Andy Cryer’s slimy Solinus in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less) at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Patch Dolan
REVIEW: Stephen Joseph Theatre and Shakespeare North Playhouse in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com
THIS Comedy Of Errors gets everything right. Not more or less. Just right. Full stop.
Shakespeare’s “most bonkers farce” has been entrusted to Nick Lane, madly inventive writer of the SJT’s equally bonkers pantomime, and Elizabeth Godber, a blossoming writing talent from the East Yorkshire theatrical family.
How does this new partnership work? In a nutshell, Lane has penned the men’s lines, Godber, the female ones, before the duo moulded the finale in tandem.
SJT artistic director Paul Robinson, meanwhile, selected a criminally good play list of Eighties’ guilty pleasures, from Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, Nik Kershaw’s Wouldn’t It Be Good to Toni Basil’s Mickey, Cher’s Just Like Jesse James to Kenny Loggins’ Footloose, to be sung in character or as an ensemble with Northern Chorus oomph.
Aptly, the opening number is an ensemble rendition of Dream Academy’s one-hit wonder, Life In A Northern Town, that town being 1980s’ Scarborough, just as Lane always roots his pantomimes in the Yorkshire resort.
From an original idea by Robinson, Lane and Godber’s reinvention of Shakespeare’s comedy is not too far-fetched but far enough removed to take on its own personality and, frankly, be much, much funnier as a result. To the point where one woman in the front row was in the grip of a fit of giggles. Yes, that joyous.
For Ephesus, a city on the Ionian coast with a busy port, read Scarborough, a town on the Yorkshire coast with a fishing harbour, although all the fish and chip cafés were shut without explanation on the evening of the press night. Was something fishy going on?
Ephesus was governed by Duke Solinus; Scarborough is run by Andy Cryer’s vainglorious Solinus. Still the merry-go-round action is spun around mainly outdoor public spaces on Jessica Curtis’s set, where protagonists bump into each other like dodgem cars. Just as Syracusans were subject to strict rules in the original play, now Lancastrians are given the Yorkshire cold shoulder in a new war of the roses, besmirched Eccles Cakes et al.
Sing when you’re twinning: David Kirkbride’s Antipholus of Scarborough and Oliver Mawdsley’s Dromio of Prescot in the SJT’s highly musical The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less). Picture: Patch Dolan
So begins a tale of two rival states and two sets of mismatched twins (Antipholus and Dromio times two) on one nutty day at the seaside. Cue a mishmash of mistaken identities, mayhem agogo, and merriment to the manic max, conducted at an ever more frenetic lick.
It worked wonders for Richard Bean in One Man, Two Guvnors, his Swinging Sixties’ revamp of Goldoni’s 1743 Italian Commedia dell’arte farce, The Servant Of Two Masters, setting his gloriously chaotic caper, as chance would have it, in another English resort: Brighton. Now The Comedy Of Errors evens up the mathematical equation for two plus two to equal comedy nirvana from so much division.
One ‘guvnor’, Lancastrian comic actor Antipholus of Prescot (Peter Kirkbride) crosses the Pennine divide to perform his one-man show. Trouble is, everyone has booked tickets for the talent show across the bay, starring t’other ‘guvnor’, the twin brother he has never met, Antipholus of Scarborough (David Kirkbride, different first name, but same actor, giving licence for amusing parallel biographies in the programme).
The two ‘servants’ of the piece, Dromio of Prescot and Scarborough respectively (Oliver/Zach Mawdsley), are equally unaware of the other’s presence, compounding a trail of confusion rooted in Scarborough’s Antipholus owing money everywhere but still promising his wife a gold chain. He needs to win the contest to appease Scarborough’s more unsavoury sorts.
Kirkbride takes the acting honours in his hyperactive double act with himself, Mawdsley a deux is a picture of perplexity; Cryer, in his 40th year of SJT productions, is comedy gold as ever in chameleon roles; likewise, Claire Eden fills the stage with diverse riotous, no-nonsense character, whether from Lancashire or Yorkshire.
Valerie Antwi, Alyce Liburd and Ida Regan, each required to put up with the maelstrom of male malarkey, add so much to the comedic commotion, on song throughout too.
Under Robinson’s zesty, witty direction, everything in Scarborough must be all at sea and yet somehow emerge as comic plain sailing, breaking down theatre’s fourth wall to forewarn with a knowing wink of the need to suspend disbelief when seeing how the company will play the two sets of twins once, spoiler alert, they finally meet.
Who knew shaken-and-stirred Shakespeare could be this much fun, enjoying life in the fast Lane with Godber gumption galore too. Add the Yorkshire-Lancashire spat and those Eighties’ pop bangers, Wayne Parsons’ choreography and the fabulous costumes, and this is the best Bard comedy bar none since Joyce Branagh’s Jazz Age Twelfth Night for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in York in 2019.
When The Comedy Of Errors meets the 1980s, the laughs are even bigger than the shoulder pads. A case of more, not less.
Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan: Comedy and impressions for sharing on a Sunday night in York
JASPER Carrott had decided his Stand Up & Rock gig with Brummie schoolmate and ELO drummer Bev Bevan in Barnstaple would be his last show.
June 6 2022. Age 77. Joke cracker Carrott and sticks basher Bevan in Devon. Exit the Queen’s Theatre stage left, the finale for the Lifetime Achievement winner in the 2008 British Comedy Awards. The Funky Moped now defunct.
But what’s this? An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan, heading to the Grand Opera House, York, on Sunday on their comedy and impressions double bill.
“I gave it up last year to see how I felt – and I missed it terribly,” says comedian, actor and television presenter Jasper, his nickname since the age of nine when growing up in Birmingham.
“I’m having a golden autumn. There’s an audience out there that’s not catered for and I cater for it. I get standing ovations, and these days I like to say it would be 100 per cent…if 100 per cent of the audience could still stand up!”
Carrott, 78, and Evesham-born McGowan, 58, who now lives in Ludlow, Shropshire, first shared a bill as a one-off at the 2017 Reading Festival. “They had a spare spot on the Sunday, and my agent asked if I’d like to do it, My first thought was, ‘Not on my own’,” recalls Jasper (real name Robert Norman Davis, by the way).
“I’d previously worked with Phil Cool for about three years [from 1992] on the Carrott & Cool tour shows, where the comedy nights felt different because of Phil’s impersonations. Anyway, my agent said Alistair would be interested in doing the festival with me, and it went really well.”
So much so, they went out on tour in 2018, playing York Barbican in their An Evening With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan format on November 19. “That was one of the first shows I did with him.”
How did they settle on who would open the show? “Alistair really wanted to go on first. I think he thought it would be more difficult if he had to build on my energy. We first did it that way at Reading, and it worked, so, each half, Alistair does 20-25 minutes, then I come on and do 30,” says Jasper.
In a long, long career, Jasper has spread his wings to star in the television series The Detectives from 1993 to 1997; play Koko, the executioner, for the D’Oyly Carte Opera in a 96-show run of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Savoy Theatre, London, in 2002, and host 300 episodes of the ITV daytime game show Golden Balls from 2007 to 2011.
