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More Things To Do in York and beyond when sparking up the little grey cells. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 8, from The York Press

Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, circa 1829-1832, from Making Waves at York Art Gallery. Picture: courtesy of Maidstone Museum

JAPANESE prints, a Belgian detective, a Tudor queen and a West Riding pioneer are all making waves in Charles Hutchinson’s early March recommendations. 

Exhibition launch of the week: Making Waves, The Art of Japanese Woodblock Print, York Art Gallery, until August 30, open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm

MAKING Waves: The Art of Japanese Woodblock Print presents Japanese art and culture in more than 100 striking and iconic works from renowned artists, such as Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige and Kitagawa Utamaro, among many others.

At the epicentre of this intriguing insight into the history and development of Japanese woodblock printing is the chance to see Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, one of the most recognisable and celebrated artworks in the world. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk.

Phoenix Dance Theatre in Interplay, premiering at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Drew Forsyth

Connectivity of the week: Phoenix Dance Theatre, Interplay, York Theatre Royal, today, 2pm and 7.30pm

LEEDS company Phoenix Dance Theatre’s world premiere tour of Interplay opens at York Theatre Royal, featuring dynamic works by Travis Knight and James Pett (Small Talk), Ed Myhill (Why Are People Clapping?!) Yusha-Marie Sorzano & Phoenix artistic director Marcus Jarrell Willis (Suite Release) and Willis’s Next Of Kin. 

Across duet and ensemble works, Interplay explores themes of duality and shared authorship, revealing how distinct artistic voices can intersect to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Each piece offers a unique perspective, united by a bold physicality and a deep curiosity about human relationships, rhythm and collective experience. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

York Community Choir Festival 2026: Showcase for 43 choirs at Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Festival of the week: York Community Choir Festival 2026, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; March 2 to 6, 7.30pm; March 7, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

THE annual York Community Choir Festival brings together choirs of all ages to perform in a wide variety of singing styles on each bill. Across the week, 43 choirs take part in nine concerts, making the 2026 event the largest yet. Concert programmes feature well-known classical and modern popular songs, complemented by show tunes, world music, folk song, gospel, jazz and soul. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Death On The Nile: European premiere of Ken Ludwig’s new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Murder mystery of the week: Fiery Angel presents Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile, Grand Opera House, York, March 3 to 7, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

AFTER tours of And Then There Were None and Murder On The Orient Express, Death On The Nile reunites director Lucy Bailey, writer Ken Ludwig and producers Fiery Angel for the European premiere of a new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile.

On board a luxurious cruise under the heat of the Egyptian sun, a couple’s idyllic honeymoon is cut short by a brutal murder.  As secrets buried in the sands of time resurface, can Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Mark Hadfield), untangle the web of lies? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Lara Stafford’s Anne Boleyn, with the masked ladies of the Tudor court behind her, in rehearsal for Black Treacle Theatre’s Anne Boleyn. Picture: Paul Hutson

Historical drama of the week: Black Treacle Theatre in Anne Boleyn, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 3 to 7, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK company Black Treacle Theatre presents Howard Brenton’s account of one of England’s most important and intriguing historical figures: Tudor lover, heretic, revolutionary, queen Anne Boleyn (played by Lara Stafford).

Traditionally seen as either the pawn of an ambitious family manoeuvred into the King’s bed, or as a predator manipulating her way to power, Anne – and her ghost – re-emerges in a very different light in Brenton’s epic play, premiered by Shakespeare’s Glove Theatre in 2010. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, as Anne Lister, rehearsing for Northern Ballet’s Gentleman Jack. Picture: Colleen Mair

Premiere of the week: Northern Ballet and Finnish National Opera and Ballet in Gentleman Jack, Leeds Grand Theatre, March 7 to 14, except March 8 and 9, 7.30pm, plus 2.30pm matinees on March 12 and 14

THIS groundbreaking new ballet marks a trio of ‘firsts’: the first time the story of Anne Lister has been told through ballet, the first large-scale commission for Northern Ballet since 2021 and the first under artistic director Federico Bonelli.

