Whimsical automata maker Philip Wilkinson: Making his York Open Studios debut at 241 Burton Stone Lane, York
THE sun is out for weekend two of the biggest ever York Open Studios but Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage “can’t continue”.
Dormant in the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, now a shortage of locations and manpower has brought down the festival curtain, perhaps permanently, after the scrapping of the 2022 event in the North Yorkshire fishing village.
Blame the “staycation effect” that fills the cottages all year round, squeezing out artists, say the organisers of this volunteer-run event. “We feel that the model we based the SFAH on is no longer workable and that if the festival were to come back in any form it would need a radical re-think,” reads the official announcement. “We regret we must cancel SFAH 2022 and for the foreseeable future.”
Two Bigs Egos In A Small Car arts podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson discuss the contrasting fortunes of these two long-running celebrations of northern art and crafts in Episode 85.
What else is bothering the chatty art duo? Under discussion are: Oscars 2022, the fallout; Sheffield Leadmill’s future; Michael Bay’s hyper-action movie Ambulance; writer Harry Sword versus Public Service Broadcasting; Magritte, the back story. Oh, and what is Clifford’s Tower?
“It’s a magical feeling we can only get from live music. Let’s go! ” says Imelda May as she returns to York Barbican
IRISH singer-songwriter and poet Imelda May plays York Barbican tomorrow in the only Yorkshire show of her first major UK tour in more than five years.
“I cannot wait to see you all again, to dance and sing together, to connect and feel the sparkle in a room where music makes us feel alive and elevated for a while,” said the Dubliner when announcing the Made To Love itinerary last April. “It’s a magical feeling we can only get from live music. Let’s go!”
Imagine how she feels, a year on from that “Let’s go!” invocation, as Imelda at last has the chance to promote her sixth studio album, last April’s 11 Past The Hour.
“I’m absolutely chomping at the bit to perform these songs live because normally you put out the album, go out on tour at that time, and see the songs grow as you play them,” says Imelda, 47.
“But until now, I’ve not really played any of them live, apart from Made To Love at a couple of things. When you start playing them, it can change suddenly what you might release as the next single, as you see what people enjoyed, but with this album I had to release them blindly as there couldn’t be any comeback from audiences. So, it’ll be interesting to see which ones they most react to, now I’m touring again.”
The cover artwork for Imelda May’s 2021 album, 11 Past The Hour
On a record that “brims with sensuality, emotional intelligence, spirituality and intuition”, Imelda collaborated with Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, Noel Gallagher, Miles Kane and Niall McNamee.
“Niall is a wonderful Irish musician and actor and it was Ronnie [Wood] who introduced him to me because he was acting in a play by Ronnie’s wife, and we got on so well, we started writing together,” says Imelda.
The duet Don’t Let Me Stand On My Own resulted, with its theme of mental health, sticking together and holding on together. Lo and behold, Imelda and Niall are indeed not standing alone. “We fell in love over the kitchen table and we’re still together,” she says.
Imelda is grateful to Ronnie Wood for that post-show introduction but more besides. “It’s great to have Ronnie on the record, playing on Just One Kiss and Made To Love. I’ve known him since I was 16,” she says. “I’d never gone to music college or state schools; I just jammed at clubs, and I’d just started playing at this little club when Ronnie turned up and we ended up playing Rollin’ & Tumblin’ together.
“Later, I toured with Jeff Beck, who introduced me to Ronnie, saying ‘I don’t if you remember Imelda’, but he did!”
Artwork for Imelda May’s 2017 top five album, Life. Love. Flesh. Blood
Noel Gallagher co-wrote and sings on Just One Kiss while Miles Kane features on What We Did In The Dark. “Miles has been a friend for a long time and Noel is a good friend too,” says Imelda.
Feminist thinkers and activists Gina Martin and Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu contribute to Made To Love. “Gina does incredible work and it’s the same with Dr Shola, who is so eloquent and elegant and makes so much sense,” says Imelda.