Jasper Carrott, centre, and The Bev Bevan Band line-up for their Stand Up & Rock shows in 2021
Yet raconteur Jasper has always returned to performing stand-up, cracking quickfire gags, spinning yarns and singing ditties to guitar accompaniment solo on stage: the most exposed and exposing form of self-expression on stage.
“Now then, I’m going to paraphrase Bill Shankly [the legendary Liverpool football manager of the 1960s and ’70s],” says Jasper. “When he signed Kevin Keegan, he walked him on to the Anfield pitch and said, ‘you can run anywhere on this pitch, but you can’t hide’, and that’s the same for me, doing my comedy.”
Ten years away from the stand-up microphone had passed when best friend Bev Bevan said, ‘Let’s do some shows together. That’s when I rediscovered the essence of it, going eyeball to eyeball with an audience. It stirred up all the adrenaline again, which is a very addictive drug.”
Preferring that eyeball-to-eyeball experience to playing 5,000-seaters “where everyone just watches the screens”, Carrott and Bevan did shows together for more than eight years. Now he is back on the road with Alistair McGowan.
“Times have changed in comedy. You can’t talk about anything [because of political correctness], but it’s like you have to have Tourette’s to go on stage to talk. That’s comedy today, long, hard and woke. For ages I’ve been watching a lot of comedians, and with all the young stand-up comics, I don’t really laugh,” he says.
“Storytelling is an art and not many comedians now tell stories, but I do sets with machine-gunfire gags and three or four stories with jokes in them that are hidden, and that’s what I’ve always done.
“That’s because I was a product of the American style of comedy: Tom Lehrer, George Carlin, Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman. I still don’t swear on stage, but I talk about topics that need discussing, however awkward.”
Looking ahead, Jasper says: “Lots of comedians have performed into their 80s: George Burns, the Marx Brothers, Ken Dodd, and I’ll know when it’s time to stop,” he says. “I have no ego about it. I really enjoy it, and one of things now is the nostalgia, where I go on stage and I’m part of the audience’s lives. I feel their warmth.”
A comedian to the last, he ponders his final curtain. “When I get asked, ‘what do you want on your gravestone?’, I always say, ‘I never died in Glasgow’!”
An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Jasper Carrott: Comedian, actor and TV presenter
Jasper Carrott on playing Koko, the executioner, in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado for D’Oyly CarteOpera
“That was an experience and a half! I was a bit shaky at first as I had to learn so much. Someone said, ‘you can know it, but you don’t own it’, and remember sitting down and thinking ‘how do I go about doing this?’.
“I was a pain in the a**e for everyone on the staff, from the actors to the director, really trying to glean the essence of the part, which I then really got hold of.
“Why pick me for Koko? I suppose they looked at it and thought, ‘who can we get to front this?’, when people like Eric Idle had done it before. I said I’d be very interested, and they sent the director out to Spain, where I was playing golf, to play the piano to see if I could sing.”
Surely D’Oyly Carte must have heard Jasper’s 1975 hit single, Funky Moped? “My musical passport!” he says, with laughter in his voice.
Once Jasper received the OK, rather than KO, for playing Koko, “the rest was a long, hard slog, getting to learn the part…and learning never to do it again! I never realised how much work went into performing opera.”
Jasper Carrott on hosting the ITV game show Golden Balls
“I thought, ‘I’m a raconteur, not a game show host’, but I did the pilot and they liked it. When my agent said how much I’d be paid, I said, ‘is that in lira?’, but no, it wasn’t! I ended up doing 300 episodes.
“I learned so much about human nature in that show, about just how deceitful people are!”
Stewart Lee
Jasper Carrott on fellow comedian Stewart Lee
“Stewart left a couple of books for me at a gig after he’d played there a couple of days earlier, saying I’d inspired him. He’s not always funny but he is very interesting, and he’s probably the link between what I do and the young comedians of today.”
Jasper Carrott on the essence of comedy
“Comedy is the only measurable artform. People laugh or they don’t. You can’t tell me how much you enjoy a Rembrandt painting, but if there aren’t any laughs at a comedy gig, you won’t be performing again.”
Alan Park’s playwright Henry and Alice May Melton’s actress Annie in York Settlement Community Players’ The Real Thing. All pictures: John Saunders
IS a play ever the real thing or just playing? What is love? What is art? What is truth? What is artifice? Can Tom Stoppard write good roles for women? Can you even trust this review? So many questions, and none of them will be answered conclusively.
He may be considered one of the greatest, smartest of British playwrights, knighted for his clever, clever dramas with their iridescent, intellectual language and adroit structures. But Tom Stoppard is not British by birth and nor is it his original name.
He was born Tomás Straüssler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, and was raised in Singapore and India, taking the name Stoppard from his stepfather before moving to England in the post-war aftermath. He quit school (Pocklington School, by the way), becoming a journalist…and you know what they say about journalists and their relationship with the truth.
Written in 1982, The Real Thing revels in confusion, confusion that becomes even greater at the finale, or does it? Trust me, it certainly considers the nature of honesty in a play full of dishonesty and infidelity, where you may well not be able to tell when it is being a play within a play or a play being re-written within the play within the play or just a play.
Charlotte (Victoria Delaney) has a word with errant husband Henry (Alan Park) in The Real Thing
Stoppard’s protagonist is a playwright, Henry (Alan Park, performing on a Theatre Royal stage for the first time since playing Jack in Pilot Theatre’s Lord Of The Flies 19 years ago).
He is married to Charlotte (Victoria Delaney), an actress, who is playing an actress, also called Charlotte as it happens, opposite Max (Mike Hickman) in Henry’s new play. Charlotte reckons he never writes her a decent role (an in-joke from Stoppard about his own writing).
Max in the play within a play is being played by an actor also called Max (Hickman), who is married to an actress, Annie (Alice May Melton).
Soon Henry and Annie are shacking up; dischuffed Charlotte and free-spirited daughter Debbie (Hannah Waring) moving on. Into the story come Billie (Rebecca Harrison), a lesbian young actress with a thing for Annie, and Brodie (Livy Potter), a troubled young writer whose frank and frankly badly written play is taken up by Annie. At least, I think that is what you are watching.
Alice May Melton’s Annie and Rebecca Harrison’s Billie in The Real Thing
For sure, two years pass between Act and Act II, because the programme note says so, but Oxford School of Theatre graduate, professional actor and former Theatre Royal youth theatre fledgling Jacob Ward revels in the deliberate complexities in his first full-length production as director.
Betwixt scenes, actors move three door frames into different configurations – on Richard Hampton’s open-plan set design – that may or may not signify what is real and what isn’t.
A multitude of doors traditionally denotes we are in the presence of a theatrical farce, but here it is more a case of moving the goalposts or rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic as the grip on reality sinks.
Park’s playwright Henry has the best lines (of course he does!), and what he says carries the greatest weight as effectively Stoppard’s voice on stage in this heavily autobiographical drama.
Mike Hickman’s Max
What is reality, what is merely appearance, applies to the relationships within the play, where fronts keep being put up and lies told.
Ironically, such is the language he uses, Stoppard’s characters are often not wholly believable, being conduits for his own cleverness or point-making, but the greater truth here is a writer’s struggle to express love in his writing: the gap between Henry’s feelings for Annie and putting them on the page.
