Call-out to independent York artists and craft makers to take part in York River Art Market’s virtual winter markets at home in November and December
YORK River Art Market is going virtual in the lead-up to Christmas at #yramathome.
The series of Virtual Winter Art Markets will run from 10am to 5pm each Sunday from November 22 to December 20, plus the last Saturday before Christmas Day, December 19.
Online shoppers can browse and buy artworks from a selection of 20-plus different “indie makers” at each market day via Instagram.
Information on each weekend’s makers, along with instructions on how to shop, will be shared via the York River Art Market (YRAM) Facebook page, both in the run-up to the events and during them.
On market days, the artists will be set up via their own Instagram accounts to showcase live videos of their stall and individual images of each item for sale, with details on medium, size and price.
Artists and craft makers seeking to sell artworks from the comfort of their own home under the YRAM umbrella should contact yorkriverart@gmail.com for details. The cost will be £10 per day to cover administration, advertising and the chance to promote and sell work via Instagram.
“I do hope York River Art Market At Home can give support to indie makers and also offer a different and fun experience for shoppers, where they can connect directly with the artists,” says organiser Charlotte Dawson. Picture: David Harrison
Looking ahead to the markets, organiser Charlotte Dawson says: “Shoppers can simply find details of each artist attending the up-and-coming market day via the YRAM Facebook page, which will guide them to each artist’s own Instagram page.
“Here, shoppers may browse the images of each indie maker’s artworks for sale and follow the maker’s simple instructions of how to claim/buy each handcrafted item.”
Charlotte foresees the Virtual Winter Art Markets being welcomed by makers and shoppers alike. “So many physical arts and craft events have been cancelled this year due to Covid-19, such as the York River Art Market’s fifth summer besides the River Ouse,” she says.
“I realise that a Virtual Art Market is a completely different experience to being besides the river, with art exhibited all along the railings down Dame Judi Dench Walk by Lendal Bridge.
“However, I do hope that this version can give support to indie makers and also offer a different and fun experience for shoppers, where they can connect directly with the artist and browse the virtual market place, via Instagram, at their leisure and from their own home.”
#yramathome dates for the diary are: November 22 and 29; December 6, 13, 19 and 20, 10am to 5pm. For information and updates, follow YRAM at @yorkriverart on Instagram and at @yorkriverartmarket on Facebook.
“As a folk singer, it’s what I do: reinterpret existing songs,” says Kate Rusby, after recording an album of covers
Kate Rusby, Hand Me Down (Pure Records) ****
SUDDENLY, 2020 has brought a spurt of cover-version albums.
Throwing Muses’ Tanya Donnelly in tandem with fellow New Englanders The Parkington Sisters, for one. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings’ All The Good Times, for another. Molly Tuttle’s quarantine collection, …But I’d Rather Be With You, for a third.
On November 13, Marika Harkman will release Covers, her collection of “songs she is obsessed with”, while Lambchop will uncover Trip. Meanwhile, mask-dismissing Noel Gallagher wants to make an album of Burt Bacharach and The Smiths covers…definitely, maybe, wait and see, after a career of paying tribute to The Beatles and Slade in Oasis and beyond.
Most successful in the UK charts has been Kate Rusby’s home-made delight, Hand Me Down, peaking at number 12, the highest placing of her 25-year career at the forefront of folk.
Folk musicians have always handed songs down the generations, blowing the dust off the songbooks of yore to revive past works, but you would not call those restorations ‘covers’, whether in the work of Sam Lee or indeed Rusby.
In 2011, North Easterners The Unthanks reinterpreted the left-field songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons on Diversions Vol 1, but folk loyalist Rusby has gone to the heart of pop, rock, even reggae, for her Lockdown DIY recordings.
This is not as radical a step as you might first think, and nor is it a novelty. Barnsley nightingale Kate covered The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society for the theme tune to Jennifer Saunders’ Jam & Jerusalem sitcom and duetted with Ronan Keating on the 2006 top ten hit All Over Again.
After performing Don’t Go Away on Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 2 show, Kate’s wistful ballad take on Oasis featured on last year’s Philosophers, Poets And Kings and became a concert favourite. A return visit to Whiley’s studio elicited a mournful reading of The Cure’s Friday I’m In Love, now one of the stand-outs on Hand Me Down.
“As a folk singer, it’s what I do: reinterpret existing songs,” explains Rusby. “The only difference is that usually the songs are much older.”
Not only very old songs are handed down through the generations, however, so too are favourite songs of any age, of any generation, she says. “Songs are precious for many different reasons.”
The album artwork for Kate Rusby’s Hand Me Down
Those reasons are outlined in Rusby’s detailed sleeve notes to her intimate home studio recordings with guitar and banjo-playing producer-husband Damien O’Kane and daughters Daisy Delia and Phoebe Summer on sporadic backing vocals in between home-schooling sessions.
Some are chosen from childhood or teenage memories (The Kinks’ Days, but from Kirsty MacColl’s sublime version; Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours), two much-covered songs you might have predicted, rather more than Maybe Tomorrow (The Littlest Hobo theme song) or The Show, from family friend Willy Russell’s musical Connie.
Covering a song is as much about what you uncover as you cover, prime examples here being Coldplay’s Everglow, Lyle Lovett’s If I Had A Boat and in particular “role model to her children” Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, newly revelling in O’Kane’s swing-time banjo.
