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More Things To Do in York and beyond and on the home front in loosened lockdown. List No. 32, courtesy of The Press, York

Love letters straight to your art from York Theatre Royal’s reopening show, Love Bites

THE Downing Street briefing on Step 3 of the roadmap rollout is just around the tantalising corner. Charles Hutchinson highlights the rising tide of upcoming shows, ongoing festivals and exhibitions and online options.

Love story of the month: The Love Season: Love Bites, York Theatre Royal, May 17 and 18

YORK Theatre Royal reopens with two nights of Love Bites, both a love letter to live performance by York artists and a celebration of the creative talent across the city.

More than 200 artists from a variety of art forms applied for £1,000 love-letter commissions to be staged on May 17 – the first day theatres can reopen under Step 3 of the Government’s lockdown loosening – and May 18. The 22 short pieces will be performed each socially distanced night, introduced by broadcaster Harry Gration.

“We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’!” says director Juliet Forster. Prompt booking is advised at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.

Ruth Rogers: Violinist performing at Ryedale Festival’s online Spring Festival on RyeStream

Online festival of the week: Ryedale Festival’s Spring Festival, running until May 8

TOMORROW night will see the fast-rising combo The Immy Churchill Trio toast the arrival of spring with Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year, a late-night session of jazz standards from the Great American Songbook online from Helmsley Arts Centre at 9pm.

Finishing the festival at Castle Howard with The Lark Ascending on May 8 at 3pm, the virtuosic London Mozart Players and violinist Ruth Rogers will perform Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending and Vivaldi’s Spring from The Four Seasons.

The Spring Festival season will be available to view on RyeStream until the end of May.

Are you going for Scarborough air? York artist Malcolm Ludvigsen painting on the bracing seafront at the East Coast resort

Exhibition launch of the week in York: Malcolm Ludvigsen’s Art, Village Gallery, York

PROLIFIC York plein-air artist Malcolm Ludvigsen is the focus of Village Gallery’s first new exhibition of 2021 in Colliergate, York.

Erstwhile maths professor Ludvigsen spends much of his time on the beaches and headlands of Yorkshire, fascinated endlessly by the sea and sky.

The show of Ludvigsen oil paintings will run until Saturday, June 19 with Covid-secure, socially distanced measures in place. Opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.

Not a spoiler alert: Irish humorist Ed Byrne will play York for the first time since his Spoiler Alert tour in 2018

Comedy gig announcement of the week in York: Live At The Theatre Royal Comedy Night, York Theatre Royal, July 1

THIS will be Ed Byrne’s night in York when the observational Southern Irish comedian headlines an all-star bill.

Joining headliner Ed will be Mock The Week’s whip-smart wordsmith Rhys James and Have I Got News For You panellist-in-lockdown Maisie Adam, hosted by “compere-beyond-compare” Arthur Smith, the veteran gloomy weather-faced comedian and presenter from Bermondsey, London.

Tickets are on sale at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk and on 01904 62356.

Cuppa and a couple of gigs at Pocklington Arts Centre for Omid Djalili in July

Comedy gig announcement of the week outside York: Omid Djalili, Pocklington Arts Centre, July 22, at the double

POCKLINGTON Arts Centre has confirmed its first live shows since Tom Rosenthal’s Manhood comedy gig on March 14 last year.

British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili will perform twice on Thursday, July 22. Significantly too, those 7pm and 9pm performances will be without social-distancing measures, but full of provocative, intelligent cultural observations.

Djalili, 55, originally had been booked for July’s now-cancelled Platform Festival at the Old Station, Pocklington.

Dancing Dan: Dancing On Ice star Dan Whiston glides into Rawcliffe Country Park in August

Get your skates on: Cinderella On Ice, Rawcliffe Country Park, York, August 17 to 22

DANCING On Ice three-time champion Dan Whiston will lead the company for Cinderella On Ice, a show fuelled by high-speed ice-skating and aerial feats.

“I cannot wait to get back on the ice and for the crowds to witness this amazing show after such a troubled past 12 months of lockdowns,” says Whiston. “We hope to both wow and amaze.”

Fairytale On Ice’s ice-palace production will be performed by “some of the world’s most elite entertainers and skilled skaters after thousands of auditions”. Tickets for the 4.30pm matinees and 7.30pm evening performances are on sale at fairytaleonice.com.

Seven UP: Shed Seven’s Shedcember tour to climax with two nights at Leeds O2 Academy

The return of the York heroes: Shed Seven, Shedcember tour

SHED Seven will close their 2021 Shedcember tour with two nights at Leeds O2 Academy on December 20 and 21.

The York band’s 18-date itinerary will take in further Yorkshire shows at Sheffield O2 Academy on November 30 and Hull City Hall on December 1, but not a home-city gig, alas.

The Sheds’ concerts are billed as Another Night, Another Town – The Greatest Hits Live – a nod of acknowledgement in the direction of last December’s 21-track live double album. Tickets are selling very fast at shedseven.com, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk.

Senegal and Wales combine in the Pocklington-bound music-making of Seckou Keita and Catrin Finch

On the move: Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita, Pocklington Arts Centre

WELSH harpist Catrin Finch and Sengalese kora player Seckou Keita will now play Pocklington on May 21 2022.

The 7.30pm concert has been rescheduled from June 10 2021 for the usual Covid reasons. All original tickets remain valid; further tickets go on sale from 10am tomorrow (7/5/2021) at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Finch and Keita will be showcasing songs from their next album, as yet untitled and set for release next year. 

Rapper and beatboxer Testament testifying in Orpheus In The Record Shop

And what about?

AS lockdown’s gradual, grinding release continues to make an impact on live performance, Leeds company Opera North will seek to entertain viewers at home. Check out Orpheus In The Record Shop, available for free at: bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000vbtx/lights-up-orpheus-in-the-record-shop.