Amid the obfuscation of a multi-storey of levels on stage, Stoppard’s grasp of the complications of love is the one real thing in this Tony Award-winning romantic comedy that is more romantic in spirit than action.
Whatever the truth within, Ward’s cast is the real deal, Park a powerhouse of opinion and conviction, Melton full of intrigue and resolve, mysterious and elusive too; Delaney delightfully forthright; the rest wholly committed to spinning plates ever faster.
York Settlement Community Players present Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal Studio, 7.30pm nightly until Saturday, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office
Student Emma Yeoman: Displaying flora and fauna in sculptures and on canvas in the grounds of York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York, at York Open Studios
YORK Open Studios’ two April weekends are fast approaching.
More than 150 artists and makers within the city or a ten-mile radius of York will open their doors to visitors, presenting painting and print, illustration, drawing and mixed media, ceramics, glass and sculpture, jewellery, textiles, photography and installation art.
Opening hours will be 10am to 5pm on April 15 and 16, followed by April 22 and 23. In addition, a preview evening will be held on April 14, from 6pm to 9pm, with details of participating artists available at yorkopenstudios.co.uk and in the event directory distributed around the city.
Admission is free for these opportunities to view and buy art and gain an insight into artists and makers’ inspirations, creative processes and skills.
As ever, regulars will be taking part alongside York artists and students new to the annual event that is always keen to champion emerging talent.
Three bursary artists will showcase their work: Peter Baker, whose his site-specific installation in reclaimed wood, shards and shells on four floors responds to the quirks and constraints of Fishergate Postern Tower; Jade Blood, contributing to the “People’s Banner”, a community textile at Bootham School Arts Centre, Bootham, and Sam Edward, hiding tiny sculptures around the city centre to be found during the weekends.
Edward, from South Cottage Workshop, in Shipton Road, has scattered small concrete sculptures that he describes as “miniature monuments, resembling obelisks, monoliths and memorials, but scaled down, to memorialise moments from York”.
In his work, he has snatched overheard conversations and appropriated text to commemorate the time we are living in.
Bee Place, by John Hollington, at 68 Ouse Lea, York
In addition, in his studio, you will discover the production behind the monuments and see the process live as an ongoing work.
New participants are: realist watercolour painter Nduke Omeife, at 37 Baker Street, Clifton; furniture designer and maker John Green, 4 Compton Street; Joanne Edmonds, watercolour painter of architecture, interiors and decoration, at PICA Studios, Grape Lane; painter Rae George, sharing her experiences as a woman artist in her mid-30s inspired by art history, expressive colours and fleshy forms, at PICA Studios, and Lisa Power, who paints and draws 3D small cottages based on Irish vernacular architecture, also at PICA Studios.
Illustrator Sammy Davies, at 32 Emerald Street, focuses on mixed-media works on paper, inspired by nature and mind meanderings; Ali Hunter, at 52 Rose Street, creates pen and ink drawings on paper, drawn from home interiors, fashion, style and décor, inspired by Instagram; Gonzalo Blanco, at Rose Dene, Moor Lane, Strensall, paints perspectives of York and Yorkshire in oils through the seasons.
Marta Szulczewska, at Creative Studio York, Unit 14, Bull Commercial Centre, Stockton Lane, makes functional ceramics in stoneware clay, from mugs, vases and plant pots to dishes and ornaments, each finished off with a positive inscription. Printmaker Jen Dring, at 53 Burnholme Avenue, explores the name of God in her imaginative linocuts and experiments with collage printing triggered by small moments in daily life.
Painter Kerry Ann Moffat, at 33 Third Avenue, Heworth, works in oil on upcycled pieces of wood and handmade cotton rag, highlighting the contrast between light and shadows. Photographic artist Amy D’Agorne, at Apartment 4, 5a Hallfield Road, specialises in long-form research-based projects, shot on analogue film, pitched between documentary and fine art.
Lesley Peatfield, at The Studio, The Old School, Skirpenbeck, experiments with cameras, phone, techniques and approaches in her landscape, abstract and street photography of whatever catches her eye. Illustrator/artist Nick Ellwood, at 7 Lastingham Terrace, celebrates people, character and behaviour through his paintings, drawings and prints.
Relief printmaker Jon Haste, at Unit 15b, Danesmead Business Wing, York Steiner School, 33 Fulford Cross, creates hand-made limited editions inspired by flora and fauna, natural habits and wild experiences in the outdoors. Printmaker Rachel Holborrow, at 69 Danum Road, Fulford, uses mostly lino in her exploration of botanical form and its tangled relationship with humanity, delving into surreal folklore and unpacking feminine archetypes.
Photographer Luke Downing’s series of film poetry, at 82 Ambrose Street, York, explores memory, longing and nostalgia in a combination of 8mm footage, original music and spoken word.
Lemonoadeshow, by Jade Blood, who will be contributing to the People’s Banner at Bootham School Arts Centre
Emma James, at 39 Copmathorpe Lane, Bishopthorpe, paints big skies, wild remote spaces and abandoned shelters in acrylics and inks, in response to the Yorkshire landscape and stories of people who lived there. Photographer Scott Dunwoodie, at The Homestead, Moor Lane, Bishopthorpe, creates his architectural and still-life prints using a hybrid of digital and traditional darkroom techniques.
Parkington Hatter, at 61 Sutherland Street, South Bank, makes freehand digital drawings, each containing a surprise for the eagle-eyed. Printmaker Stephen Bottrill, at 8 Middlethorpe Drive, favours etching, photo etching, linocut and serigraphy for his small and large images of current and historical political observations prompted by urban art. Intuitive mixed-media artist Lenka Pavuk, at 13 Vincent Way, uses a variety of materials and media, with the essential element of epoxy (resins) in her imaginative works.
Duncan McEvoy, of 22 Swinerton Avenue, photographs the working railway, frequently abroad, looking east, always hunting for anachronisms, seeking out industrial settings, people and place and everyday sights, “because the present moves constantly to the past,” he says. Leo Corey, at 27 Boroughbridge Road, explores Cuban identity in his paintings, using the human figure and its body language to connect the public with his culture and heritage.
Printmaker Bridget Hunt, at 5 Malvern Avenue, focuses on colour, form and texture in her abstract and representational prints of landscapes, still life, plants and animals. At the same location, Patricia Ann Ruddle combines printmaking and photography, fascinated by the Yorkshire coast’s human and organic aspects.
Watercolour painter Dianne Turner, at 19 Wetherby Road, Acomb, layers translucent colours in her atmospheric pieces inspired by architecture and nature. Digital printmaker Peijun Cao, at 60 Jute Road, creates surreal images from photographs using clouds, eyes and dandelions to produce striking images.
Textile artist Jo Yeates, at South Bank Studios, Southlands Methodist Church, Bishopthorpe Road, employs stitching, tearing, fraying and layering in her seascapes, landscapes and abstract pies, working with paper, fabric, paint and stitch, often using reclaimed and repurposed materials.
