THE Emma Bunton Christmas Show at York Barbican last night was called off at 90 minutes’ notice to ticket holders.
The Spice Girls singer had attended a Meet and Greet earlier but subsequently the 8pm concert could not proceed on doctor’s advice.
A statement from York Barbican said: “Please accept our sincere apologies, The Emma Bunton Christmas Show cannot go ahead tonight. Emma has been advised by her doctor that she is unable to perform. Emma is personally devastated and hopes very much to see you again another time.” Further information was sent to around 800 ticket holders.
Emma, 46, was to have spiced up her Christmas party with solo career hits, Spice Girls staples and festive favourites. Her “secret” special guest last night would have been Will Young, by the way.
The cancelled concert will not be rearranged. Ticket holders will be refunded.
Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria Rainer in a scene with the von Trapp children in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music. Picture: Robert Readman
SANNA Jeppsson is following in the hill-loving footsteps of Julie Andrews, Petula Clark, Marie Osmond and Connie Fisher in playing Maria Rainer, the trainee nun turned free-spirited nanny in The Sound Of Music from tonight in York.
The Swedish-born stage and film actress already has given stand-out turns as a mysterious, German-accented femme fatale in Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps in her York debut in November 2021; boundary-breaking Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare In Love in April and scene-stealing Cassandra, the hippy home help, in Christopher Durang’s American comedy Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike in November.
All three were staged at Theatre@41, Monkgate, as will be Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s final collaboration, under the direction of Robert Readman, hot on the heels of his delivery of Nativity! The Musical at the Grand Opera House last month and Matilda The Musical Jr at Monkgate in late-September.
From tonight to December 30, Sanna will play Maria opposite 2022 Commonwealth Games squash doubles gold medallist and Harrogate actor James Willstrop’s Captain von Trapp.
Sanna Jeppsson: Making her mark on the York stage since November 2021
Here CharlesHutchPress is alive with a flurry of questions for Sanna.
When did you first see The Sound Of Music, the film or on stage?
“I first saw the film when I was a child, maybe around seven years old, and I remember enjoying it. I thought it was fun and I loved all the songs, still do. I’ve never actually seen it on stage, so this is a whole new experience for me.”
Is the film as popular in your Swedish homeland as it is over here?
“I would say, yes. It’s a classic and iconic, it used to be on TV every Christmas, and I would dare to suggest most Swedes have probably seen it.
“And I’ve heard of sing-a-long showings – though they may not be quite as well attended as a sing-a-long Mamma Mia!”
What do you most like about the stage version as opposed to the film?
“I think the same as with all stage versions of films: the magic of live theatre!”
Are you a Julie Andrews fan?
“Yes! I’ll admit I’m not her biggest fan, but I’ve always found her enchanting to watch and listen to.”
How much do you have to block Julie out of your mind to find your own Maria?
“Since being cast, I’ve resisted the urge to re-watch the film, so I haven’t seen it in years. Instead, I’ve aimed to find the character only though the text in the script. And let myself go on Maria’s journey of finding her purpose, which I think is one many people can relate to in some way.”
Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love atTheatre@41, Monkgate, York, in April 2022
What are the cornerstones of Maria’s character?
“She’s a genuinely good person. Honest, loving, and obviously adores music and singing. She wants to do good for all people around her. She’s got a playful side that’s hard for her to control sometimes; she’s clever and witty too.
“I think her religion keeps her grounded and gives her confidence that as long as she’s honest and tries to do good, she can’t go wrong. I think that’s where she finds the courage to speak her mind and confront the Captain when she needs to.”
What is your favourite song to sing in the show?
“Wow! That’s a hard question. I love all of them. I have to say, though, that the songs with the children, Do-Re-Mi and The Lonely Goatherd, are super-fun to do. I basically just get to play and have fun with the kids!”
How have you found working with James Willstrop, squash ace and man of the musicals and theatre in Yorkshire?
“It’s been great! What I’ve most appreciated about James is how calm he seems at all times! Maybe it’s his many years in professional sport, but he doesn’t appear affected by nerves. He’s relaxed and easy to work with, and that helps a lot.”
Sanna Jeppsson’s Cassandra, centre, in York Settlement Community Players’ Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike in November 2022. Picture: John Saunders
How does this role compare with your past Pick Me Up and York Settlement Community Players performances? Performing with children is a big part of this one…
“It’s my first musical with Pick Me Up, and also my first lead role in a musical. Also the first time working with children in the cast! Lots of firsts, I’ve just realised!
“As with previous Pick Me Up productions, it’s a strong cast and great production team, the children adding a playful energy to it, which has been interesting and fun to work with!
As there are three children’s teams, each team brings something different to the show, which makes the performance feel fresh and new for every run.”
What’s coming next for you on stage?
“Nothing decided yet, but I have a few auditions coming up in the New Year, so hopefully I won’t have to stay away from the stage too long!”
Pick Me Up Theatre in The Sound Of Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 16 to 30. Performances: 7.30pm, December 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 28 and 29; 2.30pm, 17, 18, 20, 22, 27, 29 and 30. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Sanna Jeppsson’s femme fatale with Aran MacRae’s Richard Hannay in York Settlement Community Players’ The 39 Steps in November 2021. Picture: John Saunders
Did you know?
GRACE Kelly, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn and Anne Bancroft were all considered for the role of Maria Rainer in Robert Wise’s 1965 film of The Sound Of Music.
Did you know too?
