Hands Up who wants to play another role: Lucy Keirl playing parts by the dozen in Murder For Two. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
MURDER For Two is the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s first in-house production of 2016, and what a burst of spring sunshine it provides before a June run at the Bolton Octagon, the show’s co-producers.
Whatever zest multi-role-playing Lucy Keirl is on, we’ll all have what she’s having, please, through the summer ahead.
SJT debutant Tom Babbage is equally restless in Officer Marcus Moscowicz’s pursuit of her “Suspects” – all 12 of them! – in Joe Kinosian & Kellen Blair’s breathless Broadway musical whodunit.
You might think the balance of roles sounds unfair – one versus a dazzling, dizzying dozen – but in reality they are both all hands on deck and indeed sometimes all hands on piano too in this “madcap murder mystery”.
Window of opportunity: Lucy Keirl in another of her 12 roles in Murder For Two. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
What’s more, Murder For Two has more layers than a spectacularly tiered cake. Keirl and Babbage must construct the performance as a one-take recording in a BBC Broadcasting House radio studio in 1959, audience applause cue cards et al.
On top of all that, they have to be their own Foley artists too, providing all manner of sounds, even dog barks and cat screeches, while engineering their way around Jess Curtis’s wondrously crowded set, with its grand piano, doorway, window frame, table of bizarre sound-effect equipment, piano seat and more besides.
No opportunity for a flurry of Foley skills is left unexplored, right down to Keirl finding an excuse to create the buzz of a fly with yet another concoction.
Keirl and Babbage are billed as “putting the laughter into manslaughter”, but Kinosian (book and music) Blair (book and lyrics) deliver humour far wittier than that clunky pun.
Tom Babbage’s Officer Marcus Moscowicz behind the Foley artist tricks of the trade in Murder For Two. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Where’s the murder, you ask? Here it comes. When famous novelist Arthur Whitney is found dead at his birthday party, the detectives are out of town: the perfect chance for Babbage’s neighbourhood cop, Officer Marcus Moscowicz, to put his dreams of climbing the ranks into urgent, indeed over-zealous action.
Up against the clock, methodical martinet Marcus will strive to prove his super sleuthing skills and solve the crime before the real detective arrives, all while bursting into song or leaping to the piano to take over from Keirl or join her on the ivories.
Familiar to SJT audiences from her Mandy, Delia and Herald in Nick Lane’s 2022 Christmas show Cinderella and Clown Two chameleon in The 39 Steps in 2023, now Keirl moves between myriad characters, voices and mannerisms, each change conducted in plain sight. Extraordinary!
Clever, silly, or deftly daft if you prefer, Murder For Two may confuse initially but you will soon pick up the distinctive features of each suspect, all while enjoying the show’s stylistic shifts between the 1950s and 1940s, and the myriad musical styles with echoes of everything from Cabaret to Victoria Wood, Irving Berlin to Shirley Bassey in ballgown belter mode.
Tom Babbage’s Officer Marcus Moscowicz makes an announcement in Murder For Two. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
The interplay of Babbage and Keirl is an utter delight, whether on piano or in song, and especially in their comedic camaraderie, where they are never afraid to ski off-piste, to riff off a mistake, or capitalise on the unexpected, like when Keirl’s watch breaks.
In the words of director Caroline Leslie, making such a fabulous SJT debut, “Murder For Two is a tour de forceof musical mayhem and a wildly ambitious creative challenge, and we couldn’t have assembled a better acting company and creative team to bring this absurdly joyful play to life.”
Every show will be different, Babbage and Keirl will make sure of that, but the constants will be the high quality of Simon Slater’s musical supervision and sound and Leslie’s abundantly playful direction, complemented by Emily Holt’s dashing movement direction.
Whodunit? Who cares! Let’s just say it would be a crime to miss Keirl and Babbage’s double act.
Murder For Two, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, running amok until April 18. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Murder For Two duo Tom Babbage and Lucy Keirl in the best double-act combination of piano and bowler hat since Laurel & Hardy in The Music Box. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Oliver Davis, Amber Wadey, Connor Keetley and Abigail Bailey in The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show. Picture: Pamela Raith
FROM a very hungry caterpillar to a life-changing musical, a Ritchie Blackmore tribute to Normal poetry, Charles Hutchinson looks on the bright side for spring joy.
Children’s show of the week: ROYO presents The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow, 2pm and 4pm; Friday and Saturday, 11am and 2pm
CREATED by Jonathan Rockefeller, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show features 75 lovable puppets in a faithful 50-minute adaptation of four stories by author/illustrator Eric Carle:Brown Bear, Brown Bear, 10 Little Rubber Ducks, The Very Busy Spider and the titular star of the show. In the cast will be Abigail Bailey, Oliver Davis, Connor Keetley and Amber Wadey. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Nic Cage Against The Machine: A tribute act like no other at The Crescent, York
York tribute act of the week: Nic Cage Against The Machine, The Crescent, York, Friday, 7.30pm
MOVE over Elvana, the covers- band conflation of Elvis and Nirvana. Here comes the even wilder Nic Cage Against The Machine, a tribute to Californian rock band Rage Against The Machine, fronted by an homage to Hollywood’s Nouveau Shamanic method actor supreme Nicolas Cage, with props. Leeds fun punks Moose Knuckle support. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Blackmore’s Blood: Celebrating the hard rock of Deep Purple and Rainbow
Ryedale tribute show of the week: Blackmore’s Blood, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm
BLACKMORE’S Blood exploded on to the scene in 2016 with its tribute to Ritchie Blackmore’s rock years with Deep Purple and Rainbow, combining an authentic sound with a flamboyant stage presence and thrilling theatrics.
Playing not only the classics, every performance is a time machine, transporting audiences back to the glory days of hard rock with electrifying riffs, soaring melodies and Blackmore swagger. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
York Stage cast members in Nik Briggs’s production of Come From Away. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Musical of the week: York Stage in Come From Away, Grand Opera House, York, Friday to April 18, 7.30pm, except Sunday and Monday; 2.30pm, Saturday matinees; 4pm, Sunday matinee
NIK Briggs directs the York premiere of Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s Olivier and Tony Award-winning musical account of the real-life story of 7,000 air passengers being grounded in Canada in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, whereupon the small Newfoundland community of Gander invites these “come from aways” into their lives with open hearts.
Performed by a cast of 19, Come From Away is “more than just a musical,” says Briggs. “It’s a celebration of humanity, resilience and the power of community. Step into a world where kindness conquers all, brought to life with invigorating, electrifying music and stories that will make you laugh, cry, and believe in the goodness of people.” Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Cyril Raymond and Janet Morrison in the poster for Meaningful Films’ documentary Briefest Encounters at City Screen Picturehouse
Film event of the week: Brief Encounter, Briefest Encounters and Q&A, City Screen Picturehouse, York, Friday, 7pm
FRIDAY’S screening of the 80th anniversary restoration of David Lean’s Brief Encounter (PG) will be followed by North Rigton-raised journalist, researcher and filmmaker Joanna Crosse’s new documentary, uncovering the untold love story behind the 1945 film, revealing the hidden past of her grandfather, actor Cyril Raymond, who played Laura’s cuckolded husband Fred.
In an uncanny twist of fate, Raymond had a ‘brief encounter’ with actress Janet Morrison during a transatlantic stage production in 1929 that resulted in a child being born out of wedlock. Cinema myth meets lived experience in Briefest Encounters as interviews, letters, Raymond’s rediscovered diaries and archive material show how interrupted love, inherited silence and duty shaped family lives for generations. Crosse and fellow Meaningful Films filmmaker Luke Taylor will take part in a Q&A afterwards. Box office: picturehouses.com.
Classical pianist Julian Trevelyan: Performing at Helmsley Arts Centre
Classical concert of the week; Julian Trevelyan, Farewell Letters, Helmsley Arts Centre, April 11, 7.30pm
CONCERT pianist Julian Trevelyan performs regularly throughout Europe and in the UK. He moved to France after winning the 2015 Long-Thibaud-Crespin international competition at the age of 16, becoming the youngest prize-winner in the competition’s history. He has since won prizes at international piano competitions such as Leeds, Géza Anda & Horowitz. He will be performing works by Bach, Byrd, Oginski, Beethoven, Schönberg, Strauss/Trevelyan and Mozart. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Jan Brierton and Henry Norma:l: Teaming up for poetry and humour at Helmsley Arts Centre
Poetry at the double: Edge Street Live presents Henry Normal and Jan Brierton, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 16, 7.30pm
WRITER, poet, television & film producer and Manchester Poetry Festival founder Henry Normal is joined by Dubliner Jan Brierton for an evening of poetry and humour. Normal, whose credits include co-writing The Mrs Mertom Show and the first series of The Royle Family, will be reading from his new book A Quiet Promise.