Yorkshirewoman Anne, the “first modern lesbian”, lived, dressed and loved as she desired, not as 19th century society expected of her. Northern Ballet’s interpretation of her life is choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, leading a female artistic team that includes Sally Wainwright, writer of the BBC/HBO television series Gentleman Jack. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

Obert String Quartet: Opening York Late Music’s 2026 concert programme at Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate. Picture: Drew Forsyth and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (top left and bottom left)

Classical concert of the week: York Late Music, Obert String Quartet, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, March 7, 7.30pm

SALFORD’S Obert String Quartet explores themes of transformation, spirituality, and mortality in a celebration of  performers and composers from the North of England, pairing Schubert’s Death And The Maiden (String Quartet No. 14 in D minor) with new miniature works written in response by Northern Composers Network members Jenny Jackson (Flex), Hayley Jenkins (Give Me Your Hand), Ben Gaunt (Skulls, Various), James Cave (Rouffignac) and James Else (Still Movement).

The first half comprises Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, curator Else’s On The Wind and Bradford-born Steve Crowther’s String Quartet No. 2. Violinist Lisa Obert, Jackson, Gaunt, Cave and Else take part in a pre-concert talk at 6.45pm. Box office: latemusic.org.

Del Amitri’s Justin Currie, left, and Iain Harvie: Cherry-picking from four decades of songs at York Barbican in November

Gig announcement of the week: Del Amitri, Past To Present UK Tour 2026, November 16

GLASGOW band Del Amitri will open their 17-date Past To Present autumn tour at York Barbican, where core members Justin Currie and Iain Harvie will mark four decades of songs, stories and live shows.

The career-spanning set list will chart their early breakthroughs, classic singles such as Nothing Ever Happens, Always The Last To Know and Roll To Me, fan favourites and recording renaissance after an 18-year hiatus with 2021’s Fatal Mistakes. Box office: www.gigsandtours.com, www.ticketmaster.co.uk and www.delamitri.info.

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How Anne Boleyn knocks them for six in Howard Brenton’s Tudor marital clash, staged by Black Treacle at Theatre@41

Lara Stafford’s Anne Boleyn and Nick Patrick Jones’s Henry VIII rehearsing for Black Treacle Theatre’s Anne Boleyn. Picture: Jim Paterson

MOVE over Six The Musical with its six wives of Henry VIII competing in song for the right to be the queen of queens.

The focus falls on only one of his brides, his second pick, Anne Boleyn, in Howard Brenton’s play of that title, to be staged by York company Black Treacle Theatre at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from March 3 to 7.

Anne Boleyn, you will recall, was the first beheaded one, exiting stage left on May 19 1536, when charged with adultery and incest, her execution conducted by a skilled French swordsman inside the Tower of London, where she was she was forced to kneel in the French style to be given the chop.

So much for the history. Brenton’s play, premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in 2010 to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, presents the story of “one of England’s most important and intriguing historical figures”.

“Lover, heretic, revolutionary, queen, Anne Boleyn has been a figure of fascination ever since her momentous courtship with Henry VIII that led to the English Reformation and Henry’s break with the Catholic Church,” says Black treacle director Jim Paterson

“Traditionally seen as either the pawn of an ambitious family manoeuvred into the King’s bed, or as a predator manipulating her way to power, Anne – and her ghost – are seen in a very different light in Brenton’s epic play.”

Anne Boleyn director Jim Paterson

Winner of Best New Play at the Whatsonstage.com Awards in 2011, the play has a dual focus, both on Anne’s life from her arrival at court and on James I’s attempts to bring warring religious factions together as the ripples of her marriage and death continue to reverberate through England decades later. 

