The tour poster for Rufus Wainwright’s Unfollow The Rules show at York Barbican
RUFUS Wainwright will follow the summer release of his new album
Unfollow The Rules with an autumn tour booked into York Barbican for October 27.
The American-Canadian baroque, operatic and indie pop singer-songwriter
was the first guest for the Royal Albert Hall’s free special isolation
sessions, #RoyalAlbertHome, last night.
Out on BMG on July 10, the typically fearless,
mischievous and honest Unfollow The Rules will be Wainwright’s ninth studio
album and his first set of new compositions since Out Of The Game in 2012.
“I consider Unfollow The Rules my first fully mature album,”
says Rufus, 46-year-old son of Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle. “It
is like a bookend to the beginning of my career.”
“I consider Unfollow The Rules my first fully mature album,” says Rufus Wainwright. Picture: Tony Hauser
Wainwright will be joined on the road by a new band, featuring Los Angeles
guitarist and producer Brian Green, who has worked previously with John Legend,
and Phoenix singer-songwriter and keyboardist Rachel Eckroth,
erstwhile collaborator with KT Tunstall.
Looking forward to performing a setlist of Wainwright old and new post-Lockdown,
Rufus says: “For me, thinking about this tour is like a light at the end of
this dark tunnel that we are all in together. It gives me hope and confidence
that we will rise above this collectively.
“And while it might seem that we are not moving forward swiftly in this
dark long tunnel, I know that we will reach the light again and be able to be
together. I cannot wait to be part of that moment for my fans and share this
music live with them.”
Tickets for Rufus Wainwright: Unfollow The Rules at York Barbican go on sale on April 17 at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
No Joker: York Barbican’s film screening with an orchestra has been cancelled
MEANWHILE, York Barbican has announced that Joker: Live In Concert on May 17 is off.
“It is with great disappointment that we can confirm our Joker: Live in Concert performance will no longer go ahead due to the COVID-19 outbreak,” the Barbican statement said. “All tickets will be refunded, and please contact your point of purchase if you have any questions.”
The show would have have featured Todd Phillips’s award-laden film being accompanied by an orchestra performing Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score live to build a “vivid, visceral and entirely new Joker viewing experience”.
Stile Antico: Taking steps to play Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival in 2021. Picture: Marco Borggreve
THE 2020 Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival is off…until
next year.
The postponed event will now take place over the Bank Holiday weekend of
May 28 to 30 2021, with many of this year’s artists already re-booked for next
spring.
“The good news is that Stile Antico, La Serenissima, Alva, Matthew
Wadsworth – sadly not Julia Doyle, but I’ll work on a ‘new’ soloist – David
Neave and Vivien Ellis have all been able to work with us to re-create the
festival next year,” says festival director Dr Delma Tomlin.
They will be joined by others yet to be announced. “All will be working to re-create the festival and to open up new opportunities to be involved,” says Delma.
“Our festival team has already begun the huge task of re-booking tickets
for next year and issuing refunds. They are asking for patrons to bear with
them at this difficult time as they work through hundreds of requests,
processing re-bookings and refunds as quickly as possible.”
“Given the current circumstances, postponement will not be a surprise,” says Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival director Dr Delma Tomlin
Explaining the decision, in light of the Coronavirus pandemic, Delma says: “Regretfully, we have had to take the heart-breaking decision to postpone the festival until next year. We would like to thank our audiences for their continued support.
“Given the current circumstances, postponement will not be a surprise, but we know how disappointing it is for our audiences and supporters; for the many school children who would have been involved with our Vivaldi extravaganza, and of course, for the artists themselves.”
Delma continues: “Hopefully, the postponement is better news than ‘just’ a cancellation. So, we look forward to seeing you again as soon as possible: in Beverley in May 2021, if not before.
“I would also like to say a huge thank-you to the East Riding of Yorkshire Council and Arts Council for their continuing support, which has made all the difference to the artists involved and has helped secure next year’s festival.”
La Serenissima: Now Beverley bound in 2021 rather than 2020. Picture: Eric Richmond
Beverley Early Music Festival began in 1988 and takes place every year
in the churches and historical buildings of the East Yorkshire’s market town,
where the festival weekend comprises performances, walks, talks and workshops.
Meanwhile, the National Centre for Early Music, in York, is helping to
keep music alive “at this critical time” by broadcasting concerts from its
archive online. “To enjoy the concerts, visit ncem.co.uk and click on to the link in the news section
marked NCEM Facebook page,” says Dema, the NCEM’s director. “Concerts are free
and a Facebook account is not needed.”
Confirmed concerts at Beverley and East Riding Early Music Festival 2021:
Stile Antico: Friday, May 28 2021, 7.30pm, Beverley Minster. Choral Workshop with members of Stile Antico: Saturday, May 29,
10am, Toll Gavel United Church. Alva: Saturday, May 29, 12.30pm, St Mary’s Church. Ballad Walk: In and around Beverley Minster: Saturday, May 29, 4pm. La Serenissima: Saturday, May 29, 7.30pm, St Mary’s Church. Ballad Walk: It All happened In Beverley: Sunday, May 30, 10am. Ballad Walk: In and around Beverley Minster: Sunday, May 30, 1pm, Matthew Wadsworth: Sunday, May 30, 7pm, St James’s Church, Warter.
