Fairy lights and a lamp for Steve Mason’s Christmas-season solo show at Stockton on the Forest Village Hall. All pictures: Paul Rhodes
THIS seemingly incongruous venue turned out to be a smart choice. “I have no idea where I am,” Mason joked.
Yet this North Yorkshire village hall clearly put the Scotsman at ease. The former chief of the Beta Band has been enjoying a long solo revival since Boys Outside was released in 2010. His last album, 2019’s About The Light, was a wonderfully accessible collection of pop rock songs, while 2013’s Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time fulfilled all The Beta Band’s unspent promise.
Seated alone by a lamp, amid twinkling fairy lights and a Christmas tree to the side in this beautifully maintained hall, Mason would be an unlikely choice for a Christmas party. It turns out that while his songs can be downbeat and deal with serious themes, he is great company, full of stories and funny lines. He also commands your attention on stage.
Tuesday’s audience and a village-hall Christmas tree at Steve Mason’s gig
Hopefully support act Wolf Solent (Yor- based Danny Trew Barton) was taking notes, as he was the opposite. He’s in good company – think Nick Drake’s disastrous tour of working men’s clubs.
Solent’s material feels steeped in lo-fi bands such as Acetone and Sparklehorse, which is a tough act to take to a live audience, but in the mix there were songs of quiet beauty.
Even his most ardent admirers might admit that Mason’s songs tend to sound alike, but he has an unerring knack of finding a way to bring both depth and melody. A new number, accompanied by stomping and clapping, was a prime example – with a timely message about needing light.
“I have no idea where I am,” admitted Scotsman Steve Mason at his Stockton on the Forest concert
In lockdown, Mason has become, in his words and at least partly tongue in cheek, a rampant capitalist – and he was looking fetching in one of his sweatshirts. This side of him must sit uneasily with the part that “won’t follow fools”, which was a biting line in another new composition.
His faithful cover of Roger Waters’ Mother (from The Wall) felt like a natural choice, better than his expected finale of Dry The Rain, which never quite took off. The Beta Band’s signature song works better with a band, as evidenced from his Crescent show in 2019 or his star turn on the Deer Shed Festival main stage at Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, that same year.
At his best, Mason is a bona-fide member of music’s business class and he certainly lit up a pitch-black December night.
Back on the bus: Shed Seven head to London tomorrow
SHED Seven will resume their Covid-interrupted Another Night, Another Town – Greatest Hits Live Tour tomorrow night.
The York band had to postpone their run of dates from December 10 in Nottingham to tonight’s gig in Bristol after members of the touring party tested positive for Covid-19.
The Sheds play the London Roundhouse tomorrow and Saturday, then Leeds O2 Academy on Monday and Tuesday, finishing off on the other side of the Pennine divide at Manchester Academy on Wednesday.
The band tweeted last night: “Excited to confirm that the tour WILL resume this Friday in London – let’s finish what we started!! New dates for the shows that were postponed will be announced next week. Shed Seven Ride Again…See you down the front. x.”
Bumping into tour manager Leon Banks in York city centre this morning, he said the revised dates would be in March. Meanwhile, to ensure maximum Covid safety, the band would be heading straight from the tour bus to the London Roundhouse to play each night’s gig, then back onto the bus, and finally back up to York.
On December 10, on the day of their Nottingham Rock City gig, the Sheds posted the statement: “We regret to announce that due to members of our tour party testing positive for Covid, we have been forced to postponer our run of shows from Bristol to Nottingham. These shows will be rescheduled to next year.
“We plan to complete the tour from London onwards, which should allow us time to ensure that everybody is safe and the show can be delivered to the same standard as it has so far. We are absolutely gutted to bring you this news as the tour has been amazing.
“We’re sorry for the late notice and apologise to those that have booked travel and accommodation. Thanks for the support and love to you all. Shed Seven”
The “Shedcember” tour had begun, as always, in Scotland on November 22 in Dundee, but gig number 13 in Birmingham on Dec 9 turned out to be unlucky number 13, with the itinerary stalling at that point until tomorrow’s resumption.
The Sheds will be looking to finish on a maximum high in the year when the limited edition, 500-copy 25th anniversary vinyl reissue of 1996’s singles-laden A Maximum High sold out pronto.
Tickets are still available for both Leeds gigs at ticketmaster.co.uk/shed-seven-leeds. Doors open at 7pm each night.