Brierton riffs on modern life, love and friendships, wellness and ageing, rage and domestic exasperation in her poetic reflections on being a wife, mother, daughter, sister and retired raver, plus plenty of stuff about tea, lipstick and biscuits. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Maureen Onwunali: Slam champion in action at Say Owt’s night of poetry at The Crescent in York
Slam champ of the week: Say Owt presents Maureen Onwunali, The Crescent, York, April 17, 7.30pm
YORK spoken-word collective Sat Owt’s guest poet for April’s gathering will be Dublin-born Nigerian poet and two-time national slam champion Maureen Onwunali.
Rich with political observations and carefully crafted verse, her work has been featured by musicians, radio shows and organisations, such as the British Film Institute, Penguin, BBC, Roundhouse, Apples and Snakes, Obsidian Foundation and the Poetry Society. Box office: seetickets.com/event/say-owt-slam-featuring-maureen-onwunali/the-crescent/3588134.
York linocut printmaker and wildlife artist Gerard Hobson with one of his 13 bird boxes for the Castle Howard Easter Family Trail. Picture: David Scott
FROM a bird box trail and Vanbrugh’s architecture at Castle Howard to Horrible Histories in concert and a very hungry caterpillar, Charles Hutchinson embraces Easter’s extra spring in the step.
Birdlife event of the week: Castle Howard Easter Family Trail, Castle Howard Gardens & Arboretum, near York, until April 19
CASTLE Howard has collaborated with York artist and printmaker Gerard Hobson on a new interactive Easter trail, comprising 13 handmade wooden bird boxes installed for a springtime adventure across Castle Howard Gardens and the Arboretum.
The boxes house Hobson’s linocuts of birds, including swallow, magpie, woodpecker and wren, as part of a story designed for children as they all prepare for spring. “Young explorers will discover interesting facts about our feathered friends and learn more about their homes along the way,” he says. Admission is included in Castle Howard and Arboretum day tickets at castlehoward.co.uk/castlehowardarboretumtrust.org.
James B Partridge: Teaching the world to sing Primary School Bangers at York Barbican. Picture: Rebecca Johnson
“School” concert of the week: James B Partridge, Primary School Bangers, York Barbican, tonight, doors 7pm
TEACHER James B Partridge brings his viral hit show Primary School Bangers to York for a night of massive singalongs, throwback mash-ups and tongue-in-cheek humour. What started in the classroom has become a nationwide phenomenon – from Glastonbury to sold-out theatres – as James leads audiences through the songs that defined school days.
“Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or just someone who remembers every word to He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands, this one’s for you,” he says. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Architect Roz Barr: Curator and designer of Staging The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard. Picture: Carole Poirot
Exhibition of the week: Staging The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard, on show at Castle Howard, near York, until October 31
STAGING The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard celebrates its creator, the architect and playwright Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), on the 300th anniversary of his death.
Designed and curated by architect Roz Barr, the exhibition chronicles the story of the stately home’s creation, exploring Vanbrugh’s visionary use of scale, shadow and light and his creative relationship with the third Earl of Carlisle, as shown in letters by Vanbrugh on public display for the first time. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.
Chris Helme: Showcasing new album Forest For The Trees at Rise@Bluebird Bakery
Recommended but sold out already: Chris Helme, Forest For The Trees Album Launch, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, April 5 and 6, doors 7.30pm
YORK songwriter and former Seahorses frontman Chris Helme plays a brace of official album launch gigs for Forest For The Trees after a busy 2025 touring his World Of My Own album.
Helme returned to the studio to record stripped-back versions of raw, soulful and bruised songs from his 30-year back catalogue. Forest For The Trees is the first of an ongoing series of recordings, showcasing gently crafted versions of Love Me & Leave Me, Standing On Your Head and other Seahorses classics and more besides.
Harrie Hayes’s Queen Elizabeth I makes her point to Richard David-Caine’s William Shakespeare in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Picture: Matt Crockett
“The ultimate first concert for children”: Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage!, York Barbican, April 6, 2.30pm and 6.30pm; April 7, 11am and 3pm
FOR the first time, favourite songs and actors from Horrible Histories’ CBBC TV series will be live – and dead! – on stage in York. When Queen Elizabeth I asks William Shakespeare to create the greatest show on earth, he runs into trouble with monstrous King Henry VIII and Queen Victoria.
Once Death appears, Boudica and Cleopatra want to take over! Can things turn any worse? Of course they can! Cue songs such as Stupid Deaths, Charles II, Dick Turpin and The Monarchs Song, performed to a band led by Horrible Histories’ song master, Richie Webb. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jason Fox: Helping you to reboot your thinking and challenge your limits at York Barbican
Advice of the week: Jason Fox: Embrace The Chaos, York Barbican, April 8, 7.30pm
SOME people are built to embrace the chaos. Adventurer, Royal Marine Commando and UK Special Forces soldier Jason Fox is one of them, having survived myriad hostile outposts as an elite operator, documentary maker and expedition leader.
In his new show, Foxy shares stories of his close brushes with enemy gunmen, terrorist bomb makers and cartel leaders, while revealing his strategies for surviving and thriving in environments as life-threatening as the Arctic Circle and Afghan Badlands. Using principles from his military operations, he will help you to reboot your thinking, challenge your limits, change your habits, transform and rebalance your life – and he will answer audience questions too. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Clowning skills aplenty in Out Of The Box at Helmsley Arts Centre
Family show of the week: Darryl J Carrington in Out Of The Box, Helmsley Arts Centre, April 9, 2pm
DARRYL J Carrington transforms everyday objects into extraordinary adventures in Out Of The Box, where a toothbrush stars in a balancing act, a string sparks a heist and a tea party lands on someone’s head in an hour of joyful chaos, jaw-dropping skill and irresistible fun.
Carrington brings five-star Edinburgh Fringe reviews, the Brighton Fringe’s Best Family Show prize and more than 20 years of circus and clowning experience to his silent comedy’s blend of juggling, inventive physical theatre and audience interaction. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Professor Danny and lab assistant Crazy Kazy in Top Secret’s show The Magic Of Science, High Voltage
Fun experiments of the week: Top Secret in The Magic Of Science, High Voltage, Pocklington Arts Centre, April 9, 2pm
JOIN Top Secret as they go on a high-voltage adventure, The Magic Of Science, to ask the question “Is it magic…or is it science?” in a fast-moving, colourful, interactive show filled with mystery, suspense, experiments and loads of mess.
Danny Hunt and Stephanie Clarke take on the guise of Professor Danny and his lab assistant Crazy Kazy as they fuse the mystery of magic with wondrous and miraculous feats of science. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Abigail Bailey and the meal-seeking caterpillar in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, munching its way through York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith
Children’s show of the week: ROYO presents The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, York Theatre Royal, April 9 to 11; Thursday, 2pm and 4pm; Friday and Saturday, 11am and 2pm
CREATED by Jonathan Rockefeller, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show features 75 lovable puppets in a faithful 50-minute adaptation of four stories by author/illustrator Eric Carle:Brown Bear, Brown Bear, 10 Little Rubber Ducks, The Very Busy Spider and the titular star of the show.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar has delighted generations of readers since its publication in 1969, selling more than 48 million copies worldwide. Telling those tales will be a cast of Abigail Bailey, Oliver Davis, Connor Keetley and Amber Wadey. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Tribute act at the double of the week: Nic Cage Against The Machine, The Crescent, York, April 10, 7.30pm
MOVE over Elvana, the covers- band conflation of Elvis and Nirvana. Here comes the even wilder Nic Cage Against The Machine, a tribute to Californian rock band Rage Against The Machine, fronted by an homage to Hollywood ‘s Nouveau Shamanic method actor supreme Nicolas Cage, with props. “Not sure what more you’re looking for here – if you’re not sold already I don’t know what to tell you,” says The Crescent website. Leeds fun punks Moose Knuckle support. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
York Stage cast members in Come From Away, making its York debut at the Grand Opera House. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Musical of the week: York Stage in Come From Away, Grand Opera House, York, April 10 to 18, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; Saturday matinees 2.30pm; Sunday matinee, 4pm
NIK Briggs directs the York premiere of Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s Olivier and Tony Award-winning musical account of the real-life story of 7,000 air passengers being grounded in Canada in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, whereupon the small Newfoundland community of Gander invites these “come from aways” into their lives with open hearts.
