The power of puppetry in Les Enfants Terribles’ play with music The House With Chicken Legs. Picture: Rah Petherbridge
IMAGINE a house with chicken legs. Such an image will come to stage life in Les Enfants Terribles’ account of Sophie Anderson’s novel at York Theatre Royal from September 6 to 9.
First staged at HOME Manchester in 2022, Oliver Lansley’s adaptation is on its premiere tour, visiting Leeds Playhouse too from September 13 to 16.
Directed by Lansley and James Seager, with music and sound design by Alexander Wolfe and songs co-written by Wolfe and Lansley, The House With Chicken Legs transports audiences to a world inspired by Baba Yaga with the aid of puppets, live music, masks and magic.
The story follows Marinka, a young girl who dreams of a normal life, where she can stay somewhere long enough to make friends, but she must surmount one problem: her house has chicken legs and is liable to move without warning.
The house with chicken legs in The House With Chicken Legs. Picture: Rah Petherbridge
Such propensity to movement mirrors Les Enfants Terribles. “We kind of go all over the place,” says director Oliver. “I’m based in London, but this production originated in Manchester last year with HOME as our partners, playing only in Manchester. This tour will be the first time everyone can see it, as we move around the country, which is very exciting.
“We brought The Trench to the Theatre Royal [for the TakeOver Festival in June 2013] and we’re delighted to be coming back to York.”
Since the Manchester run, Lansley and Seager have “tweaked bits here and there, trimmed bits here and there, and some of the cast have changed”. “But we still have our original Marinka and Baba, Eve de Leon Allen and Lisa Howard,” says Oliver.
Howard will need no introduction to York or Leeds audiences, whether from Park Bench Theatre’s Every Time A Bell Rings in the Rowntree Park Friends’ Garden or her Spirit Of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol at Leeds Playhouse.
Les Enfants Terribles director Oliver Lansley. Picture: Michael Carlo
“The book was written as a young adult novel, but the play is suitable for children aged nine upwards,” says Oliver. “It was inspired by the tale of Baba Yaga, who, in an old legend, did have a house with chicken legs. Her job is to guide the souls of the dead into the afterlife, so Sophie’s book is one of those stories that’s magical and is written for young readers but deals with adult themes, but in a really magical way.
“Marinka is the granddaughter of Baba Yaga and is destined to be the next of the guardians of the gate, but like most teenagers [or 12-year-old in her case], she’s rebelling and trying to find her own way in the world in that space.”
Marinka, played by an adult in Les Enfants Terribles’ production, is dreaming of leading a normal life. “But she doesn’t really know what that is, and there’s that thing of her being a fish out of water, pretending to be a normal child, but not knowing what the rules are or how she should behave,” says Oliver.
“But then she discovers that there’s no such thing as normal and that everyone has their own complications.”
Eve de Leon Allen’s Marinka and Lisa Howard’s Baba, right, in Les Enfants Terribles’ The House With Chicken Legs. Picture: Rah Petherbridge
Among those complications addressed by Anderson’s story is the impact on young people of moving home. “There is this idea at play of having to move around constantly, particularly for young people, whether changing school, moving house, moving from town to town, when they want security,” says Oliver.
“That security comes from family, and that’s what ‘home’ is, rather than a physical place that you call home.”
Be assured, audiences will see a house move on stage…on chicken legs. “That’s the sort of thing we love to do,” says Oliver. “And yes, we’ve managed to make it fun, after we looked at different ways of doing it and finally settled on one, because it has to be really magical.
“We try to make all these things part of the show as seamlessly as possible, looking at the best way to tell a story with the tools available, such as our video designs by Nina Dunn, who did the Jaws show, The Shark Is Broken, in the West End.”
Music and masks in Les Enfants Terribles’ The House With Chicken Legs. Picture: AB Photography
Crucially too, The House With Chicken Legs “deftly navigates the complexities of loss from a whole new perspective”. “The story explores how we look at death differently in different cultures: in our culture we don’t talk about it much, but other cultures celebrate it, like the Day of the Dead in Mexico,” says Oliver.
“But young people have had to confront death over the past few years with Covid in a way that they’ve not had to before that. Death doesn’t have to be a scary thing, but we do give it that ominous status in our country by not talking about it.”
Les Enfants Terribles in The House With Chicken Legs, York Theatre Royal, September 6 to 9, 7pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee; Leeds Playhouse, September 13 to 16, 7pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2pm Saturday matinees. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Leeds, 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk
Lyn Grant creating ceramic sunflowers for Fangfest at her Fangfoss Pottery studio
SUNSHINE, sunflowers but no showers! Such are the hopes of villagers, artists, creative businesses and stall holders at Fangfoss, near Pocklington, as their annual Fangfest arts festival approaches.
Held over the weekend of September 2 and 3, from 10am to 4pm each day, the plans for Fangfest have been finalised with the promise of new attractions aplenty to complement the regulars.
Making its festival debut will be the charity sunflower trail. Residents have been asked to grow sunflowers or to be creative and make some. A winner will be chosen for the best-grown sunflower and another for the most creative sunflower, culminating in the public being asked to judge their favourite overall winner.
“A sunflower is the symbol of the Hidden Disabilities charity and any money raised will be donated to Hearing Dogs for the Deaf, a hidden disability that needs support,” says Fangfest stalwart Lyn Grant, of Fangfoss Pottery.
Shirley Davis Dew’s acrylic painting of sunflowers, for sale by silent auction for charity at Fangfest
Fangfoss artist Shirley Davis Dew has produced an acrylic painting of sunflowers for a silent auction to raise funds. Bids of £20 plus are welcome in person to Sally Murray at the Carpenters Arms pub or via DM (direct message) on their Instagram page, @carpenters_arms_fangfoss.
Fangfest Festival of Practical Arts 2023 will play host to a mixed-media pattern design workshop, run by York textile artist Rosanna Johnson. Workshops will be held at 11.30am and 2pm each day and participants will produce a piece of art to take home. Workshop tickets must be booked in advance at eventbright.com; search for Ros Johnson Fangfest or visit the festival’s social media pages for links.
Drop-in craft activities will take place throughout the weekend, ranging from children’s card marking and throwing a pot on the wheel to pottery painting and a collaborative mixed-media mural to name but a few.
More than 30 artists and craft workers will be demonstrating and exhibiting their work across the weekend, including woodworking, rocking horse-making, felting, painting, wire sculpture, medieval tile techniques, jewellery, peg loom-weaving and much more.
Angela Cole, from Yorkshire Willow Baskets, who will demonstrate her weaving skills by the Fangfoss village green on September 3
The York Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers will hold weaving and spinning demonstrations. Look out for Shan Williams, working on her loom to create a rug over the weekend; Orsi, from FaTuz Personal Wooden Gifts, demonstrating pyrography techniques, and Angela Cole, from Yorkshire Willow Baskets, showing her weaving skills by the village green on the Sunday.
