Sollazzo artistic director and vielle player Anna Danilevskaia
IT is almost ten years since I heard this stand-out ensemble – as winners of the prestigious York Early Music International Young Artists Competition in 2015 and then again in 2016 – and I was really looking forward to hearing them again.
Under the stewardship of artistic director and vielle player Anna Danilevskaia, Sollazzo has continued to explore and share a rich vein of Medieval and early Renaissance music. This evening, it was the music of the 14th-century composer Francesco Landini.
The concert opened with an instantly engaging Kyrie Rondello (Anonymous) featuring the whole ensemble, an ensemble that clearly enjoyed each other’s company. Crisp instrumental exchanges – Natalie Carducci and Anna Danilevskaia’s vielle, Christoph Sommer’s lute and Roger Helou’s organetto – were complemented by an evolving harmonic cloud of individual melodies created by singers Carine Tinney (soprano) and the two tenors, Jonatan Alvarado and Lior Leibovici. Quite wonderful.
This was followed by Landini’s instrumental ballata, Somma Felicita, Ms Danilevskaia and Roger Helou clearly relishing their melodic exchanges.
I thought I heard the ‘Landini cadence’ calling card, but the performance of O Piñata Vagha completely knocked me off kilter. Goodness me, this was sublime. The seamless interplay between soprano Carine Tinney, Mr Helou and Anna Danilevskaia had a medieval ring of authenticity.
The modal nature of the melodic lines and the beautifully integrated ornamentation by Ms Tinney gave the performance a transcendental magic. OK, I admit it, I was hooked. And from that moment on, I simply couldn’t take my ears off Carine Tinney.
That said, it was the clean, vibrato-free singing of tenor Jonatan Alvarado that drew the ear in Landini’s Questa Fanciulla. The agile precision of his singing blended seamlessly with soprano Ms Tinney, creating crystal-clear melodic lines within the polyphonic texture. This was reinforced by the delicate interplay of the accompanying vielle, lute and organetto.
The second section of the concert programmed four instrumental works by Landini. All magnetically engaging and a real joy. The standout, however, was the luminous quality and artistry of Roger Helou’s organetto playing. Even his retuning of the organetto – with vocalise support – proved to be a rewarding listen. Not that Mr Helou’s performance was superior, obviously, but that the impression was so haunting and familiar. To my ears, it sounded (almost) exactly like a recorder.
The closing work in this grouping was a beautiful interpretation of Niccolò da Perugia’s 14th-century ballata, Il Megli è Pur Tacere. Here, heavenly matters were put aside in favour of earthly matters of unrequited love. Although the words express the emotional burden of keeping silent in the face of pain, love, or truth, the performance itself brimmed with a rustic vitality.
The closing grouping opened with Giovanni da Firenze’s Quand Amor, a madrigal expressing fragility and introspection. The performance embraced the melancholic, contemplative mood, and the performance by Carine Tinney – glissandos bleeding into adjacent notes, achingly beautiful ornamentation – once again stood out.
The concert concluded with a touching and always engaging performance of Francesco Landini’s hymn to virtue, Perche Virtù: “Since virtue does make humans steady and strong/Run towards virtue, if you want to escape death”. Well, who could disagree with that?
Sollazzo’s use of period-appropriate tuning and musically transparent textures absolutely enhances historical authenticity, but it’s the seamless blending of voices with period instruments that truly sets them apart.
Finally, I knew Francesco Landini was celebrated as a singer and poet; that he was a virtuoso organetto (portable organ) player and that he was blind from early childhood (smallpox) – earning him the nickname “Magister Franciscus Caecus” (Master Francesco the Blind). I just didn’t know how truly remarkable a composer he was.
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 indoors, Fringe comedy previews and Ryedale Festival’s Austen celebration 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 of the week: Sea, Swell, Scribe, Jo Walton, Ruth King and Nicky Kippax, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until 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, 2, Low Ousegate, York, Friday to Sunday, then 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.
Dame Harriet Walter: Pride And Prejudice celebration at Wesley Centre, Malton
Ryedale Festival theatre event of the week: Pride And Prejudice, Dame Harriet Walter, Melvyn Tan and Madeleine Easton, Wesley Centre, Malton, Sunday, 7pm
THIS theatrical retelling of Pride And Prejudice by novelist and Austen biographer Gill Hornby marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Star of stage and screen Dame Harriet Walter brings the romance of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy to life in an intimate drawing-room setting, in much the same way that Jane herself first read the story aloud to family and friends.
