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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on York Chamber Music Festival, Day One

Alasdair Beatson: “The day had been Beatson’s”

Day 1 of York Chamber Music Festival, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel and National Centre for Early Music, York, September 16

WITH five concerts packed into three days, the festival opened on Friday lunchtime with founder, artistic director and cellist Tim Lowe partnered by pianist Alasdair Beatson, in the welcoming acoustic of the St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel. Cello sonatas by Beethoven and Richard Strauss framed three sketches by Ernest Bloch.

Although his Op 102 No 1 in C major is theoretically speaking in five sections, Beethoven’s Fourth Cello Sonata is built entirely on four small motifs that occur in its opening two bars, heard on unaccompanied cello, a masterpiece of imaginative development. It should be played without a break, the single bar of pause at the end of the first Allegro vivace being integral to the whole.

It opened wistfully here, with tender dialogue, but Lowe brought a fiery approach to that first Allegro and Beatson was quick to reinforce it. There was a persistent restlessness, with an underlying anger in its staccato passages. Lowe did take a break after this, but only the one.

There was a brief calm in the Adagio, before a reminder of the opening. Then we were catapulted into a bouncy, cheerful finale, with crackerjack interjections stoking up the tension towards an emphatic ending. It all benefited immensely from the duo’s clear-sighted view of the terrain.

The three pieces which make up Bloch’s From Jewish Life (1924) made a pleasing palate-cleanser before the second main course. Predominantly in minor keys, they evoke the composer’s passion for his heritage. ‘Jewish Song’ came across as a lament here, while ‘Supplication’ was darker and more urgent. The closing ‘Prayer’ had major-key glints among the minor chords and ended on the dominant – what the Americans call a half-close – and offered hope, if with a question mark.

So to Richard Strauss, whose only Cello Sonata was completed in 1883 while he was still a teenager. There was excellent dialogue here at the start, even if it sounded as if it had come from the pen of Mendelssohn at first and then Schumann.

The acceleration in the coda was finely handled. The Andante had the feel of a funeral march, with long yearning lines; it ended with two pizzicato chords that really struck home. The finale came as an antidote, cheery and highly rhythmic, with one descending theme that reappeared in various guises. Lowe and Beatson make a good team, well matched.

The evening, at the National Centre for Early Music, featured a Haydn string quartet, a Sibelius string trio movement and a Brahms string sextet. Jonathan Stone took the leader’s chair for Haydn’s Op 76 No 2 in D minor (‘Fifths’) and brought to the opening movement a fieriness that sounded like a hangover from the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) movement of the 1770s. It was all the better for that.

His passagework as the decorations of the Andante developed was finely judged. The pianissimo in the trio amid the crudity of the Witches’ Minuet in canon made a nice touch. Haydn’s markings in the folk-influenced finale were obeyed to the letter. This was Haydn played straight, unfussy, direct and extremely neat.

The Lento from Sibelius’s unfinished String Trio in G minor is a lot more effective than its title might suggest. It was given a passionate, strongly accented reading by Tristan Gurney, Scott Dickinson and Marie Bitlloch, violin, viola and cello respectively. Its intensity rarely slackened, putting it on a par with Barber’s Adagio in that respect. Even when it turned to the major key it was hardly calmer – except at the very end where the chording was detached and very quiet.

Dickinson played Huw Watkins’s Absence eloquently after the interval, a brief reminder of what we are mourning. Then all the strings gathered for this festival launched into Brahms’s First Sextet, Op 18 in B flat. The opening was as burnished and autumnal as one could possibly wish, reaching a peak with the beautiful enunciation of its second theme by Bitlloch, here playing first cello.

The pizzicato in the coda was especially fine. The lower voices were to the fore in the ground-bass Andante, a throw-back to earlier times typical of the composer. As if in homage, the top four voices played with virtually no vibrato, sounding like viols.

The second half of the sextet was not quite so persuasive. The scherzo’s tempo was brisk enough and it moved smoothly into the trio. There was plenty of bonhomie, too, in the Rondo, even if its bursts of energy sounded a little routine. It was all tastefully done, however, and one had to marvel at how closely these musicians interacted.                                                                                                                                     

Review by Martin Dreyer

Jonathan Stone: “Violin leading the way”

REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on York Chamber Music Festival, Day Two

Day Two of York Chamber Music Festival, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel and Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, September 17

THE second day focused around Alasdair Beatson, a pianist at the top of his game. His satisfying solo recital at lunchtime in the Unitarian Chapel drew on lighter works by Schubert, Ravel and Schumann.

Schubert wrote dances copiously for Viennese society and foremost among his over 130 waltzes are the Valses Nobles and the Valses Sentimentales (his own French titles). They are charmingly distinct and larded with cheery tunes.

In the first-named set, D.969 (1827), Beatson was brisk and bubbly in turn, taking care to accent the second beat when what we really had was a mazurka. Notable among them was
the high-lying No 4, which twinkled star-like, and a majestic No 9 in A minor. All that was lacking was that final touch of Viennoiserie.

Ravel avowedly based his own Valses Nobles et Sentimentales (1911) around Schubert’s models. They emerged with unexpected clarity, despite occasional fierce cross-rhythms and the busy fin de siècle atmosphere of No 4, which seemed to presage La Valse in its piano duet version. Beatson toned down opportunities for rubato.

Faschingsschwank Aus Wien (Carnival Jest From Vienna) was the ripest fruit to emerge from Schumann’s winter in that city (1838-9). He described it as a romantic showpiece, but it is essentially a fantasia in five unbroken movements. Beatson opened with immense panache, but found a touching lightness for the minor-key Romance that follows.

He smoothly negotiated the Scherzino’s witty key-changes and made an extended song of the succeeding Intermezzo.

The finale, which Schumann added after his return to Leipzig, is marked vivacissimo and is a serious test of any player’s virtuosity. But it proved no hurdle for Beatson’s lithe technique.

He was back less than six hours later at the Lyons Concert Hall, this time in a supporting role. Solo pianists rarely make equally good accompanists; Beatson is the exception that proves the rule. He was unfailingly witty and alert in piano quartets by Beethoven and Dvořák, which followed a string sextet by Boccherini.

There was more than a hint of menace in the slow opening of Beethoven’s E flat quartet, Op 16, itself a transcription from a quintet for piano and winds, its piano part unaltered. But it was quickly dispelled in the Allegro.

A sense of mystery briefly returned in the development section. But good humour returned in the coda, not least when Beethoven seemed to take a ‘wrong turn’. Beatson milked
the ensuing break – a potential cadenza – for a fraction longer than marked. It was hilarious.

The two minor-key episodes in the slow rondo were soulful indeed, before a quietly meditative coda. Beatson was the epitome of delicacy here. The final rondo was a romp with a touch of hunting-field drama at its centre.

Dvorak’s Second Piano Quartet, Op 87 in E flat, is a supremely confident work. With Jonathan Stone’s violin leading the way, the Allegro’s development section became highly theatrical, presaging a huge climax just before the end.

Tim Lowe’s moving cello set the tone at the start of the slow movement, Stone emulating him in the minor section. Sarah-Jane Bradley’s watchful viola provided the harmonic
meat in the sandwich.

Encouraged by Beatson’s impish piano, the waltz that followed was close to flippant, smiles on all the players’ faces, until the finale’s jollity took us into the heart of Bohemia (where
it was written).

Boccherini was the father of the string sextet, but is rarely appreciated as such, so it was salutary to hear his Op 23 No 5 in F minor at the start of the evening. Tristan Gurney was in the leader’s chair here and duetted charmingly with his violin colleague Jonathan Stone in an opening movement that was light and lively, even if the cello roles at this point were mainly perfunctory. There was plenty of rhythmic interest in the minuet.

Pathos only really arrived with the mournful Grave assai, which was surprisingly
chromatic. Constantly shifting groupings in the finale revealed the composer at his best and were smoothly negotiated. It was a neat historical sidelight. But the day had been Beatson’s.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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Fifty years on from first making his mark at York Theatre Royal, Richard Digby Day reflects on a life in the changing arts world

Richard Digby Day: Theatre director, professor and lecturer

RICHARD Digby Day, artistic director of York Theatre Royal from 1971 to 1976, will talk about his life and work in the theatre world at a fundraising event there tonight at 7pm.

