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.
Plum job: Robert Daws at the typewriter in his role as P. G. Wodehouse in Wodehouse In Wonderland at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith
THE Plum life of Wodehouse, Godber’s walk into the future, happy and angry comedy, Bros big band style and mountain adventures on screen jostle for a starring role in Charles Hutchinson’s week ahead.
PG tips and Wooster source of the week: Wodehouse In Wonderland, York Theatre Royal, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
IN William Humble’s play set in the exiled English author’s New York State home in the 1950s, P. G. Wodehouse is trying to write the latest instalment of Jeeves and Wooster. However, a would-be biographer, his wife, his daughter and even his two Pekingese dogs have other ideas.
Performed by Robert Daws, Wodehouse In Wonderland presents stories of first meeting Jeeves, Wodehouse’s addiction to soap operas, and why he wrote books “like musical comedies without music”, combined with Broadway songs composed by Kern, Gershwin, Porter and Novello with lyrics by Wodehouse himself, but is there a darker story to be told too? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Garrett Millerick: Thumbs-up to optimism with an angry hue
Grumpy comedy gig of the week: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Garrett Millerick: Just Trying To Help, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 8pm
THE world’s angriest optimist returns for another bash at sorting out life’s inexplicable complications in a night of comedy for people who like to keep things simple.
Stand-up comedian, writer and director Garrett Millerick investigates the unintended consequences of doing our best, the mayhem that ensues when people try to help, in a cathartic appeal for calm from one of the least calm people in the country. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
On their knees: Jane Thornton and John Godber in Godber’s new comedy Living On Fresh Air, on tour at the SJT from Wednesday
State of the nation report of the week: John Godber Company in Living On Fresh Air, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm, plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
PLAYWRIGHT John Godber and wife Jane Thornton play newly retired Yorkshire couple Caroline and Dave, who have everything they have ever wanted: a nice house, a hot tub, a small mortgage, a few savings and a new smart meter.
However, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis changes everything. Their son has moved back home, their money is disappearing, the hot tub’s gone, the lights are going out and the smart meter is stressful. Time to head for the hills for their new-found hobby of walking, but far can you go living on fresh air as Godber projects an even gloomier future ten years on in this bleak comedy? Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Johannes Radebe: Expressing Freedom in movement at Grand Opera House
Dance show of the week: Johannes Radebe in Freedom Unleashed, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
CONFIRMED for the 2023 series of Strictly Come Dancing, South African dancer and international champion Johannes Radebe returns to the Grand Opera House with his cast of dancers and singers.
Freedom Unleashed combines African rhythms and party anthems with a touch of ballroom magic in a jubilant celebration of culture, passion, and freedom. Completing the company will be South African singer-songwriter Ramelo, a former contestant on The Voice South Africa. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Millie Manders & The Shutup: Songs of loss, betrayal and political unrest at The Crescent, York
Band to discover of the week: Millie Manders & The Shutup, The Crescent, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
NEWSFLASH 19/4/2023: Unfortunately, illness has forced this gig to be rescheduled. New date is July 7. All tickets remain valid but refunds are available from point of purchase.
NORTHERN SkaFacepresents cross-genre punks Millie Manders & The Shutup, a band noted for grinding guitars and irresistible horns, topped off by Manders’ vocal dexterity. Their lyrics deliberate on themes of loss, betrayal, anger, anxiety, heartbreak and bitterness, environmental catastrophe and political unrest. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Matt gloss: Bros singer Matt Goss gives songs the big band and orchestral makeover at York Barbican
Hitting his swing: The Matt Goss Experience with MG Big Band and the Royal Philharmonic, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm
BROS frontman and Strictly Come Dancing 2022 contestant Matt Goss had to reschedule his York gig after the recurrence of a shoulder/collar bone injury. Original tickets remain valid for the new date (20/4/2023).