Emma, Eve and Lily, from the Handmade In Fangfoss family of crafters, will show how they create jewellery, cards, gifts and artwork inspired by nature, birds and flowers through their polymer clay, lino printing and mixed-media techniques.
Dave Atkin, from Woodwyrm, will use an axe and a selection of knives to demonstrate spoon and bowl carving and will discuss his techniques and inspirations.
Richard Gibson, from Wolds Wire Sculpture, in Thixendale, will bring a range of his open wire sculptures for display, while also working on a piece. He will share his love of nature, wildlife and the Wolds in his work, noted for its focus on movement.
Jewellery designer Mo Burrows: Demonstrating Japanese technique of kumihimo braiding
Richard Moore, from Tanglebank Tiles, will demonstrate various stages in decorating tiles and the tools used to create designs using the Sgraffito technique. In his work, he hand-makes glazed terracotta tiles in a medieval traditional style, featuring replicas of Old English floor tiles and illustrations from 13th and 14th century manuscripts.
Contemporary jewellery designer Mo Burrows will demonstrate the Japanese technique of kumihimo braiding. In her designs, Mo uses a variety of techniques and materials, including copper work, intricate beading, kumihimo and wirework, to produce both delicate and bold pieces, and she also restyles and remodels clothing into fashion pieces.
Fangfoss designer and illustrator Laura Thompson will demonstrate watercolour techniques for beginners, encouraging you to have a go yourself, as well as leading the card-making collage workshop for children.
Rosie Glow will be working with jesmonite to show how she makes her terrazzo coasters and answer any questions on the process. She creates colourful terrazzo homewares, such as trays, candle holders and soap dishes, and also makes vegan soap bars for face and body.
Spinning at Fangfest
Pete Thompson, of Spirit Of The Wood, will display tools and raw materials to explain his process and techniques for hand-crafting sculptural turned wooden pieces, created from sections of unprocessed wood. His designs incorporate natural faults, such as knots and cracks, as part of the finished piece.
Liz Riley, of Everything Felt, will demonstrate traditional felt-making techniques, including use of colour and texture in flat felting and 3D sculpture. She creates wearable and usable artworks, defined by strong colour combinations, using hand-dyed wool, silks and yarn to make felt scarves, bags, hats, wall hangings, homewares and 3D vessels.
Anna Byelova, who creates detailed handmade bags, Motanka dolls and textile landscapes, will discuss her techniques, the history of Motanka dolls and from where she draws her creativity.
Beyond crafts, further festival attractions will be a classic car collection on the village green; a flower festival in St Martin’s Church on the theme of pantomimes; traditional fairground rides, the Stamford Bridge History Society and archery sessions, run by Erik Aaron Shooting in the Rocking House Garden.
Taking a bow: Archery at Fangfest
The Busking Spots will provide a full programme of live music featuring ukuleles, a shanty crew, young celloists and a pop choir.
Refreshments will be available all weekend, provided by Jubilee Park in Rocking House Yard and at the Carpenters Arms, where landlady Sally Murray will have a full bar as well as hosting Ainsty Ales in the car park.
“Fangfest is a fun day out for all the family, run as a village enterprise with everyone helping out in one way another,” says Lyn Grant. “Entry to the festival is free and there’s something to interest everyone, no matter their age. By supporting the festival, visitors will be helping the village celebrate everything great about creative crafts in Fangfoss and its surrounding area.”
For more information and the full line-up of exhibitors, visit Fangfest’s Instagram pages at Fangfestfestival or Facebook pages at @Fangfest.
Fangfoss designer and illustrator Laura Thompson: Hosting the card-making collage workshop for children
The 1975: Headlining the Sunday bill at Leeds Festival
THE summer season of festival delights is drawing to a close but the outdoors still beckons Charles Hutchinson, who also looks ahead to big names northwards bound.
Festival of the week: Leeds Festival, Bramham Park, August 25 to 27
THE last big outdoor festival of the Yorkshire summer season kicks off on Friday with headliners Billie Eilish (Main Stage East) and Imagine Dragons (Main Stage West). Look out that day too for Steve Lacy, Declan McKenna, Rina Sawayama, Becky Hill and Little Tjay.
The Saturday bill includes headliners Sam Fender and Foals, Loyle Carner, Wet Leg, Leeds band Yard Act, Bicep Llve and Frank Turner. Among the Sunday acts will be headliners The Killers and The 1975, Central Cee, Nothing But Thieves, Knucks, Case Atlantic and Arlo Parks. Comedy and dance stages are on the menu too. Box office: leedsfestival.com.
Supersonic Queen: Tribute to Freddie Mercury and co at the JoRo
Tribute show of the week: Supersonic Queen, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
SUPERSONIC Queen return to the JoRo with its “strongest, most talented line-up yet”, guaranteed to blow your mind. Ten years and counting on the tribute act circuit, these musicians “care deeply about delivering the most authentic and entertaining performance”, full of energy, enthusiasm and Queen hits by the dozen. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Bruce Lee, by Sean Taylor, from his exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse
Exhibition of the week: Sean Taylor, Illustrations, City Screen Picturehouse café bar, Coney Street, York, until September 2
COINCIDING with City Screen Picturehouse’s latest Culture Shock season of Bruce Lee films, Sean Taylor is exhibiting paintings and pen and graphic drawing at City Screen Picturehouse. Icons aplenty feature, bold and striking.
Dora and Jane in Swings & Roundabouts: Full of aerial feats in the gardens of At The Mill, Stillington
Circus show of the week: All Ways Good Company in Swings & Roundabouts, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Sunday, 11am to 1pm
JOIN Jane and Dora, a mum and daughter circus duo, on three trips to the park, where they will share their tales with you and hear yours too before hosting an interactive finale.
Commissioned by Hullabaloo Theatre, Swings & Roundabouts is a selection of short stories about everyday moments in the park, told in an extraordinary way as Jane and Dora flip and fly, turning the park into an aerial playground. Then have a go yourself on the aerial equipment, whatever your age. Wear long sleeves but no jewellery or clothes with zips. Box office: atthemill.org.
Olly Murs: Savouring the sea air at Scarborough on Wednesday
Last of the summer season: Olly Murs and Scouting For Girls, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Wednesday, gates open at 6pm
OLLY Murs concludes Cuffe & Taylor’s season of outdoor gigs on the Scarborough coast with support from Scouting For Girl on Wednesday night. After four years off the music radar, focusing on The Voice and Starstruck, Murs released his seventh studio album, Marry Me, last December, the title being prompted by his now fiancée Emelia Tank.
Tonight, at Scarborough OAT, DJ Pete Tong is in action with his Ibiza Classics. The Essential Orchestra and Jules Buckley will be there too. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Slapstick Picnic: Tucklng into Peter Pan in the At The Mill gardens
Outdoor theatre show of the week: Slapstick Picnic in Peter Pan, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Wednesday, 6.30pm
SLAPSTICK Picnic whip up a three-hander version of Peter Pan, inviting imaginations to soar as they dish out J M Barrie’s timeless tale of hapless pirates, feral children and a particularly punctual reptile.