Performed by a cast of 19, Come From Away is “more than just a musical,” says Briggs. “It’s a celebration of humanity, resilience and the power of community. Step into a world where kindness conquers all, brought to life with invigorating, electrifying music and stories that will make you laugh, cry, and believe in the goodness of people.” Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Brief Encounter actor Cyril Raymond and stage actress Janet Morrison, with Nicholas Crosse, the son he never met and was given up for adoption by Janet, a story told for the first time in Joanna Crosse’s documentary Briefest Encounters
Film event of the week: Brief Encounter, Briefest Encounters and Q&A, City Screen Picturehouse, York, April 10, 7pm
NEXT Friday’s screening of the 80th anniversary restoration of David Lean’s Brief Encounter (PG) will be followed by North Rigton-raised journalist, researcher and filmmaker Joanna Crosse’s new documentary, uncovering the untold love story behind the 1945 film, revealing the hidden past of her grandfather, actor Cyril Raymond, who played Laura’s cuckolded husband Fred.
In an uncanny twist of fate, Raymond had a ‘brief encounter’ with actress Janet Morrison during a transatlantic stage production in 1929 that resulted in a child being born out of wedlock. Cinema myth meets lived experience in Briefest Encounters as interviews, letters, Raymond’s rediscovered diaries and archive material show how interrupted love, inherited silence and duty shaped family lives for generations. Crosse and fellow Meaningful Films filmmaker Luke Taylor will take part in a Q&A afterwards. Box office: picturehouses.com.
In Focus: James Graham’s Punch, Leeds Playhouse, April 7 to 11
Jack James Ryan’s Jacob in Punch. Picture: Pamela Raith
OLIVIER Award-winning playwright James Graham’s Punch is a true story of hope, humanity and the possibility of change.
Based on Jacob Dunne book Right From Wrong, it tells Jacob’s story of being a Nottingham teenager from The Meadows estate who spent his Saturday nights seeking thrills with his friends.
One fateful weekend, an impulsive punch leads to fatal consequences. After serving prison time, Jacob finds himself lost and directionless. Searching for answers, Joan and David – the parents of his victim James Hodgkinson – ask to meet, sparking a profound transformation in Jacob’s life.
Jacob’s unflinching account of the power of forgiveness sparked courthouse discussion and parliamentary debate in the House of Commons on the topic of Restorative Justice at the time of Punch’s 2024 premiere at the Nottingham Playhouse. The play was even cited by a judge when sentencing a one-punch case.
Finty Williams, left, Matthew Flynn, Grace Hodgett Young, Elan Butler (hidden), Jack James Ryan and Laura Tebbutt in Punch. Picture: Pamela Raith
Nottingham playwright Graham is one of Great Britain’s most celebrated writers, winning multiple Olivier Awards, as well as receiving BAFTA, Emmy and Tony Award nominations. His political drama This House opened at Leeds Playhouse in 2018. Now he returns to the Leeds theatre from April 7 to 11 with the energetic, entertaining but heartbreaking Punch after runs in London and on Broadway last year.
To complement Graham’s play, a Talking Circle structure will sit front of house to provide a space for audiences to gather and reflect on the performance, while post-show discussions on related themes will be led by expert speakers.
Graham was awarded the Longford Trust’s Kevin Pakenham Award for Punch, joined on the honours’ board by David Shields, winner of the Best Performance in a Play prize at the 2024 UK Theatre Awards 2024 for his lead role in the premiere.
On tour, the role of Jacob will be played by Jack James Ryan (Sing Street, Lyric Hammersmith; Coronation Street, ITV), joined in Adam Penford’s cast by Elan Butler (The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return, Southwark Playhouse and UK Tour; Masters Of The Air, Apple TV+) as Raf and Sam and Matthew Flynn (The Winter’s Tale, Royal Shakespeare Company; Say Nothing, Disney/FX) as David, the father of James Hodgkinson.
Finty Williams’s Joan and Matthew Flynn’s David, James’s parents in Punch. Picture: Pamela Raith
In the company too will be Olivier-nominated Grace Hodgett Young (Sunset Boulevard, Savoy Theatre/St James Theatre; Hadestown, Lyric Theatre) as Clare and Nicola; Laura Tebbutt (Mrs Doubtfire, Shaftesbury Theatre; School Of Rock, Gillian Lynne Theatre) as Jacob’s mum and Wendy and Finty Williams (The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, national tour; Run Away, Netflix) as James’s mother, Joan.
The original creative team returns, including production designer Anna Fleischle (Death Of A Salesman, Broadway; 2:22 A Ghost Story, Young Vic Theatre); lighting designer Robbie Butler (How To Win Against History, Bristol Old Vic; Death In Venice, Welsh National Opera); sound designer and composer Alexandra Faye Braithwaite (Work It Out, HOME; Lost And Found, Factory International) and movement director Leanne Pinder (The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, Mountview; Disruption, The Park Theatre).
Punch is dedicated to the memory of James Hodgkinson and all victims of one punch. “James dedicated his life to the helping and healing,” says playwright James Graham in his programme note. “His 28 years were a testament to his outlook and his values – a volunteer, a mentor, a paramedic. He was loved by his family and friends, and he gave love in return.
“Theatre can and should be a restorative space of empathy, and increased understanding. We hope to honour and do justice to the man James was.”
Nottingham Playhouse, in association with KPPL Productions, Mark Gordon Pictures and Eilene Davidson Productions, presents Punch, Leeds Playhouse, April 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 1pm Thursday and 2pm Saturday matinees. Age guidance: 12 plus. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
PICA Studios artists loading up to move to Walmgate, York
PICA Studios are on the move to Walmgate after nine years in Jackson House at Grape Lane, York, opening in time for York Open Studios.
Based in an historic Georgian building at Unit 4, Enterprise Complex, Walmgate, the new studios will offer painting, printmaking and life drawing, as well as re-housing every PICA artist.
Ceramicist and PICA founding member Emily Stubbs says: “We’ve been searching for nearly a year and it’s been a challenge, but we’ve managed to take all of our artists with us and to offer them better spaces, as well as the opportunity to teach in a lovely workshop room.”
PICA Studios artists Sarah Jackson, left, Emily Stubbs and Lesley Birch carrying the last items out of the Grape Lane studio
Goodbye to the artists’ keys for the Grape Lane studio
Painter and fellow founding member Lesley Birch says: “The rent at Grape Lane was going up and up and it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage. We were having to fund-raise to keep us going and we felt overcrowded too.
“We put out a call on Instagram, saying we hoped to expand, and SPACE, a community-led co-working space located in Walmgate, contacted Emily. They were really helpful in giving us advice and leading us to our new property.“
PICA Studios are run by a committee of six – Lu Mason, Mark Hearld, Lesley Birch, Evie Leach, Ric Liptrot and Emily Stubbs. Leach, Liptrot and Stubbs will be seen, but not Hearld, surprisingly, nay bewilderingly, at York Open Studios on April 18 & 19 and 25 & 26, when PICA artists Lesley Shaw, Katrina Mansfield and Sarah Jackson will be participating too from 10am to 5pm each day.
Out with the old: Artist Ric Liptrot turns his hands to cleaning windows as part of the clear-out at Grape Lane
In with the new: The workshop space at PICA Studios’ studio in Walmgate
Who are the PICA Studios’ artists?
RIC Liptrot; Mark Hearld; Sarah Jackson; Lesley Shaw; Jess Mahy; Jo Edmonds; Lisa Power; Katrina Mansfield; Evie Leach; Lesley Birch; Lu Mason; Emily Stubbs; Andy Winn; Rae George and Ealish Wilson.
On trial: Dan Poppitt’s Leo Frank, front, with Jack James Fry’s defence lawyer Luther Rosser, left, Jack Hooper’s prosecution lawyer Hugh Dorsey and David Copley Martin’s Judge Roan
IN an age of programmes being plucked from the ether via QR codes or reduced to a piece of paper with a cast list and production team, Black Sheep Theatre Productions buck the cost-cutting trend by printing a superb, glossy-covered yet earnest old-school version in A4 size.