Inspired by the ancient Greek myth, rapper and playwright Testament fuses spoken word and beatboxing with a cinematic score performed by the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North.

Originally performed during Connecting Voices at Leeds Playhouse, it has been reworked for film by Alex Ramseyer-Bache and Playhouse artistic director James Brining as part of the BBC Lights Up season.

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Meet the 22 artists putting the Love Bites into York Theatre Royal’s May reopening

THE Love Season will soon set hearts pulsing at York Theatre Royal, where the Step 3 reopening will make its mark with Love Bites: a love letter to live performance and a toast to the city’s creative talent.

More than 200 artists from a variety of art forms applied for £1,000 love-letter commissions to be staged on May 17 – the first day that theatres can reopen after restrictions are lifted – and May 18.

The 22 short pieces selected will be performed each night at 8pm under the overall direction of Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, who says: “Love Bites is really a love letter to live performance, put together by York artists. It’s a celebration of what we have been missing for over a year now: the chance to come together under one roof and share our stories and experiences. 

“There was no one single theatre production that felt enough to mark the reopening of theatres, the lifting of restrictions, so we decided that we needed multiple ones.”

Shortlisting from 200-plus proposals was both extremely difficult and inspiring, according to Juliet. “There are so many talented, inventive, creative people in York – we could have filled the night several times over,” she says. 

“The selection of short pieces that you will see on our stage represent a wide range of voices, artforms and approaches to the theme of love, created by both well-established artists and those who are newer to the scene. We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’.”

Hosted by York  broadcaster Harry Gration, Love Bites will herald the start of The Love Season, wherein Ralph Fiennes will present T S Eliot’s Four Quartets, Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh will perform husband Ian Kershaw’s one-woman show The Greatest Play In The History Of The World…and perma-cycling Shakespeare enthusiasts The HandleBards will ride riotously through Romeo & Juliet.

The Love Bites line-up

Vanessa Simmons: Reverie

Vanessa is a composer, pianist and piano teacher who lives just outside York, drawing inspiration from the countryside. Reverie is the retelling of a dream that captures falling in love, the soaring emotions of being in love and remembering a love that is lost.

“It’s a rejoicing of the beauty, sorrow and power of real love in musical form, using some elements of the classic piano sonata with added impressionist colours and tones,” says Vanessa. “Reverie is a journey, one that is universal and timeless.” 

James Lewis-Knight: Staying Connected

James is an actor and the artistic director of Clown Space, a York company specialising in clowning, mask work and physical theatre. “As a clown, I’ve missed the joy that comes from connecting with a live audience and I can’t wait to find that again with Staying Connected,” he says.

Richard Kay

Richard Kay: For The Love Of Singing

Richard is an actor and writer, creating shows for festivals and attractions, such as the York Maze, as well as writing, directing and performing for Badapple Theatre, the Green Hammerton “theatre on your doorstep” company.

Over the past year, he has led four choirs over Zoom and has composed new music, as well as creating “virtual choir” tracks. 

Kitty Greenbrown, Robert Powell, Ben Pugh: The Angels Of Lendal Bridge

Kitty, Robert and Ben are a York trio of artist-producers. The ubiquitous Ben is a creative practitioner with more than 25 years’ experience in working across disciplines, not least for the Covid digital age. Robert has published four collections of poetry, an artist’s book and two short films. Kitty – also known as Katie – is a spoken-word performance poet interested in telling stories and collaborating with artists and musicians.

Story Craft Theatre’s Janet-Emily Bruce and Cassie Vallance

Story Craft Theatre: She Can Go Anywhere

Story Craft Theatre is a children’s theatre company created in York by Cassie Vallance and Janet-Emily Bruce. After setting up in 2018, they have hosted parties, events and classes throughout the UK. Partnerships have been forged with the National Trust, Goose of Harrogate, Rural Arts in Thirsk, Castle Howard, Rowntree Park in York and York Theatre Royal. 

Bridget Foreman: 5 Minute Call

Bridget has written more than 30 plays, ranging from one-person shows to large-scale community productions. Among recent works are Clay Fever for York Theatre Royal, Surprise Ending for York company Riding Lights, and York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre’s co-production of Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes. Her new play, My Place, will tour…sometime soon! She also lectures in playwriting at the University of York.

Claire Spooner and Richard Stephenson: Mise en aby-me

Passionate about theatre and costume, Claire works creatively across several arts sectors as a freelance life model, milliner, costumier for York Theatre Royal and occasional background artist for film and television. In each role, Claire explores and develops ways to tell a story through the human form.

Richard is a professional illustrator, painter, storyteller and music writer living in Leeds. He works predominantly in ink and considers himself more of an image maker, always searching creatively for the next happy accident. 

Gus Gowland: The Streets Of York

Gus is a musical theatre writer/composer based in York. For his first musical, Pieces Of String (Mercury Theatre, Colchester 2018), he won The Stage Debut Award for Best Composer/Lyricist. Other projects include Subway: an audio short, Copyright Christmas at the Barbican, London, and an upcoming EP of original songs, In Motion.

Hannah Davies: Love Song To Spring

Hannah is a York writer, theatre-maker and multi slam-winning poet. She is associate artist at Say Owt, York’s spoken-word night, and artistic director of Common Ground Theatre and teaches playwriting at the University of York.

Hannah Davies

Ashleigh J Mills: In Progress

Ashleigh [they/them] is a black, non-binary and unapologetically autistic creator. Politically and poetically minded, their work seeks to explore and digest their lived experience of life on the margins. They believe that within resistance lies creation. They are a work in progress.

