites us to see trees as silent performers on nature’s stage – inviting us to observe, listen and reflect.
“Trees provide joy, peace, and inspiration; they are the lungs of the Earth, guardians of biodiversity, and a crucial part of our mental and physical well-being. Through changing seasons, they symbolise life, death, and renewal.
This exhibition promises a truly uplifting experience, inviting visitors to fall in love with woodland life all over again.”
Both photographers attended last Saturday’s launch of 65 photographs for sale, complemented by two short films, to the noises-off accompaniment of the day’s incessant downpours. They work on their exhibitions and accompanying books in tandem – they live ten miles from each other – discussing potential themes, selecting each other’s photographs for the shows, printing together, but always photographing separately, even on joint excursions.
Dancing Trees, by Joe Cornish
“We think it’s important to listen to nature, and to express empathy, which comes from knowledge, but to have access to knowledge has to come from experience. For me, being in nature, among trees, has helped with my wellbeing,” says Simon.
“Through my photography, I’m doing justice to the woods, as a celebration of what they’ve done for me through their power to heal. It’s a celebration to say I love this natural world so much, not because it creates a great photograph but because I feel better among trees, and I want to share that wonder – and if nature can revert you to a different state of mind, it’s a very powerful thing.”
Joe and Simon see their work as holistic. “We know of the performative aspect of trees, sometimes as leading characters, sometimes as supporting cast, and if trees are the primary actors, where do we fit in? We are the audience,” says Joe.
He is delighted to be exhibiting at Nunnington Hall. “To have our work on show in this beautiful place, it’s like a sanctuary,” he says. “The National Trust has been very supportive of the arts, and I really hope that the trust can continue to play its leading role in providing spaces for artists to show their work.
“I see photography as a political act, and I slightly bristle at the thought that we just take pretty pictures. What we do is take pictures to offer a sense of hope.”
Woodland wanderers Joe Cornish, left, and Simon Baxter
Joe has experienced has own drama when filming for an exhibition with a theatrical structure. “I broke my neck falling off a mountain at Assynt [north of Ullapool in the Northwest Scottish Highlands],” he says. “I was hit by a gust of wind so hard that, even with my camera equipment on my back, I was knocked off my feet and fell quite a long way,” he recalls. “It was such a dangerous place, I had to walk for a mile but then the pain became unbearable.”
Joe was taken to hospital by mountain rescue helicopter. “Luckily I hadn’t damaged my spinal cord,” he says. “I’ve camped on the top of that mountain since then, which felt like an act of redemption.”
The trees, the woods, their theatre of life, will keep calling him and Simon back again and again.
Joe Cornish and Simon Baxter, All The Wood’s A Stage, on show at Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, near Helmsley, until March 29 2026. Opening hours: 10.30am to 5pm daily; last entry, 4pm; from October 1, closed on Mondays.
Normal admission prices apply, including entry to the exhibition, with free entry for National Trust members and under-fives. To book tickets, go to: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/nunnington-hall.
Cornish and Baxter’s self-published accompanying book, All The Wood’s A Stage, is on sale at £30 at Nunnington Hall, along with copies of Woodland Sanctuary. Visitors can buy prints on display too.
Cooper Robson: Slam champ, left-wing, left-field loudmouth from Heaton, heading for Say Owt Slam in York
NOW in its 11th year, Say Owt Slam brings former slam champion Cooper Robson back to York for a special-guest full set at The Crescent, York, on October 3.
In 2008, a Spike Milligan anthology and the tiny book of Che Guevara sat beneath a Christmas tree. At this moment, a little left-wing, left-field loudmouth called Cooper was born in the north east.
Combining hard-hitting poetry and side splitting comedy, Cooper loves chatting b***ocks. Winner of the Geet Muckle Slam 2023, third at the both the England Slam Championships 2023 and FeltNowt NAOTY 2025, he has a trophy that says “good at using his mouth and that”(ask ya ma).
Equipped with “more meter than Mo Farrah, more nonsense than a sapling touching Tolkien-tree, and spouting more sh*** than a government coastal policy, Cooper Robson is a gobsh*** from Heaton,” his profile states.
Say Owt Slam’s poster for Cooper Robson’s special guest appearance at The Crescent on October 3
Explaining the concept of Say Owt Slam, Say Owt artistic director Henry Raby says: “It’s a raucous evening of poet versus poet in a fun night of verse. Poets have three minutes to wow you, the audience. Expect poetry with humour and heart, comedy and charisma, stories and sizzling spoken word, hosted by the lovable Say Owt gang celebrating 11 years of performance poetry.”
If you fancy pitting your pithy wits in a Say Owt slam, send an email to info@sayowt.co.uk. “We prioritise people living in York and the surrounding villages,” says Henry.
The Coal Porters at All Saints Church, Pocklington. Picture: Paul Rhodes
THE evening after the night before, plus a bad head cold. On the face of it, the signs weren’t encouraging for The Coal Porters’ Pocklington show, (hardly) fresh from Sid Griffin’s 70th birthday concert bash at The Water Rats, in King’s Cross, London – a show Griffin himself put in his top three.
We need not have worried, thanks to the power of bluegrass and Griffin’s ‘the-show-must- go-on’ attitude. A double whisky whisked in and down at the interval certainly helped as well.