London Philharmonic & Symphonic Film Orchestra members performing the magical music of Harry Potter. All pictures: Paul Rhodes
The Magical Music Of Harry Potter, Live In Concert, with a Weasley and the London Philharmonic & Symphonic Film Orchestra, York Barbican
A STELLAR concert to light up the dreariest of winter nights. Despite the new restrictions, we gathered to enjoy the music of Harry Potter, young and less young alike.
This was not a Bach crowd, and the performance was well adapted to make the experience accessible to newcomers. This will likely have been the first experience for many, at least since Covid, to appreciate the majesty of an orchestra in full swing.
The depth of the sound was awesome, from the airy massed violins to the double basses and cellos, via the trombones to the deft percussionists.
Chris Rankin (Percy Weasley in the Harry Potter film series) hosting Monday’s concert at York Barbican
Likewise, the synchronicity of the playing was a marvel. It was fun to watch how the London Philharmonic & Symphonic Film Orchestra members watched one another – with each of the instruments coming to the fore over the course of the two-hour performance.
The icing on the cake was master of ceremonies and narrator Chris Rankin, who played the irksome but ultimately decent Percy Weasley – “everyone’s seventh favourite Weasley,” he quipped – in the film franchise.
On stage, he was a superb host, boyishly enthusiastic about the music and sharing wonderful insider stories of how they made the films (filming started in 2000). One example, did you know that every seven seconds of the Quidditch game on film took one day to film? Well ,there you go. My daughter has been telling anyone who will listen that and the others ever since.
The opening notes of John Williams’ Hedwig’s Theme is so indelibly associated with the story that his successors, all soundtrack luminaries, Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper and Alexandre Desplat, chose to incorporate it within their own scores.
London Philharmonic & Symphonic Film Orchestramusicians in a magical musical moment on Monday
These different composers brought welcome variation, from the pastoral Harry In Winter to the drama of Buckbeak’s Flight. Christmas At Hogwarts was in stark contrast to a typical York yuletide with its snow and twinkle. Even that looked positively bashful alongside the zaniness of the Knight Bus, which the orchestra clearly enjoyed playing up to.
There were darker sections, and the musicians changed the atmosphere with aplomb. Less enchanting were the visual effects, which were at best passable, but this did at least serve to accentuate rather than distract from the music.
Passable could also sum up Rankin’s singing voice, although he was in full flight for the closing Do The Hippogriff, a welcome chance to rock. The ‘embedded’ band who had been the epitome of restraint were unleashed.
The young ‘witch’ to our right was clearly having the time of her life – and it will be an experience many will remember. Memorable in other ways too. To cap the last night of this European tour (shortened by tightening Covid restrictions), the viola player (Cosma) successfully proposed to the 2nd violin (Danila), bringing the house to its feet. It was a fitting moment of joy that summed up the night.
Horrible Histories’ cast for Car Park Panto’s Horrible Christmas, destined for Elvington Airfield
THE world’s first drive-in pantomime is to park up at Elvington Airfield, York, for a “terrible end” to Christmas on January 2, courtesy of the gleefully grotesque Horrible Histories team.
Car Park Panto’s Horrible Christmas will be performed at 11am, 2pm and 5pm that day in the finale to a 14-date tour of racecourses, airports, stadiums and a motor-racing circuit that begins on Friday.
This is the second tour of a show first prompted by the pandemic-enforced closure of theatres nationwide in 2020. Birmingham Stage Company and Coalition Presents responded by working together to save Christmas for more than17,000 families by putting on their drive-in panto premiere.
Writer-director Neal Foster, actor/manager of Birmingham Stage Company, says: “We have to thank the remarkable pandemic closing all the theatres for these car park shows coming about.
“At first, we didn’t know what to do, but various people had ideas about doing things in car parks, and in fact we were contacted by seven companies, but only Coalition followed it up, and so we did Horrible Histories’ Barmy Britain in car parks.
“Then, Guy Robinson, from Coalition, asked if we had a Christmas show, and we said, ‘yes, we have Horrible Christmas’.”
Cue the first tour last winter, when, “by December 31, we were the only company still doing a show, because the theatres had had to close again, and our last show, after two weeks of performances, was in Harrogate [at the Great Yorkshire Showground],” says Neal.
“We then put together Billionaire Boy for car parks, for May, when shows could re-start, and that show then went into the West End. Since May, we’ve done eight shows in seven months; we just haven’t stopped!
