JULY I will be Ed Byrne’s night in York when the observational Southern Irish comedian headlines an all-star bill for the Live At The Theatre Royal Comedy Night.
Byrne, 49, from Swords, County Dublin, has presented the television shows Just For Laughs and Uncut! Best Unseen Ads and co-hosted BBC2’s The World’s Most Dangerous Roads, Dara And Ed’s Big Adventure and Dara And Ed’s Road To Mandalay with fellow Irish humorist Dara O Briain.
He is a regular guest on numerous television panel games, most notably Mock The Week and Have I Got News For You and has appeared on TV cooking shows, such as Comic Relief Bake Off 2015.
Byrne last played York in March 2018, presenting his Spoiler Alert tour show at the Grand Opera House, where he explored the thin line between righteous complaining and brattish whining as he asked: “Are we right to be fed up or are we spoiled?”
Joining Bryne will be Mock The Week’s whipsmart wordsmith Rhys James and Have I Got News For You panellist-in-lockdown Maisie Adam, who performed from her living room on the second Your Place Comedy bill with prankster Simon Brodkin last May, as part of the virtual home entertainment series organised by Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones in tandem with ten independent Yorkshire and Humber arts centres and theatres during lockdown.
July 1’s 7.30pm show will be hosted by legendary compere-beyond-compare Arthur Smith, the veteran gloomy weather-faced comedian and presenter from Bermondsey, London.
Tickets cost £20 at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.
Holy Moly & The Crackers: “Always putting on such an energetic, vivacious show”
FIERY gypsy folk’n’rollers Holy Moly & The Crackers will return to Pocklington Arts Centre on October 16 as the East Yorkshire venue “excitedly resumes its live events”.
The North Yorkshire and Newcastle band are noted for sparking up a raucous, feelgood party atmosphere at their blazing live shows, built on soul, rock indie and Balkan folk.
Pocklington Arts Centre director Janet Farmer says: “Holy Moly & The Crackers always put on such an energetic, vivacious show, featuring their unique sound that has our audiences foot stomping and dancing in the aisles, so we can’t wait to welcome them back after their sold-out show back in February 2019.”
The band formed in 2011 almost by mistake, when singer, guitarist and trumpet player Conrad Bird, fellow singer and violinist Ruth Patterson and costume designer and accordion player Rosie Bristow met at a house party in Leamington Spa, of all places, in their late teens.
Enamoured by Rosie’s party-prop accordion, the three decided to start playing music together, mainly stomping Irish, American and Balkan folk and drinking songs at open mics and dive bars, as an alternative to Smack, Leamington’s main student club that provided the only other option for a night out.
After moving north, the founders were joined by jazz/funk bass player Jamie Shields and drummer Tommy Evans in 2015, when they released the single A Punk Called Peter, a “sort of New Orleans funeral march mixed with some fine and highly danceable reggae”.
Holy Moly & The Crackers’ artwork for Take A Bite, their 2019 album
Second album Salem marked the 2017 launch of their own label, Pink Lane Records, and a heightened profile for the band after lead single Cold Comfort Lane was picked up by Hollywood producers to turbo-boost the stick-it-to-the-man comedy crime caper Ocean’s 8 in 2018.
Classically trained but psychedelic and DIY punk-inspired guitarist Nick Tyler came on board that year to add to The Crackers’ grunt and diesel power.
Reuniting with Salem producer Matt Terry, they recorded swaggering third album Take A Bite in 2019, once again at Vada Studios, built in a 1260 chapel near Alcester on the Warwickshire /Worcestershire border.
“Apparently it’s called Vada Studios because the owner is obsessed with Star Wars’ Darth Vader,” says Conrad, whose band stayed in one of the outhouses.
Teaming up with Terry for a second time proved fruitful. “He’s worked with bands like The Prodigy and The Enemy and he has really good ideas for pop sensibilities,” says Conrad. “I was always against ‘pop’, but there’s a real skill to it. There was a chance for us to go with another producer, but we felt we could do more with Matt to develop our sound.”
