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Midge Ure revisits Ultravox’s synth prime on Voice & Visions Tour at Grand Opera House

Midge Ure: Recalling Ultravox’s Rage In Eden and Quartet albums with Band Electronica

MIDGE Ure & Band Electronica finally play their postponed Voice & Visions Tour show at the Grand Opera House, York, on Sunday.

The York gig should have formed the tour’s opening night when first arranged for February to April 2022, but “ongoing uncertainty around Covid-19” led to Ure putting the itinerary on hold.

“The tour has been postponed twice and dates got moved around. Some we could do, some we couldn’t,” he says. “We did four dates in September and now we’re doing 30 shows in April and May.

“Tech-wise, I’ve moved a few things, but set-wise, no changes. Electronic noises, yes, but everything else is ‘direct injected’,” says Scotsman Midge, 69.

Ure & Band Electronica last played the Opera House on October 20 2019 on The 1980 Tour, when Ultravox’s 1980 album, Vienna, was performed in its entirety for the first time in four decades, complemented by highlights from Visage’s debut album, as Ure recalled the year when he co-wrote, recorded and produced the two future-sounding records.

Such was the “overwhelming response” to this retro excursion that Ure decided “the logical and emotional follow-up” was to reprise the nostalgia trip for the Voice & Visions Tour to mark the 40th anniversary of Ultravox albums Rage In Eden and Quartet, released in September 1981 and October 1982 respectively, backed up by landmark songs from Ure’s back catalogue.

“The synthesiser can be absolutely heart-rending and very emotional in its impact,” says Midge

“The 1980 Tour was all about celebrating the year of 1980, not just for me, doing the Vienna album and the first Visage album, and recalling all the new technology that went with that very exciting time and the response to that,” says Midge.

“We had people there who’d seen Ultravox, people who’d been too young, so to hear it being played in such an authentic way was mind-blowing. Requests came for us to do more of the albums.” Hence Midge is “delving back in time to revitalise two standout albums from my career”.

In the wake of the global success of Vienna, Ultravox headed back to Conny Plank’s Cologne studio to record their second album with Ure as frontman, Rage In Eden, a top five entry in autumn 1981, replete with the singles The Thin Wall and The Voice.

Quartet, their third studio set with Ure, arrived in quick succession with production by The Beatles’ producer, George Martin, no less. It became their third top ten album, boosted by four top 20 singles, Reap The Wild Wind, Hymn, Visions In Blue and We Came To Dance.

Why work with George Martin after the experimentalism of Kraftwerk producer Plank? “Ultravox would not listen to anyone. We were very dogmatic in what we wanted to achieve, so the idea of someone saying ‘you need to edit that’, ‘stop doing that’ was alien to us, but everyone respected George,” says Midge, recalling their headmaster/pupil relationship.

“To hear it being played in such an authentic way was mind-blowing,” says Midge Ure

“He was a more traditional producer, but he still had tricks up his sleeve, like having the guitars playing backwards. I loved working with George and I don’t know many that didn’t.

“Here’s an example: we were in the studio at Montserrat, spending a lot of time in front of the mixing desk while he worked on the faders, when he pointed to his eyes one day and said, ‘music doesn’t come from here, it comes from here’, pointing to his heart.”

Jumping between guitar and keyboards, vocalist Midge is touring with Russell Field, his regular drummer for 25 years, and India Electric Co members Joseph O’Keefe and Cole Stacey, who handle bass, keys and violin duties. “They’ll be doing their own 45-minute set prior to getting the chance to do their homework with me,” he says.

“Back in the 1980s, when Ultravox first called it a day, by then we were touring with 23 synthesisers because that’s what we needed to do to generate that sound. Now it can be done with fewer instruments.”

In a show focused on electronics, experimentation and synthesisers, lighting will be important too. “Technology in lighting is changing just as rapidly as in music. We’ve gone for lighting that does a variety of things: changing from stroboscopic to wide beams to narrow beams, using different colours, to enhance the feeling of a song, like a good video could do,” says Midge.

The poster for Midge Ure & Band Electronica’s Voice & Visions Tour, visiting York, Bradford and Hull

“So, when the song is moody and atmospheric, I want the lighting to be moody and atmospheric too, rather than using graphics, where people at the back end up just looking at them.

“I was lucky enough when I was a young lad to see David Bowie perform on the Ziggy Stardust tour at the Glasgow Apollo, and I remember when they played Space Oddity that they put a spotlight on the mirror ball. The implicity of that has stuck with me. Something simple yet so effective.”

More than 40 years on from synthesisers making such an impact in the electronic music of Ultravox, Midge says: “The synthesiser can sound and calculated, and is very effective when used in that way, but it can also be absolutely heart-rending and very emotional in its impact.”

Midge Ure & Band Electronica, The Voice And Visions Tour, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday (30/4/2023), 7.30pm; St George’s Hall, Bradford, May 11, 8pm; Bonus Arena, Hull, May 12, 8pm. Box office: York, atgtickets.com/york; Bradford, bradford-theatres.co.uk; Hull, bonusarenahull.com.

Midge Ure also plays Let’s Rock Leeds, Temple Newsam, Leeds, headlined by Soft Cell and OMD, June 17. Box office: letsrockleeds.com (general admission sold out already).

Did you know?