Written in the style of a newspaper article for The Atlanta Georgian, the highly detailed two-page synopsis is followed by lead actor Dan Poppitt’s fascinating essay The Truth Behind The Tale, exploring this controversial slice of American history from 1913.
Cast profiles are comprehensive too, revealing the wide range of theatre backgrounds and diverse experience, from Leeds performer and entertainer Reggie Challenger, best known for his Bob Marley and reggae tribute act, to University of York English Literature student Eloise Shneck and theatre, writing, directing and performance student Oskar Nuttall.
Molly Whitehouse’s Lucille Frank and Dan Poppitt’s Leo Frank in Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Parade
Bringing it all together is company founder, director and musical director Matthew Peter Clare, whose programme note speaks of the York company being dedicated to “creating bold, emotionally resonant and artistically ambitious works”, born out of a shared desire to challenge expectations of what amateur theatre can achieve through its depth of storytelling.
Black Sheep are committed to telling “very human stories, interrogating identity, morality, relationships and the complexities of the human condition”, from Elegies For Angels, Punks & Raging Queens to Songs For The New World, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame to Clare’s own work Inner Selves, a study trauma, mental health and fractured bonds, in an exploration of “otherness, politics, prejudice and queer media”.
Parade fits that bill in its 1913 story of the persecution/prosecution of Leo Frank, a studious, eloquent Jewish factory manager from Brooklyn, who had taken up a superintendent’s post at a Marietta pencil factory, near Atlanta, Georgia, swapping New York for the Deep South somewhat cautiously after his wife Lucille’s uncle invites him to join the company. Leo (Dan Poppitt) will end up being charged with the murder of 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan (Eloise Shneck).
Jonny Holbek’s zealot Tom Watson, reprising the role he first played in 2009 for Encore Theatre Productions, this time stepping in at three weeks’ notice
No spoiler alert is required here because Parade is based on a true story, one that ends with Leo’s lynching and clan hanging, but still shocks in its brutality, not least in the starkness applied by Clare, who likes his productions to “place emphasis on substance over spectacle”.
Despite this Tony Award-winning 1998 show being the work of Driving Miss Daisy’s Alfred Uhry and The Last 5 Years’ Jason Robert Brown, the chances are that you may not be familiar with Parade or its Dixie, blues, gospel and R&B songs, given that your reviewer can find only one reference in The York Press files to a past production here.
Directed by Gilly Adam and Craig Kirby and produced by Jenny Scoullar, it formed Encore Theatre Productions’ debut show in the Alan Ayckbourn Theatre at York College in its first and seemingly only York staging in October 2009. Whatever happened to Encore Theatre Productions, by the way?
Jack Hooper’s bent prosecution lawyer Hugh Dorsey holds the floor. In the courtroom shadows are Dan Poppitt’s defendant Leo Frank, left, Jack James Fry’s defence lawyer Luther Rosser and David Copley Martin’s Judge Roan
Parade is back on parade in York at a time of rising media coverage of anti-Semitism, chiming with Leo Frank’s own experience in 1913 when such sentiments were prevalent, against a backdrop of post-American Civil War poverty and prejudice.
Faced by bent prosecution lawyer Hugh Dorsey (Jack Hooper), the salacious reporting of Atlanta Constitution hack Britt Craig (Richard Bayton); the white supremacist poison of zealot politician Tom Watson (Jonny Holbek, reprising his scary 2009 role) and the unreliable testimony of chief prosecution witness Jim Conley (Reggie Challenger), the heavy-drinking factory janitor, how did Leo ever stand the chance of a fair trial?
Within that framework, a re-kindling of a love story plays out between the stern, strict, Hebrew-reciting Leo and his wife Lucille (Molly Whitehouse). She is described as “assimilated” for putting being Georgian first, compromising her Jewish faith in his eyes, only for her to find new strength in adversity when standing by her convicted husband in challenging the verdict by confronting Georgia’s principled Governor, John Slaton (Mark Simmonds).
University of York students Oskar Nuttall and Eloise Shneck in the roles of Frankie Epps and Mary Phagan respectively
The original New York production ran for only 94 performances from 1998 to 1999, but its songs are better than that, all the more so for being placed wholly in the spotlight when the staging and lighting is minimalist (combining most effectively on the bare backdrop to evoke “the old Red Hills “ of Georgia). A raised platform with a hole for Mary Phagan’s coffin and boxes that double as seating suffice for set design.
The impact, therefore, is emotional rather than visual, albeit that physicality plays its part too. Poppitt gives a lead performance of serious, outspoken demeanour, his singing his best yet on the York stage; Whitehouse’s Molly grows ever more impressive in her resolve. Hooper’s Dorsey has plenty of the night about him; Simmonds cuts a lone, principled figure as Slaton; Nuttall and Shneck announce talents to watch.
The multi-role playing choreographer Charlie Clarke, Bayton’s duplicitous reporter Craig, Jack James Fry’s dual roles as defence lawyer and prison guard, Joycelyn Searles Duncan’s Minner McKnight, David Copley Martin’s Judge Roan and Georgina Burt’s lying Iola Stover make their mark too. Challenger’s That’s What He Said is the most characterful, soulful vocal of all.
Molly Whitehouse’s Lucille Frank in discussion with Richard Bayton’s court reporter Britt Craig
Clare leads his eight-piece band with typical conviction, driving its diversity of reeds, horns and strings, topped off by Jez Smith, on particularly striking form on drums and percussion.
Parade remains a brave, stark, challenging musical, delivered in that manner by a progressive York company unafraid to explore, to jolt, to ask questions and demand answers.
Black Sheep Theatre Productions present Parade, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrwontreetheatre.co.uk.
Charlie Clarke: Parade assistant director and choreographer in her role as Mrs Phagan
Cyril Raymond, Nicholas Crosse and Janet Morrison. “Briefest Encounters is about more than one lost love; it’s about three intertwined lives, missed chances and the emotional cost of convention,” says documentary filmmaker Joanna Crosse
A REVELATORY documentary uncovering the hidden love story behind Brief Encounter will receive its northern premiere at City Screen Picturehouse, York, on April 10 at 7pm.
Briefest Encounters – An Untold Love Story has been waiting in the wings for decades to be told and now it will be, when shown in tandem with David Lean’s November 1945 film to mark its 80th anniversary.
North Rigton-raised journalist and filmmaker Joanna Crosse uncovers the secret past of her grandfather, actor Cyril Raymond, who played the quietly cuckolded husband, the crossword-filling Fred Jesson, in the Noel Coward-scripted film.
Through letters, interviews, archive material and diaries re-discovered in a bag at a car boot sale, Crosse’s documentary traces how a real-life ‘Brief Encounter’ between two actors, Raymond and Janet Morrison, during a transatlantic stage production [Josef Suss on Broadway] resulted in a child being born out of wedlock.
The poster for Meaningful Films’ documentary Briefest Encounters – An Untold Love Story
That child, renamed Nicholas Crosse when adopted four years later by a Bradford textile family, was not only brought up in Yorkshire but ended up playing a king alongside Dame Judi Dench’s “forgetful angel” in the 1951 revival of the York Mystery Plays in the Museum Gardens.
He was chairman of the Bradford Area of the York Minster Appeal Fund, assisting the preservation of one of the county’s most important spiritual and architectural landscapes, a contribution marked by a stained glass crest in his name.
Joanna trained as a journalist in Yorkshire and worked in newspapers, radio and television in God’s Own Country at different stages of her career. She and her colleague at Meaningful Films, Luke Taylor, premiered Briefest Encounters on the 80th anniversary of Lean’s film in Bath, where they both live, but York is the first stop on a national tour.
Next Friday’s double bill – the 80th anniversary restoration of Brief Encounter first, then Briefest Encounters – will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the two filmmakers, hosted by BBC Radio York breakfast show presenter Georgey Spanswick.
Documentary filmmaker Joanna Crosse on location in Whitstable, where actress Janet Morrison lived in her last years
Introducing her film, Joanna says: “Two actors meet on a Broadway stage in 1929 and have a passionate affair and the result is a child born out of wedlock. But that boy is never to know or meet his biological father and his mother gives him up for adoption when he is just four years old. This documentary tells the true life love story, which revolves around a series of brief encounters and missed opportunities that in the end take their toll on the lead players.