Griffin assembled The Coal Porters, billed as alt. bluegrass, primarily to entertain. There is something life affirming about the way banjo and fiddle sound together, with double bass and mandolin floating over the top on a round of harmonies.
Griffin is a musician and writer, one of the founding fathers of today’s alt. country genre with The Long Ryders. Like his hero Gene Clark (who featured later in Looking For Lewis And Clark), he is critically acclaimed but has never troubled the hit parade despite lifting roofs off venues all over.
Alongside him were three extroverts, Kerenza Peacock on exuberant fiddle and vocals, Andrew Stafford on bass and Neil Robert Herd on guitar and vocals, going strong after two decades. In the more reflective camp, but out front anyway, was Paul Fitzgerald on banjo and vocals.
The band’s red jackets and black over-long trousers gave them the appearance of trad bluegrass, but the set list blew such notions away. Griffin’s jacket would end up hung over the church pulpit.
Across 23 songs and some 100 minutes the band threw themselves into a wide range of music. From the traditional bluegrass of Bill Monroe to ‘Porterised’ punk and rock songs reborn as country.
Heroes, by David Bowie, too ubiquitous, can rarely have sounded better, while Another Girl, Another Planet, by The Only Ones, confirmed that the best tunes can work in any genre if handled with care and again topped the original.
Griffin’s own songs could also make the journey back to punk rock. The Day The Last Ramone Died worked best (although Pocklington scored low for Ramones T-shirts in the audience).
The Coal Porters’ sincerely sung love of the material was clear, and also for one another. With their leader ailing and singing with teacup in hand (would one more song of souls in restless agony see him off?), the others took a number of turns. Peacock received the biggest hand for her instrumental Chopping The Garlic while Fitzgerald showed us his love of Chuck Berry.
Talking to charleshutchpress.co.uk earlier in the week, Griffin, a man who knows a thing or two about a good line, memorably said: “It’s what I do, it’s what we do, as Robbie Robertson said of The Band. Good times, bad times, I make music. I don’t have riches or fame. I’m just happy.”
All Saints Church is a venue that brings the best out of performers, with clear sightlines and lovely sound. It inspired Griffin to set aside his solo album in favour of a rousing version of I Am A Pilgrim (a stand-out single from The Byrds’ Sweetheart Of The Rodeo).
Played for the love of the music and despite illness, Griffin and his friends gave us a wonderful night of feelgood music.
Review by Paul Rhodes
Coming up at All Saints Church, Pocklington are Chris Smither on October 29, 7.30pm, and The Unthanks At 20 – already sold out – on November 22, 7.30pm. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/pocklington/all-saints-church/chris-smither/e-moryao.
Tom Chambers’ Detective Chief Inspector Morse in Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts. Credit: Johan Persson
TOM Chambers returns to the York stage on Tuesday for the first time since appearing in Torben Betts’s ghost story chiller-cum-psychological thriller Murder In The Dark at the Theatre Royal.
In that September 2023 premiere tour he waded through the quagmire of playing washed-up pop star Danny Sierra, a deeply unlovable, self-pitying alcoholic.
Now he plays another chap who likes a drink, the “high-functioning alcoholic” Detective Chief Inspector Morse, an altogether more popular fellow – “the nation’s favourite detective”, as co-producer Simon Friend calls the erudite opera, crossword and real ale enthusiast from Colin Dexter’s novels and 13-year television series, developed by Anthony Minghella and Kenny McBain in 1987, starring John Thaw.
Chambers is appearing in Simon Friend Entertainment and Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s new touring co-production of the first stage play in the Morse franchise, written by Alma Cullen in 2010 after penning episodes as The Secret Of Bay 5B (1989), The Infernal Serpent (1990), Fat Chance (1991) and The Death of The Self (1992) for the ITV series.
Tom Chambers’ washed-up pop star Danny Sierra in Torben Betts’s psychological thriller Murder In The Dark, on tour at York Theatre Royal in September 2023. Picture: Pamela Raith
“I am absolutely thrilled to be bringing to the stage the nationally loved character of Inspector Morse,” says Tom. “Played by John Thaw in the TV series, it is an iconic role which audiences clearly loved alongside the Morse murder mysteries.
“This brand-new production is a tantalising tale, rich in story and character and even unpicks some of Morse’s closely guarded personal life. It’s going to be a fabulous evening of entertainment.”
In Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts, a chilling mystery unfolds when a young actress dies suddenly on stage mid-performance. Morse embarks on a gripping investigation, one that begins as a suspicious death inquiry but takes a darker turn when the legendary inspector, in tandem with Detective Sergeant Lewis, uncovers a connection to sinister events in his own past, 25 years earlier.
“We’re at Richmond Theatre this week after opening Birmingham three weeks ago,” says 2008 Strictly Come Dancing winner Tom, who is reuniting with director Anthony Banks after collaborating on the 2020/2021 tour of Dial M For Murder.
Tom Chambers’ Detective Chief Inspector Morse with Teresa Banham’s Ellen in Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts. Picture: Johan Persson
“It’s a brilliant piece of writing by Alma Cullen, who wrote for the TV series: beautifully written – very slick, very smooth – so it’s like watching Morse on TV with lots of short scenes, but now like Tetris on stage, where we’ve worked on the stage movement like in a ballet.