Whereupon Anne comes alive for him, a brilliant but reckless young woman, whose marriage and death transformed the country forever.

“This is a dynamic, dramatic and often very funny play that helps us look at both Anne Boleyn and the birth of the Church of England in a new way,” says Jim. “The reign of Henry VIII and establishment of the Church of England is one of England’s ‘creation myths’, which shapes how we think about the country and the moments and actions it is built on.

“Brenton’s play asks us to reconsider this outside of the history books, particularly through the clever juxtaposition of the early days of James I’s reign, as he grapples with clashing religious factions, and the intrigue and politics of Henry’s court and Anne’s attempts to forge her own path through it.”

Jim continues: “In fact, this year marks 500 years since Henry’s courtship of Anne began in earnest in 1526. So it felt like serendipity to stage this play, which makes us reconsider who Anne was, and what an important figure she is in our history.”

Taking the role of protagonist Anne Boleyn and antagonist Henry VIII will be Lara Stafford and Nick Patrick Jones. “I’m playing a woman in a lead part in a play and neither of those has happened since The House Of Bernarda Alba in 2009,” says Lara, who worked as an actor, including at York Dungeon and, for a while, in Hindi films in India, before retraining as a physics teacher.

Lara Stafford’s Anne Boleyn, with the masked ladies of the Tudor court behind her, in rehearsal for Black Treacle Theatre’s Anne Boleyn. Picture: Paul Hutson

“It’s fascinating because, how often does a woman, in her early 40s, who can’t belt out a tune, get a chance like this to play a lead role? That chance has come with Black Treacle.”

Anne Boleyn appears as both wife and ghost. “She gives the opening scene from the perspective of having been through it all,” says Lara. “It’s interesting what she looks back on in a light-hearted way here.

“For Anne, the most upsetting part of her life were her pregnancies [she is believed to have fallen pregnant three or four times in her marriage from 1533 to 1536]. It’s a big part of her journey, whereas she’s quite flippant reflecting on getting her chopped off.

“There are moments of almost cheekiness, bawdy humour from James 1, where the play starts off light and playful, but then grows darker and darker, like Anne’s life.”

Nick chips in: “The second half is quite brutal, and Brenton doesn’t shy away from that.” Indeed not, as Nick plays a regal role for the third time. “I was the Earl of Richmond in York Shakespeare Project’s Richard III in 2023, then a folkloric King Henry from the tenth century in a devised piece that Skald Theatre did at Rise@Bluebird Bakery in Acomb last year, and now Henry VIII.

Nick Patrick Jones’s Henry VIII to the fore in a scene with Lara Stafford’s Anne Boleyn in rehearsal for Jim Patterson’s production of Anne Boleyn. Picture: Jim Paterson

“There’s a particularly iconic image of Henry being incredibly large both physically and metaphorically – this larger-than-life character – but you have to create the real person underneath, rather than a caricature. Brenton has done a lot to make that happen by giving the actor a living breathing human being to play, rather than just spouting political statements.”

Lara rejoins: “For almost the first time, he’s written it as Anne’s story, whereas previously it was written by men trying to make their place in history, where she is just ‘wife number two’.”

“She’s the chosen one, or actually she chooses him,” says Nick. “She’s the most significant one in that although four came after her, they were all in her shadow.”

“Exactly, it could only be that she set the tone,” says Lara. “I had no idea until doing this play just how much she drove their relationship.”

Nick concludes: “There’s a strong sense of them as potential equals, but the political structure doesn’t allow them to be equals in court, thus preventing her from fulfilling her potential.”

Black Treacle Theatre presents Anne Boleyn at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 3 to 7, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Paul Osborne’s Thomas Cromwell, left, and Ian Giles’s Cardinal Wolsey in Black Treacle Theatre’s Anne Boleyn. Picture: Paul Hutson

Who’s in Black Treacle Theatre’s cast for Anne Boleyn?

