From Ukraine, with love:Kyiv National Academic Molodyy Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Picture: Oleksii Tovpyha
THE fifth edition of the York International Shakespeare Festival will begin tomorrow after tonight’s opening show, a Right Here Right Now Shakespeare Special comedy improv night at the home of Riding Lights Theatre, was scuppered by unforeseen circumstances.
Running until May 1, the 11-day programme comprises more than 40 live events, and others online, featuring international, national and York-made performances, talks, workshops, exhibitions and discussions.
Look out too for tomorrow’s Shakespeare Sonnet Marathon in the York Theatre Royal garden (weather permitting!) from 11am; storytelling in libraries and schools, and the launch of a book celebrating the festival’s community placemaking project in lockdown, York Loves Shakespeare (Friargate Theatre, Sunday, 5pm)
Flabbergast Theatre’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth. Picture: Michael Lynch
“We are delighted that the Kyiv National Academic Molodyy Theatre have accepted our invitation to showcase their dynamic and uplifting production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (York St John University Creative Arts Centre Auditorium, April 28, 8pm)” says festival director Philip Parr.
“The Ukrainian company will also offer workshops for students and the community and will talk about the current nature of theatre in Ukraine. We are thrilled to have this company in York to not only present the quality of their work but also to demonstrate the significant cultural connection that is created through international festivals.”
Selected by the European Shakespeare Festival network from an international call-out, festival highlight Flabbergast Theatre’s visceral and lucid The Tragedy Of Macbeth (York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, April 26, 8pm) has garnered responses such as comedian Stewart Lee’s recommendation: “Everything you want – stuff being banged, terrifying puppets, polyphonic singing, mess, mud, noise, wine, party hats, and an amazingly talented international cast”.
York actress Judith Ireland promoting York Loves Shakespeare, the York International Shakespeare Festival’s lockdown community project. Picture: John Saunders
The Stage critic Susan Elkin meanwhile enthused: “The term ‘physical theatre’ doesn’t actually do it justice. It’s an understatement.”
Bognor Regis-born experimental theatre maker, actor, writer and director Tim Crouch presents his Fringe First-winning Truth’s A Dog Must To Kennel (York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium and Atrium, April 29, 8pm) fresh from seasons in Edinburgh New York and London. In this daring modern piece of storytelling and stand-up, he explores King Lear in a post-pandemic world as a virtual reality headset meets Shakespeare as Crouch ponders the essence of live performance.
Artists from Poland, Croatia and Romania join the festival for a series of staged play readings of European texts inspired or influenced by Shakespeare or by writers roughly contemporary to him. All are in new English translations, each receiving first performances, and all three will be heard in the UK for the first time in any language.
Tim Crouch in his virtual reality head set for Truth’s A Dog Must To Kennel. Picture: Stuart Armitt
On the York front, York Shakespeare Project begins its second cycle with Dr Daniel Roy Connelly’s modern-day staging of Richard III, set in the House of Commons, at Friargate Theatre from April 26 to 29 and Elizabeth Elsworth’s innovative theatrical interpretation of Shakespeare’s long poem, here retitled Lucrece, at Friargate Theatre on Sunday and Monday.
“For 11 days, York will become the city of Shakespeare, but perhaps not the Shakespeare you might expect,” says Philip, artistic director of Parrabbola and chair of the European Shakespeare Festivals Network.
The full festival programme and ticket details can be found at www.yorkshakes.co.uk.
York International Shakespeare Festival: the back story
Philip Parr: Director of York International Shakespeare Festival
THE festival was established in 2014 and presented its first programme in 2015 with the aim of bringing exciting and innovative international productions to Great Britain and to showcase work from York and the North.
The festival is programmed and managed by Parrabbola, an arts organisation with many years’ experience in community arts and festivals.
Running every two years, the festival began as a partnership with Parrabbola, York Theatre Royal and the University of York, but has now broadened its reach to take in such York organisations as the National Centre for Early Music, Riding Lights Theatre Company, York Shakespeare Project, York Explore and Bronzehead, embedding the festival firmly in the city.
From 2023, YISF is working closely with York St John University in a new partnership designed to create a new opportunity for staff and students to produce this festival annually.
Can they lift the curse? Perri Ann Barley and Chris Hagyard as the barren Baker’s Wife and Baker in NE’s Into The Woods. All pictures: David Richardson
INTO The Woods go York musical theatre company NE as they present Stephen Sondheim’s wickedly witty musical at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from April 25 to 29.
The New York composer and lyricist rooted his 1987 Broadway show in the Brothers Grimm stories, in a grown-up twist that cast a new light on such familiar fairy-tale frequenters as Cinderella, Jack of Beanstalk fame, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood, but this is no time for pantomime.
Instead, with a book by James Lapine, the story is centred on the Baker and the Baker’s Wife, a childless couple seeking to lift the curse placed on them by a once-beautiful witch.
Rebecca Jackson’s Cinderella
Venturing into the woods three days before the rise of a blue moon, they must search for the ingredients that will reverse the spell: a milk-white cow, hair as yellow as corn, a blood red cape and a slipper of gold. Here they will encounter the fairy-tale folk, each on a quest to fulfil a wish.
The tale will be narrated by NE director Steve Tearle, who also takes on a second role as “the Mysterious Man”. “We chose to do Into The Woods as a tribute to the late Stephen Sondheim. It’s a very different show, which I was lucky enough to see on Broadway in the 1990s, though I missed the star turn, Bernadette Peters, as she was on her day off!” he says.
“I loved it! It was so, so funny. High camp comedy really! I put it on the backburner to do, but a couple of years ago we applied for it – before Sondheim died in November 2021 – and we were meant to be doing it last year.