“Brief Encounter is an iconic film that explores the quiet heartbreak of forbidden love. It captures the emotional turmoil of two strangers who fall for each other but cannot be together. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard brought that heartbreak to life on screen as Laura Jesson and Dr Alec Harvey. But off-screen, a quieter, even more tragic love story was unfolding – one that’s never been told. Until now.”
Joanna continues: “Briefest Encounters is about more than one lost love; it’s about three intertwined lives, missed chances and the emotional cost of convention. It is a testament to a hidden history and a reflection of the very themes that make Brief Encounter timeless: longing, restraint and the heartbreak of what might have been. It shows how interrupted love, inherited silence and duty shaped family lives for generations.”
Joanna has worked for ITV, BBC, IRN, GMTV, C4 and C5 as an on-screen journalist, presenter and Crime Stoppers reporter, has five books to her name, is a voice coach and runs theatrical digs too. Busy, busy! “To be honest, I’ve held on to this story for more than 30 years after my mother gave me the box of my father’s details, to be its custodian,” she says.
Filmmaker Joanna Crosse and actor daughter Sedona Rose during filming for Briefest Encounters. Picture: Meaningful Films
“I’ve always been interested in genealogy. Then last year, I said to Luke, ‘it’s the 80th anniversary of Brief Encounter, we’re just going to have to make this film now’, and we started by going up to Carnforth, where the refreshment room scenes were shot, to make a promo.
“I’ve been researching the story for decades and now all that work over 30 years has been gathered into a one-hour film.”
Joanna recalls how her father knew little of his roots. “My dim memory is of him telling me that he had been told he came from a theatrical family,” she says. “Rumours abounded across Yorkshire that he was a lost Royal love child.” Not so.
Nicholas never met his father, but the documentary reveals how he did “encounter” him when he chose to see a play at Leeds Grand Theatre as his treat on a holiday break from prep school. Who should be in the cast for the premiere of the musical comedy Under The Counter but Cyril Raymond.
Nicholas Crosse and his daughter Joanna on Denton Moor
Nicholas commented “what a wonderful man” he was watching on stage, but such were the laws surrounding adoption, his adoptive family could not tell him of his connection.
Nicholas would go on to work for his family textile business James Hill & Sons, serve on multiple committees and be appointed the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding, as well becoming involved with Norwood Film Productions. .
He died in 1981 at the age of 50. Unlike the actor parents he never knew, Cyril Raymond and Janet Morrison, whose ashes were thrown to the wind, Nicholas Crosse has a commemorative headstone at St Helen’s Church, Denton, on the Yorkshire moorland near Ilkley, where his adoptive family had owned Denton Hall.
“He was always such a wonderful natural actor, always so humorous, always good with people,” says Joanna.
Brief Encounter, Briefest Encounters and Q&A with Meaningful Films’ Joanna Crosse & Luke Taylor, City Screen Picturehouse, York, April 10, 7pm. Box office: picturehouses.com/cinema/city-screen-picturehouse.
Nicholas Crosse’s head stone at St Helen’s Church, Denton
Briefest Encounters: the back story
CYRIL Raymond was a household theatrical name whose credits filled a page of Theatrical Who’s Who. During the Second World War he served as an RAF fighter controller during the Battle of Britain and reached the rank of Wing Commander. He was awarded the MBE in the 1945 Birthday Honours List.
He was married to actress Iris Hoey and then Gillian Lind. Her uncle was William Henry Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff.
Cyril had a brief affair with actress Janet Morrison, who came from a theatrical dynasty. Her grandfather gave Henry Irving his first break and her mother, aunts and brother were all well-known actors and dancers in their day. She spent some years in BBC Rep and was cast in various productions and films.
Actor Cyril Raymond
Cyril and Janet’s son was adopted at the age of four by a Yorkshire textile family and was known as Nicholas Crosse. He became a well-known West Riding business figure and was made Deputy Lord Lieutenant.
He ended his days becoming involved with a film company before dying of a heart attack at 50. He never knew who his biological parents were but loved the theatre all his life, appearing in the 1951 York Mystery Plays, playing a king, alongside Dame Judi Dench (then credited as Judith Dench) as an angel.
He was married with two daughters. Joanna, the eldest, went on a quest to discover her father’s birth family and realised this was a story that had to be told. Her research led her to discover various theatrical documents including Cyril Raymond’s diaries.
Nicholas Crosse in his role as a king in the 1951 York Mystery Plays, pictured at the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey in York Museum Gardens
She was reunited with them when she was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 alongside actor Lucy Fleming, whose mother Celia Johnson played Laura, the wife of Cyril Raymond’s Fred Jesson in Brief Encounter.
Joanna has three children. Her youngest daughter, Sedona Rose, has been an actor since the age of 11 and helped in the search for the truth about her theatrical grandparents.
Nicholas Crosse: A Yorkshire life
Born: November 21 1930. Education: Wellington College, Crowthorne, Berkshire, 1944-1948. Family: Married in 1955; two daughters. Lived at: High Folly, North Rigton, near Leeds. Stage school: New Era Academy of Drama and Music, London. Joined Sir James Hill & Sons Ltd, Bradford wool importers and topmakers as an apprentice, studying all aspects of wool trade. National Service: Commissioned in 10th Royal Hussars (PWO) in Germany. Territorial Army: Yorkshire Hussars. Re-joined Sir James Hill & Sons as an apprentice. Visited all wool-buying centres in Australia and New Zealand. Sales representative for home trade. Appointed export sales manager. Countries visited included North America, Europe, Middle East and North Africa. Elected council member of Wool Industries Research Association. Appointed to main board of Sir James Hill & Sons and sales director for home and overseas markets. Bradford Chamber of Commerce representative on International Wool Textile Organisation and member of British National Committee. Council member and hon. treasurer, Wool Exchange Council, Bradford. Member of the Worsted Committee. Chairman of Sir James Hill & Sons (Export) Ltd.
Nicholas Crosse
Other activities Elected to Council of Bradford Chamber of Commerce. Founder member and senior vice-president of Bradford Junior Chamber of Commerce. President of Bradford Junior Chamber of Commerce. Public relations and press liaison officer, Bradford Junior Chamber of Commerce. Member of Livery of the Company of Merchants of The Staple of England. Committee member of the Institute of Directors, West Riding of Yorkshire Branch. Freeman of the City of London and member of Livery of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen. Member of High Stewards committee of York Minster and chairman of Bradford Area York Minster Appeal Fund. Life member and senator of Junior Chamber International. Founder president of Bradford Division of British Red Cross Society. Treasurer of Bradford City Conservative Association after three years as deputy treasurer. President of Bradford Chamber of Commerce. Mayor of Company of Merchants of the Staple of England. Member of Leeds Regional Hospital Board. Chairman of West Riding Branch of the Institute of Directors and ex-officio member of the council. Council member of West Riding Industrialists’ Council. Chairman of Bradford Area Health Authority. Appointed Her Majesty’s Deputy Lieutenant of West Riding of Yorkshire and City of York. Director of Aire Radio, which applied for I.B.A. franchise. Nominated for High Sheriff for West Yorkshire. Joined Norwood Studios Ltd. Appointed to Board of Norwood Motion Pictures (U.K.) Ltd. Appointed chairman of Wool, Jute and Flax Industry Training Board. Appointed trustee of Industrial Training Foundation.
Nicholas Crosse’s stained glass stained glass crest at York Minster
Your Bard: Richard David-Caine’s William Shakespeare, centre, holds history in his hands as monarchs turn monstrous in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage. Picture: Matt Crockett
FOR the first time in history, favourite songs and actors from the CBBC TV series Horrible Histories will be appearing live – and dead! – on stage in a special concert production. York Barbican awaits on April 6 and 7.
Asked to create the greatest show in history by his boss Queen Elizabeth I, esteemed playwright William Shakespeare has no idea just how much trouble is on its way from such monstrous monarchs as King Henry VIII and Queen Victoria.
Life will hot up even more when Death appears – and now Boudica and Cleopatra want to take over. Can matters worsen still more? Of course they can!
Find out how and why when actors from the BAFTA award-winning television series sing songs from the TV shows such as Funny Stupid Deaths, Charles II, Dick Turpin and The Monarchs Song, to the accompaniment of a live band led by Horrible Histories song master Richie Webb, as the Bard seeks help to save himself from execution.
