Florrie Stockbridge’s Daphne, left, and Natasha Jones’s Christine in Clap Trap Theatre’s Pennyroyal
HELMSLEY Arts Centre artistic director Natasha Jones and musical partner Florrie Stockbridge take to the stage this weekend in Ryedale company Clap Trap Theatre’s production of Lucy Roslyn’s Pennyroyal.
Premiered in 2022 at the Finborough Theatre, London, this heartrending play about sisterhood and motherhood, enduring love and regrets many years in the making explores the things expected of women and what happens if life does not go to plan.
When Daphne (played by Stockbridge) is diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Insufficiency at 19, her sister Christine (Jones) steps in to help in the only way she knows how: by donating her eggs. For a while, the world seems corrected. However, as the years go by – and Daphne sets out on the long road of IVF – the sisters’ relationship begins to twist.
Clap Trap Theatre’s montage of Pennyroyal pictures featuring Florrie Stockbridge and Natasha Jones
“I think of my body sometimes like it’s stubborn,” says Daphne. “We’re not good friends. Like it’s a spooky hotel, and I’m just a ghost haunting it. ’Cause you don’t live in a hotel, you just pass through.”
Pennyroyal was inspired by Edith Wharton’s The Old Maid, a 1922 novella adapted ten years later into a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Zoe Akins. One hundred years on, the story is re-imagined by Roslyn, a Coventry-born, award-winning performer and writer.
Her most recent work includes Orlando, a previous collaboration with director Josh Roche and Jessie Anand Productions that won the Origins Award at VAULT Festival before transferring to the Pleasance, Edinburgh.
Natasha Jones and Florrie Stockbridge, front, in a scene from Lucy Roslyn’s two-hander Pennyroyal
Other work includes Showmanship (Theatre503) and Goody (Pleasance, Edinburgh and Greenwich Theatre – Les Enfants Terribles’ Greenwich Partnership Award 2017). Her debut play, The State vs. John Hayes, started life at the Edinburgh Fringe, before touring to Theatre Royal Bath, The Lowry, Salford, the King’s Head Theatre, London, and OSH Brooklyn, New York.
Jones and Stockbridge have received directing and production support from Libby Pearson. Roslyn’s 80-minute play contains strong language and discussion of infertility and domestic violence.
Clap Trap Theatre in Pennyroyal, Helmsley Arts Centre, July 19 and 20, 7.30pm. Box office:01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk. Watch the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alYKAml0ffQ&t=4s
Miles Salter: Gang leader of Miles And The Chain Gang
YORK band Miles And The Chain Gang will release new single Road To Damascus on July 18.
“It feels like an Americana classic with shades of blues and soul, but with the energy and swagger our fans have come to expect,” says frontman Miles Salter, York songwriter, musician, poet, storyteller, podcaster, presenter and festival programmer.
“The song first came out in 1995, when I made an album of songs called Time To Credit Marvels. I think I pressed 200 copies of the cassette. I was living in Hull at the time and the sleeve was done by a back-street printer with mixed results. It was before I started to put CDs out. Those tapes were always a labour of love!”
The new version of Road To Damascus was recorded in York at Young Thugs Studios, where Miles has recorded nearly all of his songs since 2018, working with producer and musician Jonny Hooker.
“Jonny is very patient,” says Miles. “I get a bit perfectionist-neurotic in the studio; I can’t bear doing stuff that’s ‘nearly but not quite’, so I keep going back to something until it’s right. It can be frustrating, but I honestly feel the catalogue of songs we have now is really good.
“So when something comes out, it has to be as good as I can get it. If that means re-doing the vocal five times, so be it.”
As for the lyrics, is this a tale of love as redemption? “Yes,” affirms Miles.”The idea that love can save you. Saint Paul had his ‘Damascus Road’ experience, but not everybody, these days, gets the reference. Biblical and classical ideas are less available to people than Marvel superheroes.
“There’s a link between spirituality and love. Think of I Say A Little Prayer by Aretha Franklin, or Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, although I wish I could write lyrics as good as Leonard’s – he’s in the premier league of songwriters, as far as I can see. He closed the gap between poetry and lyrics.”
Joining Miles on the new recording are a talented bunch of York musicians: Stomp! percussionist and drummer Billy Hickling, bass player Tim Bruce, York pianist par excellence Karl Mullen and saxophonist Fay Donaldson. Holly Taymar-Bilton provides backing vocals and York blues enthusiast Paul Winn plays harmonica.
Miles And The Chain Gang have released ten songs in total, reaching listeners in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe as well Great Britain via indie and internet radio. “The internet is a mixed blessing, but it’s cool to know that people are listening to the songs around the world,” says Miles. “We’ve racked up more than 30,000 listens on Spotify and 50,000 views on YouTube too.”
Emma Scott, radio presenter and PR guru, praises Miles’s tunes. “They’re very good songs,” she says. “Miles has an ear for hooks, and that’s what rock and pop is all about at the end of the day: those little earworms that keep coming back for more.”
Dr Adam Parker, curator of archaeology at York Museums Trust, holding the Thor’s Hammer Pendant at the Viking North exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum, York
VIKING treasures, street art moved indoors, Fringe comedy previews and Ryedale Festival’s classical lustre bring out the summer smiles in Charles Hutchinson.
Museum launch of the week: Viking North, Yorkshire Museum, York
VIKING North is filled with magnificent objects, many unseen for generations and others that have never been on public display, adding up to “the best collection of Viking finds to be shown outside London” as these Viking treasures reveal the North’s power base, wealth and skills.
Telling the story of the Viking Age in the North of England from AD866 to 1066, the exhibition is underpinned by new archaeological research and cutting-edge technology and features objects from Yorkshire Museum’s own collection, the Vale of York hoard, co-owned with the British Museum, and specially loaned national and regional items, including from the Viking Army Camp at Aldwark, North Yorkshire.