Anne Boleyn – Lara Stafford

Henry VIII – Nick Patrick Jones

Thomas Cromwell – Paul Osborne

Cardinal Wolsey/Henry Barrow – Ian Giles

Lady Rochford – Abi Baxter

Lady Jane – Rebecca Jackson

Lady Celia – Isabel Azar

Simpkin/Parrot – Harry Summers

Sloop – Paul Miles

William Tyndale – Maurice Crichton

James I – Katie Leckey

Robert Cecil – Paul Stonehouse

George Villiers – Cameron O’Byrne

Dean Lancelot Andrewes – Sally Mitcham

John Reynolds – Martina Meyer

Katie Leckey’s James I, right, rehearsing a scene with Cameron O’Byrne’s George Villiers. Picture: Paul Hutson

Who’s in the production team?

Director – Jim Paterson

Lighting designers – Sage Dunn-Krahn and Kathryn Wright

Lighting technicians – Emma Jones and Dave Robertson

Set and prop designer – Richard Hampton

Costume designer – Julie Fisher and Costume Crew

Black Treacle Theatre: back story

YORK company has produced Constellations (March 2022); Iphigenia In Splott (March 2023); White Rabbit, Red Rabbit (November 2023); Accidental Death Of An Anarchist (October 2024) and The Watsons (July 2025, co-production with Joseph Rowntree Theatre).

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Elvis Costello adds June 17 gig at York Barbican to his Radio Soul! Tour, focused on songs from 1977 to 1986 early albums

Elvis Costello: Playing with The Imposters and Charlie Sexton on June 17 return to York Barbican. Picture: Ray Di Pietro

ELVIS Costello will return to York Barbican for the first time since May 2012 in the first of six new additions to his Radio Soul! Tour, alongside Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Paris and Dublin.

Tickets for Elvis Costello & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton on June 17 will go on sale at 10am on March 6 at https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/elvis-costello/.

Last time, Costello wheeled out his gigantic vaudevillian contraption for his Spectacular Singing Book show, where The Imposters’ three-hour set list was decided by the spinning of a wheel with myriad song titles displayed on it.

Now, in the company of The Imposters’ Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher and Texan guitarist Charlie Sexton, the focus will be on Radio Soul!: The Early Songs Of Elvis Costello.

As the playful billing suggests, Costello’s show will feature numbers drawn from record releases from My Aim Is True in 1977 to Blood & Chocolate in 1986, complemented by “other surprises”.

Those nine years saw the first appearance of such renowned Costello compositions as Watching The Detectives and I Want You, along with songs that have remained in The Imposters’ live repertoire for 20 or more years, Alison, Man Out Of Time and Brilliant Mistake, among them.

“For any songwriter, it has to be a compliment if people want to hear songs written up to 50years ago. Among them, Radio Soul, the first draft of what eventually became Radio Radio,” says Costello, now 71.

“You can expect the unexpected and the faithful in equal measure. Don’t forget this show is ‘Performed by Elvis Costello & The Imposters’, an ensemble which includes three people who first recorded this music and two more who bring something entirely new.

“They are nobody’s tribute band. The Imposters are a living, breathing, swooning, swinging, kicking and screaming rock-and-roll band who can turn their hands to a pretty ballad when the opportunity arises.”

These dates follow the Autumn 2024 release of King Of America & Other Realms, a six-CD  anthology that tells the story of his 1986 album, recorded with The Confederates,  and the music to which it led.

The King Of America songs are expected to be heard in the mid-show interlude, along with songs written as long ago as 1975 and even some of those “pretty ballads” that Costello has promised.

In September 2024, Costello brought his career-spanning presentation, 15 Songs From 50 Years, to Leeds City Varieties Music Hall for four unique performances over two days with regular Attractions and Imposters’ sidekick Steve Nieve by his side once more.