Look out for polished buffoonery and swift silliness as the cast members swap wigs, wings and waistcoats to play all the parts at Slapstick’s characteristic breakneck pace. A percentage of ticket sales will be donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Box office: atthemill.org.
Folk night of the week: Gary Stewart’s Folk Club, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Friday, 7.30pm
EASINGWOLD musician Gary Stewart’s Folk Club, a regular feature in At The Mill’s summer seasons, runs in two halves: The first is a traditional folk club, where anyone can come and play and offer up a song, a tune, a poem or a story. “Just turn up and let us know!” says Gary.
The second half is a headline set by a guest artist, in this case budding York singer-songwriter and newly formed producer Kitty VR, who fashions and performs her songs on electric guitar alongside her delicate vocals, with a sense of vulnerability and relatability. Box office: atthemill.org.
Nina Nastasia: Promoting her Riderless Horse album at The Crescent
As recommended by the late John Peel: Nina Nastasia, The Crescent, York, August 29, 7.30pm
NINA Nastasia, an alt-folk artist of Calabrian-Italian and Irish descent, was born and raised in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Despite studying piano and showing an early talent for writing short stories, she initially had no aspirations of pursuing a career in music. Nevertheless, seven albums have ensued, along with airplay on the late John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show and album collaborations with Jim White.
After a period of relative obscurity, Nastasia returned in July 2022, signing a record deal with Temporary Residence to release Riderless Horse, recorded in upstate New York by Steve Albini and Greg Norman. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Damian Lewis, yes, that Damian Lewis, at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, October 1, doors at 7.30pm
ACTOR and now singer and guitarist Damian Lewis will play Leeds as the only Yorkshire gig of his 11-date tour with his jazz and rock band in support of debut album Mission Creep, released on Decca Records in June.
Lewis wrote all the album’s original songs during the pandemic’s first lockdown, although the origin story began when, after leaving school, he took to the road with his guitar and went busking through continental Europe. This experience has stayed with him ever since and is reflected in the album, produced by his friend, jazz musician Giacomo Smith. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk or seetickets.com.
Edwina Hayes: Playing the Eight@Eighty bill in celebration of Joni Mitchell’s landmark birthday
Birthday celebration: Eight@Eighty, Joni Mitchell 80th Birthday Party charity concert, at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, November 2, 7.30pm
STAN Smith is organising a celebration of Canadian-American singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell’s 80th birthday this autumn. Taking part will be Edwina Hayes, Emily Lawler, Gracie Falls, Holly Taymar, Jeremy Bradford, Laura Ingram, Sarah Dean and Stan himself. Box office: stansmith.org.
Booking ahead: George Benson, supported by Melissa Errico, Leeds First Direct Arena, July 3 2024, 7.30pm
LEGENDARY American guitarist and singer George Benson, 80, will play Leeds on the closing night of next summer’s five-date British tour.
The ten-time Grammy Award winner will be performing such Gibson soul, jazz and blues favourites as Give Me The Night, Lady Love Me (One More Time), Turn Your Love Around, Inside Love, Never Give Up On A Good Thing and In Your Eyes. He is working on new music too. Box office: ticketline.co.uk.
In Focus: Director Zoe Waterman on reviving Alan Platers’s musical Blonde Bombshells Of 1943 at the SJT
Blonde Bombshells Of 1943: Staged by an actor-musician cast at the SJT. Picture: Pamela Raith
ALAN Plater’s 2004 musical Blonde Bombshells Of 1943 is being revived most warmly and wittily by Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, Bolton’s Octagon Theatre and Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake.
This summer’s glorious co-production finds these northern powerhouse producing theatres collaborating for the third year in a row after Laura Wade’s Home, I’m Darling in 2021 and Emma Rice’s account of Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter in 2022.
Zoe Waterman, who directed Jane Eyre at the SJT last year, is at the helm for Hull playwright Plater’s fortifying wartime story of the North’s most glamorous all-girl Forties’ swing band, whose band leader, Betty, needs to find new musicians for an important BBC job after the latest exodus of members in the arms of American GIs.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be directing Blonde Bombshells Of 1943,” says Zoe. “We’ve got a glorious and terribly talented cast; it’s such a privilege to work with performers who are not only stunning actors but also phenomenal musicians.
“It’s always a joy to make work that celebrates women, and this isno exception: full of hilarious, practical, strong characters who make do and mend as the time dictates and manage to pull an all-singing, all-dancing performance out of the jaws of an air raid.”
Zoe also directed Jim Cartwright’s The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice at Theatre by the Lake in 2019, and when the three theatres discussed who should be the director this summer after settling on Blonde Bombshells for the 2023 co-production, Zoe was approached for the task.
“I’d been called by Paul [SJT artistic director Paul Robinson], who I knew from the SJT, and I’d worked a lot at Theatre by the Lake, where I’d really cut my theatre teeth, first doing a one-person show, then a three-hander in the studio and then graduating to a main theatre show,” she says. “I’d spoken with Lotte [artistic director Lotte Wakeham] at the Bolton Octagon too.”
Crucially too, Zoe had experience of mounting actor-musician productions: “I did The Borrowers that way at Theatre by the Lake and Jane Eyre was in that format at the SJT, and I’ve done actor-musician pantomimes at Theatr Clwyd,” she says.
“I absolutely love this way of working, though I wouldn’t want to do only this one form of theatre, but I love that thing of weaving the music into the story and really thinking of them as one in this piece, whereas in some actor-musician shows you think, ‘if they could have afforded a band and actors, that would have been better’.
“But to have actor-musicians front and centre in this show is fantastic and it works wonderfully.”
Step forward Verity Bajoria, Lauren Chinery, Georgina Field, Stacey Ghent, Rory Gradon, Alice McKenna, Gleanne Purcell-Brown and Sarah Groarke, who appeared in the 2004 premiere at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.
Four weeks of rehearsals in Bolton – where Zoe was working for the first time – has led to a June run at the Octagon, followed by a July stretch in Keswick and now the August finale in Scarborough.
“So often in regional subsidised theatres, in-house productions run for only three weeks, so it’s gone in a blur and you’ve missed it, but co-productions give both audiences and actors a longer run at it,” she says.
“From starting in Bolton, it was wonderful to see how the show had developed by the show’s 50th performance, at Theatre by the Lake.”
Blonde Bombshells Of 1943 runs at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until August 26. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com .
Clara Darcy’s Jen takes on a new life in the North York Moors in Mark Stratton’s thriller drama Deals And Deceptions. Picture:Tony Bartholomew
YORKSHIRE countryside shapes lives, from Wuthering Heights to All Creatures Great And Small, Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country to…Mark Stratton’s debut thriller drama for Esk Valley Theatre, his moorland home for nigh on 20 years.