Birmingham Stage Company’s cast for Horrible Histories’ Barmy Britain, the first car park tour show
“In fact, it’s been one of our most successful years, and a lot of that was down to the money we received from the Culture Recovery Fund. We didn’t need to apply for the third round of grants, but we wouldn’t have been able to do this year’s shows without the £200,000 we received earlier on.”
Neal was “amazed and thrilled by how totally successful the Car Park Party productions have proved to be”. “We’re delighted to be back on tour again with Horrible Christmas. It turns live theatre into a truly unique and festive event.”
In a nutshell, Horrible Christmas is a car-centred, Covid-secure experience, wherein children and adults are able to able to jump up and down in their own seats, cheer and make as much noise as they like, even beeping horns, as they watch a celebration of Christmas “delivered in a way that only Horrible Histories can”.
“You don’t need to worry about anyone else because you’re in your own bubble in your car, like everyone there,” says Neal. “It’s like you’re in your own VIP tent!”
In the panto, when Christmas comes under threat from a jolly man dressed in red, one young boy must save the day, but can he save Christmas? From Victorian villains to medieval monks, Puritan parties to Tudor treats, the Horrible Histories cast of eight sets off on a hair-raising adventure through the history of Christmas in the company of Charles Dickens, Oliver Cromwell, King Henry VIII and St Nicholas as they all join forces to rescue the festive season in Terry Deary’s tale.
True, it is not strictly speaking a typical panto, but nevertheless Horrible Christmas will spark up the audience’s festive spirit, from the comfort and security of their own cars.
In doing so, the Car Park Panto seeks to address these scenarios: children being unable to sit still; the need to cater for different snack requirements; the feeling of anxiety in crowds; the inability to find a dog sitter; and a desire to wear pyjamas, fancy dress or a Christmas jumper at the panto and not be judged.
“You can leave all worries at home and relax as a family with Car Park Panto’s Horrible Christmas,” say the promoters. “If traditional panto at your local theatre is proving too expensive for all the family, Horrible Christmas! is the best value ticket for you.
The poster for Car Park Panto’s Horrible Christmas show
“The ticket covers the car, not the people inside, so you can bring your grandparents and babies and be sound in the knowledge you will be safe seated among family and friends, rather than in a packed theatre auditorium.”
Horrible Histories’ own history of Horrible Christmas began in 2013. “We first did it in a co-production with Derby Playhouse that year, and apart from one year, it’s been put on every year since then, at such places as the Lowry, Salford Quays, Blackpool Winter Gardens, Cambridge and Birmingham,” says Neal.
“It’s different from our other Horrible Histories stories, with a cast of eight, making it the biggest Horrible Histories show we do, whereas we do the Barmy Britain show with a double act and big 3D special effects. Not only do we use eight actors but there’s a screen on stage too, so it’s like a concert, with everything being filmed live.”
Horrible Christmas tells the story of a young boy having all his Christmas presents stolen by ‘Father Christmas’, who turns out not to be Father Christmas. “The boy goes back to the times of Charles Dickens, Charles II, Oliver Cromwell and Henry VIII, Saint Nicholas, and back to Bethlehem itself, and what’s different to other Horrible Histories is that it’s very touching,” says Neal.
“It’s worth saying, there’s nothing gory about Horrible Christmas, unlike our other shows. It’s more about being silly and funny – and it works really well in a car park.
“Because the play is about how special Christmas is to people, it was great for us that last Christmas, for some, it was the only way to experience a Christmas show. It remains the safest way to see a Christmas show, and it’s particularly good if you have anyone elderly or vulnerable in your family.”
What comes next for Horrible Histories? “We’ve been doing Horrible Histories shows for 16 years now, starting in 2005, and there’s no end to that history,” says Neal. “Fortunately, humans have produced all sorts of horrible history down the years, and Boris Johnson is doing that for us now, isn’t he?!”
Car Park Panto presents Horrible Histories in Horrible Christmas, Elvington Airfield, near York, January 2 2022. Bring blankets, sleeping bags, maybe a favourite festive hat – oh, and a car, obviously. Tickets: £49.50 per car, plus £2.50 booking fee, at carparkparty.com.
Did you know?
“HENRY VIII is one of the reasons why turkey became popular on Christmas Day,” says Neal Foster. “The world seems to follow the fashion of what the Royals do, and it was Henry who introduced the eating of turkey at Christmas. As with all the Horrible Histories, that story is taken from a Terry Deary book.”