Now 80, this esteemed stage director, international professor and lecturer in Britain and the United States is credited with discovering actors Hugh Grant and Ralph Fiennes in a career where he served as artistic director of Bournemouth Theatre Company, New Shakespeare Company at Regents Park Open Air Theatre, Welsh National Theatre Company, Nottingham Playhouse and Northcott Theatre, Exeter.

He is well-known for his work in classical theatre, notably the plays of William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. He is vice president of the Shaw Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and has staged more productions of Shaw’s work than any other living director.

Richard is noted for his productions of Stephen Sondheim musicals too, and his work has been seen in the West End and on tour extensively throughout the UK, Canada, Denmark and Ireland. 

He has worked with many of the theatre greats, not least bringing Dame Judi Dench to the Theatre Royal stage, and he is a contemporary of Sir Ian McKellen, the two having begun their professional careers working on many of the same productions with Digby Day serving as assistant director.

He came back to York three times to direct waggon plays from the York Mystery Plays with the York Settlement Community Players for the Merchant Adventurers’ Guild, presenting The Last Judgement  in 1998, 2002 and 2006. “The last one was the most modern, and I wouldn’t have done it twice more after the first time if it wasn’t so rewarding,” he says.

“There was a great stock of actors, like Ruth Ford, who was not just a wonderful actor but a wonderful person.”

Now Richard returns to the city for 50 Years On: Richard Digby Day In Conversation in the Theatre Royal Studio tonight when creative director Juliet Forster will host the event to raise funds to support ongoing work at the St Leonard’s Place theatre.

“I look back on my days as York Theatre Royal as a time of great excitement, a very good time,” says Richard. “What those days meant to my career and showed to other people was that I could run a theatre, because I was not just the artistic director but also director of the whole thing. I really had the final say in relation to whatever the board wanted.

“I was thinking about this, how the Sixties and Seventies were a wonderful time for the theatre in a way that has not been replicated since. I was in the right place at the right time, as I was at Exeter too. I’d just finished working for the Welsh National Theatre Company at the Casson Studio, in a very rough street in Cardiff: Ruby Street in Splott. I’d founded the company and started it but couldn’t cope with the Welsh politics, so I left.”

What happened next? “There was as an advertisement in The Stage saying York Theatre Royal was looking for a new artistic director, when Donald Bodley was leaving, having made that wonderful addition to the building [the foyer],” Richard recalls.

“I was interviewed in September 1971 and all the candidates were told to hang around…and then it was announced that I’d got the job, in front of all these disappointed-looking other people.”

Richard can reel off the productions that came thick and fast under his artistic direction: “We did The Circle, by Somerset Maugham, starring Jessie Matthews, who appeared twice in the first year. In York Minster was Murder In The Cathedral by T S Eliot, and because there was no studio at the Theatre Royal at that time, we did two plays at York Arts Centre [in Micklegate], Tiny Alice by Edward Albee and Old Times by Harold Pinter. There was an extraordinary range of performances going on,” he says.

“That’s the difference when you compare it with today’s theatre. That time was the flowering of theatre, whereas today money is short and very rarely do actors stay together for more than one play.”

More work comes to Richard’s mind. “We did some work at the University of York; two plays in the De Grey Rooms and a whole series of poetry readings at York Art Gallery,” he says.

He settled in quickly. “York Theatre Royal was well set up: long before I arrived there, it was a working regional theatre with its wardrobe and carpentry departments, and York always tended to have actors that stayed for more than one production,” he says.

“For the second season in Spring 1973, Phyllis Calvert [the English film actress], who’d been in the company before the Second World War, began a long association with me directing her in five plays. The first Shakespeare I did here was The Tempest, in association with the New Shakespeare Company at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, in London, where I was artistic director for a long time.

“A city without the arts will never be a complete place,” says Richard Digby Day

“We had Michael Dennison playing Prospero, and the production began in York, went on a little tour,  then played Regents Park.”

Judi Dench would return to her home city with Michael Williams to appear in a new play, Content To Whisper, adapted by television writer Alan Melville from a French work. “I can tell you this now, because Judi and I often laugh about it: we knew on the first day of rehearsals that we shouldn’t be doing it, but we did the best we could with it and it packed the theatre! I don’t know if people liked it or not, but they were just content to see Judi back home,” says Richard.

“Looking back, I was able to do a lot of interesting productions and the seasons were a lot more classically based than they are now: Strindberg, Ibsen, Chekhov, but a lot of modern plays too, like the first out-of-London production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus. The National Theatre offered us the rights for it, so we said yes, and then followed it with Hamlet, starring the Scarborough-born Frank Barrie as Hamlet.

“That was the third time I’d directed Hamlet and the nearest one I felt to getting it right. Frank’s father died in the middle of the run and he had to keep going, with all that connection with Hamlet’s father dying.”

Just as Damian Cruden would do later during his 22-year tenure as artistic director, Richard enjoyed using the theatre space in different ways. “We had all the seats taken out and did a promenade production of The Two Noble Kinsmen [Shakespeare’s play co-written with John Fletcher]: the first time it had been done for many years, for York Festival in 1973,” he says.

“In my last season, we had seven plays by Samuel Beckett to celebrate his 70th birthday and we did them on the stage with the safety curtain down and the audience seated on the stage too, and we did this in a repertory season where we closed the main-house auditorium one night a week for the Beckett plays.”

Typical of Richard enjoying the challenge of “making theatre in places that aren’t necessarily theatres” was his production of Ibsen’s Little Eyolf in the Assembly Rooms, “I had the belief that wherever there was an audience, wherever there were actors, that could be a theatre,” he says.

As he heads back to York once more, where he once lived on Tadcaster Road in a “dear little cottage and courtyard” overlooking the racecourse, Richard says: “The city has provided many memories, 50 years of history, but it’s not the place I came to in 1971. I don’t say it in an entirely negative way but any city that has its manufacturing heart taken away can never be as interesting as it was.

“I used to get up at six in the morning and walk down to the shop to buy a paper, and you would see all these workers bicycling to work. You could smell that work. I find what’s happened to Britain so sad, though of course York has so many attractions that it’s made an industry out of tourism.

“There were always tourists but it was completely a working, industrial city, where under all that history was the industry that was supporting it.”

From 1980 to 1984, Richard was at the helm of Nottingham Playhouse. “That was not a happy time,” he says. “I would have to say that Mrs Thatcher interfered in the arts. In particular, William Rees Mogg wrote a ghastly report on the arts when he was made chairman of the Arts Council: a most unsuitable person for the post.

“It was not an easy period and eventually I thought, ‘I just don’t want to go on running a theatre’, so I left and I’ve never really run a theatre since then, but I’ve done lots of other things, like being the director of the National Theatre Institute, in Waterford, in Connecticut, for eight years.”

Richard directed plays aplenty at the Lyric in Belfast. “It was at the height of the troubles, which was a very interesting experience,” he says. “Where I was staying, one night the windows were shattered by an explosion nearby, but on the whole, you learned to get on with things and not be distracted by the divisions.”

Richard has directed star names in one-person shows, from Edward Fox to Eileen Atkins, Margaret Wolfit to Geraldine McEwan. “Most recently, Eileen Atkins put me in touch with Dame Joan Plowright for a show where I interviewed her:  it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know a wonderful person, doing the shows at the National Theatre and Chichester,” he says.

Reflecting on the contrast between now and 50 years ago, Richard says: “Theatre is not funded properly, with very few exceptions. The most worrying thing is the lack of performances of classic plays, and often when they’re done now, they’re very badly spoken, even at places where there’s no excuse, like the Royal Shakespeare Company.

“By comparison with Peter Hall’s days, what the National Theatre is doing now is not what it should be. So, I am concerned. I say this as an old man, but one who tries try not to have too many set ideas, but if you look at the list of what was playing in the West End 30 years ago and what’s on there now, I’m deeply concerned.”

His passion for theatre, his conviction in its importance, remains unbowed, however. “A city without the arts will never be a complete place,” he says.

