The art beat of YORKshire
TWO Big Egos In A Small Car podcasters Chalmers & Hutch host their Interview Special with Harrogate poet and nature writer Rob Cowen on his pandemic book The Heeding in Episode 47.
IT was 451 days since Opera North’s last appearance before a live audience, according to general manager Richard Mantle. #
This was also claimed as the first night of this version, despite having the same cast – though with a different conductor – as had taken part in the livestream performance last December.
The explanation may well lie in the mysterious omission from the programme of the then director Matthew Eberhardt. Indeed no director was named at all this time round.
Conducting Francis Griffin’s reduced orchestration was Paul Daniel, erstwhile music director of Opera North (1990-97). With a dozen 25-year members in his orchestra, he was on familiar territory and conjured an easy response from his charges, notably hushed at the start of the quartet and at the emergence of the prisoners.
Occasionally, in Act 1, he strayed too far the other way. But he did not have the benefit of a sound engineer to balance the tone as his predecessor had enjoyed online.
At some point our critical faculties may kick in again, but at this stage it hardly mattered. December’s anger had dissipated into a vast sense of relief on both sides of the podium – the sheer joy of seeing singers, players, audience – so that gratitude outweighed most other considerations.
There were some slight differences in approach by the principals. With her short hair parted in the centre, Rachel Nicholls’s Leonore looked more boyish than ever. Her anguished recitative prepared a Komm, Hoffnung that was both powerful and heartfelt, underpinned by succulent horns – a champagne moment.
Toby Spence’s Florestan opened up with a spine-chilling Gott, delivered from a seated position with head bowed, that seemed to come from nowhere. When they reached their final duet, they could hardly contain their laughter, so absurd did it seem not to embrace.
Robert Hayward’s vengeful Pizarro was more psychopathic than ever, while Brindley Sherratt’s Rocco had greater bite, tougher and less avuncular. The youngsters, sung by Oliver Johnston and Fflur Wyn, were similarly more vivid.
Matthew Stiff’s genial Don Fernando delivered David Pountney’s intermittent English narrative, but all else was sung in German. Glorious Technicolor it was not, but contrasts ran deeper, enhanced by Daniel’s knack of emphasising the score’s darker timbres.
Review by Martin Dreyer
IN the week when Gary Stewart turns 40, the Easingwold singer-songwriter has released his lockdown album, Lost, Now Found.
“The album was recorded at home and is pretty much all me, with the exception of a few musical friends, like Rosie Doonan, Ross Ainslie and Mikey Kenney,” says the left-handed guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, whose birthday was on Monday.
“Especially with this album, when you finish a recording, there’s that culture, that thing, where you always think it’s the best you’ve done, but I really do, because I had the time,” says Gary.
“The difficulty is that normally I don’t give myself time to write songs because I’m always doing other things, but I think I’ve tended to use that as an excuse before, but that couldn’t be an excuse this time.”
Before Covid-19 became the invisible enemy in March last year, Gary’s diary would be filled with such commitments as playing drums for Leeds band Hope & Social and guitar for Rosie Doonan; alternating the drummer’s seat for eight years in the Harrogate Theatre pantomime orchestra pit; hosting the Greenwich Village-inspired Gaslight Club acoustic hootenanny gigs at Oporto!, in Call Lane, Leeds, and fronting a seven-piece covers band, touring the UK with Graceland: A Celebration of Paul Simon’s Classic.
“In lockdown, I could give myself to writing after quite a hiatus from doing that. Suddenly, you have all this time and you can either squander it or you can try to use it productively, and I thought, ‘I’m going to be productive,” he says.
Perthshire-born Scotsman Gary had cut his teeth performing on the Leeds music scene for ten years before moving to Easingwold. Writing songs in the folk/pop vein, and influenced by the major singer/songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s – Paul Simon, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Carole King and assorted members of The Eagles – he had released three albums and two EPs to date.
“The last album came out in November 2018, but I didn’t really give it the push it deserved, probably because there were other things going on, though I did have a launch night at The Crescent [in York],” he says.
Lost, Now Found emerged over a burst of song-writing between April and June 2020, ten compositions completed in “lightning time” by his own standards. “I started with a song, Leopard, that had been kicking around my head and notebook for 18 months or so, with a verse and chorus,” says Gary.
“As a self-confessed professional procrastinator, my fear was that I wouldn’t stick with it or even bother to give myself a fighting chance, but thankfully I managed to finish it, and I thought, ‘let’s try to expand how I write, moving on from the usual four chords’.
“My girlfriend is a big Beatles fan and that kind of influenced my writing. For me, when I’m writing an album, I always think, ‘what would interest me as a listener?’, while trying to write each sing in a different key, though I didn’t quite manage it in end!”
