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May 16, 2024May 16, 2024

What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond when Monet…that’s what you want. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 15, from Gazette & Herald

*Florally attired York Art Gallery senior curator Dr Beatrice Bertram stands by Claude Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond, on loan from the National Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham*

FROM Monet to Martin Carthy, a Shakespeare play in a day to Henry VIII’s life and loves, teenage blues to country rambles, Charles Hutchinson sees how the cultural land lies.

Exhibition of the summer: National Treasures: Monet In York: The Water-Lily Pond, York Art Gallery, in bloom until September 8

FRENCH Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s 1899 work, The Water-Lily Pond, forms the York centrepiece and trigger point for the National Gallery’s bicentenary celebrations in tandem with York Art Gallery.

On show are key loans from regional and national institutions alongside York Art Gallery collection works and a large-scale commission by contemporary artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Una Sinfonia. Monet’s canvas is explored in the context of 19th-century French open-air painting, pictures by his early mentors and the Japanese prints that transformed his practice and beloved gardens in Giverny. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk.

*Steven Arran: Directing Shakespeare’s Speakeasy’s debut play in a day in York at Theatre@41, Monkgate*

York debut of the week: Shakespeare’s Speakeasy, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (16/5/2024), 7.30pm

SHAKESPEARE’S Speakeasy is heading from Newcastle to York for the first time, making its Theatre@41 debut under the directorship of Steven Arran. “It’s Shakespeare, but it’s secret,” he says. “Can a group of strangers successfully stage a Shakespearean play in a day? Shakespeare’s Speakeasy is the place for you to find out.”

After learning lines over the past four weeks, the cast featuring the likes of Claire Morley, Esther Irving and Ian Giles meets for the first time on Thursday morning to rehearse an irreverent, entertaining take on one of Bill’s best-known plays, culminating in a public performance. Which one? “Like all good Speakeasys, that’s a secret,” says Arran. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*Sarah McQuaid: Playing Helmsley Arts Centre on Friday*

Folk gig of the week: Sarah McQuaid, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm

BORN in Madrid to a Spanish father and folk-singing American mother, raised in Chicago and holding dual Irish and American citizenship, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sarah McQuaid is long settled in west Cornwall.

She has released six albums, When Two Lovers Meet (1997), I Won’t Go Home ’Til Morning (2008), Crow Coyote Buffalo (written and recorded with Zoe Pollock under the name Mama, 2008), The Plum Tree And The Rose (2012), Walking Into White (2015), If We Dig Any Deeper It Could Get Dangerous (2018) and The St Buryan Sessions (2021). Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

*Jack Abbot’s Henry VIII: Regal performance in Divorced, Beheaded, Died at Milton Rooms, Malton*

History lesson of the week: Divorced, Beheaded, Died – An Evening With King Henry VIII, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 7.30pm

THE year is 1544, when King Henry VIII is engaged on royal progress about his realm, halting in Malton on Friday to afford his loyal subjects the opportunity to have “audience” with their sovereign lord and king.

In Select Society Theatre Company’s one-man, two-act show, Jack Abbot’s Henry recounts the events of his life and long reign with tales of his wives and children, concluding with an audience Q&A. DNA tests, by the way, have revealed that Jack is Henry’s 21st cousin, six times removed. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

*Toby Lee: Blues prodigy heads to the Fulford Arms on Saturday*

Blues gig of the week: Toby Lee, Fulford Arms, York, Saturday, 7.30pm

BLUES rock prodigy Toby Lee, the 19-year-old Oxfordshire guitarist and singer, will be playing 100 shows home and abroad this year, 40 of them his own headline gigs, 60 as a special guest of boogie-woogie pianist Jools Holand.

The 2023 Young Blues Musician of the Year learned his trade playing Zack Mooneyham in the first West End production of School Of Rock and has since shared stages with his hero Joe Bonamassa, Buddy Guy, Peter Frampton and Slash. First up, Fulford Arms on Saturday, then come Jools engagements at York Barbican on December 1 and Leeds First Direct Arena on December 20. Box office: ticketweb.uk/event/toby-lee-the-fulford-arms-tickets/13366163.

*A seascape by artist Ione Harrison, who leads Sunday’s workshop at Helmsley Arts Centre*

Workshop of the week: Seascapes with artist Ione Harrison, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 10am to 1pm

ARTIST Ione Harrison hosts a workshop suitable for all levels, from beginners to anyone wanting to explore new techniques, exploring the magic of watercolour in a mindful and playful way – no drawing needed.

Participants will create two atmospheric seascapes of the North Yorkshire coast, with room for artistic licence, using a limited but vibrant palette, trying out fun techniques, such as cling film, spatter and wax resist, plus raditional washes and wet-on-wet painting. Refreshments will be available. Bookings: visit ioneharrison.co.uk/book-online.

Mikron Theatre cast members Eddie Ahrens, left, Mark Emmon, Georgina Liley and Lauren Robinson: Presenting an outdoor performance of Common Ground at Scarcoft Allotments, York, on Sunday afternoon. *Picture: Robling Photography*

Touring play of the week: Mikron Theatre in Common Ground, Scarcroft Allotments, Scarcroft Road, York, Sunday, 2pm

ON tour on narrow boat and canal, van and land until October 18, Marsden company Mikron Theatre present Common Ground, writer and lyricist Poppy Hollman’s hike through the history of land access in England, where only eight per cent of land is designated “open country”.

Under the direction of Gitika Buttoo, actor-musicians Eddie Ahrens, Georgina Liley, Lauren Robinson and Mark Emmon tell the tale of the fictional Pendale and District Ramblers as they look forward to celebrating their 50th anniversary walk, but the path has been blocked by the landowner. How will they find their way through? No reserved seating or tickets required; a “pay what you feel” collection will be taken post-show.