So, this is Christmas for Kate Rusby, South Yorkshire pub carol enthusiast and self-proclaimed Holly Head
KATE Rusby At Christmas is by now as much a winter tradition as mulled wine, mince pies and LadBaby at number one.
In its 14th year, or maybe 15th as Kate and husband musician Damien O’Kane debated at Harrogate Royal Hall on the opening night last Sunday, this celebration of carols banished from Victorian church services for being too jolly returns to York Barbican on Monday night.
Those carols – among them 30 versions of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night – have been sung lustily for 200 years at Sunday lunchtimes from late-November to New Year’s Day in the pubs of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire, and have made their way on to five Rusby Christmas folk albums, complemented by Kate’s own winter songs, Cornish carols, Christmas curios and festive favourites.
The tour’s first week was scuppered by Kate’s bout of Covid, but she recovered in time to pick up the sleigh-ride reins at Harrogate last weekend in the company of her regular band and the “Brass Boys”.
Mindful of saving Kate’s voice, Charles Hutchinson sent his questions by email.
How will the set list differ from your last live Christmas shows in 2019, Kate? Have you come across more old pub carols demanding inclusion?!
“It’ll be quite similar actually, as my current Christmas album is Holly Head, which I released in 2019. So, the set is based around that album and we’ve rejigged the rest of the set list as there are now five Christmas albums, so quite a lot of older songs to go at!
“There’s always more pub carols reminding you to be included next time and another album is planned!”
Have you written any new winter songs since your Holly Head album?
“I’ve been messing about with new songs, but nothing complete as yet. We’ve been concentrating on my new album to celebrate 30 years touring, so that’s taken most of our time over the last few months.”
Starry, starry night: Kate Rusby in a sparkly party dress at one of her Christmas concerts. Mike Ainscoe
What’s the set design for the 2021 Christmas show?
“We have a lot of twinkle and sparkle; we have the return of our giant crocheted snowflakes, which I adore. We haven’t used them in a few years, so I’m delighted to have them back on tour again.
“Oh, and our Ruby Reindeer will be joining us on stage of course! She deserves her own horse box as she’s toured with us for so long now.”
Would you agree that Christmas concerts are needed more than ever after the silent darkness of last winter and beyond?
“Yes, completely! Any concerts, all the concerts!! We are social creatures; humans have been singing together since time began. It’s proven to release happy hormones in the brain when we sing, and even more so when we sing with others. It’s so lovely to hear people singing away with us.”
Monday at York Barbican closes the live tour. Will there be anything extra that night to mark the finale?
“Ooooh, who knows?! Things like that are a bit on the hoof with me. Depending on occurrences on tour…I’ll keep you posted!”
Where and when will your Jolly Holly Wrap livestream show be held?
“It will be live on the night from a secret location in South Yorkshire on Tuesday! It will be myself and the lads in the band. We wanted to do something for the people who are quite rightly still nervous about coming out to actual gigs, people who struggle to get out to gigs in normal times and people overseas who physically can’t join us.
“It’s such a strange time to tour and I want to include as many people as we can so no-one feels left out. We’ll be performing the songs live with fun and banter from 7pm. You can find the ticket info on my website, katerusby.com.
“We finish the gigs in York on December 20th, so I decided to add another show and we can have a wrap party whilst playing all the songs we love.”
Kate Rusby, deep in the midwinter greenery for her Holly Head album artwork in 2019
You mention that you have been working on your new album. How is it progressing and when might it be released?
“Yes, the aforementioned 30th anniversay album, called 30: Happy Returns. It’ll be released in April, just ahead of our 30 tour. Can’t wait! So excited about it all.
“We did an album at 10 years [called 10, naturally], 20 years [20], and 30 has come along all of a sudden! Each of those albums, we looked back at songs I’ve previously recorded and reimagined and re-recorded them, some with special guests.
“We’re doing the same with 30 and I have to say I’m bursting with excitement about the guests on 30; I can’t wait to reveal all.”
You have adapted so well to lockdown times with concert livestreams and home recordings from “the front room”. Do you envisage this becoming a regular format as part of an artist’s repertoire?
“I’m guessing yes. I really loved the connection with our audience through lockdown; it seemed to bring us closer rather than apart.