50 Years On: Richard Digby Day In Conversation, York Theatre Royal Studio, tonight at 7pm. Tickets cost £20 plus an optional additional donation to York Theatre Royal. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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National Centre for Early Music launches new season of diverse musical adventures, films and festivals led off by Making Tracks

Jean Toussaint: Performing with his jazz quintet at the NCEM tomorrow

THE National Centre for Early Music’s autumn season of jazz, folk, global and early music and films opens today with the return of Making Tracks at St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York.

First set up by a network of British venues in 2010 and re-launched in 2019, the project selects young world music professionals, bringing them together for a two-week residency and national tour designed to reach across social, cultural and geographical divides and to foster a deeper appreciation of musical and cultural diversity.

Eight musicians will be performing as soloists and collaboratively. In the line-up will be oud player Alaa Zouiten, from Morocco/Germany; Swedish fiddler Anna Ekborg; Scottish lever harpist and composer Lucie Hendry, based in Denmark, and Scottish Highlands smallpipes, whistle, pedals and fiddle player, composer, instrument maker, educator and musical director Malin Lewis.

So too will Cherif Soumano, the rising star of the kora from Mali, now living in Paris; Leeds folk singer, folklore songwriter, guitarist and shruti box player Iona Lane; Iranian-born tar, setar and daf player and vocalist Shabab Azinmehr, from Belgium, and Ranjana Ghatak, a London singer, composer and tanpura player embedded in the classical and devotional Hindustani vocal tradition, who is also part of the Yorkston/Thorne/Ghatak trio with James Yorkston and Jon Thorne.

As part of their residency, the Making Tracks musicians also will be hosting a free music workshop for young people.

Saxophonist Jean Toussaint, who came to prominence in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1982 and moved to London in 1987, will be showcasing his latest album tomorrow.

Songs For Sisters Brothers And Others reflects on the turbulent Covid-19 years. “The pandemic caused me to focus on the fragility of life and the fact we’re here one moment and gone the next,” he says of penning songs as a “tribute to my wonderful siblings while they were still around to enjoy it”.

Zoe Rahman: Giving a foretaste of her 2023 album on November 9

Joining him in his quintet in York will be Freddie Gavita, trumpet, Jonathan Gee, piano, Conor Murray, bass, and Shane Forbes, drums.

THE NCEM is offering a reduced ticket price for those who book simultaneously for Toussaint’s gig and the Zoe Rahman Trio’s NCEM debut on November 9, when the exuberant British/Bengali pianist and composer steeped in jazz and classical music will be introducing compositions from her forthcoming album, set for release next year.

Rahman has worked with George Mraz, Courtney Pine and Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra music and won the Ivor Novello Impact Award at the 2021 Ivors Composer Awards, a MOBO award and British Jazz Award and has been nominated for the Mercury Prize. In York, she will be performing with Gene Calderazzo on drums and Andrea Di Biase on bass and will be working with York Music Forum too.

Fresh from the BBC Proms, Welsh harpist Catriona Finch teams up once more with Senegalese kora specialist Seckou Keita on Saturday in their multi-award-winning duo to mark May’s release of their third album, Echo, on Rough Trade.

Combining classical and folk, traditional and contemporary, Finch and Keita’s tender musical alliance explores different cultures and shared humanity “as their fingers flow like opposing tributaries into a single river of sound”.

The folk programme takes in co-promotions with the Black Swan Folk Club for Irish singer and bouzouki player Daoirí (pronounced ‘Derry’) Farrell, performing songs from album True Born Irishman and A Lifetime Of Happiness, on October 12 and performers and authors John Watterson (aka Fake Thackray) and Paul Thompson presenting Beware Of The Bull, The Enigmatic Genius Of Jake Thackray on October 28 at 8pm.

They will be combining humorous Thackray songs with stories of the late Jake in the wake of publishing their biography charting the life of the Leeds topical comedy songwriter, poet and journalist.

Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita: Welsh harp and Senegalese kora

THE NCEM’s own folk promotions will be led off by Scottish multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer John McCusker & Friends on November 2, after the former Battlefield Band fledgling marked his 30th anniversary as a professional musician by releasing his Best Of compilation from solo records and television and film soundtracks in 2021.

Lady Maisery, the innovative award-winning English vocal harmony trio of Hazel Askew, Hannah James and Rowan Rheingans, play on November 16.

All composers and multi-instrumentalists in their own right, they perform intelligent and thoughtful folk arrangements of both trad repertoire and original compositions, whether unearthing a feminist twist hidden in a traditional tale, delivering a poignant anti-war ballad or drawing on myriad influences in their own songs.

On December 2, The Furrow Collective ­– Lucy Farrell viola, saw, voice, Rachel Newton, harp, fiddle, voice, Emily Portman, banjo, concertina, voice, and Alasdair Roberts guitars, voice – present Winter Nights, a spine-tingling evening of harmony and storytelling, bringing light into the wintry gloom.

On December 17, Green Matthews evoke the spirit of Christmas past in Gaudete, spanning 600 years of music that brings the festive season to life in a riot of sound and colour. In the line-up are Chris Green and Sophie Matthews, cittern, English border bagpipes, shawm, guitar, flute and piano accordion; Chris Matthews and Emily Baines, woodwinds, and Richard Baines, violin.

Bookers for any two of Lady Maisery, The Furrow Collective and Green Matthews will receive a £5 discount; book all three for an £8 saving.

The NCEM’s Family Friendly show “for a while” presents Mish Mash Productions in a return to York with Strange Creatures, a musical adventure for children aged four to seven and families alike, on Sunday, October 16 at 1.30pm and 3pm.

Lady Maisery: English vocal harmonies on November 16

Violin, viola and cello combine to create a magical world inspired by the book Beegu, written and illustrated by Alexis Deacon and performed by arrangement with Penguin Random House.

On the film front, Victor Sjöström’s 1921 Swedish silent movie The Phantom Carriage will be shown with live musical accompaniment on October 26 as part of York Ghost Week 2022.

In this 100-minute Dickensian ghost story and deeply moving drama that inspired a 12-year-old Ingmar Bergman to make films, the last person to die before the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve is doomed to ride Death’s carriage, collecting souls for the year ahead.

This eerie and innovative Swedish classic also was a showcase for ground-breaking special effects as well as haunting visuals, now to be complemented by the spontaneous performance of Frame Ensemble, a quartet of northern musicians – Irine Røsnes, violin, Liz Hanks, cello, Trevor Bartlett, percussion, and Jonny Best, piano, specialising in improvised silent film.

The Aesthetica Short Film Festival will be returning to the NCEM during its November 1 to 6 run, showcasing 300 films in a celebration of independent cinema that connects audiences through powerful storytelling.

The international festival spans comedies to dramas, immersive virtual realities to family-friendly animations, alongside masterclasses.

The NCEM may be the National Centre for Early Music but its brief under director Delma Tomlin is far broader. Three examples are Singlr An Appera on October 23 at 8pm, klezmer and Balkan band She’Koyokh on October 30 at 6.30pm and Manasamitra’s Slumber Stories and Dusk Notes on November 11 at 5pm and 7.30pm respectively.

She’Koyokh: Klezmer and Balkan band from London

Organised by Lydia Cottrell of SLAP, Loré Lixenberg’s Singlr An Appera is a dreamlike musical evening in the Singlr salon where ambient electronic tracks and live musicians accompany the vocalised conversations of the Singlr app participants.   

London’s international seven-piece klezmer and Balkan band She’Koyokh will be presenting Klezmer With Nightingales, a night of energetic klezmer combined with ancient Sephardic songs, reflecting the diversity of Jewish heritages, the history of migration and the musical integration that has taken place across Europe and beyond over hundreds of years.

In the band are Çiğdem Aslan, vocals, Susi Evans, clarinet, Meg Hamilton, violin, Matt Bacon, guitars, Živorad Nikolić, accordion, Paul Moylan, double bass, and Christina Borgenstierna, percussion.

In Leeds-based Manasamitra’s Slumber Stories, stories from around the world swirl together with semi-improvised music to create the background to a restful, rejuvenating and meditative rest-time story ritual for adults and children alike.