Gig announcement of the week: Martin Carthy, The Band Room, Low Mill, Farndale, July 27, 7.30pm

“WHAT we like most about Martin Carthy is that to us he’s a local hero who will once again take the high road from Robin Hood’s Bay to Farndale, jewel in the crown of the North York Moors National Park, to renew his acquaintance with The Band Room,” says gig promoter Nigel Burnham.

Carthy, 82, who has enjoyed trailblazing folk partnerships with Steeleye Span, Dave Swarbrick, wife Norma Waterson and daughter Eliza Carthy, brings to the stage more than half a century of experiences and stories as a ballad singer, groundbreaking acoustic and electric guitarist and insatiably curious interpreter and arranger of other artists’ material and trad songs. Box office: thebandroom.co.uk.

May 15, 2024June 26, 2024

REVIEW: Twelve Angry Men, Grand Opera House, York, in session until Saturday ****

*Spoiling for a fight: Tristan Gemmill’s Juror 3 has to be held back as Jason Merrells’s Juror 8, front left, probes. Picture: Jack Merriman*

“UNBEARABLY hot!” was the verdict of one audience member, who bailed out of Monday’s press night at the interval. “Wedding ring and watch wouldn’t fit because of heat swelling fingers and wrist,” he reasoned.

Come Tuesday night, York’s heatwave had waved goodbye, but you could still feel the heat rising, temperature and tempers alike, on the Grand Opera House stage.

A storm is brewing both metaphorically and meteorologically in Reginald Rose’s “knife-edge thriller” on its return to the Grand Opera House for the first time since April 2015, in the finale to the 70th anniversary tour.

Mounted once more by Bill Kenwright Ltd and directed again by Christopher Haydon, with the same set design by Michael Pavelka, the latest production has the continuity and hallmark of quality of The Woman In Black under Robin Herford’s stewardship.

At the tiller since the 2013 premiere at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Haydon has assembled another supremely combative cast of 13, unlucky for none, whether fellow cast members or enthralled audience.

A train thunders by on the New York subway, a jolt to sharpen our senses for the war of words ahead before the sonorous voice of the unseen judge warns the jury, “one man is dead; the life of another is at stake”.

One by one, the 12 jurors file into the dingy jury deliberating room, opening the dusty windows to the street to counter the sweltering heat, a discomfort only heightened by the overhead fan failing to work.

*Gray O’Brien’s Juror 10, left, and Michael Greco’s Juror 7 in discussion in Twelve Angry Men. Picture: Jack Merriman*

To one side is an oft-visited rest room; to the other, an even more oft-visited water dispenser. Outside the locked door, a stone-faced guard (Jeffrey Harmer) is on duty.

Under the charge of the stoical foreman (Owen Oldroyd), the jurors must decide the fate of a young delinquent, a boy of 16 accused of stabbing his father to death.

It looks an open-and-shut case, as the preliminary guilty vote of 11 to one would indicate, but a unanimous verdict is required to condemn the boy to the mandatory death penalty.

Standing alone, unsure of guilt beyond reasonable doubt, is Jason Merrells’s Juror 8, an architect by profession who sets about building the case the defence lawyer never satisfactorily presented.

Admirably equitable and eloquent, Juror 8 is the calm amid the electric storm soon to crackle. The twelve angry men of the title turns out to be a misnomer: Merrells’s conciliatory juror never raises his voice or bursts the banks of frustration as those around him do in Rose’s claustrophobic study of human nature.

Haydon’s cast combines ensemble enterprise with individual expression, steered by Merrells’s assiduity, fair and quick of mind, always humanitarian, never righteous.

Mark Heenehan’s meticulously methodical broker, Juror 4 – watch how he washes his hands – comes slowly but authoritatively to the fore, by way of contrast with Tristan Gemmill’s vituperative, volcanic Juror 3 and Gray O’Brien’s boorish, bigoted Juror 10.

*Christopher Haydon’s cast casting votes in Twelve Angry Men. Picture: Jack Merriman*

Who will reach boiling point first as the art of persuasion locks horns with a surfeit of jackets-off testosterone? Not only a teenager’s guilt or innocence is under examination, so too are 12 men’s characters, their predilections and prejudices, hot-housed and released under pressure that builds like the beads of sweat to be wiped away with handkerchiefs.

Amid the tightening tensions and mid-20th century American angst, Haydon’s company also mines all the observational humour in Rose’s astute script, typified by the gum-chewing, hat-tilting swagger of Michael Greco’s time-watching marmalade salesman, Juror 7.

Ben Nealon, Gary Webster, Paul Beech, Paul Lavers and especially Kenneth Jay and Samarge Hamilton all do sterling jury service too, and one more character stands out: the revolving stage that keeps the jurors’ table moving.

You could even call it scene stealing, such is the sleight of hand that means you never see it in circular motion, but move it most certainly does, facilitating seeing faces to the maximum within the proscenium arch framework.

As the table turns, so the tables turn in the jury room’s votes in a psychological drama where Pavelka’s set so cleverly mirrors the story, played out to a choreographer’s sense of movement by Haydon.

Pavelka, Haydon and his cast are guilty of being criminally good. To miss Twelve Angry Men would be a crime to make your reviewer one angry man.

Twelve Angry Men, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Court in session: Twelve Angry Men cast members take a seat at the Guildhall, York, from left to right: Paul Beech, Ben Nealon, Gary Webster, Jason Merrells, Kenneth Jay, Owen Oldroyd, Tristan Gemmill, Samarge Hamilton, Paul Lavers and Gray O’Brien

May 14, 2024May 14, 2024

York Theatre Royal stars Mia Overfield and Anna Soden are up for UK Pantomine Awards for Jack And The Beanstalk

*She likes to moove it, moove it: Anna Soden’s Dave the talking cow in Jack And The Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor*

YORK Theatre Royal pantomime stars Mia Overfield and Anna Soden are in the running for the 2024 UK Pantomime Awards.