Alice Boddy and Leanne Hope: A Love Letter To Female Friendship

Alice and Leanne trained together at the Northern Ballet School, worked together on cruise ships and have spent the past year creating/dancing in their living rooms/kitchen. Through their love letter, they hope to depict the power of female friendship – something they have relied on so heavily in pandemic times. 

Erika Noda: Ai

After graduating from East 15 Acting School, this Japanese English actor, from York, co-founded a theatre company that specialised in creating shows and workshops for children with complex needs. Ai is Erika’s first solo writing project; a semi-autobiographical account of what it can be like growing up dual heritage.  

Elena Skoreyko Wagner, James Cave and Bethan Ellis: Magic

Elena Skoreyko Wagner is a York illustrator and papercut artist, soon to take part in York Open Studios 2021. Her work seeks to find magic and uncover meaning in the mundane. York composer and singer James Cave sings in the York Minster choir and Gavin Bryars Ensemble. Bethan Ellis is a writer and editor; she works at University of York.

Butshilo Nleya: Ekhaya, Love Them Both? 

Butshilo is a Zimbabwean playwright, now living in York, whose work centres on place, home and the multiplicity of cultures. Since 2002, he has worked in Africa, Europe and the USA, using words, music and dance to explore the language of cultures, migration, identity and diversity.

Fladam (Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter): Love Bytes

York musical comedy duo’s heartfelt and humorous songs tackle the topical with witty wordplay, memorable melodies and a dash of the Carry On! Original songwriting guaranteed to make you smile.

Harri Marshall: I Often Think Of You

Harri is a deaf director based in York, who received training from the Young Vic, Regional Theatre Young Directors Scheme and the Bristol Old Vic. She has an affinity for contemporary theatre, including new writing, adaptation and verbatim theatre, and has directed nine shows. She is an advocate for D/deaf and disabled creatives and is a self-proclaimed proactive busy-body!

Luella Rebbeck, Jamie Marshall-White and Isla Bowles: The Art Of Losing 

Luella, Jamie and Isla are three emerging dance artists, studying dance full time at CAPA College, Wakefield, alongside creating their own dance films and works. The Art Of Losing portrays the loving relationships between them and what it means to have contact with one another. 

Paul Birch: Lost For Words

Writer/director Paul is artistic director of Out Of Character, a York company comprised of artists with experience of mental illness. Terence Stamp, Richard O’Brien and George Lazenby have been kind enough to speak his words in performance. In real life, his own words often fail him. 

Harri Marshall

Hannah Wintie-Hawkins: In The Beginning

Born and raised in York, Hannah moved to London to train professionally in dance. She then progressed her performance career and returned to York in 2016 to set up an independent dance organisation, York Dance Space. She now works as a dance artist and movement director in the city and across the UK.

Tom Nightingale: Elaine

Tom is a musician, performance writer and actor. “My motivation is a therapeutic outlet, in order to make sense of the life I’ve experienced, and my challenge is to shape my creations into something objectively understandable to the general public,” he says. 

One of his projects, Nightingales Game. Pretend To Be Like Me, was staged at Tang Hall Smart as a play in the community. He is “very excited” to be able to perform his song Elaine, written for his wife. 

Maurice Crichton: Where Are We Now, You and I? 

Maurice is an active member of York’s amateur theatre community, both on stage and as an organiser. Credits include: The Duchess Of Malfi, The Seagull (York Theatre Royal Studio); Colder Than Here (York Cemetery Chapel/St Nicks environment centre); Antony And Cleopatra (Theatre @41, Monkgate). During the pandemic, he produced York Shakespeare Project’s  Sit-down Sonnets in the churchyard at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate.

Toby Gordon: O Tell Me The Truth About Love by W H Auden

York actor Toby trained at LAMDA. Theatre credits include Two Planks & A Passion and As You Like It (York Theatre Royal and TakeOver), The Great Gatsby (Guild Of Misrule), The York Mystery Plays (York Minster, both as Satan and Jesus) and Antigone (Barbican, London).

Tickets cost Pay What You Feel at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.

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World music duo Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita move Pocklington gig to May 2022

Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita: New date for Pocklington Arts Centre concert

WELSH harpist Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita will play Pocklington Arts Centre on May 21 2022.

The 7.30pm concert has been rescheduled from June 10 2021 for the usual C-word reasons.

All original tickets for the mesmerising, intricate and ethereal virtuoso collaboration will remain valid and further tickets will be on sale from 10am on Friday (7/5/2021) at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Finch and Keita will be showcasing songs from their next album, as yet untitled and set for release next year. 

Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) director Janet Farmer says: “Having seen this superb world music duo at English Folk Expo in Manchester in 2018, it’s a privilege to welcome these BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winners to PAC next year. 

“It will be the first time we’ve welcomed both Catrin and Seckou to Pocklington for what we know will be a stunning exhibition of world-class musicianship and a truly remarkable night of live music.”

Drawing deep on their diverse traditions and transforming them with synergy, Finch, 41, and Keita, 43, released their debut album, Clychau Dibonback, in 2013, followed by long-awaited Soar in 2018, when they mounted spring and autumn UK tours.

Soar takes flight on the wings of the osprey, the bird of prey now returned to Wales after centuries of absence, that makes its annual 3,000-mile migration from the coasts of West Africa to the Welsh estuaries of Wales, “soaring like music and dreams over man-made borders, on its innate and epic journey of endurance”.

Soar soared to the heights of winning the fRoots Critics Poll Album of The Year in 2018, Best Fusion Album in the Songlines Music Awards and Best Transregional Album in the Transglobal World Music Charts, both in 2019. 

That year too, the album was nominated for Album of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, where Finch and Keita won Best Group/Duo and Seckou was named Musician of The Year.

Any ticket holder needing further information about the change of date should contact the box office.