Honor Blackman as Amanda Wingfield with Helen Grace as disabled daughter Laura in The Glass Menagerie at York Theatre Royal in November 1999
HOW did Honor Blackman come to star in a repertory play at York Theatre Royal in 1999?
As news broke on Sunday of her peaceful passing at 94, thoughts turned back to when The Avengers’ Cathy Gale and Pussy Galore, the “Bond girl” – a term she never liked – played American southern belle Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams’s Depression-era play The Glass Menagerie.
Seventy-four at the time, it was a role the London-born actress had long craved, as Damian Cruden, the artistic director in his second year of cutting a swathe through the Theatre Royal, discovered.
“It all came about because I knew Honor’s agent,” Damian recalled this week. “We had a conversation about the agent’s clients. Various names came up, one of them, Honor Blackman.
“I’d been thinking about doing The Glass Menagerie, and so I said, ‘What about Honor playing Amanda? Would she be interested?’.”
The answer was affirmative, whereupon arrangements were made for Damian to meet Miss Blackman at her London abode. “I can remember going to see Honor at some place in Mayfair, and her instructions were very particular.
“She said, ‘you’ll need to ring the bell, I’ll buzz you in. Then, when you get in the lift, you’ll arrive at what it says is the top floor. The doors will open…but don’t get out. They’ll close again and the lift will bring you up to my flat’.”
What happened? “Exactly that! When the doors opened, I found I was inside her flat! Getting there was just like something out of a Bond movie!” Damian said. “It was a beautiful apartment too.”
Before rehearsals started in the Theatre Royal’s old Walmgate rehearsal rooms – now home to Brew York – Damian had another memorable Honor experience. “I went to see her in her one-woman show, Dishonourable Ladies, in Wales on the Sunday night before we were due to begin, and the deal was I would drive her to York…as it turned out, in her sports car, me driving, while she enjoyed a bottle of champagne! Glorious!”
Damian has fond memories of Miss Blackman’s time in York in autumn 1999. “She was enormously gracious and generous. She had friends coming to her dressing room each night, and liked to have a bottle of champagne in the fridge, but that dressing room didn’t have a fridge until she bought one for it and then gifted it to the theatre. It’s still there in dressing room one, as far as I know!”
As was his custom in his 22 years as artistic director, Damian liked to host meals for his casts at his home. “I cooked a meal on a couple of evenings when The Glass Menagerie cast came round,” he said. “Honor was very straightforward. There were no airs and graces to her.
Damian Cruden: York Theatre Royal artistic director drove Honor Blackman to York in her sports car; Honor sipping champagne by his side
“I can recall her sitting by the window with my son Felix, who was only three at the time. “My neighbour was standing watching, and I remember him saying, ‘Was that Pussy Galore in your window?’. ‘Yes’, I said. ‘My god, a Bond girl next door,’ he said.”
Damian spoke highly of Miss Blackman’s working relationship with The Glass Menagerie company. “She was great fun and very supportive of young actors, and there were a lot of young cast members in that company,” he said.
“Her performance was great too. Very intelligent, sensitive, mature. There was none of that ‘being starry’ thing about her. She wasn’t aloof. Instead, she enjoyed being part of a group. That was important to her.”
Honor Blackman would return to the York stage in February 2005 in the surprise guest role in The Play What I Wrote, The Right Size comic duo Sean Foley and Hamish McColl’s celebration of Morecambe and Wise. The Press review recorded how Honor’s role was “to be subjected glamorously and good humouredly to humiliation and mockery” at the hands of both the script and comic interjections in the playful Morecambe tradition. She handled it all with elan, of course.
Miss Blackman will forever be remembered for Pussy Galore, from the 1964 James Bond film, Goldfinger. “It is extraordinary. The damned film goes on marching, it doesn’t go out of fashion,” she told the Northern Echo in June 2004, going on to distance her role from the Bond girl stereotype.
“I hate being a Bond girl, because Pussy Galore was a character you would like to play in anything. She was not one of those who fall on their backs straight-away.
“But it was just a part I played, and that is all it was, and it queers your pitch in lots of ways, because people think of you as some sort of femme fatale; they don’t see you as a Shakespearean actress.”
Before Pussy Galore, there was Cathy Gale in The Avengers, and there was more of her in Cathy than in many of her other roles, she suggested.
“When we started, I was the first woman who had ever dared to be equal to a man, intellectually and physically, and the guys who wrote the script were used to writing about women waiting by the kitchen sink or wicked women in black satin,” she said.
“I couldn’t help but be aware of the impact it was having from the fan mail, because women loved it – at last a woman was standing there doing it all herself – and men loved it from quite a different point of view.”