SHIRLEY Bassey had a UK number one with Climb Every Mountain in 1961 as a double A-side with Reach For The Stars.
My Favourite Things has been recorded by Barbra Streisand (1967), Dionne Warwick (2004), Mary J Blige and Kelly Clarkson (both 2013).
The Chapter House Choir, with director Benjamin Morris in the foreground
CHAPTER House Choir’s Carols By Candlelight concert returns to York Minster on Saturday night.
Directed by Benjamin Morris, the choir will be joined in the nave by the Chapter House Youth Choir, directed by Charlie Gower-Smith, the choir’s Handbell Ringers and York organist William Campbell for a feast of festive music, combining familiar carols with new and exciting compositions.
The 7.30pm programme with no interval includes the premiere of Jesus Christ The Apple Tree, a carol composed specially for the choir this year by distinguished founder Andrew Carter.
Andrew Carter: Premiere of new carol Jesus Christ The Apple Tree
The 90-minute concert will be dedicated to the memory of Dr Alvan White, the choir’s Candlelighter-in-Chief for these concerts from 2003 to 2018. He died in August 2022, having suffered for some years with Lewy body disease.
To mark his long and happy association with the choir, the collection at the end will be in aid of the Lewy Body Society, the British specialist charity that raises awareness and funds research into this poorly understood and often misdiagnosed disease.
Dr White’s daughter, choir member Rachel Hicks, says: “When we needed someone to light the candles for our concerts almost 20 years ago, I knew this would be the perfect job for my Dad.
Dr Alvan White, who died in August, undertaking his Candlelighter-in-Chief duties, a post he held for the Chapter House Choir from 2003 to 2018
“He was a retired chemistry lecturer, who had learned the skill of glassblowing to mend lab equipment, so my childhood memories of visiting him at work were of him working with fire!
“Who better to come to the Minster and light hundreds of candles for our concerts? Dad loved classical music, so this was an ideal combination. As a family, we are honoured that his contribution to the life of the choir is being recognised in this way and that we can support further research into what we know, first-hand, to be a challenging and complex condition.”
Jacqueline Cannon, the Lewy Body Society’s chief executive, adds: “We are very grateful to the Chapter House Choir for the opportunity to raise awareness of Lewy body dementia. There are around 130,000 people living with the disease in the UK, yet it is often described as the most common disease you’ve never heard of.
Donations at the Chapter House Choir’s Carols by Candlelight concert will be given to the Lewy Body Society, in memory of the late Dr Alvan White
“Through our research programme, we support studies that help us to better understand, diagnose and treat the disease, and to date we have funded more than £2 million in grants. The donations made at the concert will help us to continue this work, as well as providing specialist information and support to families, like Alvan’s, who are affected by the disease.”
Tickets are available at: yorkminster.org/whats-on/event/chapter-house-choir-carols-by-candlelight. Doors open at 6.45pm.
Did you know?
The Chapter House Choir first performed Carols by Candlelight in York Minster in 1965, when the choir was formed to raise funds for the York Minster Appeal.
James Willstrop: A champion year in squash topped off with Captain’s role in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music
WHEN James Willstrop emailed Robert Readman to request audition details for The Sound Of Music, Pick Me Up Theatre’s director did not recognise his name.
Nor indeed was he any wiser when James walked into the York auditions at Theatre@41, Monkgate, but he was struck by his presence, his height, 6ft 4ins, his gait, his demeanour. “I thought, ‘Ah, he might be just right for Captain von Trapp’.”
It was only when Robert returned home to Bubwith and mentioned James’s name to his mother that all became clear. She knew plenty. James Willstrop. That James Willstrop, Squash champion. Highest ranking: number one in January 2012. Lives in Harrogate. She had read his articles in the Yorkshire Post.
From then on, Robert watched his sporting deeds closely, in particular James’s gold medal at the age of 38 in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games squash doubles at the University of Birmingham squash centre in August.
James, as it happens, had had another string to his racket since October 2015, when he returned to the stage with Adel Players at Adel Memorial Hall, North Leeds, aged 32, in R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End, set in the First World War trenches in Northern France.
A year earlier, James had been recuperating from a hip injury, five months off, and in need of a stimulus during rehab. He contacted Adel Players, became involved and found himself taking the part of “a captain suffering with alcoholism whose experiences at the front have destroyed him”, as he told the Guardian in a self-written feature.
His sadness and anger become positive and he is grateful and lighter again,” says James Willstrop of Captain von Trapp’s transformation. Picture: Helen Spencer
“I seem to have caught a bug. I’ve been lucky to have been given the chance. My dad, in jocular fashion, now refers to squash as my second job,” he wrote.
Roll on to those summer auditions in York, and now he is working with Robert Readman for the first time, making his York stage debut, playing Captain von Trapp for the first time, in Pick Me Up’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final collaboration, The Sound Of Music, from tomorrow until December 30.
“Like many, I did watch the movie quite a bit, and I always enjoyed how Captain von Trapp changed so much through Maria, the children and the music,” says James, outlining what attracted him to the role.
“His sadness and anger become positive and he is grateful and lighter again. That was interesting to watch. Then there are the Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes! The music is just pure melody.
“My dad Malcolm died last year and it was a film we watched and saw on the West End together. I still have a text he sent me where he said he thought the captain would be a great part for me to try when I started acting again a few years ago. I sort of laughed at the time but now here I am and I’m sad he can’t see us do it.
“I’d heard about Pick Me Up Theatre through a friend in Harrogate and so, when the auditions came up, I went for it. So glad I did, what a great group.”