Nothing evokes Lockdown more than the opening Manic Monday, Prince’s song for Kate’s teen favourites The Bangles, slowed and turned to acoustic melancholia for not-so-manic days of longing at home, away from the city buzz. Add South Yorkshire vowels, and who can resist.
Covers albums have an erratic history, more often a dangerous minefield rather than an orchard full of fruit ripe for picking. Kate joins the latter list, ending with a ray of perennial summer sunshine, Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds, as Hand Me Down becomes balm for fretful, fearful pandemic times.
“I’ve always had overwhelming urges to cheer people up at times of sadness,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse, but it’s always been part of my genetic make-up.”
Kate, it is a blessing, “singin’ sweet songs of melodies pure and true,” as Marley put it.
Win signed copies of Kate Rusby’s Hand Me Down
COURTESY of Kate Rusby and Pure Records, CharlesHutchPress has five Hand Me Down CDs, signed by Kate, to be won.
Question: Who wrote Manic Monday, the opening track on Hand Me Down?
The tree-lit setting for Northern Girls in the YMCA Theatre Car Park in Scarborough. Picture: Matthew Cooper, Msc1photography
Review: Signal Fires Festival, Northern Girls, Pilot Theatre and Arcade, YMCA Theatre Car Park, St Thomas Street, Scarborough, October 27 and 28
ALAS, we are confined to keeping only the home fires burning as Lockdown 2: The Sequel beds in from Thursday, putting live theatre back in its box for at least a month.
Yet in this desperate year, nights such as the Northern Girls showcase for female voices have risen from the ashes of 2020 to make the Signal Fires Festival a heart-warming herald of how theatre can diversify to survive the stultifying Covid strictures that have left the industry under threat.
Over the years, CharlesHutchPress has reviewed productions staged in York in an echoey multi-storey car park and at a pop-up Elizabethan theatre built on a car park. Now, the Tarmac surface of the Scarborough YMCA Theatre car park can be added to that list, on a Tuesday night of numbing exposure to the autumn elements that made the glowing presence of four fire pits so welcome to complement scarves and the now de rigueur masks.
Ben Cowens’ silvery lighting of a lonely tree added magic to the setting and provided a point of focus for the performers brought together by pioneering York company Pilot Theatre and Arcade, the new Scarborough community producers
Asma Elbadawi performing Girl Next Door for the Signal Fires Festival. Picture: Matthew Cooper, Msc1photography
The time-honoured tradition of telling stories at the fireside lies at the heart of Signal Fires, albeit that everyone was keeping their social distance, sitting in pods of two, rather than huddling around the heat, all wearing a headset for clarity of sound, as is the norm at outdoor performances this year.
Each commissioned vignette was a solo piece – a concentrated artform but practical for Covid times – setting free eight stories of girls and women who live along the North East coastline, as Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson did when growing up in Redcar until the age of 11. Linking them altogether was the theme of what mattered most to writers and performers alike in 2020.
Here was a chance to see a quickfire new work by fast-rising High Kilburn playwright Charley Miles, setting the bar high with the opening Erosion, performed by professional debutante Holly Surtees-Smith, who returned for Rant, by Amy-May Pell, one of four new writing talents nurtured for Northern Girls by York theatre-maker, playwright and tutor Hannah Davies.
Richardson and Arcade’s Rach Drew spread the net wide along the coastline to fish out stories from Zoe Cooper, from Newcastle (Kat/Cassie, performed by Laura Elsworthy) and Maureen Lennon, from Hull, whose rousing The Scarborough Porpoise marked Northern Girls’ second professional stage debut by the bravura Laura Boughen.
Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson leading a rehearsal for Northern Girls. Picture: Matthew Cooper, Msc1photography
This frank, fearless, funny and fiery feminist tale was chosen for the finale, such was its potency and desire for freedom, riding the waves amid the porpoises.
British-Sudanese spoken-word artist (and basketball player) Asma Elbadawi performed her own work, The Girl Next Door, reflecting on growing up as a hijab-wearing girl in Bradford.
Lighting the torch for breaking barriers and finding liberation, Northern Girls also introduced new works by Shannon Barker, from Scarborough (First Date), and York College A-level student Ariel Hebditch (Yin And Yang), both performed by Siu-See Hung.
Claire Edwards, writer of the past five Scarborough YMCA Theatre pantomimes, here changed tack to make waves with Waves in a second monologue for the outstanding Laura Elsworthy.
Good news too, Signal Fires will not merely turn to ash. Suitably fired up by Northern Girls, Esther Richardson is keen to roll out this pioneering writing project in other communities too.
Holly Surtees-Smith making her professional debut in Northern Girls amid the smoke and fire of the Signal Fires Festival. Picture: Matthew Cooper, Msc1photograph
Kate Rusby at Christmas: Not wassailing at York Barbican but online instead
THE 2020 Kate Rusby At Christmas tour will not be happening, ruling out her South Yorkshire pub carol concert at York Barbican on December 20.
However, in response to the Covid restrictions, the Barnsley folk nightingale has decided to go online instead, presenting Kate Rusby’s Happy Holly Day on December 12 at 7.30pm (GMT).