Raise a glass to those memories, whether of Cathy Gale, Pussy Galore or cut-glass Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie in York in 1999.
Copyright of The Press, York
WHAT DID THE PRESS, YORK REVIEW SAY OF HONOR BLACKMAN’S PERFORMANCE IN 1999?
The Glass Menagerie, York Theatre Royal, until December 4
IN the long, distinguished, purring career of Honor Blackman, Amanda Wingfield was a role she still craved. Likewise, Roger Roger star Helen Grace believed The Glass Menagerie to be the best Tennessee Williams play and she “just can’t tell you” how much she desired to be cast as Amanda’s disabled daughter, Laura.
The Glass Menagerie, a memory play as subtle as silk, absorbing as cotton wool, unexpected as a midnight phonecall, has a habit of hooking you like that, such is its sentimental enchantment: an enchantment that masks a sting as potent as a drowsy wasp in autumn. Williams called it truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.
The Glass Menagerie, inspired by Williams’ own circumstances, is set in the Depression era St Louis of the 1930s, where former southern belle Amanda is the domineering matriarch, smothering as much as mothering her son Tom (Keith Merrill) and Laura.
Deserted 15 years earlier by her telephone-salesman husband, she clamps her children in the past with her suffocating memories, her fantasies, her anachronistic belief in the tradition of the gentleman caller (Douglas Cockle) and her impossibly romantic hopes of perfect marriages.
Her husband had sought his escape, so too her children – they are in their 20s – but with very different routes in mind. Tom, the narrator and effectively the mouthpiece for Williams himself, is the dreamer, the poet who goes to the movies and drinks “for adventure” and plans a Merchant Marine passage out of working at the dead-end shoe warehouse. Shy Laura, more emotionally crippled than physically disabled (she has a limp), seeks an inward path to safe, fairytale isolation, locking herself away at home with her glass menagerie to avoid the judgement of others.
Theirs is a claustrophobic, unreal world out of step with the times, a contrast emphasised in the superb jagged score of cellist Christopher Madin who juxtaposes the neon brightness of the jazz age with the dimly-lit mournful cello he plays to the side of Liam Doona’s revolving, spinning stage.
Doona’s design adds to the all pervasive presence of Amanda Wingfield, with its see-through walls of muslin drapes allowing you to see into the next room, enhancing the sense of there being no escape from her stifling ways.
Where Sonia Fraser’s Cherry Orchard dragged last month, when there should have been the sense of the sands of time tumbling ever faster, Damian Cruden’s beautifully weighted production captures slow movement, emphasising each nuance of Williams’s subtly shifting writing. He is blessed too with superlative performances: Honor Blackman, a picture of grand illusion; Helen Grace, frail, pale and shyly expressive; Keith Merrill suitably poetic yet pent-up; Douglas Cockle, charming and too worldly for their world.
Goodbye to Bake Off but back on the road for Sandi Toksvig on her National Trevor travels
AFTER her back-out from Bake Off to “focus on other work projects”, Sandi Toksvig will return to York Barbican on September 22 on her second National Trevor tour.
In January, the Danish-born presenter, 61, announced she would be
leaving The Great British Bake Off after three years of co-hosting Channel 4’s
cookery contest with The Mighty Boosh comedian Noel Fielding.
Filmed last September, Sandi’s last episode of The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer was broadcast on Tuesday night.
She first performed National Trevor at York Barbican on January 28 2019 as part of a sold-out winter tour, when the News Quiz, QI and Bake Off host brought her trademark warmth, grounded nous and authority to a show that was part stand-up, part lecture as she discussed what unites us in a Toksvigian celebration of all that is weird and wonderful in the everyday.
Back on the road this autumn, the show’s publicity talks of “Sandi realising some people harbour an ambition to be a National Treasure, but following a misunderstanding with a friend, she has decided to become a National Trevor: half misprint, half Danish comedian”.
“Expect tall stories, fascinating and funny facts, silly jokes, a quick-fire Q&A and even a little quiz,” says Sandi of a show that embraces anecdotes, potted histories, family connections and darker topics handled with levity. “You certainly won’t be getting tap-dancing, leotards or a forward roll,” she promises.
Sandi launched her career in 1982 on
Number 73, a long-running children’s Saturday morning show, since when her CV
has taken in such shows as Call My Bluff and Whose Line Is It Anyway? and hosting
BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz.
In 2016, she took over Stephen Fry’s
seat as host of BBC2 quiz show QI, followed by her joining The Great British
Bake Off team on its switch to Channel 4 in 2017.
Exit Sandi from Bake Off. Re-enter Sandi
Toksvig: The National Trevor Tour, a show whose parting wisdom last time was a
plea to “enjoy life and seize the day”. Oh, and to seize the biscuit too. “Did
you know eating biscuits was dangerous,” she said. “And you still do it, you wonderful
risk-takers.”
Tickets for September 22 are newly on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Closed doors, but open windows: the way forward for York Open Studios 2020
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However,
with doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing their ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles skills.