Sea, Swell, Scribe: Jo Walton, Ruth King and Nicky Kippax combine in Pyramid Gallery’s exhibition of paintings, pottery and poetry
Exhibition launch of the week: Sea, Swell, Scribe, Jo Walton, Ruth King and Nicky Kippax, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, from today, 11am, to August 31, open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday
WHAT happens when you let a poet loose in an art gallery with a piece of charcoal? If the juxtaposition of sumptuous curvy and pointy pots against a backdrop of textured metallic atmospheric paintings is inspiring her, then she will scribble words and phrases all over the plinths
York artist Jo Walton, from Rogues Atelier, potter Ruth King, from the Craft Potters Association, and poet Nicky Kippax, from Bluebird Bakery, combine in a show planned and organised by Pyramid gallery manager Fiona Macfarlane and curated by Walton. Kippax has written Eksphratic verse in response to the paintings and pots.
Street artist Al Murphy in his Naughty Corner at VandalFest at 2, Low Ousegate, York
Street art takeover of the summer: Vandals At Work present VandalFest, today and tomorrow, July 18 to 20 and July 25 to 27, 11am to 6pm
VANDALS At Work reunite with youth homelessness charity Safe and Sound Homes (SASH) for VandalFest, the immersive street art takeover of a disused office block at 2 Low Ousegate, York, with a 2025 theme of the playful, cheeky, witty and mischievous.
The stripped-out interior provides four floors of blank canvas for bold, site-specific “intervention” that cover walls, floors and ceilings, complemented by live DJ sets. Among more than 30 artists from the UK and beyond are Bristol graffiti pioneer Inkie, subversive stencilist Dotmasters, inflatable prankster Filthy Luker, master of optical illusions Chu, rooftop renegade Rowdy and York’s own Sharon McDonagh, Lincoln Lightfoot and Boxxhead. Entry is free, with a suggested £3 donation to SASH. Visitors can support the cause by buying limited-edition artworks and merchandise.
Ryedale Festival artist in residence and soprano Claire Booth
Festival of the week; Ryedale Festival 2025, until July 27
THIS North Yorkshire festival of delights will be led off by 2025’s artists in residence, saxophonist Jess Gillam, soprano Claire Booth and viola player Timothy Ridout, along with Quatuor Mosaiques, VOCES8 and composer Eric Whitacre.
Pianists Sir Stephen Hough and Dame Imogen Cooper, organist Thomas Trotter, Arcangelo, York countertenor Iestyn Davies and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s festival debut are further highlights. Jazz, folk and literature weave into the programme too: reeds player Pete Long and vocalist Sara Oschlag salute Duke Ellington; Barnsley’s Kate Rusby showcases her new album, When They All Looked Up, and Dame Harriet Walter channels Jane Austen’s wit in Pride And Prejudice. Full details and tickets at: ryedalefestival.com. Box office: 01751 475777.
McFly: Heading to the Scarborough seaside today
Coastal gig of the week: McFly, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, today; gates open at 6pm
MCFLY’S Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd head to the Yorkshire coast to perform 5 Colours In Her Hair, Obviously, All About You, You’ve Got A Friend, I’ll Be OK, Star Girl, Don’t Stop Me Now, Obviously et al. Twin Atlantic and Devon complete the bill. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Josie Long: Opening Theatre@41’s week of Edinburgh Fringe previews and comedy nights. Picture: Matt Crockett
Comedy event of the week: Halfway To Edinburgh, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, July 13 to 19
A WEEK of Edinburgh Fringe previews and comedy nights takes over Theatre@41, Monkgate, kicking off with comedian, writer, podcaster and filmmaker Josie Long’s Work In Progress on July 13 at 2pm, followed by two Mark Watson selections, Sam Nicoresti and Lulu Popplewell’s Fresh For The Fringe double bill at 7.30pm.
Molly McGuinness and Phil Ellis are in preview mode on July 14 (8pm); Nina Gilligan discusses memory loss, health anxiety and goldfish-related trauma in Goldfish on July 16 (8pm), and Hayley Ellis navigates middle age in Silly Mare (Work in Progress) on July 17 (8pm). Susan Riddell and Kate Dolan, on July 18 (7.30pm), and Barmby Moor surrealist Rob Auton and Chloe Petts, on July 19 (7.30pm), round off the festival previews. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Phil Grainger, left, and Alexander Flanagan Wright. Picture; Charlotte Graham
News just in: Wright & Grainger in The Gods The Gods The Gods, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, July 15, 7.30pm
IN a very late addition to Theatre@41’s packed programme for next week, Easingwold duo Wright & Grainger return their Edinburgh Fringe gig theatre hit The Gods The Gods The Gods to North Yorkshire soil for one night only.
Combining 12 tracks, four stories, three performers and one exhilarating experience, Alexander Flanagan Wright and Phil Grainger mix big beats, heavy basslines, soaring melodies and heart-stopping spoken word into a show that has headlined festivals and sold out venues from Wānaka Festival of Colour in New Zealand to the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, India, to Stillington Mill. Please note: this event is standing room only; chairs will be available for those unable to stand. Box office:tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Georgi Mottram: Classical BRIT Award nominee performing at Voices United concert in aid of St Leonard’s Hospice
Charity event of the week: Ian Stroughair presents Voices United: Rubies For Our Angel, Grand Opera House, York, July 18, 7.30pm
YORK cabaret artiste and West End musical actor Ian Stroughair co-hosts this fundraiser to mark St Leonard’s Hospice’s 40th anniversary with radio presenters Joanita Musisi and Laura Castle, introducing a night of musical theatre and rock and pop classics.
On the bill will be Stroughair in Velma Celli drag diva regalia; York singer Jessica Steel and guitarist Stuart Allan; York musical theatre actress Joanne Theaker; retro party band Jonny And The Dunebugs; The Voice UK 2024 semi-finalist Lois Morgan Gay and West End classical singer Georgi Mottram. Box office: https://shorturl.at/G3qhV or atgtickets.com/york.