For Dusk Notes, vocalist Supriya Nagarajan and musician and soundscape artist Duncan Chapman unite with designer Pritpal Ajimal in a spiritual work that speaks to the Hindu gods, particularly Krishna, the god of compassion, tenderness and love.

Combining songs whose melodies date back to the 2nd and 3rd century, Dusk Notes has ragas to suit the mood of a mellow winter evening at the time of twilight just before the sun goes down.

Early music enthusiasts should look out for the young Spanish instrumental group El Gran Teatro del Mundo, who head to the NCEM on November 20 at 6.30pm after a week-long debut British tour. These rising stars of the EEEmerging programme promise a sparkling concert of 17th and 18th century works by Vivaldi, Telemann and Fasch.

Leveret: Springing into spontaneous action next March

Organised by the NCEM, the 2022 York Early Music Festival’s run from December 8 to 17 features such guest artists as Solomon’s Knot, the Orlando Consort and Bojan Cicic. Full details can be found at ncem.co.uk/yemcf.

Still on the Christmas theme, The York Waits – Tim Bayley, Lizzie Gutteridge, Anna Marshall, Susan Marshall, William Marshall and singer Deborah Catterall – focus on The Mirth & Melody Of Angels, Music for Christmas and The Festive Season from Medieval and Renaissance Europe, as they celebrate the 45th anniversary of their re-creation of York’s historic city band, on December 20.

Booked into the diary for 2023 already are two folk nights: The Rheingans Sisters on March 3 and Leveret on March 15. Book for both concerts by October 31 to save £5.

The Rheingans Sisters make playful, powerful music that is contemporary yet deeply anchored in folk traditions, performed on myriad instruments, many made by their luthier father. Nominated for Best Duo/Group at the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, in 2020 they released their fourth album, Receiver.

Leveret brings together three of England’s finest folk musicians, fiddle player Sam Sweeney, button accordionist Andy Cutting and concertina player Rob Harbron, whose natural, relaxed musicianship is not arranged in the conventional sense. Instead, they rely on mutual trust and spontaneous musical interaction to create new settings of their repertoire in the moment, with no two performances ever alike.

The NCEM is supported by City of York Council, Make it York, Arts Council England, Creative Europe and Mayfield Valley Arts Trust.

All concerts start at 7.30pm unless stated otherwise. Tickets can be booked on 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk.

Spanish ensemble El Gran Teatro del Mundo to play York as finale to first UK tour promoted by NCEM in November

El Gran Teatro del Mundo: First UK tour concludes at NCEM in York

SPANISH baroque ensemble El Gran Teatro del Mundo will embark on their debut British tour in November, organised by the National Centre for Early Music, York, in its first venture as promoters.

The tour is supported by the Creative Europe EEEmerging+ programme [whose bridge-building work concludes next summer alas] and the Ministry of Culture of Spain through INAEM, the National Institute for Performing Arts and Music.

Winners of the Diapason d’Or for their first album, Die Lullisten, the six-piece ensemble previously won the Cambridge Early Music Prize at the 2019 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition.

The ensemble comprises Claudio Rado, violín, Michael Form, recorders, Miriam Jorde, oboe,
Bruno Hurtado, cello, Jonas Nordberg, archlute, and director Julio Caballero, harpsichord.

Rising stars of the EEEmerging+ programme, El Gran Teatro del Mundo have performed at prestigious venues and festivals all over Europe, such as: Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht; Festtage Alter Musik Basel; Musikinstrumentenmuseum Berlin; Musica Antica Urbino; Festival d’Ambronay; Centro Botìn Santander; the Riga Early Music Festival and the Festival Baroque de Tarantaise in France.

Specialising in music from the 17th and 18th centuries played on oboe, recorders, cello, theorbo and harpsichord, the ensemble will celebrate the genius of Vivaldi, Telemann and Fasch in a tour programme of work entitled The Art Of Conversation.

“We are delighted to be initiating this exciting UK tour,” says NCEM director Delma Tomlin

El Gran Teatro del Mundo will appear at St John Smith’s Square, London, November 14; Turner Sims Concert Hall, University of Southampton, November 15; Cambridge Early Music, November 16; Lakeside Arts, Nottingham, November 17, and St George’s, Bristol, November 18. The grand finale, at the NCEM on November 20, will be filmed.

El Gran Teatro del Mundo say: “The 2019 York Early Music competition was a wonderful experience for us and we were really looking forward to coming back to the UK. After a very long wait, we can finally share with the British public the wide range of emotions and feelings that our energetic programme conveys. 

“We are especially grateful to the NCEM for their support and dedication in making this tour possible. We are working to make it a great artistic and human experience for everyone.”

NCEM director Delma Tomlin says: “We are delighted to be initiating this exciting UK tour and to work with promoters from across the country as we welcome this impressive young instrumental group.

“We first welcomed El Gran Teatro del Mundo to York in 2019 when they took part in the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition.  We were impressed with their talent and artistry, and they have continued to go from strength to strength, recently winning the coveted Diapason d’Or. 

“This is the first chance to invite them post-Covid restrictions, and we can’t wait for them to return to the NCEM this autumn.”

Tickets for the 6.30pm York concert are on sale on 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk.

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Micklegate and Fossgate Social dig digital media in Foto/Grafic’s Human After All show

Flourish, by Bobbi Rae

TWO sister York bars that “show a bit of art every now and then championing local and innovative creativity” are present Foto/Grafic’s group show until November 27.

On show at Micklegate Social, Micklegate, and Fossgate Social, Fossgate, Human After All features digital-media artwork by fledgling artists in celebration of their “leap from physical earthbound creations to the stratosphere of the unlimited digital toolbox”.

The bars’ exhibition organiser, Guadalupe Gómez Montoya, says: “For this exhibition, we’ve brought together young graphic designers, film animators and digital artists in their early careers with distinct aesthetics but a similar way of creating their art.

Brain Storm, screen print, by Adam Pointer

“Even though the techniques might have developed and adapted to the type of culture we live in, we are still human: the themes, ideas and art we consume come from the same feelings, thoughts and people.”

Yorkshire “one-woman show” Bobbi Rae is a designer and maker who aims to bring joy to all ages. “You’ll usually find her drawing away in her studio, out painting a mural, or at one of the many independent art markets in and around Leeds,” says Guada. 
 
Bobbi studied textile design at Leeds University and worked in graphic design for a few years before graduating with a first-class MA in 2017. She has since worked with heaps of Yorkshire and national clients and presented her work at exhibitions around the UK. To find out more, head to portfolio.bobbirae.co.uk or visit her shop at bobbirae.co.uk.

Artwork by Ale Anguita in the Human After All exhibition

Artist and designer Adam Pointer lives and works in Newcastle, where his work takes a playful look inside the mind, “capturing the manic anxiety, shifting emotion and colourful chaos that lies within”. Dig deeper at adampointer.com or via Instagram, @adampointerart.

Ale Anguita, a Madrid animator now based in London, graduated in 2015 in Fine Arts at Madrid Complutense University and did an MA in Character Animation at Central St Martins, London, leading to work on several big projects, such as with the London Royal Opera House. Visit her on Instagram @alexanguita_art to discover what she is working on.

Aaron Whitaker, a designer, illustrator and photographer from the Endless Collective and a DJ to boot, likes to explore “the creatures that live under the rock of consciousness and out of time’s set momentum”. Check out his design artwork on Instagram at @northern_palm_trees and @endlessvisual.

Aaron Whitaker: Exhibiting in Foto/Grafic’s Human After All show
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Paul French’s lessons in Shakespeare start with All’s Well That Ends Well and end well with York Shakespeare Project’s finale

Paul French’s Prospero, right, with Effie Warboys’ Miranda and Jacob Ward’s Ferdinand in York Shakespeare Project’s The Tempest. Picture: John Saunders

PAUL French first performed in a Shakespeare play in his York Shakespeare Project debut in All’s Well That Ends Well in 2014.