Each day,
in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open
Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and
craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home.
Addresses will not be included at this time.
Meanwhile,
York Open Studios artists are finding their own way to respond to the shutdown
by filling their windows with their work instead. Look for #openwindowsyork2020 to locate them.
“If you see one in your area while taking your daily exercise, take a picture
and let us know,” they say.
Cushions by Rosie Waring
Rosie Waring, textiles
ROSIE creates handwoven textiles using fine yarns and intricate
patterns to produce interior products for the home and personal accessories
with a natural colour palette.
She specialised in handwoven textiles for
fashion and interiors in her studies at Bath Spa University, graduating in
2013, since when she has made handwoven cushions, lampshades and other small
woven items.
Rosie often takes her inspiration for colour,
texture and structure from nature and her surroundings: the rich and varied
Yorkshire landscapes of the dales, the North York Moors and the coastline.
“Weaving in fine cotton yarns and moving into my
wool collection, I create vibrant fabrics to brighten up the home, bringing the
outside inside,” she says.
” I create vibrant fabrics to brighten up the home, bringing the outside inside,” says Rosie Waring
Rosie knew early on that her strength was working with colour. “When I discovered weaving during my studies, I saw the potential to work directly with colour on the loom,” she says. “I found I could express myself through colour and texture, creating cloth from the individual yarns.”
She is
interested in how weaving can affect mental health positively and has studied
its benefits on mood and a general sense of well-being.
As well as York
Open Studios, she has exhibited at Art In The Pen, Danby Christmas Market and
the summertime York River Art Market. Find out more at rosiewaring.co.uk.
A mixed-media work by Colin Black
Colin Black, mixed media
COLIN’S mixed-media work
has varied from a series focusing on York Minster at night to national identity
and the refugee crisis.
He describes his art as being
primarily landscape based, always enjoying the use of colour to convey mood.
His last two exhibitions used the landscape motif in very
different ways. The first, Imagined Landscapes, conveyed a seemingly idyllic beauty; the second, We Have Chosen A One-Way Road, saw landscape
as “a place across which refugees made their escape and away from the place
they called home”.
Colin Black: Moved to York in 2018 to set up Seek Art School
“The work was about
borders, boundaries and restrictions,” says Colin. “They were a response
to Britain’s dilemma about Brexit, hard or soft, independence and
interdependence, Trump’s wall. We seem to be becoming insular in our thinking
as a fearful means of self-preservation. How do we square our fears of invasion
with humanitarian aid?”
Colin studied visual communication
at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London and taught for many
years in further education in London and Edinburgh.
In 2018, he moved to
York to set up Seek Art School, in Haxby Road, to teach people “the fundamentals of looking and the
development of your own visual voice through personal ideas”. Courses include
day and evening classes and Saturday workshops.
Discover more via
colin@seekartschool.co.uk.
Apothecary Jar, graphite on newsprint, by Nicola Lee
Nicola Lee, drawing
NICOLA’S work on paper combines
drawing, folding and photography.
“My visual interest lies
beyond the object,” she says. “I’m drawn to line, pattern and shape occurring
in peripheral space. A space that is fluid, ambiguous and lacking in
definition. A space in which the peripheral becomes the object.
“My work uses
photography, drawing and folding to record and respond to my observations of
this suggestive space. I use process and material to play with ideas of
repetition, reduction and abstraction in order to explore my encounter with the
space in between.”
Nicola Lee: “Encounters with the space in between “
Nicola studied art and design at York St John University, then
gained an MA in textiles at Huddersfield University and now an MA in creative
practice from Leeds Arts University.
She is enjoying being part of the South Bank Studios community;
this year would have marked her York Open Studios debut. Head to ofsorts.space
for more info.
Elephant Festival Fun, by Rebecca Mason
Rebecca Mason, textiles
FIRST inspired by Batik
while in Malaysia, Rebecca has practised Batik art for more than 30 years.
Since attending workshops and evening classes to learn the dye-resist technique that uses wax, she has made silk scarves, ties, framed pictures, brooches, cards and wall hangings, using both traditional Indonesian and modern methods.
“I specialise in doing Batik on cotton and silk, including
velour, and I particularly enjoy the fluidity, flexibility, unpredictability and
crackle effect of the wax,” says Rebecca.
Batik artist Rebecca Mason in her studio
“I also love to be creative with colour and the freedom of
abstract designs. Much of my Batik is influenced and inspired by the shapes and hues
of the Yorkshire countryside and by the changing seasons too.
“My cotton pictures are varied in design and theme and use a range of Batik techniques, and I also make Batik ties and scarves that are each uniquely designed.”
Rebecca, who would have been a York Open Studios 2020 debutante,
sells her work by appointment from her studio and at Simon Main’s Village
Gallery, in Colliergate, York. She has exhibited too at York River Art Market
and South Bank Studios and welcomes special commissions. Take a look at
batik-art.co.uk.