“The show has been working really well. I’m just amazed how much the audiences love Morse, and the relationship between Morse and Lewis [played by Waterloo Road alumnus Tachia Newall] is so well expressed too.”
Audiences have warmed to Tom’s portrayal of Morse. “Being the youngest of five, I’m a natural pleaser,” he says. “But I definitely feel that it’s also about what John Thaw brought to the role. Somebody pointed out I’m playing Morse at exactly the same John Thaw started playing him. [It turns out this is not correct, Chambers is 48, Thaw was 44]. John stayed looking that way for decades!
“John brought his natural brilliance to it, and I feel it’s written in a way that you can imagine his Morse saying it, so you don’t want to swim against the tide. It feels nourishing, comforting, like soul food, where you know Morse and what it will be like and it feels a pleasure to be there. It’s like a two-way relationship [with the audience]. We give a sense of John Thaw without being a copy.”
Partners in tackling crime: Tom Chambers’s Detective Chief Inspector Morse, right, with Tachia Newall’s Detective Sergeant Lewis in Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts. Credit: Johan Persson
House Of Ghosts has the structure of a story within a story, where Morse is transported back to 25 years earlier, surrounded by actors from a production of Hamlet in university days. “It’s satisfyingly intricate,” says Tom. “One of the delights is that information unravels in such a clever way that audiences feel complete when it’s finished, and the music fits in beautifully too.
“It’s one of the favourite pieces that I’ve done because I’ve really enjoyed trying to be the opposite of performing. Watching John Thaw, who was so ‘unpolicemanlike’, it’s made me realise that the craft of acting is to be as relaxed as possible but with intention – you can still feel your heart beat, and your jugular on your neck, especially on first nights. I just love the dialogue too, and Morse’s attitude; how he’s analogue, not digital. Just charming.”
Tom, by the way, has many fond memories of York. “My aunty, Shirley O’Brien, is from York. We’d always end up in the Minster,” he says.
Simon Friend Entertainment and Birmingham Repertory Theatre present Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts, Grand Opera House, York, September 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
The poster for Anthony Banks’s touring production of Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts, playing Grand Opera House, York, from tomorrow
York oboe player Desmond Clarke: Performing on Navigators Art’s YO Underground #5 bill at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse
FOOD for thought for heading out and about as York Food & Drink Festival opens and Inspector Morse is on the case in Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations.
Navigators Art presents YO Underground #5, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm
YORK arts collective Navigators Art’s regular fulcrum of left-field new music, words and performance returns this weekend with a focus on ethnic instruments, acoustic-electronic improvisation, words and guitar-based fusion, plus passionate new songwriting.
Expect bold, beautiful and adventurous sounds from flautist Carmen Troncoso, York oboe player Desmond Clarke and Osc~, No Spinoza and a new York ‘supergroup’, the NSC Sound Union, combining members of Soma Crew and Namke Communications. Admission is £6 at www.ticketsource.co.uk/navigators-art-performance) or £10 on the door.
Sam Blythe: Taking on a multitude of roles in George Orwell’s Animal Farm at Theatre@41, Monkgate
Solo show of the week: Sam Blythe in Animal Farm, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 7.30pm
CELEBRATING 70 years of its publication on August 17 1945 and 30 since the first performance of Guy Masterson’s solo adaptation of George’s Orwell’s satirical allegorical dystopian novella, Sam Blythe takes up Masterson’s mantle on stage.
Bringing all of Orwell’s multiple characters to vivid life, Blythe transforms into Snowball, Napoleon, Squealer, Boxer, Clover, Mollie, Benjamin, Muriel, the Sheep, Dogs, Cows, Hens and the Cat in a performance designed to shock, enchant, bewitch and bewilder, ringing out Orwell’s prescient warning that politicians through the ages, and of all creeds and colours, will often let power corrupt them. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Rebecca Vaughan’s Lady Susan in Dyad Productions’ Austen’s Women: Lady Susan. Picture: Seamus Flanagan
Magnificently crafted tale of manipulation and manners of the week:Dyad Productions in Austen’s Women: Lady Susan, York Theatre Royal Studio, today, 2pm; Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 7.30pm
DYAD Productions return with a new solo comedy show, Jane Austen’s 1794 tale of manipulation and manners. Directed by Andrew Margerison, company regular Rebecca Vaughan plays devil-may-care widow Lady Susan, oppressed, rebellious daughter Frederica, long-suffering sister-in-law Catherine, family matriarch Mrs De Courcy and insouciant best friend Alicia.
At the vanguard of Vaughan’s wickedly humorous adaptation is the charming, scheming and witty Lady Susan, taking on society and making it her own, but has this coquette met her match? Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Helmsley, 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Skosh chef-proprietor Neil Bentinck: Cookery demonstration at St Crux Hall on September 27 at 1pm at York Food & Drink Festival
Festival of the week: York Food & Drink Festival, cooking until September 28
HIGHLIGHTS of this autumn’s York Food & Drink Festival include 70 street food and produce stands in Parliament Street; the Entertainment Marquee on Parliament Street, serving a bill of Live for St Leonard’s Hospice music acts; more live music in St Sampson’s Square, and demonstrations, events, tastings, and sampling at St Crux Hall.