“I was writing this song about how we’re made to love, because if we don’t look for love, what are we aiming for, especially now? I’m a living thing! Love is a living thing!
“I was looking for backing vocalists and decided I’d get in touch with Gina and Shola after they really captured our attention and hearts at this beautiful event for International Women’s Day.
“I said, ‘do you sing because I need your heart and passion on this song?’, and they agreed to do it with. We had to be [socially] distanced for the recording with all the doors open. Absolutely freezing, but it was worth it.”
Imelda’s record company, Decca Records, were favouring Diamonds for a single, but Graham Norton asked specifically for Made To Love for Imelda’s performance on his BBC One chat show, and it duly became the single.
Imelda loves being creative. “The writing process is like giving birth. Suddenly something exists that didn’t exist this morning,” she says. “I love it when my brain fires up and a song flows out.
“Then you start working on the artwork and the videos, the songs get to live and that’s another chapter starting. Then you work on how the songs will sound live, which is a very different creative process from studio recordings, especially when we were recording remotely in lockdown.”
Imelda’s creativity has expanded to poetry, as heard on her 2020 EP, Slip Of The Tongue, and printed in last October’s A Lick And A Promise. “Absolutely 100 per cent, poetry will feature in the show,” she says. “When the book came out, the reaction was unprecedented, I was told. The print runs sold out three times. They flew out the door!
“Working on poems for the EP with beautiful string arrangements behind them, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, I can tell you.”
Now is the time for May in April, songs, poems and all, at York Barbican tomorrow.
Imelda May: Singer, songwriter, poet and multi-instrumentalist
Imelda May fact file
Full name: Imelda Mary Higham.
Born: July 10 1974, in The Liberties area of Dublin.
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, poet and multi-instrumentalist who plays bodhrán, guitar, bass guitar and tambourine.
Breakthrough: Discovered by boogie-woogie pianist Jools Holland, who asked her to tour with him.
Performed duets with: U2, Lou Reed, Sinead O’Connor, Robert Plant, Van Morrison, Jack Savoretti, Noel Gallagher and Elvis Costello.
Featured on albums and live tours with: Jeff Beck, Jeff Goldblum and Ronnie Wood.
Studio albums: No Turning Back, 2003; Love Tattoo, 2008; Mayhem, 2010; Tribal, 2014; Life. Love. Flesh. Blood, 2017; 11 Past The Hour, 2021.
Branching out: In the cauldron of 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, she released her poem You Don’t Get To Be Racist And Irish. Sentiment adopted by Irish government’s ReThink Ireland campaign on billboard displays.
What Imelda did next: Released reflective nine-poem Slip Of The Tongue EP, set to uplifting soundscape. May addressed themes of home and love, feminism, harsh realities of life, defiance, lovelorn longing and escapism.
Book: A Lick And A Promise, debut collection of 104 poems, including two each by her father and young daughter, published in October 2021.
York gigs: February 2009, at The Duchess, in bequiffed retro-rockabilly days; November 2011, York Barbican debut; May 2017, York Barbican, promoting post break-up album Life. Love. Flesh. Blood.
Imelda May plays York Barbican tomorrow (6/4/2022) at 7.30pm on her Made To Love Tour. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk or on 0203 356 5441.
TWO Big Egos In A Small Car culture-vulture podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson reflect on drummer Bobby Elliot still keeping time for The Hollies, defying stiffened fingers as the legendary Manchester hitmakers bring their 60th anniversary tour to York Barbican this spring.
Up for discussion too in Episode 83 are stubborn Covid’s unceasing impact on the live arts; Michael Bracewell’s London 80s’ and 90s’ scene book, Souvenir; U2’s Achtung Baby at 30 and Ed Sheeran’s copyright case.
Quick step: Jake Quickenden as dancing cowboy Willard in Footloose The Musical at York Theatre Royal
FROM Holding Out For A Hero to Search For The Hero, Charles Hutchinson is on a quest to find heroic deeds and much else to entertain you.