“Technophobe” Gary ventured into the realm of D.I.Y. musician for Lost, Now Found, playing, recording, mixing and producing the album as a solo work.
“I thought, ‘I may as well spend time learning the technicalities of recording, learning how to use software of industry standard,” he recalls. “Arts Council England enticed me with its Developing Creative Practice fund, so I applied, got the funding, and that helped me to buy a laptop, an interface and a couple of really nice microphones,” he says. “This in turn led me down the rabbit-hole and into the Wonderland of home-recording.”
The next two months were spent learning a new trade on-the-go while recording the ten new songs. “It was a really interesting process, as I didn’t have to worry about playing on the songs because I can play what I need to a reasonable standard,” says Gary, who studied orchestral percussion at Leeds College of Music from 1999 and lived the big-city life until relocating to Easingwold in 2014.
“I’ve played for such a long time, I’m like a magpie, or a musical carpetbagger, picking up different things to play, like the guitar when I was 14/15.
“What was great this time was being able to get the sound I wanted, and all those things make me feel it’s the best album I’ve done: the recordings are good, the sound is excellent.”
Multi-instrumentalist Gary has enlisted the help of a handful of musician friends to “add colour” to assorted songs. Rosie Doonan, who has worked with Peter Gabriel, duets with Stewart on Hot To Trot, Tu Eres Mi Media Naranja and Lost, Now Found, and Mikey Kenney, from Band Of Burns, lends string arrangements to Rainy Day Lover and Sailors And Tailors.
BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winner Ross Ainslie, from Treacherous Orchestra and Salsa Celtica, plays whistle on Front Lines, while Sam Lawrence and James Hamilton contribute woodwind and brass respectively to the opening track, Tailspin. “Under the pandemic restrictions, we couldn’t meet up, but I was able to send the tracks to them record their parts,” says Gary.
Lost, Now Found captures the sound and feel of a 1970s’ era singer/songwriter record. “My D.I.Y. approach to recording, coupled with my musical influences, help give the album its lo-fi sonority: warm-sounding acoustic guitars and drums; plate reverb vocals, and instruments captured as naturally as possible, with very little effect,” says Gary. “Think Tapestry meets Tea For The Tillerman.”
Stylistically, the album embraces 1960s and 1970s’ artists alongside more contemporary folk/pop luminaries: The Beach Boys’ drums and vocal-harmony influence are apparent on Hot To Trot and Tu Eres Mi Media Naranja; John Martyn and Nick Drake bounce off each other in Tailspin; lead single Leopard has a Villagers vibe, while the plaintive feel of Still Crazy-era Paul Simon is present on Rainy Day Lover, Sadder Day Song and the title track.
“These are ten songs that I’m really proud of,” says Gary. “Songs that deal with themes I constantly return to, consciously or sub-consciously: fabrics of my character that I’d like to change (Leopard and Chest); procrastination (Hot To Trot) and redemption, coupled with new beginnings (Tailspin) and straight-up love songs (Rainy Day Lover, Sadder Day Song and Tu Eres Mi Media Naranja) – songwriters just can’t get away from writing love songs!”
Inevitably, too, there are songs woven more indelibly and intertwined with the time and circumstances wherein they were written: family loss, both physical and mental, for Sailors And Tailors and Lost, Now Found and the triumph over adversity of the NHS for Front Lines.
“Some songs came really quickly, like Front Lines, which came from a conversation with my percussionist, who’s a paramedic, and told me of paramedics being put on the phone to speak with cancer patients who couldn’t be treated during the pandemic.”
This summer marks Gary’s return to performing, kicking off with Gary Stewart’s Folk Club from 7.30pm to 10pm on July 3, replacing the Silent Disco that has now aptly fallen silent that evening in the open-air setting of At The Mill, in Stillington, near York (box office: athemill.org).
“It will be a very special, one off, folk club: part folk night, part headline gig, with an eclectic mix of acts and then me doing a set,” says Gary.
As At The Mill’s Alexander Wright explains: “The first half will work like a traditional folk night. Hosted by Gary, people in attendance are given the opportunity to play and share – music, stories, songs or poems. If you want to share something, then bring your instrument and your voice and we’ll see you there!
“The second half of the evening sees Gary take to the stage for a headline set. We can’t wait for Gary Stewart’s Folk Club. We love a folk night – and we really look forward to seeing and hearing all the wonderful things you bring to share!”
Gary will be in solo mode on the July 31 bill for Meadowfest, Malton’s boutique midsummer music festival, headlined by Lightning Seeds (box office: tickettailor.com/events/visitmalton/348810/s).