Ali Butler Hind and Morag Kinnes as the Ugly Sisters, Florinda and Lucinda
“We’re so happy we now are as it’s a fantastic musical comedy for all ages with its wonderfully inventive re-telling of some of the Brothers Grimm stories, where Sondheim was thinking, ‘let’s bring out the child in the adult’. Being a family-driven company, it fits in perfectly with our actors from six years old.”
Steve’s New York trip has influenced his production. “When thinking about the set design, I took inspiration from the original Broadway version,” he says. “I wanted the audience to feel like they were also inside the woods, so we’re using rainbow colours and various styles to bring the woods to life.
“Befitting such an epic musical, we have an amazing set design and fabulous costumes, designed by award-winning Ashington fashion designer Paul Shriek, which we’ve managed to buy second-hand for our show. The finesse to Adam Kirkwood’s lighting is phenomenal too.”
Ready to climb the beanstalk: Jack Hambleton’s Jack
The cast plays its part in setting the scene. “We have more than 50 people in the show, and the ensemble really are the set, becoming the woods, so the woods are interactive. It’s a movable set that changes as the show moves through the three simultaneous stories that blend together,” says Steve.
“We’re making the set a lot more personable to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, making it ‘fit’ the theatre and more experiential, so that everyone there will feel part of the woods.”
Steve’s show will be knocking down theatre’s ‘fourth wall’, the imaginary barrier between cast and audience, several times. “The Narrator has his own posse of children in the ensemble, and they work with him in these fabulous break-out moments, like when we stop the show when he loses the book or he freezes everybody because he’s in control of everything.
Steve Tearle: Director, Narrator and Mystery Man
“That’s like pantomime, but it’s all done with more serious overtones as – spoiler alert! – the show does feature deaths, as well as blood pouring out of a slipper, a toe being cut off and a heel shaved off. We’ll use a sausage for the toe and ham for the heel!”.
Chris Hagyard and Perri Ann Barley lead the NE cast as the Baker and Baker’s Wife, while Pascha Turnbull casts a spell on the audience as the Witch whose curse is the cause of the culinary couple’s woes. Rebecca Jackson plays Cinderella with Sam Richardson as her Prince; Molly Surgenor and Missy Barnes share the role of Little Red Riding Hood; Juliette Brenot is Rapunzel, with Kristian Barley as her Prince.
Further principal roles go to Ryan Richardson as the Wolf; Jack Hambleton, aptly, as Jack; Melissa Boyd as Jack’s Mother; Effie Warboys as Sleeping Beauty and Elizabeth Farrell as Snow White Farrell. “Helen Greenley may be the smallest member of our NE team but she’s playing what you might say is the biggest role,” says Steve. “She’s the Giant’s wife, wearing these massive platforms.”
Missy Barnes’s Little Red Riding Hood
Steve is as proud of his cast as ever. “There are no professionals in the show; we do it for the love of theatre, and we just embrace people and what their capabilities are. We have cast members in the ensemble who have hearing difficulties and are partially sighted,” he says.
“I like to think we give opportunities that other companies wouldn’t give, and we love encouraging confidence among our young performers. We very much wanted to have them in the cast; some had never heard of Sondheim, but they definitely love him now!”
NE [once short for New Earswick, the company’s origins, but now denoting New & Exciting] present Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 25 to 29, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk
Jessa Liversidge leading April’s Musical Bridges session in Easingwold. Picture: David Harrison
SINGERS are building musical bridges in Easingwold in a community project.
In the latest session, on April 3, singer Jessa Liversidge kicked off the school Easter holidays in style with an uplifting movie musicals gathering as part of the Musical Bridges project, whose aim is to build bridges through song.
Previous sessions have included a “looping around” session with Jessa; a raucous sea shanties afternoon with Chris Bartram, and a moving Ukrainian songs workshop with Svetlana Ryadchenko. This time, Easingwold singer, singing group leader and #fieldsing creator Jessa recruited more than 60 singers, ranging in age from 18 months to 95 years, to sing at Easingwold Methodist Church.
“A fun time was had by all as the singers sang their hearts out and enjoyed the company of friends old and new,” she says.
“The day started with an ‘Under 16s only’ only session, where around 20 young people, aged three to 15, enjoyed singing songs from Matilda, The Greatest Showman, Mary Poppins and Oliver.
“The youngsters hailed from York and Thirsk, as well as Easingwold and the surrounding villages, and they made a beautiful sound together and had a few laughs too. It was great for the young people to have some attention on their own – and great for some of the parents to be able to go off and explore some of Easingwold’s fine cafés and shops!”
Three generations taking part in the Musical Bridges singing session at Easingwold Methodist Church earlier this month. Picture: David Harrison
At 11am, the adults were allowed to join the session. “What a fabulously varied range of adults there were,” says Jessa. “Some families ended up with three generations taking part, and some adults without families were able to enjoy the company of young people, as well as revelling in the experience of singing together.”
The most senior singer, 95-year-old Barbara Tildesley, a resident of Easingwold and a regular member of Jessa’s Singing For All group, remarked: “I just love to hear children sing. They are marvellous!”
The musical movie magic continued as the young singers sang to the adults and they then sang more songs together from Mamma Mia! and The Sound of Music.
“The whole group then learned a new song from Seussical: The Musical, How Lucky You Are, which had some appropriate lyrics to lift spirits,” says Jessa. “My style of leading is positive and encouraging, enabling everyone to feel good about themselves and join in with confidence.”
A Musical Bridges session would not be complete without refreshments. “The whole group were treated to delicious home baking by Singing For All star-baker Linda Crisp to accompany their tea, coffee and juice,” says Jessa.
“A fun time was had by all as the singers sang their hearts out and enjoyed the company of friends old and new,” says Musical Bridges sesson leader Jessa Liversidge.Picture: David Harrison
“One of the main aims of Musical Bridges is to get people together to chat as well as sing – and the break gave the opportunity for people from different walks of life, people of different ages, abilities and life experiences, people with a range of health conditions or none, to chat about their favourite musicals and songs, as well as how singing made them feel.