Among students showcasing their work are Harriet Fleetham, at South Cottage Workshop, Shipton Road, who combines York’s architecture and street names in her twist on traditional handmade books, and mixed-media artist Emma Yeoman, exhibiting her intricate display of fauna and flora in sculpture and on canvas in the grounds of York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk
Faith Noblet, at Phoenix Court, York St John, “challenges the inconspicuousness of the material matter of a photograph” through her analogue photography, realised by manipulation, distortion and deception of the image. Rebecca Mihill, at 13 Nunthorpe Grove, plays with line, symmetry and curves in her contemporary jewellery made from recycled silver.
Sunflower power: An artwork by Cuban artist Leo Moray at 27, Boroughbridge Road, York
Returning for the 2023 York Open Studios are: Chiu-I Wu; Frances G Brock; John Hollington; Lesley Birch; Gerard Hobson; Steve Williams; David Campbell; Jacqueline James; Sarah Raphael Balme; Emily Harper-Gustafson; Freya Horsley; Sarah K Jackson; Evie Leach; Ric Liptrot, Jess Mahy, Katrina Mansfield and Lesley Shaw.
So too will be: Ealish Wilson; Greg Winrow; Boxxhead; Robert Burton; Jo Walton; Charmian Ottaway; Lesley Williams; Poppy Burr; Anna Cook; Fiona Lane; Becki Harper; Anna-Marie Magson; Philip Magson; Ann Sotheran; Jo Ruth; Sarah King; Catherine Boyne-Whitelegg; Mo Burrows; Emma Frost; Richard Whitelegg; Cathy Needham, Rukshana Afia and Emma Whiting.
Returning too are: Sally Clarke; Adrienne French; Dylan Connor; Peter Park; Anna Vialle; Rosie Bramley; Liz Foster; Michelle Galloway; Kate Petitt; Reg Walker; Emma Welsh; Judith Glover; Tim Pearce; Carrie Lyall; Linda Harvey; Jane Duke, Malcolm Ludvigsen; Cathy Denford; Chrissie Dell; Amy Stubbs; Emily Stubbs; Ruth Beloe; Milena Dragic and Marc Godfrey-Murphy (MarcoLooks).
Playing their part too will be: Laetitia Newcombe; Phil Reynolds; Claire Castle; Penny Phillips; Pamela Thorby; Elliot Harrison (York360); Meredith Andrea; Lincoln Lightfoot; Carol Douglas; Kay Dower; Claire Morris; Kate Buckley; Colin Black; Carolyn Coles; Laura Duval; Nicola Lee; Donna Maria Taylor; Caroline Utterson; Karen Winship and Amanda Allmark.
Add to that list: Mick Leach; Sharon McDonagh; Jill Tattersall; Marie Murphy; Kate Semple; Lauren Terry; Marcus Jacka; Ruth King; Mark Hearld; Joanna Wakefield; Jo Bagshaw; Lucy McElroy; Simon Palmour; Ben Arnup; Toni Mayner; Emma Whitelock, Richard Frost; Constance Isobel; Jacqueline Warrington; Phil Bixby and Caroline Lewis.
Step forward too: Peter Donohue; Angela Anning; Lucie Wake; Anthea Peters; Derek Gauld; Pennie Lordan; Joanna Lisowiec; Nick Kobyluch; Michelle Hughes; Ted Schofield; Adele Karmazyn; Jane Dignum; Mark Druery; Ruth Claydon; Jane Atkin; Fran Brammer and Jo Rodwell.
Visit the website, at www.yorkopenstudios.co.uk for full details of all the artists, makers and locations and to access the York Open Studios interactive map. Alternatively, this year’s free printed directory can be picked up at tourist hubs and artist locations throughout York city centre and the wider city region.
High-flying success: Ned Sproston’s Caractacus Potts at the wheel of Chitty, with Carly Morton’s Truly Scrumptious in the passenger seat and Logan Willstrop’s Jeremy Potts and Hope Day’s Jemima Potts in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, York Stage, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm nightly to Saturday; 2.30pm matinees, Wednesday and Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
THIS is James Bond author Ian Flemings’s eyebrow-raising 1964 children’s story, via Ken Hughes’s 1968 family musical fantasy film, adapted for the stage by Jeremy Sams.
It would be easy to put the emphasis on the spectacle, the car that floats and flies, with as many special features as a Q-customised Aston Martin for Bond. Certainly director-producer Nik Briggs pulls out all the stops on that score, but his Chitty show has more wings to it than merely its fine four-fendered friend’s airborne adventures.
The “fantasmagorical” spectacle here extends beyond the repurposed scrap-heap Grand Prix car to Damien Poole’s fabulous, fun and funny choreography; the hair and make-up by Phoebe Kilvington’s team; Charades Theatrical Costume’s flamboyant costume designs and the uncredited hi-tech set design, windmill sails et al.
Pulling a Chu-Chi Face: Alex Papachristou’s Baron Bomburst and Jackie Cox’s Baroness
Out of sight, aside from diligent yet playful musical director Adam Tomlinson, is his lush 12-piece orchestra, properly filling the pit with gorgeous musicality for the Sherman brothers’ score.
Above all, Briggs has improved further on the balance between grand theatricality and human personality in West Yorkshire Playhouse’s 2015 Christmas production. Perhaps it would be truer to say “caricature personality”, but the result is a greater connection with the audience.
In particular, this applies to the baddie double act of Alex Papachristou’s arch, spoilt, teddy bear-carrying Baron Bomburst and his brassy Baroness (Jackie Cox), a hammier, kinkier couple than past interpretations, and far funnier than their outrageous banishment of children from their Vulgarian principality should be.
Bomburst’s spies, Boris and Goran, are always comedy gold, in pursuit of purloining the car for the baron, but they are better still in the hands of Jack Hooper and James Robert Ball, Vulgarian vultures trying to pass themselves off as Englishmen (and even women too).
Send for the clowning spies: Jack Hooper’s Boris gives a lift to James Robert Ball’s Goran
Papachristou, Cox, Hooper and Ball stretch their Vulgarian accents across Germanic vowels with delight and differing, equally amusing results in a send-up where ’Allo ’Allo! meets Mel Brooks’s The Producers.
Such is their broad playing, their comic interplay, their relish for downright silliness, that all four carry appeal for adults and children alike, evil but never vile. Unlike Richard Barker’s Childcatcher, that towering, spindly, grotesque rotter, whose villainy is more threat than presence, given how few scenes he has.
Meanwhile, several saucy jokes fly above innocent young heads, relished especially by Ball and Papachristou, who also rescues a prop malfunction (a telephone wire becoming detached) with an off-the-cuff one liner.
Ploughing a straighter furrow are Ned Sproston’s thoroughly decent inventor and single dad Caractacus Potts, plucky children Jeremy (Logan Willstrop, sharing the role with Esther de la Pena) and Jemima Potts (Hope Day/Eady Mensah), and Carly Morton’s utterly pucker Truly Scrumptious (whose beautiful singing with the purity of a Julie Andrews peaks with her Doll On A Music Box routine, clockwork dancing so exquisitely).
Briggs uses adult and children’s ensembles to the full, testament to the show’s mantra that teamwork makes the dream work, never more so than when Poole’s choreography is in full flow in Toots Sweets and especially The Bombi Samba.