By 2016, he was playing Lear in King Lear and now is the lead once more, cast as Prospero in The Tempest, in YSP’s climax to performing all 37 Shakespeare plays in 20 years, concluding at York Theatre Royal tonight.

“I’d never done any Shakespeare until 2014, so it was an amazing development for me,” he says. “I didn’t start acting until my early forties, then I moved up here, and I had no idea I would like doing Shakespeare until I did it.

“I had a family and job but now I’ve retired, though it’s been a slow process with doing theatre, after doing a job that gave me the flexibility to do the York Mystery Plays [in York Minster] in 2016, and it just so happened that Ben Prusiner, from that production, was directing Lear, and then I did Volpone with Ben’s own company [Re:Verse Theatre].

Paul French’s Lear and Charlotte Wood’s Cordelia in Ben Prusiner’s King Lear in 2016. Picture John Saunders

“It’s all been pretty fortuitous. None of it was planned. My wife is now asking, ‘is this going to be your last Shakespeare?’, and I say, ‘I don’t know’, because I didn’t know I’d ever do one, but I love it, especially the rehearsals.”

Over the past few years, Paul has attended acting classes to develop his skills further and done films to diversify his craft too. Everything helps towards playing such a demanding role as Prospero.

“I remember when I did All’s Well That Ends Well, playing the king, which is not a huge part, saying to a fellow actor, ‘I’d love to do Lear and I’d love to do Prospero’, and you think, ‘how will that work out, with all the people who can do it?’, and yet here we are now, with all these blessed words to get out of my head!” says Paul.

He has enjoyed that experience. “It’s been very interesting to develop Prospero from having first read the play and having ideas of what he’s about and then exploring it. It’s a pleasure working with the other actors, starting with the huge scene with Miranda [Effie Warboys], setting up the story,” he says.

Paul French’s Prospero and Effie Warboys’ Miranda in rehearsal for Philip Parr’s production of The Tempest. Picture: John Saunders

“It’s fascinating how it all develops, and I now think Prospero is more like me than I first thought he was.”

Director Philip Parr chips in: “That’s sort of how it should work. The part should become greater than the actor by an alchemical process.”

Assessing the art of acting, Paul goes on to say: “Acting is reacting; acting is listening; acting is being in the moment.” Philip chips in again: “Acting is not acting!”

“I think it won’t happen with this cast, but with actors who are not experienced, there’s a tendency to not know how to react if the performance is suddenly different on one night,” says Paul. “But here, for The Tempest, we want it to be different, to just see what happens!”

York Shakespeare Project in The Tempest, York Theatre Royal, tonight (1/10/2022), 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond: The Mirror Crack’d and other cracking ideas. Hutch’s List No. 100, from The Press

On the case: Susie Blake’s bandaged Miss Marple and Oliver Boot’s Detective Inspector Craddock in the Original Theatre Company’s production of The Mirror Crack’d. Picture: Ali Wright

COINCIDING with Miss Marple’s arrival, Charles Hutchinson  applies his investigative skills to to pick out the best prospects to see, whether usual or unusual.  

Mystery of the week: Original Theatre Company in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday

SUSIE Blake’s Miss Marple, Sophie Ward and Joe McFadden lead the cast in Rachel Wagstaff’s stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1962 psychological thriller, a story of revenge and the dark secrets that we all hide.

In the sleepy village of St Mary Mead, a new housing estate is making villagers curious and fearful. Even stranger, a rich American film star has bought the Manor House. Cue a vicious murder; cue Jane Marple defying a sprained ankle to unravel a web of lies, tragedy and danger. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

On the move: Dance time for the Barbara Taylor School of Dancing at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Every body dance: It’s Dance Time 2022, Barbara Taylor School of Dancing, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, today, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

IT’S Dance Time is “a festival arrangement of dance, infused together to arrange a variety of dance styles”, featuring the whole Barbara Taylor School of Dancing intake.

From tiny toes to fully grown, this song-and- dance parade through the years takes in Commercial Ballet, Tap, and Freestyle Jazz, finishing off with excerpts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Bingham String Quartet: Playing the first Saturday evening concert of the new York Late Music season

Season launch of the week: York Late Music presents Jakob Fichert, today, 1pm, and Bingham String Quartet, today, 7.30pm, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, York

ON the first weekend of its 2022-2023 season, York Late Music returns with its regular format of a lunchtime and evening concert. First up, pianist Jakob Fichert marks the 75th birthday of American composer John Adams by performing his works China Gates and American Berserk.

Later, the Bingham String Quartet play string quartets by Beethoven, Schnittke, LeFanu and Tippett, preceded by a talk at 6.45pm by Steve Bingham with a complimentary glass of wine or juice. Tickets: latemusic.org or on the door.

Graham Norton: Discussing his darkly comic new novel, Forever Home, at York Theatre Royal

Novel event of the week:  An Evening With Graham Norton, York Theatre Royal, Monday, 7.30pm

BBC broadcaster, Virgin Radio presenter and novelist Graham Norton is on a promotional tour for his new book, Forever Home, published this week by Coronet. Set in a small Irish town, it revolves around divorced teacher Carol, whose second chance of love brings her unexpected connection, a shared home and a sense of belonging in a darkly comic story of coping with life’s extraordinary challenges.

In conversation with author and presenter Konnie Huq, Norton will discuss the novel’s themes and how he creates his characters and atmospheric locations, share tales from his career and reveal what inspired him to pick up a pen and start writing, with room for audience questions too. Tickets update: sold out; for returns only, check yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Sax to the max: Jean Toussaint leads his quintet at the NCEM

Jazz gig of the week: Jean Toussaint Quintet, National Centre for Early Music, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm

SAXOPHONIST Jean Toussaint, who came to prominence in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1982, after his Berklee College of Music studies in Boston, has released 12 albums since moving to London in 1987.

His latest, Songs For Sisters Brothers And Others, reflects on the turbulent Covid-19 years. “The pandemic caused me to focus on the fragility of life and the fact we’re here one moment and gone the next,” he says of penning songs as a “tribute to my wonderful siblings while they were still around to enjoy it”.

Joining him in York will be Freddie Gavita, trumpet, Jonathan Gee, piano, Conor Murray, bass, and Shane Forbes, drums. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Feel like dancing? Leo Sayer steps out at York Barbican on Friday

The rearranged show must go on: Leo Sayer, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm

DELAYED by the pandemic, Leo Sayer’s York show now forms part of a 2022 tour to mark his 50th anniversary in pop.

Sayer, 74, who lives in Australia, is back on home soil with his not-so-one-man band to perform a setlist sure to feature  One Man Band, Thunder In My Heart, Moonlighting, I Can’t Stop Loving You, More Than I Can Say, Have You Ever Been In Love, When I Need You, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing and, yes, The Show Must Go On. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Buzzing: Maisie Adam heads home for Harrogate Theatre gig. Picture: Matt Crockett

Homecoming of the week: Maisie Adam: Buzzed, Harrogate Theatre, October 8, 8pm

BORN in Pannal and former head girl at St Aidan’s in Harrogate, anecdotal stand-up Maisie Adam heads home next Saturday on her first full-scale British tour to discuss relationships, house plants, her footballing aplomb, hopefully her beloved Leeds United and that haircut, the one to rival David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane for multiple choices across one barnet.

Adam played her first gig at the Ilkley Literature Festival in 2016 and won the nationwide So You Think You’re Funny? Competition in 2017. Now she pops up on Mock The Week and Have I Got News and co-hosts the podcast That’s A First. She also plays Leeds City Varieties on Friday. Box office: Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

Digging the digital: The poster for Foto/Grafic’s Human After All digital-media exhibition at Fossgate Social and Micklegate Social

One exhibition, two locations: Foto/Grafic, Human After All, at Micklegate Social and Fossgate Social, York, today until November 27.

TWO sister bars that “show a bit of art every now and then championing local and innovative creativity” present Foto/Grafic’s group show from this weekend.

Human After All features digital-media artwork by young and early-career artists in celebration of their “leap from physical earthbound creations to the stratosphere of the unlimited digital toolbox”.