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Dancing On Ice’s Dan Whiston to skate across Rawcliffe Country Park in Cinderella

Dan Whiston: Getting his skates on for Cinderella On Ice

DANCING On Ice three-time champion Dan Whiston will lead the company for Cinderella On Ice at Rawcliffe Country Park, York, from August 17 to 22.

“I cannot wait to get back on the ice and for the crowds to witness this amazing show after such a troubled past 12 months of lockdowns,” says Whiston, who partnered Emmerdale and The Syndicate star Gaynor Faye, Coronation Street’s Hayley Tamaddon and bronze medal-winning Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle to victories on the ITV show in 2006, 2010 and 2013 respectively.

“We hope to both wow and amaze,” he promises of the Fairytale On Ice production that will play to family audiences at seven locations with “some of the world’s most elite entertainers and skilled skaters after thousands of auditions”.

The touring show draw audiences into the magical world of Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, Prince Charming and the wicked sisters through a combination of high-speed ice-skating, music and visuals. Expect “breath-taking aerial feats, expertly choreographed routines and an enchanting storyline”.

Whiston, who has taken on the new role of Dancing On Ice’s associate creative director, will get his skates back on from August 3 to October 31 on the Cinderella On Ice tour, presented by the producers of Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White On Ice.

Tickets for the 4.30pm matinees and 7.30pm evening performances in the Fairtyale On Ice ice palace are on sale at fairytaleonice.com.

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REVIEW: Live theatre at last in a York pub garden after a long winter of disconnection

Mandy Newby: Stand-out turn in Weirdo in Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios. Picture: James Drury

Review: Next Door But One in Yorkshire Trios, The Gillygate pub, Gillygate, York, April 23 and 24 2021

LIVE theatre has returned to York. Yes, you read that right.

For the first time since York Stage brought a Covid-enforced early end to their pantomime run of Jack And The Beanstalk on December 30 at Theatre @41, Monkgate, actors have taken to a York stage for two nights of pub theatre…in the spring open air.

Where once a tent would suffice for shows by Alexander Flanagan Wright’s company, now The Gillygate publican Brian Furey has installed a wooden-framed outdoor performance area in the beer garden.

Socially distanced tables with allocated seating and an outdoor bar were complemented by Covid-secure measures: pub staff in face masks to take and deliver drink and food orders; Next Doors But One organisers in black and red masks designed in company livery; the programme in e-programme mode, available online only.

Next Door But One, the York community arts collective directed by Matt Harper-Hardcastle, with input from associate and project manager Kate Veysey and creative producer El Stannage, originally hoped to present Yorkshire Trios: 15 Local Creatives, 5 Short Performances, 1 City, inside The Gillygate in early January until Lockdown 3 put a red pen through those plans.

Instead, backed by Arts Council England funding, NDB1 kept the creatives busy with two months of online professional skill- development sessions and mentoring until the Step 2 reopening of pubs’ outdoor hospitality provided the opportunity to perform.

Project manager Kate Veysey, Next Door But One director Matt Harper-Hardcastle and creative producer El Stannage at the Friday night performance of Yorkshire Trios

A day’s warm weather added to the weekend mood as the Friday audience settled in. Behind them were those who were only here for the beer, but rather than putting up a To Beer Or Not To Beer dividing line, and asking anyone to pipe down, everyone just raised a glass to being allowed to gather in a pub garden after the long winter’s hibernation.

Today, Next Door But One have issued a Let Us Know What You Thought email, asking attendees for Audience Feedback by “sparing a few minutes to complete our short survey so we can build and improve on the event”.

CharlesHutchPress is happy to oblige in the analysis of an evening “themed around Moments Yet To Happen, wherein trios of actors, directors and writers brought theatre-starved York a fistful of short stories of laughter, strength, dreams and everything in between: an optimistic carousel operator; a neighbour with a secret; a poet inviting us into her world; a Jane McDonald fan on a soapbox, and a delivery driver full of wanderlust;.

Taking part were the quintet of trios: actor Miles Kinsley, director Nicolette Hobson and writer, Anna Johnston, staging One More Time We Go; Christie Barnes, Fiona Baistow and Jenna Drury, unmasking Kelly Unmasked; Mandy Newby, Joe Feeney and Dan Norman presenting Weirdo; Emily Chattle, Libby Pearson and Lydia Crosland, making a point in Motormouth, and Nicki Davy, Becky Lennon and Rachel Price, asking And How Are Your Goats Keeping?.

On Friday night, one actor, Nicki Davy, from Leeds, had to be elsewhere (for acting work reasons, hurrah), meaning we missed out on answering the goat welfare question.

The poster for Yorkshire Trios at The Gillygate pub as live theatre sparked into life again

Anyway, here is the survey. Question 1: What did you think of the quality of the performances you saw? Rate from 1 for Poor to 5 for Excellent.

One play, Weirdo, was indeed excellent in darkly humorous, unpredictable, intriguing writing by Norman (the discovery of Yorkshire Trios), offbeat direction by Cosmic Collective Theatre’s Brighton-bound Feeney and deadpan execution by Mandy Newby, the most experienced actor on view, as the weird woman with the even weirder smell emanating from her home.

Kingsley, newly back north from completing his training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, had the difficult task of opening the show, not as the warm-up act but straight in at the deep end, side on under a flat cap, in Johnston’s lingering memory play, One More Time We Go, that demanded more assertiveness in performance under Hobson’s direction.

The most resonant piece in Covid times was Kelly Unmasked, Drury’s study of a woman, newly diagnosed in her 30s as autistic, trying to come to her own terms with a lockdown being experienced by unaware, socially distanced others all around her. It was stressful, as much as distressing watching Barnes’s on-the-wire poet Kelly, when director Baistow needed to extract more variety in her acting tropes.