Whereupon The Crackers hit the road in full throttle, joining shanty punks Skinny Lister on tour around Europe, before appearing at more than 30 festivals and undertaking a victorious headline lap of the UK, culminating in selling out their biggest show to date at Sage Gateshead on the banks of the Tyne. Ruth and Conrad tied the knot that busy year too.
2020 saw the band blasting out of the blocks with the single Road To You, “a shot of espresso that comes loaded and ready to work in a short, sharp shock”. Twenty-seven dates across ten countries should have added up to their biggest European tour to date, to go with support slots for fan Frank Turner across France and Germany and a return to Glastonbury for its 50th anniversary, but we all know what happened next.
Tickets for Holy Moly & The Crackers’ 8pm gig cost £20 at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Tom Rosenthal: The last show at Pocklington Arts Centre before the first lockdown last March
POCKLINGTON Arts Centre (PAC) has been closed to the public since March 17 2020, curtailing that year’s 20th anniversary celebrations after comedian Tom Rosenthal’s Manhood show on March 14, but the venue will “hopefully be re-opening our doors this summer”.
Watch this space for further updates, but already director Janet Farmer and venue manager James Duffy have confirmed that the PAC-programmed Platform Festival at the Old Station, Pocklington, has been called off for a second successive summer.
Festival shows by the likes of comedian Omid Djalili, Richard Thompson and Shed Seven duo Rick Witter and Paul Banks in acoustic mode initially had been moved from 2020 to 2021, although former Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant’s Saving Grace acoustic gig with fellow vocalist Suzi Dian never had a new Platform date set in place.
“Robert hasn’t rescheduled any of his 2020 shows, originally because he was recording with Alison Krauss in Nashville,” says James.
“We looked into moving Richard Thompson’s date too, but he’s cancelled his plans because amid the continuing uncertainty over Covid, he’s not sure where he would stand, what with being based in the United States.”
More details are yet to be confirmed, but Pocklington Arts Centre is contemplating reopening with a film programme from July 2, followed by the full reopening in September, with greater clarity once the Government roadmap is rubber-stamped.
Velma Celli: Drag diva to play Pocklington Arts Centre in December
“It will be a slow re-start at first to restore audience confidence in coming to PAC, and film is a good way of doing that,” says Janet. “With films, you naturally socially distance to get the best view.
“But that’s why we couldn’t go ahead with the Platform Festival, because there are still uncertainties and it made sense to call it off.”
Plans are afoot instead for Primrose Wood Acoustic, a short series of outdoor shows in a 60 to 70-capacity woodland setting at Primrose Wood, Pocklington, in early July. Two shows are pencilled in for PAC in July too, subject to the Government’s Covid statements. Again, watch this space for more info as and when.
Within PAC, the lavatories have been refurbished and upgraded; air-purifying units to increase air flow are being installed around the building; a Covid-secure screen is in place at the box office, and such Covid measures as an app for ordering drinks, anti-bacteria spray “foggers” and hand-sanitising stations will be the way forward.
The frustrating year of lockdown x 3 has kept Janet and James busy rearranging concerts by, for example, The Felice Brothers and Courtney Marie Andrews three times and New Yorker Jesse Malin twice.
The management duo have been working their way through 20 years of paper work in the attics and have set up a beehive on the flat roof as part of a PAC environmentally friendly package.
So, now there is a buzz about the place in more ways than one, and on the Pocklington horizon is a theatrical ghost-walk promenade, commissioned from Magic Carpet Theatre founder Jon Marshall for the dark nights of November before the December dazzle of glam cabaret supreme in the company of York drag diva deluxe Velma Celli (date TBC).