At this special concert, streamed worldwide, expect all the usual Rusby Christmas ingredients: familiar Carols but set to unfamiliar tunes; wintry Rusby songs; sparkly dress, twinkling lights; her regular folk band and brass quintet; Ruby Reindeer and a fancy-dress finale.
Kate tweeted: “Well the inevitable…had to postpone Dec tour to 2021 due to Coronavirus. But don’t worry. We’re going to to stream a full-length gig 12th December complete with sparkle, Sweet Bells, brass lads, daftness, dressing up, Ruby Reindeer…even an actual interval.”
A Single Watch ticket, valid for the duration of the 7.30pm broadcast, priced at £12.50;
A Yuletide Pass, allowing repeat viewings until midnight on January 6, costing £20.
You can watch the concert in your web browser on your mobile device, tablet, computer, directly on a Smart TV, or you can cast it to your Smart TV via a compatible device.
Full details will be sent with your ticket purchase confirmation.
EXPLORE York Libraries and Archives will play host to spoken-word artist Liv Torc’s online event, Haiflu Ever After, on November 10 from 7pm to 8pm.
Supported by Forward Arts Foundation, Torc will perform her poetry, discuss her pandemic poetry initiative, Project Haiflu, and invite audience members to share their own #haiflu in the chat panel.
Tuesday’s event forms part of Explore’s World Turned Upside Down 2020 #haiflu edition, where people in York are asked to send in haiku and doodles about their own experiences of lockdown since March.
These will be included in a limited-edition chapbook to be lodged in Explore’s archive as a record of this strange and challenging time.
Project Haiflu started in March 2020 when Torc asked her friends on Facebook to share how they were feeling about lockdown. This resulted in 12 weekly poetry films, combining original photography and music and a special event for libraries, all making for a compelling social history archive of these extraordinary days. Haiflu even ended up being featured on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Next, Torc intends to develop the project into a show to tour around British libraries and village halls, combining the haiflu films with her own poetry, which charts her experiences of lockdown, including a three-week hospital stay and a commission for the BBC Make A Difference campaign.
Online access to Haiflu Ever After is free but must be booked on Explore York’s Eventbrite page to receive a link to the Zoom meeting.
Liv Torc: “Plunges the vast caverns and dormant volcanoes of the human and planetary condition”
Who is Liv Torc?
LIVis a spoken-word artist, published poet and producer who “plunges the vast caverns and dormant volcanoes of the human and planetary condition”.
A BBC Radio 4 Slam winner, former Bard of Exeter and now co-host of The Hip Yak Poetry Shack, she runs the spoken-word stage at WOMAD, Project Haiflu and the Hip Yak Poetry School.
In 2019, her poem on climate change in the face of motherhood, The Human Emergency, went viral across the world, seen by 80,000 people. That year too, she performed at Glastonbury Festival on the Poetry and Words stage and represented Somerset for the BBC’s National Poetry Day celebrations.
In 2020 she was chosen as one of four Siren Poets by Cape Farewell for a commission on climate change in the time of Covid and wrote and filmed a poem for the BBC’s Make A Difference campaign.
York Musical Theatre Company singers Mick and Jessa Liversidge on a lockdown walk
YORK Musical Theatre Company will mark Remembrance Sunday with a sixth and final online concert of Covid-19 2020 on November 8 at 7.30pm.
As with each concert, producer and pianist Paul Laidlaw has put together a themed programme for Sunday evening, this one comprising much-loved songs complemented by poems and readings.
“With so many Remembrance events and services cancelled this year, we felt it only fitting to do an online concert marking Remembrance Sunday,” says YMTC publicist and performer Anna Mitchelson. “It’s our last online concert for 2020 and we hope to be back on live on stage as soon as we can in 2021.”
The York Musical Theatre Company poster for their Remembrance Sunday concert
Sunday’s concert will open with Paul Laidlaw’s piano rendition of Nimrod, followed by Chris Jay performing Bring Him Home; Martin Harvey, A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square and The White Cliffs Of Dover (piano) and David Martin, Tomorrow’s Dawn.
Next will be Moira Murphy’s performance of Johnny Head In Air (spoken), Charlotte Wetherell, Lili Marlene; Chris Gibson, The Sunshine Of Your Smile; Matthew Clare, Ode To The Eternal Sleep (piano) and Peter Wookie & Elly-Mai Mawson, Danny Boy.
Mick Liversidge will perform Bless ’Em All; Amy Lacy, Moonlight Serenade (clarinet); Mick & Jessa Liversidge, In Flanders Field; Flo Taylor, I Vow To Thee My Country; Moira Murphy, A Story Of Today (spoken), and Martin Lay, Roses Of Picardy.
After Jessa Liversidge’s Let The Great Big World Keep Turning, John Haigh’s contribution will be It Could Happen To You; Peter Wookie, The Poppy (spoken); Sam Coulson, I’ll Be Seeing You, and Helen Singhaten, We’ll Meet Again, the apt finale for both Remembrance Sunday and Lockdown 2. Off-stage But Online 6 will be live-streamed on York Musical Theatre Company’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiTrGyeP93_to9uYOsvoS4w?view_as=subscriber
“Pantomime is the perfect way to end the working year,” says choreographer Gary Lloyd. Picture: Michael Wharley
GARY Lloyd, choreographer to the stars and hit musicals galore, is to work his magic on the York Stage pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York.