Horrible Histories: The Concert director and Birmingham Stage Company actor/manager Neal Foster
“The trick about this show is the disaster is unfolding in front of you, so the audience are in on it,” says director Neal Foster. “No-one knows how it’s going to work or whether Shakespeare is going to get away with it or just how disastrous it’s going to because it’s really happening right there.”
On tour from January 23 to April 18, Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage is written by Ben Ward and Claire Wetton, with songs and music by Webb, and is directed by Birmingham Stage Company actor/manager Foster, designed by Jackie Trousdale and choreographed by Lucie Pankhurst.
Foster, the creative force behind all the Horrible Histories Live On Stage adaptations of Terry Deary’s stories since 2005, will be playing Charles II, York Gaol anti-hero Dick Turpin and a Viking.
“These Horrible Histories TV songs have been around for a long time and we feature 16 of the most popular songs in the show,” says Neal. “They’re so loved and no-one around the country’s ever had the chance to see them live on stage and to sing with the actors and join in.”
Neal Foster’s dapper King Charles II in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage!Picture: Richard Southgate
Neal has brought together two worlds, television and stage, for the concert tour. “Part of the reason this production has happened is because in 2023 we got together with Lion Television [producers of the BBC series] to create ‘Orrible Opera for the BBC Proms,” he says. “It was a huge success and, more important, we had a lot of fun and found we complemented each other very well.”
Neal recalls: “We enjoyed working with each other so much, we really wanted to do something again. This seems to be as good as it gets: a collaboration where people get to see the TV actors on stage in a singalong of all the songs they know.
“It’s the biggest show – and the most expensive –we’ve ever done: 17 cities in three months; 23 people on the road, ten in the stage management team, a cast of eight, with a band of five musicians, and we’ve never had a live band in any of our shows before.
“There’s a lot of drama, lots of songs, lots of dancing, and it’s also got wonderful video effects, with the footage being filmed by Lion Television [producers of Horrible Histories on the BBC]. I think there are about 50 costumes, with wigs, hats, props, turning it into a really enormous show.
Neal Foster’s Charles II, second from right, singing The King Of Bling. Picture: Matt Crockett
“All the funding comes from ticket sales, so we’re always delighted that people keep supporting us. That’s how we’ve run our company for 35 years. except in Covid, when we were supported by the Government to do ten shows in car parks and at racecourses.”
Swapping TV for the live tour are long-serving Richard David-Caine, also known for Class Dismissed and CBeebies’ Swashbuckle; Harrie Hayes, who has embodied history’s most iconic royals, from Elizabeth I to Marie Antoinette; Inel Tomlinson, from Histories’ Rameses and Science’s Big Danny; company favourite Ethan Lawrence, also from Ricky Gervais’s After Life, and Verona Rose, Horrible Histories regular, Top Boy and Fully Blown writer-performer and host of ITV2’s Secret Crush.
Joining them are Neal and Alison Fitzjohn, his fellow stalwart from Horrible Histories Live On Stage, touring the world with Birmingham Stage Company.
“They’re such a strong company that in the first week of rehearsals we got so much work done,” says Neal. “My rule is that they must know so much like the back of their hand, and as with a lot of TV actors, our cast are really good on stage and at working with a live band.
Verona Rose and Ethan Lawrence’s Henry VIII in Horrible Histories: The Concert. Picture: Matt Crockett
“Richie Webb, who’s written all 200 songs featured in the TV series, will be on stage leading the band, and the actors are more than capable of hitting the back of the auditorium with their singing.”
Neal has had plenty on his plate, not only directing but also playing multiple roles on stage. “There are great parts for me in the show as I’ve managed to end up with Charles II, Dick Turpin and one of the Vikings, and I’m also understudying four of the other actors, so I’ve had to learn all the script. 100 pages! That’s been quite a challenge!” he says.
“I’m singing my two favourite songs from the TV series, because I’m singing The King Of Bling as Charles II and Dick Turpin’s Highwayman – and as a Viking, I am singing Literally, literally!”
Cast member Ethan Lawrence says: “It’s been a long time since I was last on stage – and I’ve only done one show before: a pantomime. Cinderella. I gave an absolutely stellar performance as Buttons. There were literally tens of people that said I was pretty good!
Neal Foster and his fellow Vikings “singing Literally, literally” in Horrible Histories:The Concert . Picture: Matt Crockett
“Basically I take the jobs that are put in front of me. I’m not so vain that I don’t take on work. It just so happens that I deal with the cards that are presented to me – and now I get the chance to go on stage with Horrible Histories, The Concert where Shakespeare is in the process of writing a show starring all your favourite Horrible Histories characters
“Chaos ensues, high jinks prevail – and it’s very interactive as well, encouraging the audience to participate. I can imagine this show, because of its live nature, will be evolving as we do it. York Barbican is very deep into the run, so theatrically it’ll be the show at its best.”
Fellow cast member Verona Rose admits: “I’m not that good at history! For me, the easiest way to learn about these characters is by watching Horrible Histories.
“I have Cleopatra’s big number, Ra Ra Cleopatra [from Awful Egyptians] and I’ve learnt so much from doing rehearsals for that song.”
Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage cast members, very much live on stage. Picture: Matt Crockett
Ethan picks out his favourite role: “I’m a busy boy in the show, but the chief thing that’s exciting for me is the opportunity to play Henry VIII. One of the really gratifying things is singing one of the more modern songs from the TV shows, Ruinous Rivals, with Harrie Hayes.”
Verona says “I’m excited to be doing this show, and the more we do the tour, the more shows we do, what the interaction will be will become clearer. From the first laugh, we’ll know what the audience will be like at each show.”
Speaking ahead of the tour, Neal says: “More than anything else this show will be a celebration of Richie Webb’s brilliant music. Having him on stage, with all these actors he’s worked with, has never been seen before on stage, so it will be very special.
Death stalking Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live and very much Dead On Stage. Picture: Matt Crockett
“I’ve no idea how the audience will react, though I have a feeling it might be even more ecstatic, with the words on screens and audience interaction encouraged.
“Very quickly things start to go wrong for William Shakespeare – and in Tudor and Elizabethan times, if things go wrong, you might lose your head! In the end it’ll be up to the audience to save Shakespeare from being for the chop.”
Come on York, make Monday and Tuesday the most Horrible shows yet.
Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage, York Barbican, April 6, 2.30pm and 6.30pm; April 7, 11am and 3pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
NEWSFLASH: 6/4/2026: Horrible Histories: The Concert star Richard David-Caine to play villain in York Theatre Royal panto
Richard David-Caine in the poster image for his role as Herman the Henchman in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
THE latest name to join York Theatre Royal’s pantomime cast for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs is in York already today (6/4/2026).
CBBC and CBeebies’ star Richard David-Caine, who turned 39 on Sunday, will switch to the dark side as villainous Herman the Henchman this winter, but first he is on the 17-city tour of Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Next stop, York Barbican, today (6/4/2026) at 2.30pm and 6.30pm; tomorrow at 11am and 3pm.
Richard, core cast member of CBBC’sHorrible Histories and Horrible Science, is playing under-pressure playwright William Shakespeare, who is commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I to create the greatest show on Earth but promptly runs into trouble with monstrous King Henry VIII and Queen Victoria.
On his return to York, Richard will team up with regular Theatre Royal dame Robin Simpson and comic turn returnee Tommy Carmichael, who starred in Sleeping Beauty last winter.
Richard, who appeared in Shakespeare Live! on BBC 2 and Horrible Histories: The Movie and played naughty pirate Line in CBeebies’ Swashbuckle, will be following in the footsteps of CBeebies stars Andy Day (2021), Mandy Moate (2022), James “Raven” McKenzie (2023), Evie Pickerill (2024) and Jennie Dale (2025) in starring in the York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions co-production.
Richard David-Caine in his promotional image for Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Picture: Richard Southgate
No stranger to pantomime, Richard won the Best Supporting Male award at the 2018 Great British Pantomime Awards for his performance as Herman the Henchman, the role he will reprise in York. Two years later, he received the Best Male Villain prize for Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Grove Theatre, Dunstable.
The 2026-2027 pantomime will be directed by Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and written by Evolution Productions director Paul Hendy, the creative team behind such Theatre Royal shows as Jack And The Beanstalk, Aladdin and Sleeping Beauty.
Juliet says: “We are thrilled to welcome Richard to our cast for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. He is absolutely hilarious and I know our audiences are going to love him as our baddie Herman the Henchman. Tickets are selling fast, so be sure to book early so you don’t miss out!”