Dance isSO embracing:Dancefloor double act Anton & Giovannireunite for Together Again at York Barbican
Dance show of the week: Anton Du Beke and Giovanni Pernice in Together Again, York Barbican, July 18, 7.30pm
STRICTLY Come Dancing alumni Anton Du Beke and Giovanni Pernice promise “more fun, more dance, more song and even more entertainment than ever before” in the terpsichorean double act’s new show Together Again, full of breathtaking routines, stunning choreography and a seamless blend of Ballroom, Latin and musical theatre. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Ancient Hostility: Harmony singing and drones at YO Underground 4 in The Basement
Navigators Art presents YO Underground 4, The Basement, City Screen, York, July 18, 7.30pm to 10.30pm
YORK arts collective Navigators Art plays host to a night of live, local and left-field folk song, electronica and film at The Basement. On the adventurous bill of York and regional acts will be: Andrew Metheven’s lo-fi folk music from the hills and the concrete; Ancient Hostility’s harmony singing and drones from members of Dawn Ray’d and All In Vain, and transdisciplinary artist Hannah-May Batley’s traveller ballads, storytelling, writing, performance and pigments.
Participating too will be: Mark Hanslip, who has a “PhD in shoving saxophones through computers” (possibly not literally); Namke Communications’ electronics and echoes, and multidisciplinary artist Things Found And Made, rummaging in zines, films, music, storytelling, pop-culture, esoterica and folklore. Box office: bit.ly/nav-events
The Wedding Present’s David Gedge, right, walking in Leeds with Reception writer-director Matt Aston
Gig announcement of the week: An Evening of Conversation and Music with David Gedge from The Wedding Present, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, July 20, 8pm, doors 7pm
DAVID Gedge, long-time leader of The Wedding Present, discusses his “semi-legendary” Leeds indie band’s 40-year-career and his life in the music industry, in conversation with Amanda Cook. York writer/director Matt Aston join him too on the eve of rehearsals for Reception – The Wedding Present Musical, ahead of its premiere at Slung Low, The Warehouse, Holbeck, Leeds, from August 22 to September 6.
Next Sunday’s event concludes with Gedge’s 20-minute acoustic set drawn from The Wedding Present’s cornucopia of arch, romantic yet perennially disappointed songs of love, life’s high hopes and woes, chance and no chance. Box office: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-david-gedge-from-the-wedding-present-tickets-1472506409309?aff=oddtdtcreator.
Listen to David Gedge discuss 40 years Of The Wedding Present, the Reception musical and his Rise@Bluebird Bakery show with Two Big Egos In A Small Car podcasters Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers at:
Sisters doing it for themselves? Jennifer Jones’s Elizabeth Watson, left, Livy Potter’s Emma Watson and Florence Poskitt’s Margaret Watson in Black Treacle Theatre’s The Watsons. Picture: Dave Lee
WHEN studying semiotics and semantics in year three of Cardiff University’s English Literature degree more than 40 years ago, one discussion point was ‘Who’s in control of a novel’. The writer? The characters? Or the reader?
Roll forward to York company Black Treacle Theatre’s York premiere of The Watsons, where writer Laura Wade and indeed the characters ask that same question. The reader is replaced by audience members, whose control here is whether to laugh or not at Wade’s ever more anxious comedy.
The question is heightened by the playwright’s challenge. Wade penned Posh (the Royal Court one about the Oxford University dining club of Cameron and BoJo notoriety) and Home, I’m Darling (the darkly comic one about sex, cake and the quest to be the perfect 1950s’Welwyn Garden City housewife): two social studies of English behaviour. The Watsons is a third such study, but with a difference.
Not a fan: Victoria Delaney’s oft-disapproving Lady Osborne. Picture: Dave Lee
Wade picks up the unfinished business of a Jane Austen novel with all the familiar tropes of young sisters desperately having to seek husbands as the only way to improve their circumstances from a pool of unsuitable cads and awkward aristocrats, but with one sister demanding to do it on her own terms. For Pride And Prejudice’s Lizzy Bennet, read The Watsons’ Emma Watson (Livy Potter).
Emma is 19, new in town in 19th century English society, but promptly cut off by her rich aunt and consigned back to the family home with her sisters, the more earnest Elizabeth (Jennifer Jones) and ever excitable Margaret (Florence Poskitt).
Into Austen’s whirl spin the irresistible cad, Nick Patrick Jones’s Tom Musgrave, the tongue-tied toff, Cameron O’Byrne’s Lord Osborne, and his grandstanding mother, Victoria Delaney’s Lady Osborne, with daughter Miss Osborne (Effie Warboys) in tow. A vicar is on the marital march too, Andrew Roberts’s awfully nice Mr Howard.
Livy Potter’s 19th century Emma Watson looks startled as Sanna Jeppsson’s Laura uses her 21st century phone in The Watsons. Picture: Dave Lee
So far, so Austen, if Austen mini, and then…enter Laura (Sanna Jeppsson in her stage return after time out for yoga-teaching studies). Laura, wearing period costume when first seeking to fit in, turns out to be Laura Wade, wading in to explain that Austen’s story went no further (beyond notes to her sister containing advice on who Emma should not marry).
What happens when the writer loses the plot? Jeppsson’s Laura takes over, but it is not as straightforward as that. She does not merely grab Austen’s reins and gallop to the finishing line as the affairs of their heart play out. Instead, The Watsons becomes a piece of meta-theatre, exploring the role, the motives and the creative process of a writer, who, spoiler alert, ends up losing the plot herself.
What’s more, Laura will not have it all her own way. Potter’s feisty Emma speculates: what if she decides what she wants to do, rather than going along with Laura’s plotlines. Trouble is brewing, trouble accentuated by Emma’s fellow abandoned Austen characters rebelling too. Time for a breather, plenty to discuss.
Livy Potter’s Emma Watson puts Andrew Roberts’s clergyman, Mr Howard, to use carrying parcels in The Watsons. Picture: Dave Lee
Re-enter Jeppsson’s Laura, mobile phone in pocket and by now wearing jeans. Re-enter Austen’s increasingly errant characters as The Watsons heads ever further off-piste.
Not everything works – after all, this a reactivated novel in progress with room for trial and error – and you will not be surprised when Jeppsson’s Laura has an exhausted, exasperated meltdown, but you will surely love the characters’ philosophical discussions on Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, led by Matt Pattison’s scene-stealing Robert Watson.