Film director Oliver Stone, snazzy blue glasses and all, discusses his film JFK, politics, more politics, his upcoming documentary and yet more politics in an online interview for Harrogate Film Festival
NO Stone unturned as Two Big Egos In A Small Carpodcasters Chalmers and Hutch hit Episode 40 with thoughts on Harrogate Film Festival, Oliver Stone & JFK; Jagger & Grohl’s Slade-meets-Sham 69 lockdown knockdown single Eazy Sleazy; bye-bye Bay City Roller Les McKeown & Jim Steinman RIP; jazz & happiness; no Covid insurance government support, no Deer Shed Festival in 2021 & what next for the summer festival season? Oh, and the return of pub theatre…outdoors in York.
Best Actress Oscar winner Frances McDormand in Best Picture winner Nomadland. Picture: Searchlight Pictures/20th Century Studios
THE cinema at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre reopens next month with a fortnight of Oscar-nominated films.
Films will be screened in the McCarthy auditorium from Tuesday, May 25, starting with Stanley Kramer’s comedy classic It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, nominated for six Oscars in 1963, followed by 2021 nominees Mank, Nomadland, Wolfwalkers and The Trial Of The Chicago 7.
SJT film programmer Steve Carley says of the first film choice: “When it was re-issued in the 1970s, the publicity said, ‘If ever this mad, mad, mad, mad world needed It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, it’s now!’.
“That seemed particularly appropriate at the moment. I’m hoping this joyous comedy will be the perfect ‘welcome-back’ film.”
“The perfect ‘welcome-back’ film”: It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
In Kramer’s film, an unconnected group of motorists stops to help a driver after a crash, only to discover he is a recently released convict who knows the whereabouts of a stolen $350,000, sparking a madcap car chase to recover the cash.
The all-star cast includes Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas and…Buster Keaton. From half a dozen Oscar nominations, the only win, alas, was for Best Sound Editing. What a mad, mad world indeed, as you can re-discover on May 25 at 2pm and 7pm.
David Fincher’s Mank, the most nominated film at this year’s Academy Awards, will be shown on May 26 at 7pm; May 27 at 2pm and 7pm and May 28 at 2pm.
Best Actor nominee Gary Oldman plays the title role in this black-and-white biopic about screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz and the development of his most famous script, Citizen Kane.
Best Actor Oscar nominee Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz and James McShane as Shelly Metcalf in Mank
From ten nominations, not least for Best Picture and Best Director, Mank won two Oscars: Erik Messerschmidt for Best Cinematography and Donald Graham Burt for Best Production Design.
Nomadland, the big prize winner as Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards last Sunday at Union Station, Los Angeles, is booked in for May 28 at 7pm, May 29 at 2pm and 7pm and June 1 and 2 at 7pm.
Chinese-born director Chloe Zhao won the Best Director gong, also being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
Third-time Best Actress winner Frances McDormand plays Fern, who embarks on a new life as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad after losing both her job and her husband.
Wolfwalkers: Tomm Moore’s final film in his Irish folklore trilogy
Best Animated Feature Film nominee Wolfwalkers has screenings on June 1 and 2 at 2pm and June 3 at 2pm and 7pm.
The third and final film in director Tomm Moore’s fantasy-adventure Irish folklore trilogy, after The Secret Of Kells and Song Of The Sea, it features the voices of Honor Kneafsey, Sean Bean, Simon McBurney, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Tommy Tiernan.
Nominated without ultimate success for five Oscars, topped off by Best Picture, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial Of The Chicago 7, will be shown on June 4 and 5 at 2pm and 7pm.
Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Sacha Baron Cohen, front right, as Abbey Hoffman in The Trial Of The Chicago 7
Eddie Redmayne and Best Supporting Actor nominee Sacha Baron Cohen play political activists Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman in Sorkin’s dramatization of the real-life 1968 trial of a group of anti-Vietnam War protestors.
Where possible, the SJT is recommending customers should book online at sjt.uk.com. The box-office phone line is open Mondays to Saturdays, 12 noon to 2pm on 01723 370541.