In The Crescent’s diary are two gigs: Gary’s Paul Simon show, Graceland, on September 18 , with tickets on sale at £12.50 at seetickets.com, plus he will be back on drums there for Hope & Social on October 12, newly rearranged from July 16.
Even in such strange times, Gary Stewart is living out a young Scotsman’s vow to himself. “I consciously made the decision that I was going to make music, as even if I didn’t make a lot of money, I’d still want to make music because that’s the win of it,” he says. “I’ll always work hard at it, though sometimes I could be more proactive!”
More proactive? The multi-tasking new album, the diverse live performances, would suggest otherwise, Gary.
Gary Stewart’s Lost, Now Found was released on June 14 on CD, 12“ vinyl and download.
Just how multi-instrumentalist is multi-tasking Gary Stewart?
ON Lost, Now Found, he contributes vocals, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, hi-string guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums, keys, xylophone, glockenspiel, congas, bongos, shakers, triangle, tambourine, finger cymbals, temple blocks and…thighs. Oh, and he recorded, mixed and produced the album.
REVIEW: Songs Under Skies, Joshua Burnell and Katie Spencer, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York
EAST Yorkshire singer-songwriter Katie Spencer, like so many musicians divorced by lockdown restrictions from their livelihood of live shows, had taken to streaming gigs to the alienating sound of silence.
No wonder she smiled at the welcoming sound of applause, as reviving as hearing birdsong after being stuck indoors. “It’s lovely to be sharing live music for the first time in a long time,” she said at the 7pm outset of week two of Songs Under Skies, the acoustic outdoor festival run by the NCEM, Fulford Arms, The Crescent and Music Venues Alliance.
All those mid-pandemic night streams, and her guitar never misbehaved. First live show back, and a string snapped, whereupon Katie administered a string re-fit at a speed to impress Formula One wheel-changers. Joshua Burnell would later refer to her handiwork as “the fastest in the history of music”.
That said, Katie’s primary handiwork is her acoustic guitar-playing, a gentle caress to lyrics that have the scent, sentience and scene-painting of poetry, sung in a voice that lingered in Monday’s NCEM churchyard air.
Raised by the seaside near Hull, she sang of how the water shapes both the land and the people who live there in her best number, Edge Of The Land. Weatherbeaten and Shannon Road were similarly affecting in a re-introductory set best summed up by her sentiment: “It’s wild to be playing music in front of live people instead of my plants and bookcase.”
Katie will be doing so again in support of Martin Simpson at Primrose Woods, Pocklington, on July 1 and at The Magpies Festival at Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest on August 14. Hopefully, that guitar will be on best behaviour.
Half an hour would pass for an audience as socially distanced as the churchyard graves before prog-folk songwriter Joshua Burnell took to the blue awning stage with keyboard player Oliver Whitehouse.
Burnell is a multi-instrumentalist on his recordings, but here he focused on acoustic guitar, adapting to the night temperature that demanded constant re-tuning, a routine that afforded him the time to talk between songs, although not to the length that had prompted a BBC Radio York presenter to advise him he should hand out a pamphlet the next time he introduced new single Shelagh’s Song in concert.
No such pamphlet was forthcoming or necessary. Joshua is an engaging storyteller as much as an eloquent songwriter equally capable of evoking Tolkien, folk forefathers, Al Stewart, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis and even Marc Bolan’s puckish dictionary.
He name-checked Ian McKellen for the opening Labels, recalling how the thespian knight had pondered “Why do we need to put labels on love?”. “Do you know what, Sir Ian, you’re right,” he said. “So throw your labels away, ‘Cause love has no use for them,” Joshua duly affirmed, almost enough to make any reviewer desist from further labelling on this occasion.
Joshua is as good at excavation as at conjuring new material, typified by an obscure but wonderful cover version, Eli Geva, Norwegian songwriter’s anguished Siege of Beirut ballad from an album of 12 banned songs from around the world.
Next came the aforementioned Shelagh’s Song, his account of how early-Seventies Edinburgh folk singer Shelagh McDonald vanished for 30 years after a particularly bad LSD trip. The re-surfaced Shelagh so loved the song she has sent Joshua a parcel with a letter, artwork and some lyrics she never published. Actions can speak so much louder than labels!
Joshua had just adjusted his guitar tuning again in the night cold when a new interruption tapped him on the shoulder: a sound alarm going off in the neighbouring bustle of Walmgate. One look from Joshua, and it was gone, as if ashamed at having held up “a bit of an anthem for positivity and things to come”: Golden Days, written in lockdown as the good weather rolled in and the vaccine programme was rolled out.
Not even the Prime Minister’s 6pm postponement of Freedom Day could deflate Joshua. “I still feel optimistic that we’re in a better place than we were a year ago,” he asserted.