Boris and Goran’s Act English and Potts and the Morris Men’s Me Ol’ Bamboo, Grandpa and The Inventors’ The Roses Of Success and the Baron and Baroness’s Chu-Chi Face are all bursting with character as much as musical flair.
For all the considerable technical demands of a show with a flying car, Briggs and his company take everything in their stride with panache in a dazzling, dapper and delightful family treat for the Easter break. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, bang on.
Student Emma Yeoman: Displaying flora and fauna in sculptures and on canvas in the grounds of York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York, at York Open Studios
ART across the city canvas, acoustic gigs, Easter chocolates, a comedy double bill, a singing milkman and Brazilian rhythms shape Charles Hutchinson’s April days ahead.
York’s art fiesta of the year: York Open Studios, April 15 and 16, April 22 and 23, 10am to 5pm
MORE than 150 artists and makers at 100 locations within the city or a ten-mile radius of York open their doors to visitors over two weekends to give insights into their inspirations, creative processes and skills.
Painting and printmaking, illustration, drawing and mixed media, ceramics, glass and sculpture, jewellery, textiles, photography and installation art all will be represented, with works for sale. For full details, including who is participating in Friday’s 6pm to 9pm preview, go to: yorkopenstudios.co.uk.
Rick Witter and Paul Banks: Playing Shed Seven songs in an acoustic duo setting in Barnsley
Local heroes head south…well, to South Yorkshire: Rick Witter & Paul Banks Acoustic, Birdwell Venue, Birdwell, Barnsley, tonight (8/4/2023), 7.30pm
MR H, alias former Fibbers boss Tim Hornsby, promotes frontman Rick Witter and guitarist Paul Banks as they shed their Shed Seven cohorts for an acoustic set down the road from their York home in Barnsley.
Witter and Banks present a special night of Shed Seven material and a few surprises in a whites-of-their-eyes show with an invitation to “holler along to some of the best anthems ever”. Box office: seetickets.com/tour/rick-witter-paul-banks-shed-seven-acoustic.
Hitting the sweet spot: York Chocolate Festival
Choc absorbers: York Chocolate Festival, Parliament Street, York, today, 10am to 5pm
TO coincide with Eastertide, York Chocolate Festival returns to Parliament Street to showcase chocolate and all things sweet from independent businesses.
Tuck into a festival market with a selection of chocolatiers and confectioners; an activity area with chocolate lollipop-making, tastings and cookery workshops; a chocolate bar (not a bar of chocolate) and a taste trail on foot around the city to sample delicatessens, restaurants and suppliers. Entrance to the festival and market is free, with some activities being ticketed.
Buffy Revamped: Seven Seasons, Seventy Minutes, One Spike, as Brendan Murphy re-creates every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Fringe show of the week: Buffy Revamped, York Theatre Royal, Wednesday, 8pm
THIS Edinburgh Fringe 2022 award winner relives all 144 episodes of the hit 1990s’ television series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, as told through the eyes of the one person who knows it inside out…Spike.
Created by comedian Brendan Murphy, the satirical Buffy Revamped bursts with Nineties’ pop-culture references in a seven-seasons-in-seventy-minutes parody for Buffy aficionados and those who never enrolled at Sunnydale High alike. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Richard Galloway in Badapple Theatre Company’s 2023 tour of Eddie And The Gold Tops, doing the milk round from April 15
Theatre tour of the week and beyond: Badapple Theatre Company in Eddie And The Gold Tops, on tour from April 15 to June 13
GREEN Hammerton’s “theatre on your doorstep” company, Badapple Theatre, mark their 25th anniversary with a tour of Yorkshire and beyond in artistic director Kate Bramley’s revival of her joyous Swinging Sixties’ show Eddie And The Gold Tops.
York actress Emily Chattle, Zach Atkinson and Richard Galloway transport audiences back to the fashion, music and teenage optimism of the 1960s as village milkman Eddie becomes a pop star quite by accident. Hits flow like spilt milk, Top Of The Pops beckons, but when things take a ‘churn’ for the worse, how will he get back for the morning milk round in Badapple’s wry look at the effects of stardom? For tour and ticket details, go to: badappletheatre.co.uk or contact 01423 331304.
Badapple’s Yorkshire tour dates:
April 15, Aldborough Village Hall; April 16, Marton cum Grafton Memorial Hall; April 19, Appletreewick Village Hall; April 20, Kings Theatre, Queen Ethelburga’s School, Thorpe Underwood; April 26, Bishop Monkton Village Hall; April 27, Spofforth Village Hall; April 29, Kirkby Malzeard Mechanics Institute.
May 4, Sheriff Hutton Village Hall; May 13, Sutton upon Derwent Village Hall; May 21, Cherry Burton Village Hall; May 24, Husthwaite Village Hall; May 25, Tunstall Village Hall; May 28, Otley Courthouse. June 9, North Stainley Village Hall, near Ripon; June 13, Green Hammerton Village Hall. All shows start at 7.30pm.
Hand in the air tonight: Chris Hayward performing his Seriously Collins tribute to Phil Collins
Tribute show of the week: Seriously Collins, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Friday, 7.30pm
NOW in its fifth year, Seriously Collins features Chris Hayward and his musicians in a two-hour tribute to singing drummer Phil Collins and Genesis. No gimmicks, no bald wigs, only the solo and band hits, re-created meticulously. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Back in York: Ryan Adams goes solo and acoustic at the Barbican
Solo show of the week: Ryan Adams, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm
NORTH Carolina singer-songwriter Ryan Adams plays York for the first time since 2011 on his eight-date solo tour, when each night’s set list will be different.
Adams, who visited the Grand Opera House in 2007 and four years later, will be performing on acoustic guitar and piano in the style of his spring 2022 run of East Coast American gigs, when he played 168 songs over five nights in shows that averaged 160 minutes. Box office: ryanadams.ffm.to/tour.OPR and yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Scott Matthews: Restless lullabies in Selby
Singer-songwriter of the week: Scott Matthews, Restless Lullabies Tour, Selby Town Hall, Friday, 8pm; The Old Woollen, Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley, April 16, 8pm
EXPECT an intimate acoustic show from Scott Matthews, the 47-year-old Ivor Novello Award-winning folk-pop singer-songwriter and guitarist from Wolverhampton, who has supported Foo Fighters, Robert Plant and Rufus Wainwright on tour.
Mastered at Abbey Road Studios, his starkly bold April 28 album Restless Lullabies reincarnates songs from his 2021 record, New Skin, removing its electronic veil. Box office: Selby, 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk; Farsley, oldwoollen.co.uk.
Fernando Maynart: Joyful night of Brazilian samba and bossa nova in Helmsley
“The Brazilian Ed Sheeran”: Fernando Maynart, Helmsley Arts Centre, April 15, 7.30pm
BRAZILIAN singer-songwriter Fernando Maynart returns to Helmsley Arts Centre with a new band and more of his beautiful TranSambas music, rooted in South American culture.
Combining song-writing with traditional, tribal and modern Latin rhythms, Maynart presents a concert with joy at its heart and a repertoire of rhythms embracing bossa nova and samba. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan: Evening of comedy and impressions at Grand Opera House, York
Double bill of the week: An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan, Grand Opera House, York, April 16, 7.30pm
BRUMMIE comedian Jasper Carrott has shared bills in the past with impressionist Phil Cool and latterly with ELO drummer Bev Bevan. He first did so with impressionist Alistair McGowan at Reading Festival in 2017: a one-off that went so well that further shows ensued and now Jasper and Alistair are touring once more this spring.