The box office will re-open for in-person bookings from Monday, May 17; noon to 5pm on non-show days; noon to 7.30pm on days with an evening show; 11am to 7.30pm on matinee days.
Love letter to theatre: The reopening season at York Theatre Royal
MUCH ado about nothing but love is promised when York Theatre Royal reopens with two nights of letters from the heart from May 17.
Love Bites will turn the spotlight on the creativity of artists from in and around York, whether poets, performers, singers, dancers or digital artists, who have been commissioned to write love letters celebrating the return to live performances after the easing of the Government’s pandemic restrictions.
More names will be announced nearer the time for the 8pm performances on May 17 and 18, but confirmed already from 200 proposals are Alice Boddy and Leanne Hope’s piece, A Love Letter To Female Friendship, and Japanese-English actor Erika Noda’s semi-autobiographical account of growing up dual heritage, entitled Ai.
Magic trio: writer Bethan Ellis, illustrator Elena Skoreyko Wagner and composer James Cave
Contributing too will be the Magic combination of illustrator and papercut artist Elena Skoreyko Wagner, composer and York Minster choir member James Cave and writer and editor Bethan Ellis, finding magic and meaning in the mundane, and York-based Zimbabwean playwright Butshilo Nleya, who combines words, music and dance in works centred on place, home and the multiplicity of cultures, this time presenting Ekhaya, Love Them Both?.
Juliet Forster, the Theatre Royal’s creative director, 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.”
Selecting 20 commissions from more than 200 proposals was “extremely difficult, but really inspiring too,” she reveals. “There are so many talented, inventive, creative people in York – we could have filled the night several times over. 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,” she says.
“We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’,” says York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster
“Love Bites will explore the idea of love letters, dedicated to people, places, things, actions, occupations and much, much more in a multitude of ways, all presented in five-minute specially commissioned bite-sized chunks. We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’”.
After these two nights introduced by Look North alumnus Harry Gration with a Pay What You Feel ticket policy, The Love Season’s focus on human connection, the live experience and a sense of togetherness will embrace solo shows by stage and screen luminary Ralph Fiennes [Four Quartets} and Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh [The Greatest Play In The History Of The World…]; a new Ben Brown political drama about writer Graham Greene and spy Kim Philby, A Splinter Of Ice, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, transposed to 1940s’ Hong Kong by writer Amy Ng and director Dadiow Lin.
Performances will be presented to socially distanced audiences, adhering to the latest Government and industry Covid-19 guidelines to ensure the safety of staff and audiences with a reduced capacity of 344, but should Step 4 of the roadmap roll-out go ahead as planned on June 21, there is scope for more seats to go on sale for shows later in the season. Over to you, Mr Johnson.
“We’re so chuffed to have Ralph Fiennes coming to York. We can’t believe it,” says Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird
Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird says: “The last thing we want to do, given our mission and the trouble in keeping theatre alive, is to put up more barriers to people coming, but we have to be Covid-safe, and that’s the bottom line. We did it for the Travelling Pantomime we took around York wards, and we will do it again from May 17.’”
The number one talking point is Ralph Fiennes’s Theatre Royal debut, in six performances from July 26 to 31, directing himself in the world-premiere tour of T S Eliot’s Four Quartets: a solo theatre adaptation of Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages and Little Giddings, a set of poems first published together in 1943 on the themes of time, nature and the elements, faith and spirituality, war and mortality.
Tom says: “The link to bring the show here is James Dacre, artistic director of Northampton’s Royal & Derngate Theatres, who co-produced A View From The Bridge with the Theatre Royal in 2019.
Ralph Fiennes rehearsing T S Eliot’s Four Quartets
“He’s co-producing this tour, helping Ralph put the show together. Ralph is rehearsing in London, opening at the Theatre Royal, Bath, from May 25 and then touring. We’re so chuffed to have Ralph coming to York. We can’t believe it!