MIDGE Ure & Band Electronica first played the Grand Opera House, York, in November 2017 when headlining a 1980s’ triple bill with The Christians and Altered Images.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Lloyd Cole to follow On Pain album with two sets, one acoustic, one electric with Commotions old boys, at York Barbican

Lloyd Cole: First York gig in 23 years

LLOYD Cole will team up with his former Commotions compadres Blair Cowan and Neil Clark for a 17-date autumn tour, headed for York Barbican on October 17 in his only Yorkshire appearance.

Cole will play two sets, the first acoustic – as was the case at Pocklington Arts Centre in March 2012 and April 2017 (with son William), Selby Town Hall in April 2014 and long before at Fibbers, his last York appearance, in May 2000. He will be joined by his band for the electric second act.

The Buxton-born singer, songwriter and guitarist will be showcasing his 12th solo album, On Pain, produced by Chris Merrick Hughes for release on June 23 on the earMusic label.

Like his last studio set, July 2019’s Guesswork, the album was recorded in his Massachusetts attic studio, The Establishment, this time with Commotions co-founders Cowan and Clark co-writing four of the eight compositions and playing on the recordings too.

“I’m excited to still be finding new methods, new perspectives, new sounds,” says Cole, 62. “’The album’ may be nearing commercial death, but my career has been in that state for almost 30 years and here we are, still, and I still want to make albums. I still want to be heard.

The poster for Lloyd Cole’s York Barbican gig

“I’m very much looking forward to being on stage with Neil and Blair in October. We have no intention of producing a retro show.”

Cole has chalked up 16 studio albums, the first three with The Commotions: Rattlesnakes (1984), Easy Pieces (1985) and Mainstream (1987).

Eleven solo albums have followed: Lloyd Cole (1990); Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe (1991); Bad Vibes (1993); Love Story (1995); Plastic Wood (2001); Music In A Foreign Language (2003); Anti Depressant (2006); Broken Record (2010); Standards (2013); 1D (2015) and Guesswork (2019).

Add to the list his album with The Negatives, 2000’s The Negatives, and one with German electronic musician and composer Hans Joachim Roedelius, 2013’s Selected Studies Vol. 1.

Tour tickets are on sale at lloydcole.com/live; York, yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Kevin Clifton’s ‘dream role’ in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom The Musical, at Grand Opera House, York ****

Kevin Clifton’s Scott Hastings and Faye Brookes’s Fran in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom The Musical

Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom The Musical plays Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm, Wednesday and Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york. Also Leeds Grand Theatre, July 3 to 8, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

NOT to be confused with the glitterball dazzle of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, the 2023 tour of Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom nevertheless has Strictly royalty at its core, like writing running through a stick of rock.

Australian-born judge Craig Revel Horwood both directs Luhrmann and Craig Pearce’s musical and reactivates his Aussie roots for the voiceover introduction, delivered with camp exaggeration and frank humour.

2018 Strictly champ Kevin Clifton is “thrilled to finally be fulfilling a lifelong ambition to play Scott Hastings”, donning the golden matador-dandy jacket for the ten-month tour.

“When I was ten years old, I first watched the movie that would become my favourite film of all time. This is my dream role,” he enthused – and boy, does it show in his every move, back leading the cast after missing a couple of shows with a foot injury.

We knew he could dance, not only from his seven seasons in Strictly, but when blazing a trail across the Grand Opera House stage in Burn The Floor. Should you have seen him in Dirty Dancing The Musical in London, or on tour as Cosmo Brown in Singin’ In The Rain, Stacee Jaxx in Rock Of Ages or The Artillery Man in The War Of The Worlds, you will know he can sing too.

Now comes a corking Aussie accent as Kevin from Grimsby becomes Scott Hastings, the ballroom wild card from a dance family (like Clifton himself), who falls foul of the Australian Federation with his radical, rebellious moves.

The Open champion-in-waiting instead finds himself dancing with Fran (Faye Brookes, so pink and perky and perfect in her previous York visit in Legally Blonde The Musical). At the outset, Fran is handier with the cleaning regime than as a Bambi novice on the dancefloor, but she is plucky beneath the reserved, bespectacled surface, and step by step, the unlikely pair inspire each other to defy both family expectation and ballroom convention, casting specs and fear alike aside.

Set in 1990, Luhrmann’s funny yet furious, glitzy but gritty, sometimes silly and often highly camp work is a gorgeous romantic comedy, Cinderella tale and rebel with a cause story rolled into a dance drama of the kind beloved by  Bollywood. In Revel Horwood’s hands it revels in that campery, being fruitier than Drew McOnie’s 2016 British premiere at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, putting you as much in mind of The Rocky Horror Show or Rock Of Ages.

Clifton’s Scott is on the edge, his dancing so electric, to the point where if you touched him you would receive a shock, such is his frustration with the strictures of his obsessive mother Shirley (Nikki Belsher).

A grotesque diva of a ballroom teacher with a shark’s smile, her ruthlessness has shrunk husband Doug (a rather too young-looking James McHugh on press night, understudying Mark Sangster) to taciturn timidity.

Amid the battle of Hastings, rule-breaker Scott is also determined to defy the bent judging of Barry Fife (Benjamin Harrold, understudying Gary Davis as more of a reprobate young spiv than a seedy old stickler).

Scott must follow his heart, answer to his true calling and find true love. Out of the shadows steps Coronation Street star and Dancing On Ice runner-up Brookes’s Fran in a typically terrific demonstration of her triple threat skills as singer, dancer and actor. Her duet of Beautiful Surprise with Clifton is a second-half high point.

Shirley and Barry are not their only barriers, so too are Danielle Cato’s aptly named dancer Tina Sparkle and, at first, Fran’s protective Hispanic dad, Rico (Stylianos Thomadakis, the best of the first-night understudies, again for an older-looking Jose Agudo).