December Morning, by Judy Burnett

Exhibition launch of the week outside York: Judy Burnett, Time And Tide, Morten Gallery, High Street, Old Town, Bridlington, today until November 13; open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm

YORK artist Judy Burnett’s latest show of paintings and collages at Morten Gallery winds its way across the Wolds from the River Ouse in York to the sea.

Over time, water in all its forms has created the East Yorkshire landscape, firstly as a melting glacier at the end of the Ice Age, gouging out deep valleys and folds on its way down to the Vale of York.

The River Ouse then connects with other Yorkshire waterways to spill out into the North Sea at the mouth of the Humber and return on the tide to crash onto the cliffs of the Wolds coastline.

Judy lives by the Ouse in York, with a view from her studio window directly onto the riverbank, leading to the changing effects of light on moving water being an inspiration for her work. The colours and rhythms of the water alter with the weather, the time of day, the seasons and the frequent floods.

This interest in the luminosity and movement of water is also reflected in Judy’s many paintings of the Yorkshire coast, most particularly at Flamborough Head and Bridlington.

During the past year, she has made many trips across the Wolds, observing the rich tapestry of the countryside that links the river to the sea.

Her sketches are completed on-site in varying weather conditions. Back in the studio, they are developed in a range of media, utilising hand-printed collage paper and paint. The aim is to keep all the mark-making fresh and spontaneous, to echo the power of the elements at the time of observation.

 A Meet The Artist event will be held on October 22, from 1pm to 3pm, when “you are welcome to join us for a glass of wine and to enjoy the 30 pieces of work, together with Judy’s sketchbooks on display,” says gallery owner Jenny Morten.

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REVIEW: On the buses in John Godber’s Men Of The World, Harrogate Theatre ****

Paul Hawkyard, left, Robin Simpson and Janine Mellor as “the Beverley Sisters” in Men Of The World at Harrogate Theatre

HT Rep in Men Of The World, Harrogate Theatre/Phil & Ben Productions, at Harrogate Theatre tonight, 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk

WEEK three of HT Rep’s season of Three Plays, Three Weeks, One Cast marks the 20th anniversary of John Godber’s melancholic comedy road trip.

Mirroring the old repertory days of a company of actors taking on myriad roles in quick succession, Men Of The World takes that opportunity even further by having Paul Hawkyard, Robin Simpson and Janine Mellor play not only northern coach drivers Stick, Larry and Frankie but also everyone who hops on board.

Godber has them preparing for a mystery trip to Scarborough (ah, the mystery of Scarborough) , but this turns out to be trip down memory lane, in the nostalgic tradition of Godber’s Happy Jack and September In The Rain.

He has always liked to take people out of their comfort zone, to make them travel for new experiences, be they Bet and Al heading to the French capital in April In Paris, the skiing novices in On The Piste or ex-miner Don and teacher Carol on a quarrelsome tandem trip to Europe in Scary Bikers.

Last journey for Robin Simpson’s coach driver Larry…or not?

The difference here is that these are two men and one woman of the world are world-weary: Stick, Larry and Frankie have been there, done that, discarded the T-shirt. Their routes home and abroad are so familiar, the quirks of their passengers likewise, so much so, they have given them nicknames.

Yet Godber’s tone is one of compassion, wonder, whimsy and celebration as they recount the memorable trips that add up to “the small, often overlooked moments of magic in our lives”.

Director Amie Burns Walker and designer Geoff Gilder have given Men Of The World a somewhat abstract, even surrealist air, reminiscent of a circus or cabaret tent with striped tarpaulin, to either side of a white-lined road that climbs to the blue yonder. Bags of luggage and a step ladder complete the scene. Don’t take it too literally: this is theatre; this is performance; they are storytellers with a cabaret flourish.

Indeed, Hawkyard, Simpson and Mellor are so relaxed, so attuned to performing on the hoof in pantomime, that when they fluff the opening, they break theatre’s fourth wall, laugh about it and start again, spinning off and back on their carousel, forever carrying luggage.

Such is their comic craft that they can be on both sides of the story, looking in and taking part, and yet still they shock you on occasion: when Simpson’s heavy-smoking Larry, on the cusp of retirement, blows his big moment in clumsily chatting up Mellor’s Frankie after six years of working together, and later when veteran Larry and cocky Stick have their flare-up, recalling Lucky Eric and Judd’s showdown in Bouncers. For all the comedy, these two shuddering moments bring out the very best in the trio.

Paul Hawkyard’s contemptuous coach driver Stick

No matter where they go, Stick, Larry and Frankie and their passengers are forever English, northern, Yorkshire, their character not so much altered by their experiences but reaffirmed by them instead.

To go with the eye for the absurd, there is a bleakness to Men Of The World too, the shadow of approaching death, the third-age travels being accompanied by bellyaches and pains. That’s why the frustrated, even contemptuous Stick prefers taking young’uns to the Costa del Sol, whereas steady-away Larry is a romantic at heart, with his love of Mario Lanzo and affection for ordinary folk taking trips out of the ordinary in later life to rekindle something inside.

Frankie is the stoical, unflappable, wise one, not at a crossroads, unlike Larry, but going wherever life’s road may take her.

Godber’s way of catching characters just so, to make them recognisable yet more than caricatures, is brought to life in Simpson, Hawkyard and Mellor’s realisation of the passengers, from the Beverley Sisters (from Beverley) to the Marx Brothers (a funnier, gloomier Last Of The Summer Wine trio) and double acts Arsenic & Old Lace to Mack & Mabel. A flat cap, a scarf, a mannerism, is all it takes to evoke each character, like a sketch artist.

Godber, by the way, loved this production so much – “they really caught the decaying humanity,” he said – that he will be back, bringing his dad to a performance. No better recommendation required.

Bellyaches and pains: Robin Simpson, Janine Mellor and Paul Hawkyard as Yorkshire’s grouchy Marx Brothers, as played by coach drivers Larry, Frankie and Stick
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Two Matildas and two Miss Trunchbulls add up to double the schoolroom trouble in Pick Me Up Theatre’s unruly musical Matilda Jr

Bookworm Matilda Wormwood (Aimee Dean-Hamilton) takes on the vile headmistress Miss Trunchbull (Jack Hambleton) with her special powers in Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Matilda: The Musical Jr. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

HOW would Sam Steel, one of a brace of Miss Trunchbulls on Pick Me Up Theatre school play duty, sum up Roald Dahl’s joyous girl-power romp Matilda: The Musical Jr.

“It’s insane!” he decides. “There’s certainly anarchy. Everything that you think will happen won’t happen!”

Pick Me Up’s bright young things – some as young as six ­– are revelling in Robert Readman’s ebullient production all this week at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, led by Sam Steel and Jack Hambleton’s outrageous headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and Aimee Dean-Hamilton and Juliette Sellamuttu’s Matilda, the precocious, courageous pupil with special powers and limitless imagination, as they alternate performances.

“It’s all about beating the child bully with the help of loveable teacher Miss Honey as they take on the hateful Miss Trunchbull, the Olympic hammer-throwing champion of 1969,” says Robert.  “Not that any Olympic Games were held in 1969, but the line in the song rhymed!

“Miss Trunchbull is apparently based on Alastair Sim’s headmistress in the St Trinian’s films, when he was so good playing it as a character – and also playing the twin brother – that you don’t think of the headmistress as male or female, just as a character.”

Jack adds: “It’s a woman but she’s so butch! Play Miss Trunchbull as a woman and it doesn’t work, but play it as a man who happens to have boobs and big shoulders and a hairpiece, it works!

“I try to bring out the most grotesque elements of myself and there’s a bit in there too of the teachers that I don’t like! It’s about getting the physicality right and the tone of the voice.”

When Sam is playing Miss Trunchbull, Jack takes the role of Matilda’s dreadful dad, slimy car salesman Mr Wormwood, and vice versa. “We’ve watched each in rehearsal but I don’t think we’ve ever discussed the roles with each other,” says Sam. “We just instinctively took a bit of each other’s performance.”

Robert chips in: “But they’re physically different, their voices are different, their mannerisms are different. Sam is blond, Jack darker, so they have their different hairpieces too.”