Clifford’s Tower, York, by Donna Maria Taylor
Donna Maria Taylor, mixed media
DONNA’S
website, donnamariataylor.com, introduces her as designer, maker, teacher, with
more than 25 years’ experience of working in the arts.
Her mixed-media work spans a range of disciplines, all inspired by the world around her, and although her York Open Studios show has been cancelled, she has upcoming exhibitions in the diary at Osbornes at 68 Gillygate, from August to October, and Angel On The Green, Bishopthorpe Road, from November 3 to December 15.
Donna Maria Taylor: designer, maker, teacher
In the theatre world, Yorkshire-born
Donna has designed shows, painted scenery and made props and costumes for many
companies, including York Theatre Royal, the Grand Opera House, Shakespeare’s
Rose Theatre and the York Mystery Plays in York Minster, West Yorkshire
Playhouse in Leeds, English Touring Theatre, Sheffield Theatres, Hull Truck Theatre
and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
She is an adult education senior tutor and observer for York Learning and is involved regularly in community art projects at York community centres, children’s centres, schools, church halls and a prison.
She has taught in a wide variety of settings, such as York Art Gallery, Explore York libraries and York museums, as well as at colleges and universities, and runs workshops and art holidays, although these have been postponed until further notice during the Covid-19 pandemic.
To find out more, go to donnamariataylor.com.
TOMORROW: Caroline Utterson; Marcus Jacka; Ruth King; Elaine Hughes and Mick Leach.
Nothing happening full stop. Now, with time on your frequently washed hands, home is where the art is and plenty else besides
EXIT 10 Things To See Next Week in York and beyond for the unforeseeable future. Enter home entertainment, wherever you may be, whether together or in self-isolation, in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic. From behind his closed door, CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.
Lockdown Legends Challenge, set by York Theatre Royal
EACH Monday morning, York Theatre Royal will post a theatrical #LockdownLegendsChallenge on its Twitter and Facebook pages for the whole family to take part in, just for fun. Even the participation of pets is “actively encouraged”.
York Theatre Royal: ideas for creating your own theatre magic at home in the Lockdown Legends Challenge
This week’s challenge is to make a one-minute play. “Send us your responses to lockdownlegends@yorktheatreroyal.co.uk and we’ll share these on our social media pages throughout the week,” says the Theatre Royal. “Remember to keep safe – and stay creative.”
Setting up a film reviewers’ club online
ARE you missing discussing the latest hit films at City Screen, Everyman York, Vue York and Cineworld? If so, why not start or join a film reviewers’ club online on WhatsApp, with the group having a name.
One group member chooses a film, old, recent, cult, blockbuster, world, British, American, whatever; gives a brief synopsis and initial thoughts behind the choice; sets a start and finishing date for viewing (whether on DVD, Netflix, etc), and then everyone gathers for a chat online to give their short reviews.
Explore York’s library and archive at York Explore, Museum Street, York
Explore York’s Libraries From Home
THE Explore York library and archive service will be developing online activities such as a Virtual Book Group, while updating regularly as “new things” come on stream and sharing them on social media, using #LibrariesFromHome.
The Queen show must go on: We Will Rock You will rock you in 2021
Keep trying to find good news
DALBY Forest concerts, chopped. The first four classics of the flat racing season, all non-runners. Wimbledon tennis, out. Harrogate International Festivals summer season, off. York Festival, gone. Scarborough Open Air Theatre, shut. The list of cancellations keeps growing, but against that backdrop, theatres, music venues and festivals are busy re-booking acts and shows for later in the year or next year.
Keep visiting websites for updates, whether York Barbican, York Theatre Royal, the Grand Opera House, The Crescent, wherever. We Will Rock You has just been confirmed for the Grand Opera House for March 22 to 27 next year.
Look out too for the streaming of past hit shows. More and more theatres and arts companies are doing this…
Breath of fresh Eyre: The National Theatre’s innovative Jane Eyre, directed by Sally Cookson. This picture features the 2017 touring cast at the Grand Opera House, York
…For example, National Theatre At Home on YouTube
HULL playwright Richard Bean’s comic romp One Man, Two Guvnors has drawn more than two million viewers since being launched on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel last Thursday.
Next up, available for free from 7pm this evening for a week, will be Sally Cookson’s innovative, dynamic, remarkable stage adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s Yorkshire novel, Jane Eyre. You may recall the NT’s touring production from its week-long run at the Grand Opera House, York, in May 2017. Truly worth staying in for…but you will be doing that anyway, won’t you.
Window of opportunity : Cancelled York Open Studios finds a way still to showcase art
Venturing outdoors…to spot #openwindowsyork2020
AMID the strict Government strictures, when allowed out to walk the dog or take that one burst of mentally and physically beneficial exercise a day, you can discover a new form of “window dressing” and maybe even “window shopping” near you.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shut the doors on York Open Studios 2020, when 144 artists and makers would have been welcoming visitors on April 17 to 19 and 25 and 26. Enterprising as ever, they now say: “We can’t open our doors, but we can show you our work through our windows”, as they launch #openwindowsyork2020. “If you see one, let us know,” they add.