James Willstrop’s Captain von Trapp with Alexandra Mather’s Elsa Schraeder in The Sound Of Music. Picture: Helen Spencer
James recalls first seeing The Sound Of Music “probably in my teens”. “I loved the melodies first, and then I think I really got the relationship between Maria and the children,” he says.
“Watching it as an adult, I then also appreciate the context, and the threat of the Nazi takeover. It must have been an incredible, uncertain time when many people just had no choice but to support Hitler.
“To do what the von Trapp family did was very brave. Nobody knew what was going to happen in 1938. It’s easy to see now, looking back, but it wasn’t then.”
James took his first steps on stage playing the lead in Joseph And the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at school. “I just remember it was a magical experience. I knew the stage was something I loved,” he says.
“I didn’t act much when the professional squash career took over and then, when I got injured, I started watching more local theatre. I got into it and did lots of plays. “But music and story fused are the thing, and my favourite shows have always been musical, so I started singing much more and as a form of expression it’s the best.”
Should you be wondering, James had no training in musical theatre. “I’ve had very little drama training, except for the odd course, and lots of books and the odd YouTube vid,” he says.
Marrage ceremony: James Willstrop’s Captain von Trapp and Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria Rainer. Picture: Resi Sledsens
How on earth does he find time to do theatre shows, given his squash commitments? “I have to. I’m slightly addicted to doing shows, so I just have to. There’s no choice,” he says, of his need to squash everything in, having first picked up a racket in his Norfolk birthplace in 1984/85.
“I’m much older now [he turned 39 on August 15], and so I’m not in my prime as a player – and the tournaments are winding down. With a bit of juggling and a very understanding and helpful director (thanks Robert!), I can make it.”
His squash year has gone, in his own word, “well”. Very well indeed, in fact. “Myself and my partner Declan James became World and Commonwealth champions at doubles and England won the Euro team champs, which I was part of in April.
“On the world tour, the ranking is going down [number 25, as of October 2022] but I’m enjoying playing as much as ever,” he says.
“It felt pretty incredible to win that Commonwealth Games gold medal. To go through the highs and lows with Declan, it was so intense. And after all the work we’d done, we were so thrilled to achieve a gold medal for England squash. Birmingham was a blast, it really was. The crowds, the excitement around the games.”
What makes James more nervous? Playing the lead in a big musical or stepping on court in a final? “They both have similar sensations and I think that gives them a great connection and similarity. Some of us just want and love that danger, those nerves and the adrenalin,” he answers.
James Willstrop’s Captain von Trapp with the von Trapp children in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music. Picture: Helen Spencer
“In a way, the nerves can be more extreme in theatre because making mistakes is probably more obvious on stage. On court, if you hit the ball out, you can put it right next rally.
“But I guess, on the whole, maybe the nerves are slightly more shattering in squash. There’s a loneliness in competition that doesn’t exist in theatre. You’re sharing it with a group and that’s a comfort.”
James does see how comparisons can be made between the disciplines of singing and squash (apart from them both having strings attached, sometimes!). “People don’t get it but I think there are similarities. Learning to breathe for one! The singing techniques have helped my squash, I think,” he says. “You also need to think about light and shade in the song, and what’s important to the story, just as you do in a squash rally. It mustn’t all be one paced. You have to construct the rally.”
The repetition and practice and the learning of lines for a play is similar to squash practice, suggests James. “The discipline is crucial,” he says.
“Then the match play element is the same to doing run-throughs of a show. In squash, you need to convert your practice into performance, so you play matches leading up to big events. It’s the same in theatre, where you need to run the show fully to find out where you are.”
Next year, James hopes to perform in Noel Coward’s supernatural comedy Blithe Spirit at Ilkley Playhouse. “We’re taking it to the Minack Theatre [in the West Yorkshire company’s 23rd visit to the Cornish coast from July 24 to 27]. That will be exciting!”
Pick Me Up Theatre in The Sound Of Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 16 to 30. Performances: 7.30pm, December 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 28 and 29; 2.30pm, 17, 18, 20, 22, 27, 29 and 30. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk/
Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria with the Von Trapp children in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music
The Sound Of Music synopsis and back story, courtesy of Pick Me Up Theatre’s programme notes
THE final collaboration between Rodgers & Hammerstein was destined to become the world’s most beloved musical. Featuring a trove of cherished songs, including Climb Ev’ry Mountain, My Favourite Things, Do Re Mi, Sixteen Going On Seventeen and the title number, The Sound Of Music won the hearts of audiences worldwide, earning five Tony Awards and five Oscars.
The inspirational story, based on the memoir of Maria Augusta Trapp, follows an ebullient Salzburg nun who serves as governess to the seven children of the imperious Captain von Trapp, bringing music and joy to the household. But as the forces of Nazism take hold of Austria, Maria and the entire von Trapp family must make a moral decision.
PIck Me Up Theatre’s full cast list for The Sound Of Music
Flagging, but not flagging: York pantomime dowager dame Berwick Kaler in regal attire for The Lambton Worm song sheet, from County Durham, at the Grand Opera House. All pictures: David Harrison
THIS is as much The Misadventures Of Old Granny Goose as The Adventures of the aforesaid ageing old bird.
Berwick Kaler and his ex-York Theatre Royal gang are back together, re-grouping like The Rolling Stones or the Friends cronies to recall the old hits – Berwick and a dummy, Berwick flying (twice), Berwick and a pool with powers that take years off his dame and, above all, Berwick going off-piste, off script – for the faithful.
