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Nick Lane’s The Snow Queen is in full swing as Polly Lister hits the multi-tasking heights

Ice on fire: Polly Lister’s extraordinary one-woman tour de force peaks with her Snow Queen in Nick Lane’s The Snow Queen at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Pictures: Tony Bartholomew

REVIEW: The Snow Queen, The Round, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, receiving anything but frosty receptions until December 31. Box office: sjt.uk.com *****

HELL would have had to freeze over before the ever-resilient Stephen Joseph Theatre gave up on presenting a Christmas show in Covid-quashed 2020.

Nick Lane, audacious inventor of winter wonderlands at the SJT since 2016, had been writing a five-hander version in the manner of past hits Pinocchio, A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol and Alice In Wonderland.

“Nick, could you change it to a one-hander,” asked SJT artistic director Paul Robinson, his regular partner in “sublime not-pantomime” shows for the child in all of us.

“Polly, could you do it as a solo show,” Robinson asked Polly Lister, so memorably “hyper, needy, overbearing, but funny and vulnerable” as Mari Hoff in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice and “sporty and no-nonsense” as lesbian Di in Di And Viv And Rose in the SJT’s 2017 summer season.

Yes, said Polly, who now would be playing multitudinous characters – a Goth raven  poet and a grumpy Brummie deer among them – rather than merely the icy blast of the Snow Queen.

On board once more too are SJT artistic associate Simon Slater, Scarborough-born composer, lyricist and sound designer; video and lighting wizard Paul Steer; movement and puppetry director Gemma Fairlie and Helen Coyston, the designer for A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol, who decides everything should go with a swing in The Snow Queen.

Oh, and with a garden shed, bin, fencing, log, boxes, bench, and wonky wooden wheelbarrow; a video screen; a suspended branch and more besides in a circular design that retains the feel of the Round, albeit with the socially distanced, Covid-secure audience in three banks of seating, rather than the usual four.

For a familiar yet re-booted Hans Christian Andersen story that will “end in grief or glory”, our narrator – in striped leggings, gown and Steampunk glasses, coupled with a genial, garden-enthusiast, bonkers boffin manner – is the “silly Sorceress”, whose “problem sister” happens to be the titular ice block to Christmas joy.

Seamlessly, the ever-fantastical Lane introduces best friends Gerda and Kai, initially in puppet form on the swing, but of course polymath Polly adds them to her ever-expanding list of roles, adjusting body shape and expression, as well as voice, at every turn.

Lister act: Another role for Polly, this as the somewhat nutty narrator with the Flying Monkey Powder. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Best friends Gerda and Kai do what children do, sharing jokes, games and stories, especially tales of the mysterious Lady in the Sky with her faraway Palace Of Ice, but is she fantasy or reality? When Kai disappears from his Gran’s house in Scarborough, his eye and heart pierced by an icicle, Gerda knows the Snow Queen is no fake-news fable as she vows to rescue him.

A journey to a “world of weirdness and wonderment, known as the Other Scarborough” ensues as Lane lets his imagination off the leash again. We expect poo, wind and booby references from Nick, long attuned to what makes “children of Scarborough” laugh, and yes, he cannot resist once more, and nor should he.

This time, he conjures a raven who writes poo-ems in a typical cheeky Lane invention, and daftness takes the form of a huge travelling trunk that springs open to reveal a French DJ called Jean Claude, who happens to be a puppet hedgehog with prickly ego and attitude, downing tools until a certain popular foodstuff is delivered from the Golden Arches.

Then add the doleful reindeer, a bunch of talking flowers and unwise words from wisewomen, all topped off by Lister’s terrific haughty-and-ice Snow Queen and a glorious video send-up of influencer bloggers with hashtags by the dozen.

Storyteller, puppeteer, singer, woman of so many voices, humorous but scary, daft but caring, playful yet serious, what a performance director Robinson elicits from Lister, who makes a one-woman show the perfect way to experience The Snow Queen in these restricted times.

Slater’s witty, potent and dramatic songs, his way with both a tune and a lyric, are a delight too in a show sure to banish the Christmas 2020 blues with a sense of the ridiculous and the need to escape, to laugh, to be transported to another world: the other Scarborough for Scarborough and beyond to enjoy while we must endure the Covid Grinch.