“At Singing For All events too, everyone is welcomed and all contributions are valued and celebrated, leading to a relaxed, positive atmosphere and happy singers.”
Feedback after the session was fantastic, says Jessa: “Many participants reported how uplifted they felt and what fun they had had. One participant said they had ‘a renewed zest for life’, while another said the session ‘ignited the little girl in me’. ‘Awesome’, ‘happy’, ‘energised’, ‘amazing’, ‘best time ever’… were just a few of the other phrases used as singers left.
“Singers with a range of needs said how simple adaptations to the running of the session made them feel included and part of the group.”
The next session, Songs Of Zimbabwe, will be led by Bruce Ncube on May 7, with some free spaces still available. More Musical Bridges sessions will be forthcoming, all funded by the Co-op Community Fund, as the project continues in its quest to bring people together through song.
Anyone wanting to find out more about the project or book a place on a future session should email Jessa at jessaliversidge@googlemail.com.
Harry Summers: Facing a winter of discontent as Richard, Duke of Gloucester in York Shakespeare Project’s Richard III
AS in 2002, York Shakespeare Project launches a mission to perform all of Shakespeare’s plays with Richard III, staged at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York, from April 26 to 29.
The first cycle concluded with a tour of The Tempest last September, and now YSP has initiated a bold endeavour to combine Shakespeare’s works with the best of his contemporaries over the next 25 years.
Esteemed York thespian John White directed YSP’s debut production of Richard III in Elizabethan garb at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre from October 30 to November 2 2002.
In contrast, Daniel Roy Connelly’s 2023 incarnation of “the York play”, part of the York International Shakespeare Festival, is rooted firmly in the 21st century. His production is set in a frenetic, calculating and brutal Westminster, with endless Machiavellian bloodletting and daily treacheries.
Connelly espouses that the England of Richard III could hardly be closer to today’s political minefield. “Telling Shakespeare through what is comfortably the most corrupt institution in the county, the play explores the cut and thrust of power’s crucible, with laws ignored and lies sown,” he contends.
“I believe that a parliamentary telling of Richard III is not only long overdue, it’s also bang on time. Prepare then for British politics as played out, murderously, on the floor of the House of Commons.”
Daniel Roy Connolly: Former diplomat directing York Shakespeare Project for the first time in Richard III
Audiences may find Connelly’s contemporary vision remarkably familiar. Richard and Buckingham excel as social media manipulators within a world of warring political parties. In the shadowy corridors of power, everyone is culpable.
Richard’s watchword? “My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain”.
Making his YSP bow, Connelly is a former British diplomat, theatre director, actor, author and academic. He has acted in and directed theatre in the United States, the UK, Italy and China, where his 2009 production of David Henry Hwang’s M Butterfly was forced to close by the Chinese secret police.
In his cast will be: Harry Summers as Richard, Duke of Gloucester/Richard III; Rosy Rowley, Duke of Buckingham; Miranda Mufema, Lady Anne; Emily Hansen, Queen Margaret; Andrea Mitchell, Queen Elizabeth; Frankie Hayes, Duchess of York/Sir William Catesby, and Matt Simpson, Duke of Clarence.
So too will be: Jack Downey, Sir Richard Ratcliffe; Clive Lyons, Lord Hastings; Michael Peirce, Young York/Lord Grey/Murderer; Nell Frampton, Prince Edward/Rivers; Frank Brogan, King Edward IV/Stanley; Thomas Jennings, Sir James Tyrell; Nick Jones, Earl of Richmond; James Tyler, Archbishop, and Anna Kedge, Marquis of Dorset.
Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday matinee are on sale at ticketsource.co.uk/ridinglights and on 01904 655317.
Elizabeth Elsworth’s regal, calculating Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, opposite Jim Paterson’s Mark Antony in York Shakespeare Project’s Antony And Cleopatra in 2019. Now she is directing YSP’s semi-staged version of Lucrece in her directorial debut
YORK Shakespeare Project will mark Shakespeare’s birthday on April 23 with three performances of Lucrece, a semi-staged version of his early narrative poem The Rape Of Lucrece, at Friargate Theatre, York.
Its original production was set to play at the Mansion House in April 2020 as a culminating feature of then YSP chair Councillor Janet Looker’s year as Lord Mayor, until the pandemic lockdown enforced its postponement.
Now it will be presented under Elizabeth Elsworth’s direction in performances at 2.30pm and 6pm on Sunday and 6pm on Monday as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival.
By the time of the poem’s publication in 1594, Shakespeare already had written the three parts of Henry VI, Two Gentlemen Of Verona and Richard III. When an outbreak of the plague caused a Tudor lockdown that closed London’s theatres, Shakespeare turned to poetry, exploring the theme of misplaced desire in Venus And Adonis and again in Lucrece, as it was entitled on the original frontispiece.
Extremely successful in his lifetime, these poems established Shakespeare as a poet but are rarely heard today. Just as his plays are celebrated for giving extraordinary life to their characters and stories, so he charts the inner worlds and challenges of the characters in The Rape Of Lucrece.
Emma Scott in the title role for York Shakespeare Project’s semi-staged version of Lucrece
In doing so, he gives voice to the unspeakable, his writing taking his audience to the heart of the matter. A voice is heard and actions will have consequences. In verse both gripping and heartfelt, he depicts an action resonating beyond Lucrece herself as she faces life-changing questions. How do you speak to power? To whom do you complain?
Lucrece speaks to the “MeToo” generation about situations and decisions that touch lives so deeply in a rare opportunity to experience Shakespeare’s writing at it most poignant and immediate.
Making her directorial debut, Elizabeth Elsworth has been a familiar face in many YSP productions, notably playing Katherine in Henry VIII in 2017 and Cleopatra in Antony And Cleopatra in 2019.