Those moments, at liberty to ad-lib, are the ‘misadventures’, the ones that most delight, Berwick wandering off to the stage apron to take in the audience with mischief in his eyes, Berwick apologetically and rough-handedly correcting his misplaced stage spot, Berwick making a political jibe, Berwick winding up his fellow regulars and teasing his ensemble newbies.
What’s fresh this year? The Grand Opera House, the comeback dame’s adopted panto home for a second year, has undergone a refurbishment, new seating et al; the panto has new producers, UK Productions, overseeing costumes (an upgrade on last year), set design (standard panto scenery, smart, proficient, no York detailing) and lighting (hi-tech with a dash of pop-concert glitz).
Unspeakable dummy: Berwick Kaler’s Mrs Plum Duff and Martin Barrass’s Jessie try to work a truculent Boris Johnson in the ventriloquism scene in The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose
What else? Lovely fairy lights adorning the proscenium arch; a welcome revamp of the stock ghost scene with beds disappearing and reappearing and a host of ghosts; puppy-keen Jake Lindsay’s upgrade to a more prominent role as Jakey Lad, still the butt of Berwick’s putdowns after a decade in the ranks.
And what’s more? The three lads in the dance ensemble (Spencer Hardy, Elliot OJ Hutchinson and dance captain Samuel Lithco) aping Matthew Bourne’s all-male chorus in a brief burst of Swan Lake, plus ensemble debuts for Leeds-trained Lucy Churchill and Niamh Hendron, and a new intake of children from York Stage School for babbies’ sweetness in ensemble scenes.
What’s old this year? The Grand Dame, of course, sending himself/herself up at 76, aware that unlike his character, Mrs Plum Duff, the Granny Goose of the title, he cannot turn back panto-time by taking a magical pool dip.
Instead, the drama-queen dame mock-collapses at the end of big number Barmy Girl in mock-exhaustion, play acting as he demands to be helped up. He adamantly says he can’t deliver his lines any faster when urged to do so and deliberately turns his balletic flight landing into an inelegant tumble.
Old Mother Goose steps: David Leonard’s Lucifer Nauseus, centre, AJ Powell’s Brum Stoker, left, and Suzy Cooper’s Cissy, second from right, in a song-and-dance routine with ensemble Villagers
What’s the (lack of!) plot this year? Well, no, Berwick hasn’t lost the plot, but it’s brief. Or, correction, devilish David Leonard’s dandy villain, the goose-fearing Lucifer Nauseus, says it is. He has to find a fairy. That’s it. The plot.
Well, like on an allotment, there’s plot aplenty, or at least by writer-director Berwick’s infamous plot-resistant standards, there is. But yes, in essence, the villain must find a fairy to do his evil bidding for him. Oh, and the dame has to be under the misconception that the Goose is a dog.
What ticks over this year? Kirsty Sparks’s choreography; Rob Thorne’s band, and especially Berwick’s double act with comic fall guy Martin Barrass (dippy son Jessie Plum Duff), partner in the ghost scene, The Lambton Worm song sheet, and rocking-chair ventriloquism routine with Boris Johnson as the dummy.
That Tory old boy scene defines the dip in madcap mayhem since peak Kaler years, being laboured (not Laboured, unlike this pun), where it needs to make more of Johnson’s blustering vocal schtick and boot him with sharper barbs about his mendacious character.
Old Granny ghost: Jake Lindsay and a friendly ghost at play
What works best this year? No surprises. Leonard’s fab-u-lous vainglorious villainy, with his devil’s swishing tail that turns into a phone, his stage-vamping swagger, that Shakespearean lead thespian voice and his comic timing. Everything done with aplomb amid the Plum Duffs.
His rendition of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day with first Suzy Cooper, then AJ Powell, is the show’s comic high point, anything but a perfect day, but witty and physically funny too.
What about Cooper and Powell this year? On good form, principal gal Suzy doubling up as both a classic Fairy and plummy Cissy Plum Duff, who is all doe-eyed over Powell’s would-be novelist, Brum Stoker (the pick of Kaler’s cast names for 2022).
What’s missing this year? The film; the water splosh scene; old-school physical slapstick; topical references (save for yesterday’s men, Johnson and Matt Hancock), and an animal costume for Barrass.
Helping hands: A play-acting Berwick Kaler’s no longer super-annuated Mrs Plum Duff needs a lift from Elliot OJ Hutchinson’s Villager, left, and Jake Lindsay’s Jakey Lad after the dame’s big musical number
What replaces them? The jousting banter between the familiar players; the greater emphasis on song and dance (Leonard going from one song immediately into another); the comforting constant sense of nostalgia for Dame Berwick devotees.
The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose does not lay a golden egg of cracking comedy but is more of a curate’s egg, sunny side up at times, flat as a pancake on occasion. There is more than enough for the loyal legions, not enough for new converts.
“We’ve never, ever taken you for granted,” said Dame Berwick at the finale, both grateful and hopeful of a return. After all, this Kaler – and his goose – on the loose is not the oldest dame in town this Christmas.
A certain Sir Ian McKellen’s Caroline Goose, aged 83, is in residence in Mother Goose at the Duke of York’s, London, from tonight (15/12/2022) until January 29, then on tour until April 1.