Welcome back Backgammon
Vintage game of the week: Backgammon
LOCKDOWN is the perfect chance to dust off faithful old games consigned to gathering dust on top shelves.
Bring back Backgammon, one of the oldest known board games, whose history can be traced back nearly 5,000 years to archaeological discoveries in Mesopotamia. In this quick-thinking two-player game, each player has 15 pieces that move between 24 triangles, according to the roll of two dice. You gotta roll with it, as Oasis once sang.
Easter egg hunt
EASTER Day celebrations demand an Easter egg hunt, whether indoors or in the garden, if that is possible.
Two customs spring to mind: firstly, wrapping eggs in ribbon for boiling that will then leave a pretty decorative pattern on the eggs.
Secondly, writing poetic ditties as clues for the Easter egg hunter to find the hidden chocolate goodies. Happy hunting, happy Easter, dear readers.
Clap for Carers
YES, we miss the sound of applause bursting through our theatre walls, but for now, save your hand-clapping for showing support every Thursday at 8pm for our NHS doctors, hospital staff, carers, rising tide of volunteers and key workers. God bless them all.
Paul Merton: Welcome back Have I Got News For You for series number 59
And what about…
BOOKS on pandemics and plagues. Cookbooks. The return of BBC One’s Have I Got News For You on Fridays, albeit in compromised social-distancing-from-home form. The shockumentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem And Madness on Netflix. Writing a 10 Things list like this one.
Reading the regular Tweets from Reece Dinsdale, Emmerdale actor full of nous, and Alan Lane, Slung Low artistic director and man of action around Leeds. Keep drinking hot drinks and gargling regularly, as well as all that hand-washing.
Goodbye, not Hello: Lionel Richie’s York Festival and Scarborough Open Air Theatre concerts have been cancelled
THE inaugural York Festival with Lionel
Richie, Madness and Westlife in June is off. The entire Scarborough Open Air Theatre summer
season has been cancelled too.
The “unavoidable” double blow for
promoters Cuffe and Taylor was confirmed in a brief statement at high noon, enforced
by the grip of the Coronavirus pandemic.
“We are sad to announce both York
Festival and the 2020 programme at Scarborough Open Air Theatre will not go
ahead,” they said. “We did not want to take this step, but it was unavoidable.
The health and safety of concertgoers, artists, staff and community will always
be our top priority.
Grey Day for Madness: no House Of Fun after all at York Festival on June 19
“We are working with our ticketing
partners and they will contact customers very soon to process refunds. Peace, love, kindness and thanks.”
So, alas, this means goodbye to Hello and Lionel Richie at York Sports Club, Clifton Park, Shipton Road, on June 21, when the American soul legend, now 70, would have been supported by Grammy Award winner Macy Gray and Newcastle soul-pop duo Lighthouse Family.
Camden Town nutty boys Madness were to have headlined the
opening night, June 19, joined by Ian Broudie’s Lightning Seeds, Craig
Charles, for a Funk and Soul Club DJ set, Leeds indie rockers Apollo
Junction and York band Violet Contours.
Westlife: York and Scarborough shows grounded without wings
Irish matured boy band Westlife were booked to top the June 21
bill, backed up All Saints, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Scouting For
Girls and Take That’s Howard Donald for a DJ set.
Over on the East Coast, Cuffe and Taylor had lined up big
hitters galore for Scarborough Open Air Theatre’s 2020 season, opening with
Lionel Richie on June 9, followed by Westlife on June 17.
Further bookings were: Supergrass, June 20; Alfie Boe, June 27; Snow Patrol, July 4; Mixtape, with Marc Almond, Heaven 17 and Living In A Box featuring Kenny Thomas, July 10; Keane, July 17; Little Mix, July 21; McFly, August 14; Louis Tomlinson, August 15, and Nile Rodgers & Chic, August 21. What’s more, further shows were to have been added. Not any more.
Leopard king: Rod Stewart at York Racecourse last June, promoted by Cuffe and Taylor
Last year,Cuffe and Taylor promoted Rod Stewart’s first ever York concert, erecting a pop-up amphitheatre in the centre of York Racecourse and duly drawing 35,000 people to Knavesmire on June 1. Ah, those were the days.
Earlier this spring, Cuffe and Taylor were given the City of York Council thumbs-up for a licence for their first York Festival, albeit with the proviso that the volume must be turned down. Now, there will only be silence.
Kate Rusby in her Holly Headwear. Picture: David Lindsay
WHAT a relief to be able to mention another C-word in these
Coronavirus-clouded times. Christmas. Kate
Rusby at Christmas, to be precise.
Tickets for the Barnsley nightingale’s now traditional York Barbican Christmas concert on December 20 go on sale tomorrow morning (April 10) at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Kate’s sparkling Christmas shows draw on merry Christmas versions of carols,
once banned from frowning Victorian churches for being too jolly, that instead
found their home in the pubs of South Yorkshire (and North Derbyshire and
Cornwall).