Clash of wills: Sam Steel’s headmistress Miss Trunchbull and Juliette Sellamuttu’s highly imaginative pupil, Matilda, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Matilda: The Musical Jr. Picture: Matthew Kitchen 

Likewise, Aimee, ten, and Juliette, nine, are “very different actresses”, says Robert, who welcomed the chance to have contrasting Matildas. “They didn’t audition for Matilda, but when did auditions for singing roles, they came out of the pack,” says Robert.

“I was kind of expecting to get a small role, so it was a bit of shock,” says Aimee. “But not like an electric shock!” says Juliette, who felt “very surprised” to be picked for the title role.

If Aimee could choose a special power, it would be “maybe healing people”. Juliette first liked the thought of being able to use the swish of a hand “if someone is being naughty”, then changed tack. “I’d like to make inanimate objects animate, like asking a stuffed animal to barge its way out of a window,” she says.

Juliette, whose father is Sri Lankan and mother, Polish, has been living in York for a year. “Before I came here, in Sri Lanka, I did a line as a witch in a small assembly piece for Halloween, when I was at Gateway College in Colombo,” she says.

Aimee, meanwhile, has performed with one of York’s leading amateur societies. “I’ve done shows in theatres with Steve Tearle for NE Musicals York,” she says.

On Readman’s stage design, bedecked in a multitude of letters to reflect bookworm Matilda’s love of words and spelling, Sam and Jack are throwing themselves with gusto into the appalling behaviour of Miss Trunchbull.

“It’s more interesting that she’s not just a villain, she’s an absolute monster,” says Jack. “It’s probably the most evil person I’ve played, which is a nice contrast after playing Adrian Mole – and I get to throw a girl [Amanda Thripp] by her pigtails!”

Please note, Amanda is played by a doll at this juncture, one of several little tricks up Robert Readman’s sleeve that add to the fun and games of a delightfully unruly show with a gleefully rebellious book by Dennis Kelly and smart, fun, bouncy songs by Tim Minchin, replete with such titles as Naughty, Chokey Chant and Revolting Children.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Matilda: The Musical Jr, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Sunday. Performances: 7.30pm, tonight, tomorrow and Saturday; 2.30pm, Saturday and Sunday. All SOLD OUT. A special performance of songs from a new musical, Prodigy, featuring the cast of Matilda, opens each show. Box office for returns only: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for Matilda: The Musical Jr. All remaining shows have sold out
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Rob Ward’s play The MP, Aunty Mandy And Me looks at gay grooming in political world

Writer-performer Rob Ward explores consent, coercion and grooming within the gay male community in The MP, Aunty Mandy And Me

THE MP, Aunty Mandy And Me’s bittersweet tale of political campaigns, sexual consent and steam trains plays out at York Theatre Royal Studio on Saturday night. 

Written and performed by Manchester-based Rob Ward, who brought Gypsy Queen’s unconventional love story between two fighters to the Studio in 2019, this 2022 Edinburgh Fringe show relates the story of young gay Dom, who craves being an #instagay #influencer.

The problem is, no-one likes his posts, he cannot find a bloke who shares his love of steam trains and he lives with his MDMA-popping, Simply Red-loving mum in the small, sleepy northern village, where he grew up, five miles from the nearest gay.

“He’d love a fabulous life with the A-Gays in a swanky city-centre apartment, but his crippling social anxiety prevents this from being a reality. It’s all a bit of an effort,” says Rob.

“Then, one day, a chance encounter with his local MP, Peter Edwards, leads to a job, turning everything upside down, but in pursuit of the life he thinks he wants, just how much does Dom have to give up?

“There are many more conversations to be had,” says Rob Ward as he turns the spotlight on gay grooming

The MP, Aunty Mandy & Me – the “Aunty Mandy” refers to Dom’s mum’s MDMA habit – explores consent, coercion and grooming within the gay male community through Ward’s combination of jagged humour and contemporary social commentary. 

Rob’s play should have been touring in 2020, but the pandemic put paid to that after only two performances at Curve, Leicester. Yet the 2022 summer run in Edinburgh and autumn tour could not be better timed. “At one point this year, there were 56 MPs facing allegations of sexual misconduct, and when there are 650 MPs, that’s a high proportion,” says Rob.

“The play started as a reflection of personal experiences. I saw a play by a friend of mine, Tom Ratcliffe, called Velvet [about a young actor with a #metoo-style story to tell], and I had a conversation with him about how this behaviour [of coercion] can manifest itself, and I drew on that for my play.

“It’s that very careful planning, almost plotting, that takes place where the abuser gets you in a situation where you’re vulnerable or feel in need of them and then they move on.”

Rob’s research involved reading articles to learn of people’s experiences and having conversations with Duncan Craig OBE, the chief executive officer of Survivors, a Manchester charity for male survivors of sexual abuse.

Rob Ward on the stage set for The MP, Aunty Mandy And Me

“The roots of the play probably go back to the #metoo movement in 2017, listening to those stories, thinking about those power dynamics, and then realising that there probably wasn’t a male gay voice being heard in that movement, though of course it was quite right that the focus was on women with #metoo.

“But then you start hearing about theatre and film directors exploiting gay men, and I started talking with other gay men about how this happens within their community.”

Rob felt driven to highlight how such coercive abuse can prevail. “It’s an issue in society, where we’re coming to terms with it, but there are many more conversations to be had. I thought, ‘let’s open it out beyond the world of theatre’, and as I’m interested in politics, I decided I’d look at gay grooming in that world.

“Frequently, the power imbalance is a key part of it; what you face when you first step on to the gay scene, who you meet.”

Rob does not write with a didactic or polemical tone. “I try to avoid that,” he says. “I’m much more keen on asking questions and seeing what answers the audiences come up with. I prefer to steer clear of polemic. Instead, I like people to say, ‘oh, I hadn’t thought about that before’.

Rob Ward in his publicity picture for “the play about a Labour MP with a fetish”

“It’s essentially an exploration of ideas, rather than coming down on one side or the other, and hopefully people will then want to reflect on it and look into it further.”

Rob writes of the social-media world of the #instagay #influencer in his play. “I’m not a social influencer on Instagram, but it’s important that theatre addresses these issues and keeps our voices being heard in the wider community. As increasingly right-wing governments start to form, you have to be wary that liberties that have been fought for, for so long, can be taken away very quickly.”

After 17 Pleasance Dome performances at the Edinburgh Fringe,” trying it out, seeing what works, what needs working on, like a comedian testing gags, or being in a laboratory”, Rob is on tour, taking in both York and Harrogate in October.

“It’s been going down really well,” he says of an 80-minute eye-opener quickly becoming known as “the play about a Labour MP with a fetish”.

Emmerson & Ward Productions and Curve, Leicester present Rob Ward in The MP, Auntie Mandy And Me, York Theatre Royal Studio, Saturday (October 1), 7.45pm; Harrogate Theatre Studio, October 20, 8pm. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk

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Once she played Margaret Rutherford, now Susie Blake is the new Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack’d on tour at York Theatre Royal

Susie Blake’s Miss Marple in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d, a play where she is on a chair, on crutches and on a stick. Picture: Ali Wright

SUSIE Blake returns to York Theatre Royal to play Agatha Christie’s spinster sleuth Miss Marple in The Original Theatre Company’s touring production of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d.

She last appeared there in February 2017 in the premiere of Murder, Margaret And Me, cast as Margaret Rutherford, such a memorable Miss Marple on the big screen, as recalled in a Philip Meeks drama that explored the relationship between the actress and queen of crime writers.

Now she stars in Rachel Wagstaff’s new adaptation of Christie’s 1962 novel The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side that aims to bring emotional depth and psychological insight to a story of secrets, loss and revenge, performing in a company with strong Yorkshire links.

Co-stars Sophie Ward and Joe McFadden had regular roles in the moorland series Heartbeat, as did director Philip Franks, last seen in York as the devilishly disdainful Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show at the Grand Opera House in March.

Susie Blake with The Mirror Crack’d co-star Sophie Ward. Picture: Ali Wright

“I’ve always wanted to play Miss Marple, since the 1960s when I saw Margaret Rutherford playing her. Her character performance immediately drew you in,” says Susie, who follows in the footsteps of Angela Lansbury in the 1980 film of The Mirror Crack’d and Joan Hickson and Julia McKenzie in television adaptations in 1992 and 2011 respectively.