“The presence of the North York Moors looms large in the play,” said EVT’s director in his CharlesHutchPress interview.
Londoners Danny and Jen Stevens (Dominic Rye, Clara Darcy) have had to hurry north to an isolated cottage, finding little more than an echo, a bare light bulb, one picture at a tilt on the wall…and a loose floorboard that opens a cupboard when walked on. That quirk will go on to play a significant role…
Leaving behind a flash lifestyle, they set up home with the impermanence of camping equipment: fold-out beds, a small table and misbehaving fold-up chairs. Needs must, but what was the reason for the midnight flit? Only Danny knows why.
In the presence of Darcy’s Jen, Rye’s Danny is reassuring, jack the lad, everything will be OK. Alone, he is as twitchy as a malfunctioning kettle (or that cupboard door), on the lookout, because everything could be KO, not OK.
The clue is in the title: deals and deceptions are afoot, dark deeds at work, dark forces at play. Not wishing to give everything away, let’s just say Danny’s deals may not be as clean as the Yorkshire air, and off back to London he heads to sort things out. Only a few days, he says, in his latest act of deception to Jen. Before leaving, he will buy her a little runaround car, but tell her to keep her encounters with the locals brief and to the minimum.
Yorkshire, however, has a way of introducing itself to these incomers as Stratton relishes the chance to play to a home crowd with sounds and happenings familiar to us. The alarming screams of screech owls; peacocks from the neighbouring country house tapping at the door; the snuffling and shuffling of a farmyard pig. Not so much ‘introducing’ as intruding, you might say, but each one loosens the release valve for humour, after the initial shot of fear, as the truth is revealed.
Stratton’s cameo role, rooted in two decades of encounters with the Esk Valley farming community, is the very personification of Yorkshire introducing/intruding. Without invitation, his frank-speaking farmer, Wink – short for Winston – Towson, arrives at the door. His accent and phraseology are a mystery to Jen, but this gentle giant is a helpful sort.
In dodgy Danny’s absence, Jen makes a deal with God’s own country and begins a deception of her own by necessity, creating the new persona of a Yorkshire lass from Barnsley, as she Teaches Thissen T’Talk Tyke in a delightfully humorous transition to begin a journey of shell-shedding self-discovery.
This North-South divide is superbly delineated by the impressive Darcy throughout the resulting scenes. Jen grows to love the new life, bonding with gardener Jed Winter (part two for Rye), her blossoming summer of content as she takes up gardening. Rye is so convincing in this second role that at the end, as the cast took its bows, a whisper could be heard enquiring ‘where’s Jed?’!
Stratton combines licorice-dark humour with Yorkshire wit as dry as a moorland stone wall, and even knowing nods to Four Yorkshiremen stereotypes, while revealing a storytelling sleight of hand and a feel for suspense, twists and timing of arrivals to recall the manipulative noose-tightening of Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslighting and the intrigue of Peter James’s psycho-dramas.
The last “arrival” is The Woman, a suitably evasive name for Elizabeth Boag’s climactic cameo in Milk Tray advert black and an accent not from around here. A hit performance, in every way, just like Stratton’s debut play. Replete with deceptions, new beginnings, intrigue, murky mystery, the joy of gardening, farming folk and a love of Yorkshire, it is the real deal.
Esk Valley Theatre in Deals And Deceptions, Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, near Whitby, until August 26; Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2.30pm matinees on August 22 and 24. Box office: 01947 897587 or eskvalleytheatre.co.uk, 10.30am to 1pm; 3.30pm to 7.15pm.
Five mates on the River Ouse: Grand Opera House pantomime stars David Leonard, left, Martin Barrass, Suzy Cooper, dame Berwick Kaler and AJ Powell. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick
EVEN after five decades of pantomayhem, York dowager dame Berwick Kaler is still setting himself new challenges at 76.
“I’ve never done a Robinson Crusoe pantomime, and now I’m discovering why!” jokes the writer and director of…Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse, his third pantomime for the Grand Opera House following his crosstown transfer after 41 years at York Theatre Royal.
Dame Berwick and his regular crew launched this winter’s sea-faring adventure at the Cumberland Street theatre at Wednesday’s press day, where perennial sidekick Martin Barrass, villainous David Leonard, golden principal gal Suzy Cooper and luvverly Brummie AJ Powell completed York pantoland’s infamous five once more.
Why tackle Robinson Crusoe now, Berwick? “I’m blaming Martin Dodd,” he says, attributing his 2023 choice of pantomime to the managing director of UK Productions, producers of the Grand Opera pantomime for a second year.
“Sometimes, when you think, ‘why’s he doing that?’, it turns out to be a brilliant show,” says Berwick Kaler as he prepares to turn Robinson Crusoe into a pantomime for the first time
“He caught me off-guard, which made me say ‘I’d like to do something a bit different this year’, and somehow that became Robinson Crusoe! But I’ve no regrets about taking it on. It’s a challenge, and fortunately I’m still up for it.”
Dig deeper and another reason emerges for Berwick’s panto pick. As with Dick Turpin, whose life ended in a flash white suit and a noose around his neck on the Tyburn gallows on April 7 1739, Robinson Crusoe has his York connections. Turpin and his horse Black Bess have twice stood and delivered in a Kaler pantomime, most recently in his Grand Opera House debut, Dick Turpin Rides Again, in 2021.
As for Robinson Crusoe, the lead character in Daniel Defoe’s 1719 tale of adventure and survival was born in York in 1632 to a middle-class upbringing. The son of a German immigrant, his surname Crusoe is an anglicised version of Kreutznaer, an amalgam of his parents’ surnames.
That much we know, but as for the rest of Crusoe’s York story, the cupboard is bare, says Berwick. “We only know that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked, not how his story began [in York] or how he got to the island,” he notes.
Who will panto villain David Leonard be playing in Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse? How the devil should he know!
Cue Kaler coming up with his nod to Johnny Depp’s swashbuckling Caribbean capers in his title, Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse, for the story of “the sailor from York who finds himself marooned on a desert island…but he’s not alone”.
Who will be these “Pirates of the River Ouse”? Wait and see, but just as Berwick’s 2011 Theatre Royal pantomime, The York Family Robinson, bore little relation to its 19th century source material, Swiss army chaplain Johann David Wyss’s The Swiss Family Robinson, so Berwick will find a framework for his partners in panto in a nautical setting.
For research, “I’ve re-read the story, and when I was going through some old VHS tapes I was throwing out, I found the old Peter O’Toole film, which I’ve now watched,” he says.
Have crew members David, Suzy, Martin and AJ ever read Defoe’s story? “No, but I remember the TV series,” says David. “No, but I remember the TV series,” says Martin, breaking into the theme tune. “And I know Crusoe set off from Hull [Martin’s home city].”