Musical of the week: Footloose at York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday
DANCING On Ice champ Jake Quickenden rides into York as cowboy Willard and musicals stalwart Darren Day plays Reverend Moore in Racky Plews’s touring production of Footloose The Musical.
Reprising the 1984 film’s storyline, teenage city boy Ren is forced to move to the rural American backwater of Bomont, where dancing and rock music are banned. Taking matters into his own hands, soon he has all hell breaking loose around him and the whole town on its feet.
The set design, by the way, is by Sara Perks, who designed York Theatre Royal’s open-air show Around The World In 80 Days last summer and Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in York. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Reunited: EastEnders soap stars Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett in the chilling thriller Looking Good Dead
Thriller of the week: Looking Good Dead, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday
AFTER playing bickering husband and wife Ian and Jane Beale in EastEnders for years and years, Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett are re-uniting, this time on stage in Shaun McKenna’s stage adaptation of Peter James’s thriller Looking Good Dead.
No good deed goes unpunished in this story of Woodyatt’s Tom Bryce inadvertently witnessing a vicious murder, only hours after finding a discarded USB memory stick.
Reporting the crime to the police has disastrous consequences, placing him and his family in grave danger. When Detective Superintendent Roy Grace becomes involved, he has his own demons to face while he tries to crack the case in time to save the Bryces’ lives. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Writer, journalist and historian Simon Jenkins: Appearing at York Literature Festival
Festival event of the week: York Literature Festival presents Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals with Simon Jenkins, St Peter’s School, Clifton, York, tonight, 7pm
FOR Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals, former editor of the Evening Standard and The Times Simon Jenkins has travelled the continent, from Chartres to York, Cologne to Florence, Toledo to Moscow, to illuminate old favourites and highlight new discoveries.
Tonight he discusses the book’s exploration of Europe’s history, the central role of cathedrals in the European imagination and the stories behind these wonders. Box office: yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk.
That Old Devil Moon, by Richard Kitchen, from Navigators Art’s Moving Pictures exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse
Exhibition of the week: Navigators Art in Moving Pictures, City Screen Picturehouse café and first-floor gallery, until April 15
FROM December’s ashes of the Piccadilly Pop Up Collective studios and gallery in the old York tax office, Navigators Art have re-emerged for a spring exhibition at City Screen.
For their first post-lockdown project, founder Navigators Steve Beadle and Richard Kitchen have invited fellow artist and teacher Timothy Morrison to join them for Moving Pictures: From Fan Art To Fine Art.
“The title is deliberately ambiguous, and we’ve responded to it accordingly,” says Richard. “There are works that relate to cinema and other media but also many of which interpret ‘Moving’ in other ways.”
BC Camplight: Examining madness and loss at The Crescent, York
Rearranged York gig of the week: BC Camplight, supported by Wesley Gonzales, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm
MOVED from March 10, BC Camplight’s gig in York highlights the final chapter of his “Manchester trilogy”, Shortly After Takeoff.
“This is an examination of madness and loss,” says BC, full name Brian Christinzio. “I hope it starts a long overdue conversation.”
Fired by his ongoing battle with mental illness, Shortly After Takeoff follows 2018’s Deportation Blues and 2015’s How To Die In The North in responding to BC’s move from his native Philadelphian to Manchester. Cue singer-songwriter classicism, gnarly synth-pop and Fifties’ rock’n’roll. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps and George Stagnell’s Will Shakespeare in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography
York premiere of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Shakespeare In Love, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 1 to 9
LEE Hall’s 2014 stage adaptation of Shakespeare In Love, the Oscar-winning film written by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman, celebrates the joys of theatre in Pick Me Up’s first show of 2022.
Directed by Mark Hird, it recounts the love story of struggling young playwright Will Shakespeare (George Stagnell) and feisty, free-thinking noblewoman Viola de Lesseps (Sanna Jeppsson), who helps him overcome writer’s block and becomes his muse.
Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will’s love for Viola blossoms, inspiring him to write Romeo And Juliet. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Heather Small: Proud moment at York Barbican
Voice of the week: Heather Small, York Barbican, April 2, 7.30pm
BILLED as “The voice of M People”, soul singer Heather Small will be combining songs from her Nineties’ Manchester band with selections from her two solo albums.
As part of M People, she chalked up hits and awards with Moving On Up, One Night In Heaven and Search For The Hero and the albums Elegant Slumming, Bizarre Fruit and Fresco. The title track of her Proud album has since become a staple at multiple ceremonies.
At 57, she will never be one to rest on her laurels: “If you got the feeling I do when I sing, you’d understand,” she reasons. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Steven Jobson (Jekyll/Hyde) gets to grips with Matthew Ainsworth (Simon Stride) in rehearsals as York Musical Theatre Company director Matthew Clare looks on
Book early for: York Musical Theatre Company in Jekyll & Hyde The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, May 25 to 28
FLOOR rehearsals are well under way for York Musical Theatre Company’s spring production under the direction of Matthew Clare, who is delighted by how the cast is responding and supporting each other.
The epic struggle between good and evil in Jekyll & Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of myth and mystery on London’s fog-bound streets, comes to stage life in Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s pop-rock musical, where love, betrayal and murder lurk at every chilling twist and turn.
YMTC are running an early bird discount ticket offer with the promo code of JEKYLL22HYDE when booking at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk by April 10.
Harkirit Boparai: Taking part in tomorrow’s panel discussion
GIG-GOING: Live Music and Literature Stories will be the focus of a York Literature Festival panel discussion at the Fulford Arms, Fulford Road, York, tomorrow (24/3/2022).
This discussion and celebration of music culture explores how we document live music and the power of stories and publishing to unite music scenes.
Billed as “a must for musicians, reviewers, bloggers, promoters, photographers or anyone who understands the importance of music culture”, this 7.30pm event features a panel of Harkirit Boparai, Sarah Williams and Amy McCarthy.
Harkirit is the venue manager and concert promoter (for Ouroboros) at The Crescent community venue and a vital cog in the Music Venue Trust; Sarah edits Shout Louder, a webzine dedicated to the modern punk scene, and Papercuts, an independently published series of anecdotes about DIY culture; Amy is a PhD student researching music memoirs as part of the York Music Stories project.
The book cover artwork for Lucy Nichol’s The Twenty Seven Club
The panel discussion will be followed by a reading and interview with Newcastle author Lucy Nichol, whose debut novel, The Twenty Seven Club, explores mental health and the media through the 1990s’ music scene in Hull.
Lucy’s story begins with Emma hearing of the tragic death of Kurt Cobain, prompting her to ask why so many musicians died aged 27 [bluesman Robert Johnson, Rolling Stone Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse among them].
Lucy, author, freelance writer, PR and marketing consultant, mental health campaigner, flunked punk and addiction stigma buster, will be discussing her novel’s darkly comic journey of self-discovery, friendship, fandom and hope in conversation with Amy McCarthy.
On the bill too will be spoken-word contributions from Hannah Davies and live music from Jack Woods. Tickets are on sale at yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk or at thefulfordarms.com.
Joanna Holden’s caustic landlady, Mrs Snowball, and Adrian Hood as her franker than frank son, Our Seth, in Hull Truck Theatre’s premiere of Richard Bean’s 71 Coltman Street
TWO Big Egos In A Small Car podcasters Graham Chalmers & Charles Hutchinson discuss Richard Bean’s Hull of a good new play, 71 Coltman Street.
Under debate too are Russia sanctions, Tchaikovsky and the arts; Barenaked Ladies’ non-PC moniker and Benny Hill; Harry Sword’s drone music book, Monolithic Undertow, plus Harrogate’s strangely Hollywood street names.
Sarah Hall: opening event at York Literature Festival
YORK Literature Festival’s celebration of the written and spoken word opens today.