Further buoyed by Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden’s affirmation that theatre rehearsals can continue during Lockdown 2, artistic director, writer and producer Nik Briggs says: “I’m ecstatic that the incomparable Gary Lloyd is joining us.
“To have a world-renowned choreographer like Gary coming to work with us really is something special. I’m such a fan of his work; the way he tells a story on stage really is something to behold.”
Lloyd has made his mark as director/choreographer of such shows as Thriller Live, the Michael Jackson tribute, and 20th Century Boy, the Marc Bolan jukebox musical, bringing both to the Grand Opera House, York, along with his production of Fame, The Musical and more besides.
“For those people who have seen Thriller Live, either in the West End or as part of its world tour, you will know how high energy and dynamic his dances are. He really does know how to stage a show-stopping number,” says Nik.
Gary is no stranger to York. “My father Geoff [York Stage’s set builder Geoff Theaker] and my sister Jo [York Stage regular principal Joanne Theaker] live there,” he says. “Jo’s worked with Nik, on stage and at York Stage School too, and coming to the shows, I’ve seen the company grow and do wonderful things.”
Gary’s own shows are “all on this conveyor belt waiting to come out of hiding,” he says. “My biggest fear is that producers will want them all to re-open at the same time.” Under the never-ending Covid cloud, it would nevertheless be a nice problem to have.
The York Stage poster for Jack And The Beanstalk
Given the stasis inflicted on so many theatres and touring shows by the pandemic, Nik saw the opportunity to bring Lloyd north for Jack And The Beanstalk. “He approached me about a month ago, saying ‘would you like to come up and do our pantomime if you have nothing else on?’,” says Gary.
“I would normally have been doing panto as choreographer and director for Jonathan Kiley’s pantomimes, but then came the shutdown, which was a big blow. So, for any of us who can grab hold of one, like me doing Nik’s show, it’s a thing of joy at what will otherwise be a really dark time.”
Gary is a pantomime devotee. “I love it for many reasons,” he says. “I love it primarily because, for me, it is the perfect way to end the working year, walking into the rehearsal room to work very quickly on making a show where everyone is at the top of their game, resulting in pure joy for four generations of audiences.
“It’s pure entertainment, put on by people who really know what they’re doing, especially the comedians, putting together lavish shows with such wonderful content. When panto is done well, like QDOS spending all year on their scripts, getting the topical gags in there, it’s such a joy with big rewards.”
Gary attended a couple of socially distanced London shows once theatres reopened: Fanny And Stella at the Garden Theatre and his friend Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years at Southwark Playhouse, where Perspex screens protected audience members, just as they will at Theatre @41.
“Once the lights go down, you forget all of what’s going on outside, or being crammed in between Perspex screens, you forget all that, because the magic of theatre takes over,” says Gary.
“Right now, we need that escape, that entertainment, and that won’t be any different with Nik’s show.
Bean team: York Stage’s cast for Jack And The Beanstalk; back row, from left, Jordan Fox, May Tether, Ian Stroughair, Livvy Evans; front row, Alex Weatherhill, Emily Taylor, Matthew Ives and Danielle Mullan
“I’m looking forward to working on a more immersive show, where we’ll really be able to pick on someone in the crowd, which will give panto a new life this year, when there’ll only be a comparative handful of people there [80 maximum], and they’ll have to play their part in creating a good atmosphere at each show.”
Broadening his thoughts, Gary says: “It’s a chance to show the Government that theatres can be a safe environment, and we need to be able to open theatres as soon as possible when we can show it’s safe.
“I don’t want to get political, but you go past pubs bursting with people, whereas theatres are places where people do behave and go there for more sophisticated reasons. Theatre managers and owners are the ones who know how theatre could work in this present environment.”
Working in the arts in Covid-19 2020 with ever-changing Government strictures has been a “daily one step forward, two steps back,” says Gary. “But we’re all in the same boat together. I’ve made it my mission to work with young people coming out of college, training for an industry that they may never be able to work in.
“I’ve been doing that on Zoom, as well as teaching a bit of choreography once a week at a studio, always having a chat, because taking care of your mental health is so important.”
York Stage rehearsals are set to start on November 23 at Theatre @41 for a cast comprising Jordan Fox, May Tether, Livvy Evans, Alex Weatherhill, Ian Stroughair, Danielle Mullan, Emily Taylor and Matthew Ives.
Nik eagerly awaits Gary Lloyd’s impact on his company and on audiences too. “The chance to see his work up close at Theatre @41 really is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for York,” he says. “We’re taking our West End-worthy panto to the next level with the addition of Gary to our company.”
York Stage present Jack And The Beanstalk at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, from December 11 2020 to January 3 2021. Box office: online at yorkstagepanto.com.
WHO IS GARY LLOYD? Award-winning director/choreographer Gary Lloyd is known for his crossover from music to theatre.
He has worked as creative director with some of the world’s biggest artists on their live performances and arena tours, bringing his wealth of experience in the latest technology and sound, as well as his innate creative vision, to the theatrical stage.
Theatre REFLECTIONS, The Holland-Dozier-Holland Story, Stage West, Calgary.
HEATHERS, The Musical, associate director and choreographer, The Other Palace and Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Winner, Best New Musical, WOS Awards 2018; Best Off West End Production, West End Wilma Awards 2018.
JNH 3 Decades of Music for Hollywood, James Newton Howard In Concert, European tour.