The format involves McGowan taking to the stage first in each half, followed by Carrott’s stand-up combination of quickfire gags, sketches and stories. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
In the pink: Kevin Rowland, second left, with the 2023 incarnation of Dexys
AT last! Dexys will play York for the first time in their 45-year career on the opening night of September’s The Feminine Divine Live! tour.
Kevin Rowland’s revived soul band had been booked to play York Barbican on last autumn’s 40th anniversary Too-Rye-Ay As It Should Have Sounded Tour, but his need to recuperate from a motorbike accident and “some health issues that will take some time to recover from” forced the September 30 2022 gig’s cancellation as early as March last year.
The healing process took longer than expected, but Rowland was able to lead Dexys in their Commonwealth Games closing ceremony rendition of 1982 chart topper Come On Eileen in the their home city of Birmingham last August.
Now Rowland, who will turn 70 on August 17, will front Dexys as they “dramatically perform the new album from beginning to finale, followed by a selection of classics and hits (including plenty from Too-Rye-Ay)at York Barbican on Tuesday, September 5: the only Yorkshire show on their 13-date British and Irish tour. Tickets go on fan pre-sale from April 12 at dexysofficial.com and general sale from April 14 at dexysofficial.com and yorkbarbican.co.uk.
The Feminine Divine, Dexys’ fifth album of original material, will be released on July 28, 11 years since their last studio set, 2012’s One Day I’m Going To Soar. Lead single I’m Going To Get Free is up and midnight-running already.
The album artwork for Dexys’ The Feminine Divine, set for release on July 28
Produced once again by Pete Schwier, along with session musician and producer Toby Chapman, The Femine Divine is billed as “a personal, if not strictly autobiographical, record portraying a man whose views have evolved over time”.
After taking time out to refocus his energy, Rowland has come back to music with a fresh perspective and new-found positivity, leading to an album that reflects his thoughts “not just on women, but the whole concept of masculinity he had been raised with: an education and an un-learning that is traced across the arc of The Feminine Divine.
The first side is full of music-hall swagger, much of it written with original Dexys’ trombonist Big Jim Paterson, now a non-touring band member. The second side is “like nothing Dexys have done before”: a saucy, synth-heavy cabaret, written in collaboration with Sean Read and Mike Timothy. In a nutshell, steamy, fizzing and sultry; at times doom-laden and heavy, at other times raunchy and funky.
Behind them, Dexys (or Dexys Midnight Runners until the name shearing in 2011) have chalked up one billion worldwide streams, three British top ten albums, two number one singles (Geno, Come On Eileen), a Brit Award and multi-platinum sales of sophomore release Too-Rye-Ay.
When Too-Rye-Ay’s 40th anniversary shows were called off, Dexys’ official announcement read: “We had tried to keep the tour on track, but now it is clear that that there won’t be sufficient time to do the work needed to deliver the show as we had envisaged. Dexys feel awful about cancelling and are immensely sorry for the inconvenience caused.”
Too-Rye-Ailing: The original poster for the 2022 Dexys tour that could have been, until Kevin Rowland’s motorbike accident forced its cancellation
Reorganising the dates was ruled out. “We did consider postponing the tour until next year, but we already have plans for 2023, and we promise that when we next tour, and, it won’t be long, we will do plenty of material from ‘Too Rye Ay, As It Should Have Sounded’,” said Dexys at the time. True to their word, here come The Feminine Divine album and tour.
Their reworking of Too-Rye-Ay, As It Should Have Sounded went ahead with a 40th anniversary album release last October on single CD, triple CD and vinyl formats on Universal.
Released in July 1982, Too-Rye-Ay was the one with strings, brass and dungarees attached that reached number two, Dexys’ highest ever album chart position, buoyed by the top-spot success of ubiquitous wedding-party staple Come On Eileen.
The Van Morrison cover, Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile), went top five too and Let’s Get This Straight (From The Start) peaked at number 17, but the notoriously perfectionist, restless Rowland later said: “For many years, I’ve struggled with Too-Rye-Ay.
“I was never happy with many of the mixes on the record. Tracks like ‘Eileen’ and one or two others were really good, but with most others, while I felt the performances were really good, that didn’t come over properly in the mixes.”
The cover artwork for Dexys revisited: Too-Rye-Ay As It Should Have Sounded
He went on: “I even felt fraudulent promoting the album, because I knew it didn’t sound as good as it should have.
“And of course, the irony was, it was by far our most successful Dexys album, because of the worldwide success of Come On Eileen. I knew there were other songs on there just as good as ‘Eileen’, but they hadn’t been realised properly.
“So, I was absolutely delighted to get this opportunity to remix the album with the masterful Pete Schwier, who has worked with Dexys since 1985, and Helen O’Hara [violinist on the original album] is also helping.”
Rowland concluded: “This is like a new album for me. It is an absolute labour of love. I want people to hear the album as it was meant to sound.”
Words of reflective satisfaction that now make way for a focus on the new Dexys of The Feminine Divine, whose track listing will be: The One That Loves You; It’s Alright Kevin (Manhood 2023); I’m Going To Get Free; Coming Home; The Feminine Divine; My Goddess Is; Goddess Rules; My Submission and Dance With Me.
First single I’m Going To Get Free sets the tone by dint of its central character responding to mental-health struggles by striving to “optimistically break free from internalised trauma, depression and guilt”. New-found positivity indeed.
The 2022 Dexys’ line-up for Too-Rye-Ay As It Should Have Sounded
Chantal Barnes and Richard Barnes: According To McGee regulars heading for next month’s Affordable Art Fair Hampstead in London
YORK art gallery According To McGee is making plans for a return to business after a seven-month sabbatical on leaving Tower Street last September.
“We’ve been busy reminding ourselves why we need to celebrate art as gallerists”, says co-director Greg McGee. “York Art Gallery has been a great touchstone, as have locations further afield. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Middlesbrough’s MIMA, even last week’s trip to Belfast’s thriving independent art galleries, gave us a much-needed shot in the arm.
“The York experience can at times be a little insular, both from a purveyors and consumers’ point of view, so we’ve been getting out and coming back feeling re-energised.”
Embracing this outward-looking instinct, Ails and Greg McGee have focused their energies on the Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, running from May 11 to 14 on the Lower Fairground Site, Hampstead Heath, London.
Just Behind The Morning, by Chantal Barnes
“We wanted to stretch our curatorial wings outside of Yorkshire,” reasons Ails. “The Affordable Art Fair (AAF) is a whole different level of quality and serious collecting. The organisers now hold fairs in ten cities around the world: London, New York, Hong Kong, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Singapore, Stockholm, Melbourne and Sydney.
“They’re dedicated to sharing the importance of loving art, and, when possible, collecting it. On a micro-level, that’s what we do too. So we approached them and they accepted us, and we’re looking forward to exhibiting with them in Hampstead next month.”