From disdain to guiding light, he shows Scott how the paso doble should be danced, leading into a wonderful, pedal-to-the-floor ensemble finale to the first half. This turns into the show’s best routine, shot through with machismo but leavened by humour and ultimately glee, under the spell of Revel Horwood and Jason Gilkison’s witty, swish, elegant, sleek and fun choreography.

As with fellow very Australian musical movie The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, Strictly Ballroom is rampantly ripe to bear full fruit on the musical theatre stage.

It does so by bolstering the film’s hit songs, such as Time After Time, a swoon of an Hispanic take on Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps by Karen Mann’s Abuela, and the climactic Love Is In The Air, with new musical numbers by David Foster, Sia Furler, Mozzela Neff-U, Linda Thompson and Luhrmann himself.

Mark Walters, best remembered in York for his set on the tracks for Berwick Kaler’s Dick Whittington (And His Meerkat) at the National Railway Museum in 2015, excels here too, both in set design and costumes.

Beautifully lit by fellow York Theatre Royal alumnus Richard G Jones, the domed set evokes the glamour of the ballroom dancefloor, while the clever insertion of boards that pull out enables swift changes of scene to bars, homes and a dance studio.

Barry Fife’s boudoir cameos are an amusing pop-up too and a screen backdrop is put to good use in depicting Australian skies, townscapes and landscapes.

In a week shadowed by the death of Australia’s greatest comic export, Barry Humphries, whose The Man Behind The Mask tour opened at this very theatre last April, Luhrmann and Revel Horwood combine to put an Aussie smile on the face once more with razzle dazzle aplenty, aided by Clifton and Brookes, as lovable as Fred and Ginger.

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Gus Gowland’s romantic musical Mayflies finds myriad ways to tell the same story in world premiere at York Theatre Royal

Mayflies lyricist, composer and writer Gus Gowland, seated with cast members Emma Thornett, left, Rumi Sutton and Nuno Queimado

DO not confuse York Theatre Royal resident artist Gus Gowland’s musical premiere, Mayflies, with Peter Mackie Burns’s 2022 television drama of the same name.

“That series was based on an Andrew O’Hagan’s novel that came out in 2017, but my title is taken from an insect that’s been around since before humanity!” says Gus, whose musical tracks the romantic relationship of May and Fly from first flourish to final goodbye.

“When I started this musical, I didn’t know that the TV series would be coming out when it did, but I did then read the synopsis – and it’s very different from mine! I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d been asked to change the title as the whole point was matching the characteristics of the mayfly,” says Gus.

“It is true that predominantly mayflies live for only 24 hours but they have a gestation period that can last for two years, and that felt like a good metaphor for meeting online, then meeting in person for one night, and then the morning after.

“What happens in Mayflies is that after swiping right, left, up and down across the dating apps, May and Fly begin a tentative conversation. Over time, their romance grows into something real, something special. Then they meet!”

Watching a documentary on riverbanks triggered the musical. “I love rivers for some reason,” says composer, lyricist, songwriter and playwright Gus, who moved to York in 2019 after his partner was appointed chief executive officer of Rural Arts in Thirsk.

“Anyway, there was a section on mayflies and that’s what piqued my interest. That incubation period, which I didn’t know about before then, struck me as really interesting when we only know about the mayfly’s fleeting life, but nothing about that earlier period. I watched it last summer, so the musical has been incredibly quick in arriving.

“It would be nice if I could invest Mayflies with a longer life than a mayfly has, and it’s been brilliant for me that York Theatre Royal has had faith in me to stage this premiere as it’s so important to support new work.”

Running at the Theatre Royal from April 28 to May 13 under the direction of Tania Azevedo, the world premiere of Mayflies will feature alternating configurations of three actors performing the two roles in each performance: Nuno Queimado playing May, Emma Thornett, Fly, and Rumi Sutton either May or Fly.

Another production could have a different gender balance, but however it plays, each pairing is designed to give a different perspective on the relationships within this contemporary love story.

“I was really excited by the challenge of writing something that could be played by pretty much anyone, regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality,” says Gus. 

“As an audience, we bring so much of ourselves and our understanding of the world to the things we see, so I wanted to explore what happens when we see the exact same love story told by different people – how would the dynamics change? Which moments would hit harder in each telling?

Mayflies designer T K Hay, left, musical director Joseph Church, cast members Nuno Queimado, Emma Thornett and Rumi Sutton, director Tania Azevedo and composer Gus Gowland at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

“I know how much an actor brings to a role too and so I wanted to create people that the actors cast would be able to really imbue with their own sense of identity. We’ve seen some rotating casts before, but I really wanted to write the flexibility of casting into the material, rather than just have it as a production idea layered on top.”

Gus continues: “It’s a real challenge to avoid signifiers of characteristics, like age and gender, but I’ve adored finding ways to create rounded specific characters without those to lean back on. One way I’ve done that is to write the parts in different time signatures, which makes them musically very distinct.

“I’m over the moon with the extraordinary cast of actors we have for this first ever production of Mayflies and am so excited to see what they each bring to the characters.”

Gus, who lectures on the post-graduate musical theatre course at Leeds Conservatoire, has a two-year residency at York Theatre Royal, where his songs have been heard already in showcases for professional York talent.