“Christmas songs were seeping into our brains,” says Kate Rusby, recalling her childhood exposure to South Yorkshire ‘pub sings’. Picture: David Angel
For 200 years, those South Yorkshire
communities have congregated on Sunday lunchtimes from late-November to belt
out, for example, variations on While Shepherds Watched.
“The Christmas side of things began for me in the ‘pub sings’
around South Yorkshire,” Kate told CharlesHutchPress last winter ahead of her York
Barbican concert with her regular folk band and “brass boys” quintet on December
18.
“We were taken along as kids; our parents would be in the main
room singing away, while us kids were sat with the other kids in the tap room,
colouring [pictures] and drinking pop, unaware that the carols and Christmas
songs were seeping into our brains!
“I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a ‘Holly Head’, ” says Kate Rusby, explaining her album title
“They’re mostly songs thrown out of the churches by the
Victorians as they were thought to be far too happy! Ha! Those who loved
singing them took them to the pubs, where you could combine a good old sing
with beer and a natter, and there the songs have remained and been kept alive,
being passed down the generations.”
So much so, Kate has released five albums of carols and original
winter songs on her own Pure Records label: 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While
Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over, 2017’s Angels And Men and last
year’s Holly Head
“Well, I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a
‘Holly Head’,” she said, explaining the title. “You know, like car fanatics are
petrol heads. I thought it was the perfect title for such people, and I’m a
fully paid-up member of the Holly Head club.”
The album artwork for Kate Rusby’s 2019 album, Holly Head
Songs on
Holly Head ranged from the Rusby original The Holly King, to a cover of John
Rox’s novelty Christmas number Hippo For Christmas, via the carol Salute The
Morn, a brace of God’s Own Country variations, Yorkshire Three Ships and Bleak
Midwinter (Yorkshire) and Kate’s sixth iteration of While Shepherds Watched.
“There’s over 30 different versions of While Shepherds Watched
that get sung in the pubs here in South Yorkshire, so I’ve still got a lot to
go at,” said Kate last December. “This one is actually to the tune of a
different song that I also love, but I wasn’t that keen on the words, then
realised it went with the While Shepherds words, so yey, another has now been
invented.”
Picking the song most significant to her on Holly Head, Kate chose
her own composition The Holly King. “It celebrates the more pagan side of
Christmas. I wrote it after reading about the winter king, The Holly King, and
the summer king, The Ivy King,” she said.
Kate Rusby: Writing for her next Christmas record. Picture: David Angel
“Legend has
it that the two met twice a year and had almighty battles. Going into winter,
the Holly King would win and reign for the winter months. Then the Ivy King
would wake and overthrow the Holly King and reign through the summer months,
and on they went in a perfect cycle.
“I just
loved the images that it conjured up and a song came flowing out. I gave him a
wife, The Queen of Frost, who creeps across the land to be with him for his
time. In fact, I’m now writing her song, so she will appear on the next
Christmas album, I’m sure.”
May The Queen of Frost glide her icy path to York Barbican come
December 20.
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, with
doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing their ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles skills.
Each day,
in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open
Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and
craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home.
Addresses will not be included at this time.
Meanwhile,
York Open Studios artists are finding their own way to respond to the shutdown
by filling their windows with their work instead. Look for #openwindowsyork2020 to locate them.
“If you see one in your area while taking your daily exercise, take a picture
and let us know,” they say.
Cielo, collage, by Gail Fox
Gail Fox, collage
AN artist for more than
40 years, London-born Gail co-founded York Open Studios in 2002 with Anne
Hutchison.
For 30 years, she made
and exhibited hand-built coil pots after gaining a first-class degree at
Central School of Art in London in 1980, undertaking commissions for fashion
designer Bruce Oldfield and Trisha Guild, of the Designers Guild, for Next
Interiors.
Since a change of artistic
tack, she has focused on painting and now 2D abstract collages: explorations of
juxtapositions, composition and colour, made from painted or found papers.
York Open Studios co-founder Gail Fox
“The whole process is about tweaking and adjusting. It relies on intuition about what seems visually right,” says Gail. “It’s a process of adding to and taking away, a little more of this, a little less of that.
“It’s a bit like adjusting
a recipe until you know the taste is right. Hopefully, after the struggle, something
emerges that has a beauty, a sense of resolution and balance.” Learn more at gailfox.co.uk.
Sculptural jewellery by Jane Atkin
Jane Atkin, jewellery
MODERN and sculptural in
form, Jane’s functional jewellery incorporates unisex designs in predominantly
one-of-a-kind pieces in silver and gold.
“I use cut, uncut semi-precious stones and jet, found by me on the Yorkshire coast, that are employed in modern and minimalist ways,” she says. “From growing up surrounded by good modern design and architecture, these influences filter through into my jewellery.”