ONE NIGHT OF TINA, European tour.
WAR DANCE, workshop, Ventura, Carnival Cruise Lines.
THE KNIGHTS OF MUSIC, UK Tour.
CARRIE, The Musical, Southwark Playhouse. Winner, Best Off West End Production, WOS Awards 2016; Off West End Award nominee, Best Director, Best Choreographer.
THRILLER LIVE!, Lyric Theatre, West End. 2012/2013 Olivier Audience Award nominee and 2010 What’s On Stage Nominee, Best New Musical and Best Choreographer). Also UK Tours and World Tour.
20TH CENTURY BOY, The Story of Marc Bolan, UK Tour. Broadway World winner for Best New Touring Musical and nominee for Best Choreographer and Best Actor in a Musical.
HAIR The Musical, Piccadilly Theatre, in support of Help For Heroes; Ahoy Arena, Rotterdam, and European Tour.
20th CENTURY BOY, New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, 2011 What’s On Stage nominee for Best Regional Production.
THE GENIUS OF RAY CHARLES, Theatre Royal Haymarket, UK and North American tours.
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, Scandinavian Tour.
SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS, Kodak Theatre Los Angeles.
WHAT A FEELING! , 2006 UK Tour.
As Choreographer/Movement Director CRUEL INTENTIONS, Palais du Varieté, Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Winner, Best Fringe Production, Broadway World Awards 2019.
JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, 50th Anniversary Touring Production.
THE LIFE, English Theatre, Frankfurt, Germany.
FAME THE MUSICAL, Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin, and Ireland Tour.
“ZIP”, Giant Olive Theatre, London.
ASPECTS OF LOVE, UK Tour starring David Essex.
AMADEUS, Sheffield Crucible Theatre.
ANIMAL FARM, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.
MY FAIR LADY, Larnaca Festival and South East Asia Tour.
CITY OF ANGELS, English Theatre, Frankfurt, Germany.
ZORRO The Musical, workshop.
OH! WHAT A NIGHT, associate director/choreographer;
TV, Film & Music Gary has worked with: Giorgio Moroder; Kelly Clarkson; Leona Lewis; Robbie Williams; Pink; Anastasia; John Barrowman; Peter Andre; Stooshe; Macy Gray; NeYo; Joe McElderry; Victoria Beckham; Jennifer Hudson…
Sir Paul McCartney; Sir Cliff Richard; Dame Shirley Bassey; Sir Tom Jones; Robin Gibb; Ray Quinn; G4; Will Young; Gareth Gates; Emma Bunton; Lemar; Rachel Stevens; Natasha and Daniel Bedingfield; Girls Aloud…
Liberty X; Dani Harmer; All Angels, RyanDan; Blake; Faryl Smith; Ordinary Boys; Blue; Atomic Kitten; Basement Jaxx; ABC; Soul II Soul and S Club 8.
Gary has acted as creative director and choreographer for these acts on international tours, single and album launches and music videos.
Television credits
Elizabeth, Michael And Marlon, movement coaching for Joseph Fiennes; American Idol, Seasons 1 to 3; Disney’s My Camp Rock; The X Factor, BBC’s Skate Nation and Jump Nation and The One And Only, all as choreographic expert and mentor.
Ant And Dec’s Saturday Night Take Away; Brits 25; The Classical Brit Awards; The Royal Variety Performance; I DREAM; Eurovision Song Contest; Bump N Grind (Trouble TV); Comic Relief; ITV’s Avenue Of The Stars.
Commercials
Victoria Beckham VB Denim Range; Wispa, For The Love Of Wispa; Daz , I’m Too Sexy; Debenhams, Styling The Nation.
Anything else?
Two Royal Gala Performances at the London Palladium and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Artistic director for the BAFTA Awards.
The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace.
Stage director and choreographer on the 2005 Royal Variety Performance in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen at the Wales Millennium Centre.
Gary’s first book, My Life With Michael, Ten Years Of Thriller Live, was published by The Book Guild in paperback in October 2019.
Cancelled: Wish Upon A Frozen Star at Castle Howard
WISH Upon A Frozen Star, this season’s illuminated Castle Howard Christmas event, has been cancelled “with great sadness”.
In response to the Government enforcing national Lockdown 2 from today until December 2, the senior team at the North Yorkshire country house has “spent a lot of time trying to find ways to make the light show event work”.
“However, the conclusion is that it is not logistically or financially viable to try to delay the get-in period and the opening of the event,” reads today’s official statement.
Wish Upon A Frozen Star would have combined a light-trail walk through the Walled Gardens, a performance of a 20-minute theatre piece by York playwright Mike Kenny, presented by Leeds children’s theatre company Tutti Frutti, and a light show projected onto the façade of the John Vanbrugh-designed late-17th century house by projection designer Ross Ashton’s company The Projection Studio, experts in delivering magical illuminated outdoor events.
When Wish Upon A Frozen Star was first announced, Ross said: “Castle Howard is a jewel of British architecture and a beautiful and inspiring place to work. I believe that this will be the largest projection mapping at any illuminated garden this year; the house alone will be covered with over eight million pixels.
“Creating the light trail and the projection in this year especially has been a challenge and we salute Castle Howard for having the vision to create something new.”
Billed as a “festive outdoor spectacle like no other”, the hour-long Christmas event would have run from November 27 to December 31, replacing the usual themed spectacular Christmas decoration tour through the house.