“We have an identity as ‘the crazy gang’,” says Suzy Cooper
“I’m the only one with a character name so far,” says AJ. “I’ll be playing Luvverly Jubberly, which I only found out from Berwick just before the press launch.” And no, he has never had Robinson Crusoe on his bookshelf.
You can imagine David Leonard’s villain in swaggering piratical garb in the Adam Ant meets Captain Hook style, but who might that character be? “I haven’t the faintest idea who the baddie is,” he admits, still in the dark about his latest venture to the dark side.
“I don’t yet know who I’ll be playing, but I don’t think I’m playing the fairy,” says Suzy, another member of the non-Robinson Crusoe reading club.
“What’s important, even more so now, is that we are family – performers and audience – and people want to celebrate that. We make those connections each year; they make them with us and with each other and that’s why Berwick’s pantomime works.”
“People will say to us, ‘we’ve booked for such and such a night’, and then they’ll say, ‘by the way, what’s the title?’,” says Martin Barrass
Berwick and co are enjoying the partnership with UK Productions. “They let us get on with it,” says Suzy. “They found that it worked last year [The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose) and they’re happy to let us do that again, saying that they’d never seen a pantomime like ours!
“They know that we have an identity as ‘the crazy gang’. What they get when they get us is they’re buying into the history of who we are and what kind of pantomime we do.”
Berwick chips in: “They’re not used to someone ad-libbing, even at rehearsals, but what I’m doing is always trying to find a better line.”
Suzy rejoins: “It must be a very tough job for whoever is on the book each performance, because the cue will come, but they really have to listen because the dialogue will change every day!”
AJ Powell: Definitely playing Luvverly Jubberly in Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse
The same applies for the signer doing the sign language, prompting Martin to recall: “When I was dressed as a seal one year, standing next to the signer, I remember saying, ‘oh, signed and sealed’!”
Also confirmed for the cast is the returning Jake Lindsay, along with Henry Rhodes, who once appeared as a bairn in a Kaler panto at the Theatre Royal and has been starring in the musical Newsies this year.
AJ Powell, by the way, has been filming for the latest series of Father Brown, “doing a bit of ballroom dancing,” as he puts it.
Come rehearsal time in November, Robinson Crusoe and those pirates will be heading for ship shape and York fashion. “Berwick hates the constraints of traditional pantomime and he’s in his element when he’s creating,” says Suzy.
Shipwrecked! Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse pantomime stars David Leonard, left, AJ Powell, Martin Barrass, Suzy Cooper and dame Berwick Kaler land on the Grand Opera House stage at Wednesday afternoon’s launch in York
“He does like to use these random titles,” says AJ, recalling 2016’s Dick Whittington And His Meerkat, for example.
“Sometimes, when you think, ‘why’s he doing that?’, it turns out to be a brilliant show,” says Berwick, as he adds Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse to that list.
“We often find people don’t care what the show title is; they just want to come and see us as they always have,” says Martin.
“People will say to us, ‘we’ve booked for such and such a night’, and then they’ll say, ‘by the way, what’s the title?’.”
Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse will run at Grand Opera House, York, from December 9 to January 6 2023; tickets are on sale at atgtickets.com/York.
Launch date: Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse panto stars Martin Barrass, left, Berwick Kaler, Suzy Cooper, David Leonard and AJ Powell announce their return by the Grand Opera House stage door
“Some stories, though, I have only ever shared with my friends…until now!” says Dame Joan Collins
TO coincide with the release of her memoir Behind The Shoulder Pads, Hollywood legend, author, producer, humanitarian and entrepreneur Dame Joan Collins will embark on a 12-date autumn tour with husband Percy Gibson by her side.
Returning to the Grand Opera House, York, where they presented Unscripted in February 2019, they will field audience questions and tell seldom-told tales and enchanting anecdotes on October 2, accompanied by rare footage from Dame Joan’s seven decades in showbusiness.
“I’ve had many amazing adventures in my life. Some stories, though, I have only ever shared with my friends…until now!” says Dame Joan, introducing her 19th book, Behind The Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends, published in hardback, e-book and audio by Seven Dials/Orion Publishing Co on September 28.
Dame Joan, who turned 90 on May 23, has “always believed one should retain some mystery in life and hide a knowing smile behind one’s shoulder pads”. In the book and on the tour, she will share her most memorable moments in and out of the limelight.
The book charts her journey from her early years as a young star in the golden era of Hollywood to stamping her stilettos in Dynasty; from the glittering heights of Saint Tropez to the busy Oscars season in Los Angeles over the years.
Joan writes movingly of her grief and adventures with her sister, the late author and actress Jackie, delving deeper into the ups and downs of love and relationships and her happiness with husband Percy.
Filled with a cast of household names, such as the late Queen Elizabeth II, Diana, Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine and Warren Beatty, Behind The Shoulder Pads promises to “delight and shock in equal measures”.
When a sore throat put paid to Dame Joan’s interview by voicemail with Charles Hutchinson, she very kindly answered questions by email instead.
When did you first wear shoulder pads, Dame Joan?
When Nolan Miller and I were collaborating in the early days of Dynasty we were looking at the couture shows from Paris because I said to him, ‘Alexis is a sophisticated global society lady, and she would be at the forefront of fashion’.
“In the Fifties we all wore shoulder pads. They made our hips look slimmer; our waists look trimmer; they were more flattering than an Italian waiter.”
When did you last wear shoulder pads?
“I still wear them. The structured look will never go out of fashion.”
Has York ever featured in your career or indeed in your life beyond the stage and screen?
“York is the seat of England, and I am a patriotic Englishwoman!”
What’s right with the British film industry?
“A lot. The talent is world class. You can see it in the number of awards we get every year.”
What’s wrong with the British film industry?
“What is wrong with the movie industry as a whole, whether in Britain or America. There is so much product that a lot of it is self-indulgent.”
The cover for Dame Joan Collins’s new memoir, published on September 28
What was the last film you saw and what was your verdict?
“Plane, starring Gerard Butler. Completely unbelievable and thoroughly enjoyable as a result.”
What did you learn about yourself in writing the memoir Behind The Shoulder Pads?
“Which opinions have changed over time, and which haven’t.”
Is glamour still what it used to be or has this age of social media gossip stripped away the air of mystery that once prevailed?
“I don’t know that glamour and social media gossip are necessarily interlaced. I think glamour still exists and social media doesn’t necessarily affect it, but if you’re talking about copycats on social media, there have always been ‘wannabees’ and pale imitations.”
What advice were you given that has stuck with you for life?
“Do it yourself because you’re the only one who will care about you.”
In turn, what advice would you give to a fledgling talent looking to fly high on stage and screen?
“Don’t bother unless you have the hide of a rhinoceros and willing to take rejection at every turn. And if you make it: live simply and stay humble.”
What would you still like to do that you have not done yet as an actress, author, producer, humanitarian and entrepreneur?
“When you put it that way, I guess not much! I like working, so I’ll continue!”