Jane Atkin’s studio
Responding to the need to
reduce single-use plastic, she has designed a silver drinking straw as an
investment for the future. “Silver
is naturally antibacterial and will last a lifetime, so this is perfect as a Christening
gift as an example,” says Jane, who exhibited at Pyramid Gallery and Lotte Inch
Gallery, in York, and the British Craft Trade Fair last year.
For more info, head to janeatkinjewellery.com.
Amy Stubbs: heading back north
Amy Stubbs, textiles
RELOCATED to York in a return to her northern roots, pattern
print designer Amy now works from the
PICA Studios artist hub in Grape Lane.
This textile design graduate from Falmouth University draws
inspiration “from a wealth of experience brought to her by her strong Yorkshire
family heritage and the opportunity to experience varying cultures”.
Consequently, Amy’s textile
work combines manually drawn abstract elements with the aid of digital
technology to create her surface pattern prints that feature strong mark-making
motifs and collaging.
2020 would have marked
her York Open Studios. Looking ahead, her new website, amystubbs.com, will be “coming
soon”.
“Cheeky, bright and full of colour”: Emily Stubbs’s ceramics
Emily Stubbs, ceramics
EMILY creates hand-built
sculptural ceramic vessels – cheeky, bright and full of life in character –
that explore the relationship between colour, form and texture.
Born in Holmfirth, her first
taste of clay was during her pre-BA foundation course at Batley School of Art
and Design. Inspired by this medium, Emily studied ceramics at the University
of Wales, Cardiff, graduating in 2007.
Emily Stubbs at work at PICA Studios, York
Moving to York in 2009,
she has worked from PICA Studios, in Grape Lane, York, since 2017, taking Yorkshire
and beyond by storm with her quirky ceramics in galleries and at art fairs,
such as Ceramic Art London.
Emily co-founded the
Art& show at York Racecourse with Victoria Robinson and collaborated with
Cooper King Distillery to create the artwork for their newly launched Herb Gin
label last autumn. Head to emilystubbsceramics@gmail.com
to learn more.
Inspired by 20th century travel posters: Elliot Harrison’s illustration of the York Odeon cinema building
Elliot Harrison, illustration
ELLIOT creates architectural
illustrations, prints and posters showcasing iconic York buildings and views,
favouring a vibrant colour palette inspired by Art Deco design and vintage 20th
century travel posters.
His distinctive retro York portfolio has been catching the eye for
the past few years, whether at Frankie & Johnny’s Cookshop, Blossom Street
Gallery and Owl & Monkey or in exhibitions at York Hospital and the Rowntree
Park Reading Café.
Among his most popular illustrations are Rowntree Park,
Bishopthorpe Road, the Blossom Street Odeon cinema, the former Clifton Cinema,
the Joseph Rowntree Theatre and York Minster.
Elliot Harrison surrounded by his evocative retro artwork
His commissions include illustrations for York Theatre Royal and
The Piece Hall, in Halifax, and his repertoire has expanded to take in running
medals, mugs, coasters, cards, Christmas cards and a 2020 York calendar that
sold out.
Elliot, who gained a degree in art and design from York St John University, was selected for his York Open Studios in 2020. Check him out via elliot@york360.co.uk.
TOMORROW: Rosie Waring; Colin Black; Nicola Lee; Rebecca Mason and Donna Maria Taylor.
We Will Still Rock You: The Queen and Ben Elton musical will rise again in 2021
THE 2020 tour of We Will Rock You bit the dust with the Coronavirus
pandemic lockdown, but the show must go on for the Queen and Ben Elton musical.
Not only have many of the original dates been re-scheduled for 2021, but
several venues have been added too, not least the Grand Opera House, York, for
a run from March 22 to 27.
“The producers did not want to disappoint fans who had bought tickets,
so they have been working hard to reschedule as many of the shows as possible,
giving people something to look forward to in these unsettling times,” says the
official statement.
“We are delighted to announce the good news that the musical
extravaganza will once again rock theatres across the UK from January next
year, playing many of the original 2020 dates and several additional venues
too.”
Kicking off in Cardiff on January 18 2021, the tour will then play Milton
Keynes; Southend; Stoke; Bristol; Wimbledon; Bournemouth; Ipswich; Bromley; York;
Newcastle; Northampton; Peterborough; Norwich; Reading; Liverpool; Birmingham
and Southsea, with more dates to follow. Details of how to exchange tickets
will follow in the coming weeks.
Queen guitarist Brian May said: “Happy to say our magnificent UK tour of
We Will Rock You, the rock theatrical, will rise again. The Coronavirus has had
us all on the run, but live theatre will win in the end. Keep hold of your
bookings and the vibe will be yours in 2021.”
Drummer Roger Taylor added: “This is great news, I’m so pleased to see
the show on the road again.”
Writer Ben Elton agreed: “I was so pleased to get the great news that We
Will Rock You is to be remounted next year, after being forced to close mid-tour,
and I hope Queen’s incredible music can help to make us feel like champions
again.”
Tickets for the York run are on sale at atgtickets.com/york.