Playwright Mike Kenny
Castle Howard’s website says: “All bookers will be contacted by See Tickets to organise refunds and we thank you for your support and understand there will be many disappointed people.
“We are extremely disappointed ourselves not to be able to make this new magical event happen this year, but the safety of our staff, our visitors and the financial stability of the organisation have to take priority to ensure we can come back next year with another Christmas event that will once again surprise and delight our visitors.
“We’d like to say a huge thanks to our creative partners on these events, who have worked so hard alongside Castle Howard to explore every option during the past few months and particularly given the lockdown news we received at the weekend.”
What will Wish Upon A Frozen Star ticket holders now be missing? Picture the scene: Jack Frost has cast an icy spell, turning the Castle Howard Walled Gardens into a beautiful winter wonderland.
As twilight falls, you would journey through this enchanted world lit up by festive illuminations and immersive soundscapes. The only way to thaw the frosty spell and bring good cheer back in time for Christmas is to make a wish under Yorkshire’s starry skies and step out into a golden landscape of warmth, joy and wonder.
Your journey would climax with an epic story, projected as a light show by Sheffield-born Ross Ashton, who created the Northern Lights installation for York Minster in June 2018 and October 2019.
Working in tandem with audio artist and designer Karen Monid, whose layers of sounds enrich the sensory experience, he also has lit up the exterior of Buckingham Palace and Durham Cathedral and provided lighting extravaganzas for the 2012 London Olympics and the Edinburgh Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle.
Tutti Frutti and writer Mike Kenny had been working with the creative lighting and sound team to bring to life the characters to be discovered as you adventure through the light trail.
The Projection Studio’s design for Wish Upon A Frozen Star on the Castle Howard facade. Picture: The Projection Studio
On your journey though Jack Frost’s frozen kingdom you would meet the live action animals who have fallen foul of the icy spell and would need you to wish for Christmas and warmth to return to their world.
The animal characters would interact with audiences on the walk through the Walled Gardens, in a socially distanced way, both keeping the flow of visitors moving and telling magical and humorous stories along the way. Olivier Award-winning Kenny was writing the live-action material to be performed by a cast of five, directed by Tutti Frutti artistic director Wendy Harris, with costumes designed by Catherine Chapman.
For the light show event, timed ticketing, limited capacity and careful management of the socially distanced visitor flow of parties of up to six to the large South Front lawn would have been the Covid-safe measures.
Mike Kenny says: “It all started with the visual idea for the big lighting show and we came on board later when Abbi [Castle Howard head of marketing Abbigail Ollive], with her theatre background, suggested adding actors and a narrative.”
He came up with a story rooted in Christmas in the shadow of Covid. “Jack Frost has frozen the gardens, so there’ll be no Christmas and Father Christmas is being kept out. Only a battle between Father Christmas and Jack Frost can resolve this.”
The conundrum faced by Mike was the need to keep the drama as well as the audience on the move, “rather than being rooted to the spot or creating a log jam”. “In the gardens, the actors would not be in touch with each other, not close enough to communicate, so the stories wouldn’t have too much narrative because it wouldn’t matter if the audience members didn’t catch everything when they were constantly on the move,” he says.
Mike would have worked further on the script in situ, discovering what would and would not have been possible, but he had settled on the story featuring animals that would have been most affected by a frozen winter.
“I learnt that in that situation, animals either migrate, hibernate or store food,” he says. “We chose animals you would find in the Castle Howard gardens, without going the full Enid Blyton on it, and we gave them human personas connected with the house.
Northern Lights at York Minster. Picture: The Projection Studio
“The Robin had the character of a steward or butler, greeting audience members as they went into the gardens. The Squirrel was the gardener; the Hedgehog, the housekeeper; the Peacock, the Lady’s maid, with a Cinderella vibe to her, dressing in her mistress’s posh clothes, and the Rabbit, the scullery maid.”
Mike does not hide his disappointment at Wish Upon A Frozen Star not going ahead. “To have pulled something out of the hat for Christmas was great, and we were all really fired up for doing a show,” he says. “The whole Covid situation has sapped the energy of the creative industries, but this Christmas event would have looked amazing.
“The Castle Howard architecture has its own theatricality, which was such a gift for us. You can tell that someone with a sense of theatre had his hand in it [playwright turned architect John Vanbrugh]!”
No-go for Wish Upon A Frozen Star, but Castle Howard is continuing to plan for both Father Christmas in the House and the Courtyard Grotto from Friday, December 4.
“We have had to cancel Father Christmas performances in the House from November 28 to December 3 due to lockdown restrictions,” the Castle Howard statement reads. “See Tickets will be in touch with bookers to offer refunds on these performances or try to get you into a later show.
“It is our sincere hope that performances from December 4 will be allowed to continue. For people who booked Father Christmas tickets in conjunction with the light show, we will be contacting you directly to refund a proportion of your ticket.
“If you would like to cancel your Father Christmas tickets – either Enchanted Audience with Father Christmas or the Storytime with Santa Grotto – because you cannot now come to the light show, then this is fine and you will be offered a refund. Please bear with us while we work through all bookers with our partners at See Tickets.”