Further events will be two taste trails; the Food Factory in St Crux Hall and Museum Gardens; the Pork Pie competition in Bedern Hall; Curry & Comedy at the NCEM; Yahala Mataam’s refugee pop-up restaurant night and cookery school; Tang’s festival debut; Jorvik Viking Centre’s activities with an historic twist and the Meet The Makers drinks fair. For the full festival programme, head to: yorkfoodfestival.com.
One of Simon Baxter’s photographs from All The Wood’s A Stage, his joint exhibition with Joe Cornish at Nunnington Hall. Picture: Simon Baxter
Ryedale exhibition launch of the week: All The Wood’s A Stage, Nunnington Hall, near York, from today to March 29 2026
ALL The Wood’s A Stage will continue the 2022 showcase Woodland Sanctuary, exhibited originally at the Moors Centre in Danby. This latest chapter features predominantly new photographs that celebrate the beauty and vital significance of trees, woodlands and forests across the UK.
Photographers Joe Cornish and Simon Baxter depict trees as silent performers on nature’s stage, encouraging us to observe, listen and reflect. Trees provide joy, peace and inspiration, being lungs of the Earth, guardians of biodiversity and a crucial part of our mental and physical well-being. Through changing seasons, they symbolise life, death and renewal. Tickets: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/nunnington-hall.
The poster for The Return Of The Legends, featuring Strictly Come Dancing alumni Brendan Cole, James Jordan, Pasha Kovalev, Vincent Simone and Ian Waites, at York Barbican
Dance show of the week: The Return Of The Legends, starring Brendan, James, Pasha, Vincent and Ian, York Barbican, today, 7.30pm
STRICTLY Come Dancing alumni Brendan Cole, James Jordan, Pasha Kovalev, Vincent Simone and Ian Waite follow up 2024’s Legends Of The Dancefloor with new Latin, tango, rumba and ballroom routines and more Strictly stories in The Return Of The Legends. Joined by a supporting cast, they deliver a night of dancing, camaraderie, music and laughter. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Robert Took, Georgina Liley, Catherine Warnock and James McLean in Mikron Theatre’s Hush Hush!, on tour at Clements Hall, York
Touring play of the week: Mikron Theatre in Hush Hush!, Clements Hall, York, Sunday, 4pm
IN a daring theatrical mission, Marsden’s Mikron Theatre Company infiltrates the clandestine world of wartime code-breaking in Lucie Raine’s Hush Hush!, exposing the vital contributions of the unsung heroes of Bletchley Park’s Hut 3, whose ingenuity and unwavering resolve helped secure victory.
Peggy Valentine arrives at Bletchley in 1940, 18 years old, headstrong and gifted. Finding herself in a world of boffins, soldiers and debutantes, Peggy must shoulder the burden of high-pressure war work while navigating a new world of feuds, friendships and growing up in a frame of absolute secrecy. Mikron’s crack team of actor-musicians, Georgina Liley, Robert Took, Catherine Warnock and familiar face James McLean, blends original songs, live music and compelling storytelling. Box office for returns only: 01484843701 or email admin@mikron.org.uk.
Tom Chambers as Detective Chief Inspector Morse in the first Inspector Morse original stage play, House Of Ghosts, at Grand Opera House, York
Murder mystery of the week: Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts, Grand Opera House, York, September 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees
BIRMINGHAM Repertory Theatre and Simon Friend Entertainment are touring the Inspector Morse franchise’s debut original stage play, House Of Ghosts, penned by Alma Cullen, directed by Anthony Banks and starring Tom Chambers.
A chilling mystery unfolds when a young actress dies suddenly on stage during a performance, prompting Detective Chief Inspector Morse to embark on a gripping investigation. What begins as a suspicious death inquiry takes a darker turn when the legendary inspector, in tandem with Detective Sergeant Lewis, uncovers a connection to sinister events in his own past, 25 years earlier. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Kieran Hodgson: Voicing his thoughts on the USA
Comedy gig of the week: Kieran Hodgson: Voice Of America, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 26, 8pm
AMERICA. What happened, man? Ever since he was a little loser kid in a little loser country (yes, England), Holmfirth-born Kieran Hodgson has been putting on an American accent and dreaming a big American dream.
Nowadays, however, it’s not so simple. Didn’t America go completely bananas? Didn’t he get too old for dreaming? And when Hollywood comes calling, does Kieran actually sound American after all? Here he assesses how a scared world feels about the USA and impersonates a bunch of old prospectors and former Presidents. Box office for returns only: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
The horror, the horror: Dead Northern returns to City Screen Picturehouse
Film event of the week: Dead Northern presents The Festival of Horror, City Screen Picturehouse, York, September 26 to 28
IN “the world’s most haunted city”, Dead Northern hosts three days of film and live events, taking in music, social activities, food, drink and merchandise. Friday Frights opens with a 10.30am showcase of student short films and videos, followed by UK premiere of Sun at noon with a Q&A.
The 2pm short film showcase focuses on Teeth, Claws, Tentacles and Clowns. At 4pm the Dead Talks talk reveals Dracula’s mysterious connection to York under the splendid title of Who Are You Calling A Count?! A mystery Dracula classic film re-surfaces at 5pm and the UK premiere of Hellhouse LLC: Lineage is booked in for 7.30pm. The night concludes with the Welcome Social & Quiz with the Independent Horror Society.