If one lyric encapsulates retro-futurist Burnell in 2021, it would be: “Did I go through the wardrobe door because it’s been winter here for much too long”. Indeed it has, and as Songs Under Skies nudged and hushed it out the back door, he ended with Lucy, his variation on a “Ziggy Stardust character song”. Closer to Bolan than Bowie, if a label must be applied, but Lucy under darkening skies was a diamond finale.
Review by Charles Hutchinson
FORESTRY England will exhibit a selection of Earth Photo images in Dalby Forest, near Pickering, from June 28 to September 19.
The outdoor exhibition will display 24 of the final shortlisted entries in the beautiful forest setting of Staindale.
Earth Photo, an international competition and exhibition created by Forestry England and the Royal Geographical Society, in tandem with the Institute of British Geographers, showcases photographs and videos that document the natural world, both its beauty and ever-growing fragility.
The selection of images encompasses the Earth Photo categories: People, Place, Nature and Changing Forests. A Climate of Change, the competition’s newest category, marks the United Nations climate-change summit COP26, to be held in Glasgow in November.
Petra Young, Forestry England’s funding and development manager for the Yorkshire district, says: “We’re delighted to be once again one of three of the nation’s forests hosting the selected Earth Photo exhibition. This is a crucial year to shine a light on the natural world, our relationship with it and how we can better support it.
“COP26 will focus minds on the pressing issues that face our environment. The last year showed so many of us just how much we value and need nature to restore our wellbeing. Being able to see these Earth Photo images in the heart of Dalby Forest is a very special experience and we welcome everyone to visit safely and see them.”
This is the latest exhibition in Dalby Forest’s arts programme to showcase art that interprets the landscape, wildlife, heritage and people, created by Yorkshire, national and international artists.
The full Earth Photo exhibition will share the June 28 opening date at the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London, for a run until the end of August before touring Forestry England forests at Moors Valley in Dorset and Grizedale in Cumbria.
Category winners and the overall winner will be announced on August 19 at an awards event at the Royal Geographical Society. More information on the Dalby Forest exhibition can found at: forestryengland.uk/forest-event/events-dalby-forest/earth-photo-exhibition-2021-dalby-forest.
Did you know?
FORESTRY England, England’s largest land manager, cares for the nation’s 1,500 woods and forests, drawing more than 230 million visits per year.
THE STORY BEHIND ROSIE HALLAM’S EARTH PHOTO EXHIBIT, A RIGHT TO AN EDUCATION…
“EVERY child has the right to go to school,” says Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO. “It is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that happens.”
UNESCO contends that education is both a basic human right and a smart investment, being vital for development and helping to lay the foundations for social well-being, economic growth and security, gender equality and peace.
Education is the frontline of defence in tackling diseases such as Ebola, by teaching children about how they can protect themselves and their families.
Rosie’s photograph captures the story of 14-year-old Selamaw, the first person in her family to stay on at school past primary age. Her parents, Marco and Meselech, are subsistence farmers in a village near Aleta Chuko, Sidamo, Ethiopia.
They are part of a programme designed to help children from the poorest Ethiopian families remain in school while assisting the mothers to set up a business with a seed fund made up of a small donation and savings.
While Selamaw goes to school, her mother, Meselech, is learning literacy and numeracy skills and attending business classes. She hopes to set up a business selling crops and flour.
Through this programme, Meselech aims to earn enough money to keep Selamaw in school and to allow her other children to receive an education, eventually breaking their cycle of poverty.
THE York String Quartet will grace the Joseph Rowntree Theatre stage in York for the first time on Sunday night.
As the JoRo reopens after lockdown, York audiences are being offered a wider choice of performances, the result of both the trustees’ desire to attract new hirers and differing groups’ need to look for suitable venues.
Graham Mitchell, the Haxby Road theatre’s community engagement director, says: “We’re delighted that the York String Quartet has chosen our venue for its first show post-lockdown.
“We haven’t often had this type of show on stage and we know it’ll attract a new audience into the theatre, perhaps people who don’t even know who we are or what we offer.”
In the York String Quartet line-up are Fiona Love, violin, Nicola Rainger, violin, Vince Parsonage, violin and viola, and Sally Ladds, cello.
The 7.30pm programme will comprise: J S Bach’s Brandenburg No. 3 in G major; Dvorak’s Quartet No. 12, ‘American’ 1st movement, Allegro Ma Non Troppo; Beethoven’s Quartet No. 13 op. 130, 5th movement ‘Cavatina’, Adagio Molto Espressivo, and Schubert’s Quartet No. 13 D.804 in A minor, ‘Rosamunde’, last movement, Allegro Moderato.