“I never give less than 100 per cent on every single show I do, so I had to adhere to the medical advice,” says Goss, 54, who headlined Las Vegas for 11 years. Expect his biggest hits, new original music and a Cole Porter tribute in a night of swing, glitz and swagger. Dressing to the nines is encouraged. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Pulling faces:
Seriously silly: Phil Wang, Wang In There, Baby!, Leeds City Varieties, Thursday, 7.30pm, sold out; Grand Opera House, York, Friday, 7.30pm; York Barbican, September 23, 7.30pm
HOT on the heels of his Netflix special, David Letterman appearance, role in Life & Beth with Amy Schumer and debut book Sidesplitter, PhilWang discusses race, family, nipples and everything else going on in his Philly little life in his latest stand-up show, Wang In There, Baby! Box office: atgtickets.com/york; yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Mountain high: Film feats at York Barbican
Film event of the week: BANFF Mountain Film Festival World Tour, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
THE world’s most prestigious mountain film festival presents the 2023 Blue Film Programme, a new adrenaline-fuelled collection of short films by the best adventure filmmakers and explorers as they push themselves to the limits in the most remote corners of the globe. Witness epic human-powered feats, life-affirming challenges and mind-blowing cinematography on the big screen. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Miles And The Chain Gang: Launching new single Charlie
Single launch: Miles And The Chain Gang, Victoria Vaults, Nunnery Lane, York, April 29, doors 7pm; first band 8pm
MILES And The Chain Gang launch their April 21 single, Charlie, at the Vaults, where they will play their rock’n’roll the old-fashioned way in the vein of Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen.
The York band are fronted by singer, songwriter, poet, storyteller and podcaster Miles Salter, organiser of the new York Alive festival. In the support slot on this night of blues, soul and funk, The Long Shots, featuring Chain Gang rhythm section Steve Purton and Mat Watt, give their debut public performance. Box office: theyorkvaults.com.
Scouting For Girls: New album and autumn dates in York, Leedsand Sheffield
Gig announcement of the week: Scouting For Girls, York Barbican, November 10, Leeds O2 Academy, November 23, and Sheffield O2 Academy, November 24
WEST London trio Scouting For Girls will follow up the October 13 release of their seventh indie-pop album, the life-affirming The Place We Used To Meet, with a 22-date autumn tour. York, Leeds and Sheffield await. Tickets go on sale on April 21 at 10am at gigst.rs/SFG.
“As the name suggests, it’s an album about going back to our roots and starting again. Falling back in love with music,” says band leader Roy Stride. “Heartbreaking, anthemic, fun and pop, indie and serious, anything went as long as we loved it. It’s the best collection of songs we’ve ever had, and I’ve loved every minute of making it.”
In Focus: Leeds Fine Artists’ exhibition, Awakening, at Blossom Street Gallery, York
The Midnight Hour, by Kate Buckley, at the Leeds Fine Artists show in York
LEEDS Fine Artists are marking the arrival of spring with Awakening on their return to Blossom Street Gallery, York.
Among those showing new work are York artists Tim Pearce, Kate Buckley, Luisa Holden and Gail Fox.
Both Pearce and Buckley also are taking part in York Open Studios this weekend and next weekend too, 10am to 5pm each day.
Mixed-media artist Pearce’s paintings and sculptural ceramics, informed by Cubist sensitivity to form, colour and rhythm, can be found in his studio, house and garden at Brambles, Warthill, York.
Light, shadow, surface and space come into play in Buckley’s contemporary, press-moulded sculptural porcelain artworks for the wall and home at 31 Wentworth Road, York.
Leeds Fine Artists (LFA), an association of artists from across Yorkshire, was established in 1874, making it one of the oldest regional arts bodies in the UK. From its beginnings in Leeds, it has spread throughout Yorkshire and is now among the most prestigious arts organisations in the north.
Lamona For Blossom Street, by Gail Fox
LFA has more than 50 exhibiting members working in two and three dimensions in a broad span of media and seeks to encourage and promote art and artists throughout Yorkshire.
An annual exhibition is held in the Crossley Gallery at Dean Clough, Halifax, and other exhibitions are organised across the region each year, bringing together the wide range of styles and approaches of LFA’s members.
In addition to group exhibitions, many LFA artists exhibit individually, both in Yorkshire and internationally as well as promoting excellence in the visual arts through education.
Applications to join LFA are welcomed from fine artists practising in all areas of the visual and applied arts. For more details, go to: leedsfineartists.co.uk/yorkshire/leeds-fine-artists-become-a-member/.
Membership is by election, decided by a panel of members, who look for a high standard in each applicant’s work, including quality, content and consistency, as well as a professional approach to exhibiting.
Awakening is on show at Blossom Street Gallery, Blossom Street, York, until May 28.
Work by Leeds Fine Artists members on show and for sale at Blossom Street Gallery, York
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