“We’re thrilled that Ralph’s show became a possibility for us, and it’s a huge credit to him to recognise the need to support theatre around the country at this time.
“Let’s say it, it’s rare for an actor of his profile and standing to do a regional tour, but he’s seen that he can help to save some incredibly important producing houses, like this one, by doing a tour – and it’s not an act of charity; it’s an important and really exciting piece of work.”
“It’s a huge credit to him to recognise the need to support theatre around the country at this time,” says Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird
Tom is delighted by Fiennes’s choice of material too. “There’s a massive tradition of actors doing Eliot poems, like Fiona Shaw doing The Waste Land,” he says. “They lend themselves to performance, and it’s really telling that Ralph has chosen to take Four Quartets on tour at this moment because they’re rooted in life and death; the past and the future; human relationships and a love of place.
“For that reason, it fits into our programme for a season built around love, connection and being rooted in a place. As an American coming to England, Eliot was trying to root himself here by looking for his ancestors in Somerset.”
For full details of The Love Season, go to: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Tickets can be booked at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; on 01904 623568, Monday to Saturday, 12 noon to 3pm, and in person, Thursday to Saturday, 12 noon to 3pm.
“It’s going to be wonderfully inspiring when people can go and see bands again,” says Mick Hucknall
SIMPLY Red’s UK and Ireland tour, first planned for 2020, is moving to February 2022 with three Yorkshire gigs among the 17 dates.
Mick Hucknall’s Manchester soul band will play Hull Bonus Arena on February 4 and 5 and Leeds First Direct Arena on February 9.
Hucknall, 60, longs for a return to the stage after the pandemic-enforced hiatus. “I’ve spent most of my life going out and singing for people, so it feels strange not to have that,” he says. “I miss being able to express myself. It’s going to be wonderfully inspiring when people can go and see bands again. I can’t wait.”
Simply Red, whose last album release was Blue Eyed Soul in November 2019, are sure to revisit such hits as Money’s Too Tight To Mention, Holding Back The Years, Stars and Fairground.
Hucknall has been Simply Red’s songwriter and bandleader since their formation in 1985, aided by long-serving saxophonist Ian Kirkham since 1986. The present line-up has remained consistent since 2003, and the new tour will play to their core strengths.
“I want them to enjoy playing, for crowds to get up and move around, and everybody to put their heart into it. It’s all about capturing the groove,” says Hucknall.
South London soul singer and actress Mica Paris will be the special guest on all dates. Tickets are on sale at myticket.co.uk/artists/simply-red
Strictly Cabaret performers Chris Hagyard, Terry Ford, Larry Gibson and Claire Pulpher
THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in York, will be reopening its doors on May 21 with Covid-secure measures and a socially distanced seating plan.
That night at 7.30pm and the next day at 2.30pm and 7.30pm, the Bev Jones Music Company will present Strictly Cabaret in this safe, regulated setting.
Claire Pulpher, Chris Hagyard, Terry Ford and Larry Gibson will don their finest to entertain with a glittering cabaret evening of their favourites.
“Rat Pack, swing style, top musicals, film favourites, you name it, they will sing it,” says producer Lesley Jones. “Just sit back, reflect upon the year, clear your minds and be thoroughly entertained in the manner befitting the Bev Jones Music Company.”
Black Sheep Theatre Productions: Fundraiser for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Strictly Cabaret will lead off a line-up of nine shows at the JoRo between May 21 and August 28.
In a fundraiser for the Jo Ro on June 13, music director Jon Atkin will be joined by singers Emma Dickinson, Alexa Chaplin, Richard Bayton and Rob Davies at 7.30pm for An Evening Of Musical Comedy Highlights: a cabaret selection of solos, duets and quartets from musical comedies aplenty with a few popular songs added to the mix.