More than 20 live events will be held at venues across the city centre, such as York St John University, St Peter’s School and York Explore Library and Archive.
Running until March 27, the festival launches this evening when two-time Booker Prize nominee Sarah Hall will be in conversation with Professor Abi Curtis at the new York St John University Creative Centre at 7pm, discussing her latest novel, Burntcoat, set in the first pandemic lockdown.
Pioneering reformer and president of the Supreme Court Lady Hale will discuss her autobiography, Spider Woman, A Life, in a free event at The Mount School, Dalton Terrace, tomorrow at 11am. Tickets are required.
Northern Film School graduate, producer of low-budget British horror film Heretic and Saber Productions director Bethany Clift will talk about her debut novel, Last One At The Party, and dystopian fiction with festival chair Dr Rob O’Connor at York Explore, Museum Street, tomorrow at 11am.
To be closer to the Brontes, Michael Stewart began walking the historic paths they trod while writing their most famous works, leading to his book Walking The Invisible: Following In The Brontes’ Footsteps. He will be appearing at York Explore tomorrow at 2pm in the wake of releasing his latest novel, Ill Will: The Untold Story Of Heathcliff.
After a long career in archaeology in York, Sarah Maine has drawn on her knowledge of the city’s vibrant past for her fifth novel, The Awakenings, set in two timeframes, the 790s and 1890s. Written when she was confined to York in the lockdowns, it now forms the subject of her In Conversation event at St Peter’s School, Clifton, tomorrow at 7pm.
Amanda Owen: The Yorkshire Shepherdess will be in conversation on Sunday
Martin Figura and Helen Ivory will host the Try A Little Tenderness writing workshop at York Explore on Sunday from 2pm to 5pm, when they will explore how to write with feeling about those we care about without slipping into sentimentality.
The workshop price (£30) includes a ticket to writer-poet Figura and poet-artist Ivory’s poetry reading on Sunday at 7pm at the Hungate Reading Café, Hungate. The duo set up their Live From The Butchery online spoken-word series during lockdown.
The Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda Owen, from Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm documentary series, will be in conversation with BBC Radio York’s Elly Fiorentini at St Peter’s School on Sunday at 7pm. The focus will be on her latest book, Celebrating The Seasons, part photography book, part recipe book and part family and farming memoir.
On Monday, at 7pm, St Peter’s School will play host to The Sunday Times’ Insight investigators Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott as they discuss Failures Of State, their exposé of the Conservative Government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis: “one of the most scandalous failures of political leadership in British history”, they contend.
Female writers Jane Austin, Janet Dean Knight and Yvie Holder will explore ordinary lives against a backdrop of momentous global events, through poetry, fiction and memoir, in Encore Careers! Readings and Conversations on Tuesday at 7pm at Hungate Reading Café.
Creative writing students and staff at York St John University present Wednesday’s Beyond The Walls Student Showcase of readings at the Lord Mayor’s Walk campus in a free event at 7pm, but with tickets required via the festival website or at yorksj.ac.uk/events.
This showcase celebrates the annual Beyond The Walls anthology project , hosted and organised by students.
Further details on York Literature Festival will follow. For tickets and the full programme, go to: yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk.
2,000 shows and counting: Kristian Lavercombe, as Riff Raff, far right, clocks up another milestone in The Rocky Horror Show on its return to York . Picture: David Freeman
LET’S do The Time Warp again? It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to right, to enjoy plenty more of Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations.
Fancy dress invitation of the week: Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday
KRISTIAN Lavercombe celebrates his 2,000th performance as Riff Raff as Richard O’Brien’s 1973 musical extravaganza enjoys yet another York run.
Alongside Lavercombe in Christopher Luscombe’s touring production will be 2016 Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba as preppy college nerd Brad Majors, Haley Flaherty as squeaky-clean fiancée Janet Weiss and Stephen Webb as castle-dwelling Transylvanian transsexual doctor Frank-N-Furter.