Costello selected from each of the five decades of his songwriting, whether solo or in the company of Flip City; American country rock band Clover; The Attractions; Squeeze’s Chris Difford; The Coward Brothers, with T-Bone Burnett; the Confederates; Paul McCartney; the Brodsky Quartet; The Imposters; Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint or the Roots.

Chris Difford, by the way, will be his special guest at June 17’s show.

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REVIEW: Barnum The Circus Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ***

Showmanship: Lee Mead’s P. T. Barnum in Barnum The Circus Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

PHINEAS Taylor Barnum may have been “America’s greatest showman” – his biography sold second only to the Bible in his lifetime – but Barnum is not America’s greatest ever musical.

Bill Kenwright Ltd and Watermill Theatre throw razzle-dazzle and razzmatazz aplenty at composer Cy Coleman, lyricist Michael Stewart and book writer Mark Bramble’s show, from Lee Newby’s circus set and costume designs to Strictly Come Dancing alumna Oti Mabuse’s choreography, from circus director Amy Panter’s array of acrobatic talents to the company of actor-musicians playing 150 instruments between them.

All topped off by a star lead turn from Lee Mead, who combines verbal and visual twinkle and tightrope walking with resolute singing, from his opening There Is A Sucker Born Every Minute to Out There, in his personable portrayal of Barnum.

However, in keeping with the essence of Barnum’s infamous spinning of humbug – deceit and lies by another name – director Jonathan O’Boyle’s production is rather more style than substance, especially in Act Two.

This is not to suggest that Barnum is a big flop under the big top, merely that its high qualities in performance cannot compensate for an underwhelming score that pales by comparison with the Oscar, Grammy and Tony-winning songwriting of Ben Pasek and Justin Paul for 2017’s The Greatest Showman.

“Barnum’s the name, P T Barnum, and I want to tell you that tonight, on this stage, you are going to see – bar none – every sight, wonder and miracle that name stands for,” proclaims Mead’s inspirational Barnum, showman, businessman, politician and visionary, whose gift for humbug carries far more eloquence, chutzpah and wit than today’s quotidian, rather than quotable, politicians, even trumping Trump for braggadocio.

His humbug is not of the “Bah, Humbug” variety of Charles Dickens’s misanthropic cynic Ebenezer Scrooge, with his distaste for deception, but more a brand of playful bluster, full of exaggeration and theatrical hoaxing delivered with a showman’s flourish that may be on foreign terms with the truth but is all in the cause of entertainment.

Alas he needs a little of that humbug to cover this biographical 19th century tale’s musical failings: the lack of knock-out songs in the weaker second half, with nothing to match its opening Come Follow The Band, where Mead’s Barnum is dressed as a clown.

That said, the transition from the black-and-white stars and stripes and costumes – reminiscent of Humbug mints – for Dominique Planter’s Blues Singer belting out Black And White to the riot of colours in the reprise of the Act One stand-out The Colours Of My Life is the high point of O’Boyle’s direction.

Acrobatic and circus skills play their part but would benefit from more highlights to match the wow-factor dexterity of the bow-and-arrow routine, and overall they are outshone by the actor-musicians’ prowess on multiple instruments, with the brass playing being a particular delight.

The visual scale ranges from the big to the small, from the life-sized model of an elephant to Fergus Rattigan as General Tom Thumb, singing  Bigger Isn’t Better on his return to a York stage for the first time since playing Tudor sleuth Matthew Shardlake in York Theatre Royal’s 2023 community play Sovereign.

Amid the surface-level showmanship, Barnum finds its heart in P. T. Barnum’s relationship with his steely wife Charity (Monique Young), full of her own bright ideas and suggestions, and his six-month fling  with opera singer Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale (Penny Ashmore).

Mead shines brightest but Young pulls heartstrings too and Ashmore is the very definition of a polymath with her spectacular singing of Jenny Lind’s Obbligato and Love Makes Such Fools Of Us All, her heavenly harp and piano playing, and even her dancing on point, once serving in the ensemble, for the Finale.