Saturday Screams kicks off with the Flesh & Bone short film showcase at 10.30am, followed by the world premiere of A Mother’s Recall at noon and the Twisted Tales short film showcase at 1.45pm.
The 3.30pm UK film premiere will be Home Education, concluding with a Q&A, and the 5.30pm classic feature will be the 40th anniversary release of A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.
7.30pm’s Signature Live Event will be Spirits By Spirits; the 8.45pm feature film will be The Beast Of Riverside Hollow, with a Q&A, and the night ends with the VIP Awards Party at 11pm.
Day three, Sunday Shock The 28th, launches with the 10.30am classic feature, 1981’s Evil Dead, followed by the UK premiere of Nightfall – A Paranormal Investigation at noon and the Spectres & Shadows short film showcase at 1.30pm.
The UK premiere of Tabula Rasa will be shown at 2.45pm; the 4.15pm screening of He Kills At Night will include a Q&A, and Inside The Mind will be the theme of the 6pm short film showcase. In Dead Talks Part II at 7.30pm, the Independent Horror Society welcomes special guests for When Horror Struck Again, a discussion on underrated sequels.
The festival concludes with a classic feature, 1987’s Evil Dead II. For more details on Dead Northern Part VI 2025 Horror Film Festival, visit deadnorthern.co.uk/dead-northern-2025-horror-film-festival.
In Focus: York Printmakers’ 10th Anniversary Handmade Print Fair, York Cemetery, today and tomorrow
Russell Hughes discussing monoprinting. Picture: Chris Kendall Photography
THIS weekend York Printmakers celebrates a decade of creativity, collaboration and craftsmanship with its 10th Annual Print Fair, designed for lovers of original art and handmade processes.
This year’s fair reflects the group’s continuing mission: to keep traditional printmaking alive, accessible and valued.
Over the past decade, York Printmakers has grown into a vibrant collective of more than 40 artists, all committed to the authenticity of printmaking. The fair showcases a wide range of techniques — from linocut to collagraph, screen print to woodcut — all created by hand.
“People are often surprised to learn the difference between a reproduction and a handmade print,” says founding member Sally Clarke. “At our fair, you get to see the blocks, the plates, the tools — and meet the people who made them.
“In a world where everything is easily copied, our fair champions the original: prints made by hand, with care and intention.”
Bridget Hunt describing how to make a collograph plate. Picture: Chris Kendall Photography
This year’s milestone event reflects on ten years of artistic evolution, celebrating the unique voices of long-standing members while championing the newer members to the collective: artists whose fresh perspectives and experimental approaches are helping to shape the future of the craft.
“It’s always a pleasure to welcome new members, especially those just discovering printmaking or beginning their creative journey,” says long-standing member Russell Hughes. “They bring energy and new ideas that inspire even the most experienced among us. And in return, we’re able to share knowledge and techniques that have stood the test of time. That exchange is what keeps the group dynamic and evolving.”
Visitors can explore a rich variety of work, meet the makers and buy original prints directly from the artists.
York Printmakers’ 10th Anniversary Handmade Print Fair, Chapel and Harriet Room, York Cemetery, Cemetery Road, York, September 20 and 21, 10am to 5pm. Free entry.
York Printmakers’ poster for this weekend’s print fair at York Cemetery
Over the rainbow: Erin Childs’ Dorothy Gale performing the opening number in York Stage’s The Wizard Of Oz
APOLOGIES for taking so long to be off to see the Wizard – Prague holiday prevailed – but there is still time to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Grand Opera House.
That road starts outside the auditorium, a lovely welcoming touch by York Stage, whose abundantly colourful production is directed and produced by Nik Briggs, with fabulous ensemble choreography by Damien Poole and thrilling, resourceful musical direction by Jessica Viner, whose birthday happened to fall on the performance attended by your reviewer.
Such is the attention to detail that the Tannoy interval music includes Carry On Wayward Son by…Kansas, and it is to Kansas that we must head for L Frank Baum’s one heck of a weird story, so memorably converted from his 1900 novel to a film wonderland for Judy Garland as over-the-rainbow farm girl Dorothy Gale in 1939.
Vintage performance: Stu Hutchinson’s Tin Man
A-level student Erin Childs takes that iconic ruby slipper-clicking role in York Stage’s show, in tow with Toto, played by Briggs’s dog Freddie, leaving his mark on the production in more way than one with an urgent deposit, and, once on that yellow brick road by Elanor Kitchen’s puppet, handled so dextrously by puppeteer Sarah Jackson. No such mishap for the puppet.
Childs’ Dorothy hits the heights from the off with her rendition of Over The Rainbow, familiar yet with a finale that brings more resonance to the words. Kansas accent spot on, fringe flopping over her eyes, she leads Briggs’s high-spectacle staging of John Kane’s Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation with appropriate pluck and persistence, although her speaking voice tends towards being high pitched at times.