SJT rules on Covid guidance for attendance:

1.You can’t visit with anyone who you don’t live with, or who isn’t part of your support bubble.
2. SJT, Scarborough, is in a Tier 2 area, so if you live in a Tier 3 area, don’t come.

3. Face coverings are mandatory throughout the building (unless exempt – this includes under 11s), except when eating or drinking. 

Remaining performances:

December 21 to 23, 1pm, 7pm; December 24, 1pm; December 24, 1pm; December 26, 6pm; December 27, 1pm; December 29, December 30, 1pm, 7pm; December 31, 1pm.

Age guidance: Five and upwards

Running time: One hour 45 minutes, including interval

Cast: Polly Lister or her alternate, Jacoba Williams, whose remaining performances will be on December 26, 6pm, and Decembger 27, 1pm.

TICKETS UPDATE 22/12/2020, 8am

All performances were sold out but now some returns have become available. Go to sjt.uk.com/booking?id=1015 for more details.

NEWSFLASH 24/12/2020

A BRAND new film of the SJT’s Christmas show, The Snow Queen, is available to rent from now until midnight on January 31. Tickets cost £12 and allow online access for a week at sjt.uk.com/SJTathome.

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Red Hot Chilli Pipers to play Harrogate Royal Hall in May 2022, two years late

Piping hot…but not until 2022 at Harrogate Royal Hall after Red Hot Chilli Pipers rearranged the gig for a second time since the pandemic started to rule diary appointments

BAGROCK pioneers Red Hot Hot Chilli Pipers will pipe up at Harrogate Royal Hall on May 13 2022, more than two years after the Scots were first scheduled to play there.

The pernicious pandemic’s relentless stranglehold has seen the date moved twice, first from April 24 in Lockdown 1.0 this year to April 10 2021 and now to next spring.

Such an impact that the rearranged 14-gig itinerary will form the Chilli Pipers’ 20th anniversary tour, set for April 28 to June 5 2022. Harrogate Royal Hall will be the only Yorkshire concert, with tickets on sale at harrogatetheatre.co.uk or thegigcartel.com/Artists-profiles/Red-Hot-Chilli-Pipers.htm.

Formed in 2002, the Chilli Pipers popped up for a cameo in The Darkness’s set at the 2004 T in the Park, going on to headline the Scottish festival a decade later.

Now “the most famous bagpipe band on the planet…ever”, they present “bagpipes with attitude, drums with a Scottish accent and a show that should carry its own health warning”.

In the Red Hot Chilli Pipers’ tool kit is a groundbreaking fusion of traditional Scottish music and rock and pop anthems that they proudly call “Bagrock”, engineered by world championship-winning musicians, dancers and singers. 

In February 2019, the Chilli Pipers and Glasgow-born singer-songwriter Tom Walker released a piping-hot version  of his debut hit Leave A Light On in aid of Nordoff Robins, the music therapy charity. Their fundraising collaboration came after Walker and the Chilli Pipers performed together at Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, before a Scotland versus Italy Six Nations rugby match.

The Chilli Pipers last released a studio album in June 2019, when Fresh Air combined new songs and covers, ranging from Walker’s Leave The Light On to Leonard Cohen´s Hallalujah and Walk The Moon’s Shut Up And Dance, both with Chris Judge on vocals.

Among their career highlights have been winning the BBC talent show When Will I Be Famous; playing at the BBC Proms in Hyde Park, NBC Olympics Studio and Rugby World Cup, and recording their 2014 live DVD and CD, Live At The Lake,  at Milwaukee Irish Fest, the band’s American spiritual home by the shores of Lake Michigan.

The poster for Red Hot Chilli Pipers’ 20th Anniversary Tour in 2022, stating tickets will remain valid from the postponed Spring 2021 shows
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REVIEW: Opera North in Fidelio, Leeds Town Hall, December 12, and online

Oliver Johnston as Jaquino, Rachel Nicholls as Leonore, Brindley Sherratt as Rocco and Fflur Wyn as Marzelline in Opera North’s Fidelio. All pictures: Richard H Smith

BEETHOVEN’S birthdate remains a mystery. But he was certainly baptised on December 17, 1770.