Mia is nominated in the Best Early Career Newcomer category for her role as Jack in her panto debut in Jack And The Beanstalk, a year after completing her musical theatre studies at Arden School of Theatre,Manchester.

In her home-city panto, Anna played Dave the talking cow, a very different kind of pantomime cow, in a scene-stealing turn that led to her nomination in the Best Supporting Artist category.

*Mia Overfield’s Jack with the giant Blunderbore in Jack And The Beanstalk*. *Picture: S R Taylor*

Anna, who grew up in York, was a member of York Youth Theatre for a decade and was part of the young people’s ensemble for Theatre Royal shows, including The Railway Children at the National Railway Museum and the 2006 panto Cinderella.

In 2020, she appeared as the bass guitar-playing Fairy in York Theatre Royal’s socially distanced Travelling Pantomime, toured to York community centres under Covid restrictions.

The awards ceremony, held in association with Stagecoach, will take place at G Live, Guildford, on June 18 after the 70 judges had their busiest year yet in the awards’ third year, collectively visiting 259 venues to see 728 performances across the UK.

*Reason to be cheerful: 2024 UK Pantomime Awards nominees Mia Overfield and Anna Soden. Picture: S R Taylor*

Among them, Jack And The Beanstalk was the third pantomime produced on the Theatre Royal stage in partnership with panto specialists Evolution Productions, directed by Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and written by Evolution’s Paul Hendy.

After Cinderella, All New Adventures Of Peter Pan and Jack And The Beanstalk, the team will reunite for the 2024-2025 Theatre Royal pantomime, Aladdin, from December 3 to January 5, when Robin Simpson will return for a fifth winter as the Dame, joined by CBeebies and CBBC presenter Evie Pickerill as the Spirit of the Ring.

Evie, who has guest starred on Blue Peter, has been hosting CBeebies since 2018 and during that time she has performed leading roles in their Christmas and Shakespeare productions too.

*Evie Pickerill: CBeebies presenter will reunite with York Theatre Royal pantomime director Juliet Forster for Aladdin*

Aladdin director Juliet Forster will be directing her for a second time. “I’m absolutely delighted to be welcoming Evie to York Theatre Royal’s stage this Christmas. I worked with Evie on CBeebies’ Romeo & Juliet– she made a wonderful Juliet and was a joy to work with.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing her bring her unique, lovable style to pantomime. We are so lucky to have her, and York audiences are in for a treat!”

Aladdin writer and Evolution producer Paul Hendy enthuses: “We’re delighted Evie Pickerill will be joining Robin Simpson in our spectacular production. I’ve been lucky enough to see Evie in pantomime before and know that she’s going to bring a sparkle and flare to the show that our audiences will adore! This really is shaping up to be our biggest and funniest show ever!”

Evie is no stranger to pantomime, having played Cinderella and Snow White previously, and she also performed in the musical Shout! at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after first appearing in the show during her Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts studies. Last year she hosted her first radio show on Heart North West.

Alongside her passion for the arts, Evie is a supporter of several children’s charities, taking part in fundraising events for Comic Relief and Children In Need and becoming a champion for Place2Be in 2022.

Tickets for Aladdin are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

May 14, 2024May 14, 2024

Mikron head for Scarcroft Allotments with Common Ground, Poppy Hollman’s hike through history of land access

*Mikron Theatre cast members Mark Emmons, left, Lauren Robinson, Georgina Liley and Eddie Ahrens in Poppy Hollman’s Common Groud. Picture: Robling Photogrpahy*

GRAB boots and a waterproof on Sunday afternoon for a meander to Scarcroft Allotments, Scarcroft Road, York, for Mikron Theatre’s outdoor performance of Common Ground.

In their 52^nd year, the Marsden company will be touring by canal, river and land throughout the summer with the premiere of Bedfordshire writer and lyricist Poppy Hollman’s third play for Mikron.

This one takes a hike through the history of land access in England – where only eight per cent of land is designated “open country” – at a time when the right to roam and the legal right to access are hot topics amid press stories of the “paywalling” of Cirencester Park and “Access Islands”.

Directed by Gitika Buttoo, Poppy’s outdoor drama tells the tale of the fictional Pendale and District Ramblers, who are looking forward to celebrating their 50th anniversary walk, only to discover that the landowner has blocked the path.

How will they find their way through? Mikron actor-musicians Eddie Ahrens, Georgina Liley, Lauren Robinson and Mark Emmons have to navigate this thorny subject matter with originally composed songs, witty lyrics, silliness, hat swapping and gusto.

*Common Ground playwright and lyricist Poppy Hollman. Picture: Molly Hollman*

Expect “plenty of laughs and pathos in this look at how we got to where we are now and where we might go next”. The ramblers’ quest for freedom and fresh air will not be easy, as they encounter revolting peasants, wandering sheep and a bull.

“This is my third commission for Mikron and it’s taken me on a wild ramble,” says Poppy. “From Saxon Times to Kinder Scout and beyond, the play explores our connection to the countryside around us. Who is it for, and why should we care?

“As the Right to Roam movement gains ground and there’s growing awareness of the importance of green spaces for our mental and physical health, it felt timely to explore how we access our countryside. The play delves into history to point out how access has been removed from ordinary folk over the years, from the Norman Conquest to the Enclosures Movement and contested Rights of Way.”

Director Gitika Buttoo, who directed A Force To Be Reckoned With for Mikron last year, says: “I’m so excited to be working with Mikron again for a second year running! It’s been a joyous experience working closely with the uber-talented Poppy Hollman on such an important subject matter.”