After the spectacular tornado de force of the storm scene, propelled by Adam Moore’s magical evocation of a twister that tosses Dorothy’s bed hither and thither, she is joined on the journey to Emerald City by Florence Poskitt’s Scarecrow, Stu Hutchinson’s Tin Man and Finn East’s Lion (having played the Guard in Pick Me Up Theatre’s 2018 production).
Magical: Carly Morton’s Glinda
Poskitt, one half of musical duo Fladam, is a supremely expressive physical comedic talent, perfectly suited to the wobbly legged, woolly thinking Scarecrow, but every so often her lines were wont to lose clarity as sentences lengthened. Nevertheless, her performance is a work of clowning joy.
Hutchinson’s Tin Man conducts himself like a matinee idol from a Hollywood cigarette card series with just the right air of camp. Even better is Finn East’s Lion, his natural stage warmth, playfulness and show-stealing presence on full throttle. If I Were King Of The Forest had always been one of the lesser tunes in Harold Arlen and EY Harburg’s score…until now, when East parades his full vocal range like a latterday Meat Loaf.
Carly Morton’s Aunt Em/Glinda spars splendidly with Emily Alderson’s curmudgeonly Miss Glutch and green-with-envy Wicked Witch of the West, while Ian Giles picks up where he left off in reprising his Pick Me Up dual roles as Professor Marvel and the Wizard Of Oz with avuncular aplomb, aided by a giant screen representation of the Wizard’s face with Giles’s distinctively thick head of hair.
The green party: a stylish ensemble scene in York Stage’s The Wizard Of Oz
Ensemble supporting roles for Munchkins, Winkies and more besides are played with abundant energy by adults and juniors alike, at their best in Munchkinland and especially The Jitterbug.
Briggs calls on the costume wizardry of Charades and Sheffield Theatres, as well as York Stage resources, while Shone Productions’ set is top notch too. The poppy field dance is a particular delight.
Viner works her musicians to full capacity, taking on such familiar songs with relish as York Stage’s The Wizard Of Oz feels very much at home at the Grand Opera House.
York Stage in The Wizard Of Oz, Grand Opera House, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Flo Poskitt’s Scarecrow, left, Stu Hutchinson’s Tin Man, Erin Childs’ Dorothy Gale and Finn East’s Lion in York Stage’s The Wizard Of Oz
The Coal Porters: Led by Sid Griffin at All Saints Church, Pocklington, on September 19
THE Coal Porters, the world’s first “alt-bluegrass” act, play All Saints Church, Pocklington, tonight as one of “two (count ’em) encounters with church-based entertainment venues” on their nine-date tour.
Prominent figures in the UK Americana and bluegrass scene for 17 years, Sid Griffin’s band are back in the saddle throughout this month, performing one Yorkshire concert already at Filey Americana Festival at Filey Evron Centre on September 7.
In a further highlight, eighth-generation Kentuckian Griffin marked his 70th birthday with a special gig at the Water Rats, London, last night.
2025 has been quite a year for Long Ryders and Coal Porters frontman Griffin, both on the road and in the recording studio. “The Long Ryders have made a record and now The Coal Porters are firing up again for this tour,” he says.
Tonight AMA Award winner Griffin leads The Coal Porters at All Saints Church on vocals, mandolin, harmonica and autoharp, accompanied by Grammy winner and Adele string section leader Kerenza Peacock on fiddle and vocals; Paul Fitzgerald on banjo and vocals; Andrew Stafford on bass and Neil Robert Herd on guitar and vocals.
“We’ve played St Mary’s Creative Space, an absolutely beautiful church in Chester, and a deconsecrated church in Glasgow, so we love playing civic buildings of interest in any form or shape, which are worth their weight in plutonium,” says Sid. “If they can’t hear a choir singing the praises of the Lord, they can hear us.”
How does Sid know which of his songs will suit the his long-running American alternative country band The Long Ryders or the fiddle, mandolin, banjo, acoustic guitar and doghouse bass, four-part harmonies and melodies of The Coal Porters’ alt. bluegrass?
“Some of the acoustic songs are really written in the singer-songwriter/troubadour tradition, and are not right for the scale of The Long Ryders, and likewise some songs need those drums and bass,” he says. “I can tell upon writing a song where it should go – and the audiences hardly ever disagree!
The tour poster for The Coal Porters’ September travels
“There’s a danger that you start writing songs that you know the band can play, and that’s a mistake as you have to challenge them to get out of their comfort zone. You really have to watch that. It’s one of the pitfalls.
“You have to extend yourself, but not too far, you have to be different, but not too far, which seems contradictory. The Ramones and Credence Clearwater Revival managed to do that, but it’s usually the point at which bands split.
“The Temptations changed, ZZ Top changed, but sometimes you can’t do that – and that’s the thing. I’ve always tried to traverse, with The Long Ryders experimenting and The Coal Porters being entertaining – and being told we’re too entertaining for hillbilly!”
Sid takes his point further. “We’ll take songs by Bob Dylan or David Bowie and we’ll ‘Porterise’ them, knowing we’re playing a Dylan/Bowie song but in a bluegrass form, being true to the idiom.
“The bluegrass police don’t like it. It’s like The Stanley Brothers again. People always want it to be better but different, and it’s pretty impossible to square the circle,” he says. “Traditionalists don’t like it but Coal Porters fans love us to death, so the question is, how do you make things better than yesterday?”