So, this concert staging took place on, or very near, the 250th anniversary of his birth. It could hardly have been a more thrilling occasion, even considering that it was compulsorily live-streamed, without the intended audience, as the pandemic bit harder in West Yorkshire. 

There was from the start an extraordinarily upbeat flavour to the evening. It was as if every last ounce of the suppressed anger we were all feeling about the coronavirus was being channelled into sheer, bloody-minded determination to beat this enemy. No composer does anger better than Beethoven. Opera North was out to prove the point.

You could imagine different productions. But you would be hard put to find one in which every last one of the performers – soloists, chorus, orchestra, all under Mark Wigglesworth – was not merely on terrific form but prepared to shed sweat and tears in the cause. Call it wartime spirit, call it Yorkshire grit. In any case, the level was astounding given that so many of them had been like beached whales since early spring.

This was a bare-bones Fidelio, and all the better for that. In the pre-match interviews, both principals had questioned the weight of voices Beethoven had used at the 1805 premiere. Not that excuses were being made: both Rachel Nicholls as Leonore and Toby Spence as Florestan had plenty of heft when needed. But we have become inured to hearing something close to Wagnerian sopranos and heldentenors in these roles. They were not necessary here.

Social distancing had reduced the orchestra to Mozartian dimensions, with a chorus of only 24 wide-spaced across the bleachers behind. This was virtually Fidelio as chamber opera. But the town hall’s bright acoustic belied the small numbers. Not only were there no props or costumes, there was no dialogue either.

Rachel Nicholls as Leonore: “A relatively slight figure, she now produces astonishing power and intensity without loss of focus”

This meant the excision of the often-misleading exchanges in Act 1 as well as the Melodrama in Act 2. In their place we had brief English narrations devised by David Pountney and spoken in gently judicial tones by Matthew Stiff’s decisive Don Fernando.

Otherwise, Matthew Eberhardt’s production stuck to sung German, with the sole exception of Jacquino’s spoken ‘Der Minister Ist Hier!’.  Pountney did not attempt to summarise the dialogue, merely to set each new scene. With the interval also eliminated, the spotlight was firmly focused on the drama. The result was undeniably gripping, Beethoven red in tooth and claw.

Rachel Nicholls has come a long way from her early music days. A relatively slight figure, she now produces astonishing power and intensity without loss of focus. There was righteous anger to burn at the start of ‘Abscheulicher!’ but it melted into a lovely spirituality at ‘Komm, Hoffnung’; the horns gave superb support.

Toby Spence, barefoot on a small dais slightly below and in front of the stage, can rarely have sung with such splendidly burnished tone, a picture of perseverance and resolution. Together they generated an ecstatic ‘O Namenlose Freude!’, all the more laudable given that an embrace was out of the question. They seemed to feed off each other’s joy.

Oliver Johnston delivered an urgent, concerned Jaquino, much more than the usual cipher, while Fflur Wyn – another whose voice has grown in recent years – made a warm Marzelline and Brindley Sherratt a genial, compliant Rocco.

Toby Spence as Florestan: “Can rarely have sung with such splendidly burnished tone, a picture of perseverance and resolution”

Robert Hayward injected unrelenting menace into his Pizarro, to the point where we might have suspected it was all hot air. Such is the lot of the baddie.

The chorus, who had risen slowly and sporadically from their seats for their venture into the sunshine, drove the rest of their energy into a thunderous finale.

Wigglesworth’s decisive baton drew consistently tidy, transparent tone from his orchestra, all the more impressive since distancing must have made each player feel like a soloist. 

Peter Maniura’s TV direction found a pleasing balance between close-up and ensemble, while we could forgive English subtitles that lapsed into hyperbole with ‘Let us celebrate all magnificent women’ at the close, hardly what the libretto tells us.

It was decidedly a new-look Fidelio, with drama winning out over decibels. Who would have thought that a rescue opera would be loosening our shackles two centuries on? We have Beethoven to thank.

Online on demand via www.operanorth.co.uk until January 4

Review by Martin Dreyer

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Who should Boris Johnson play in a panto? Ask York Stage star May Tether…

May Tether in her walkdown costume in York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: Kirkpatrick Photography

MAY TETHER is back home in Yorkshire after leaving Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, with first-class honours.