Further casting will be announced for the December 4 to January 3 2027 run. Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Family tickets are available for all performances with savings of up to £61 on bookings for four tickets.
Richard David-Caine: back story
Richard David-Caine
ACTOR, writer, comedian and voiceover artist.
Born April 5 1987 in Ruislip, North London.
Graduated from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in 2009.
Set up comedy group Four Screws Loose with Joseph Elliott, Conan House and Thom Ford in 2009, performing at Edinburgh Fringe for five successive years, along with Bestival, Latitude Festival, Underbelly, Southbank Festival, Brighton Fringe and Adelaide Fringe Festival. Featured on BBC Radio 4’s Sketchorama.
Core cast member of CBBC’s Horrible Histories and Horrible Science, featuring in Shakespeare Live! on BBC 2, and Horrible Histories: The Movie.
Starred in five series of CBBC mockumentary Class Dismissed, twice being nominated for Royal Television Society award for Best Comedy Performance. Created, wrote and fronted Big Fat Like sketch show, pastiching the internet with Joseph Elliott, Amy Gledhill and Ibidano Jack, on CBBC.
Richard David Caine’s William Shakespeare performing Literally with the Vikings in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Picture: Matt Crockett
Appeared as one half of comedy duo Cook and Line with Joseph Elliott in CBeebies’ BAFTA-winning children’s game show Swashbuckle, launched in 2013. Young contestants aged four to eight, known as Swashbucklers, competed in physical, interactive games on a soft-play pirate ship to win back stolen jewels from naughty pirates Cook, Line and Captain Captain and their host, Gem.
Further film and television credits: Steal (Amazon); Masters Of The Universe (MGM/Mattel); Cruella (Disney); Father Brown (BBC); Better Things (FX); Avenue 5 (HBO); Midsomer Murders (ITV); Murder, They Hope (UKTV Gold); Finding Alice (ITV); Dead Air (BBC); Skins: Redux (E4); Doctors (BBC); Big Field (BBC) and People Just Do Nothing (BBC).
Stage credits: The Importance Of Being Earnest (Mercury Theatre, Colchester); The Witches (National Theatre, London); Soho Cinders (original West End cast recording, Queen’s Theatre); Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! (national tour); The Taming Of The Shrew (Derby Theatre); The Tempest (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond); Potted Panto (Vaudeville Theatre, London) and Jihad! The Musical (Jermyn Street Theatre, London), as well as his award-winning one-man show, Tall, Dark And Anxious (Soho Theatre, London). How tall? Richard is 6ft 3ins.
Harrie Hayes’s Elizabeth I making her point to Richard David-Caine’s William Shakespeare in Horrible Histories: The Concert. Picture: Matt Crockett
York Beethoven Project performing at Selby Abbey under conductor John Atkin. The Grand Finale, Symphony No 9, will be held there next March
YORK Beethoven Project is entering its concluding year with plans for the last two symphonies to be played during the next 12 months.
Symphony No 8 at Millthorpe School, York, on Saturday, September 26 will be followed by Symphony No 9 at Selby Abbey on March 13 2027.
The project to play all of Ludwig van B’s symphonies was conceived in a conversation under the stage of Harrogate Theatre and was launched with Beethoven’s Symphony No 1 in September 2023.
“The first event at Acomb Methodist Church was a huge success,” recalls founder, organiser and conductor John Atkin, the York musical director and White Rose Theatre stalwart. “Fifty-six musicians put themselves forward to take part in the come-and-play workshop, so we closed registration in advance.
York Beethoven Project founder and conductor John Atkin
“Those players came from a variety of musical organisations in York, as well as further afield, which was the aim, and 54 attended on the day, hosted by York Light Orchestra. They rehearsed Symphony No 1 in C major Op. 2, and it was then performed to an audience, where there was standing room only.”
Since then, the orchestra has averaged 60 players in performing the first seven symphonies as one-day Come & Playsessions in such venues as the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall (University of York), Joseph Rowntree Theatre and Selby Abbey.
John says: “We cannot believe it’s nearly over but it’s not all over. What started as a personal target has snowballed into a regular biannual slot for many local musicians, who all share the same passion for orchestral music.
“Since the first event, we have worked with more than 100 local – and some not so local – musicians aged between 17 and much more(!) in some lovely venues. Among the highlights for me must be the ‘Eroica’ (No 3) in Joseph Rowntree Theatre and the ‘Pastoral’ (No 6) in Selby Abbey, but they have all been great days, and to now complete the entire cycle will be a wonderful experience for all involved.”
Symphony No 9 next March at Selby Abbey will be the Grande Finalé in a full concert programme that will include Handel’s Zadok The Priest and the world premiere of Augury, commissioned from Cameron McArthur with the same orchestration as No 9. Cameron is a composer, performer, trumpet player, researcher and educator, who has completed his studies for a PhD in Music Composition at the University of York.
John adds: “We are recruiting a choir and soloists for No 9. Working with local choirs, including Cantores, South Bank Singers and York Opera, we have 52 singers signed up so far but we expect to have around 100 in total by next year for this community event, open to all who can read music and sing in German.”
The Selby Abbey concert will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death at the age of 56 in Vienna on March 26 1827.
“After No 9, the orchestra will continue to meet twice a year and play varied symphonic repertoire under the name of York Occasional Orchestra,” reveals John.
James Bye’s Sam takes a vote on a point of debate with Shvorne Marks’s Jenny, Natalie Casey’s Lauren and Grant Kilburn’s Ben in 2:22 A Ghost Story.
THE Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny podcaster, broadcaster and journalist Danny Robins’s smart, modern-day London supernatural thriller is haunting York once more, only 23 months since last doing so.
Is that return too soon? Tuesday’s audience could have been fuller, and a cursory inspection of the Grand Opera House box-office website reveals a similar picture for the rest of the week, but your reviewer urges those yet to encounter this Best New Play winner in the WhatsOnStage Awards to do so. In a nutshell, if you enjoy regular returnee The Woman In Black, then clock on for 2:22.
Robins’s nerve-shredder looks very much at home in Europe’s self-proclaimed “most haunted city”, but with a notable metropolitan flair to Anna Fleischle’s set design of a state-of-the-art, open-plan, glass-encased kitchen, complemented by a sleight of hand worthy of Derren Brown’s mind games, topped off by Magic Circle member Chris Fisher’s illusions.
Directors Matthew Dunster and Gabriel Vega Weissman crank up the tension pre-show with the too-quick-for-the-naked-eye turnover of numbers on the electronic kitchen clock – never stopping at 2:22 – while Ian Dickinson’s sound design grows ever louder and more discordant to heighten your senses for what lies ahead.
Throughout, Dickinson and lighting designer Lucy Carter will work those senses to the maximum with mischievous glee and a conductor’s sense of perfect timing, regularly interrupting with shocking sounds, screams, blinding lights and a framing of the proscenium arch in red light at the start of each scene. You will judder, you will shudder, you may well shriek, jolted further by the yelps of foxes doing what foxes do in the garden.
Robins combines the cultural and social commentary of James Graham’s dramas with his own canny podcast insights in his paranormal tale of teacher-on-maternity-leave Jenny (Shvorne Marks) and irritatingly always-right scientist Sam (James Bye) hosting their first dinner party since becoming the latest “posh tw*ts” to move into a newly gentrified Greater London neighbourhood.
Sam will be heading back from a work trip on the Isle of Sark. For several nights, however, Jenny has been disturbed at 2:22am precisely by the footstep thud of someone moving around the house and the sound of a man’s crying voice, picked up via the baby monitor in newborn daughter Phoebe’s bedroom. Already convinced the house is haunted, Jenny whiles away the hours each night by painting until that time arrives.
Robins, in partnership with his meticulous directors, is stirring the ingredients of a classic thriller with Hitchcockian chutzpah, just as guest Lauren (Natalie Casey), Jenny’s American psychiatrist best friend since university days, is stirring the risotto on arrival.
Lauren has brought along her latest boyfriend, house renovator Ben (Grant Kilburn) a streetwise, working-class counter to the yuppie London intellectuals, who did up her kitchen, never left and likes to wear his shoes without socks.
Last to arrive is Bye’s Sam, a self-righteous, hyper-opinionated sceptic, apologising for losing his phone on Sark but not for his sarky attitude. Whereupon these two stags lock horns in splenetic class warfare on what turns out to be Ben’s old “manor” before Sam and Jenny stripped out everything, like in every house around them that all end up with the same soulless look, says Ben, who has designed plenty of them.