Should he shed the optimism in The Coal Porters’ performances, ponders Sid. “That would be a mistake when you have to entertain but also give the audience a mirror of what’s going, but are we giving them respite, an escape, from what’s going on?” he says.
“I take performances at least as seriously as recording. They’re staring at you; you have their complete, undivided attention. They’ve paid their money, they’re facing you, whereas at home they’re not paying as much attention to a screen.
“Live gigs are now so important because no-one’s making money out of albums. Merch stands are important too. People come up to ask me questions when it’s their moment to have that conversation with someone that has influence and they really want to give me their opinion.”
Singer, songwriter, band leader, musicologist, broadcaster and author Sid Griffin has lived in London for 33 years, where music will continue to frame his life. “It’s what I do, it’s what we do, as Robbie Robertson said of The Band. Good times, bad times, I make music. I don’t have riches or fame. I’m just happy,” he says, as he turns 70.
“It’s what I’ve been doing for a long time and I’ll keep doing it. I’m very pleased anyone wants to hear what I have to say. It’s very touching that these middle-aged guys, usually in their Clash and Ramones T-shirts, come with their wives and their kids and say what our music has done for them.”
Coming up next will be The Long Ryders’ sixth studio album, the follow-up to 2023’s September November. “It’ll be out in March/April. No title yet,” says Sid. “We recorded in a little town in the desert with producer Ed Stasium [who has worked with the Ramones, Talking Heads, Motörhead and the Smithereens, among others].
“It was a really great experience to get together with the guys again. It’ll possibly be our last one but it was a lot of fun to do. Now we’ve got to be mix it for release in the spring.”
Hurricane Promotions present The Coal Porters, All Saints Church, Pocklington, tonight, 7.30pm. Box office: sidgriffin.com/tour; Pocklington, ticketsource.co.uk/hurricane-promotions/the-coal-porters/2025-09-19/19:30/t-eaoqmak.
Alison times three in Fun Home: Libby Greenhill as ‘medium’ Alison, Claire Morley as Alison and Hattie Wells as ‘small’ Alison. Picture: Mike Darley
APOLOGIES for the tardiness of this review, delayed by five days of binging on Prague culture. Nevertheless, it is not too late to see Pick Me Up Theatre’s York premiere of Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s award-garlanded musical Fun Home.
Well, hopefully not too late to acquire a ticket for tonight or tomorrow. York Medical Society’s Theatre Room is one of York’s more compact performance spaces (capacity 60, for lectures; 45, for cabaret; 24, for board meetings). And now 40 for Fun Home.
Director-designer Robert Readman gives the portrait-bedecked room more of a drawing-room entertainment vibe, or maybe a parlour. Make that a funeral parlour, as a funeral home – or ‘Fun Home’ as the Beckdel family call their unconventional Pennsylvanian abode – is where ‘small’ Alison and brothers Christian (Oliver Smith) and John (Teddy Alexander) play and make up songs amid the coffins.
Young Alison (Hattie Wells) is one of three Alisons in Fun Home, whose story is drawn from cartoonist Alison Beckdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Omnipresent is adult Alison (Claire Morley), at the age of the 43 – the same age that her father, suicidal spoiler alert, stood in front of a truck – looking back on her childhood and her coming out at 19 at university in New York (‘medium’ Alison, played by 16-year-old Libby Greenhill).
“It’s such a moving and unusual story and I love the score and the book,” says Readman, who rates five-time Tony winner Fun Home among his very best productions.
He is not wrong. Hattie Wells reveals a precocious talent, so confident on stage already, singing brightly and delivering a spot-on American accent, as her Alison shows a preference for jeans over dresses and a love of drawing. Her solo rendition of Ring Of Keys, is a high-point of a musical that eschews an interval to achieve maximum impact.
Likewise Libby Greenhill shows maturity beyond her years in her account of ‘medium’ Alison, with her love of literature and first love for fellow student Joan (Britney Brett), expressed so humorously and passionately in the song I’m Changing My Major To Joan. She is particularly impressive in the scenes where she craves her parents’ response to telling them by letter that she is a lesbian.
Alison’s mother, Helen (Catherine Foster, in fine singing voice), is a professional actress, but the focus is on her home life, where husband Bruce (Dale Vaughan) is a towering mass of complexities, contradictions, gaslighting control and linear, intolerant thinking, yet with a teacher’s love of literature, a reckless streak and an expressive sideline in house restorations.
Doors to the Theatre Room are kept open for the corridor sounds of Bruce kicking out in anger, shouting in foul-mouthed froth at his wife and introducing ‘small’ Alison to her first dead body, adding to their shock value.
Bruce is homosexual, and not a closet one, openly hitting on students (played by Cain Branton) without regard for his wife’s feelings. Vaughan’s frank, fearless, frightening performance is one of the best on the York stage this year.
Everything is observed by Morley’s Alison, drawing and writing captions for her memoir, trying to make sense of it all, not least her father’s suicide, and she does so with a mixture of humour and tragedy in Morley’s first musical since her All Saints schooldays. And she really can sing! Who knew!
Oh, and if you miss tonight or tomorrow’s shows, you could always head to Manchester for the Royal Exchange production from July 3 to August 1 next summer.