What begins as stilted Regency period drama becomes free-form modern theatre of the absurd, mischievous yet smart, like the works of Austentatious, wherein Wade examines the art of storytelling, the right to free will and who has the final say on our finales.
Cry havoc: Effie Warboys’ Miss Osborne, centre, leads the battle charge in Black Treacle Theatre’s The Watsons. Picture: Dave Lee
Under Jim Paterson’s playful yet still sincere direction, The Watsons keeps the surprises coming, the energy dynamic, the intellect busy and the humour unpredictable. All the while, Jeppsson’s vexed Laura is the serious one, coming up with a theory to Potter’s Emma as to why Austen put the pen down on her.
Amid the social commentary, the parallels with today’s values, the ever dafter comedy, this union of writer, character and audience hits its peak.
Black Treacle Theatre in The Watsons, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: York, 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Yorkshire soprano Bibi Heal at Ryedale Festival location Castle Howard. She will perform Songs That Move on July 18 at Helmsley Arts Centre at 2pm and the National Centre for Early Music, York, at 5pm. Picture: Rob Cook
THE 44th Ryedale Festival begins today, inviting audiences to experience 58 performances in 33 spectacular locations across North Yorkshire until July 27.
Castalian String Quartet and one of the festival’s 2025 artists in residence, violist Timothy Ridout, open the festival with a coffee concert this morning at 11am at St Mary’s Church, Lastingham, performing Mendelssohn’s Quartet No 5 in E-flat and Brahms’s String Quintet No. 2 in G.
Ryedale offers a diverse programme that extends beyond classical music to embrace jazz, folk, poetry and participatory events. These performances unfold against Yorkshire backdrops ranging from historic castles and abbeys to market towns and ancient churches.
Castalian String Quartet: Opening the 2025 Ryedale Festival today at St Mary’s Church, Lastingham. Picture: Kirk Truman
This year’s festival welcomes a multitude internationally renowned musicians, among them Ridout’s fellow artists in residence, trailblazing saxophonist Jess Gillam, Grammy-winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre and Royal Philharmonic Society Singer of the Year Claire Booth.
They are joined by two ensembles in residence, the Austrian string quartet Quatuor Mosaïques and vocal ensemble VOCES8.
Look out for distinguished visiting artists such as pianists Sir Stephen Hough and Dame Imogen Cooper and organist Thomas Trotter, while the orchestral highlights will feature the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Orchestra of Opera North, Arcangelo and the festival debut of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.
Dame Imogen Cooper: Playing Beethoven at St Peter’s Church Norton, on July 26 at 8pm. Picture: Sussie Ahlburg
The festival champions new music too, topped by the Yorkshire premiere of Gavin Higgins’s major song cycle, Speak Of The North, exploring northern identity.
Co-commissioned with Britten Pears Arts, the work takes its cue from the music of Grieg and poems by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë in a “sprawling journey through physical and imagined northern landscapes” that includes songs about the Peak District, Manchester as seen from above, Northumbrian folk heritage and coal mining landscapes – plus an argument between Hadrian’s Wall and the Sycamore Gap tree.
Fifty years after Arthur Bliss’s death, composer Philip Wilby has honoured Bliss’s original vision for his passionate post-war Viola Sonata, transforming it into an orchestrated concerto to be performed by Timothy Ridout with the Orchestra of Opera North, alongside Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
The festival also retrieves music that has slipped through history’s fingers, including a rare UK performance of Michael Tippett’s joyful and unjustly neglected chamber cantata Crown Of The Year, revived by an outstanding group of musicians and Tippett biographer Oliver Soden, alongside other works by Tippett that have not been performed for decades.
Soprano Claire Booth: Royal Philharmonic Society Singer of the Yearand RyedaleFestival artist in residence, performing Speak Of The North with violinist Tamson Waley-Cohen and pianist Christopher Glynn tomorrow at All Saints Church, Hovingham, at 8pm, and Kafka Fragments with Waley-Cohen at Helmsley Arts Centre on July 13 at 9.30pm. Picture: Sven Armstein
Beyond classical offerings, the festival integrates jazz and folk, such as Ronnie Scott’s music director, reeds player Pete Long, vocalist Sara Oschlag and an all-star band saluting Duke Ellington and Barnsley folk singer Kate Rusby showcasing her new album, When They All Looked Up, with her Singy Songy Session Band.
Literary events include Dame Harriet Walter’s theatrical retelling of Pride And Prejudice, to mark the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, in a drawing-room setting, accompanied by violinist Madeleine Easton and pianist Melvyn Tan’s performance of Carl Davis’s score for the 1995 television adaptation.
In a new commission designed to reflect on the relationship between words and music, poet and playwright Caroline Bird reads poems she has chosen and written to accompany cellist Joely Koos and Ryedale Festival’s Waverley Young Artist, pianist Firoze Madon, at the Schumann’s Suggestion coffee concert on at the Wesley Centre, Malton, on July 24 at 11am.
Kate Rusby: Performing her new album, When They All Looked Up, at a sold-out Milton Rooms, Malton, on July 25 at 7pm. Picture: David Angel
The Ryedale Festival believes music is for everyone, offering Concerteenies events for families and children, and Bibi Heal’s Songs That Move for individuals with conditions such as Parkinson’s. Participatory events, such as workshops and Come and Sing sessions led by VOCES8 andEric Whitacre, actively invite public involvement in collective music-making.
BBC Radio 3 will broadcast five concerts from the festival, including a recital by BBC New Generation Artists, featuring German pianist Julius Asal, American violinist Hana Chang, Estonian flautist Elizaveta Ivanova and Uruguayan-Spanish tenor Santiago Sanchez.
In parallel, the festival’sYoung Artist Platform, relaunched this year in association with the Waverley Fund, offers performance, mentoring and career-shaping opportunities for exceptionally talented performers at the beginning of their careers. This year’s Young Artists are guitarist Jack Hancher, pianist Firoze Madon recorder player Hassan Marzban, pianist Ethan Loch and the Fibonacci Quartet.