Cue fabulously camp fun and even camper costumes, shlock-horror comedy and science-fiction send-ups, audiences in fancy dress and sassy songs such as Sweet Transvestite, Science Fiction/Double Feature and The Time-Warp singalong. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
New Beverly Cinema, by Imogen Hawgood, at According To McGee, York
Exhibition launch of the week: Imogen Hawgood and Horace Panter, Hyperrealism in America and Japan, at According To McGee, Tower Street, York, from 11am today until March 25
NEW According To McGee signing Imogen Hawgood, from County Durham, introduces her collection of realist paintings in a duo show with Pop artist and Ska legend Horace Panter, The Specials’ bassist.
Panter’s Edward Hopper-inspired depictions of Midwest motels, inner-lit Japanese kiosks and sun-warmed Coca-Cola crates complement Hawgood’s exploration of Americana icons and the idea of “the road” as a transitional landscape.
The vampire strikes back: Steve Steinman’s Baron von Rockula with his vampettes in Vampires Rock – Ghost Story
Rock horror show: Steve Steinman’s Vampires Rock – Ghost Train, Grand Opera House, York, tonight (12/3/2022), 7.30pm
NOTTINGHAM singer and producer Steve Steinman returns to York with his tongue-in-cheek show stacked high with rock anthems, guitar gods and vampy vampettes.
Steinman’s Baron von Rockula and his vampires take refuge in an old fairground’s ghost train as he seeks a new virginial wife after the death of his beloved Pandora. Ordering faithful sidekick Bosley to find him one, enter Roxy Honeybox.
Now in its 20th year, Vampires Rock sets a cast of singers, dancers and musicians loose on Queen, AC/DC, Bonnie Tyler, Meat Loaf, Bon Jovi, Journey and Guns N’ Roses chestnuts. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Glenn Tilbrook: Squeezing in hit after hit at The Crescent
York gig of the week: Glenn Tilbrook, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
THIS is a standing show…and an outstanding one too as endearing and enduring Deptford singer, songwriter, guitarist and troubadour Glenn Tilbrook makes his debut appearance at The Crescent.
More than 45 years after he first answered an ad placed by Chris Difford looking for like-minded sorts to form the band that became the evergreen Squeeze, an ending is nowhere in sight, even if he called his fourth solo album Happy Ending in 2014. Expect silver-tongued Squeeze and solo numbers, peppered with audience requests, tomorrow night.
Squeeze up, by the way, because this Gig Cartel-promoted gig has sold out. Fingers crossed for any returns (www.thecrescentyork.com), but otherwise you’re really up the junction for a ticket.
Alexander McCall Smith: Delving into his books at York Theatre Royal
Literary event of the week: Alexander McCall Smith, York Theatre Royal, Monday, 7.30pm
YORK Literature Festival plays host to Alexander McCall Smith as he discusses the new instalment in his long-running Scotland Street series, the warm-hearted, humorous and wise Love In The Time Of Bertie.
Fiona Lindsay pops the questions, intertwined with footage shot on location in Edinburgh, wherein McCall Smith invites guests into his study, where he writes surrounded by paintings and books, and visits key landmarks from the books.
The festival follows from March 18 to 27 with full details at yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
NOT Thu 17 March 2022 after all: It’s different for Joe Jackson now as York gig moves to the summer
Postponement of the week: Joe Jackson, Sing, You Sinners! Tour, York Barbican, moving from March 17 to July 29
BLAME Covid for this delay to only the second ever York concert of singer, songwriter and consummate arranger Joe Jackson’s 44-year career.
“After months of uncertainty, it finally became clear that continuing Covid restrictions (particularly on venue capacity) in certain countries, would make our Spring European Tour un-viable as planned,” says Jackson’s official statement. “We can’t tour at a loss, and the situation did not look like changing soon enough.”