Ahrens returns from Buttoo’s company for A Force To Be Reckoned With, joined by Mikron debutants Liley, Robinson and Emmons.

*Georgina Liley and Eddie Ahrens in a scene from Common Ground. Picture: Robling Photography*

The touring production is designed and costumed by Celia Perkins, with musical composition by Dan McGlade (Macbeth and Twelfth Night for Leeds Playhouse) and musical direction and arrangements by Rebekah Hughes (Twitchers for Mikron; The Great Gatsby for Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre).

Mikron are touring by narrowboat and van from May 10 to October 18, no venue too small, as they head to 137 locations in 2024. More than half the performances will be “pay what you feel” after the show, rather than ticketed, and every performance has integrated audio description.

Common Ground is touring in tandem with the premiere of Jennie Lee, Lindsay Rodden’s new play charting the extraordinary life of the radical Scottish politician, Westminster’s youngest MP, so young that, as a woman in 1929, she could not vote.

Mikron Theatre in Common Ground, Scarcroft Allotments, Scarcroft Road, York, Sunday, 2pm. No reserved seating or tickets required; a “pay what you feel” collection will be taken post-show. For Common Ground dates visit https://mikron.org.uk/shows/common_ground/

Did you know?

OVER 52 years, Mikron Theatre have toured 70 productions on board the vintage narrowboat Tyseley and spent 35,000 boating hours on the inland waterways. Performing 5,487 times, they have played to 460,966 people and counting.

*Mikron Theatre’s poster for the 2024 tour of Poppy Hollman’s Common Ground*

May 14, 2024May 14, 2024

Spice up your life with Wannabe’s June 20 tribute to girl power at Grand Opera House

*Wannabe’s Posh, left, Ginger, Sporty, Baby and Scary*

WANNABE – The Spice Girls Show will celebrate three decades of girl power at the Grand Opera House, York, on June 20.

The “world’s longest-running” Spice Girls tribute stage production pays homage to the best-selling girl group of all time in a nostalgic journey through the Spice World.

Since its debut in 2017, Wannaba’s tribute to Sporty, Scary, Ginger, Baby and Posh has hit the West End and toured Great Britain, Europe, Asia, and Australia, playing to 300,000 Spice Girls devotees.

Wannabe charts the English girl group’s meteoric rise, from their debut number one, Wannabe, in July 1996 to Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham’s reunion at the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Expect “meticulously crafted costumes representing pivotal moments in the Spice Girls’ career, unique vocal and musical arrangements exclusive to Wannabe, iconic dance routines and stunning visual flair”.

Tickets for June 20’s 7.30pm show are on sale at atgtickets.com/york.

May 14, 2024May 14, 2024

REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Ema Nikolovska/Joseph Middleton, Leeds Lieder Festival 2024

*Ema Nikolovska and Joseph Middleton. Picture: Leeds Lieder Festival*

Leeds Lieder Festival 2024: Ema Nikolovska/Joseph Middleton, Howard Assembly Room, Leeds Grand Theatre, April 20

MACEDONIAN-CANADIAN mezzo soprano Ema Nikolovska, partnered by festival director Joseph Middleton, brought a delightful potpourri to her evening recital, in which they teamed Schubert and Debussy with rarities by Margaret Bonds and Nicolas Slonimsky alongside the premiere of a festival commission by Tansy Davies.

Nikolovska’s clean, nicely focused tone is allied to a lively personality that illuminates the poetryof her songs. There was a freshness to her opening Schubert group, not least in Im Frühling (In Spring).

After its penultimate verse, there was a pronounced rallentando and a long pause before she resumed. Not so long ago that would have been considered unstylish, but she made it seem natural. One could only admire, too, her treatment of the dramatic scena Der Unglückliche (The Forlorn One), a poem from Karoline Pichler’s novel Olivier. It has been called pastiche, but Nikolovska handled its emotional roller-coaster with immense conviction.

In answer to a commission from Leeds Lieder, celebrating its 20^th anniversary, Tansy Davies chose to set Nick Drake’s The Ice Core Sample Says, taken from his collection The Farewell Glacier, about climate change. The poem deals memorably with the “chronicle of lost time” revealed in an ice core, with an overarching nostalgia in what is essentially a lament over mankind’s mistreatment of our planet.

Davies’s response is unexpected. Against an accompaniment that explores the extremes of the keyboard, she takes the voice slowly from very low to very high in each of a series of phrases. Later in the piece, which lasts about eight minutes, the vocal line becomes very jagged, as the narrator shows agitation at the shocking revelations coming from the ice.

Great demands are made upon the singer here, in what is essentially an instrumental line, quite the opposite of cantabile. Nikolovska was equal to them all, indeed she gave the impression of being comfortable.

Towards the end she also shakes something like maracas, as “Now the great narrator Silence takes over”. This powerful poem, replete with images, which was commendably read out beforehand, is arguably too complex for vocal setting. But Davies and Drake between them certainly made an impact.

The American composer Margaret Bonds (1913-1972) was a new name to me. Although a pianist, the bulk of her works were for solo voice; several of her spirituals were commissioned and sung by Leontyne Price. Her early Songs Of The Seasons (1935-6), settings of her favoured poet Langston Hughes, proved a delightful antidote to the Davies work, and elicited considerable virtuosity from Middleton.

Thereafter we were on more familiar ground. Debussy’s six Verlaine settings, Ariettes Oubliées, which really put him on the mélodie map, found her in idiomatic vein. She sustained a pleasing legato through Il Pleure dans Mon Cœur against the rippling piano, and ideally evoked the ennui of Spleen.

But in two Medtner songs in Rachmaninov style – Twilight with its flavour of a bar-room ballad and the sweeping lines of Sleeplessness – she showed plenty of heft.