Dame Harriet Walter: Theatrical retelling of Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen biographer Gill Hornby, with pianist Melvyn Tan and violinist Madeleine Easton, at Wesley Centre, Malton, on July 20 at 7pm
The festival continues to demonstrate its commitment to reaching the widest possible audience. More than 2,000 heavily discounted tickets will be made available through the Ryedale Rush scheme, while anyone under the age of 25 can attend nearly all events for £5 or less.
The festival takes place in beautiful and historic Yorkshire locations, and among the new venues this year are Ripon Cathedral, Skipton Town Hall, Malton’s Wesley Centre and All Saints Church in Northallerton, complemented by a return to Selby Abbey and a Troubadour Trail by mandolinist Alon Sariel that brings music to tiny and remote country churches across the county.
Festival artistic director Christopher Glynn says: “Festivals matter. They connect communities, spark creativity, support local economies and enhance lives.
Alan Soriel: Leading Troubadour Trail to remote Ryedale churches. Picture: Suzette Vorster-Van Acker
“They bring great music and top international performers to beautiful and historic places. They keep faith with live music in an age of digital overload. And they offer a warm welcome and sense of community, showing that classical music isn’t just something to listen to, but something to be part of.
“And in a world where screens so often replace shared experiences, festivals remind us of something irreplaceable: live music. The energy, the spontaneity, the buzz of a live audience and musicians responding to each other in the moment – nothing else compares. Shaped by the players, the listeners and the space itself – a genuine, unrepeatable encounter of hearts and minds.”
“This summer we invite audiences to step into beautiful North Yorkshire locations and meet extraordinary performers not as distant figures on a stage, but as fellow humans sharing something vital.”
York Settlement Community Players’ cast members for Direct Approach performances of The Painting Has Gone and Chalkface
YORK Settlement Community Players has settled on the casts for the next Direct Approach performances at the Black Swan Inn, Peasholme Green, York, on August 31 to September 3.
Irem Saticioglu will direct Andrea Mitchell’s The Painting Has Gone, featuring Frank Brogan’s Steve, Catherine Parker Brown’s Lucy, Emily Hansen’s Sharon, Bryan Bounds’ Sky, Emma Scott’s Geri and Matt Goddard’s Museum Guide/multi-roles.
Lily Geering will be at the helm for P J Thornber’s Chalkface, to be perfoemed by Pamela Gourlay’s Anna, Nick Patrick Jones’s Grant, Em Sinclair’s Louise, Gregor Sweet’s Seb and Darren Barrott’s Mason.
York Settlement Community Players’ poster for The Painting Has Gone
Settlement Players’ Direct Approach project is a regular opportunity for aspiring directors to direct new plays by local writers, all performed by community actors in the relaxed environment of an upstairs room at the Black Swann Inn.
These 30 to 40-minute plays for between four and five actors are designed to equip new directors with the necessary skills to direct a successful production. Directors are supported throughout by the YSCP committee with planning and publicity and are a paired with an experienced York director to act as a mentor.
York Settlement Community Players’ poster for Chalkface, part of the next Direct Approach double bill
Voices United co-organiser and co-host Ian Stroughair in his drag diva guise as Velma Celli
YORK cabaret artiste and West End musical actor Ian Stroughair is to present Voices United: Rubies For Our Angels, at the Grand Opera House, York, on July 18 to mark St Leonard’s Hospice’s ruby anniversary.
You will know international award winner Ian as his alter ego, Velma Celli, the UK’s queen of live vocal drag vocal. He will host the 7.30pm bill in that guise, alongside BBC Radio York presenter Joanita Musisi (whose father passed away at St Leonard’s) and YorkMix Radio Breakfast Show presenter Laura Castle.
Together they will introduce York’s finest performers and West End stars in a night of musical theatre and rock and pop hits to raise funds for a cause extremely personal to Ian.
The hospice, in Tadcaster Road, York, cared for his mum, Pauline, in her final days of battling cancer. “It was so difficult when my mum was ill, but the staff at the hospice provided a level of care that was above and beyond,” he says. “They gave us the space and freedom to spend those precious last days by Mum’s side in such a warm and supportive environment.”
Georgi Mottram: Classical BRIT Award nominee performing at Voice United next Friday
Taking part will be international and West End classical singer Georgi Mottram; Lois Morgan Gay, from The Voice UK; York blues and soul singer Jessica Steel & guitarist Stuart Allan; York musical theatre actress, singer and theatre tutor Joanne Theaker, performing songs from Calendar Girls, and York retro party band Jonny And The Dunebugs.
“All of the artists and musicians are donating their time and talent for free,” says Ian, who has appeared in West End productions of Chicago, Cats, Fame and Rent. “None of us will be taking a single penny, so as much money as possible will go directly to the hospice. Performers always want to get involved and help because St Leonard’s means so much to so many people.
“It’s a big celebration, honouring all the work that the hospice does. Expect a fun, upbeat concert with light entertainment featuring all the songs you know and love: favourites from musical theatre, together with rock and pop classics, from David Bowie to Queen and Lady Gaga.
“Jessica and me, with Stuart on acoustic guitar, will be doing Kate Bush and Sinead O’Connor songs and one from Jessica’s Higher Frequencies album, maybe Abba too. ”
Classical BRIT Award nominee Georgi Mottram has performed for royalty, made her London Palladium debut as Nimue in Camelot and topped the iTunes Classical chart with her 2021 debut single Dream Believe.
Lois Morgan Gay: The Voice UK singer will be performing songs from her appearances on the ITV talent show
Lois Morgan Gay was a semi-finalist on the 2024 series of The Voice UK, with a £100,000 record deal under her belt already from 2022. “I’m thrilled to be part of this concert, raising money for an incredible cause,” she says.
Next Friday’s concert is co-organised by Ian’s close friend Sarah Walker. By a sad coincidence, her father Peter died at the hospice only three weeks before Pauline. Retired policeman Peter was better known as writer Nicholas Rhea, whose Constable series of books were turned into the television series Heartbeat.
Sarah was back at the hospice only a few months later: “What my sister Tricia thought was a stomach bug turned out to be an aggressive form of cancer,” she says. “She died in St Leonard’s five weeks after being diagnosed and just eight months after Dad.”