Wish Upon A Frozen Star may have been frozen out by the ongoing Corona crisis, but Castle Howard’s website affirms the possibility of revisiting the collaboration: “We certainly hope, and intend, to continue the partnership with The Projection Studio, Tutti Frutti and our associated production teams on future events,” it says.
YORK libraries will stay open for essential services in Lockdown 2, when the Explore York Libraries and Archives services will include free PC and internet access and click-and-collect books.
In a statement released today, Explore York said: “Explore’s libraries are an essential service for the people of York. They are essential for keeping people connected through free access to PCs and the internet.
“And they provide essential and significant support for everyone’s health and wellbeing too with free books, newspapers and online events to keep people of all ages entertained and informed during these challenging times.
“Therefore, Explore’s chief executive, Fiona Williams, is happy to confirm that she will be keeping some libraries open during the second national lockdown starting on November 5.”
Explore centres at York, Tang Hall and Acomb will be open from Tuesday to Saturday, starting from November 10, for pre-booked appointments with access to PCs and printers and pre-ordered books for collection. Explore’s cafes at Rowntree Park and Hungate will be open for takeaway service only.
All books due back during lockdown will be renewed automatically; likewise that will apply to all items on loan, so you do not have to worry about overdue charges.
All libraries will be closed from November 5 to 10 to prepare for the changes.
The full story brought to book:
Libraries open: Explore centres at Acomb, Tang Hall and York will be open for appointments only from Tuesday, November 10. All other libraries are closed. Be aware, there will be no drop-in or browsing at any library.
Opening hours at Acomb, Tang Hall and York will be Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm. Books can be pre-ordered for collection from Acomb, Tang Hall and York libraries.
You can reserve books from the Explore catalogue as usual and the library will contact you when they are ready to collect.
Or you can choose a Lucky Dip: complete the form for children or the form for adults and Explore will pick some books based on your preferences.
Computers and printing will be available at Acomb, Tang Hall and York libraries. Bookings will be for one hour only and must be made in advance, either online or by phone to the library you want to use.
Events:
Explore has a full programme of online live events and activities planned for November to keep adults and children entertained and informed
E-library:
Books, audiobooks, newspapers and magazines are all free to borrow and available 24/7.
Library at Home:
Explore has gathered together a treasury of online links and information for children and families about reading, culture and creativity and archives and local history and to support health and wellbeing.
The Enquiries service will be operating as normal during office hours.
Home Library:
A doorstep delivery service will continue for vulnerable and housebound Home Library Service customers.
The Toy Library will be suspended during the lockdown period.
Archives:
The Archives Reading Room will be closed from November 5 in line with archives services nationally.
Reading Cafes:
The reading cafes at Rowntree Park and Hungate will be open during the lockdown, operating a takeaway service. Reading cafes at York, Acomb and Tang Hall will be closed.
All these changes will be operational from November 5.
We face the second wave…but somewhere on the horizon….
AFTER the tiers of a clown, now comes the even greater frustration of Lockdown 2 from today, knocking the growing revival of arts, culture and life in general back into hibernation.
Nevertheless, in one chink of light, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has decreed that theatre companies can continue rehearsing shows in Covid-secure workspaces, behind closed doors, with a view to lockdown being lifted in early December.
Whether that turns out to be a mere fairytale, only time will tell, so please forgive the unpredictability of what may or may not be happening.
Charles Hutchinson picks through the debris of Lockdown 2 to find signs of artistic life for now and the months ahead.
Films, films and yet more films: Aesthetica Short Film Festival has a feast of film to enjoy while being stuck at home in lockdown
It’s started and it won’t finish until November 30: Aesthetica Short Film Festival online
YORK’S tenth anniversary Aesthetica Short Film Festival opened on Tuesday, switching from a spread of historic and modern locations to a digital and live-streamed festival for home entertainment, enlightenment and education on phones, TV sets, tablets and computers.
Films in competition at ASFF 2020 will span animation, documentary, drama, dance, fashion and thriller. This year they will be released in six strands this week, with no fewer than ten programmes per day under the strand titles of Just Another Day On Earth; Humans And Their Environment; Connections: People, Places and Identity; Breaking Down Barriers; Reclaiming Space: Universal And Personal and Keep On The Sunny Side Of Life.
Masterclasses, guest speakers, panel discussions, guest film programmes and an industry market are further highlights of an online festival unimpeded by the new lockdown. Go to asff.co.uk for tickets and to download the full programme.
Kate Bramley’s latest podcast: “Some strange and wonderful goings on at the allotment”
Fighting off the new lockdown blues: Badapple Theatre’s Theatre On Your Desktop podcast
GREEN Hammerton’s Badapple Theatre Company has added a new Kate Bramley play to its Theatre On Your Desktop series as it extends its lockdown season of free podcasts.
Click on https://badappletheatreonyourdesktop.podbean.com/ for The World Is Still Next Door, artistic director Bramley’s account of some strange and wonderful goings on at the allotment as Mo and her young son search for a place to fight off the lockdown blues.
Set during four sunny days in May in deep lockdown, Bramley’s play seeks to capture the power of soundscapes to inspire imagination. “I got really interested in the idea of creating a new short piece with many voices of varying ages and accents, as well as delving into sound montages that evoke settings from our local Yorkshire all the way to Watamu Beach in Kenya,” says Kate. “With a bit of Badapple signature magic-realism thrown in for good measure.”