Carl David’s score for the 1995 BBC television adaptation will be performed by pianist Melvyn Tan and violinist Madeleine Easton. The festival runs until July 27; full details and tickets at ryedalefestival.com. Box office: 01751 475777.
Rob Auton: Barmby Moor comedian previews his Edinburgh Fringe show, CAN: The Story Of A Man Called CAN, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Comedy event of the week: Halfway To Edinburgh, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday
IN a week of Edinburgh Fringe previews and comedy nights, Nina Gilligan discusses memory loss, health anxiety and goldfish-related trauma in Goldfish tonight (8pm) and Hayley Ellis navigates middle age in Silly Mare (Work in Progress) tomorrow (8pm).
Susan Riddell and Kate Dolan, on Friday (7.30pm), and Barmby Moor surrealist Rob Auton and Chloe Petts, on Saturday (7.30pm), round off the festival tasters. 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, Friday, 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.
Strictly between us: Anton du Beke and Giovanni Pernice team up for Together Again at York Barbican
Dance show of the week: Anton Du Beke and Giovanni Pernice in Together Again, York Barbican, Friday, 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.
Craig David: In party mood at Scarborough Open Air Theatre this weekend
Coastal gig of the week: Craig David TS5 Show, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Saturday; gates open at 6pm
SOUTHAMPTON rhythm & blues musician Craig David parades his triple threat as singer, MC and DJ at his TS5 party night, patented at his Miami penthouse. On the 25th anniversary of debut album Born To Do It, expect a set combining old-skool anthems from R&B to Swing Beat, Garage to Bashment, while merging chart-topping House hits too. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Amelia Donkor and Antony Jardine: Playing Gulie Harlock and Seebohm Rowntree respectively alongside 100-strong community ensemble in His Last Report at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Millie Stephens
Community play of the week: His Last Report, York Theatre Royal, Saturday to August 3
FOCUSING on pioneering York social reformer Seebohm Rowntree and his groundbreaking investigation into the harsh realities of poverty, Misha Duncan-Barry and Bridget Foreman’s play will be told through the voices of York’s residents, past and present.
Seebohm’s findings illuminate the struggles of the working class, laying the foundation for the welfare state and sparking a movement that will redefine life as we know it. However, when fast forwarding to present-day York, what is Seebohm’s real legacy as the Ministry begins to dismantle the very structures he championed in His Last Report’s York story with a national impact? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
In Focus: Clap Trap Theatre in Pennyroyal, Helmsley Arts Centre, July 19 & 20, 7.30pm
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 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.
“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 is inspired by Edith Wharton’s 1922 novella 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, an award-winning Camden Town 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.
Other work includes Showmanship (Theatre503) and Goody (Pleasance, Edinburgh and Greenwich Theatre – Les Enfants Terribles’ Greenwich Partnership Award 2017). Her debut, 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. Box office: 01439 771700or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Farah Ashraf’s Roberta in the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture revival of York Theatre Royal’s The Railway Children at Oxenhope Station. Picture: James Glossop
YORK Theatre Royal first staged The Railway Children in the purpose-built Signal Box Theatre at the National Railway Museum, York, in 2008 and 2009, later transferring to London’s Waterloo Station, Toronto in Canada and King’s Cross Theatre, London.
From this evening, York playwright Mike Kenny’s refreshed stage adaptation of E Nesbit’s novel is back on track in Yorkshire, as the Theatre Royal teams up with Keighley & Worth Valley Railway for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, in a revival of Damian Cruden’s Best Entertainment Olivier Award-winner.
All on board once more are the same director, writer, set and costume designer, Joanna Scotcher, lighting designer, Richard G Jones, composer, Christopher Madin, and sound designer, Craig Vear. “We’re all still here – somehow!” says Damian.
The setting is the railway line famously used as a location for Lionel Jeffries’ 1970 film, the one starring Jenny Agutter and Bernard Cribbins that transferred Nesbit’s rural setting from Kent to Yorkshire.
Audiences will begin by taking a steam train from Keighley to Oxenhope Station, a journey accompanied by an immersive scene-setting soundscape provided by Stand & Be Counted Theatre on the themes of exile, sanctuary, compassion and kindness.