Ian produced a live-steam kitchen concert in 2020 to support the hospice and he and Sarah always strive to help in any way they can. Ian came up with the idea of a charity show after learning that St Leonard’s receives only a quarter of its annual running costs from the National Health Service. The remaining £6 million has to come from fund-raising.
Jessica Steel: Joining Ian Stroughair on stage at Voices United
Looking forward to next Friday’s event, St Leonard’s community and events manager Sarah Atkinson says: “We’re really excited about the upcoming Voices United evening at the Grand Opera House as we celebrate our 40th anniversary. We’re deeply grateful to everyone involved, those performing, organising and supporting the event.
“The compassionate care we provide at St Leonard’s Hospice is only possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our community, and we very much appreciate the continued support. So book your tickets for a glittering evening of entertainment and join us in celebrating both the talent and spirit that make our work possible.”
Ian concludes: “Tickets prices range from £20 to £50, making this fabulous event affordable for all, and there will be other opportunities to donate on the evening too.”
Box office: https://shorturl.at/G3qhV or atgtickets.com/york. For more information on St Leonard’s Hospice, visit: stleonardshospice.org.uk.
Did you know?
IAN Stroughair takes 90 minutes to apply his make-up – or his “slap” as he calls it – to transform into drag diva Velma Celli.
Harvey Stevens’s Jamie New, front left, with his fellow Year 11 pupils at Mayfield School in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
EVERYBODY’S talking about the new Jamie New in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie in York.
From July 22 to 26, GCSE schoolboy Harvey Stevens will play the title role in York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells’s award-winning musical at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.
This joyous underdog story was last staged in York in its Teenage Version by York Stage in June 2023. “I was too young for that, which I was really gutted about,” says Harvey, 15, from Acomb.
He has loved the story of Jamie New ever since his first experience of the film. “My mum hadn’t heard of it, so she was mortified, not knowing what she’d taken me to, but I loved it!” he says.
“I’ve seen every tour, every cast, since then. My favourite Jamie was Layton Williams, who I went to see at Leeds Grand [Theatre], though I take a bit from every Jamie to be honest, like the riffs in their singing…”
“…But you have your own style, in your singing and in your dancing,” says Gemma McDonald, the Rowntree Players pantomime favourite, who will be playing Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever supportive mum, Margaret.
Harvey Stevens’s Jamie New with the high heels that will transform him from 6ft to 6ft 6ins in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Colin Wallwork
Premiered at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre in 2017, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen. Jamie New, from a Sheffield council estate, but feeling out of place, is so restless at sweet 16 to be “something and someone fabulous”, standing out from the crowd of Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School.
You sense that Harvey has that drive too. He took his first dance steps at the age of three at the Yorkshire Rose Academy of Dance in York. “I then started studying ballet at Let’s Dance, picked up jazz, tap and contemporary there in Year 4, and then I went to Northern Ballet in Leeds for three years,” he says.
From there, he moved on to Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham, boarding there as he studied musical theatre, jazz and ballet dancing in Year 7 and 8, adding dancing in heels to his repertoire at SK Dance Fusion in York.
That will come in handy in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. “I’ll be 6ft 6 with my heels on as I’m 6ft,” says Harvey. “I’ll be looking over everyone on stage!
“I first wore heels on stage at the Move It dance convention in London in 2022.” As with all his dance moves, he took it in his stride. “For this role I’ve taken everything I’ve learnt from ballet and contemporary [dance], all the core techniques, taking the styles and joining them together.”
To be playing Jamie is “like a dream come true as it’s my first main role,” says Harvey. “I’ve always said I wanted to play him, and here I am. It’s such a good character to play and story to tell and I feel I can really relate to that age, and what he’s going through.”
“Playing Jamie is like a dream come true as it’s my first main role,” says Harvey Stevens. Picture: Jo Hird
Gemma, a former teacher, whose 15-year-old son, Ethan, is in the cast too, says: “There’s all those similarities, all those experiences, of what boys face. When I saw that Robert [director Robert Readman] was doing this show, I was thinking, I’m of an age where I can play this character, the mother, who’s got true Yorkshire grit to her.
“I love her songs, If I Met Myself Again and He’s My Boy, and all the words in those songs resonate with me. With having my son there as well, I know how he feels, having just done his Proms.
“I love how Margaret is so supportive of Jamie and never wants him to feel any of that negativity that he experiences from his dad. What she does is everything you would want to her to do as a mum in that situation.
“Any mum in the audience will sit there thinking, ‘I hope that’s how I am with my child’, even though Jamie’s mum does question it, worrying if he will be bullied.”
Jamie, like Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher and Kes’s Billy Casper, is a young Yorkshire dreamer, one who must overcome prejudice, beat the bullies and “step out of the darkness into the spotlight”. Harvey has experienced bullying. “It can be anything, online bullying, but I don’t care what they say online. That just gets a block from me,” he says.
From September, Harvey will study musical theatre at SLP College in Garforth, his next step after taking GCSEs in Maths, English, Art, History and Salon (hair-styling). First, however, everybody will be talking about his Jamie from July 22.
Pick Me Up Theatre in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Joseph Rowntree Theatre York, July 22 to 26, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Fretwork: Marking 400th anniversary of Orlando Gibbons’s death
THIS year’s festival raced off the starting line in top gear with the six viols of Fretwork and mezzo soprano Helen Charlston. They focused entirely on the secular music of Orlando Gibbons, the 400th anniversary of whose untimely death at the age of 41 is being commemorated this year.
Gibbons is much better known these days for his sacred music, which is very much part of the backbone of cathedral repertory. His secular output is largely based on vocal techniques. The truth of this was underlined here by a single voice and viols doing duty for five unaccompanied voices in his madrigals – in accordance with the composer’s assertion on his title page in 1612, “apt for viols and voyces”.
Helen Charlston’s mezzo is so firmly centred that she is able to extend its resonance smoothly to either end of her range; there are no gear-changes. Furthermore, her diction is excellent. On this occasion, for my money, she was standing slightly behind the ‘sweet spot’ for voices in this arena and thus the consort was too far back as well. But the audience would not have guessed this from their close co-operation.