A return to wry delicacy was the order of the day in Slonimsky’s Five Advertising Songs, commercial jingles by any other name, but with a few extra twists. This was immaculate caricature, from ‘falling asleep’ with pillowcases to grand sweeping lines for toothpaste. Nikolovska has a great sense of humour and proved it here. She topped it all off, however, with a touching Macedonian folk-song encore, which came right from the heart.

Review by Martin Dreyer

May 13, 2024May 13, 2024

Katherine Priddy ponders the pull of home, family and love on second album The Pendulum Swing as she plays The Crescent

*Katherine Priddy: “Always found myself wandering back, craving the comfort and nostalgia of the past,” she says.*

KATHERINE Priddy grew up in the first house on the left, the title of the first single from her second album, The Pendulum Swing, whose title came from a lyric in that song.

“Despite its soft and dreamy sound, this song provides the cornerstone around which the album and its themes orbit,” says the Birmingham contemporary roots singer-songwriter and finger-picking guitarist, who plays at The Crescent, York, on Wednesday night (15/5/2024).

“It’s inspired by the little old house where I grew up and all the memories captured within those four walls – both for me and for all the other inhabitants who’ve lived there over the centuries. It might just be another terraced cottage to passers-by, but to those who’ve called it home, it’s everything.

“There’s something magical about past inhabitants. That was something that intrigued me as a child, digging in the garden, finding old toy soldiers and bits of china: it’s a reminder you’re not the first to live there and you won’t be the last. It’s a comforting thought, how a house can look like any old terraced house outside but inside a scratch on the wall means everything.”

Explaining the album title, Katherine says: “It describes the urge to leave and the even stronger urge to return. Something I’ve felt a lot in recent few years as I’ve tried to carve out a corner for myself elsewhere, but always found myself wandering back, craving the comfort and nostalgia of the past.”

Released in February on Cooking Vinyl as the follow-up to 2021’s The Eternal Rocks Beneath, The Pendulum Swing is a step forward for Katherine. “My songs have matured since my debut, seeing as most of those were written in my childhood, but despite moving forward and feeling the need to do something different with this second release, I still can’t help but return to those fundamental, unchanging things at the root of it all: home, family, love,” she says.

“Overall, I wanted this song and the album to feel lived in, and this is captured in part by the ghostly atmospheres, mechanical clockwork sounds, creaking floorboards, indistinct whispers and old tape recordings of my family that are littered throughout. I want to invite the listener to come in, sit down and inhabit the album for a little while, and First House On The Left is right at the heart of that.”

Describing the rural village house, Katherine says: “It’s an old terraced house in Alvechurch, 11 miles from Birmingham, quite a few hundred years old with a lot of history. It’s where I grew up; I’ve moved out, moved back in again, moved out, then moved back in again with my parents over lockdown, with mixed feelings.

“When rapidly approaching 30, you feel you must move out, move on, but at the same it’s really hard to deny the pleasure of being back home with your parents.”

Katherine reflects on the itinerant nature of a singer-songwriter’s life. “Being a musician, it’s always about picking the most scenic route. I will find my home,” she says, having moved out again. “At the moment I’ve found a lovely little flat in Birmingham by the river.”

Will she write about it? “Who knows! Maybe I will. Probably I have another house song in me,” she says.

*The cover artwork for Katherine Priddy’s sophomore album The Pendulum Swing*

Katherine wrote her first album in her teens. “It dealt with mythology, which I was more interested in then. Now I’ve turned back to more fundamental things because they are there all the time and I’m trying to find myself. When everything else seems unstable, these things stay the same, and I wanted to capture that nostalgia, which is something I crave.”

Craving comfort in the past, Katherine says: “I’ve picked a fairly unstable career, which is very much about being in the moment, planning but not sure if things will come to fruition, but I feel very lucky to have a family that’s an unchanging bedrock and are always so supportive.

“Sometimes you just want to go back and feel like a kid again, and I think it’s fine that I feel grateful to have that feeling of nostalgia. It’s impossible not to want to still be back there and re-live those moments – and I can do that in song.”

She returned to the same producer, Simon J Weaver, who had recorded her first album at his Rebellious Jukebox studio in Birmingham, joined by guest musicians John Smith (lead guitar), Harry Fausing Smith (strings), Marcus Hamblett (brass and double bass), George Boomsma, from Northallerton (guitar and backing vocals), and Polly Virr (cello).

“This album feels like a step up in being more cinematic in places and taking me out of my comfort zone,” says Katherine. “I really like it on albums where you can hear things that take it from being a song to be more immersive, and that what’s we’ve done for The Pendulum Swing

“I wanted it to feel like you are entering a house, but also bookending the album with instrumentals that convey returning to the house and then leaving again at the end. It’s that urge to stay and that urge to leave that I’ve been doing battle with.

“Some of the songs are very personal to me, like when I’ve featured clips throughout of me and my dad talking from a tape that I found at my parents’ house – and I’ve squeezed my family into a cameo on the last track.

“I thought there’d be more resistance, but my dad loves his vinyl and a credit on an album is something he couldn’t resist, so it’s a family affair with my brother and parents on there.”

Katherine’s 14-date tour finds her expanding from a duo format to a trio with support act George Boomsma and Harry Fausing Smith joining her on stage. “It’s lovely to have Harry for this tour, capturing some of the soundscapes from the album, as well as integrating some of the samples into the set,” she says.

“It’s really emotive to have the strings. I’ve been getting goosebumps listening to these musicians adding their beautiful skills to songs that have been occupying my head for so long.”