“Hope you will return,” they sing: The walkdown finale in golden costumes with Berwick Kaler’s Mrs Plum Duff orchestrating the closing song
Steve Mason: Showcasing new songs off Brothers And Sisters at The Crescent tomorrow
SCOTSMAN Steve Mason has had enough.
Witness his new single, No More, now receiving buckets of airplay on BBC6 Music and providing the punchy title for his tour that stops off at The Crescent, York, tomorrow night (15/12/2022).
“The song’s about a country that has had its Band Aid ripped off to expose a pustule of Government hatred,” says the former Beta Band frontman. “But I feel immigration has brought a massive amount of joy to my life and my country, the whole country, Britain.”
No More, a plea to end to division and find common ground, is the first taster for Brothers And Sisters, Steve’s first album since 2019’s About The Light, recorded and ready for release in March 2023.
Why give the album that title? “Well, number one it’s the last song on the album. All the songs were written in lockdown, but with this one, I was thinking about Ghost Town by The Specials, with that line, ‘All the clubs have been closed down’, and I remember feeling it’s all finished,” says Steve.
“But now, if you were to accelerate forwards 40-odd years to 2022, you’d kill to go back to 1981, which is pretty crazy, in terms of personal freedoms, thinking about how many clubs there were, how you could still have a social life relatively cheaply, even if you were on the dole.
“Now, we just keep taking it and taking it, whatever’s thrown at us, but what I don’t get about this country is: at what point do we say ‘Enough is enough. No more’.”
A decade ago, on his album Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time, Steve had made the point that “we don’t do anything until the problem knocks on the door”. “Well, now it’s knocking on everyone’s door. It used to exclude the middle classes but not anymore,” he says.
“The time is right for change, probably an alternative to democracy and capitalism, when I don’t think we can say we live in a democracy anymore. Now that Boris Johnson can just lie in parliament, that’s not democracy. It’s fake, not real, when politicians are not accountable.”
That said, Steve does not consider Brothers And Sisters to be a political album. “The thing is, I did my political concept album a few years ago. I set out my stall then, and I don’t feel I have to hit people over the head with my songs when I need to remember that music is entertainment,” he says.
“I want people to put my album on after they’ve had a s**t day, so I’ve toned it [the politics] right back down. What the listener brings to the lyrics, how they fit into their life, that matters, because it has to be at least 50 per cent what the listener thinks.
“I want it to be a beautiful record, a positive record. It’s not negative at all. It’s about us finding some peace in the eye of the storm and hopefully finding some clarity when everything’s been deliberately clouded. You have to take a few steps to turn everything off.”
The last time Steve ventured into North Yorkshire, on December 14 last year, he could be found seated alone by a lamp, amid twinkling fairy lights and a Christmas tree, performing at Stockton on the Forest Village Hall.
“This time last year I was playing a lot of village halls, just me on my own,” he recalls, ahead of rolling out Beta Band and solo material with keyboardist Darren Morris by his side at The Crescent tomorrow. “I’ve really gone all out this time!
Steve Mason performing at Stockton on the Forest Village Hall, near York, on December 14 2021. Picture: Paul Rhodes
“Darren’s been playing with me for about seven years and he was on the About The Light album. This is a very stripped-out version of what I usually take out on the road, but for this album that I’ve just finished, I’m gonna change from a traditional band format.
“You can now reliably run backing tracks with drums and bass on there and then have people like gospel singers with you. But it’s been really difficult because of two years of no gigs and then a lead-in time of a year for vinyl pressings, so you potentially run into the problem of not touring for another year, but touring this way, with Darren, allows me financially to get to the point of releasing the album.”
Steve wrote Brothers And Sisters at the height of the lockdowns, looking for “some form of spirituality, as we were all were in the pandemic, but not tied to any one religion because people prefer freedom in their spirituality”.
“We must find things that we have in common when we have a government that wants to divide us – and that’s why I want them to fail miserably,” he says. “It’s important to love your fellow man and fellow woman and be aware that the information we’re fed is not always correct.”
Steve talks of striving to be an artist again, having become “somewhat reactionary” on About The Light. “I was just lucky that I realised that at some point I was going to make a record that I didn’t like, my fans didn’t like, or the radio didn’t like,” he says.
“There are elements of that record that I liked, but certainly I was dipping my toe into waters that I wouldn’t want to get any wetter.
“I’d just got married, had a three-month-old daughter, and I was feeling those adult thoughts for the first time, thinking about having to support my family through my art.
“What I’ve now managed to do is decompartmentalise my home life from my working life. I owe it to myself, to anyone who ever bought a record, to everyone who calls themselves an artist, when it’s such a precious position to be in, to be strong and take risks.”
To do so, he must swim against the authoiritarian tide. “For some reason, artists in this country are made to feel like second-class citizens who have to struggle to achieve anything, but opposition to the arts is the sign of a weak government up to no good,” he says.
Now 47, Steve’s career since 1996 has taken in folktronica experimentalists The Beta Band, King Biscuit Time, Black Affair with Jimmy Edgar and four solo albums since 2010 with the fifth upcoming. Along the way, debts led him to work on a building site and he has had struggles with depression too, but marriage and fatherhood, song-writing and performing are his life force now.
“What I would say is that, at the moment, I’m thinking a lot more about the live experience for people and how that will translate into something that’s exciting, energetic and uplifting,” he says.
“I’ve always been a very slow learner, so it takes me a long time to work things out, but on this record, I’ve tried to stretch myself vocally, much more than I’ve ever done before, singing a song in a way that’s more difficult, that requires more effort, when in the past my vocals were quiet.