For 2021’s Love Bites, he wrote a song for diarist Anne Lister (alias Gentleman Jack), performed by Dora Rubinstein, and for 2022’s Green Shoots, he used James Herriot quotes for I’ll Go T’Other, a song about the vet and his relationship with North Yorkshire, performed by Joe Douglass.

Settled into the city – he and his partner have bought a house here – Gus is aware of York’s love of musicals, whether staged by York companies or brought to the city on tour. “Mayflies’ Theatre Royal run is sandwiched between Strictly Ballroom and Heathers at the Grand Opera House: there is so much musical theatre staged here, so for me to have the opportunity to start a new musical’s life here is wonderful.

“So many people want to make their life is musical theatre, and it’s good for them to see that they don’t always have to go to London to be involved. There are theatres making musical theatre elsewhere.”

Brought up on watching Disney hits and classical musicals such as Kiss Me Kate, Gus had a love of musical theatre from the age of five, becoming obsessed with it, he says, whether Les Miserables or hearing the voices of Ruthie Henshall, Lea Salonga and Michael Ball.

“I just think it’s the best way to tell a story, though I know it’s certainly more complicated to get musical shows on because there are definitely more moving parts. They take more time to put on, which is the main challenge,” he says.

As with Gus’s Pieces Of String, winner of the 2018 Stage Debut Award for Best Composer or Lyricist and the UK Theatre Award for Best Musical Production for its Mercury Theatre, Colchester premiere, Mayflies has a book, lyrics and music by Gowland, a self-taught musician who composes on the piano.

“What’s rare is that both my main-house shows have been completely original, coming out of my brain and heart, rather than being an adaptation, where I’m more likely to be collaborative,” he says.

Gus had trained to be a classical actor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. “I didn’t do many musicals there, but I did write two songs for a new show called Spoon River that we did as our third-year show based on a book of poems from the late 1800s, where every poem told a person’s life story,” he recalls.

Mayflies composer Gus Gowland and director Tania Azevedo

“I did quite a lot of concert singing but I didn’t look after my voice, which I would have needed to do for musical theatre.”

Gus duly decided to focus on musical theatre writing after focusing initially on acting, going on to study for an MA in musical theatre writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and latterly a PhD in musical theatre, specifically looking at gay representation in the artform, using Pieces Of String as part of his studies.

As for his style of musicals, Gus says: “Being an actor, I’m familiar with text and though I love sung-through musicals, like Rent or Les Miserables, I consider myself more of a dramatist or storyteller. I like songs to be ‘real moments’ and I like them to be moments of transition in the story, with ten songs in all in Mayflies.”

He divides Mayflies into three stages, matching the life arc of the mayfly: Nymph online, Dun for the night together in a hotel room and Spinner for the morning after, but be warned, the story’s path is not chronological.

“We jump from one to another at a moment’s notice, with a lighting change or a sound effect. What’s interesting is people being different versions of themselves at different times, when the safety net of separate spaces is taken away in moving from online to in-person,” says Gus.

“We are contrary creatures, so we’ll say things that are the opposite of what we said before; sometimes that’s intentional, sometimes it’s because you’ve forgotten what you said, but for the other person it might have been memorable.

“In Pieces Of String I had two time frames, and now what I get to do in Mayflies is show whether someone said something or not and whether they meant it or not, and by being really free in the casting, over gender, age and race, I let audiences play with their own assumptions, because we assume things when we see people of a certain age or sexuality.

“The dynamics between each pairing can be totally different in its compact with a song taking on a different meaning, depending on who is singing it. Using different time registers for each character, which I’ve never done before, it’s interesting to see how different it makes them sound too. It’s all part of what I want to do, to really push myself as a writer.”

Gus is picking up Pieces Of String once more this year with a view to its further development. “I started writing it in 2011 as part of my MA and then developed it over many years before premiering it at Colchester in 2018 after the Mercury Theatre came to one of the workshops and decided to take it on.

“Now it’s being optioned by Global Music, who produced SIX The Musical, and by Alchemation in America, so I’ve done a new draft, making changes from the premiere. It could have happened sooner but for finishing my PhD and the pandemic, but we’ve now done a reading of it at the Vaudeville Theatre [in London] in January.”

How long is Pieces Of String’s future? Wait and see!

York Theatre Royal presents Gus Gowland’s Mayflies, April 28 to May 13, 7.30pm, plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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York Open Studios artist Nduka Omeife to take part in York Cultural Awareness Week

York Open Studios artist Nduka Omeife: Playing his part in York Cultural Awareness Week

YORK Open Studios 2023 artist Nduka Omeife will give a demonstration of his working practices tomorrow (25/4/2023) afternoon at the York Cultural Awareness Week, run by York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals.

Nigerian watercolour artist Nduka, whose wife is a nurse at York Hospital, will be taking part in the African/Caribbean Day, held in the MEC Classroom 1 and 2 on the Fifth Floor.

Nduka, who moved to York 18 months ago, exhibited his portraits, figures, street scenes and studies of still life and nature in Baker Street, Clifton, in his York Open Studios debut over the past two weekend. His latest work finds him embracing York’s architecture and cyclists.

One of Nduka Omeife’s watercolours from his York Open Studios portfolio

Nduka is a first class honours graduate in graphic design from the University of Benin, Nigeria. A Nigerian Breweries scholar, he has worked in various organisations as a graphic artist, head of creative and brand alignment officer, his last Nigerian post being as the creative head of one of the African country’s largest banks. 

A prolific painter, whose work explores wet-on-wet and dry approaches to watercolour painting, his official engagements have not deterred him from his love of painting. He owns a gallery and has many art collections. 