“We did a series of little performances from our sitting room; I called them the ‘Singy Songy Sessions’, performing a different song each time. It was lovely hearing the stories from the people who saw them and what the songs meant to them. We plan to do more of them – and to keep streaming a Christmas gig of course.”
And finally, Kate, are any of this year’s Christmas singles to your liking? Elton John and Ed Sheeran? Maybe Gary Barlow & Sheridan Smith? Or Abba?
“Hmmmmmmm………”
Kate Rusby At Christmas, York Barbican, December 20, 7.30pm. Please note, tickets bought for Kate’s postponed December 20 2020 concert remain valid. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jared More’s Fizzy Finn and a puppet in Riding Lights Theatre Company’s Fizzy Finn Finds His Feet
RIDING Lights Theatre Company’s “crackling new Christmas adventure”, Fizzy Finn Finds His Feet, will hit the ground running from Saturday at Friargate Theatre, York.
Written by Jon Boustead for primary-school children, the topical play addresses children’s mental health problems arising from lockdowns and separation from family and friends.
Finn is a fidget whose brain is ablaze with an unbreakable buzz that fizzes to his fingers and tickles his toes, or it would do so if he could only find his feet, in a Christmas adventure full of fear and bravery in a stormy world.
“Christmas brings surprises and not all of them are nice,” says Boustead. “It’s a crackling mix of hopes and fears and they’re definitely getting closer. Finn is on the run. Can stories help to untangle things?
“If only someone would listen to Suzy Pettiskew before she bursts. Or stop Barney Box’s dog from growing bigger night by night. And can anyone really ‘blotzsh the Glim’?”
Jared More’s Fizzy Finn and Meg Blowey’s Tink the Cobbler in her amazing story-telling Shoe Shop
Directed by Erin Burbridge and designed by Anna Gooch, Fizzy Finn Finds His Feet features a magical blend of vivid storytelling, original music by Patrick Burbridge and creative puppetry, presented by Jared More’s Fizzy Finn and Meg Blowey’s Tink the Cobbler.
Suitable for five to 11-year-old children, the show has been available to schools this term either for live performances or in a film version, accompanied by a teachers’ pack, prepared by a primary school teacher, overseen by a child psychologist and approved by Ebor Psychology. “There’s really useful stuff in there for teachers and children,” says says acting general manager Bernadette Burbridge.
This is the second such Riding Lights film. “We learned last year, with a very charming filmed production of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant, that film offered a very successful way of supporting schools coping with lockdowns,” says Bernadette.
“We provided a link that they could forward to children at home and in some cases, the giants zoomed into schools, by agreement, to interact with the children.
Finding his feet: Jared More’s Fizzy Finn in a scene with Meg Blowey’s Tink the Cobbler
“Sadly, in November, we were receiving at least one call a day from a school to say they had Covid and didn’t want us to come into their buildings, so we had to cancel a number of Fizzy Finn performances.
“We offered them the film and a virtual visit from Tink the Cobbler and Fizzy Finn instead – and the advantage of having a filmed version is that we can make this available to audiences right across the UK and beyond.”
Now, Fizzy Finn Finds His Feet does exactly that from December 18 to 23 in 50-minute performances at 10am, 1pm and 3pm on Saturday and next Wednesday and 11am and 2pm next Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate.
“The film is a good alternative but there’s nothing like a live show!” says Bernadette, who sums up Fizzy Fiin’s tale this way: “Jon’s play isn’t about Christmas although it’s set at this time of year. It’s about learning to understand one’s fears and anxieties and finding good ways to deal with them.”
Jon concludes: “Shoes are very good storytellers. You experience a lot by stepping into someone else’s shoes. So fasten your laces! Tie them up tight and join Finn as he discovers Tink the Cobbler and her amazing story-telling Shoe Shop.”
Tickets are on sale on 01904 613000 or at ridinglights.org/fizzy-finn.
Will The War On Drugs feature in Graham Chalmers or Charles Hutchinson’s list?
YORKSHIRE culture podcasters Chalmers & Hutch pick their Top Tens in Episode 68 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car.
Under discussion too are Damon Albarn’s bleakly beautiful concerts at York Minster; the tidal wave of streaming; and who will be number one at Christmas? Elton & Ed? Gary & Sheridan? Adele & yet more Adele? The sausage roll enthusiast?