Tickets remain valid for the new July 29 date when Jackson promises hits, songs not aired in years and new material. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Sam Freeman: Thirty years of love burst out of his storytelling show in Harrogate and York
Storytelling show of the week: Sam Freeman, Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention), Cold Bath Brewery Co Clubhouse, Harrogate, Monday, 7.30pm; York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm
FORMER York Theatre Royal marketing officer and 2009 TakeOver Festival co-director Sam Freeman heads back to his old stamping ground with his solo rom-com for the lonely hearted and the loved-up, armed with a projector, a notebook, wonky spectacles and nods to Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill.
Freeman, marketeer, occasional writer, director and stand-up comedian, combines storytelling and whimsical northern comedy in his multi-layered story of a chance encounter between two soulmates, how they fall in love, then part but may meet again. Box office: Harrogate, harrogatetheatre.co.uk; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
For Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers’ interview with podcast special guest Sam Freeman, head to the Two Big Egos In A Small Car listening link at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10231399.
Off to the woods: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It
Shaking up Shakespeare: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Tuesday to Saturday; York Theatre Royal, March 23 to 26
MARKING Northern Broadsides’ 30th anniversary, artistic director Laurie Sansom’s diverse cast of 12 northern actors captures the “sheer joy of live performance and the crazy power of love to change the world” in his bold, refreshing take on Shakespeare’s most musical comedy.
Exiled from the court, high-spirited Rosalind, devoted cousin Celia and drag queen Touchstone encounter outlaws, changing seasons and life unconfined by rigid codes in the forest.
Gender roles dissolve and assumptions are turned on their head in a natural world of endless possibilities. Box office: Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Lola May as daughter Aramide, Oyi Oriya as mother Omotola and Anni Domingo as grandmother Agbeke in Utopia Theatre’s Here’s What She Said To Me
Touring show of the week: Utopia Theatre in Here’s What She Said To Me, York Theatre Royal Studio, Thursday and Friday, 7.45pm
MEET Agbeke, Omotola and Aramide, three generations of proud African women connecting with each other across two continents, time and space, in Oladipo Agboluaje’s distaff drama, conceived and directed by York St John University graduate Mojisola Elufowoju.
Together the women share their struggles, their joys, tragedies and broken dreams, in order to find healing in the present. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Fan-tasia : Becky Gee, curator of fine art at York Museums Trust, at the Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Love & Legacy exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham
FROM an ice trail to Spring Awakening, a very happy pig in mud to sibling rivalry in a salon, Charles Hutchinson points you in the right direction for days and nights out.
Exhibition opening of the week: Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Love & Legacy, York Art Gallery, until June 5
YORK Art Gallery’s spring exhibition, in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery and Sheffield Museums, explores the lives and work of the extraordinary Bloomsbury writers, artists and thinkers.
Active in England in the first half of the 20th century, they included the writer and feminist pioneer Virginia Woolf and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, as key figures.
On show are more than 60 major loans of oil paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs by Bell, Dora Carrington, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Gwen Raverat and Ray Strachey, plus four commissions from Sahara Longe, painted in response to the Bloomsbury legacy, and Bloomsbury-inspired murals and fireplaces designed by graphic artist Lydia Caprani.
York Ice Trail: Thrills in chills this weekend
Spectacle of the week: York Ice Trail, today and tomorrow
MAKE IT York and Visit York invite you to “pack your suitcase, grab your passport and embark on a journey around the world” in the return of the York Ice Trail.
Sculptures of solid ice await discovery at 43 locations this weekend, inspired by international cultures and a love of travel. Live carving is promised too.
In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the National Railway Museum has withdrawn its Faberge’s Trans-Siberian Railway Egg in Low Petergate, but a newly added ice sculpture in support of Ukraine will be on display in St Helen’s Square.
Giovanni Pernice: This is him in This Is Me!, on tour at York Barbican on Wednesday
Dance show of the week: Giovanni Pernice: This Is Me!, York Barbican, 7.30pm
AFTER partnering Rose Ayling-Ellis to Glitterball Trophy success in the 2021 series of Strictly Come Dancing, Giovanni Pernice pays homage to the music and dances that inspired his journey from competition dancer to television favourite.