“I loved her Lady Bracknell in [Oscar Wilde’s] The Importance Of Being Earnest, her Madame Arcati in [Noel Coward’s] Blithe Spirit. I loved her so much. I know she’s not fashionable any more as Miss Marple but I was drawn in as a child, seeing her as this safe, cuddly lady who would work things out for you.

“I thought ‘that’s what I want to do with my life’ – to tell stories and be part of mysteries because every play is a mystery, isn’t it? You don’t know what’s going to happen until the end.”

Playing Rutherford in Murder, Margaret And Me has “not really” influenced Susie’s own performance as Miss Marple. “Philip, our director, said, ‘This is your interpretation now, Susie, no-one else’s. We’ve got to find your interpretation’.

Susie Blake’s Miss Marple, on the phone and on her stick in a scene from The Original Theatre Company’s The Mirror Crack’d. Picture: Ali Wright

“Miss Marple is from a certain period. Her boyfriend, whom she talks about, was in the First World War, so she goes back quite a long way. My mum was born in 1917, and she and her friends were, you know, ‘good eggs’. They had a certain turn of phrase. So, I met some quite useful people growing up.”

Revisiting Christie’s books has helped Susie to put her stamp on a beloved fictional character. “I’ve been re-reading Pocketful Of Rye and there are some very good descriptions of her in there. I go back to that rather than watching other people playing her to find out what makes Miss Marple tick.

“I’m absolutely loving re-reading the books. The people are so clearly drawn. Reading them all together, like I’m doing, you think: these are a multitude of people that she’s observed. Agatha Christie is a Miss Marple herself in order to work these intricate stories through.”

Asked to summarise Miss Marple’s character, Susie says: “She’s fascinated by people, she’s obsessed with finding out the truth and she’ll go on nitpicking until she gets it. She hates evil and injustice, and she hunts it down. She’s relentless in her pursuit of the truth and will go on digging away and digging away.

Susie Blake’s Miss Marple in her “rather lovely suit” and string of pearls. Picture: Michael Wharley

“Rachel Wagstaff has written a very good script and she’s made Miss Marple a much clearer character: someone who wants to find out the truth. Not in an unkind way but she will go on at somebody, go on delving until she gets what she wants.

“Rachel is a wonderful writer, like how she gives Miss Marple a bit of history, so you get to know why she’s alone. This is her first Christie adaptation; she’s very in with the family and I hope she does more of them.”

In Christie’s story, a wind of change is blowing through 1960s’ England, even reaching the sleepy village of St Mary Mead, where a new housing estate is alarming the villagers as much as it intrigues them. Still more unsettling, a rich American film star has bought the manor house. Jane Marple, confined to a chair after an accident, is wondering if life has passed her by, but a shocking murder demands she must unravel a web of lies, danger and tragedy. 

“Rachel’s adaptation is not what you’re expecting. It worried me at first: are people expecting an old-fashioned Agatha Christie repertory production? But it’s not like that at all! Philip has really brought out the characters, with 12 actors on stage. That’s a lot to deal with and he’s made them very likeable and individual and you kind of don’t want any of them to have done the crime.”

Susie Blake’s Miss Marple sharing a sofa with Oliver Boot’s Detective Inspector Craddock. “It’s like a very good granny and grandson relationship: we bicker!” says Susie. “She’s sitting at home feeling very alone, and then in comes Craddock with this murder. Up she steps, much to his dissatisfaction!” Picture: Ali Wright

Susie’s Miss Marple will spend much of The Mirror Crack’d walking on crutches. “She’s sprained her ankle, right at the top of the show,” she reveals. “I start in a chair, then crutches, then finally a stick. They’re not easy to use, these old wooden crutches – I think they might be museum pieces, beautifully shaped – so I’ve had to learn how to use them.

“I must try not to limp because at my age [72] that could be disastrous. But being on crutches is a good ruse for slowing things down to allow her to work things out!”

Over a long career, “I’ve been very lucky that I haven’t ever had a theatre injury,” reflects Susie. Keeping herself fit, during the tour’s Eastbourne run, she went swimming in the sea each day, chatting with the regulars at the beach huts. Next week, she heads to York, sketch book by her side. “That way you get a good memory of a town,” she reasons.

Susie is working with director Philip Franks for a second time. “We did [Alan Bennett’s play] Kafka’s Dick at Nottingham Playhouse in 1998 with Alistair McGowan in the cast,” she recalls.

“For The Mirror Crack’d, he said, ‘I’ll bring the education, you bring the talent!’, as I’m not well read but I went to [Elmhurst] ballet school, Arts Educational and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art,” says Londoner Susie.

The Mirror Crack’d director Philip Franks: “This is your interpretation now, Susie, no-one else’s,” he advised. “We’ve got to find your interpretation”

“He’s so lovely with actors. He’s given me free rein but made suggestions like, ‘what about if she was at Bletchley Park, doing de-coding in the war, and so she’s intrinsically interested in wanting to work things out, being fascinated in solving things, rather than being ghoulish?’.”

Rather than woolly jumpers and pince-nez, her Jane Marple will be wearing a “rather lovely suit”. “Quite a nice look, with a big collar, a white blouse underneath, a string of pearls, sensible shoes obviously, and no hat because the play moves too fast for me to wear one – and nobody’s missed the hat,” says Susie. “She’s my age, in her seventies rather than in her eighties, in our production.”

Why does Miss Marple’s popularity show no signs of diminishing, Susie? “Almost everything on the telly is a mystery, whatever you’re watching. You want to be taken by the hand knowing that Miss Marple or Poirot will help you work it out,” she says.

“It’s like having a pal, going into a situation with someone by your side. With most shows, you don’t know whose side to be on, but with her you have a familiar friend. And you can read the books again and again and watch the stories again and again and always enjoy them.”

Susie Blake’s Miss Marple in an early publicity picture for The Mirror Crack’d. The hat has since gone. “The play moves too fast for me to wear one – and nobody’s missed the hat,” she says

Best known for her comedy break in Russ Abbot’s Madhouse, her Continuity Announcer in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV and her regular roles as Bev Unwin in Coronation Street and Hillary Nicholson in Mrs Brown’s Boys, Susie has latterly appeared in series one and two of Kate & Koji (ITV), Not Going Out (BBC One) and The Real Marigold Hotel (BBC One).

Have her roles become more interesting as she has grown older, leading to Miss Marple? “Yes, I think they have – and I’ve probably got better too,” decides Susie. “I’ve never wanted to be a frontliner or a film star. That was never on the cards. Only when you look back, you think, ‘I’ve been busy in my career’. Splendid looks can be quite difficult when you have to do the changeover to middle age. For me, it’s gone seamlessly from girl next door to wives and mothers to grandmothers.”

As for the future, “I’d love to be the next Miss Marple on telly. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

The Original Theatre Company in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d, York Theatre Royal, October 4 to 8, 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

“I’ve never wanted to be a frontliner or a film star,” says Susie Blake. “That was never on the cards”

Did you know?

The Original Theatre Company’s past productions at York Theatre Royal: Alan Bennett’s Auden-Britten encounter The Habit Of Art, Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’s novel Birdsong and Ben Brown’s Cold War political drama A Splinter Of Ice.

Did you know too?

Susie Blake was born into famous acting stock. Her cousins are the actresses Juliet and Hayley Mills; her great-uncle was the late film star Sir John Mills, and her maternal grandmother was Annette Mills, who fronted the BBC TV children’s series Muffin The Mule from 1946 to 1955.

Just one other thing…

How do you think Miss Marple compares to Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, Susie?

“They are so different. They both have the same interrogating mind, but her methods are very much to do with the fact that she’s a little old lady. She gets chatting to people and shows her vulnerability, all the better to hook into what she needs to know.

“It’s the knife edge quality of her mind whereas Poirot never shows any weakness. She, on the other hand, will knock on someone’s door and say, ‘ooh I feel a bit faint; can I sit down?’.”

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