Friday night ended with Abba dance moves, Jane McDonald cheerleading, a very northern no-nonsense feminist ultra and a soapbox that just didn’t quite wash. Not Macbeth’s tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, so much as a torrid tale told by a “Motormouth” devoid of self-awareness and an off-switch, signifying not enough, for all the energy of writer Crosland, director Pearson and actor Chattle.

In a nutshell, this was a night that swung erratically between 2 and 5 on the scorecard, but with consistently good-quality sound and lighting.

Kinsley amiss: Miles KInsley needed more assertiveness in his show-opening performance. Picture: James Drury

Question 2. Did you enjoy the performances being outdoors in a pub setting? Rate from 1 for Not At All to 5 for Very Much.

Yes and no. It was good to feel alive again in the company of actors, but noises off from the tables at the back, while entirely tolerable under present circumstances of outdoors being the only place to drink right now, would be distracting at future performances if the beer garden is to become a garden of artistic delights. So, 3 out of five for now.

Question 3: Do you feel the bitesize performance pieces suited the pub setting? Again, 1 for Not At All; 5 for Very Much.

Yes, because, like the next round, there was always another one coming down the line pretty pronto. That said, the original idea of promenade performances around the interior of the pub would have worked that much better. So, another 3 out of 5.

Question 4: How did you find the quality of the food and drink available during the performance. Same score grades.

Excellent, attentive service. Genial welcomes from Brian and Matt. White wine for the ladies went down very well. Blackcurrant cordial for the teetotal reviewer was totally entente cordial indeed. Didn’t nibble, so no quibble on that score. 5/5

Poet cornered: Christie Barnes as Kelly in Kelly Unmasked. Picture: James Drury

How did you find the COVID safety measures put in place for the performance? Same score grades.

As with last summer’s Park Bench Theatre at Rowntree Park, last autumn’s socially distanced shows in The Round at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, York Stage’s pantomime at Theatre @41, Monkgate, and York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime, the Covid-safety measures were meticulously carried out. 

As before, the message to the Government is, yes, the arts needs your support, but you should trust the arts to run events with the utmost professionalism, whatever the circumstances. The Gillygate, 5/5. The Government: could do better.

Would you be interested in attending a similar performance to Yorkshire Trios in the future?

Outdoors? Yes, but with the provisos mentioned above. Indoors, yes. The Gillygate has always been a good home to theatre.

As for the content, there is promise here and further opportunities should be encouraged.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your experience that might help us shape future events?

This review has run to 1,207 words already. Enough said, surely?!

Plenty to say for herself: Emily Chattle’s Motormouth in Yorkshire Trios at The Gillygate pub beer garden. Picture: James Drury
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When Pocklington Arts Centre was home to Penny Arcadia…Jon Marshall tells all online

Jon Marshall, of Magic Carpet Theatre and the Inner Magic Circle, who presents tonight’s live online talk on the history of the building now known as Pocklington Arts Centre

FROM Penny Arcadia To Pocklington Arts Centre, the story behind the historic Market Place venue, will be told by magician and performer Jon Marshall in a Zoom event this evening (May 4).

Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) has been staging events for more than 20 years, but should you be wondering what the Grade II listed building was once used for and how it came to be the arts hub it is today, Jon has the answers. 

Tales of fire-eaters, magicians and amusements all will feature in the 7.30pm illustrated talk as Jon, director and performer with Hull company Magic Carpet Theatre, takes his audience on a trip down memory lane, delving into the origins of the building formerly known as Oak House, dating back to the 1700s. 

“The talk promises to be a fascinating and entertaining online event unveiling the story behind the building, from doctor’s house, cinema and museum housing Europe’s largest collection of amusement machines, to East Yorkshire’s premier arts venue,” says PAC director Janet Farmer. 

Marshall, a member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star, promises a fascinating and entertaining evening, replete with tales of former owners of the building Jon and Pat Gresham.

From Penny Arcadia To Pocklington Arts Centre: Jon Marshall’s online audience will hear tales of the Gresham family, who once owned the historic venue. Pictured are the late Pat and Jon Gresham with their son Maxwell

“They were larger-than-life local characters, cinema proprietors and museum curators,” he says. “All will be revealed about the exploits and colourful adventures of Jon, who was once a magician, fire-eater, pantomime promoter and sideshow showman.

“The audience will also hear about Pat, who was determined that when the Penny Arcadia closed, the building should not become yet another retail unit but instead should provide entertainment and a service to the people of Pocklington and the surrounding area. 

“I had the privilege of knowing the Gresham family for over 50 years from the mid-1960s, so participants will be able to see many previously unpublished photographs and images from over the years.”

Marshall’s company Magic Carpet Theatre are regular performers at PAC and last October they recorded two shows there for streaming for free on PAC’s YouTube channel: Magic Circus from January 7 to 21 and The Wizard Of Castle Magic from February 18 to March 4, both with financial assistance from the I Am Fund and Smile Foundation.

Now comes From Penny Arcadia To Pocklington Arts Centre. “When I moved into area, I’d already met Jon, and then got to know Jon and Pat really well. They became great family friends,” says Marshall.

Director Jon Marshall as the Ringmaster, showing his frustration with Steve Collison’s Clown in Magic Carpet Theatre’s Magic Circus

“The Pocklington Arts Centre building goes back to the 1700s, and it opened as a cinema in the 1930s. Jon bought the Ritz Cinema in 1981 and that’s when he started putting his collection of amusement machines in there.

“They lived in Westwood House, North Dalton, a big old house and grounds that Jon and Pat did up and lived there for some time. After Jon died, Pat continued to run the building, and she was determined it should not be turned into shops despite receiving various offers.”

Encouraged by Pocklington Town Council, Pat ran Penny Arcadia until 1996, when the last event was a September display of Jon Gresham’s magical props.