York Cultural Awareness Week runs from today until Saturday. Highlights include A Family Day Out in Bootham Park from 10am to 3pm on Saturday. The festival’s cultural focus will fall on Africa and the Caribbean; Great Britain, Europe and America; the Philippines, and Asia, India, Nepal and Pakistan.

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Daniel Connelly launches new York Shakespeare Project era with Richard III in warring 21st century House of Commons

Harry Summers’s smiling assassin Richard III with Rosy Rowley’s Duke of Buckingham in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s Richard III. Picture: John Saunders

THE first production of York Shakespeare Project’s second cycle of Shakespeare plays opens on Wednesday, directed by York newcomer Dr Daniel Roy Connelly.

As when YSP began its 20-year mission to present all the Bard’s works with John White’s Elizabethan production of Richard III at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in 2002, so “the York play” will be the opening act of a 25-year new project, this time at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival.

Dr Connelly, newly moved to the city, is at the helm, having acted and directed in places as diverse as Rome, the United States, the Edinburgh Festival and Shanghai, where his 2009 production of David Henry Hwang’s M Butterfly was forced to close by the Chinese secret police.

This is but one highlight from the diverse career of the former British diplomat (or “Foreign Office office boy” as he calls himself on his podcast). Step forward: theatre director. Actor. Poet. Author. Professor. Teacher. Prospective parliamentary candidate. That all adds up to a polymath.

Now, leading off YSP’s new era of staging Shakespeare’s First Folio and plays by his contemporaries, Dr Connelly is taking on “Shakespeare’s astonishing depiction of Richard III as both physically and mentally deformed, and, as a result, inherently evil”.

His modern-day makeover is set in a frenetic, calculating and brutal 21st century Westminster with its endless Machiavellian bloodletting and daily treacheries. In his contemporary vision, Richard and Buckingham excel as social-media manipulators within a world of warring political parties. “In the shadowy corridors of power, everyone is culpable,” he says.

While on the subject of politics, Dr Connelly will be the prospective parliamentary candidate for the True & Fair Party for York Outer at the next General Election.

To catch a flavour of his philosophy on life, head to The Anarchist Monastery, the podcast he co-presents with Hugh Bernays, the York artist and craftsman who believes “it is better to work under-cover”, although he does surface to do a weekly show.

Here Dr Connelly discusses Richard III, the play, the rotten reputation and relationship with York, York Shakespeare Project, York International Shakespeare Festival, diplomacy, 21st century politics and podcasting with CharlesHutchPress.

“The best remedy would be for the pro-Richard camp to write the play they believe Richard deserves,” says Dr Daniel Roy Connelly in the face of York’s antipathy to Shakespeare’s play

What brought you to York after such an itinerant career, Daniel?

“My son moved here from Rome four years ago. I miss him enormously and it was time to pack up and follow him substantively. And what a beautiful city to find myself in…”

Why did Shakespeare give Richard such a sour portrait when York and the Richard III Society view him much more favourably and therefore feel antipathy towards the Bard’s characterisation? 

“Thirty years after Richard’s death, Sir Thomas More, the Tudor statesman and Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, described Richard as ‘malicious, wrathfull, envious, and from afore his birth, ever frowarde’.  He was also ‘close and secrete, a deepe dissimuler’. Hardly a glowing reference.

“Elizabeth I – the last of the Tudors – was the granddaughter of Henry VII, who vanquished Richard at Bosworth Field. Politically, Richard’s characterisation had for long been warped and Shakespeare wrote in line with the various 16th-century mythologies.

“His portrait of Richard III may not serve the interests of history, but then that’s hardly the concern of a master storyteller on the stage. So, while I have some sympathy for the Ricardians and the people of York over Shakespeare’s unsubtle appropriation of Richard’s character, drama loves conflict and the best dramatists, put simply, make stuff up to enable it.

“The best remedy, then, would be for the pro-Richard camp to write the play they believe Richard deserves.”

As a former diplomat yourself, how do you think Shakespeare’s Richard III would have fared in the diplomatic services. Would his skill set be suitable or unsuitable?

“It’s said that a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. As such, and in the service of government, diplomacy is a career that upholds dissimulation.

“In Shakespeare’s Richard we see a master of guile, no more so than when he speaks of clothing his naked villainy in order to ‘seem a saint, when most I play the devil’. ‘Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,’ he says in the immediately prior play Henry VI, Part 3. With that kind of skill set, he’d be an absolute high-flyer in the Diplomatic Service.”

Dr Daniel Roy Connelly, right, rehearsing Richard III with his York Shakespeare Project cast. Picture John Saunders

What attracted you to working with York Shakespeare Project, as the outset of the 25-year phase two?

“The opportunity to re-boot YSP’s cycle of the canon was very attractive to me. I’m someone who always wants to go either first or last, to set the bar high or to leave everyone with something to go home with.

“YSP have been very supportive of my attempts to bring a contemporary Richard to the stage – I have a stellar cast and crew – and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a partnership that has worked very well. I have nothing but enthusiasm for YSP’s commitment to producing Shakespeare’s remarkable output.”

Discuss how Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen’s screen portraits – 40 years apart – of Richard as “a petty, narcissistic and vengeful psychopath” have prompted you to stage a modern-day Richard III in the House of Commons to highlight parallels with the politics and politicians of today.

“If the above clutch of adjectives sounds familiar, we need look no further than contemporary British politics, which is why I have decided to set my version in our parliament.