Emma Scott, who played Macbeth in Leo Doulton’s 2021 production of “the Scottish play”, takes the title role of Lucrece, alongside Stuart Lindsay as Tarquin; Diana Wyatt, Maid/Narrator; Judith Ireland, Player Queen/Narrator; Catherine Edge, Brutus/Narrator; Paul French, Lucretius/Narrator; Jay Wadhawan, Collatine and a female chorus of Sally Mitcham, Sonia De Lorenzo and Lydia McCudden.
Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/ridinglights or 01904 655317.
On their knees: Jane Thornton’s Caroline and John Godber’s Dave in Living On Fresh Air
John Godber Company in Living On Fresh Air, striding out at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com
JOHN Godber likes to put the physical in his plays, from men’s Rugby League to ladies’ rugby sevens, judo to weightlifting, skiing to crown bowls, cycling to hill walking… or the sheer physicality of the clashing doormen in Bouncers. Action theatre as the academics call it.
Walking, in pursuit of exercise under Covid restrictions, grew in popularity beyond Alfred Wainwright devotees. On one such pandemic perambulation, your reviewer bumped into – well, kept a responsible social distance from – John Godber and wife Jane Thornton on the waterside of Pocklington Canal.
“Must be plenty of material for a play about Covid-19, John?”. “No comedy there,” ruled out Godber. So, maybe not Covid (although it does feature prominently in his revamp of Teechers Leavers ’22) but walking now lies at the heart of Living On Fresh Air, as John and Jane take to the stage together again, just as they did in recent years in Shafted, Scary Bikers and Sunny Side Up.
Presented by the John Godber Company in association with Harrogate Theatre, Godber’s state-of-the-nation report and all’s-not-well Orwellian look into the future already has had a run-out in the reviving spa town after a preview week at Beverley’s East Riding Theatre in late-March.
Now Living On Fresh Air is going for a bracing stretch on the coast, camping out in the Round from tonight at the SJT. It opens with Godber and Thornton’s newly retired Yorkshire couple Dave and Caroline out of puff as they reach the peak of Scafell Pike.
It will be all down hill from there, for Britain, for Dave and Caroline’s retirement plans, but not for the play, a grouchily humorous outpouring of present frustrations, doom-and-gloom whither-next forecasts and forlorn, probably futile forewarnings amid Godber’s despair at how we have gone from the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK to apathy at the decay.
In a typically conversational Godber play of direct address to the audience and chatter between the affable, head-shaking couple, full of anecdotal snapshots, we learn that Dave and Caroline had everything they ever wanted: nice house, hot tub, small mortgage, a few savings and a new smart meter.
However, the plug is pulled from the hot tub (er, do hot tubs have plugs?) by the double whammy of Covid and its equally unwelcome new next-door neighbour, the cost-of-living crisis.
Their middle-aged son (Peter McMillan) moves back home, bills are rising faster than Boris Johnson’s fat cheques on the speaker circuit, and so is the temperature (that other crisis of the climate variety). Peace and quiet, going, money, going, tub gone.
Better take to the hills, they decide, to live on fresh air, wrapped up against the elements, in the Dales and the Lakes and on Scafell Pike alike on Graham Kirk’s set, but even that has a sting in the tale once Godber projects into the not-too-distant future. (Just as Alan Ayckbourn is doing likewise, by the way, in his two imminent premieres, Welcome To The Family, at The Old Laundry, Bowness-on-Windermere, from May 12 to 27, and Constant Companions at his regular stamping ground of the SJT from September 7 to October 7).
Ten years from now, as his by-now septuagenarian couple reveals, Godber predicts people will be living in containers in London; the arts will have been suppressed; health care privatised; fat cats will be even fatter; utilities bills ever higher, and roaming charges will apply, not to using mobile phones abroad, but to walking in beautiful public spaces.
Is this a joke? A tragicomedy, more like. Or a farce too serious to be funny, although there is observant, blunt but sharp Yorkshire humour aplenty here too.
Does a playwright need to offer hope? No? Does he have a duty to offer answers? No. McCartney once sang “I admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time”, only for Lennon to counter acidly “It can’t get no worse”, but now Godber believes it can and it will. No sign of a tide turning, or even a voice turning against the tide; no raging against the dying of the light; no wise Shakespearean Fool on the hill. Only Cassandra.
Co-directed briskly by Godber and Neil Sissons, you can’t call it a cautionary tale because Godber foresees no-one breaking the shackles of apathy. What lies in store? Struggles to pull on your socks as you age is just the start. Tough as old boots they may be, but weary walkers Dave and Caroline have too many mountains to climb, and so do we all.
Faye Brookes: Ballroom dancing for the first time in Strictly Ballroom The Musical. Picture: Danny Kaan
CORONATION Street star and Dancing On Ice finalist Faye Brookes is joining Kevin Clifton in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom The Musical at the Grand Opera House, York, from Monday to Saturday.
The Manchester actress, 35, will be taking the lead female part of Fran opposite Strictly Come Dancing alumnus Clifton’s Scott Hastings in Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood’s production on tour until July 15.
“I’m so excited to be playing the role of Fran and making it my own. Bring it on!” says Faye, who last appeared on the York stage in the pink and perky role of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde The Musical in August 2011.
“But I have been back to York since then because it’s so pretty, a great day out, wonderful cafés and restaurants, and the river.”
Actress, soap star and Dancing On Ice contestant Faye Brookes
Faye, who became a household name after joining ITV soap opera Coronation Street to play Underworld packer and waitress Kate Connor from 2015-2019, is no stranger to musical theatre.
Not only starring in Legally Blonde, but also in Shrek The Musical in the role of Princess Fiona, in a tour that visited Leeds Grand Theatre in August 2014, and in Chicago, playing housewife, nightclub dancer and murderess Roxie Hart, visiting the Leeds theatre last May.