“It was a totally unique enterprise, collecting arcade music machines, which is a huge part of our culture,” says Marshall. “Jon’s interest had been sparked by being given a music box by Pat and he went on to become president of the British Music Box Society.

“At that time, the country was going into decimalisation and that meant many, many penny-operated music machines became redundant overnight, and that was perfect for Jon, who drove around the country as pier arcades were throwing them off the piers.

The late Jon Gresham with assorted penny arcade machines

“Some were acquired for free, some he paid for, and he amassed one of Europe’s largest collections. Much of it is still together in a collection, and no, not in America.”

After Jon died, Pat kept them in the outbuildings of Westwood House, for use at the Penny Arcadia. “She was a very astute businesswoman, continuing to run Penny Arcadia very well and Beverley Playhouse too, putting on such live shows as children’s theatre and plays,” says Marshall.

Tonight’s Zoom show will tap into the nostalgia emanating from the Gresham story. “Jon and Pat were huge characters in their own right with big personalities. He was a public schoolboy, who went to Oundle School, and his father ran a timber importers’ business in Hull with sawmills in Brough and Sheffield,” he says.

“Jon was destined to go into the family business, and though he didn’t do National Service for medical reasons, he said he wouldn’t be able to work for the family for at least two years as he should have been doing National Service, and so instead he trained as Europe’s youngest fire-eater, calling himself ‘Jon Gresham from Copenhagen’, as he thought being Scandinavian would add something to the act – and he was blond.

“He toured Europe but then his father said it was ‘now or never’ for him to join the timber business. He did so, but he’d made many great friends touring Europe, and so he also started to promote pantomimes in Harrogate, Scarborough and on the coast, such as Cinderella and Aladdin, appearing as a fire-eating genie in the shows, while working for the family.”

Jon Gresham was a “real dynamo”, in Marshall’s appraisal. “As well as all this going on, he’d do his fire-eating at music halls and on variety bills, and he could appear at fairgrounds, blowing fire in air outside the fairground to attract people inside to see the shows,” he says.

Jon Gresham: Billed as “The world’s youngest fire-eater from Copenhagen”

“He really got a taste for it and decided to open his own sideshow in 1956, The Robot Show, staged in one of the Corrigans’ buildings, as he knew the fairground family well and had become a friend.”

Jon Gresham continued to run the family business as managing director, Monday to Friday, but at weekends he was a sideshow showman and proprietor, spreading his time between 12 sites, among them Rhyl, Porthcawl, Great Yarmouth, Dreamland at Margate and Hull Fair.

From the Smallest Ironing Lady in the Country to the Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, Gresham’s sideshows were often elaborate, as well as curious. Annual accounts show he would have at least two girls, a manager and box-office manager per site.

Before marrying Jon Gresham, Pat had been an interior designer and colour consultant. “He used her skills for decorating the sideshows and the Penny Arcadia,” says Marshall.

“Pat also designed and decorated the captain and crew’s quarters for trawlers at Hull, when it was unheard of for a woman to do that.

The Headless Lady: One of Jon Gresham’s live illusion sideshows

“If a girl in the shows was suddenly taken away by the police, somebody had to take her place, so Pat always kept alert. ‘I never knew if I was going to be legless in Margate or headless in Scarborough,’ she once said.”

The Greshams travelled by pantechnicon van, an old vehicle painted purple and known affectionately as “Gertrude”. “The season would run from Whitsun to September, and they would tour their live illusion sideshows throughout that period,” says Marshall.

“The sideshows ran until 1969, when the problem was the resistance to prices going up from six pence and a shilling, but there was another problem too: the crowds going to the seaside resorts were declining in the face of the rise in package holidays, so you now had to rely on footfall on the day.

“It was all by chance, if people were walking by in the daytime or in the evening after the meal at the digs. He would send out the Headless Lady to pique their interest. By then two thirds of the business was on Sundays; Saturday was change-over day, and Sunday was the peak day, running from 10am to 10pm.”

Showman Marshall has since restored some of the sideshows to take them out to festivals to entertain new audiences. “Normally I’d be doing it from April/May to September, but alas we’ve not been out since Derby Feste in September 2019, though we’re hoping we may be able to go out again in 2022,” he says.

Jon and Pat Gresham with their daughter Lindsey at Penny Arcadia, now Pocklington Arts Centre

Marshall’s decision to revive sideshows began with a conversation at a dinner with Pat Gresham. “We thought, ‘wouldn’t it be fun to restore a sideshow for a Magic Circle dinner?’,” he recalls.

“We found the gaudy frontispiece to The Flash with slogans and the picture to entice people in: ‘It’s not the show that gets the dough. It’s The Flash that gets the cash’, it said, and we were off and running.”

Jon Gresham’s sideshows had been in storage from 1969 to 2004 in outbuildings at Westwood House. “They’d been moved around, there’d been pigeons and rats, and nothing was in any order or visible, frankly.

“So, it was out with the rubber gloves to start a detective hunt, and that’s when we found The Flash frontispiece and, by a stroke of luck, the goldfish bowl, alas with cracks in it, from the Girl in the Goldfish Bowl.

“They’re like the ones you see in cartons, and they’re hard to find now, but luckily with some acrylic we’ve been able to mend it and make it watertight.”

The late Pat Gresham. “She was an enormous help to us in our research, as the Greshams never threw anything away in terms of records,” says John Marshall

Marshall has restored seven shows in all now, comparing the experience of finding the Gresham show stock to British archaeologist Howard Carter locating King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. “Because they had been painted in the 1950s with layers of varnish to protect against the sea salt, we had very little restoration to do,” he says.

“Pat was an enormous help to us in our research, as the Greshams never threw anything away in terms of records. Jon left his memoirs and there’s a biography with a chapter by Pat [who died in 2019] and a contribution by Professor Eddie Dawes, the Yorkshire magician and biochemist [who founded the University of Hull’s biochemistry department].