“Telling Shakespeare’s Richard through what is comfortably the most corrupt institution in the country, the play – and I hope my interpretation of it – explores the cut and thrust of power’s crucible, with laws ignored and lies sown.

“I believe that a parliamentary production of Richard III is not only long overdue, it’s also bang on time. Prepare, then, for British politics as played out, murderously, on the floor of the house.”

This production forms part of the York International Shakespeare Festival, and you have experienced an international career as a diplomat and theatre director. What makes Shakespeare’s work so universal?

“I’ve seen Shakespeare performed across the globe in many cultures and languages. I’ve also taught his work in America, Europe and Asia. Actors and students well know there’s never been a storyteller like him.

“Shakespeare takes our humanity, creates recognisable conflict in recognisable people, which often – in tragedy at least – leads to dire consequences. He also shows us what love is and what love isn’t, hate too, and what loss means and how joy and comedy can elevate our lives. In doing so, he expands our understanding of what makes us human and offers us ready advice as to how we can survive such a troubling condition.

Miranda Mufema’s Lady Anne in rehearsal for Richard III. Picture: John Saunders

“In 2012, Shakespeare’s Globe in London produced 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in 37 languages, including Maori, Swahili, Pashto and Mandarin. A quick glance at Wikipedia reveals 140 Shakespeare festivals in the United States alone. It’s hard to argue against that kind of reach and durability. He’s doing something right for sure.”

What are the tenets of the True and Fair Party, for whom you are the prospective parliamentary candidate for York Outer?

“There’s no point in continuing to drink from the well if the water is poisoned. Essentially, Gina Miller’s True & Fair Party came into being to clean up the UK’s polluted politics and to propel national governance into the 21st century, with more accountability, openness, and a focus on a kinder, more empathic way of doing business.

“The party also has a broad swath of unique and compelling manifesto commitments, such as introducing legally binding contracts for MPs, switching to the proportional representation the country is crying out for, or banning the sale of alcohol on the parliamentary estate.

“But first and foremost, the party is committed to disinfecting our country’s political slurries and to showing the electorate that not all politicians are in it for themselves; that there is desire and energy for meaningful change.

“These are the tenets that drew me to True & Fair, and so I’d like to show the voters of York Outer that a better, more compassionate and caring way is possible.”

Find out more at: https://www.trueandfairparty.uk/daniel-roy-connelly

What topics do you discuss with Hugh Bernays in a typical episode of your made-in-York weekly podcast The Anarchist Monastery?

“Hugh and I have just started our podcasting journey in a place we call The Anarchist Monastery, where we have a weekly discussion of our lives here in York – both of us as outsiders, one long-standing and one newbie.

“We also chat about my many global travels, our mental health and our lives as lovers of history, theatre and literature. All in all, it’s an interrogation of wayfaring. We’re learning all the time about what’s needed to make a successful podcast and we’re having a blast doing it.”

York Shakespeare Project in Richard III, Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, April 26 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/ridinglights.

Introducing: The Anarchist Monastery podcast

Dr Daniel Roy Connelly: “Ascertaining who we are and how we got here” in his podcast with Hugh Bernays

THE Anarchist Monastery is not so much a building, more a state of mind, one shared by craftsman and resident Hugh Bernays and Dr Daniel Roy Connelly, a visitor, teacher, theatre director and author.

From the 2000-year-old-city of York, Hugh and Daniel interrogate each another to try to ascertain who we are and how we got here, probing little known histories of this beautiful city in search of where ‘here’ really is.

“If you’re the kind of person who values the use of the imagination and likes to take the road less travelled in coming to an understanding of the world, The Anarchist Monastery is the podcast for you. Don’t be late – join the siblinghood,” they say.

Available on all major podcast platforms. Head to: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-anarchist-monastery/id1680351791

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More Things To Do in York and beyond, strictly in the name of entertainment. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 17, from The Press

Boundary breakers: Kevin Clifton’s Scott Hastings and Faye Brookes’s Fran in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom The Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith

SHAKESPEARE all shook up, a trio of musicals, a singular Magic Number, orchestral Potter and Tolkien and rocking Goths put Charles Hutchinson’s week ahead in good shape.

Dance show of the week: Strictly Ballroom The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

STRICTLY Come Dancing champ Kevin Clifton is joined by Dancing On ice runner-up and Coronation Street soap star Faye Brookes in Baz Luhrmann’s Australian romantic comedy musical.

Directed by Strictly’s Aussie-born judge Craig Revel Horwood, it follows rebellious ballroom dancer Scott Hastings (Clifton) as he falls out with the Australian Federation and 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. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

From Ukraine, with love: Kyiv National Academic Molodyy Theatre, from Ukraine, will perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream at York International Shakespeare Festival on April 28. Picture: Oleksii Tovpyha

Festival of the week and beyond: York International Shakespeare Festival, various venues, running until May 1

THIS festival’s fifth edition combines more than 40 live events with others online, taking in international, national and York-made performances, talks, workshops, exhibitions and discussions.

Look out for the Kyiv National Academic Molodyy Theatre, from Ukraine, performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream (April 28); Flabbergast Theatre’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth (April 26); artists from Poland, Croatia and Romania and Tim Crouch’s exploration of King Lear in a post-pandemic world, virtual-reality head set et al, in Truth’s A Dog Must To Kennel (April 29). For the full programme and tickets, go to: yorkshakes.co.uk.