Overall, this Barnum is a better performance than its source material, good in individual parts but not great.

Barnum The Circus Musical, Grand Opera House, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Phoenix Dance Theatre celebrates dance duos and partnerships in Interplay world premiere at York Theatre Royal

On the stretch: Phoenix Dance Theatre dancers in Interplay, premiering at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Drew Forsyth

LEEDS company Phoenix Dance Theatre returns to York Theatre Royal for tomorrow and Saturday’s world premiere performances of Interplay.

Presented in association with the Theatre Royal, this powerful mixed bill brings together work by international choreographers Travis Knight and James Pett (Pett Clausen-Knight), Ed Myhill, Yusha-Marie Sorzano and Phoenix artistic director Marcus Jarrell Willis.

Chief executive Paul Crewes, who has overseen a surge in dance performances at York Theatre Royal, says: “We are delighted to support Phoenix Dance Theatre with the premiere of Interplay and to give York audiences the first opportunity to see this eclectic and dynamic programme of contemporary dance performed on our stage.”   

Introducing Interplay, Marcus says: “This dynamic programme celebrates creative collaboration, placing dialogue, contrast and connection at its heart.”

Across duet and ensemble works, Interplay explores themes of duality and shared authorship, revealing how distinct artistic voices can intersect to create something greater than the sum of their parts.

“Each piece offers a unique perspective, united by a bold physicality and a deep curiosity about human relationships, rhythm and collective experience,” says Marcus.

Originally premiered in New York in 2013, Willis’s Next Of Kinhas been re-imagined for Phoenix to highlight the duet’s exploration of the subtle humour and tension between two kindred spirits navigating life together.   

Ed Myhill’s Why Are People Clapping?!, restaged by Camille Giraudeau, is set to Steve Reich’s Clapping Music and uses rhythm as its driving force. Combining wit with precision, the choreography highlights the music of life: how rhythm can be found in a tennis match, footsteps in an empty street and in the beat of our own hearts.  

In Travis Knightand James Pett’s Small Talk, two figures inhabit a shared yet distant space. Through quiet gestures and unresolved tension, the work reflects on relationships that fade, not through catastrophe, but through the slow exhaustion of time.

The work showcases a portrait of two people held in a fragile stand-off, suspended between what they once knew and what they can no longer admit. 

Interplay concludes with a new collaboration between Yusha-Marie Sorzano and Marcus Jarrell Willis. Inspired by ritual, meditation and the roots of hip-hop and house culture, Suite Release reclaims dance as instinct, resistance and communal connection and joy, inviting audiences not only to witness movement, but also to remember it. 

Marcus says: “I’ve always found it intriguing to observe dual artistic expression: the ways two creative minds come together and collaboratively work towards one goal in creation, while maintaining their individual artistic expressions.

“The programme consists of different forms of artistic duality, through choreographic voices, as well as the structure of the dance works themselves. I think it will be interesting for an audience to see a full programme that focuses on this particular theme – duality – while highlighting a range of different works.” 

Marcus continues: “I wanted to commission choreographers that have unique perspectives of what contemporary dance looks like today, which is what I believe Phoenix Dance Theatre stands for in this iteration of the company.  

“While the works are all linked by the theme of duality, the mixed bill offers something for every audience member from any background to connect with. The choreographers themselves come from various backgrounds across the UK and internationally, providing the opportunity to see dance through multiple lenses.” 

Marcus, who became Phoenix’s ninth artistic director in Autumn 2023 after seven years in Cardiff, concluded his first tour – Belonging – at York Theatre Royal in May 2024. “This is our first time back in York since then, and I’m excited about maintaining our relationship,” he says. “It’s a lovely theatre, where the audience received the company so well and we so enjoyed our post-show discussion, when, as whenever possible, we had the entire company involved because it’s good for them.”