Now she adds Strictly Ballroom’s Fran to that list. “I was doing panto at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, playing Goldilocks – with Jason Donovan as the villain [the Evil Ringmaster] – when my agent called me to say Maisie Smith was scheduled to leave the tour in March.
“How would I feel about auditioning? ‘Great!’ I said. I knew Strictly Ballroom well from seeing the film in my childhood. I fell in love with the script and when I watched the film again, I was completely in awe of the dancing and bonkers, crazy comedy that Baz Luhrmann had done.”
“Kevin has taken me under his wing. He’s an absolute pro,” says Faye Brookes, describing her rehearsal experience playing Fran to Kevin Clifton’s Scott Hastings in Strictly Ballroom The Musical
Based on Luhrmann’s 1992 Australian romantic comedy, Strictly Ballroom The Musical follows the rocky path of arrogant, rebellious ballroom dancer Scott Hastings (Clifton).
When he falls out with the Australian Federation over his radical dance moves, he finds himself dancing with Fran (Brookes), a beginner with no moves at all. Inspired by one another, this unlikely pairing gathers the courage to defy both convention and families while discovering that, to be winners, the steps do not need to be strictly ballroom.
All important to the show is the chemistry in Scott and Fran’s tentative, then blossoming relationship on and off the dance floor. “I’ve got myself into the fittest shape possible and Kevin has taken me under his wing. He’s an absolute pro,” says Faye. “He’s been wanting to do this show ever since he was ten.”
Faye began rehearsals on March 8 before joining the itinerary from March 27. “I worked with Kevin while he was on the road as I followed the tour around the country,” says Faye, who relished the task of mastering her Australian accent too.
“It’s action packed and you just have to jump on the train and ride!” says Faye Brookes, centre, of Strictly Ballroom The Musical. Picture: Ellie Kurttz
“To be fair, I do love taking on any challenge and doing accents is definitely one. I’ve always loved voices, and from watching Home And Away and Australian movies, my ear has picked up on the accent.
“What else I did, when I was doing drama at Guildford [School of Acting], was we had elocution lessons with a new accent every week.”
2021 brought her another challenge in the form of the ITV celebrity contest Dancing On Ice. “I’d never had any lessons before, but it just shows what you can do if you’re so committed to it,” says Faye, who finished as the runner-up.
“I was very lucky that I had no other commitments than the ice and I took to it like a duck to water, soaking it up like a sponge. With Strictly Ballroom, there is territory that I’ve done before [musicals], but I’ve never done ballroom dancing until now, though I have had to do ‘historical’ dancing before.”
Strictly Ballroom The Musical director Craig Revel Horwood
Working with Australian-born director Craig Revel Horwood has been a thrill too. “He’s really taken the film and sought to re-create what Baz Luhrmann created in his first ever movie and put it on stage,” says Faye. “So there are moments that will remind people of that film, and for young people who aren’t familiar with it, I can say it’s action packed and you just have to jump on the train and ride!”
Combining a book by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce with a cast of more than 20, Strictly Ballroom The Musical brings to stage life such hits as Love Is In the Air, Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps and Time After Time with joyous verve, bolstered by songs by Sia, David Foster and Eddie Perfect in a show full of “scintillating singing, dazzling dancing and eye-popping costumes” under the glitterball.
“It’s a very explosive show where you go on this wonderful experience,” says Faye. “Take a leap of faith, go with your gut, and what a beautiful feeling you will have when you come out of the theatre.”
Strictly Ballroom The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, April 24 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Florabundant: Phil Wang is in full bloom in 2023 as he extends his Wang In There, Baby! tour to take in autumn as well as spring dates
BRITISH Malaysian stand-up comedian, writer, sketch troupe performer and podcaster Phil Wang is promising his silliest show yet in Wang In There, Baby!, where he will discuss “race, family, nipples and everything else in his Philly little life”.
Nipples, Phil? “The problem with my shows is it’s a string of different material I like to discuss, so when I’m asked, ‘what are the themes?’, I have to think quickly of the topics.
“I’m always talking about race, but this year I also have a routine about nipples and why we censor women’s nipples, but not men’s,” he says, ahead of Friday’s Grand Opera House gig in York, where he will return in the autumn for a September 23 show at York Barbican.
Family? “I talk about my relationship with my father. I’ve always talked about him as being this Asian foil,” says Phil [full name Philip Nathaniel Wang Sin Goi], who was born in Stoke-on-Trent to an English mother and a Chinese-Malaysian father of Hakka descent.
“Hopefully I’ll have some extremely York observations to make,” says Phil Wang
One week after his birth on January 22 1990, the family returned to his father’s home town of Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, where Phil was was taught in Malay, Mandarin and English, studying at the Jerudong International School in Brunei.
Anyway, back to Wang senior. “During the pandemic, he was in Malaysia where they were very strict about people coming in and out of the country. For two years I didn’t see him, but we don’t have a sentimental relationship, so we’re not very good at expressing our feelings towards each other,” Phil says.
On the phone from Peckham, South London, where he was tucking into noodles and a fried egg, Phil is looking forward to his brace of York gigs. “Yeah, hopefully I’ll have some extremely York observations to make.
“I always enjoy freshening it up with local references. For audiences it shows that you’re present in the moment and not just rattling off a script. You’re taking notice – and British humour can be summed up as ‘our town sucks but the next town over there is even worse’.
“There are more comedians than ever,” says Phil Wang. “That means you really have to be present to make an impact”
“I was actually up in Yorkshire in February with a couple of friends on a gastronomical trip to the Star Inn at Harome – it’s so popular we had to book at the end of last year – then walked on the moors and had the best pint of beer I’ll ever have in my life.”