Virtual reality meets King Lear: Tim Crouch in Truth’s A Dog Must To Kennel at the York International Shakespeare Festival. Picture: Stuart Armitt

Soundtracks of the week: The Music Of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit and The Rings Of Power In Concert, York Barbican, Monday, 4pm; The Magical Music Of Harry Potter Live In Concert, Monday, 8pm

THIS brace of concerts has been rearranged from April 6 to 24, both featuring a symphonic orchestra, choir, star soloists and an original actor. The first, a two-hour matinee celebrating the music inspired by the work of J R R Tolkien, spans the threatening sounds of Mordor, the shrill attack of the black riders and the beautiful lyrical melodies of the elves. 

The second showcases the Harry Potter film soundtracks by John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper and Alexandre Desplat, complemented by music from the Harry Potter And The Cursed Child stage show. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Crowning gory: Harry Summers’ Richard, seated, becomes king in a York Shakespeare Project rehearsal for Richard III. Picture: John Saunders

“Petty, narcissistic and vengeful psychopath” of the week: York Shakespeare Project in Richard III, Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

PHASE Two of York Shakespeare Project, projected to run for 25 years, is launched with former British diplomat Daniel Roy Connolly’s modern-day account of “the York play”, Richard III, set amid the frenetic, calculating and brutal politicking of the House of Commons.

“Telling Shakespeare through what is comfortably the most corrupt institution in the country, the play explores the cut and thrust of power’s crucible, with laws ignored and lies sown,” he says. Harry Summers leads the cast. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/ridinglights.

Romeo Stodart: Solo night at the Fulford Arms for the Magic Numbers singer

Low-key gig of the week: An Evening With Romeo Of The Magic Numbers, Fulford Arms, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

O ROMEO, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo Stodart on Sunday night? The lead vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter of indie rockers The Magic Numbers will be in lonesome mode at the Fulford Arms. Expect Magic Numbers gems and equally magic numbers from 2011 solo album The Moon And You. Box office: thecrescentyork.seetickets.com.

Steve Tearle: Director, Narrator and Mystery Man in NE’s Into The Woods

Bewitching show of the week: NE in Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

STEPHEN Sondheim’s darkly witty musical is a grown-up twist on the classic fairytales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Jack And The Beanstalk, here narrated by NE director Steve Tearle.

After the curse of a once-beautiful witch (Pascha Turnbull) leaves a baker (Chris Hagyard) and his wife (Perri-Ann Barley) childless, they venture into the woods to find the ingredients needed to reverse the spell.  Encounters with all manner of fairytale favourites ensue, each on a quest to fulfil a wish. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Mayflies writer-composer Gus Gowland, seated with cast members Emma Thornett, left, Rumi Sutton and Nuno Queimado

Musical premiere of the week: Gus Gowland’s Mayflies, York Theatre Royal, April 28 to May 13, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

THREE into two will go when York Theatre Royal stages the world premiere of resident artist Gus Gowland’s musical Mayflies, wherein he explores how people present different versions of themselves in relationships and how it can then all come crashing down.

Three actors, Nuno Queimado (May), Rumi Sutton (May/Fly) and Emma Thornett (Fly), will alternate the roles, with each pairing offering a different perspective on the relationships within this contemporary love story, traced by Gowland from first flourish on a dating app to the last goodbye in person. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Cold Cave: Headlining the Friday bill at the Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival in Whitby

Goth gathering of the week: Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival Spring Gathering 2023, Whitby Pavilion, Whitby, April 28 and 29

BACK in black in the home of Dracula, Whitby’s premier gothic music and alternative arts festival returns with headline appearances by Cold Cave (April 28) and New Model Army (April 29) and a Friday club night into the early hours by Leeds living legends Carpe Noctum.

The Friday bill features a rare performance from American goth rock special guests Christian Death, alongside sets by The Rose Of Avalanche and Siberia. Saturday features special guests Lebanon Hanover, Ist Ist and The Nosferatu. Box office: ticketweb.uk.

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REVIEW: Wodehouse In Wonderland, York Theatre Royal, 2.30pm & 7.30pm today ****

Shaken and stirred: Robert Daws’s P G Wodehouse mixes a cocktail in Wodehouse In Wonderland , a play with a splash of revelations

Cahoots Theatre Company presents Robert Daws in Wodehouse In Wonderland, York Theatre Royal

WE know Jeeves And Wooster, Gussie Fink-Nottle and Blandings Castle, but how well do we know their creator, the comic novelist Pelham Grenville Wodehouse? Not as well, on the evidence of William Humble’s fascinating, funny yet forthright play.

Plum, as he was known in a conflation of his first name’s two syllables, is found in 1950s’ exile, at his typewriter as ever, in his New York State home on Long Island, the flowers in full bloom beyond his study window.

He has never returned to England since the end of the war and, to his sadness, will never do so after his besmirching as a “traitor” for his Berlin broadcasts when interred in 1941. He, along with fellow vilified exile Charlie Chaplin, would be knighted in the 1975 New Year’s Honours List at the age of 93, dying a month later.

As the Guardian reported, both humorists were “unexpectedly and very bemusedly involved in unpleasant political controversy at the height of their fame”.

At peace with his pipe: Robert Daws’s P G Wodehouse finding the musicality of language in the keys of his typewriter as he pens Jeeves and Wooster’s latest comic tale

Humble’s play goes into forensic detail in Act Two of what Wodehouse called his “great shaming”, but this is a beautifully balanced play with many, many ups, in the manner of those exquisitely written novels so full of English character, counterbalanced by stories of his “Empire orphan” childhood, his daughter Leonora (“Snorkles”), and those bitter attacks by the wartime media.