“I’ve written a chapter on the Penny Arcadia and on Jon’s straitjacket, which went to an escapologist called Danny Hunt, and his fire-eating equipment, which is still being used by Tom Cockerill, who has re-created the act for the International Brotherhood of Magicians Convention, performing the original acts with that original equipment.”

The biography, Jon Gresham: The Life And Adventures Of A Sideshow Showman, is available on Amazon and eBay and from Pocklington Arts Centre too, and more information on the revived sideshows can be found at sideshowillusions.com, with details soon to be added on the 2022 season.

Tickets for tonight’s Zoom illustrated talk cost £5 at:  ticketing.eu.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=5c398sshg8x6xjr7k9mw32dvr8

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Three cheers for Pocklington Arts Centre, booking Omid Djalili, Mark Watson and Gary Delaney in Punderland for comedy uplift

POCKLINGTON Arts Centre has confirmed its first live shows since Tom Rosenthal’s Manhood comedy gig on March 14 last year.

The East Yorkshire venue, in Market Place, Pocklington, has been closed to the public since March 17 2020 but comedian Omid Djalili is to perform twice on Thursday, July 22.

Significantly too, those 7pm and 9pm performances will be without social-distancing measures.

British-Iranian comedian, actor, television producer, presenter, voice actor and writer Djalili, 55, originally had been booked for July’s now-cancelled Platform Festival at the Old Station, Pocklington.

When Pocklington Arts Centre’s festival organisers, director Janet Farmer and venue manager James Duffy, decided not to stage the large-scale indoor festival under the continuing pandemic cloud, award-winning Djalili agreed to do two shows in one night at PAC to ensure all those who had purchased tickets for the festival gig would not miss out.

Pundemonium: Gary Delaney promises oodles of one-liners in his new show next year

Janet says: “We’re over the moon that despite having to change our plans for putting on a full-scale Platform Festival this year, Omid Djalili will perform at PAC twice in one night, and those performances will be non-socially distanced. 

“In the event of Covid restrictions being reintroduced, we will let customers know in advance.” 

Djalili’s comedy is at once intelligent, provocative, boundlessly energetic and rooted in cultural observations, wherein he explores the diversity of modern Britain.

Tickets for the original event at Platform Festival remain valid and any ticket holder needing further information should contact the box office. Remaining tickets for the new shows cost £25 at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Looking ahead, Janet says: “We have some outstanding live comedy lined up as part of our forthcoming live events programme, and Omid is the perfect addition to this. 

“We have more exciting announcement coming up and we cannot wait to be able to bring our audiences some incredible live shows once again.”

What’s on for Watson? A third show for Mark Watson at Pocklington Arts Centre next February after earlier visits in 2016 and 2019

Newly in the PAC diary for 2022 are two more comedy shows: Mark Watson on February 12 and  Gary Delaney on May 26 on his newly extended Gary In Punderland tour.

Bristol stand-up comedian, novelist and sports pundit Watson, 41, will be completing a hattrick of Pock appearances, prompting Janet to say: “It will be an absolute joy to welcome Mark Watson back to the venue, having had him perform live here in 2016 and again in 2019. 

“After the year we’ve just had, I think we could all do with some laughter, so Mark is the perfect addition to our forthcoming programme of live comedy.”

In the ever-innovative Watson’s latest show, spiritual enquiry will meet high-octane observational comedy as the Taskmaster survivor and No More Jockeys cult leader attempts to cram a couple of years of pathological overthinking into an evening of stand-up.

Watson has made his Mark not only on Taskmaster but also on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Have I Got News For You and emerged safely from his Celebrity Island experience with Bear Grylls.

Stream team: Compere Tim FitzHigham, left, and comedian Mark Watson in their living rooms for the first Your Place Comedy online show

During the first lockdown last year, Watson was part of the first double bill for Your Place Comedy, the virtual comedy club set up to support independent venues across the Yorkshire and Humber region, including PAC. 

On April 19 2020, a pyjama-clad Watson and Hull humorist Lucy Beaumont performed live online from their homes, in his case, in the living room, in hers, down the pub, The Dog And B**tard, that she and fellow comedian husband Jon Richardson have set up in their Hebden Bridge garden.

In Gary In Punterland, longstanding Mock The Week guest Gary Delaney will “dive into a rabbit hole of the best jokes in the world”.

Delaney’s last tour was extended four times, eventually playing more than 200 venues. For the follow-up, apparently Delaney has been through the laughing glass, re-emerging to deliver a new show tooled with punch after punch of knock-out one-liners.

Janet says: “We’re delighted to announce that Gary Delaney will be bringing his new show to our stage next year as part of our live events programme that we can’t wait to resume, welcoming everyone back and having our auditorium filled with laughter once again.”

Tickets for Watson and Delaney’s 8pm shows each cost £20 at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; seetickets.co.uk are selling Watson tickets too.

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Malcolm Ludvigsen captures spirit of John Ruskin in Village Gallery’s breath of fresh air

Scarborough, by Malcolm Ludvigsen, at Village Gallery, York

PROLIFIC plein-air artist Malcolm Ludvigsen is the focus of Village Gallery’s new exhibition from tomorrow in Colliergate, York.

“The last year has been extremely hard for everyone, not least of all for artists, with many exhibitions and events being cancelled,” says gallery owner Simon Main. “So, we’re thrilled to announce our first show of 2021.”

Erstwhile maths professor Ludvigsen spends much of his time on the beaches and headlands of his Yorkshire homeland, fascinated endlessly by the sea and sky.

“I think the thing that first attracted me to painting was John Ruskin’s exhortation that all men, as part of their morning salutations, should go out and paint a picture of the sky,” he says.