A selection from classical, pop, jazz, shows, television and film in a quiz format will follow the interval. Tickets cost £8 to £13 at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Tomorrow’s Meat Loud – The Duo show, with its invitation to “buckle up and get ready for a ride into Hell”, has been cancelled.
Founded by Meat Loud, alias Andy Plimmer, and session singer and vocal coach Sally Rivers, the show is built around Bat Out Of Hell, complemented by other Meat Loaf slices of rock opera and songs penned by Jim Steinman for Bonnie Tyler, Cher, and Celine Dion. Sally has worked with Annie Lennox, Cher and Mick Hucknall, among others.
Alas, tomorrow night is now a case of All Revved Up With No Place To Go.
POCKLINGTON Arts Centre will reopen to the public on July 20 and film screenings will re-start on July 23, 491 days since the last performance.
Director Janet Farmer and venue manager James Duffy have chosen this date to ensure the safety of customers and volunteers.
“Over the past few months, our main focus has been planning the safe reopening of the building, ensuring all staff are trained appropriately and making sure the venue has all its new systems, resources and processes in place and working well,” says Janet.
“We have sought feedback from staff, volunteers and customers and this will be vital to the success of this process. Our main aim is to ensure the visitor experience at Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) is safe, secure and enjoyable.”
In late-March 2020, the East Yorkshire venue launched a crowdfunding page, raising more than £18,000 in under a month, followed by successful funding applications to the Smile Foundation’s I Am Fund and the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund.
Janet says: “I would like to thank our customers, in addition to Pocklington Town Council, the Friends of PAC, the Smile Foundation, Arts Council England and the Music Venue Trust for their collective support over the past year.
“It has been a very difficult time for everyone, but their kind words, financial support and continued interest in all things PAC has meant a great deal and helped carry the venue through these extraordinary times.”
Staff have rescheduled forthcoming events for the autumn and winter, transferring more than 4,000 tickets and refunding customers for 20-plus cancelled events.
“Throughout the closure period, we have stated our determination to emerge from the situation more vibrant than ever and our autumn and winter programme is a testament to that,” says Janet.
“2021/22 will see a fantastic range of live events being staged here, alongside our trademark diverse mix of film screenings, live broadcasts, exhibitions, community events and private hires.”
In the diary are Grammy Award winner Loudon Wainwright III, September 24; Northumberland Theatre Company (NTC) in Oscar Wilde’s “trivial comedy for serious people”, The Importance Of Being Earnest, September 30; North Eastern gypsy folk-rockers Holy Moly & The Crackers, October 16; Oxford singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore, October 7, and Irish jazz/blues chanteuse Mary Coughlan, October 19.
Bellowhead alumni and BBC Radio Folk Award winners Spiers & Boden are booked in for October 20; Red Ladder Theatre Company, from Leeds, in Nana-Kofi Kufuor’s My Voice Was Heard But Was Ignored, for November 25; television and radio broadcaster and author Jeremy Vine, November 26; Welsh singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph, December 2, and York drag diva deluxe Velma Celli, December 3.
Confirmed for 2022 are An Evening With Julian Norton, from Channel 5’s The Yorkshire Vet, January 18; singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson, January 22;Welsh guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and former Amen Corner cornerstone Andy Fairweather Low, February 11, and Eighties’ pop singer and actress Toyah Willcox, March 3.
PAC’s two open-air acoustic concerts in Primrose Wood, Pocklington, with Martin Simpson and Katie Spencer on July 1 and The Dunwells and Rachel Croft on July 8 will go ahead despite the Government’s Step 4 roadmap delay, but now under social-distancing restrictions. Both 7pm shows have sold out.
Janet says: “We always knew this was a possibility when the shows were first planned and there’s sufficient space for people to enjoy the event safely, while experiencing the atmospheric setting of Primrose Wood.”
PAC increased its online artistic output during the pandemic, staging 18 events to more than 9,000 audience members.
In addition, a series of outdoor exhibitions has been held by PAC across the region. York artists Sue Clayton and Karen Winship have shown work at All Saints’ Church, Pocklington, and Sue will be following Karen into Hull Waterside and Marina. Those attending the York Vaccination Centre at Askham Bar can see her Down Syndrome portraits in the Tent of Hope.
“We felt it was vitally important to have continued customer engagement throughout the prolonged closure period and the public response to these events and exhibitions has been very positive,” says Janet.
“We’re also very much aware there’s no substitute to watching a live performance, in person, and sharing this experience with fellow audience members.
“Everyone at PAC is now counting down the days until the doors can reopen and we can welcome customers back. It’s been a very long interval and we can’t wait for the second half to begin.”