Where are you most at home: on stage, in front of a camera or at home?
“I’m always at home in every place because I enjoy what I do.”
Please sum up yourself in six words…
“As I wrote in the prologue of my last book, My Unapologetic Diaries: ‘I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt and a loyal friend.”
What did you not talk about on your last York visit that you particularly want to discuss this time?
“What did you not ask me the last time in York that you particularly wanted to know about?”
Now that question and answer must wait until the next time, Dame Joan.
Dame Joan Collins, Behind The Shoulder Pads, Grand Opera House, York, October 2, 7.30pm, in the only Yorkshire show of the tour.Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Helen Wilson’s Sister Augusta looks to the heavens…but the weather forecast is encouraging for the rest of the garden run at the Bar Convent. Picture: John Saunders
FIRST came the Sonnet Walks around York from 2014 to 2019; next, the alliterative Sit-down Sonnets at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, and now Sonnets At The Bar, in its third year in Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre’s “secret” garden.
Or not-so-secret, judging by the word-of-mouth popularity of York Shakespeare Project’s “entertaining and accessible” summer season of sonnets in the open air, delivered to the accompaniment of a complimentary drink in the admission price.
Each year’s splay of sonnets is supported by an overarching theme, devised this summer by Helen Wilson, who has been prompted by the Bar Convent’s convivial hospitality to conjure the merry-go-round whirl of a York hotel’s comings and goings, eccentric staff and guests on a mission in the rush of the summer wedding and tour traffic.
Judith Ireland’s receptionist Bronwyn and Harold Mozley’s Mr S, the hotel manager on a short fuse, in York Shakespeare Project’s Sonnets At The Bar. Picture: John Saunders
Judging by the character she plays – the hen-tending, egg-collecting Sister Augusta – she has been inspired too by the presence of the resident community of sisters at England’s oldest surviving Catholic convent.
The convent garden serves as the hotel garden, where York Shakespeare Project’s nine sonneteers make their entrances and exits and re-entries and re-exits too on the breakfast-is-served morning after the wedding the night before. The setting is modern-day, the language likewise until each sonneteer’s conversational thoughts elide into a Shakespearean sonnet and then back out again as each character reveals a secret.
First up is YSP veteran Frank Brogan’s deluded, ageing romantic rock god – long white hair, long dark coat, head band and gold chain – from the wedding party band, who is wondering what happened to the young sprat he failed to hook last night. His Flash Hunter struts and frets his five minutes upon the stage, gone in a flash, the failed hunter, returning later, still forlorn.
Nigel Evans’s Colin, the DJ with the platter patter, in Sonnets At The Bar. Picture: John Saunders
Your reviewer has been asked not to give too much away, as to what happens. Let’s focus on the coterie of characters instead. Judith Ireland takes willingly to a more comedic role than usual, Ireland turning Welsh to play the hotel’s psychic receptionist, Bronwyn Jones, with her vibes and talk of auras and energies.
Harold Mozley’s enervated hotel manager Mr S (for Scruton) is a no-nonsense sort, a stickler for timekeeping. We are told he “barks a lot”, but in this case his bite is even worse than his bite, especially if you happen to be tour guide Stevie Sykes from Betterway Travel, a dodgy East End firm run by Reggie and Ronnie. “Cut the bunny and hop it,” Mr S advises.
Director and YSP chair Tony Froud makes much of this slippery, often apologetic character, who turns the audience into his tour party.
Sarah Dixon’s wedding guest Susie (seated) in discussion with Diana Wyatt’s mother-of-the-bride Moira. Picture: John Saunders
We meet the agitated mother of the bride, Diana Wyatt’s mortified Moira; debutant sonneteer Sarah Dixon’s wedding guest Susie, as she encounters a former crush with hopes of re-kindling that flame, and the morning DJ with a cheesy lyric in every thought, Nigel Evans’s chirpy Colin.
Enter YSP producer Maurice Crichton’s “derelict” Scottish-born lobsterman Hector, in his eye patch and rather fetching fisherman’s gansey jumper, talking of coastal erosion at his adopted home of Skipsea. Aha, climate change comes to Sonnets At The Bar.
Hector has a lunch date, one to whom he will pick up a guitar to sing one of Crichton’s own compositions, a maritime ballad with a kiss at its heart and the chance for an audience singalong.
Not a patch on his subsequent performances: Maurice Crichton’s lobsterman Hector at the dress rehearsal. The eyewear would be added on the first night. Picture: John Saunders
Northern humour, pathos, morsels of gossip, a missing guest, assorted love stories and spilled beans are stirred into the hotel melting pot by Wilson and Froud as each vignette adds more spice. As for which sonnets feature, you will have to attend to find out.
Next up from York Shakespeare Project will be Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, to be staged at Theatre@41, Monkgate, from October 17 to 21, as YSP spreads its wings beyond the Bard.
York Shakespeare Project presents Sonnets At The Bar in the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre garden until August 19, 6pm and 7.30pm, plus a 4.30pm Saturday performance. Box office: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/sonnets-at-the-bar-2023/ or 01904 623568.
Footsbarn Theatre in La Petite Gerda. Picture: Jean-Pierre Estournet
AFTER playing the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time in 15 years, travelling troupe Footsbarn Theatre heads to Danby, North Yorkshire for one afternoon only on August 17.
An international cast will be performing the world premiere production of an English version of La Petite Gerda, the classic fairytale of The Snow Queen, with a combination of masks, puppetry, music and mayhem.
Adapted from the Hans Christian Andersen story, La Petite Gerda follows one girl’s quest to save her best friend, Kay, from the Snow Queen’s clutches. On Gerda’s epic journey, she meets a real princess, is attacked by robbers and rides on the back of a talking reindeer and a singing crow, as she discovers courage that she never knew she had.
Footsbarn Theatre celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021 and has been based in France for 25 years. Showing no sign of slowing down in its passion for groundbreaking theatre, the company has appointed singer, songwriter, musical director and theatre director Sadie Jemmett as its artistic director with a brief to reach new audiences with its community-based theatre.
Footsbarn Theatre artistic director Sadie Jemmett. Picture: Molly Hughes
“Taking the reins of Footsbarn is an incredible privilege and a considerable responsibility,” she says. “I first saw Footsbarn in Berlin just after the wall came down. They blew my young mind! Their adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was like nothing I had ever seen before.
“Since becoming artistic director, the number of people from all over the world that have contacted me to wish me luck, and to tell me how Footsbarn had changed their perception of theatre, is a testament to the company’s legacy and legendary status in the theatre world.
“I am eternally grateful and so happy to be bringing the company back to the UK. It will be a wonderful show in the best Footsbarn tradition.”