“Doing something you’ve not done before, going somewhere new in a song, I just feel that the new tracks, when performed live, are head and shoulders above anything I’ve done before – and the audience reaction has been beautiful to see.”
Steve Mason, No More Tour, at The Crescent, York, tomorrow (15/12/2022), supported by Cobain Jones, at 7.30pm . Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
York Early Music Christmas Festival: Bojan Čičić, JS Bach’s Sonatas for solo violin, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 10
SEEING is believing. The magical sounds that Bojan Čičić coaxes from his baroque violin have not only to be heard, they need to be seen.
In 1720, while part of Prince Leopold’s court at Cöthen, Bach wrote six sonatas and partitas (effectively suites) for the unaccompanied violin, three of each, in response to the violin’s newly developed capability to play chords. This meant the possibility of adding a bass line to a melody.
They represent the Everest of the solo violin repertoire (not forgetting the Paganini caprices) and are fiendishly demanding. But they hold no terrors for this supremo. He is playing all six at this festival on consecutive Saturday lunchtimes and began here with the three sonatas. All fall into four movements.
The first is invariably slow, giving the player time to find their feet. The second, believe it or not, is a fugue, allowing the possibility of two or even three lines to overlap or seem to do so. The third is slower, often with origins in the dance, and the fourth is (very) fast.
Bach demonstrates throughout his intimate understanding of violin techniques at what was the cutting edge in his own day. The first two sonatas are in minor keys – G and A – and their opening movements have an elegiac quality. The third sonata, in C major, has a positively chordal opening, almost like a chorale.
All three are deceptive, because the succeeding fugues sound unplayable by a single instrument. In all, but especially the first, Čičić delivered incredible clarity, even playing down the countersubjects so that they did not overshadow the main subjects. There was also a touch of sheer bravura at the end of the second fugue.
The stately siciliana of No 1 demanded intense multiple-stopping – two or three notes at once – and the Andante of No 2, also a third movement, was so dense that you could have sworn that you were hearing several instruments.
All three finales took the breath away. The first was a high-speed moto perpetuo, allowing the player no respite. The Allegro of No 2 began innocently enough, but turned fierce, even including echo effects. The dazzling virtuosity of No 3’s finale brought the house down.
Čičić’s bow is a magic wand, but he does not brandish it at all pompously. On the contrary, his approach is almost self-effacing. The result is all the more sensational.
I cannot recommend his recital of Bach’s three partitas on Saturday (17/12/2022), at 1pm, highly enough. On this evidence, it is a totally mouth-watering prospect. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk
Review by Martin Dreyer
The Marion Consort. Picture: Nick Rutter
REVIEW: Spiritato with The Marian Consort,Inspiring Bach,National Centre for Early Music, York, December 11
THIS was almost two concerts in one, combining two groups – instrumental and vocal – who normally lead quite independent existences.
Spiritato, led from the violin by Kinga Ujszászi, is a chamber orchestra of some 18 players, dedicated to rekindling the unique sounds of the mid-17th century.
Joining them in this exploration is the 12-voice Marian Consort under its director and countertenor Rory McCleery.
Their programme, entitled Inspiring Bach, dealt with some of the bigger names that preceded the great man. The most notable of these was Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703), who is widely regarded as the most important member of the Bach family before Johann Sebastian himself (and not to be confused with a later JCB, Johann Christian, the ‘English’ Bach). He was a composer and organist, who spent virtually all his career as harpsichordist at the Duke of Eisenach’s court.
The first of JC’s two contributions here was an elegiac cantata featuring McCleery’s countertenor (though he sang it on ground level more or less behind a pillar). More compelling was Es Erhub Sich Ein Streit, (‘There Arose A War’, a Picander text which JSB used for his Cantata 19) in which a bass duet was accompanied by two trumpets, before the brilliant tutti of the final chorus.
Given that there were no less than four trumpets on hand, all valveless and without finger holes, they were bound to capture the spotlight – and thrilling they were.
Possibly Sebastian Knüpfer’s last work, written just before he died in 1676, was Die Turteltaube Lässt Sich Hören(‘The Voice Of The Turtle Dove Is Heard’). It made clever use of soloists across the choir, building towards a final chorus in which the trumpets truly blazed.
On either side of this, we heard both Pachelbel’s and Bach’s settings of Christ Lag In Todesbanden (‘Christ Lay In Death’s Bonds’), based on a Lutheran Easter hymn – not especially seasonal, but good pieces anyway.
Pachelbel omits trumpets and timpani from his version, but contrasts vigorous, optimistic choruses with lighter episodes. Bach’s more familiar setting was distinguished here by an exciting acceleration into and through the Alleluia of the opening chorus and a brisk fugal finale.
A Buxtehude sonata, spotlighting violin and viola da gamba, allowed a brief excursion northwards into Denmark. It all amounted to a delightful concoction characterised as “music of healing in a time of catastrophe”.
Best of all, there was never a feeling, from either trumpets or strings, that the use of authentic instruments was in any way detracting from our enjoyment. On the contrary, these on-the-sleeve sounds enhanced our pleasure.
Review byMartin Dreyer
Orlando Consort: Bidding farewell after 35 years
REVIEW: Orlando Consort, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 15
ORCHESTRAS may go on forever, but smaller groups tend to have a more limited life-span. The Orlando Consort has existed for no less than 35 years.