Now, the Goole musical actress is making her professional debut as Jill Gallop in Jack Stage’s pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York.

Here, May gallops her way through Charles Hutchinson’s questions during a hectic weekend of six performances.

What was the first pantomime you ever saw and what do you recall of it?

“Dick Whittington, when the Cat was a lady. She took me on stage and I remember being terrified.”

What was your first pantomime role?

“Jill in Jack And The Beanstalk when I was 14.”

What has been your favourite pantomime role?

“Well, since I’ve only ever played Jills, I have to say she’s rather fabulous!”

Who have you not yet played in pantomime that you would love to play?

“The baddie!!!!!!!”

Who is your favourite pantomime performer and why?

“The ensemble of any show but ours are insane! I don’t understand how they do it. They keep me going. If they can high kick and sing, I can find energy from somewhere too.”

This year’s pantomime will be an experience like no other…what are your expectations of performing a show in these strange circumstances?

“I don’t have much experience as I’ve only ever done one other panto, in the same role. But I just want to bring joy to people in a very dark time.”

Which pantomime role should Boris Johnson play and why?

“He would play the Giant…because ideally there wouldn’t be one.”

Who or what has been the villain of 2020?

“For me, Rishi Sunak…get the theatres open, pally!”

Who or what has been the fairy of 2020?

“Andrew Lloyd Webber. Saving the day trialling shows at the London Palladium and offering to trial the vaccine. What a joy.”

How would you sum up 2020 in five words?

“It’s not been for me.”

What are your wishes for 2021?

“Health, happiness, success, to everyone in the year ahead. I hope everyone gets the fire to get back to work, whatever it is they do, and to feel they are happy again.”

What are your hopes for the world of theatre in 2021?

“Let’s just get the theatres open and get these, cough, cough, ‘non-viable’ people high kicking and belting out highs Cs or dressing as cats, or whatever it is they do best, back where they belong. A STRANGE time, but it IS coming to an end!!!”

York Stage presents Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, until January 3. Box office: yorkstagepanto.com

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REVIEW: Haunting Julia, audio version, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, online at sjt.uk.com until January 5 2021

All in the voice: Alan Ayckbourn, in his garden in Scarborough in May, in the year when he has recorded two audio plays. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

ALAN Ayckbourn’s Haunting Julia was last mounted by the SJT in 2008 as part of The Things That Go Bump, his farewell season as artistic director that brought out the ghosts lurking in the dark corners of all our minds.

Richard Derrington guest-directed that revival of Ayckbourn’s claustrophic, ever chillier 1994 response to Woman In Black, the SJT hit that went international. This time, in the wake of SJT director emeritus Ayckbourn’s online premiere of his 84th play, Anno Domino, in the first pandemic lockdown, he becomes a triple threat again for Haunting Julia.

Make that quadruple threat, because the Scarborough knight, now 81, is the writer, director, performer and sound designer for his only all-male play…although “other voices” are added to his triptych of roles, courtesy of Naomi Petersen.

Three men, a father, a lover and a medium, are each struggling to fathom why Otley-born classical musical genius Julia Lukin died at only 19, the victim of an accident or maybe suicide, or perhaps murkier, sinister circumstances shrouded in drugs and alcohol.

The day the music died in 1982, her father’s life stopped in its tracks. Twelve years on and no nearer the truth, bewildered, bluff, big-in-industrial-fencing-supplies businessman Joe Lukin has opened the Julia Lukin Centre for Performing Studies in her former attic student digs and two adjoining houses as a tribute to “Little Miss Mozart”.

Joe has made alterations to the building and the actress voicing Julia’s story is too buoyant: symbols of how this caring, but over-bearing West Yorkshireman never quite struck the right note with her, applying stultifying parental pressure as she struggled with a gift that made her sick, its uncontrollable insistence on being let out being “like a great cloud in front of the sun”.

On the recording, Julia’s distressed real voice can be heard, not only by Joe, but also by her close college friend Andy Rollinson, whose ever more apparent discomfort at having to dig up old ground will be brought to the surface by the arrival of Ken Chase, an over-enthusiastic psychic, the Madame Arcati of Haunting Julia. The truth will out, ultimately willingly from Ken, less so from Andy, who goes from distracted awkwardness to confronting his shut-down past.