Sam is a belligerent non-believer in ghosts, adamant that more logical reasons can explain the noises. Ben believes in the supernatural; tipsy Lauren could be persuaded either way. Let’s stay up to 2:22am, suggests Jenny, as the trendy wine flows, the guards drop and the arguments rise – as ultimately does the sexual heat – in an echo of the sparks flying in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf or a Tennessee Williams play, played out in performances that all catch fire.
2:22 A Ghost Story has the spooks to rival The Woman In Black, but now filtered through modern technology (the baby monitor and an erratic Alexa). Then add the razzle-dazzle to and fro of the dialogue in Robins’s state-of-the-nation character study: the choices of wine and risotto for supper; Sam’s dinner party playlist (Massive Attack) and Jenny’s too (The XX); the reference to Sam and Lauren working together for a charity in Africa.
Robins is happy for his quarrelling quartet to discuss how the lizard, mouse and monkey sections of our brain work and to reflect how fear, rather than love, is our most powerful emotion. You may well want to join that debate afterwards, once your heart rate has returned to normal.
2: 22 A Ghost Story has shocks and alarms aplenty, but above all it is uncomfortably, truthfully humorous, becoming all the spicier for the intellectual jousting that sometimes leaves the dialogue almost too hot to touch under Dunster and Weissman’s combustible direction.
Robins fills the hours until 2:22am so thrillingly, building the chills while thickening the plot with relationship revelations; setting up a debate over the existence or non-existence of ghosts; telling the Charles Lindbergh story behind the invention of the baby monitor, and orchestrating the climactic séance conducted by Ben.
You will have to see the show- and you really should – to discover the truth behind the spooks, but all the while Ben serves as a ghost of the street’s past that cannot be erased, no matter the aspirational revamp.
“Shhh, please don’t tell” requests a neon-lit message in shepherd’s-warning red after the final “reveal”. Lips sealed, note taken, review concluded.
2:22 A Ghost Story, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
York artist Gerard Hobson installing one of 13 bird boxes for the Castle Howard Easter Family Trail. Picture: David Scott
FROM a bird box trail and Vanbrugh’s architecture at Castle Howard to Horrible Histories in concert and the magic of science, Charles Hutchinson embraces Easter’s extra spring in the step.
Birdlife event of the week: Castle Howard Easter Family Trail, Castle Howard Gardens & Arboretum, near York, until April 19
CASTLE Howard has collaborated with York artist and printmaker Gerard Hobson on a new interactive Easter trail, comprising 13 handmade wooden bird boxes installed for a springtime adventure across Castle Howard Gardens and the Arboretum.
The boxes house Hobson’s linocuts of birds, including swallow, magpie, woodpecker and wren, as part of a story designed for children as they all prepare for spring. “Young explorers will discover interesting facts about our feathered friends and learn more about their homes along the way,” he says. Admission is included in Castle Howard and Arboretum day tickets at castlehoward.co.uk/castlehowardarboretumtrust.org.
Architect Roz Barr: Designer and curator of Staging The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard. Picture: Carole Poirot
Exhibition of the week: Staging The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard, on show at Castle Howard, near York, until October 31.
STAGING The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard celebrates its creator, the architect and playwright Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), on the 300th anniversary of his death.
Designed and curated by architect Roz Barr, the exhibition chronicles the story of the stately home’s creation, exploring Vanbrugh’s visionary use of scale, shadow and light and his creative relationship with the third Earl of Carlisle, as shown in letters by Vanbrugh on public display for the first time. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.
Pickering singer-songwriter David Swann
Folk gig of the week: David Swann, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm, doors 6.30pm
PICKERING folk singer and songwriter David Swann writes comic songs about the people, places and history of his native North Yorkshire, as well as songs of love lost and found. He accompanies himself on acoustic guitar and ukulele and always encourages audience participation.
Swann runs the Ryedale Songwriters Circle, encouraging and promoting songwriting through workshops and concerts, and has won BBC Radio York’s Song for Yorkshire competition, Bedale Acoustic Music Festival’s inaugural Songwriting Competition for the Harvey Blogg Cup and the anthem-writing competition for Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.
James B Partridge. Hosting Primary School Bangers at York Barbican. Picture: Rebecca Johnson
“School” concert of the week: James B Partridge, Primary School Bangers, York Barbican, Saturday, doors 7pm
TEACHER James B Partridge brings his viral hit show Primary School Bangers to York for a night of massive singalongs, throwback mash-ups and tongue-in-cheek humour. What started in the classroom has become a nationwide phenomenon – from Glastonbury to sold-out theatres – as James leads audiences through the songs that defined school days.
“Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or just someone who remembers every word to He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands, this one’s for you,” he says. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Horrible Histories : Live – and Dead! – in concert at York Barbican
“The ultimate first concert for children”: Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage!, York Barbican, April 6, 2.30pm and 6.30pm
FOR the first time, favourite songs and actors from Horrible Histories’ BAFTA Award-winning CBBC TV series will be live – and dead! – on stage in York. When William Shakespeare is asked to create the greatest show on earth, he runs into trouble with monstrous monarchs King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.
Once Death appears, Boudica and Cleopatra want to take over! Can things turn any worse? Of course they can! Cue songs such as Stupid Deaths, Charles II, Dick Turpin and The Monarchs Song, performed to a band led by Horrible Histories’ song master, Richie Webb. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jason Fox: Embracing the chaos at York Barbican
Advice of the week: Jason Fox, Embrace The Chaos, York Barbican, April 8, 7.30pm
SOME people are built to embrace the chaos. Adventurer, Royal Marine Commando and UK Special Forces soldier Jason Fox is one of them, having survived myriad hostile outposts as an elite operator, documentary maker and expedition leader.
In his new show, Foxy shares stories of his close brushes with enemy gunmen, terrorist bomb makers and cartel leaders, while revealing his strategies for surviving and thriving in environments as life-threatening as the Arctic Circle and Afghan Badlands. Using principles from his military operations, he will help you to reboot your thinking, challenge your limits, change your habits, transform and rebalance your life – and he will answer audience questions too. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Out Of The Box: Transforming everyday objects into extraordinary adventures at Helmsley Arts Centre
Family show of the week: Darryl J Carrington in Out Of The Box, Helmsley Arts Centre, April 9, 2pm
DARRYL J Carrington transforms everyday objects into extraordinary adventures in Out Of The Box, where a toothbrush stars in a balancing act, a string sparks a heist and a tea party lands on someone’s head in an hour of joyful chaos, jaw-dropping skill and irresistible fun.
Carrington brings five-star Edinburgh Fringe reviews, the Brighton Fringe’s Best Family Show prize and more than 20 years of circus and clowning experience to his silent comedy’s blend of juggling, inventive physical theatre and audience interaction. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Top Secret: Asking “Is it magic…or is it science?” in April 9’s interactive show, replete with mystery, suspense, experiments and mess, at Pocklington Arts Centre
Fun experiments of the week: Top Secret in The Magic Of Science, High Voltage, Pocklington Arts Centre, April 9, 2pm
JOIN Top Secret as they go on a high-voltage adventure, The Magic Of Science, to ask the question “Is it magic…or is it science?” in a fast-moving, colourful, interactive show filled with mystery, suspense, experiments and loads of mess.
Danny Hunt and Stephanie Clarke take on the guise of Professor Danny and his lab assistant Crazy Kazy as they fuse the mystery of magic with wondrous and miraculous feats of science. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Alison Moyet: Revisiting synth-pop songs from Yazoo’s two albums after more than 40 years at York Barbican. Picture: Naomi Davison
Gig announcement of the week: Alison Moyet, Songs Of Yazoo, the minutes and Other Tour, York Barbican, November 18
BASILDON soul, blues and pop singer-songwriter Alison Moyet will play York in one of ten new additions to her autumn tour, when she will focus on songs from Yazoo’s 1982-1983 catalogue, recorded with Vince Clarke, and a selection from her solo electronica albums, 2013’s the minutesand 2017’s Other, both co-written with producer Guy Sigsworth.
“Many years touring the same pool of songs and I am keen for a palate refresher,” says Moyet, 64. “Specifying which years I will be fishing from too, I think, is a grand way to serve pot luck for specific tastes. No bones.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