Melancholy was the dominant theme in much of the poetry set, no more so than in Sir Walter Raleigh’s What Is Our Life? Charlston spelt out the emotional force here, as in the lament by an anonymous writer Ne’er Let The Sunne, where lower viols provided eloquently darker colour. The counterpoint in each of these songs was sumptuous and all the clearer for its presentation in this rarer format.
Helen Charlston: “Mezzo so firmly centred that she is able to extend its resonance smoothly to either end of her range”. Picture: Julien Gazeau
Early music is making a point of getting living composers involved these days, with Nico Muhly filling the bill at this festival. His setting of words from Psalm 39, sandwiching the autopsy report of Orlando Gibbons, is more satisfying than that may sound. He describes it as a “ritualised memory piece” about Gibbons, writing it for five viols and four male voices.
The version here, however, was an authorised arrangement by Fretwork’s own Richard Boothby for mezzo soprano solo along with the viols. This makes sense not only as being more easy to perform, but also because Muhly’s setting owes a good deal to Gibbons’s own verse anthem to the same psalm, Behold, Thou Hast Made My Days As It Were A Span Long. Several later composers used the words “Lord, let me know mine end”, also from Psalm 39.
At its centre, we learn of Gibbons’s convulsions, where the viols are hesitant, fragmented and stuttering. But its climax lay at “Hear my prayer, O Lord”, with the voice pleading repeatedly against sparse accompaniment.
Earlier we had heard the top three viols alone, and then all five punctuating the voice, often quite rhythmically. Muhly uses ornamentation, rather than out-and-out counterpoint to highlight the text, and eventually repeats the opening words in his postlude. While its aura is more Jacobean than modern, it is still a touching evocation of a great talent.
The most fulfilling of the purely viol pieces in the programme was Go From My Window, a set of variations that pits the two bass viols virtually in competition with one another. Equally exciting was the vivid Pavan and galliard in six parts, while two of Gibbons’s three five-part In Nomines underlined the fertility of his imagination. Fretwork is a tautly interlinked ensemble that breathes as one – exactly what this repertory demands.
Pablo Zapico: “Showed how Spain and Italy first took the guitar seriously”
Pablo Zapico, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, July 5
THERE are times, usually when listening to early music, when you have the feeling of drinking at the very fountainhead of a musical type. One such rarity came with the appearance of Pablo Zapico and his Baroque guitar.
He showed us how Spain and Italy first took the guitar seriously, with a sweeping survey of 17th century composers, notably Gaspar Sanz and Santiago de Murcia in Spain and Francesco Corbetta leading the Italian pack.
The origins of the guitar lie in the vihuela de mano, a waisted, plucked-string instrument, known in Italy as the viola de mano. Both were tuned exactly like a lute. Their heyday was the 16th century, but by the start of the 17th they had been superseded by the five-course Spanish guitar on display here, with a simplified form of notation.
The most remarkable feature of its predominant style was the strumming effect used alongside pure melody. In the hands of an expert like Zapico this can sound like two instruments being played at once, whereas he can switch between the two in the flash of an eye.
In five whimsical Preludios we sampled the improvisational possibilities with this instrument, often quite chromatic and all the time infused with headstrong Mediterranean temperament. In similar style, we had a volatile Jacaras by Sanz with high and low contrasts that sounded as if right out of the flamenco tradition.
In La Jotta, by de Murcia, based on a Baroque dance, there was a dominant tune heavily syncopated. The best was kept till last. In Sanz’s Canarios, based on a style originating in the Canaries, there were cross-rhythms galore, delivered with extreme rapidity. It was utterly breathtaking.
Zapico is a master of his craft.
The Tallis Scholars: “Intimacy that larger groups struggle to emulate”
The Tallis Scholars, York Minster, July 5
WITH Spanish music assuming some importance at this year’s festival, it was appropriate that Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars began and ended their Glorious Creatures event with Sebastián de Vivanco, who was an almost exact contemporary of Victoria and was born, like him, in Avila.
In between, they focused on Renaissance music about the beauties of nature, with a couple of sidetracks into the newer world of Nico Muhly.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this ensemble is its small size, here a mere ten voices. This enables an intimacy that larger groups struggle to emulate. It also puts a premium on the contribution of individual singers, especially the four sopranos, who are double the number of each of the lower parts.
Before the interval, the soprano contribution was typically clean but also a touch too heavy for an ideal blend. After the interval, however, there was a change and the top line became more relaxed and less anxious.
Vivanco’s setting of Sicut Lilium (‘Like the Lily’) from the Song of Songs was positively luscious, bordering on the erotic, whereas in Palestrina’s version of the same text, written a generation earlier and given here by an octet, textures were sparer and more delicately fragrant. Both were marvels of their kind.
At the centre of the programme was Lassus’s Missa Vinum Bonum, preceded by its eponymous motet, which leans so heavily on the fruit of the vine that it dabbles with giddiness (no fault of the choir).
The text quickly falls back on the wedding at Cana, where Christ changed water into wine, as justification for a good drink or two.
The mass itself makes copious use of the motet’s music, so it too is infused with jolliness. Ofcourse Lassus quickly inserts a penitent ‘Christe’ into the Kyrie – at least it was here – but there was plenty of syncopation in the Gloria, deftly handled, and after a vivid Resurrection the Credo accelerated dizzily towards its Amen.
Some of that spirit percolated into a crazy Hosanna In Excelsis. Naturally there was a modicum of remorse in the Agnus Dei, but it was about as terse as could be imagined. The liturgy has rarely been so earthy.
On either side of Lassus we had music of Muhly. There was something appropriate about his Marrow (2017), which sets the first eight verses of Psalm 63. Preceding the “marrow and fatness” we had “in a barren and dry land where no water is”, evocative of the present drought. Sure enough, Muhly conjures a heat-haze here.
His A Glorious Creature (2023) similarly sets musings on the sun by Thomas Traherne. Using all ten voices individually, Muhly makes expansive use of ‘the sun’, reflecting its extent and influence.
Thinning down its centre for grains of dust and sand, he then broadens out with Traherne’s linking of the sun with the soul. Here the choir revelled in the immense impact of the text, melding superbly.