May your reviewer make a suggestion, dear reader? Despite the play’s afternoon setting, listen to this audio version in the still of the night, in candlelight or by fire light, or even in the dark, curtains drawn, no distractions, maximum concentration, in part to contrast with the collective experience of a theatre audience, in part too to enhance the new format.

The Stephen Joseph Theatre poster for Alan Ayckbourn’s audio version of Haunting Julia

The shards of humour, often released as a form of relief from the rising tension in a packed auditorium, are less forthcoming on a solo journey through an audio recording, but the psychological impact of Ayckbourn’s ghost story grows in the loneliness of the socially distanced listener.

Ghost stories are as much a part of Christmas as pantomime dames and carol services, and so whereas the 1994 premiere and subsequent SJT revivals were staged in the summer, this is the perfect time for Haunting Julia to start haunting all over again.

“I consider Julia Lukin to be among the most complex and intriguing of my characters never physically to appear,” Ayckbourn has said. “Although a male three-hander, the play definitely belongs to her.”

Yes, and no. Yes, she possesses the three men, and in turn the listener, but Haunting Julia very definitely belongs to Ayckbourn too, not only as the consummate story-telling writer, but also in now voicing his three troubled protagonists.

Just as it was a pleasure to discover his dormant acting skills, alongside his wife Heather Stoney, in Anno Domino’s tale of marital breakdown and toxic politics, so his trio of accents and characters here is as enjoyable for us as it must have been for Ayckbourn to record in a year when his rehearsal room has had to fall silent.

What’s more, former BBC sound engineer Ayckbourn’s sound design adds hugely to the immersive audio encounter, playing on your imagination’s worst fears, as a ghost tale should.

“You have to build up the audience’s confidence in the story first, and then scare them, which is not that different from a farce, where you’re trying to make them laugh by surprising them,” said Ayckbourn of his first ghost play. Sure enough, surprise follows surprise here, and Haunting Julia is even better in this re-incarnation.

How to listen to Alan Ayckbourn times three in Haunting Julia:

TICKETS for Haunting Julia can be booked any time up to and including January 5 2021, either via https://www.sjt.uk.com/event/1078/haunting_julia or on 01723 370541.

Once a £12 ticket has been bought, the buyer can access the audio show as often as they want between now and January 5, and as many people as are in their household or social bubble can listen in. Go to the website, sjt.uk.com, for more details.

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REVIEW: York Early Music Christmas Festival, Spiritato! Online; Stile Antico, live, NCEM, York, December 13

Step into Christmas: Stile Antico, pictured by Marco Borggreve before socially distanced Covid times

THE 2020 York Early Music Christmas Festival went out with a splurge of concerts over its last weekend.

Your reviewer caught two of the four on the final day. Spiritato! was the largest ensemble to appear at the festival, 18 period-style players, who concentrated on Bach and his contemporary Johann Friedrich Fasch in The Leipzig Legacy.

Had he not been born directly in Bach’s shadow, Fasch would surely be better known. We heard at once, in the opening Concerto in D, how Fasch was already anticipating the classical shapes and sounds that were to feature in Haydn’s earlier symphonies.

There were exciting trumpets in the opening Allegro and delightful solos from violin and oboe in the finale: enough meat on these bones, indeed, to make further exploration of Fasch an exciting prospect.

His Quartetto in D minor, dating from about 1750, was marginally less exciting, but well above run-of-the-mill Baroque, gracefully delivered in its slow movements, with contrastingly crisp counterpoint in the Allegros.

Spiritato! was led from her violin by Kinga Ujszászi, who came into her own in Bach’s Sinfonia in D, where her effortless panache was breath-taking. But elsewhere too, she led by example, sustaining a real sense of dance through both Bach’s Second and Third Suites.

The Second, in B minor, believed to be the last of the four to be written, was given here in its earliest version for strings alone. Here the sound was a touch top-heavy, needing an extra cello or two for good balance.