Thursday’s performance takes place at Joan of Arc Hall, Esk Valley Camphill Community, Botton Village, Danby, in the North York Moors National Park. Box office: eventbrite.com/e/la-petite-gerda-tickets-639274355807
Music is a key component in Footsbarn Theatre’s La Petite Gerda. Picture: Footsbarn Theatre
The Magpies: Hosting their folk festival at Sutton Park today
ART and cinema outdoors, folk and classical festivals, nostalgic gigs and ant adventures on a theatre terrace prompt Charles Hutchinson into arts action.
Heading to the park: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, near York, today. Gates open at 10am; live music from 12 noon
TRANSATLANTIC folk trio The Magpies head into the final day of their open-air festival of music, activities, stalls and food and drink. They will be among today’s main stage acts (at 8pm), along with Liz Stringer, Honey & The Bear, Blair Dunlop, Rachel Sermanni and Edward II.
The Brass Castle Stage plays host to Jack Harris, Megan Henwood, Tom Moore & Archie Moss, Gilmore & Roberts and Bonfire Radicals, concluding with a Ceilidh with Archie Moss. Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk.
York River Art Market: Up to 30 artists and makers per day down by the riverside
Art in the open air: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk byLendal Bridge, York, today and tomorrow, then August 19 and 20, 10am to 5.30pm
YORK River Art Market returns for its eighth summer as York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris. Organised by founder, director and artist Charlotte Dawson, the weekend event showcases a different variety of more than 30 independent artists and makers from all over Yorkshire and beyond each day.
Boom, by Evie Measor, from New Visuality’s exhibition project, Colour, at Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre
Easels at the ready: Sketching in the Garden, Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, Blossom Street, York, until September 23, 10am to 5pm daily
THE Bar Convent invites artists and those who would like to give it a go to use its easels free of charge in the garden, where art and heritage combine to create an outdoor sketch space.
This opportunity coincides with the Bar Convent’s exhibition run of Colour, featuring works by young York artists, who have used photography skills and innovative AI technology to reinterpret York’s heritage buildings and landmarks. Why not draw inspiration from the exhibition to create your own artistic interpretations?
The Greatest Showman Sing-A-Long: Part of the Outdoor Cinema season at Castle Howard
Screen on the green: Outdoor Cinema at Castle Howard, near York today and tomorrow
THIS outdoor cinema experience in the grounds of Castle Howard presents Matilda The Musical (PG) today at 2pm, Grease (PG) tonight at 8pm, The Greatest Showman (PG) Sing-A-Long tomorrow at 2pm and Top Gun: Maverick tomorrow at 7pm.
Gates open at 12 noon for the afternoon screenings; 6pm for The Greatest Showman; 5pm for Top Gun: Maverick. Picnics and drinks are welcome at all screenings but no glassware. Blankets and camping chairs are allowed. Under-16s must be accompanied by an adult. Box office: castlehoward.co.uk.
Pianist Katya Apekisheva: One of 30 international musicians playing at North York Moors Chamber Music Festival
Classical festival of the week: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Welburn Manor marquee, near Kirkbymoorside, and assorted churches, Sunday to August 26
THE 15th North York Moors Chamber Music Festival ventures Into The Looking Glass for a fantastical fortnight with 30 international musicians, including pianist Katya Apekisheva, French horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider and violinists Charlotte Scott and Benjamin Baker.
Directed by cellist Jamie Walton, the festival takes inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s 1872 novel to “explore the psychology of the mind through the prism of music, conveying its various chapters with carefully curated music that takes the audience on an adventurous journey through many twists and turns”. For the programme and tickets, head to: northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Box office: 07722 038990.
The Searchers & Hollies Experience: Sixties’ nostalgia at the double at the JoRo
Tribute show of the week: The Searchers And Hollies Experience, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
IN The Searchers & Hollies Experience: The Best Of Both Worlds, The FOD Band celebrate the magical, haunting hits of these legendary Sixties’ harmony bands from Liverpool and Manchester respectively. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Newen Afrobeat: Chile meets Fela Kuti at The Crescent
Chilean gig of the week…in York: Newen Afrobeat, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm
NEWEN Afrobeat, a 13-piece Chilean orchestra, make music inspired by the legacy of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. Applying a Latin stamp, they unify the African rhythms with a colourful and energetic staging, embedded in a deep social message that talks about their roots and cultural awareness.
In a ten-year career of four albums and eight international tours, Newen Afrobeat have performed at Montreal International Jazz Festival, WOMEX, Africa Oyé and Felabration Lagos. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Janet Bruce, left, and Cassie Vallance: Hosting Story Craft Theatre’s The Secret Life Of The Garden
Children’s event of the week: Story Craft Theatre in The Secret Life Of The Garden, Friday, 11am and 1pm
HAVE you ever imagined shrinking down to the size of an ant to go on an awesome adventure through a garden? York company Story Craft Theatre’s Janet Bruce and Cassie Vallance provide that opportunity in their magical new show, packed full of fun and wonder on the Theatre Royal patio.
This interactive production for two to eight-year-old children combines visual storytelling tools, such as puppets and Makaton signs and symbols, with games and dancing, plus crafting and colouring sheets beforehand. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Herman’s Hermits: Hits, hits, hits at Pocklington Arts Centre
Retro gig of the week: Herman’s Hermits, Pocklington Arts Centre, August 19, 8pm
FORMED in 1964, Manchester band Herman’s Hermits chalked up 23 hits, hitting the peak straightaway with the chart-topping I’m Into Something Good.
Producer Mickie Most oversaw their glory days with such smashes as No Milk Today, There’s A Kind Of Hush, Silhouettes, Mrs Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter, Wonderful World, I’m Henry VIII, I Am, Just A Little Bit Better, A Must To Avoid, Sleepy Joe, Sunshine Girl, Something’s Happening, My Sentimental Friend and Years May Come, Years May Go. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Joshua Burnell, York folk-prog singer-songwriter. Picture: Elly Lucas
YORK folk-prog singer-songwriter Joshua Burnell releases his fifth album, Glass Knight, today.
He is marking the launch date with a performance at Fairport Convention’s Cropredy Festival, near Banbury, before a series of Yorkshire shows in the months ahead.
In the diary are Driffield Moonbeams Festival on August 16; The Greystones, Sheffield, November 3; The Live Room, at Caroline Social Club, Saltaire, November 12, and St Nicholas’s Church, Beverley, November 18, but not York. Not yet anyway. “There will be one,” Joshua promises. “Watch this space.”
Newly turned 30, Joshua combines his magical music-making with a part-time teaching post of Year Five and Six pupils at Fishergate Primary School and weekend shifts on the piano at Bettys Café Tea Rooms in St Helen’s Square.
“It’s such a contrast: all that noise in the school room, as opposed to being brought a glass of spring water on a silver salver in the quiet hum at Bettys,” says Joshua. “It’s like chalk and cheese!”
Does he play any of his own material at Bettys? “Oh yeah, definitely. At the end,” he reveals. “Now I’m doing more piano-based music, it’s easier to fit them in.”