“I just want to try and do something different, something that you haven’t seen before,” says Sicilian stallion Pernice, 31. “I want to challenge myself and show off my hidden talents.” Cue ballroom and Latin dances and more besides. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Peppa Pig in her dressing room, awaiting her call for the Best Day Ever
Children’s show of the week: Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 1pm and 4pm; Thursday, 10am and 1pm
PEPPA Pig is so excited to be heading off on a special day out with George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig in a road trip full of adventures, songs, games and laughter.
From castles to caves, dragons to dinosaurs, ice creams to the obligatory muddy puddles, there will be something for all the family to enjoy. Look out for Miss Rabbit, Mr Bull and Gerald Giraffe too on “the best day ever for Peppa Pig fans”. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
Hair-larious: Buglight Theatre turn the Bronte sisters into salon stylists in Jane Hair
Salon appointment of the week : Buglight Theatre in Jane Hair: The Brontes Restyled, York Theatre Royal, Studio, Thursday, 7.45pm
SIBLING rivalry meets literary debate one explosive evening when stylists Anne, Emily and Charlotte Bronte cut, colour and style while sharing their hopes and dreams in Bradford’s most creative beauty salon.
Buglight Theatre writers Kirsty Smith and Kat Rose-Martin offer this chance to meet the modern-day versions of three determined young women from Yorkshire who set the literary world on fire. For returns only, ring 01904 623568.
Josh Liew and Amy Hawtin: Playing the leads, Melchior Gabor and Wendla Bergman, in Central Hall Musical Society’s Spring Awakening at Theatre@41
Musical of the week: Central Hall Musical Society in Spring Awakening, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday and Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm, 7.30pm
CENTRAL Hall Musical Society (also known as CHMS, York), from the University of York, present Duncan Sheik and Steven Slater’s 2006 rock musical revamp of a once-banned Frank Wedekind play, directed by Abena Abban.
A group of teenagers in a small German village in 1891 find the oppressive structures upheld by their parents and teachers to be at odds with their own awakening sexuality.
Spring Awakening explores themes of sex, puberty, coming of age and a yearning for a more progressive future, refracting old-fashioned values through a 21st-century lens. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Le Navet Bete’s motley crew of pirates in Treasure Island at York Theatre Royal
Family show of the week; Le Navet Bete in Treasure Island, York Theatre Royal, Thursday, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
LAST in York last September to reveal a vampire’ secrets in Dracula: The Bloody Truth, physical comedy company Le Navet Bete now go in search of buried treasure in a swashbuckling family adventure, Treasure Island.
Peepolykus artistic director and writer John Nicholson directs a cast of four, playing 26 characters in a fresh take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale laced with contemporary comedic twists, tropical islands, an unusual motley crew of pirates, a parrot called Alexa (straight from the Amazon), a white-bearded fish finger tycoon and unforgettable mermaid. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
David Ford: Living in interesting times at Pocklington Arts Centre on Thursday
Gig of the week outside York: David Ford, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm
WHAT happens when you shut a creative force in a room for two years? The answer is a tornado blast of a new album from Eastbourne singer-songwriter David Ford documenting the tumultuous events of 2020 and 2021, as he charts the rise of Covid and fall of Trump, although both are still stubbornly refusing to go away.
Ford will air songs from the imminent May You Live In Interesting Times, along with compositions written in two days and recorded in one with American support act Annie Dressner. Look out for their six-track EP on sale at the Pock gig. Box office: 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Bagged up: The artwork for Black Country, New Road’s second album, Ants From Up There
AS Black Country, New Road head out of the departing Isaac Wood’s song world, podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson review sophomore album Ants From Up There and ponder where they might roam next, now they are six.
Under debate too in Episode 79 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car are PJ O’Rourke’s righteous literary legacy; Peter Jackson’s newly revealing Beatles rooftop concert film and American musicians’ love of British indie acts.