Meg Matthews and Danny Mellor in Badapple Theatre Company’s 2021 revival of The Snow Dancer. Picture: Karl Andre Photography
BADAPPLE Theatre Company’s Christmas show, The Snow Dancer, opens a two-day run at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow.
In its 21st year, the Green Hammerton theatre-on-your-doorstep company has revived artistic director Kate Bramley’s magical eco-fable for its latest rural tour from December 2.
Bramley’s original story blends festive family entertainment with an important eco-message and an original score by Jez Lowe, as actors Meg Matthews and Danny Mellor tell the story of the animals of The Great Wood, who are desperate for a long sleep, but find it too warm because something is awry.
Everyone is going around in circles and is sick of nuts before Christmas is even in sight. On a set design by Catherine Dawn, the intrepid heroes in this fairy tale with a furry tail must search for the mysterious Snow Dancer to make it snow if they are ever to sleep.
Badapple’s trademark humorous, song-filled shows have been delighting audiences of all ages for 21 years on tours of rural locations around Yorkshire and further afield. The company “brings a full theatre experience to unusual, often tiny, spaces with significance to their communities in productions that reflect world-wide issues that have an impact on village life”.
Founder, writer and director Kate says: “Theatre is just storytelling and what better way to raise awareness of issues? The climate emergency, referenced in The Snow Dancer, is something we’ve been concerned about for a long time.
Badapple Theatre Company artistic director Kate Bramley
“We want to create social discussion that’s relevant to our audiences and 21st century living. We can do this through theatre and constantly reinventing what that is: with music, sometimes dance, puppetry and on one occasion live baking!”
Kate continues:“Badapple as a company has been working on becoming more environmentally sustainable for over a decade, wherever possible reusing or recycling sets and sourcing sustainable clothing for costumes.
“By taking theatre to rural locations on tour, we have reduced the environmental impact of audiences having to travel to one location to see a production.”
Badapple will stage two school shows and one public performance at the JoRo at this week’s residency. “We’ve rarely performed at a ‘fixed’ venue in a city in the past 15 years, but we’ve struck up a great partnership with Joseph Rowntree Theatre and their community commitment and ethos is so synchronised to our core values,” says Kate.
“It’s harder for us to sustain a run of performances in one larger venue, having not specialised in this area for 15 years, but it’s just about making new friends in new areas and the return of The Snow Dancer to York this year is a great chance for the good folk of our nearest city to see what it is we do.”
As with all theatre companies, particularly touring companies, Badapple has experienced the hardships of the various lockdowns during the pandemic. In particular, one show in production for 18 month and booked into 30 venues had to be cancelled immediately. The pandemic has been a time of crisis for the North Yorkshire company but nevertheless one of reflection that has resulted in positive outcomes and new plans for the future.
“Theatre is just storytelling and what better way to raise awareness of issues?” says Badapple writer-director Kate Bramley of The Snow Dancer, with its climate change topicality, performed by Danny Mellor and Meg Matthews. Picture: Karl Andre Photography
Kate says:“We were lucky to be so well supported by Arts Council England to get us through this period. It was really hard but we came out fighting. We made sure we stayed connected to our Badapple Youth Theatre students online and later with outdoor classes, and then we diversified into outdoor touring for the first time [with Danny Mellor’s Suffer Fools Glady in September 2020].
“Like many other organisations, we had to diversify, exploring film work and also radio. Despite the hardships of that time, there were so many positives to come out of it. We are now looking to find long-term partners and finance to create a bespoke outdoor space for summer shows for the next decade and hopefully beyond.”
Badapple Theatre Company in The Snow Dancer, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, December 15 (two school performances) and December 16 (public performance). Tickets for Thursday’s 7.30pm show are on sale on 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
THE founder and guiding light of Joglaresa, Belinda Sykes, died only three weeks before this event after a long illness.
But those she has left behind have maintained the big-hearted energy that she brought to everything she did with the group – and they incorporated no fewer than five of her compositions and arrangements into this lovely seasonal programme, entitled ‘Lullay Myn Lykyng’. So she was all but present here.
All seven of the performers sang and all but two of them played at least one instrument as well. Their singing style was distinctive: straight tone without vibrato, slightly nasal, very much what you might expect from dyed-in-the-wool folk singers.
Thus whether they were dealing with a mediaeval Spanish cantiga (love-poem) or Gustav Holst’s Lullay Myn Lykyng written 700 years later, the sound was very similar, with a certain flexibility of tempo. Not that either piece was ineffective. Quite the contrary.