Glass Knight, available from Bandcamp and Spotify, is his first album since September 2020’s Flowers Where The Horses Sleep, the one described by the Guardian as “theatrical with lashings of Peter Gabriel stylings”.
It is his first since the Covid pandemic too. “This album was kind of a lockdown project. I’ve wanted to do this project for a long time, but I’d been frustrated while it just remained in my head. So I finally recorded the demos in lockdown, with a few relics of those sessions still there on the record, including vocals for the closing track, Moonlighter’s Child,” says Joshua.
Joshua Knight with the Glass Knight. Picture: Elly Lucas
He also has been re-recording his 2013 debut EP Lend An Ear – that project is on-going – but the focus turned to completing Glass Knight, with Joshua taking on the producer’s role for the first time.
“This spring, I spent every day of the school holiday – except for my 30th birthday – working on it, even putting in all-nighters,” he says.
“I’d already recorded with the string section at Young Thugs Studio in York and some of the guitar parts, played by Nathan Greaves at Fishergate School. Hats off to head teacher Tina Clarke for letting us use the space.
“At the exact moment Nathan was recording the electric guitar solo for Lucy [Burnell’s ‘biography of a rock star’], the sun shone through the window, giving off this amazing light. It was like a scene in a movie. You couldn’t make it up. It was incredible.”
Reflecting on Nathan’s guitar parts, Joshua says: “Something wasn’t working in the guitar recordings in my own studio – and it was the feedback that was missing. You need that for the rock songs, and we realised we needed to find somewhere where we could achieve more volume and more acoustics, and the school hall was perfect for feedback.
“Nathan recorded his guitar part for Moonlighter’s Child while walking around the hall, where the reverb was incredible, and you will hear some of that on the track Glass Knight too. It’s the same technique that David Bowie used on Heroes, with Robert Fripp’s feedback on guitar.”
The string section plays a significant role too. “I need to give a name check to my patrons on Patreon, whose support meant there were funds in my account to be able to use string players, rather than programmed strings,” says Joshua.
“I knew Kathleen [violinist Kathleen Ord] from her having played on my last album, and she arranged to bring six string players to Young Thugs Studio. Six! I was like a kid in a candy shop, and they were really good at interpreting my ‘mistakes’ as I’d last used sheet music when studying my Music A-level. They were so good, they finished two hours early – and I’ll definitely be working with string sections again.”
Guitarist Nathan Greaves recording at the sun-lit Fishergate Primary School
For now, strings are confined to Joshua’s studio recordings, but “down the line, I’d love to have them play live with me.” he says. “Now I’m more piano-based in my writing, it lends itself to having string players.
“My ultimate goal would be to play the Royal Albert Hall, so maybe they could play with me there!”
From a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with a love of fantasy, science-fiction, folklore and fairy tales, heroes and villains, sorcery and the supernatural, Glass Knight has been three years in the making.
Moonlighter’s Child was the first song to emerge, its theme having first arisen in a novel-writing project in 2014 that was later abandoned. “The character from that story inspired the idea of an album about a character seeking redemption, after falling into an in-between world in the opening song, Where Planets Collide,” says Joshua.
A god-like figure emerges in the second track, Out Of These Worlds, who says “I can’t provide you with the answers”, encouraging the listener to take a solo journey through the album instead.
“I like the idea that you can read into that it’s a concept album, without a concept, like Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, but equally the ten tracks can have individual meanings, and those interpretations are just as valid as my own interpretation,” says Joshua.
The metaphor of glass, representing human fragility, is key to Glass Knight too. “We build people up only to knock them back down,” says Joshua. “People just love to be in a mob, with the mob mentality where they like to see someone fall in a horrible way, which we’ve always loved in Western culture, where social media operates as an extension of the guillotine.”
The song Glass Knight was a late addition to Joshua’s song cycle but ended up defining the album and providing its title. “It’s a story from Saffron Walden, in Essex, where a basilisk – [a mythical creature, reputed to be a serpent king, that brings death to those who look into its eyes] – is terrorising the community and they need a solution,” says Joshua.
Joshua Burnell and Kathleen Ord’s string players recording at Young Thugs Studio
“I decided to use the Glass Knight as the perfect metaphor for how we treat people. In this story, the [glass] armour can reflect back both the basilisk and the people – which is something we see when we find ways of trashing someone – as I hold up the mirror to reflect on modern society.
“If those judgemental people found themselves in the spotlight, I’m sure they wouldn’t like not being seen as squeaky clean as they end up being trashed too.”
Social media is a double-edged sword for Joshua. “As a musician, I have to be on there. Without it, it would be game over, but you do get judged,” he says.
Joshua’s song writing combines past, present and future. “I write about whatever interests me,” he says. “People interest me, and what they do, what they did, and what they might do next interests me, ” he says.
“There is this desperate desire to connect with people from times past, and it’s the same with the future, wanting those people to be nearer than they are.”
Living, working and writing in an historical city influences Joshua too. “It’s very stimulating being in York. It’s comforting that there are stories everywhere, including more recent social history, such as the Rocking Horse Project at Fishergate Primary School, where funds were raised to repair the antique rocking horses found in the cellar,” he says.
“But the interesting thing is not the rocking horses themselves, but the stories surrounding them and the people in those stories.”
Come the autumn, Joshua will be touring with Nathan Greaves, Ed Simpson, Kat Hurdley, Oliver Whitehouse and Frances Sladen, who is carving out her own niche as So Fe with an album in the works, by the way.
Joshua Burnell: Throwing up a mirror to the modern world on the reflective Glass Knight. Picture: Elly Lucas
“The new music definitely lends itself much better to the band set-up, rather than me just trying to fit in with what I though the folk scene wanted. Now it’s me being me, and we just do it! It sounds the best it’s ever sounded on stage.”
It will be his first tour since turning 30. “I’m looking forward to my 30s a lot,” says Joshua. “Your twenties are about figuring things out. Your thirties are doing what you want to do, and that’s why this is the perfect album to be released now.
“All that baggage, that process, is there on the album and it’s a relief it’s out! It’s the first album I’ve produced myself: I’ve learnt so much from those I’ve worked with before, but this is the one where it sounds like I think it should.
“Ed Simpson, who worked on the last album, has mentored me on how to use the equipment, and this is the first album where I’ve really been able to work on the vocals to be exactly as I want them to be.”
Looking to the future, will writing a musical be on the agenda, as suggested to him by others? “I’ve written a musical before and there’s definitely another musical in me because I’ve done one already,” Joshua ventures.
“I wrote one for my brother Tim when he was in a musical theatre club, and he wanted it to be like The Decemberists crossed with Rick Wakeman! He was 13 at the time. Now he’s doing an acting course in France and he’ll be releasing some music of his own soon.
“He’s written this amazing song, Lazy Susan Lives In Fontainebleu, which is where he’s doing his course.”
Meanwhile, Joshua’s Glass Knight rides this way today. Let’s avoid saying it will be a smash hit, but it is his best work yet.