Although the McGees are purposely basing this latest chapter of their gallery’s evolution beyond York, a cohort of artists with strong links to York will be leading the way.
“At this stage of our career and with this specific project, it’s important for us to work closely with artists we actually personally like!” says Ails, “We’re handing our exhibition space over to Richard Barnes, Chantal Barnes and Freya Horsley. The three of them have a painterly synergy that has been hugely successful for us in the past and will help steady the ship as we sail into unknown waters.”
St Pancras Night Bus, by Richard Barnes
According To McGee’s final exhibition after 17 years opposite Clifford’s Tower (see https://fb.watch/jpif4qmZM4/) was a celebration of all three painters, presenting their latest collections.
Will the Affordable Art Fair exhibition provide an opportunity for international visitors to enjoy what art lovers in York have been able to experience, namely three seascape and cityscape painters, all well regarded for years?
“That’s a good question,” says Greg, “The answer helps us distil what we do best. We celebrate contemporary painters, painters who relentlessly evolve, and yearn for the next chapter. It’s not in the nature of any of our painters, especially Richard, Chantal, and Freya, to fossilise their output and become complacent.
“Their current compositions and mark making have all the experimental derring-do of white-hot graduates out of a world-class art school with points to prove and paintings to sell. You don’t get to sell as well as these three, nor do you get invited to exhibit at a globally recognised art event such as Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, without having something exciting and relevant to say.”
Richard Barnes with two of his new metropolitan artworks after his move south from York
Richard, who moved south from York in 2020 after teaching art at Bootham School for many years, is excited to bring his new collection to a wider audience.
“For 17 years I worked on painting York in new ways. The concept of the cityscape was there to be pulled and played with, and the iconic visuals of York was perfect for that – being cheeky, being innovative, reinventing,” he says.
“Now it feels right to focus on London. There are so many stories, so many layers of history to capture. I’m really pleased with this collection, and I’m looking forward to revealing them at Hampstead with According To McGee.”
Chantal, Richard’s daughter, is an increasingly collectible painter with collections already gracing international walls. Hampstead will be her first art fair show.
Artist Chantal Barnes at work
“The vigour with which Chantal pushes paint around is exciting and relevant and indicative of where contemporary painting is today,” says Greg.
“Chantal and Richard have studios not far too apart, and sometimes they even collaborate on the same piece. There’s a wonderful synergy between the two of them, whether that happens to be on the same canvas or two canvases in close proximity, and this show is an exciting opportunity to witness that.”
Freya Horsley has been working on new collections for the exhibition. “While the internet makes artists and galleries increasingly global in their reach, the Affordable Art Fair is exciting because it’s absolutely about seeing real artwork up close and in person,” says the York artist.
“This is something that Greg and Ails have always celebrated and promoted in their York gallery: the physical presence of a painting and the way it can change a space.
Even Now, mixed media on canvas, by Freya Horsley
“Working towards the fair has given me a really strong focus and an opportunity to make big impactful pieces, as well as smaller more affordable paintings, which is part of the rationale of the AAF. Alongside Richard and Chantal, I’m looking forward to showing our work to a new audience in this prestigious setting.’’
Ails is keen to build on According To McGee’s latest stage. “This is going to be about more than sales. The amount of global attention each Affordable Art Fair receives is simply huge, and we’re looking forward to bringing some of that gold dust back home when we relocate in York.”
Greg adds: “It’s this progressive, outward-looking energy that I think serves York so well. Us looking outwards to bring back energy and calibre is what in essence a heritage city like York is obliged to do now, for all kinds of reasons.
Greg and Ails McGee outside their former According To McGee gallery in Tower Street, York. Relocation plans are ongoing
“Unless you want to become Beamish [the Living Museum of the North in County Durham], history only works when you have one foot firmly planted in an innovative future. And rather than being a footnote in the annals of York’s creative scene, we would much prefer to be part of the future than the past.
“The art of Richard Barnes, Chantal Barnes, and Freya Horsley has always flown the flag for what contemporary painting can do, and we’re excited as to what this new approach can bring.”
Watch this space for updates on According To McGee’s relocation plans after the McGee family’s move into Acomb.
Affordable Art Fair Hampstead fact file
AFFORDABLE Art Fair Hampstead presents contemporary art from 100 London, UK and international galleries from May 11 to 14 at Lower Fairground Site, Hampstead Heath, London. Works are for sale at £50 to £7,500.
Visitors can enjoy an art-filled day out with installations, curated displays, rising star artists from University of the Arts, London and Jackson’s Painting Prize, plus bars and cafés. Expert advice is available from the fair’s new art consultancy service “to help make finding your dream artwork a breeze”.
Opening hours are: May 11, general admission, 11am to 5pm; Late View, 5pm to 9pm. May 12, 11am to 5pm, Art After Dark Late View, 5pm to 9pm. May 13 and 14, general admission, 11am to 6pm; Weekend Family Hour, 11am to 12 noon. Tickets: https://affordableartfair.com/fairs/london-hampstead
York artist Freya Horsley, pictured in the former According To McGee gallery space in Tower Street, York
Where else can you see Freya Horsley’s seascapes?
FREYA will be taking part in York Open Studios on April 15, 16, 22 and 23, showing her abstract landscape paintings at Bootham School Arts Centre, Bootham, York, from 10am to 5pm each day, preceded by a preview evening on April 14 from 6pm to 9pm.
Her work explores light, weather and atmospheric effects, building up surfaces with a wide variety of media and processes.
Alex Papachristou’s Baron Bomburst and Jackie Cox’s Baroness in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
THE Sherman brothers’ fantasmagorical musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, takes to the air at the Grand Opera House, York, from tonight.
Produced and directed by Nik Briggs, with musical direction by Adam Tomlison and choreography by Damien Poole, York Stage’s production of Ian Fleming’s story of madness, mayhem and magic features not only a big cast but a quartet of cars too.
“One of them is parked in the en-suite! That’s Baron Bomburst’s car, more of a vintage, turn-of-the-century car than Chitty, slightly more primitive, that we’ve brought here from Brighton,” says Nik. “The Baron wants inventor Caractacus Potts to fit it with a ‘float and fly’ features.
“There’s the battered old Chitty that the children find in a junkyard, and the Chitty with the title role, the 16ft long, 6ft wide, four-fendered Chitty, weighing 1,000kg, that magically flies over the Grand Opera House stage. We’ve hired that car from a company down south that built it specially for stage productions.
“We also have a smaller version of Chitty that was created for a production in Malton five or six years ago.”
Adapted from James Bond novelist Fleming’s story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car, written for his son in 1962 and published as three books in 1964, the musical tells the tale of whacky inventor Caractacus Potts (played by Ned Sproston), his two children and the gorgeous Truly Scrumptious (Carly Morton).
Can they outwit bombastic Baron Bomburst (Alex Papachristou), who has decreed that all children be banished from his kingdom? Watch out, here comes the evil Childcatcher (Richard Barker), who will be “popping up, here, there and everywhere, you never know where next”, Nik promises.
Nik Briggs: Producer-director for York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
“Yes, we have the flying car, but at its heart, it’s a really lovely story of Caractacus and his children, who are so imaginative. Even though Chitty is burnt out when they find her, they see designs of the car and that leads them off into a fantasy world, where the Baron is desperate to have the car.