Poignant after the death of composer Jim Steinman on April 19, Meat Loud – The Duo will perform those very familiar rock operatic songs from Bat Out Of Hell and other Meat Loaf albums, penned by the New Yorker, plus equally grandiose classics he wrote for Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion and Cher, on June 19 at 7.30pm.
Meat Loud – The Duowas founded in 2018 by Meat Loud, alias Andy Plimmer, and British session singer and vocal coach Sally Rivers, who has worked with Cher, Annie Lennox and Mick Hucknall. “So buckle up and get ready for a ride into hell,” say the duo.
Meat Loud – The Duo: Andy Plimmer and Sally Rivers
The York String Quartet will play a fundraiser for the Rowntree theatre on June 20, performing a broad repertoire of classical, pop, jazz, television and film music at 7.30pm.
Between them, quartet members Vince Parsonage, violin and viola, Nicola Rainger, violin, Sara Gilford, cello, and Maggy Lamb, viola, have played across Europe with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and English National Opera.
Some Might Say will re-create the look, swagger and trademark wall of sound in a supersonic tribute show to Oasis on June 26 at 7.30pm.
Selections from all seven albums will feature in a set full of Manchester anthems, from hit singles to fans’ concert favourites and Noel Gallagher’s acoustic numbers. Expect Supersonic, Rock’n’Roll Star, Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Cigarettes And Alcohol and many more.
Some Might Say: Swaggering Oasis tribute show
Black Sheep Theatre Productions will present For The Love Of Musicals in aid of the JoRo in matinee and evening performances on July 10.
Join musical director Matthew Clare, his merry band and a host of singers for a concert of delights as they prove “There’s No Business Like Show Business” with songs from Annie Get Your Gun, classics galore and more recent shows such as Dear Evan Hansen.
The Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company Does Gilbert And Sullivan will feature HMS Pinafore on July 29 at 7.30pm and July 31 at 2.30pm and The Mikado on July 30 and 31 at 7.30pm.
The JoRo’s in-house performing team will produce semi-staged performances of G&S’s biggest hits, brimming with popular tunes and brilliant characters. “Come along and enjoy the topsy-turvy musical madness, with all profits going straight back to the theatre,” reads their invitation.
The Carpenters Experience: Tribute concert led by Maggie Nestor
Billed as “the UK’s leading Carpenters’ show”, The Carpenters Experience brings together vocalist Maggie Nestor and eight musicians to capture yesterday once more in the form of Karen and Richard Carpenter’s Close To You, We’ve Only Just Begun, Top Of The World, Rainy Days And Mondays, Solitaire, Goodbye To Love, Please Mr Postman, For All We Know and Only Yesterday on August 28 at 7.30pm.
Dan Shrimpton, chair of the theatre trustees, says: “We’re thrilled to be staging live shows once again and welcoming audiences back through our theatre doors. We’ve missed the buzz of putting on a show and can’t wait for opening night.
“We’ve worked hard to make sure our theatre is Covid-safe. The new procedures and processes we’ve put in place have all been tried and tested. Our priority is to make sure your theatre experience is a safe one.”
For more information on the shows, booking tickets and the new safety procedures, go to the website, josephowntreetheatre.co.uk, email publicity@jrtheatre.co.uk or ring 01904 501935.
Buy A Tile: Joseph Rowntree Theatre’s new fundraising campaign
THE JoRo has launched its latest fundraising campaign, Buy A Tile, as part of its wider Raise The Roof appeal set in motion last year.
Shrimpton says: “We’ve been staging shows and entertaining local communities in York for more than 85 years. The roof repairs are essential for safeguarding the future of our theatre, so we can continue entertaining communities in York for years and years to come.”
The JoRo needs to raise £45,000 urgently to replace its leaking roofs: still made up of the original tiles laid in place when the Haxby Road theatre was built in 1935. Without repairs to the broken tiles, the Grade II-listed theatre risks damage to the building’s Art Deco fabric.