For full event listings and ticket details, go to: pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
COMEDIAN and presenter Joe Lycett will play more, more, more shows – 60 in total – on his More, More, More! How Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett? tour from March to September 2022.
Riffing his show title on a lyric from Andrea True Connection’s April 1976 top-five disco smash More, More, More, Lycett will head to Yorkshire for a tenth of those gigs.
April Fool’s Day and April 3 bring Lycett to York Barbican; Hull Bonus Arena comes in between on April 2, then Sheffield City Hall, on April 15 and 15, and Leeds First Direct Arena, on September 14, on the tour’s arena finale. Tickets go on general sale at 10am tomorrow (18/6/2021) from joelycett.com.
More, More, More! How Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett? finds Lycett – the artist formerly known briefly as Hugo Boss – exploring his love of art and passion for gardening, how he toys with companies on Instagram and the perils of online trolls.
Lycett, 32, has kept himself busy during the global pandemic, helming his third series of BBC1’s The Great British Sewing Bee, drawing more than six million viewers each week. He is filming series three of his BAFTA-nominated Channel 4 series Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back, where he takes on the major and minor consumer injustices of this world, and soon he will take over as host of Channel 4’s long-running travel documentary series Travel Man.
More, More, More! How Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett? is Lycett’s fifth tour with a pop culture-purloined title after Some Lycett Hot, If Joe Lycett Then You Should’ve Put A Ring On It, That’s The Way, A-Ha, A-Ha, Joe Lycett and I’m About To Lose Control And I Think Joe Lycett: his biggest tour to date with 90 British dates and many more in Australia.
Lycett contributed an artwork to Grayson Perry’s first Channel 4 lockdown series Grayson’s Art Club and hosts shows regularly on BBC Radio 2.
Last November, he directed the music video for Litany’s Uh-huh, featuring comedy turn Katherine Ryan, RuPaul’s Drag Race star Vinegar Strokes and a cameo from Lycett himself. Earlier this year, he debuted his surreal video for Katy J Pearson’s Miracle, replete with a life-size toy cow called Muriel and some shanty singers.
Birmingham-born Lycett last played York on May 13 2018 at the Grand Opera House on his I’m About To Lose Control And I Think Joe Lycett travels.
He made earlier visits to Toby Clouston Jones’s Saturday Night Lounge comedy nights at The Duchess in January and March 2015; the Hyena Lounge Comedy Club, with If Joe Lycett Then You Should’ve Put A Ring On It, at the Basement, City Screen, in February 2014; an Edinburgh Fringe work-in-progress preview of that show in the Basement in Summer 2013 and a Hyena Lounge bill with James Acaster and Chris Stokes in January that year.
As trailered in a Lycett tweet earlier this week with the exhortation “Mummy needs you!”, he is due to be in York today, filming for Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back.
MEANWHILE, in further diary notes at York Barbican, Wakefield cabaret singer Jane McDonald’s Let The Light In show is on the move to Summer 2022.
For so long booked in as the chance to Get The Lights Back On at the Barbican on July 4, the Government’s postponement of “Freedom Day” from June 21 to July 19 at the earliest has enforced a late-change.
First booked in for 2020, McDonald will light up York Barbican on July 22 2022; tickets remain valid for the twice-rearranged show.
Historian and television presenter Dan Snow’s History Hit show on October 20 is, alas, history itself now, hit by a “scheduling conflict”. Snow “hopes to be back on the road again in the not-too-distant future”; tickets will be automatically refunded from the point of purchase.
In a second humorous addition, to go with Lycett, Germany’s ambassador of comedy, Henning Wehn, will “give everything a good rinse as you witness him wring sense out of the nonsensical” in It’ll All Come Out In The Wash on June 17 2022.
Wehn concedes that “an unbiased look at a certain virus might be inevitable” but he “has no agenda; he just happens to be always spot on. It’s a curse”.
NEW Earth Theatre’s director and cast are in the York Theatre Royal Studio, having arrived on Tuesday for rehearsals for their touring revival of Amy Ng’s timely and politically charged take on Miss Julie.
Come Tuesday, Sophie Robinson, Jennifer Leong and Leo Wan will switch to the main house for the opening night of Dadiow Lin’s production, first staged with co-producers Storyhouse in Chester last year.
Out goes August Strindberg’s original 1888 setting for his full-length once-act drama Froken Julie, once banned in his native Sweden (of all places!) for its strong language and sexual imagery and for being too radical in its account of a psycho-sexual pas de deux between a count’s unstable daughter, Julie, and his ambitious valet, John.
In comes British-Hong Kong playwright Amy Ng’s new setting of the Chinese New Year in 1940s’ Hong Kong, when Julie (Robinson), daughter of the island’s British governor, crashes the servants’ party downstairs. What starts as a game descends into a fight for survival as sex, power, money and race collide on a hot night in the Pearl River Delta.