The Third Suite, in D major, was probably much earlier, written at Cöthen (where Bach was succeeded as Kapellmeister by Fasch) in 1718. Apart from its famous Air, caressed here by strings alone, the Gavottes had a gentle lilt and the Gigue made a triumphant finale. Spiritato’s palpable enjoyment had proved infectious throughout.

The festival closed with the 12-voice ensemble Stile Antico, in an appearance at the unusual but most welcome hour of 5pm. Here we were back to purely Christmas repertory, mimicking Nine Lessons and Carols with nine Renaissance works, each preceded by a contemporary reading, in A Renaissance Christmas.

My heart usually sinks when I see that musicians are doing their own readings: few manage it with much prowess, let alone clarity. Stile Antico largely proved me wrong; these well exceeded expectation. There were two poems each from John Donne and George Herbert.

Robert Southwell’s The Burning Babe was another excellent choice, as was Emilia Lanier’s Eve’s Apologie. But the laurels went to a sermon by Lancelot Andrewes, its wit and wisdom about the Magi (including “a cold coming they had of it”) delivered here with supreme clarity. None of the readers was identified.

The conductor-less choir was arranged in two semi-circles, eight on the outside, four inside, socially distanced. This meant that, for the first time that I recall, it was possible to spot one singer keeping time with a gentle nod.

Needless to say, ensemble remained impeccable, matched by tuning that surely heaven will not better. The sopranos were particularly stunning. I recall just one occasion when a very high entry was slightly misjudged, though instantly rectified.

The tone of the evening was nicely set by an extract from the Piae Cantiones of 1582, that Finnish collection rediscovered by our man in Helsinki in the early 19th century.

Victoria was the only composer to feature twice, once with an eight-voice Agnus Dei, once with a gorgeous O Magnum Mysterium, partnering Donne’s Nativity. In between these two came the starker harmonies of a graceful Ave Maria by Des Prez, alongside Donne’s Annunciation, another clever pairing. Byrd’s Rorate Coeli had reminded us of his matchless counterpoint.

A very peppy Angelus Ad Pastores by a Ferrara nun, Raffaella Aleotti, in madrigal style, reminded us of how many such ladies are only now being brought to light, not before time. Guerrero’s villancico – nowadays synonymous with Christmas carol – A Un Niño Llorandowas cleverly shaped by five soloists.

It remained for a beautifully sustained account of John Sheppard’s Verbum Caro Factum Est, which was written for Christmas matins, to remind us of the reason for the festival. If you’ve never heard Stile Antico, make a beeline for them: you won’t be disappointed.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Both concerts are still available to buy online from the York Christmas At Home programme at ncem.co.uk until December 21 to watch on demand until January 6 2021.

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Monday is the chance to join Cuppa And A Chorus for virtual Christmas singing session

Cuppa And A Chorus participants at an earlier Zoom singing session

IF you are missing the joy of festive singing this Christmas, here is your chance at the obligatory remote distance.

On Monday (21/12/2020), the National Centre for Early Music, in York, will be hosting the Cuppa And A Chorus Christmas Special via Zoom, bringing Christmas cheer with this 6pm online singing session.

Expect Christmas songs, virtual mince pies and fun aplenty. Family members can celebrate together and there will be a break in the middle to enjoy that all important “cuppa” or maybe even a mulled wine and mince pie.

“The session will be conducted via Zoom and is a brilliant opportunity to socialise with friends, as well as a chance to make new ones,” says Lottie Brook, the NCEM’s learning and participation manager.

“No singing experience is necessary. Places are free but must be booked in advance. A Zoom link will be sent out on the day.”

Anyone nervous about using Zoom or accessing the concert can contact Lottie Brook at lottie.brook@ncem.co.uk.

To book, go to: https://www.ncem.co.uk/events/cuppa-and-a-chorus-christmas-special/

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Today is officially Panto Day in a winter with all too few panto days…except in York

WHO better to mark Panto Day than York Stage’s villain, Ian Stroughair, whose performance in Jack And The Beanstalk combines a craving for power with towering stage domination.

Stroughair’s intemperate character, Flesh Creep, is so hell-bent in his quest, he could spare only three minutes for these short, sharp, snappy answers to CharlesHutchPress’s equally quickfire questions.

What was the first pantomime you ever saw and what do you recall of it?