The Bev Jones Music Company’s poster for Jesus Christ Superstar at Rowntree Park, York
LOOKING ahead, musical actress, radio presenter, choreographer, director, writer, teacher and model Claire Pulpher will direct the Bev Jones Music Company in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar at Rowntree Park, York, on July 12 at 3pm and July 13 at 2pm and 5pm.
Claire also will play Mary Magdalene in the York company’s first full-scale musical production post-pandemic lockdown, in a safe outdoor setting in the park’s secluded amphitheatre, where audience members can sit in bubbles of up to six people, allocated on the day. Bring picnic chairs, rugs and possibly umbrellas too.
Joining her in the principal roles will be fellow Strictly Cabaret performers Chris Hagyard, Terry Ford and Larry Gibson.
Claire Pulpher: Directing Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar tells the story of the last seven days of Jesus’s life, leading to his crucifixion. Pulpher will use the natural setting to maximum effect to bring a unique vision to the 1973 rock opera, complemented by musical director James Rodgers’ band.
“James’s brilliant rock band will have you clapping and joining in with this rousing show, featuring the company’s very best performers, plus new names for you to enjoy in a production set to lift your spirits after such a difficult year,” says producer Lesley Jones .
“Suitable for all ages, with parental guidance, there’ll be singing and dancing to please everyone, in a suitably distanced manner.”
Roger Lee: Overseeing new heritage interpretation programme at Bedern Hall, York
BEDERN Hall, in York, will reopen on May 19 with a new heritage interpretation programme.
Visitors will see how the historic hall, in Bartle Garth, St Andrewgate, was restored and how it operated as the refectory for the Vicars Choral of York Minster, learning about their lifestyle and how they built the hall and discovering some of the things they left behind.
The hall’s later periods, and its many different uses over the centuries as tenemented accommodation, a bakery and a pork-pie maker’s curing hall, will be featured too.
Located a two-minute walk from York Minster, Bedern Hall has been seeking ways to open to new users and has received a Culture Recovery Fund grant to support its development plans.
The grant has begun to assist a new volunteer programme too that will bring additional opportunities for people to take part in the new opening arrangements.
Roger Lee, of the Bedern Hall Company, says: “Bedern Hall is one of York’s small but important historic venues and as we seek new ways for visitors to experience and learn about the hall, this is a timely change of direction for the business as we emerge from Covid-19 restrictions.
“It’s also a new opportunity for people to volunteer to help us with this vision to retell the Vicars Choral Story and the hall’s restoration.”
Bedern Hall will be open to visitors four days a week, from Wednesday to Saturday, 10.30am to 4.30pm. New signs, interpretation information boards, a children’s trail and tours of the Bedern area are planned with guides.
A new Bedern Hall Tour App that visitors can access via QR codes on their smartphone or tablet device will provide information in text, audio, and video in up to ten languages and will doubles as a self-guide tour.
The hall will continue to offer facilities for wedding ceremonies and receptions, craft events, social events, community groups and business meetings. Its clientele include corporate organisations, private companies, social services and community groups.
“The aim is to bring the history of hall to the attention of visitors and local people and its continuing benefit to the city as one of York’s most important medieval meeting halls that’s often overlooked due to its location,” says Roger, who operates Bedern Hall, runs Time and Place Caterers from there and is a Freeman of the City.
Anyone interested in volunteering opportunities should contact Roger on 01904 646030 or by emailing roger@bedernhall.co.uk.
The Bedern Hall heritage interpretation project is funded by the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage. The Culture Recovery Fund is being delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England, using funds provided by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport.
The poster that announced Sir Tom Jones’s gig earlier today
SIR Tom Jones is to play Leeds hipster locale, the Brudenell Social Club in Hyde Park, on August 31 in a special launch show for his new album, Surrounded By Time.