Katherine Priddy plays The Crescent, York, on May 15, supported by George Boomsma, 7.30pm; The Live Room, Saltaire, May 16, 7.30pm. Both sold out. Box office for returns only: katherinepriddy.co.uk/

Katherine Priddy: the back story

*Katherine Priddy: Singer, songwriter, guitarist*

First set foot on stage to play Dorothy in school play The Wizard Of Oz, aged nine.

Wrote first song at 14/15.

Love of language, literature and poetry rooted in English Literature studies at University of Sussex, Brighton. Favourite novel Wuthering Heights would later inspire her first album title: “I loved how Cathy described her love for Heathcliff as being ‘the eternal rock beneath’,” she says.

Folk luminary Richard Thompson chose her as “The Best Thing I’ve Heard All Year” in Mojo magazine on the strength of her 2018 EP, Wolf.

Received airplay on Guy Garvey, Gideon Coe, Tom Robinson, Cerys Matthews, Radcliffe & Maconie, Steve Lamacq and the late Janice Long’s radio shows.

2021 debut albumThe Eternal Rocks Beneath (Navigator Records) drew glowing reviews from the Observer, the Sun, Uncut, Songlines and Folk Radio UK with its songs of mythology, childhood and growing up. Charted at number one in Official UK Folk Chart and number five in Official UK Americana Chart, rounded off the year on Mojo’s Folk Albums of the Year list.

Played Cambridge Folk Festival, winning Christian Raphael Prize; Glastonbury, appearing on BBC Two’s coverage; Green Man; End Of The Road; Beautiful Days and BBC Proms.

*Katherine Priddy and John Smith performing together at Selby Town Hall in November 2022*. *Picture: Paul Rhodes*

As well as headline tours, she has supported Richard Thompson, The Chieftains, Loudon Wainwright III and Vashti Bunyan.

In 2022, she played in Australia, including Port Fairy Folk Festival, plus showcase in Kansas City, USA, as part of Folk Alliance International.

In 2023, she recorded I Think They’re Leaving Me Behind for double album The Endless Coloured Ways – The Songs Of Nick Drake, on Chrysalis Records, featuring alongside Self Esteem, Aldous Harding, John Grant, Bombay Bicycle Club and more.

Supported Guy Garvey at The Roundhouse, London.

In February 2024, she released second album The Pendulum Swing on Cooking Vinyl.

Past shows around here: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, near York, August 2021; National Centre for Early Music, York, June 2022; Selby Town Hall, with John Smith, playing 14 songs together over 100 minutes, November 2022.

One last question

Do you consider herself to be a folk musician, Katherine?

“I THINK I’m just outside, with one foot in folk and one foot elsewhere, but what I appreciate about folk songs is that they tell stories.”

May 11, 2024May 21, 2024

International sculptor Tony Cragg holds landmark exhibition at Castle Howard

*Sculptor Tony Cragg with his bronze work Outspan in the Great Hall at Castle Howard. Picture: Charlotte Graham*

TWO years in the making and two weeks in the assembling, Tony Cragg’s sculpture show is a landmark in Castle Howard’s culturally rich history.

Running until September 22, it forms the first major exhibition by a leading contemporary artist to be held across the house and grounds of the North Yorkshire country estate, recognised far and wide as the location for Brideshead Revisited, Bridgerton and Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.

Cragg is exhibiting new and recent sculptures, many for the first time on British soil, including large-scale works in bronze, stainless steel, aluminium and fibreglass installed in the grounds.

*Tony Cragg’s 2015 fibreglass sculpture Over The Earth, the first ever to stand on the 18th century plinth in the Ray Wood reservoir at Castle Howard. Picture: Nick Howard*

Inside the house are works in bronze and wood, as well as ten glass sculptures, presented alongside Cragg’s works on paper. Sculptures are displayed in the Great Hall, the Garden Hall, the High South, the Octagon and the Colonnade.

‘The invitation to do an exhibition at Castle Howard is a special one and I am delighted to present work here,” says the 1988 Turner Prize winner, who has lived in Wuppertal, Germany, since 1977.

“Within the beautiful landscape and historical architecture of this place, between nature and history, it is interesting to see where new and contemporary forms find a place and what role they might play.”

*Sculptor Tony Cragg, centre, Nick Howard and Victoria Howard in the Great Hall at Castle Howard. Picture: Charlotte Graham*

Welcoming Cragg to Castle Howard, Victoria and Nicholas Howard say: “We’ve always loved the work of Tony Cragg and are delighted that the first contemporary sculpture exhibition here should be dedicated to him. Castle Howard is renowned for its wonderful collection of classical sculpture, and it is fascinating to see how Cragg’s work interplays with the collection and highlights the wonder and relevance of this art form for today’s audiences.”

At the highest point in the grounds, a plinth in the middle of the 500,000-gallon Ray Wood reservoir had never been used for a display since its 18th century construction, but now it plays host to Cragg’s 2015 sculpture Over The Earth in its first British showing and outdoor debut, enhancing the plinth’s counterbalance to the obelisk in architect John Vanbrugh’s design.

Two new outdoor works make their debut: Industrial Nature (2024), an aluminium sculpture that suggests hybrid forms both grown and made by machines, on the south side, and Masks(2024), a bronze sculpture of two forms, sliding tightly into each other to create an image of inseparability, on the north side.

*Tony Cragg with his 2024 aluminium sculpture Industrial Nature. Picture: Charlotte Graham*

Head to the Temple of the Four Winds to see Eroded Landscape, a 1999 work made from pre-existing objects, in this case sand-blasted vessels, bottles, jars, wine glasses. Fitting, by chance, bang in the centre of the floor mosaic, it may look alarmingly fragile yet has a robustness to it too. Twice a week, a cleaning team is sent up there to remove flies.

“That work needs shelter and the temple is a perfect place to put a fragile work in – and the light in there is beautiful,” says Tony.