Malcolm Ludvigsen painting in the bracing air of Scarborough

“This sounded like a very nice thing to do, so I decided to give it a go, and I’ve not really stopped painting since.” 

In 2013, Ludvigsen won the Oldie British Artists Award – a major competition for British artists aged 60 or over – for his landscape entitled Filey.

“Ironically this accolade came in the same year that my work was rejected by the Royal Academy for their summer exhibition,” he recalls. 

Malcolm Ludvigsen’s Art, a show of familiar Yorkshire landscapes and seascapes in oils, will run from tomorrow until Saturday, June 19, with Covid-secure, socially distanced measures in place. Opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.

Cayton Bay, oil painting, by Malcolm Ludvigsen
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Andy Goldsorthy takes part in Ryedale Folk Museum project on pandemic’s art impact

Artists Andy Goldsworthy (left) and Kane Cunningham at Southfield House for their collaboration with Ryedale Folk Museum. All pictures: Tony Bartholomew

SCULPTOR Andy Goldsworthy will be among six artists collaborating with Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, to explore the impact of the pandemic on artists and their creative practice.

Goldsworthy will feature in a series of videos, created by Scarborough landscape painter Kane Cunningham for sharing in May and June, that will include photographer Joe Cornish, landscape painter Peter Hicks, photographer Tessa Bunney, sculptor Peter Coates and painter Francesca Simon too.

The collaboration will culminate in an open exhibition in September, bringing together professionals, amateurs and hobby artists in response to the northern landscape.

Cheshire-born sculptor and land artist Goldsworthy specialises in site-specific installations involving nature and the passage of time.

His latest work, Southfield House, has been developed on the North York Moors from conditions created by the pandemic and forms part of Goldsworthy’s quest to explore the environment through natural materials.

“It was conceived during lockdown and made between lockdowns,” says Goldsworthy, 64. “I wanted to make something during that period that has that sense of being uplifting,” he says. “The work is now connected to that moment in time.”

Kane Cunningham, left, and Andy Goldsworthy on the North York Moors

Funded by Arts Council England, the Ryedale Folk Museum project “grew out of a strong awareness of the lack of access to the natural environment in adherence to the Government’s Stay Home message at the height of the pandemic”.

Like everyone else, artists have found their travel restricted during the series of three lockdowns, hence museum director Jennifer Smith says: “At its heart, the project is an opportunity for artists to share their experiences and to encourage others who may have seen significant changes to their output because of Covid-19.

“Through Kane Cunningham’s films, we are seeing honest and open discussions about the challenges – and, sometimes, the opportunities – faced by the artistic community.

“Situated within the North York Moors National Park, we needed only to look outside the museum window to realise that there was nobody here during lockdown. One question that interested us was what impact that was having on artists who respond directly to the landscape and who make their living from that inspiration.”

The partnership between the museum and Cunningham, founder and co-director of Scarborough’s Festival of Big Ideas By The Sea, was a natural one.

“For 20 years, I’ve travelled from Scarborough to St Bees, coast to coast,” says Cunningham, whose studio is in the Old Parcels Office at Scarborough railway station. “In a normal year, my art takes me over hill and dale and across mountain pathways to find the perfect view.”

Andy Goldsworthy at Southfield House for the Ryedale Folk Museum project exploring the impact of the pandemic on artists and their creative practice

The sense of loss during lockdown led to Cunningham’s desire to reach out to others on this theme: “I felt the need to discover more about the landscape and what it means to me and other artists in these challenging times,” he says. “Has it changed the way they think about their work? Has it changed the way they think about the landscape?”

Ryedale Folk Museum hopes that sharing the contemplations of assorted artists will inspire people to create new work or to reflect on a piece created since the start of the pandemic, to feature in the open exhibition of 2D and 3D work from September.

The submissions window will be open from this week to June 30, whereupon works for the exhibition will be selected by a panel that will include Cunningham, Joe Cornish and ceramic artist Layla Khoo.

In addition, artists and other creative practitioners, of any art form, are invited to send their own brief film clips – less than a minute long – to be shared on social media, responding to the question: “How has your creative practice changed in the past 12 months?”.

Full details can be found on the museum’s website: ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk/art-gallery/

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‘Blues, jazz, soul and R&B cat’ George Benson moves Leeds gig to June 22 2022

George Benson: Give Me The Night…but now another night in Leeds after his 2021 tour is out back to 2022

AMERICAN jazz, blues and soul guitar virtuoso George Benson is moving this summer’s eight UK shows to June 2022, among them his only Yorkshire gig at Leeds First Direct Arena.

Tickets will remain valid for the new date of June 22 next summer after the ongoing pandemic and present restrictions on indoor events enforced the decision.

Benson, 78, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will perform his greatest hits with his band, such as Give Me The Night, Lady Love Me (One More Time), Turn Your Love Around, Inside Love, Never Give Up On A Good Thing and In Your Eyes.  

Benson’s latest album, Weekend In London, was recorded at his 2019 performance at the 250-seat Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, almost half a century since he played the London club as the hottest property on the American jazz scene of the early 1970s.

Honoured by the National Endowment of the Arts as a Jazz Master, Benson has won ten Grammy awards: Record of the Year for This Masquerade (1977); Best Pop Instrumental Performance for Breezin’ (1977) and Mornin’ (2007); Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for On Broadway (1979) and Give Me the Night (1981), and Best R&B Instrumental Performance for Theme From Good King Bad (1977) and Off Broadway (1981).

Benson summed up his musical evolution neatly in his 2014 autobiography: “…from blues cat to blues-jazz cat…from blues-jazz cat to jazz cat…from jazz cat to soul-jazz cat…and from soul-jazz cat to R&B-jazz cat.”

Tickets for June 22 2022 are available from ticketline.co.uk or on 0844 888 9991.

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