Damian Cruden: Directing The Railway Children on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railwayline. Picture copyright: The York Press
Kenny’s re-worked adaptation will be staged in an adapted engine shed at Oxenhope, a location closest in character to the National Railway Museum premiere with a steam train from the Keighley & Worth stock and the audience on either side of the railway track in the 500-capacity auditorium.
“It’s very similar to when we first did it inside a tent [over the freight depot] at the NRM, partly because it’s another heritage railway environment, whereas Waterloo and King’s Cross had a very different railway atmosphere. Seven hundred volunteers work for Keighley & Worth, which tells you something about our relationship with the steam age,” says Damian.
“We’re using what’s a sort-of museum shed [officially the Exhibition Shed], a proper period engine shed, where they keep the locomotives, and it’s customary to hold live events there [such as the October beer festival], but usually on a much smaller scale, so we’ve had to empty the shed of all its ‘bits’.
“The steam engine we’re using is a full locomotive with a tender, from the 1880s, along with a Third Class carriage and the ‘Gentleman’s Carriage’, shunted from further down the line.”
Damian is delighted to be staging arguably his biggest ever hit again. “Bringing The Railway Children to Bradford this year offered us a unique opportunity to restage the production as part of the UK City of Culture programme, starting on the tracks where the iconic 1970 film was shot in the beautiful Worth Valley.
The poster for the Bradford 2025 UK City Of Culture production of The Railway Children
“It’s great that it’s part of the festival and that it’s coming to the point of origin, the railway line that goes through Oakworth station, the primary location in the film.”
Set in 1905, The Railway Children tells the story of three children forced to move from wealthy Edwardian London to rural Yorkshire after their father, an official in the Foreign Office, is imprisoned falsely on charges of espionage. Living in newly impoverished circumstances, they find adventure and hope on the railway that passes nearby.
“The reality is it’s a made-up story, a construct, set in the past, but very strongly as a metaphor of what a journey does, taking you from one way of being to another, while looking at the nature of being human and the benefit of integrating with others, so in some ways it’s a moral tale for today, showing us how we can be better as humans and how we can know ourselves better.
“It’s constructed as a mythical tale, but the fact is the train delivers things that are good and brings justice with it, in this case for the Russian political refugee Schepansky.”
In a significant adjustment by playwright Mike Kenny for the Bradford UK City of Culture production, the children and their mother will be a South Asian family, played by Farah Ashraf (Roberta), Raj Digva (Peter), Jessica Kaur (Phyllis) and Asha Kingsley, latterly seen as Surinder in York company Pilot Theatre’s Run Rebel. Father (Paul Hawkyard), high-ranking Foreign Office civil servant Charles Waterbury, met and married Mother while working in India, then brought up his family in London.
Farah Ashraf’s Roberta, Raj Digva’s Peter and Jessica Kaur’s Phyllis in a scene from The Railway Children at the gates of Oakworth Station. Picture: James Glossop
Damian notes the story’s resonance with Bradford’s own story: “Bradford is a wonderful example of a city that has welcomed people throughout its history, and this theme of welcome and global connection resonates through The Railway Children, which at its heart is brilliant family entertainment – a classic adventure yarn with a famously emotional ending,” he says.
“In so many ways, Bradford’s strength is the diversity of its community, so it felt important to have that as part of the story this time. Just as the notion of needing to find sanctuary as refugees is an important theme too, when so many people fit that description. It’s up to us to meet them and that need.
“That might be frightening at times…so it’s an interesting time in national and international history to bring the story back to the stage, with a huge amount of paranoia of strangers coming into people’s minds, as being something to be feared, but that fear does not match up to scrutiny.”
York Theatre Royal, Keighley & Worth Valley Railway and Bradford 2025 UK City Of Culture present The Railway Children, Keighley Station and Oxenhope Station, West Yorkshire, July 15 to September 7. Box office: https://bradford2025.co.uk/event/the-railway-children/.
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.
Artist Jo Walton, left, potter Ruth King and poet Nicky Kippax
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.
Here is one of Nicky Kippax’s poems form the exhibition, The First:
The first creature to climb from the sea had the logger head of a turtle and nothing more yet to unfold to body but unbeaten in its lug to land, brow thrust against the fret and neck amok. Look now – as the suggestion of an arm is beginning to break free of itself.
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.