“Leeds. Not sure which, but I was frightened to death by the baddie.”

What was your first pantomime role?

“Dandini in Cinderella, The Regent Theatre, Stoke.” 

What has been your favourite pantomime role?

“Dandini.”

Who have you not yet played in pantomime that you would love to play?

“Dame. Not old enough, I don’t think, though.” 

Who is your favourite pantomime performer and why?

“Julian Clary. Utterly fabulous.” 

This year’s pantomime will be an experience like no other…what are your expectations of performing a show in these strange circumstances?

“My expectations are that it will be awesome.” 

Which pantomime role should Boris Johnson play?

“The Evil Queen.”

Who or what has been the villain of 2020?

“Trump.”

Who or what has been the fairy of 2020?

“Netflix.”

How would you sum up 2020 in five words?

“It has been a mess.”

What are your wishes for 2021?

“For theatres to boom.”

What are your hopes for the world of theatre in 2021?

“For theatres to boom.”

Happy Panto Day, Ian.

York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk runs at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, until January 3. Box office: yorkstagepanto.com

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Leeds Playhouse goes digital with A Christmas Carol after Tier 3 renewal rules out performances 3 days before opening

Chain reaction: Everal A. Walsh’s Jacob Marley will set Ebenezer Scrooge on his path to redemption in A Christmas Carol. Picture: Anthony Robling

BAH, Tier 3 Humbug. A Christmas Carol should have been opening at Leeds Playhouse tomorrow for a run until January 9, but then came the Government’s latest killjoy message for much of the north.

The Playhouse’s response is to go ahead anyway…but for five special online performances only, from December 21 to 23.

“Just as the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future try to instil in Scrooge some seasonal spirit, Leeds Playhouse remains committed to spreading much-needed festive cheer across the city and beyond this year, with ‘as live’ digital screenings of its sensational family show A Christmas Carol,” says the Playhouse statement.

“As Leeds remains in Tier 3, the Playhouse is sadly unable to welcome people into its Quarry Theatre to enjoy the production in person, but we remain determined that audiences will be able to experience the spirit, fun, music and magic of A Christmas Carol in the run-up to the big day.” 

Leeds Playhouse has worked with Pilot Theatre, resident company at York Theatre Royal, to film the production and share it for free with care homes, schools and hospitals in Leeds.

“It’s brilliant to be working in a new partnership with Leeds Playhouse on Playhouse At Home,” says Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson. “We know how disappointing it is for everyone this Christmas in Leeds not to be able to attend theatre performances, but if you access the show via your television, or the largest screen you have at home, it’s amazing how close our team are able to make you feel to the actors and the magic of this enduring Christmas story.” 

Dan Parr in Leeds Playhouse’s production of A Christmas Carol. Picture: Anthony Robling

Now, tickets are being made available to the wider public for online performances at 7pm on December 21, then 2pm and 7pm on December 22 and 23. Prices start at £10, but be warned, numbers are limited, so early booking is advised to avoid disappointment.

Charles Dickens’s winter evergreen can be enjoyed in the comfort and safety of homes – whether in Tier 3 across West Yorkshire or Tier 2 in York and North Yorkshire – in Huddersfield-born Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation, premiered at Hull Truck Theatre in December 2017, when directed by Amy Leach.

Now associate director at Leeds Playhouse, Leach is directing this season’s production too, wherein the spirits of theatre past, present and future emerge from ghost lights centre stage to share with miser Ebenezer Scrooge the true meaning of this festive time of year.

On Christmas Eve in Victorian Leeds, the cold-hearted Scrooge has not spread an ounce of festive cheer. As the cold night draws in, first Jacob Marley, then the ghostly spirits, take Scrooge on his frightening but enlightening magical journey, hoping to show him the error of his ways.

“Our vivid retelling of one of the best-loved stories in English literature was inspired by the evocative beauty and intrinsic hope of the ghost lights that continued to burn bright while theatres across the land were forced to go dark when the pandemic hit,” says Leach.

“Our aim now with Playhouse At Home is to share that same light and hope with people in their own homes, giving them the best seats in the house for a story infused with goodwill, festive spirit and optimism. What a way to kick off Christmas week!”