Later we enjoyed settings of Descendi In Hortum Meum (I Went Down Into My Garden) by De Rore, Dunstable and Palestrina. The earliest, and the most telling here, was the Dunstable, which with the solo voices of alto Caroline Trevor and the tenors Steven Harrold and Tom Castle was an oasis of tender intimacy.
There remained a magnificent Magnificat Octavi Toni by Vivanco, made all the more spiritual by its plainsong interjections. But Spanish vitalidad kept bursting through. We were brought back down to our knees by the encore, Purcell’s incomparable Hear My Prayer.
Reviews by Martin Dreyer
York Early Music Festival continues until July 11. For full details and tickets, go to: ncem.co.uk.
Reviews by Martin Dreyer
York Early Music Festival continues until July 11. For full details and tickets, go to: ncem.co.uk.
A montage of Black Treacle Theatre cast members in Laura Wade’s The Watsons at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
TWO productions of The Watsons, Laura Wade’s take on unfinished Jane Austen business, are opening on the same night in York and Helmsley tonight.
Jim Paterson directs Black Treacle Theatre’s production at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre; Pauline Noakes is at the helm for 1812 Theatre Company at Helmsley Arts Centre.
What happens when the writer loses the plot? Find out as Emma Watson, 19 and new in town in the elegant world of early 19th-century England, is cut off by her rich aunt and dumped back in the family home, from where she must navigate society, marriage prospects and her future.
Emma and her sisters must marry, fast, but there is one hitch (not of the marital kind). Jane Austen did not finish this story. Who will write Emma’s happy ending now? Enter Laura Wade, who takes the incomplete novel to fashion a sparklingly witty play that looks under Austen’s bonnet to ask: what can characters do when their author abandons them?
As a recognisably Austen tale begins to unfold, something unexpected happens. Bridgerton meets Austentatious, Regency flair meets modern twists, and the plot goes ever more off-piste.
Florence Poskitt’s Margaret Watson, left, Jennifer Jones’s Elizabeth Watson and Livy Potter’s Emma Watson in the poster for York company Black Treacle Theatre’s The Watsons
Playful, clever, and full of surprises, The Watsons starts as a period drama and transforms into a bold reimagining that spins Regency charm into a dazzling modern theatrical experience, exploring storytelling, free will and who gets to write our endings.
Penned by Posh and Home I’m Darling writer Wade, the play was first produced at Chichester Festival Theatre. Now Black Treacle Theatre takes up the challenge, collaborating with the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in a fundraising production for the JoRo.
Director Jim Paterson says: “The Watsons is simply brilliant. My mind was fizzing from the moment I first read this funny, smart and dynamic play that offers us so much scope for creativity in staging it.
“Laura Wade is one of our best playwrights, and her adaptation of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel both fulfils and plays with expectations of what ‘a Jane Austen story’ is, and what she means to us all. With the brilliant cast and creative team bringing this to life, I can’t wait for us to share this with an audience this summer – and celebrate Jane’s 250th birthday.”
Appearing in Paterson’s cast will be: Livy Potter as Emma Watson; Jennifer Jones, Elizabeth Watson; Florence Poskitt, Margaret Watson; Matt Pattison, Robert Watson; Abi Baxter, Mrs Robert; Maggie Smales, Nanny; Victoria Delaney, Lady Osbourne; Cameron O’Byrne, Lord Osbourne; Effie Warboys, Miss Osbourne; Nick Patrick Jones, Tom Musgrave; Andy Roberts, Mr Howard; Sally Mitcham, Mrs Edwards; Paul Miles, Captain Bertie, and Sanna Jeppsson, Laura.
Jeanette Hambidge’s Nanny, left, Becca Magson’s Emma Watson, Vicki Mason’s Margaret Watson, Linda Tester’s Servant and Oliver Clive’s Lord Osborne in 1812 Theatre Company’s The Watsons
MEANWHILE, how is the 1812 Theatre Company promoting the same play? Here’s how: “The Watsons are coming! Who, you may ask? The Watsons are a family created by Jane Austen in a story she never finished, possibly due to grief over the death of her beloved father.
“Whatever the reason, we have been unable to follow their unfolding lives, although several characters and their concerns bear close similarity to popular Austen figures, until now.
“Step forward Laura Wade, a playwright whose works have graced the stages of the National Theatre and the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough with the West End hit Home I’m Darling.
“Wade has taken the story of The Watsons, their affairs, values and outlooks, and continued their lives in an altogether unexpected and intriguing way. Gradually we come to realise that despite the outward differences of clothes and habits of the early 19th century, their interests are not too dissimilar to our own. Though perhaps ours are becoming stranger!
Vicki Mason’s Margaret Watson, left, and Jeanette Hambidge’s Nanny in 1812 Theatre Company’s The Watsons
“The result is a play inspired by Jane Austen’s work, in this, the 250th anniversary of her birth. Presented by the 1812 Theatre Company at Helmsley Arts Centre, giving Austen fans a chance to relish a new work and others to observe that her people are not just Georgian dresses and uniforms but have personalities, feelings and problems. The play wears its comedy lightly and is a lively piece, authentically using dance music that Jane herself copied out!”
Pauline Noakes’s cast comprises: Becca Magson as Emma Watson; Julia Bullock, Elizabeth Watson; Vicki Mason, Margaret Watson; Richard Noakes, Uncle Robert Watson, ; Julie Wilson, Aunt Robert Watson; Barry Whitaker, Mr Watson; Jeanette Hambidge, Nanny; Beaj Johnson, Tom Musgrave; Oliver Clive, Lord Osborne; Sue Smith, Lady Osborne; Rosie Hayman, Miss Osborne; Mike Martin, Mr Howard; Robert Perry, Charles Howard; Linda Tester, Servant; Heather Linley, Servant, and Graham Smith, Dancing Master.
The Watsons, Black Treacle Theatre, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 9 to 12, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee; 1812 Theatre Company, Helmsley Arts Centre, July 9 to 12, 7.30pm. Box office: York, 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk; Helmsley, 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