“I’m not a fan of the original version,” says Dadiow of a Strindberg play now viewed commonly as being misogynist. “The reason I’m loving doing this play is because of Amy’s adaptation. What we get from Strindberg, if there is any message, is that every drama comes down to people and relationships, and he does a great job of building up the pressure over the night, but there’s something in his original work that I don’t appreciate. Amy has given it more life, a more current feeling, that resonates with people.”
Amy Ng is far from the first writer to re-visit Miss Julie’s depiction of gender and class. In 1995, English playwright Patrick Marber’s After Miss Julie relocated Strindberg’s naturalist tragedy to an English country house in July 1945, on the night of the Labour Party’s post-war landslide General Election triumph.
In 2012, in South African director and playwright Jael Farber’s Afrikaans’ version, Mies Julie, it became an apartheid story in a remote, bleak farm in modern-day South Africa’s Karoo semi-desert.
“Clearly there is something in the nub of the story that’s attractive and interesting to other playwrights, who undertake big re-workings of the text: Marber, Farber and now Amy’s new setting in Hong Kong,” says Leo Wan, the Sheffield actor who plays valet John.
“Strindberg’s politics remain of his era, but we can make them current to talk about them now,” says Dadiow.
“So there’s something there, but writers feel they want to re-write it,” rejoins Leo.
Amy’s Hong Kong location and its topicality in light of the protests against Beijing-imposed laws strike a chord with Dadiow. “It definitely resonates with me and my own background. I grew up in Taiwan when we were experiencing similar events, so a story like this, to me, while I never feel ‘I want to tell you things’, it feels dear to me as a story I’m familiar with.
“It’s very emotional. You can look at Romeo & Juliet and feel moved, but this feels very close to me, because of Taiwan being colonised by Japan until 1945. I feel very emotionally connected to the history and culture.”
Jennifer Leong, who plays the role of Christine newly revised by Ng, has spent time aplenty in Hong Kong. “My early school years were there and I still have family there,” she says. “I lot of people watched it when we did a run of live-streams from Storyhouse earlier this year, especially with our production being set in Hong Kong.
“They were very interested and said they really appreciated the specificity of the world that Amy has set the play in. We learn that the white, British people lived ‘on the peak’, exclusive to the British, and I have family with memories of that, so to hear about that context from them made it very powerful – and even if you didn’t know that context, it’s still a very powerful story about the lines that we draw socially. Now we add the race element to the class element of colonial times.”
Dadiow says: “Even though it’s set in the 1940s, you connect it with what’s happening in Hong Kong now, with the Chinese Communist take-over, where you’re seeing the rule of Communism really seeping in [with the national security law].”
Leo describes Strindberg’s Miss Julie as a chamber piece with a domestic setting, but one that expands in its impact through Ng’s 75-minute script. “It’s good to give a realistic context of what Hong Kong was like at that time, to show Britain when it still had an empire, with Hong Kong being the last great bastion of that empire,” he says.
“In this play, you see the repercussions of that, where if you colonise somewhere, and if you then stop that, you still have a moral responsibility to deal with what you have created, like the responsibility of now saying to Hong Kong citizens you can move to the UK [under a new visa scheme].
“Unfortunately, those who tend to be superpowers are singularly lacking in moral leadership…
…”But the one thing that British rule did well was to implement a legal system that Hong Kong is still proud of, and to an extent freedom of the press too,” interjects Jennifer.
Why book tickets for this Miss Julie, Dadiow? “Anyone who doesn’t like the original should see this version,” she urges. “This play is a psychological thriller with a real sense of danger in the room between mistress and servant, where you never know when they will cross the line, wondering what’s going on and will they cross it.”
That’s why the flyer still carries the content warning: Miss Julie contains some strong language, violence and scenes of a sexual nature.
Miss Julie, York Theatre Royal, June 22 to 26, 8pm and 3pm, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Copyright of The Press, York
FREEDOM Day is delayed but Boris Johnson has reached for the Latin dictionary again with his promise of “Terminus Est”. Meanwhile, back in the real world, life goes on in Charles Hutchinson’s socially distanced diary.
Play of the week ahead: Miss Julie, The Love Season at York Theatre Royal, June 22 to 26
ON the Chinese New Year in 1940s’ Hong Kong, the celebrations are in full swing when Julie, the daughter of the island’s British governor, crashes the servants’ party downstairs.