Phil was the first British comedian to tape and release a Netflix Original stand-up comedy special during the pandemic, revelling in the title Philly Philly Wang Wang, and the only non-American act to be spotlighted on Netflix’s That’s My Time With David Letterman, and he has appeared in a recurring guest role in Amy Schumer’s comedy-drama series Life & Beth for Hulu/Disney+ too.
Then add USA tours, appearances at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Montreal’s Just For Laughs Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe, and the September 2021 publication of his debut book Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once, his comic memoir and observational essay on being a Eurasian man in the West and the East.
He is spreading his Wang wings, as it were. “I think we’re lucky to be living in these times: as a comedian, it’s not that we have to do so much, it’s just that we can – and there are more comedians than ever. That means you really have to be present to make an impact,” says Phil. “You never get bored because you’re always doing different things.”
The cover artwork for Phil Wang’s debut book Sidesplitter
Race, or more to the point, being of mixed race as a Eurasian – or “the two majorities, white and Chinese” as he puts it in one routine – has been a double-edged sword for him. “On the one hand, I don’t have that familiarity with an audience, whether a British or Malaysian one. That is my disadvantage,” he says.
“But, on the other hand, my advantage from the start was being the only Asian on the bill and often I still stand out. I accept I will never completely fit in anywhere; that’s not something I need to change. It’s perfectly OK to be in that position.”
Especially for a comedian, with its role of being the outsider looking in and commenting on the world around him. “Comedians live an observational life,” says Phil. “I’ll often not be able to live in the moment because I’m observing it and over-thinking it, but that lends itself to being a stand-up. Growing up mixed race, that forced me to be an observer too.”
Phil Wang, Wang In There, Baby!, Grand Opera House, York, Friday, 7.30pm; York Barbican, September 23, 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york; yorkbarbican.co.uk. Further Yorkshire dates: Leeds City Varieties, Thursday, 7.30pm, sold out; Sheffield City Hall, April 30, 7.30pm; sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
Cocktail shaker: Robert Daws in a scene from William Humble’s play Wodehouse In Wonderland. Picture: Pamela Raith
REMEMBER the character of Tubby Glossop – “like a bulldog that’s just had its dinner snitched” – in the Fry and Laurie television series of P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves & Wooster?
He was played by actor and crime writer Robert Daws, whose fascination with comic novelist, short-story writer, lyricist and playwright “Plum” Wodehouse has led him to star in the British premiere of William Humble’s play Wodehouse In Wonderland, presented by Cahoots Theatre Company on tour at York Theatre Royal from April 20 to 22.
“It all started with my own interest in Plum,” says Robert, 63. “When I was at RADA, I was given a copy of Right Ho, Jeeves by Tom Wilkinson, who was directing at the academy. I read it and loved it, little knowing that a few years later I’d be starring in a wonderful TV adaptation.
“I’ve since become a bit of an aficionado, and a few years ago I went to see Perfect Nonsense, a Jeeves and Wooster play in the West End starring Stephen Mangan and Matthew Macfadyen. Afterwards I was talking to some fellow Wodehouse enthusiasts, and it made me realise just how big an interest there in his work, but how little I knew about the man himself.”
Whereupon Robert read a few biographies and learned more of his extraordinary life, not least his early career as a Broadway lyricist. “I called my friend Bill Humble and said, ‘do you think there might be a play about this?’, and he replied that he’d just finished working on a screenplay about Wodehouse’s life, so I’d called at just the right time. That was around five years ago.”
Directed by Robin Herford, best known for his West End production and many tours of Woman In Black, Wodehouse In Wonderland is set in the writer’s New York State home in the 1950s. Plum, as he is known to family and friends, is working on Wooster’s latest adventure, only to be interrupted by a young would-be biographer, his adored wife, daughter Snorkles and his two Pekingese dogs.
Dancing feet: Robert Daws in a moment of joy in Wodehouse In Wonderland. Picture: Pamela Raith
Based on the life and writings of Wodehouse, Humble’s play finds Daws’s Wodehouse sharing stories of how Jeeves entered his life, how he became addicted to American soap operas and why he wrote books that were “like musical comedies without music”.
He sings songs composed by Broadway legends Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Ivor Novello with lyrics written by Wodehouse himself, and entertains the audience with characters such as gentlemen’s gentleman Wooster, Jeeves, Lord Emsworth, Gussie Fink-Norrie and Madeline Bassett.
Yet a darker story lies beneath the fizzing fun, when the biographer’s visit prompts Wodehouse to reflect on his past in Humble’s play in the second half. “By now in his 70s, Plum was living on Long Island in the 1950s because of the ‘great shaming’, as he called it, of his experiences as an internee during the war, when the Germans manipulated him into making what became known as the ‘Berlin broadcasts’, which was used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes,” says Robert.
“One of the themes of the play is his naivety, but he was fully investigated by MI6, who completely exonerated him of any treachery, but that report was kept from him all his life.
“The columnist Cassandra really put the knife into him in the Daily Mail, but in the 1950s he was a regular visitor to the USA, and who would he have lunch with but P. G. Wodehouse!”
Wodehouse wrote a diary of this period called Wodehouse In Wonderland. “The title is appropriate because that’s very much how he spent his life. He needed to create and live in this fantasy world and was never happier than when he was writing. Sadly, the diary was never found, and he never returned to England after the war,” says Robert.
At peace with a pipe: Robert Daws’s P.G. Wodehouse in Wodehouse In Wonderland. Picture: Pamela Raith
“Things conspired to work against Plum living in England for many years, so there are deeply psychological reasons behind that decision, but as he grew older, he was also incredibly reclusive, which, like most things goes back to his childhood, where his father was a judge in Hong Kong and his mother was a distant figure.
“It was the Victorian way of a certain class to send children away, so at the age of two he was shipped over to England to be looked after by his aunts. Fifteen of them. He didn’t see his parents for years. He was an ‘Empire orphan’.”