“His wife, the Baroness (Jackie Cox), will do anything to please him and so she sends spies Boris and Goran (Jack Hooper and James Robert Ball) – obviously not the most intelligent of spies – from Vulgaria to retrieve the car from England.
“We have a broad style of playing these characters, with various Germanic and Vulgarian accents rather than a uniform one,” says Nik. “We’ve deliberately allowed everyone to find the fun in their character, so they all have their different styles. It’s almost comedy in the ’Allo ’Allo! style.
“Traditionally you have a fall guy to set up the gag, but with the Baron and Baroness and the spies too, it’s more like being on a see-saw; they’re the fall guy for each other, so anything goes.”
Barlby-raised Alex Papachristou is returning to the York stage, where he first caught the eye, to take over the role of Baron Bomburst at short notice, heading up from London over the past fortnight for weekend rehearsals, to be followed by tech week.
“They’re ridiculous characters, like a parody of themselves, but it’s also good to see the consequences of the Baron and Baroness’s greed. He’s like a 1910 version of Donald Trump, saying he’s going to make Vulgaria great again!” he says.
“The villains do have a Bond villain quality about them. The Baron doesn’t have a cat but he does have a teddy bear.”
York Stage’s poster artwork for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Chitty takes to the sky over York
Nik adds: “The Jeremy Sams version of the musical that we’re using does feature the Baron and the Baroness and the two spies a lot more than the 1968 film, so you get the story of Caractacus Potts, his children and Truly Scrumptious, but more of the baddies too.
“It’s also interesting to have a story about a single father. Caractacus is this loving character who will do anything for his children, giving them their creative outlets and liberating them to do whatever they want. When the romance with Truly Scrumptious comes along, they are from two different worlds, but they find love.”
Alex’s Baron will differ from the screen version. “I don’t play him like in the film. I play him as a 33-year-old spoilt young Baron, not a baron in his sixties. Of the roles I’ve played before, he’s quite similar in that way to Herod [performed as a white-faced, cross-dressing vaudeville act in York Stage Musicals’ Jesus Christ Superstar in 2011, when Briggs was Pontius Pilate], but not similar to anyone else,” he says.
“I’ve had to work really hard at this role as he wasn’t a natural fit. I even had Brian Blessed in my head for a while! The humour is more dry, more subtle, than in the film, and these characters are so well written that there’s a lot of elasticity to play around with them: you could really do it 100 ways, but as long as the children in the audience hate you and the adults love you, that’s all that matters!
“On the surface, the Baron and Baroness love each other, but underneath, they can’t stand each other, and it’s good to play someone who has more than one level to their character. These are the parts that are a joy to do and it’s always fun to be the villain.”
York Stage in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Grand Opera House, York, today to April 15, 7.30pm nightly except April 9, plus 2.30pm matinees, tomorrow, Saturday, April 12 and 15. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Ian Giles, front, leading Adam Price and Joy Warner in Adieu La Vie in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely Warat Theatre@41, Monkgate
PICK Me Up Theatre are staging Oh! What A Lovely War to mark the 60th anniversary of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop premiere at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
Why else Robert Readman and co-director Johnny Holbek are reviving this old stager is not so clear on encountering the veteran work of Sixties’ agit-prop; rather like the surfeit of voices that are sometimes a struggle to comprehend in the absence of head microphones.
Body mics do the hard-working company no favours, especially Ian Giles’s all-important master of ceremonies, whose deadpan punchlines fall flat when dying in the muffled air. In contrast, the regular toots on his whistle could not have been shriller.
Ironically, when your reviewer – seated up on the mezzanine level – couldn’t decipher what the drill sergeant was shouting, it turns out it was supposed to be gibberish, but the joke was lost after the uncertainty caused by the earlier encounters with the lack of clarity.
Alison Taylor, front left, and Beryl Nairn performing En Avant!
Oh! What A Lovely War, constructed as a searing satirical chronicle of the First World War, as told through songs and documents in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment, was a landmark in British theatre history, prompting the intrigue surrounding Pick Me Up’s revival.
Likewise, Richard Attenborough’s 1969 film account of the working-class Smith lads, Jack, Freddie, Harry and George, seeing initial hope swallowed up by the mud and stench of the trenches, resonated amid the Sixties’ vibe of Make Love, Not War.
From Blackadder Goes Forth to Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse and Private Peaceful, Sam Mendes’s 1917 to this year’s BAFTA-winning All Quiet On The Western Front, the Great War continues to provoke eloquent, elegiac reflection across the arts and literature.
Oh! What A Lovely War is closest in spirit to Blackadder in the trenches, in its sense of futility, chiming with Winston Churchill’s maxim in favour of dialogue over destruction. “Jaw Jaw is better than War War,” he forewarned, and in turn Oh! What A Lovely War has plenty of jaw jaw about war war, while making a song and dance of it with familiar music-hall songs from the Great War period and hymns fitted out with new lyrics to give them a satirical snap.
Florence Poskitt, left, Maggie Smales and Marlena Kelli in the Kamerad! Kamerad! vignette in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely War
Against the John Cooper Studio’s back wall, ever more damning statistics of the body count are typed out across the screen, the factual counter to the officers’ cavalier attitude to so many wasteful deaths of the working-class cannon fodder.
They have the show’s most shuddering impact, ensuring that a sense of righteous anger prevails, as does a haunting sorrow, further enhanced by the presence of a junior ensemble.
However, the strident tones of surrealism, in part set by the Pierrot costumes with their out-of-period elasticated waists, always feels one step removed from connecting. Likewise, you can see the ever-willing cast having to push too hard to make the satire amusing in a show that starts to drag on, like the war itself.
Readman and Holbek’s period-piece production seeks to break down theatre’s fourth wall, often through Giles’s conspiratorial asides, sometimes through music-hall repartee, but the best scenes are self-contained, most notably for the Christmas Day exchange of gifts in No Man’s Land and the grotesque grouse moor shooting-party bluster among those making money out of the war (in a haunting forerunner of Covic contracts).
James Willstrop and Sanna Jeppsson, front, with the Pick Me Up Theatre ensemble performing Row Row Row
Inspired by Charles Chiltern’s radio series that combined First World war statistics with songs, Littlewood’s piece was constructed through improvisation and credited to the company of performers. In the spirit of that gestation, Pick Me Up’s multi role-playing troupe of troops is credited by a list of cast names and not by character, and it is very much an ensemble piece, teamwork to the fore, although James Willstrop, Florence Poskitt, Alison Taylor and in particular Craig Kirby stand out.
Accompanied by Natalie Walker’s piano-led band, the songs transition from hope to despair, from perky to poignant, from Belgium Put The Kibosh On The Kaiser to I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier.
Reviving Oh! What A Lovely War does not evoke nostalgia and nor should it. Instead, it feels and looks out of its time, like Richard Lester’s 1967 film How I Won The War. Some vignettes still work, elsewhere the satire has tired or lost coherence over 60 years.
What hasn’t changed? War, huh, yeah, what is good for? Absolutely nothing. Except anti-war songs.
Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (6/4/2023) and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster artwork for Oh! What A Lovely War