All roads lead to…21 York wards for York magician and entertainer Josh Benson in York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime next month
Travelling Pantomime, not travailing pantomime, as the show must go on…hopefully: York Theatre Royal’s alternative neighbourhood watch
YORK Theatre Royal began rehearsals in the billiards room on Tuesday for associate director Juliet Forster’s Travelling Pantomime production.
It could still be pot luck whether the first collaboration between Evolution Pantomimes and the Theatre Royal will go ahead, everything hanging on Lockdown 2’s fate, but plans are taking rapid shape to cement the itinerary for a tour of 21 York wards from December 3, plus York Theatre Royal performances too.
Just Josh magician and entertainer Josh Benson, Robin Simpson’s Dame Dolly, Anna Soden’s Fairy/Singing Captain, Faye Campbell’s Jack/Dick and Reuben Johnson’s villainous Fleshcreep/Ratticus Flinch will rehearse three pantomimes, Jack And The Beanstalk, Dick Whittington and Snow White, all scripted by Evolution’s Paul Hendy, for each show’s audience to vote for which panto they want to see.
Bean team: top row, from left, Jordan Fox, May Tether, Ian Stroughair and Livvy Evans; bottom row, Alex Weatherhill, Emily Taylor, Matthew Ives and Danielle Mullan
The other Jack And The Beanstalk in York this Christmas: York Stage at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, December 11 to 30
YORK Stage are going full team ahead with their inaugural pantomime, to be staged in the Covid-secure John Cooper Studio, where Perspex screens will be in place for the first time for the traverse staging.
Writer-director Nik Briggs has added West End choreographer Gary Lloyd to his production team, proclaiming: We’re taking our West End-worthy panto to the next level with the addition of Gary to our company.”
Jordan Fox, May Tether, Livvy Evans, Alex Weatherhill, Ian Stroughair, Danielle Mullan, Emily Taylor and Matthew Ives will be the cast bringing life to Briggs’s debut panto script.
Yorkshire Pudding Song: Martin Barrass will lead the Song Sheet singing at Bev Jones Music Company’s Strictly Xmas In The Park concert
Barrass is back: Bev Jones Music Company in Strictly Xmas In The Park, Rowntree Park, Amphitheatre, York, December 13, 2pm
MARTIN Barrass will be starring in a York pantomime after all this winter. Dame Berwick’s perennial comic stooge may be missing out on the Covid-cancelled Kaler comeback in Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House, but now he will lead the pantomime section of Strictly Xmas Live In The Park.
As part of Bev Jones Music Company’s Covid-secure, socially distanced, open-air performance, Barrass will tell a few jokes and orchestrate the song-sheet rendition of You Can’t Put A Better Bit Of Batter On Your Platter Than A Good Old Yorkshire Pud.
Barrass will wear black and pink to honour the late Bev’s favourite colour combination.
Helen Charlston: Performing at the York Early Music Christmas Festival
Early notice: York Early Music Christmas Festival, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 4 to 13
AS the NCEM website states: “We are planning for these concerts to go ahead and are still selling tickets. If the situation changes, we will of course be in touch.”
Fingers crossed, then, for a socially distanced festival in St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, featuring Palisander, The Marian Consort, Illyria Consort, Joglaresa, The York Waits and Bethany Seymour, Helen Charlston, Frederick Long and Peter Seymour.
Among the highlights, on December 9, festival favourites The York Waits will present The Waits’ Wassail: Music for Advent and Christmas: Carols, songs and dance from across medieval and renaissance England and Europe, played on shawms and sackbuts by York’s Renaissance town band.
Duran Duran: Making their Scarborough Open Air Theatre debut next summer
A hat-trick of new shows on the East Coast: Duran Duran, Lewis Capaldi and Snow Patrol at Scarborough Open Air Theatre
IN quick succession, Duran Duran, Lewis Capaldi and Snow Patrol have been confirmed for Cuffe and Taylor’s ever-expanding programme at Britain’s biggest purpose-built outdoor concert arena.
Booked in for July 7, Birmingham glam pop band Duran Duran will introduce their first new material since 2015, alongside such favourites as Save A Prayer, Rio, Girls On Film and The Reflex.
Lewis Capaldi: “Buzzing” to be back at Scarborough Open Air Theatre in 2021
Glaswegian singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi sold out two nights at Scarborough OAT in 2019 and says he is “buzzing” to be returning on July 25 next summer. “It’s a great venue, the crowds there are always unreal and so here’s to another unforgettable night,” he says.
Snow Patrol’s sold-out 2020 Scarborough show had to be scrapped under Covid restrictions but Gary Lightbody’s band are now booked in for July 3 2021. Tickets for all three shows go on sale tomorrow morning at 9am via scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Kate Rusby at Christmas…now online
And what about?
THE Kate Rusby At Christmas tour will not be happening, ruling out her South Yorkshire pub carol concert at York Barbican on December 20.
However, in response to the Covid restrictions, the Barnsley folk nightingale has decided to go online instead, presenting Kate Rusby’s Happy Holly Days on December 12 at 7.30pm (GMT). Expect all the usual Rusby Christmas ingredients: sparkly dress, twinkling lights, her regular folk band, her “brass boys”, Ruby the reindeer and a fancy-dress finale.
Tickets go on sale on Friday (6/11/2020) via https://katerusby.com/happy-holly-day/