Playwright Deborah McAndrew

As part of the Playhouse’s on-going commitment to supporting the Leeds community, the Quarry Hill theatre is gifting a free screening to closed wards of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, so patients can enjoy the on-stage magic even while they are in hospital over the festive period.

The offer is being extended to the Playhouse’s Burberry Inspire partner schools, residents in three care homes and to two day-service settings for adults with a learning disability.

Ticket holders who booked for cancelled shows will be sent the digital version for free. In addition, the Playhouse will bring A Christmas Carol to 1,000 NHS key workers and their families as part of the #LeedsSaysThanks scheme.

Playhouse artistic director James Brining says: “It feels more important than ever that we should honour our ongoing commitment to the wider Playhouse community in Leeds, the city region and beyond, giving our more vulnerable neighbours the chance to experience the life-enhancing joy of live theatre at Christmas in the comfort and safety of familiar surroundings.” 

Reflecting on “undoubtedly an incredibly challenging year”, Brining says: “With challenge comes innovation. We launched Playhouse Connect during lockdown to stay creatively engaged with more than 4,000 people across Leeds.

Jack Lord’s Ebenezer Scrooge, centre, has his measly meal interrupted by the nightcap-bothering Lladel Bryant in Leeds Playhouse’s A Christmas Carol. Picture: Anthony Robling

“This resulted in a collated series of dynamic online projects that we were able to successfully share with a much wider digital audience. We have also previously partnered with the National Theatre and Curve on lockdown screenings of Barber Shop Chronicles and  My Beautiful Laundrette.

“Playhouse At Home is the next logical step, giving us a vital outlet for the incredible work we are continuing to produce, and audiences an essential opportunity to experience inspiring and energising theatre at home.”

Jack Lord will play Ebenezer Scrooge; Stephen Collins and Nadia Nadarajah, Bob and Mrs Cratchit; Dan Parr, Young Scrooge and Fred; Tessa Parr, Christmas Past; Lladel Bryant, Dick Wilkins and Topper, and Everal A. Walsh, Marley and Fezziwig.

Lisa Howard, last seen in York in Park Bench Theatre’s late-summer premiere of Matt Aston’s lockdown play Every Time A Bell Rings in Rowntree Park, will take the roles of Christmas Present and Mrs Fezziwig.

Leach, who directed Oliver Twist at Leeds Playhouse in February, is joined in the creative team by designer Hayley Grindle; lighting designer Chris Davey; Leeds composer and music director John Biddle; Otley sound designer Ed Clarke; Leeds BSL consultant Adam Bassett; choreographer Lucy Cullingford; puppet designer Rachael Canning and puppet director Elisa De Grey.

The socially distanced Leeds Playhouse company in A Christmas Carol. Picture: Anthony Robling

Tickets (£10/£12/£150 can be booked at leedsplayhouse.org.uk or 0113 213 7700 with access for 48 hours from the ticket time. All performances include integrated British Sign Language (BSL), captioning and features creative audio description, courtesy of Hear The Picture.

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Happy Christmas, your farce, pray God it’s our last of this bleak mid-Covid kind…

Graham Sanderson: The eyes have had enough of it

A Carol For The Cabinet

by York Settlement Community Players’ deeply unsettled satirist Graham Sanderson

God rest ye poor nonentities
Let nothing you dismay;
You made a mess of Test and Trace,
But Brexit’s on its way
To save us all from Euro power,
Keep foreigners at bay.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

In Ukip and the ERG
This blessed plot was born,
And laid before the people
As a glorious new morn,
And Boris was the chosen one
To welcome in the dawn.
Oh, tidings of Prejudice and Fear,
Making it clear,
We will not have asylum seekers here.

Oh, poverty of intellect
And fear of full debate,
Means Covid was neglected –
Equipment came too late,
On order by a nod and wink
From a Minister’s old mate.
Oh, tidings of Chaos and Despair –
Panic in the air –
Pretending to the people that they care.

God rest ye feeble ministers
And clueless Upper Class;
You witless, gutless Nationalists,
So full of piss and gas;
Self-serving opportunists
Who’ve brought us to this pass.
Oh, tidings of nastiness and sleaze –
‘We do as we please’:
A once beloved country on its knees.

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