His elder brother went to up to Oxford University, and Plum, excelling at the classics and sport, gained a place too. “But his father said, ‘we can’t afford to send you there. You have to work’. He became a bank clerk in the City of London, which he hated,” says Robert.
“He would often be told off because he would write at night, which at all times is a tough gig, and he would turn up at work in his shirt and trousers over his pyjamas. But what he had was this extraordinary work ethic throughout his life. When he died alone in hospital on Long Island, he had his latest manuscript with him on his deathbed. He was still working to the very end.”
On the lighter side, what of Plum’s prowess as a lyricist? “As a young man, he went to America to make his living writing anything anyone wanted him to write, including theatre reviews, and then worked with American writer Guy Bolton, a lifelong friend, as a lyricist, using the American vernacular on shows that absolutely took New York by storm,” says Robert.
“Andrew Lloyd Webber said of him, if Plum had never written any Jeeves and Wooster stories, he would still be considered one of the fathers of the American musical.
Robert Daws’s P. G. Wodehouse at work in his Long Island home in New York State. Picture: Pamela Raith
“He had the extraordinarily good fortune to work with Jerome Kern and write with Cole Porter, both Gershwins and Oscar Peterson too. I always think it’s quite strange that this man we now associate with such quintessentially English characters was in those days better known for his work on Broadway.
“So I perform some of these songs during the show and I’m really enjoying the chance to sing again. I used to do a lot of musicals when I was starting out, and even won a musical award at RADA, though I soon realised my dancing skills weren’t up to it!”
Playing Wodehouse is very much Robert’s “take on him, rather than an impersonation”. “When you’re playing a character people know, like Churchill for example, people know what they looked and sounded like, so there’s a certain expectation, but with Wodehouse that isn’t the case,” he reasons of a challenge he describes as a labour of love, where he has “become inordinately fond of Plum”.
“There isn’t actually much footage of him, and people always said that in reality he was a very reticent and shy figure. Despite creating these extraordinary, larger-than-life characters, he didn’t really socialise and generally liked to disappear into his imagination. So to portray him as he was would not necessarily work. I’ve realised I need to let the words and music speak for themselves, in order to give a more rounded portrayal of the man himself.
“What runs throughout the story is how people were amazed by his benign nature, his sweetness of nature, which wasn’t fake, and how he had a childlike outlook on life.”
Wodehouse In Wonderland paints a fuller picture of the writer at work. “George Orwell, an unlikely friend but a friend nonetheless, said of him, ‘people are envious of you because you live in this beautiful bubble where you get up in the morning, have breakfast, write in the morning, take the dogs for a walk, back home in time for a drink with wife Ethel, and then work in the evening,” says Robert. “But that’s one of the reasons he was so prolific, wanting to be left alone to write.
Plum job: Wodehouse aficianado Robert Daws playing P. G. Wodehouse. Picture: Pamela Raith
“Occasionally you bump into people who say, ‘oh, he just wrote about toffs and we have enough of them already’, but to some extent his world was just as fantastical as Terry Pratchett’s world.
“In India, where I hope to take the show, he is so popular as a writer who’s considered to be subversive, because his characters are to be laughed at, not with. Just look at what he’s commenting on underneath the top layer of wit because, in a way, he was an outcast from that charmed circle.”
As he prepares for the “big treat” of playing York Theatre Royal for the first time, Robert’s thoughts return to playing Wodehouse’s Tubby Glossop in four TV series of Jeeves & Wooster from 1990 to 1993. “It’s one of those moments in your career where you think, ‘oh, I’m so glad that happened’. The most overwhelming feeling is that fate worked to advantage,” he says.
“I’d read the books since my 20s, and I was the fourth person to be cast. I was so happy! It was a wonderful four years, with Clive Exton [the series creator and writer] even sticking Tubby into stories that he wasn’t in originally.
“Over the years. I’ve worked with four actors who’ve played Bertie Wooster: Ian Carmichael, Richard Briers, Hugh Laurie and Stephen Mangan.”
Now he is playing the Wooster source, P. G. Wodehouse.
Robert Daws in Wodehouse In Wonderland, York Theatre Royal, April 20 to 22, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Robert Daws raises a glass to his role as P. G. Wodehouse in Wodehouse In Wonderland
Did you know?
ROBERT Daws is the author of the best-selling Rock detective novels set in Gibraltar and Spain. He co-presents the popular crime fiction podcast Partners In Crime.
“Writing uses a lot of the same creative muscles that you use as an actor,” he says. “Early in my career I spent five years at Theatre Royal Stratford East, where we did a lot of different plays and variety nights, including lots of improvisation. This has stood me in good stead as a writer, because there’s an awful lot of improvisation involved.
“Certainly, all the work I’ve done over the years creating characters has been really helpful as well. I suppose in a way my writing has become my own little wonderland.”
Did you know too?
DIRECTOR Robin Herford and actor Robert Daws have known each other for many years. Robin first directed Robert as Dr Watson in The Secret Of Sherlock Holmes at the Duchess Theatre, London, and latterly when he played the lead in a national tour of Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table. A shared passion for P. G. Wodehouse makes Wodehouse In Wonderland an irresistible project for them both.
Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman: New songs flowering at Selby Town Hall
WIFE and husband folk duo Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman play Selby Town Hall on April 28.
Five years had passed since the two-time BBC Folk Award winners last released an album, 2018’s Personae, but March 17 brought a new release from Barnsley-born singer Roberts and producer and accompanist Lakeman, from the Dartmoor folk dynasty of Sean, Seth and Sam, partner of Irish singer Cara Dillon.
Seventh album Almost A Sunset is a collection of thoughtful, varied songs that range from re-worked traditional ballads to the off-piste storytelling style that has become the trademark of this long-running contemporary folk act.