Astonishingly, two of its members have lasted the full course since 1988, tenor Angus Smith and baritone Donald Greig. Its other current members are countertenor Matthew Venner and tenor Mark Dobell, who took over from Robert Harre-Jones and Charles Daniels respectively.
Between them, these six have established the Orlando as a world-class ensemble. Now the group has decided to call it a day and will give its last performance in June. So this final appearance in York, where it has become a familiar visitor, was tinged with sadness.
A touch of nostalgia was in order and each of the singers in turn reminisced between groups about their experiences touring the world.
A seasonal start took us back to a Christmas trio from the Winchester Troper, whose earliest scribe began work around 1000 A.D. It included some fascinating stresses. A Machaut group from around 300 years later was more melismatic – multiple notes to a single syllable of text. A countertenor solo here was wonderfully expressive.
Before we embarked on a continental tour, two English composers gave a good account of themselves. An anonymous Credo from Fountains Abbey dating to the early 15th century was positively bouncy, especially in its upper two voices. John Plummer’s Anna Mater Matris Christi was delightfully studded with imitation between the parts, highlighting the two tenors.
The three lower voices delivered a nicely tongue-in-cheek farewell to the wines of Lannoy, while the three upper ones made the complications of Vergine Bella, also by Dufay, sound ridiculously easy.
The quartet was more full-throated in Hortus Conclusus by the Spaniard Rodrigo de Ceballos, but without endangering its smooth ensemble. Italy yielded the incredibly busy Plaude Decus Mundi by Cristoforo de Monte (early 15th century), again dispatched with cool panache.
The Flemish masters were kept back for the finale. Josquin’s imitative techniques depend on singers alive to where the shifting spotlight should fall among them. The Orlando did not disappoint: in two motets, one with refrain, the tension ebbed and flowed beautifully.
Nicolas Gombert’s Quam Pulchra Es, sung last, was the most intricate and varied piece of the evening. It was stunningly fresh, with interest revolving between the voices, no mean feat after a full programme sung without vibrato.
These singers have flown the flag for Britain with distinction in all corners of the globe. They deserve our wholehearted thanks. Any just society would deck them with medals. In the King’s next birthday honours perhaps? Let’s hope so.
La Palatine: “Building a happy hour around two important Italian visitors to Baroque Spain”
York Early Music Christmas Festival: La Palatine and Ensemble Augelletti, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 8 and 9
JUST as the nights turned chill, Early Music’s Christmas celebration in York blazed into life with two young groups determined to bring warmth. In their different ways, they succeeded.
La Palatine’s Fiesta Galante built a happy hour around two important Italian visitors to Baroque Spain, Domenico Scarlatti and Luigi Boccherini, framing them with lesser-known but equally talented locals.
Directed from the harpsichord by Guillaume Haldenwang, La Palatine’s complement includes soprano Marie Théoleyre, backed up by violin, cello and theorbo or guitar.
José de Nebra (1702-1768) is a name not as well known in this country as it should be, but he staged more than 50 zarzuela-style works in Madrid, while holding down a church job. His punchy rhythms reinforced by strumming were right up Théoleyre’s street, playing to the mezzo side of her voice.
In Nebra’s Que Contrario, Señor, which involved two arias, one song-like, one cheerful, Théoleyre delivered some tricky coloratura as she ornamented repeats, and her colleagues backed her to the hilt, especially violinist Murielle Pfister, who sometimes doubled her line.
Her style was less idiomatic, although equally fiery, in two higher-lying arias by Scarlatti, where she tended to fly off onto top notes without covering the tone.
More restrained was a trio sonata by Jose Herrando, although sunshine quickly re-emerged with Jeremy Nastasi’s account of Santiago de Murcia’s rhapsodic Marizapalos for solo guitar, which bordered on flamenco by the end. In such solo pieces, Nastasi would do well to face his audience so that his sound projects better into the audience.
A Boccherini cello sonata elicited much tricky double-stopping, which Cyril Poulet despatched briskly, especially in its central military allegro. A keyboard sonata by Scarlatti, K.144 in G (of no less than 555 that he wrote), enjoyed a smooth line at the hands of Haldenwang amid numerous deceptive cadences. A Spanish encore brought the full ensemble back into joyous life. More of that, please: it suits you perfectly.
Ensemble Augelletti: “A group whose enthusiasm is infectious”
The following evening saw Ensemble Augelletti, another quintet although all instrumental, take the stage in Pick A Card!, which highlighted some historical playing cards in the British Museum collection.
These were shown on a back-screen. They were amusing enough, although the link with the group’s Baroque programme was sometimes tenuous.
Olwen Foulkes, who is a dab hand on a variety of recorders, is the prime mover and most dominant voice among the Augellettis. But equally important to the ensemble’s success is the highly intelligent cello of Carina Drury, whose every note is attuned to what is going on around her. Her phrasing is exemplary.
She was largely responsible for the success of Bach’s Trio Sonata in G major, BWV 1039, especially in the incredibly active bass line of the concluding Presto. Its earlier Allegro had also generated terrific momentum. It was the group’s crowning glory.
Two dances from Purcell semi-operas were beautifully shaped and there was special entertainment in hearing Geminiani base his Third Trio Sonata on the folk-tune The Last Time I Came O’er The Moor.
After Handel at his most effervescent in part of a trio sonata, it was good to hear the dancing shepherds’ Piva from Messiah. It was immediately followed by Corelli’s Christmas’ Concerto Grosso, Op 6 No 8, moving gracefully from its dark opening through excitement into its closing lullaby. This was exactly what the festival needed.