And, why, why, why, didn’t you move more quickly to snap tickets for probably his most intimate Yorkshire show since his Batley Variety Club days well over half a century ago , because the 400-capacity gig has sold out already on the day of ticket release.
The concert coup to sign up 80-year-old Sir Tom has been pulled off by Crash Records, the Leeds independent record shop in The Headrow, whose owner, Ian De-Whytell, came up with a one-off deal whereby tickets could be ordered from Crash as part of a bundle with a copy of the new album.
This will be one of only two such album launch shows by Welshman Sir Tom. Please be aware, the gig going ahead without social distancing and Covid precautions will still be subject to the Government rolling out Step 4 of the roadmap as planned from June 21 this summer.
“This date is very much TBC until we have more info from the Government that shows are safe to take place,” says Crash Records’ website.
Doors will open at 7pm; Sir Tom will be on stage soon afterwards.
Track listing for Surrounded By Time, released on April 23:
I Won’t Crumble With You If You Fall (Bernice Johnson Reagon); The Windmills Of Your Mind (Michel Legrand/Alan & Marilyn Bergman); Popstar (Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam); No Hole In My Head (Malvina Reynolds); Talking Reality Television Blues (Todd Snider); I Won’t Lie (Michael Kiwanuka & Paul Butler); This Is The Sea (Michael Scott); One More Cup Of Coffee (Bob Dylan); Samson And Delilah (Tom Jones, Ethan Johns, Mark Woodward); Mother Earth (Tony Jo White); I’m Growing Old (Bobby Cole) and Lazurus Man (Terry Callier).
Scarborough Museums Trust documentation assistant Ela Bochenek with an item from the Animal Hauntings exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery from May 18. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
ANIMAL Hauntings will take over Scarborough Art Gallery from May 18 to September 22, led by a tunny fish.
The exhibition combines film and objects from the Scarborough Museums Trust collection to ask what, in times of environmental uncertainty, we can learn from the ghosts of animals past in order to create more solid future relationships with the natural world.
Among those objects will be a tunny fish that was a favourite exhibit for many in a former life when the gallery’s neighbour, Woodend, was a natural history museum, together with examples of taxidermy, such as a pair of the now-extinct passenger pigeon, and equipment used by the “climmers” that once abseiled down Yorkshire’s East Coast cliffs in search of seabird eggs.
Tunny fishing and climming are the subject of two films from the Yorkshire Film Archive that form part of the exhibition, alongside moving images by artist Fiona Tan and exhibition curator and artist Martha Cattell.
Martha says: “The exhibition is inspired by Woodend’s past as a natural history museum, and by the book Arts Of Living On a Damaged Planet: Ghosts And Monsters Of The Anthropocene, an anthology of work by 20 eminent writers.
“Humans have long been fascinated with and reliant on non-human animals for food, transport, clothing and as pets. We are haunted by past connections to animals and many of the objects within the collection reflect this.
The full-size model of a tunny fish, cast from the original, that will be a star of the Scarborough Museums Trust collection on show in Animal Hauntings at Scarborough Art Gallery. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“With more than 35,500 species threatened with extinction, this exhibition uses objects and moving image to highlight the entangled relationships between animals and humans, and offers ways of looking with animals, and not just at them.”
Scarborough Museums Trust will run a series of events inspired by the exhibition, to be announced on its website and social media channels in the coming weeks.
Animal Hauntings will run alongside two more exhibitions at Scarborough Art Gallery over the same dates: Scarborough: Our Seaside TownandLaughton’s Legacies.
The venue has been awarded VisitEngland ‘s We’re Good To Go industry standard mark, signifying adherence to government and public health guidance on Covid-19. All three exhibitions are on the ground floor and are fully wheelchair-accessible.
Entry to Scarborough Art Gallery is by annual pass, whose £3 cost gives unlimited entry to both the gallery and the Rotunda Museum for a year.
Opening hours at Scarborough Art Gallery are 10am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sundays, plus Bank Holidays.