What starts as a game descends into a fight for survival as sex, power, money and race collide on a hot night in the Pearl River Delta in British-Hong Kong playwright Amy Ng’s adaptation of Strindberg’s psychological drama in New Earth Theatre and Storyhouse’s new touring production. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Reopening of the day: Leeds Grand Theatre
WHEN Leeds Grand Theatre first opened its doors on Monday, November 18 1878, a playbill declared it would “Positively Open”. Now, after 15 months under wraps, it is “Positively Reopening” today (17/62021) for a socially distanced run of Northern Ballet’s Swan Lake until June 26.
In Northern Ballet‘s emotive retelling, Anthony’s life is haunted by guilt after the tragic loss of his brother. When he finds himself torn between two loves, he looks to the water for answers.
There he finds solace with the mysterious swan-like Odette as the story is beautifully reimagined by David Nixon, who will be leaving the Leeds company after 20 years as artistic director in December. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or at boxoffice@leedsheritagetheatres
Staying on track: Sounds In The Grounds, Clocktower Enclosure, York Racecourse, June 25 to 27
JAMBOREE Entertainment presents three Covid safety-compliant Sounds In The Grounds concerts next weekend with socially distanced picnic patches at York Racecourse.
First up, next Friday, will be Beyond The Barricade, a musical theatre celebration starring former Les Miserables principals; followed by Abba Mania next Saturday and the country hits of A Country Night In Nashville next Sunday.
Opening each show will be York’s party, festival and wedding favourites, The New York Brass Band. Tickets are on sale at soundsinthegrounds.seetickets.com or at the gate for last-minute decision makers.
Welcome back: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, York, from June 26
AFTER the pandemic ruled out all last year’s live events, York River Art Market returns to its riverside railing perch at Dame Judi Dench Walk, by Lendal Bridge, for ten shows this summer in the wake of the winter’s online #YRAMAtHome, organised by Charlotte Dawson.
Free to browse and for sale will be work by socially distanced, indie emerging and established artists on June 26, July 3, 24, 25 and 31 and August 1, 7, 14, 21 and 28, from 10.30am to 5.30pm, when YRAM will be raising funds for York Rescue Boat.
On show will be landscape and abstract paintings; ink drawings, cards and prints; jewellery and glass mosaics; woodwork and metalwork; textiles and clothing and artisan candles and beauty products.
He’s nervous, but why? Alexander Wright: Remarkable Acts Of Narcissism, Theatre At The Mill, Stillington, near York, July 10, 7.30pm
LET Alex tell the story: “In a potentially remarkable act of narcissism, I am doing a solo gig of my own work in a theatre I built (with Phil Grainger and dad Paul Wright) in my back garden.
“It’s the first time I have ever done a solo gig. I write lots of stuff, direct lots of stuff, tour Orpheus, Eurydice & The Gods to hundreds of places. But I’ve never really stood in front of people and performed my own stuff, on my own, for an extended period. So, now, I am…and I’m nervous about it.”
Expect beautiful stories, beautiful poems and a few beautiful special guests; tickets via atthemill.org.
Summer “pantomime”? Yes, in TaleGate Theatre’s Goldlilocks And The Three Bears, Pocklington Arts Centre, August 12, 2.30pm
ALL the fun of live family theatre returns to Pocklington Arts Centre this summer with Doncaster company TaleGate Theatre’s big top pantomime extravaganza.
In Goldilocks And The Three Bears, pop songs, magic and puppets combine in a magical adventure where you are invited to help Goldilocks and her mum, Dame Dolly Donut, save their circus and rescue the three bears from the evil ringmaster. For tickets, go to: pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Festival alert: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, near York, August 14, music on bar stage from 1.30pm; main stage, from 2.30pm
SAM Kelly & The Lost Boys will headline The Magpies Festival in the grounds of Sutton Park.
Confirmed for the folk-flavoured line-up too are: Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra; Blair Dunlop; fast-rising Katherine Priddy; The Magpies; York musician Dan Webster; East Yorkshire singer-songwriter Katie Spencer; the duo Roswell and The People Versus. Day tickets and camping tickets are available at themagpiesfestival.co.uk/tickets.
Fun and games combined: JLA Productions in Twelfth Night, Selby Rugby Union Football Club, August 20, 7.30pm; August 21, 2.30pm, 7.30pm
“I’M just getting in touch to announce we’re doing some Shakespeare on a rugby pitch in Selby in August. Crazy? Perhaps. But it’s going to be fun!” promises Luke Adamson, Selby-born actor, London theatre boss and son of former England squad fly half Ray.
Adapted and directed by Adamson, a raucous, musical version of “Shakespeare’s funniest play”, Twelfth Night, will be staged with Adamson as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in a cast rich with Yorkshire acting talent.
Out go pantaloons and big fluffy collars, in come rugby socks, cricket jumpers and questionable facial hair. Box office: jlaproductions.co.uk.