Along the way we had appreciated Ellen Bundy’s lithe violin and Johan Lofving’s deft theorbo, but we had not heard quite enough from the harpsichord of Benedict Williams. Even so, this is a group whose enthusiasm is infectious.
Review by Martin Dreyer
York Early Music Christmas Festival runs until December 16. Full details at: ncem.co.uk. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Late Music presents Gemini, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, December 3
NICOLAS LeFanu’s 75th birthday earlier this year was celebrated in fine style by one of our most distinguished and long-lived groups, Gemini, itself only a year short of its half-century. Two of her own works framed eight others, including one by her husband David Lumsdaine.
Gemini is a flexible ensemble led from the clarinet by Ian Mitchell. Here he was joined by a piano trio for the premiere of LeFanu’s appropriately titled Gemini Quartet, newly commissioned and written only this summer.
As an opener it was designed to reflect how we welcome others, in a dozen or so brief “bagatelles” (her word), some of only a few seconds. It charms with surprises, moving seamlessly between comfort and anguish, impressionism and rhythm, sometimes noisy, more often gentle, using the instruments in a variety of different groupings. Gemini delivered it with loving care. I could only have wished its 13 minutes had lasted longer.
At the end of the evening, more than two hours later, we heard her Piano Trio of 2003. Its single movement is rhapsodic, all its material developed from high harmonics and tremolos, which are soon amplified by a piano solo. It charts a fascinating course between nerviness and relaxation, the two moods changing between strings and piano, as dialogue influences their responses to one another.
As always with LeFanu, her orchestration is imaginative. It eventually reaches a harmonious conclusion, with trills in the piano as the strings disappear into the ether. Gemini interacted intuitively throughout.
Only a handful of the other works on the programme reached these levels. One of them was another premiere, David Lancaster’s Hell’s Bells Bagatelles, inspired by church bells, especially those of York Minster, and conceived over the last five years.
In his words, its five sections may reflect ecstasy or doom, but within those extremes his use of rhythm verges on dance most appealingly and pizzicato cleverly and regularly evokes the percussive ping of bells.
Lumsdaine’s Blue Upon Blue (1991), for unaccompanied cello, also fell pleasingly on the ear, combining slow melody with more urgent, un-tuned ‘commentary’ from wood, gut and hair, and transitioning between the two by means of glissandos. Sophie Harris teased out its essential lyricism with focused intensity.
Thomas Adès’s suite from his 2005 opera The Tempest was predictably clear-cut in its reactions to six Shakespearean scenarios, always with an ear to vocal characteristics in the four instruments.
Space forbids discussion of the other works, most of which fell into the category of vignettes. For the record they included two pieces without piano, Dorothy Ker’s Water Mountain (1999) and Blaze And Fall (2017) by Charlotte Bray, Martin Suckling’s Three Venus Haikus (2009), setting poetry by George Bruce, and two lockdown pieces for solo piano (Aleksander Szram) by Janet Graham, Church Blackbird and Advent Thoughts. All had something positive to offer.
But most of all we were reminded just how valuable an asset Nicola LeFanu is to York, Yorkshire and well beyond. Many happy returns!
Nicholas Carter: Musical director of the Micklegate Singers
Late Music presents Micklegate Singers, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviouragte, York, December 3
LATE Music’s latest double-header – two concerts in one day on the first Saturday of autumn and winter months – welcomed the Micklegate Singers under Nicholas Carter at mid-day.
They belong under the Late Music umbrella: they established a reputation early on, under their founder-director Dennis Freeborn, for tackling new and often challenging repertoire.
This one was seasonal, entitled And There Were Shepherds…, but wisely included several Renaissance pieces alongside some 20th century favourites and others on which the ink was barely dry, the most recent being a new commission from James Else enjoying its premiere.
The Road Of Evening is a setting of Walter de la Mare’s Nod, which speaks of an old shepherd and his dog, Slumber-soon, and by inference of God tending his flock through the ages. Its Christmas message is negligible, but Else’s modal evocation of serene solitude is effective, if without focusing on any one aspect of the poetry.
Another premiere came with Absence, a setting by Joe Bates of various texts taken from William Penn’s More Fruits Of Solitude. This was the second of three pieces commissioned by the Micklegates from student composers at the University of York.
Bates’s penchant for parallel fifths is reminiscent of Vaughan Williams, although his use of two texts in conjunction, one in female voices, one in male, is certainly unusual – but it works. Humming later contributes to a sense of resolution from the conflicts of life; again, not specifically seasonal, but offering imaginative food for thought.
There were four other 21st century pieces. Bob Chilcott’s moving setting of Clive Sansom’s The Shepherd’s Carol (2000) was smoothly atmospheric, while the angular lines and bouncy rhythms of Cecilia McDowall’s Now May We Singen (2008) were the best projected of the evening.
The climax of U A Fanthorpe’s stunning poem BC – AD was not quite captured by David Bednall’s chordal setting of 2013. More effectively meditative was Alexander L’Estrange’s Epiphany Carol of the same year.
A Jonathan Dove lullaby joined other established favourites by Holst, Leighton, Poulenc and Richard Rodney Bennett, whose sensitivity to words was especially notable. The three Renaissance pieces, healthy reminders of a 500-year tradition of Christmas music, were by Palestrina, Lassus and Dering, all keenly negotiated.
The Micklegates tended to go easy on their diction in slower numbers, but in general we should rejoice that they are back from lockdown in fine fettle.