Typified by Versus (2015), Senders (2018) and Points Of View (2018), Tony Cragg At Castle Howard celebrates his sculptural imagination, the fascinating ways his sculpture sits within historic landscape and architectural settings and his diversity of materials, all playing to the theatricality and playfulness of architect and playwright Vanbrugh’s design.

*Tony Cragg with Points Of View, stainless steel, 2018*

“It was two years ago that I first came here, saw the house and grounds and got into a discussion about what we could do here – and sculptures tend to be a little bit time consuming,” says Tony, recalling the genesis of his show.

“I like to work on a lot of works at the same time, continuing to develop works with ideas that I’ve come up with that I want to work on further, or new ideas where I want to see where they lead me – excepting that at 75 you don’t have time to waste!

“Once there’s a history of making work, you know how to do things, and a lot of things are done in the drawing stage, so I eliminate plenty of roads that I don’t have to go down at that point. I’ll start with small works and if I can find something meaningful, I’ll go on with it, and it might change and develop into a larger one – but sometimes you just have to let an idea go.”

*Versus, bronze, by Tony Cragg, at Castle Howard. Picture: Michael Richter*

Not knowing Castle Howard before his fist visit was “maybe an advantage”. He was struck by the “fantastic” architecture and the cultivated grounds, the “museum piece” sculptures and paintings, but “that’s not what I react to as a sculptor”. “More interesting is the topography,” he says. “What’s important to me over a range of work is the positive dialogue between the ‘situation’, like the façade of the house, and the work.”

Working all summer in his studio in Sweden on his sculptures, Tony has multiple exhibitions converging on each other at present: “Salzburg, Castle Howard, Dusseldorf and….I forget them all!…Venice.”

Tony Cragg At Castle Howard, Castle Howard, near York, until September 22. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.

Tony Cragg: back story

*Tony Cragg with one of his ten glass works at Castle Howard. Picture: Charlotte Graham*

Born: Liverpool, April 9 1949.

Lives: Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Occupation: Sculptor and teacher, exhibiting since 1969.

Full title: Sir Anthony Douglas Cragg CBE RA.

Education: Gloucester, Wimbledon and Royal College of Art, London, from 1969 to 1977. Moved to Wuppertal that year, teaching at Düsseldorf Kunstakademie.

Exhibited at: Tate Gallery, London, 1988; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 1989; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2011; Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, 2013; Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, and Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 2016; Boboli Gardens, Florence, 2019.

Also exhibited in: Berlin, Hamburg, Naples, Genoa, Tokyo, New York, Toronto, Middleburg and plenty more. Took part in in documenta 7 and 8.

1988, what a year: Represented Great Britain at Venice Biennale and won Turner Prize.

*Senders, fibreglass, by Tony Cragg, 2018. Picture: Michael Richter*

Awards: Praemium Imperiale Award, Tokyo, 2007; Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, 2017.

Professorships: Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, where he was director from 2009 to 2013.

Noted for: Using found objects to create sculptures, from seashore flotsam to plastic debris. Making monolithic forms from metal, stone and glass.

In the words of Tony Cragg At Castle Howard curator Dr Jon Wood:

“TONY Cragg’s passionate curiosity about materials and the complex lives of form always shine through his work. For him, sculpture is an amazing means of investigation that can shape human understandings of the world better than any other art form.

“His works are always dynamic, animated by movement, change and transformation. Works like Over The Earth, Runner and Versus sit compellingly in the grounds of Castle Howard – with its wonderful gardens, woods and lakes, historic interiors and collection of antique sculpture – inviting us to see the past through the present and to look at the world afresh.”

May 11, 2024May 16, 2024

More Things To Do in York and beyond when Monet…that’s what you want. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 20, from The Press, York

NATURE in full bloom, hothoused Shakespeare, blossoming student creativity and teenage blues put the colour in Charles Hutchinson’s cheeks for warmer days ahead.

Exhibition of the summer: National Treasures: Monet In York: The Water-Lily Pond, York Art Gallery, in bloom until September 8

*Stewart Dylan-Campbell’s Rob, left, and Aiden Kane’s Marc in Qweerdog Theatre’s Jump, playing Rise@Bluebird Bakery tomorrow*

Relationship drama of the week: Qweerdog Theatre in Jump, at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, tomorrow (12/5/2024), 8.30pm; doors 7.30pm

DEVELOPED through Manchester company Qweerdog’s LGBTQ+ writing project, Nick Maynard’s dark comedy takes an unusual look at contemporary gay life, exploring the possibility of relationships and how they are not always the way we imagine.

Directed by West End director Scott Le Crass, Jump depicts the lives, love lives and past lives of two lost souls drawn to a canal one night. As the weary, embittered Rob (Stewart Dylan-Campbell) contemplates the lure of the water, a handsome young man, the “chopsy” Marc (Aiden Kane), engages him in conversation. So begins a strange and fractious relationship that might just prove beneficial to them both. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.

*Paloma Faith: “Celebrating taking responsibility for your own happiness” at York Barbican tomorrow*

Recommended but sold out already: Paloma Faith, York Barbican, tomorrow, 8pm; Katherine Priddy, The Crescent, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm

STOKE Newington soul tour de force Paloma Faith showcases her sixth studio album, February’s deeply personal The Glorification Of Sadness, her “celebration of finding your way back after leaving a long-term relationship, being empowered even in your failures and taking responsibility for your own happiness”.

Birmingham folk singer and guitarist Katherine Priddy will be promoting second album The Pendulum Swing, released on Cooking Vinyl in February. For the first time, her 14-date May tour finds her performing in a trio, joined by Harry Fausing Smith (strings) and support act George Boomsma (electric guitar).