Pick Me Up Theatre in Fun Home, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm Content guidance: Themes of LGBTQ+, suicide and strong language. Parental guidance: 12 plus. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/pickmeuptheatre.com.
Russell Richardson’s Gerald Mallett, left, and Iskandar Eaton’s Daniel in Alan Ayckbourn’s Earth Angel at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
INTRODUCING his 91st play, writer-director Alan Ayckbourn says: “We have to remember there are still good things floating about in the world today, though it’s often hard to see them. But the good is still there if we look for it.”
You might well put Ayckbourn’s annual world premiere at the Stephen Joseph Theatre on that list, but let’s consider his point – and note the Scarborough knight’s reference to “today”.
Latterly, his comedy dramas have tended to reflect on the past or look to the future, but Earth Angel is a play for today and of today, albeit its world of conspiracy theories, poisonous well of social media and scathing putdowns of anyone deemed “too nice” will only become more omnipresent. As for modern policing, Ayckbourn has plenty to say.
Earth Angel is a mystery and state-of-the-nation’s morals litmus test wrapped inside a domestic drama set in West Yorkshire. Not for the first time, Ayckbourn and his designer, Kevin Jenkins, give us a kitchen and a sitting room – or, rather, two sitting rooms, one for each half, in an open-plan theatre-in-the-round setting where the front door and inside and outside walls are cut off half way up.
It won’t wash: Elizabeth Boag’s nosey neighbour Norah, perplexed by Daniel’s evasive answers in Earth Angel. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Mystery number one: who is Daniel (British/Malaysian actor Iskandar Eaton, originally from Sheffield, in his SJT debut)? All in Milk Tray Man black, he is helping well-meaning nosey neighbour Norah (Ayckbourn regular Elizabeth Boag) with the washing-up after the funeral wake for Amy, school teacher, former folk singer and hippy spiritualist wife of Gerald Mallett, fellow teacher and 15 years her senior.
Gerald (SJT newcomer Russell Richardson) is sitting alone in the sitting room as Daniel and Norah talk of the lovely service and the vicar’s even lovelier appraisal of Amy as an Earth Angel. Norah, like the audience, becomes increasingly curious as to whom and what Daniel is.
He was there to comfort Gerald, he explains, but admits he did not know Gerald until today, confirming he was not a former pupil. Curiouser and curiouser, thinks Norah, who doesn’t want Gerald to be on his own tonight.
Gerald, however, rather warms to the natural simpatico of Daniel, seeing Norah’s fussing and fretting off the premises. Perhaps Daniel is the Earth Angel? Norah, however, alerts fellow busy-body Hugo (Hayden Wood), who insists on staying on Gerald’s sofa, his laptop his perma-partner, his tunnel vision, as he looks into who Hugo may be. Eyes down for a full house of nonsense.
Wither of discontent: Liza Goodard’s Maxine and Stuart Fox’s Adrian in Earth Angel. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Hugo, a deliciously satirical Ayckbourn character written in frustrated response to those who only have eyes for their screen, is a modern-day irritant who may be in the room and yet is not in the room, his mind elsewhere. In his case, the electronic web of intrigue.
In keeping with today’s self-righteous world, he never listens to anyone, except to the rumours spreading through the internet wildfire. Where once there were Chinese whispers, idle chit-chat and pub gossip, now it is the tap, tap, tap drip-feed of electronica that is all pervasive – and persuasive.
While Hugo is piling up the conspiracies – is Daniel a zombie, a serial killer or maybe an alien? – Gerald’s stuck-up sister, intransigent, insufferable magistrate Maxine (Ayckbourn favourite Liza Goddard) and her grouchy, old-school, know-it-all husband, ex-policemen Adrian (fellow Ayckbourn stalwart Stuart Fox) are turning up from Doncaster to stick their oar in, fanning the flames of the ever more absurd speculation.
Post interval, in Act Three, the sitting room is now the cushion-laden one in Norah’s house, where the impromptu surveillance squad of co-conspiracists are plotting what to do with Daniel – and recoiling at the disgusting coffee made by Norah (a running joke in Ayckbourn tradition).
Who can be trusted? Conspiracist Hugo (Hayden Wood) at odds with Gerald (Russell Richardson) in Alan Ayckbourn’s 91st play, Earth Angel. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
They are making a meal of everything; Daniel, meanwhile, is making the perfect breakfast for a grateful, trusting Gerald, but still the mysteries remain. Who exactly is Daniel and who is the real Earth Angel?
One answer is provided as Ayckbourn’s tone turns darker, as he is wont to do in Ibsen vein, but still he pumps up the farce too in his latter-day theatre of the absurd. The other, you must decide for yourself, but it affirms that opening sentiment of the good still being there if you look for it. It feels a nourishing finale, in more ways than one.
Throughout, you can delight in director Ayckbourn’s mastery of movement around the 360-degree stage amid the shifting sands of his plot. As ever, he has cast superbly, both in familiar faces Goddard, Fox and especially Boag, and in those new to Ayckbourn at the SJT, Richardson’s free-spirited Gerald, Wood’s taciturn meddler and Eaton’s quietly impressive Daniel.
Alan Ayckbourn’s Earth Angel runs at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 11, then on tour until November 8. Scarborough box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