Recorded at Devon pace in their Round The Bend studio on Dartmoor over the course of a year, the songs explore the couple’s favourite characters, childhood memories and deep emotions as they demonstrate their musical versatility, a sharp interest in the world around them and unique perspective on the folk genre.
Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman explore favourite characters, childhood memories and deep emotions on Almost A Sunset
Roberts sings and plays piano and woodwind to Lakeman’s guitars, bass and percussion on 11 tracks: Eavesdropper; Pew Tor; Ropedancer; Fear Not The Mountain; Call My Name; Fall Of The Lion Queen; Red Rose White Lily Part I; Red Rose White Lily Part II; Night Visiting; Bound To Stone and Year Without A Summer.
“Kathryn and Sean have been at the top of their game, and the top of the folk tree, for the best part of 30 years since their early days in folk ‘supergroup’ Equation,” says Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones. “They’re a phenomenally talented pair and their shows are always so full of warmth and charm, with great storytelling and fantastic music.”
Tickets for the 8pm gig are on sale on 01757 708449 or at selbytownhall.co.uk or on the door from 7.30pm.Roberts & Lakeman also play Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds, on Wednesday (19/4/2023) at 7.30pm, supported by Heslop & Stringer; tickets, 0113376 0318 or carriageworkstheatre.co.uk.
The cover artwork for Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman’s new album
Raquel Andueza and La Galania: May 13 concert at NCEM. Picture: Michal Novak
SOPRANO Raquel Andueza & La Galania and Concerto 1700 will perform in York next month as the National Centre for Early Music, York, strengthens its relationship with Spanish musicians despite the cold shoulder of Brexit.
The Beyond The Spanish Golden Age concerts on May 13 and 14 will celebrate a new relationship with Instituto Cervantes and the Spanish National Centre for the Promotion of Music (CNDM, Madrid) and the INAEM (Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports) within the framework of the Europa Project.
Performances in York and London will showcase Spanish musicians specialising in Spanish baroque music as part of a project to promote and support such musicians and to demonstrate the richness, uniqueness and quality of Spain’s musical heritage.
In the opening 7pm concert at St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, award-winning ensemble La Galania & Raquel Andueza will focus on the Spanish Golden Age of the Baroque, as seen through the eyes – and ears – of the wider European community with music by Henry du Bailly, Jean Baptiste Lully, Enrico Radesca and more.
Basking in the rhythms, sounds and soft breezes of 17th century Spain, the programme combines music of passion, jealousy, love, sweetness, reproach and even death in the name of love.
In the La Galania line-up are Pierre Pitzl, baroque guitar, Jesús Fernández Baena, theorbo, and Pablo Prieto, violin.
Concerto 1700, founded in 2015 by violinist Daniel Pinteño, highlight Music of the Spanish Enlightenment in a sparkling 7pm programme of 18th century string trios by Castle, Boccherini and Brunetti on May 14.
Concerto 1700: Daniel Pinteño, Ester Domingo and Fumiko Morie, making York debut on May 14
Written to please both the Royal Court of Madrid and a civil society eager to experience new science and culture, this is the music of a Spain connected with the most innovative musical currents of its time.
Joining Pinteño in his ensemble of virtuosity and flair in their NCEM debut are violinist Fumiko Morieand cellistEster Domingo.
The music of Spain and Spanish musicians have become a regular feature of the National Centre for Early Music’s main programme despite increasing logistical challenges.
In 2019 Spanish ensemble L’Apothéose scooped the York International Young Artists Prize; in 2022 the NCEM welcomed young vocal ensemble Cantoria to York for a week-long residency, and last November the NCEM co-promoted a UK tour with Diapason d’Or winners El Gran Teatro del Mundo.
The Spanish theme will continue at the NCEM with this year’s Young Composers Award, for which composers were invited to compose a piece of music based on a popular tune from the Spanish Golden Age of the 16th and 17th centuries. The short-listed compositions will be performed on May 12 in York by the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble.
NCEM director Delma Tomlin says: “With concerts, tours, residencies and award winners, over the last few years the music of Spain and Spanish musicians have been very much centre stage here at the NCEM and we are thrilled to welcome two of Spain’s finest early music ensembles to York.
“This is the first time we’ve partnered with the Instituto Cervantes and we hope that this is just the beginning of an exciting partnership. We would also like to extend grateful thanks to the Spanish National Centre for the Promotion of Music (CNDM, Madrid), INAEM, Spanish Ministry of Sport and Culture and Nextgeneration.eu, providing funding from the EU.”
NCEM direrctor Delma Tomlin
Pedro Jesus Eusebio Cuesta, director of the Instituto Cervantes, Manchester and Leeds, says: “Instituto Cervantes has always worked tirelessly to bring the very best of Spanish culture and heritage to the UK and across the world.
“From our ongoing Spanish language classes to our extensive series of live events, festivals and more, our hope is to reflect the passion of Spain. It’s even more rewarding when we are able to bring not one, but two superb music ensembles to such a prestigious venue as the National Centre for Early Music.
“Both concerts are sure to be unforgettable and a testament to all that we seek to achieve at Instituto Cervantes.”
Francisco Lorenzo, director of the Spanish National Centre for the Promotion of Music (CNDM, Madrid), says: “For the CNDM, the entity of the Ministry of Culture and Sports in charge of the promotion, diffusion and expansion of the Spanish musical heritage, these concerts in York featuring of some of our best groups who specialise in baroque music are key.
“They allow us to showcase the interpretative quality of some of our great Spanish performers in this prestigious venue. In addition, it’s a way of highlighting the value, quality and richness of the Spanish repertoire, which has a unique personality.”
Tickets for each concert cost £22, concessions £20, under 35s, £6, and NCEM patrons £18. Book for both concerts in the same transaction to save £5.