Played by the debonair Robert Daws, in his Plum job as a Wodehouse devotee from his RADA days, later cast as Tubby Glossop in four series of Fry and Laurie’s Jeeves & Wooster, Plum is working on his latest jaunty Jeeves instalment as Humble’s play opens.

Humble will track Wodehouse’s daily routine of writing, taking breakfast to his wife Ethel, walking the Pekingese dogs Wonder and Squeaky, lunch, more writing, savouring cocktails and enjoying American soap operas (better than their British counterparts, reckons Plum).

His day’s progress, the tip-tap rhythms of the typewriter, will be interrupted by his wife, his daughter, the dogs’ barking and now a would-be biographer, who appears to have had a humour bypass.

His meetings and phonecalls, however, trigger Plum into discussing those light-hearted radio broadcasts that met with the opprobrium of wartime Minister of Information Duff Cooper despite being devoid of both propaganda and politics. Only Evelyn Waugh, fellow observer of English ways, caught Plum’s tone as it was intended, seeking to be be funny as comedians are wont to do.

Spring in his step: Robert Daws’s P G Wodehouse espousing the virtue of humour

Interwoven into the routines of a man at happiest when left alone to write, are Wodehouse’s stories of first “meeting” the sanguine Jeeves and his younger days as a lyricist working with Guy Bolton, Ivor Novello, Jerome Kern et al, leading to Daws showing off his singing chops with jovial aplomb on several occasions.

Featuring too are Plum’s reflections on writing his books “like musical comedies without music”; the English characteristic of needing to knock down those who find success, and the consequences of seeing his overseas parents only twice from the age of two in 15 years, his time divided between a contented education at Dulwich School and in the care of his aunts, 15 of them no less, hence their profusion in his novels, where they are subject to his mischievous streak.

Under the immaculate direction of Robin (Woman In Black) Herford, Daws’s performance captures both light and dark, with an ear for accents, a song in his heart, a mastery of emotion in a devastating revelation in Act Two, and an omnipresent love of Wodehouse and his literary wonderland. Praise too for Lee Newby’s set and costume design, evoking both the Fifties’ American setting and its English occupant and the earlier times of which Wodehouse wrote.

For all his vilification in the war years and its knock-on effect, Humble’s Wodehouse bears no bitterness, believing that life will always be better for humour. As Daws steps forward at the finale, Plum ponders, wouldn’t it be nice if we could just be nice to each other, like Lord Emsworth feeding Empress, his beloved black Berkshire sow. He has a point.

Take a PG tip: on such a wet day, look on the bright side by heading indoors to be enlightened and enchanted alike by Wodehouse, Humble and Daws, a terrific triumvirate in Cahoots’ eloquent one-man drama.  

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Sign of the times as Pocklington Arts Centre launches design rebrand for maximum impact on new journey

Pocklington Arts Centre’s new logo, designed by Red Bonsai

POCKLINGTON Arts Centre is introducing a new look to all design, print and soon its website too.

“The development of a contemporary, iconic logo responds to the need to engage new audiences and the demand for clarity and definition in a booming, fast-paced online experience,” says venue director Angela Stone.

After a thorough briefing and selection process, three design agencies were identified to “respond to the nuances of delivering a strong iconic presence that would honour the heritage and reputation of Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC), while appealing to new audiences unfamiliar with the respected and well-beloved East Yorkshire venue”.

Red Bonsai, a creative branding and graphic design studio based in Pocklington, were ultimately selected to develop their proposed concepts. “We were really pleased to be selected to work with the management team to rebrand this unique venue,” says creative director Ashley McGovern.

The poster for this week’s concert by Sabrina Francis with the new Pocklington Arts Centre logo

“I have always enjoyed and admired the arts centre, being a regular audience member. This distinctive venue brings some significant names to the East Riding, and with Pocklington also being our design studio’s hometown, we jumped at the chance.”

Ashley continues: “The new identity illustrates the flexibility and multi-purpose use of Pocklington Arts Centre. Picking up on historical references, we sought to characterise this in a simple gobo (a type of theatrical stage lighting) stencil-style graphic.

“The identity will be used throughout all marketing collateral, on all printed material, on the new website, social media, interiors, and the building fascia signage. We are now working on animated screen idents!

“The new branding is designed to engage with a broader audience. The fresh new look is aimed at ensuring the continued relevance and ambition of the arts centre.”

“We’re excited to welcome our patrons to join us on this exciting new journey,” says Pocklington Arts Centre venue director Angela Stone

PAC has committed to rolling out this new look over the coming months, with the latest What’s On posters and spring brochure out this week with a glimpse of the new design style and logo.

As part of its commitment to the environmental impact of print and paper wastage, distribution will be monitored carefully and reviewed regularly as PAC acknowledges a considerable uplift in online browsing and booking, but there will be a stock of brochures available to pick up during box office opening hours: Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 10am to 4pm, Thursday, 10am to 5pm, and Saturday, 10am to 1pm.

Angela Stone says: “We are grateful to have received funding from ERYC Arts Development Fund to create refreshed brand guidelines that have been devised to deliver maximum impact using a design template, reducing our ongoing design costs and delivering a much more intuitive, user-friendly website experience.

“Watch this space for updates on how we will translate this clear design language throughout the building to improve directional signage and our intentions to create a flow from the outside of the building, through the foyer, into the box office and beyond! We’re excited to welcome our patrons to join us on this exciting new journey.”

For details of PAC’s spring programme, head to: pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.