The programme bounced around the centuries almost at random. So we had a setting of the Corpus Christi Carol by the modern American troubadour John Fleagle wedged between two traditional Shetland reels on one hand and a Belinda Sykes arrangement of a tune from Piae Cantiones (16th century) on the other.
It was a stimulating merry-go-round, and thoroughly good for shaking the audience out of the stupor of expectation. You simply never knew what was coming next.
Both the two Sykes compositions used 15th century English texts. Gabriel That Angel Bright was mildly macaronic – using a Latin refrain – and cast as a lament, chorally treated with percussion underlay. Her take on Lullay Myn Lykyng also had a mediaeval feel, although tinged with modernity. Both were strikingly effective and sung with notable determination.
But perhaps the most surprising piece of all was another cantiga attributed to Alfonso the Wise, filled with Spanish decorations in the voice, presumably influenced by Islamic music, which bordered on coloratura they were so ornate.
An anonymous French pastourelle (basically a romp involving shepherds and shepherdesses), given instrumentally, began with two fidels and ended in something like a full-blown ceilidh.
Even Woodward’s arrangement of Ding Dong Merrily harked back to its French origins (1588, the year of the Spanish Armada). It was a salutary reminder of just how old some of our Christmas music really is.
With its slightly anarchic flavour (there was, in truth, a little too much byplay between the performers to which the audience was not party), this programme was never less than stimulating. Belinda Sykes would have been proud.
York Early Music Christmas Festival: James Gilchrist and Matthew Wadsworth, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 10
THERE is nothing quite like a late-afternoon song-recital, especially when the singer is as intelligently persuasive as tenor James Gilchrist.
Add in the nimble fingers of Matthew Wadsworth, who is an equally dab hand as accompanist on lute, theorbo or guitar, and you have a recipe for delight.
In a programme divided equally between sacred and secular, they opened with Purcell and closed with Dowland, with a brief Christmas diversion and three Schubert lieder as the filling in the sandwich. It was tasty indeed.
Both performers sat, so this was more like a fireside chat, albeit with contrasting themes of ‘Divine Love and Earthly Passions’. Two settings by Purcell of poetry by William Fuller, an ardent royalist who became Bishop of Lincoln in 1667, found Gilchrist relishing their chromaticism, with his typically mobile torso lending emphasis.
Both songs, Evening Hymn and Lord, What Is Man?, have extended hallelujahs, bringing them to positive conclusions, which Gilchrist underlined here with almost chuckling delivery of their dotted rhythms. Between them, Pelham Humfrey’s extremely penitential A Hymn To God The Father was succulently remorseful. Wadsworth’s long-necked theorbo added pleasing detail.
A brief seasonal interlude came with Michael Praetorius’s sweetly-scented Christmas rose and the second of the plainsong Advent antiphons, O Adonai, a nice touch.
So to Schubert, where Wadsworth switched to a 19th century guitar, slimmer and less bulbous than the modern model, and thus more intimate. Schubert’s Ave Maria is not a setting of the ‘Hail Mary’ but a translation of Ellen’s prayer to the Virgin in Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady Of The Lake, which others have fitted to the Latin words of the prayer.
Still, it’s a fine piece and Gilchrist had the legato to bring it off. He might have improved its mood still further had he kept more still, but he found an ideal pianissimo for its second stanza.
He followed it with the last song Schubert wrote, Die Taubenpost (Pigeon Post), which, as Gilchrist rightly pointed out, is quite devoid of the angst that riddles Winterreise. Contentment and peace of mind coloured his polished performance. There was also a clever blend of confidentiality and ecstasy in his treatment of Ständchen (Serenade).
Finally, we had four songs by Dowland and one by Campion, now with lute accompaniment. The first two celebrated lovers’ joys amid springtime frolics – a nice diversion – but the last three homed in on Dowland’s relish for melancholy. These suited Gilchrist to a tee.
If Flow, My Tears was slightly matter-of-fact, His Golden Locks – an astute setting of poetry by Henry Lea – became an eloquent elegy on the fading charms of youth, and In Darkness, Let Me Dwell (with the lights lowered) distilled the essence of despair.
An odd ending, perhaps, but Dowland (and Gilchrist too) at the peak of his powers. Wadsworth was with him every step of the way. A pleasing, and thought-provoking, entertainment.