*Hollie McNish: Performing at the TakeOver festival at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Kat Gollock*

Festival of the week: TakeOver – In The Limelight, York Theatre Royal, May 13 to 18

IN this annual collaboration between York Theatre Royal and York St John University, third-year drama students are put in charge of the theatre and programming its events for a week, with support and mentoring from professionals.

Among those events will be writer Hollie McNish, reading from her latest book, Lobster And Other Things I’m Learning To Love (Thursday, 7.30pm), dance troupe Verve: Triple Bill (next Saturday, 7.30pm) and multiple shows by York St John students. For the full programme, head to: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/be-part-of-it/children-and-young-people/takeover/. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

*Gray O’Brien’s Juror 10, left, and Michael Greco’s Juror 7 in the 70th anniversary production of Twelve Angry Men. Picture: Jack Merriman*

Jury service: Twelve Angry Men, Grand Opera House, York, May 13 to 18, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

IN its 70th anniversary touring production, Reginald Rose’s knife-edge courtroom thriller Twelve Angry Men resonates with today’s audiences with its intricately crafted study of human nature. Within the confines of the jury deliberating room, 12 men hold the fate of a young delinquent, accused of killing his father, in their hands.

What looks an open-and-shut case soon becomes a dilemma, wherein Rose examines the art of persuasion as the jurors are forced to examine their own self-image, personalities, experiences and prejudices. Tristan Gemmill, Michael Greco, Jason Merrells, Gray O’Brien and Gary Webster feature in Christopher Haydon’s cast. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

York debut of the week: Shakespeare’s Speakeasy, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

*Toby Lee: Blues prodigy heads to the Fulford Arms next Saturday*

Blues gig of the week: Toby Lee, Fulford Arms, York, May 18, 7.30pm

BLUES rock prodigy Toby Lee, the 19-year-old Oxfordshire guitarist and singer, will be playing 100 showshome and abroad this year, 40 of them his own headline gigs, 60 as a special guest of boogie-woogie pianist Jools Holand and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra.

The 2023 Young Blues Musician of the Year learned his trade playing Zack Mooneyham in the first West End production of School Of Rock and has since shared stages with his hero Joe Bonamassa, Buddy Guy, Peter Frampton and Slash. First up, Fulford Arms next Saturday, then come Jools engagements at York Barbican on December 1 and Leeds First Direct Arena on December 20. Box office: ticketweb.uk/event/toby-lee-the-fulford-arms-tickets/13366163.

*Her name is Del Rio: And she lives for stand-up comedy as drag queen Bianca feels Dead Inside on York-bound world tour*

Gig announcement of the week: Bianca Del Rio, Dead Inside, York Barbican, September 18

COMEDY drag queen and RuPaul’s Drag Race champion Bianca Del Rio heads to York on her 11-date stand-up tour. Up for irreverent discussion will be politics, pop culture, political correctness, current events, cancel culture and everyday life, as observed through the eyes of a “clown in the gown”, who will be “coming out of my crypt and hitting the road again to remind everyone that I’m still dead inside”. Tickets go on sale on Tuesday at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

May 10, 2024May 11, 2024

REVIEW: Ockham’s Razor in Tess, York Theatre Royal, ends tomorrow *****

*Lila Naruse’s Memory Tess in Ockham’s Razor Tess. Picture: Kie Cummings*

FATE always lands jam side down in Thomas Hardy’s Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, just as it does in Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet.

Yet fate has even decreed that Shakespeare’s star-cross’d lovers should be performed over and over again, whereas this is the first time your reviewer has experienced Thomas Hardy’s Victorian novel on stage.

What a breathtaking, beautiful production it is too, transferring Tess’s turbulence from page to stage as a circus theatre tableau that fuses text with the physical language of dance and circus skills.

Directors Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney filter Hardy’s Wessex story through a feminist lens, one where the sense of loss is heightened but so too is Tess’s endurance. What’s more they give us Tess at the double, each credited as Tess D’Urberville in the programme but delineated as Narrator Tess (Hanora Kamen) and Memory Tess (Lila Naruse) in last week’s interview with CharlesHutchPress.

Hardy’s text is streamlined yet enriched in being edited to 28 pages for Kamen’s Tess, whose every line carries weight and significance, and the crushing sadness of fate playing its hand, as enacted by Naruse’s Memory Tess.

Save for one repetitive fire-and-brimstone exhalation by Joshua Frazer’s guilt-tormented Alec D’Urberville and muffled banter when assembling a wooden framework, the only voice to be heard belongs to Narrator Tess.

The rest is not so much silence as movement, movement that tells the story so movingly, and even humorously at times, such as when Tess and her fellow milk maids (Lauren Jamieson, Victoria Skillen and Shannon Kate Platt) milk cows that take the form of blown-up material to their sound of moos or swoon playfully as Nat Whittingham’s Angel Clare carries them over a river denoted by planks of wood.

The planks are moved regularly by the cast, with the magical grace of Nathan Johnston’s choreography, sometimes to create structures for climbing or balancing on a shoulder, bringing circus skills to the fore but always in thrall to the story.

Tina Bicat’s set and costume design is dazzling throughout, not only those planks, but also the use of knotted and draped material that frames the stage and turns into clothing or the frame of a horse’s for a moonlit ride by Memory Tess.

Everything works in beautiful tandem: the video designs of Daniel Denton that denote each change of scene or provide ever-changing backdrops of the changing weather and moods; the compositions and sound designs of Holly Khan that evoke the beauty of nature and emotional turmoil; the lighting design of Aideen Malone that captures the golden Wessex light.

Every performance shines, individually and collectively, in a performance that reinforces why theatre at its best is an artform like no other in stirring the human senses. Best of all is the finale, Naruse’s Memory Tess in excelsis. Poetic, heroic, Tess as you have never seen her before.

Ockham’s Razor in Tess, York Theatre Royal, tonight and tomorrow at 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.