Now Interplay, as its title suggests, “taps into what it means to have ‘interplay’ in different forms that we can bring together, either through choreographic partnerships or duo pieces, so it’s all about dual relationships and duos pairing up, “ says Marcus. “In this case, we have two re-shaped works, Next Of Kin and Why Are People Clapping?!, and two new creations, Small Talk and Suite Release.”

Highlighting the creative partnerships, he says: “Travis Knightand James Pett regularly create together. I believe they’re based in London but they work all over the place.

“Suite Release, a title that’s a play on words, brings me together with a choreographer that I’ve danced with for many years, Yusha-Marie Sorzano.

“We decided to do a piece about music and our relationship with music, and how we grew up together and lived our lives, so it’s a bit of a party! I’m originally from Eastern Texas, Musha was from Trinidad, then grew up in Mexico, and we met as teenagers in New York City.

“So this work is about remembering; remembering how to move and dance and connect to music – and that comes from our experiences and universal feelings, because our dance company is so diverse.

“That’s why we hit the sweet spot with Suite Release, remembering why we dance and thinking about what that means when we’re living in a world with so much weight in it, so much going on, where we need a release.”

Interplay encapsulates his artistic philosophy. “New York was so varied in its possibilities and artistic approaches, and I’m just cracking on with what I do with Phoenix,” he says.

Phoenix Dance Theatre presents Interplay, in association with York Theatre Royal, at York Theatre Royal, February 27, with post-show discussion; February 28, 2pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatrerotal.co.uk. Also Leeds Playhouse, March 31 to April 2, 7.30pm; 0113  213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.co.uk.

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York Theatre Royal to stage first major revival of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, The Odyssey: Her Story

York Theatre Royal’s poster to announce this autumn’s production of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad

YORK Theatre Royal will stage a major revival of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, under the direction of creative director Juliet Forster this autumn.

Adapted from the Canadian novelist, essayist and poet’s 2005 novella of the same name, this exuberant feminist retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey gives voice to the silenced Penelope and her chorus of maids. 

Forster’s production will open on October 14, preceded by previews from October 10, and will run until October 24.

“Margaret Atwood is such a phenomenal writer – she’s clever, witty, subversive, and her insights into human dynamics are acutely well observed,” says Juliet. “The Penelopiad is a funny, moving, fast-paced visual feast, a classical tale told through a contemporary lens.

“The epic, heroic story of The Odyssey will never look the same again! I am thrilled we’ll be staging it here at York Theatre Royal, and I can’t wait to get started on the show.” 

The Penelopiad premiered at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in July 2007 in a co-production between the Royal Shakespeare Company and Canada’s National Arts Centre. Now comes the first major UK revival since that production. 

York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster

Atwood, author of the modern feminist classic The Handmaid’s Tale, revisits The Odyssey in a powerful, irreverent and darkly humorous retelling that unpicks one of the oldest of myths. 

Immortalised as the devoted and faithful wife to the glorious Odysseus, Penelope waits 20 years for her husband to return from the Trojan War, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again. Now it is time to hear the story of those left behind.  

Reimagining this ancient tale, The Penelopiad finds Penelope wandering the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her side of the story – a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge. 

Adapted for the stage by Booker Prize winner Atwood and interwoven with songs, York Theatre Royal’s production will be directed by Little Women and Around The World In 80 Days-ish! director Forster in an exuberant and witty retelling that questions the version of events we think we know and exposes the truth behind the myth.

Priority booking for YTR members is under way; general sales will open on February 28 at 1pm on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.  

Margaret Atwood: back story

HER work has been published in more than 45 countries. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale(recipient of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and subsequently adapted into the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning TV series); The Robber Bride; Alias Grace; The Blind Assassin (winner of the Booker prize); Cat’s Eye; The Edible Woman; Surfacing;Life Before Man; Bodily Harm; The Testaments (winner of the Booker prize) and The MaddAddam Trilogy.

Her poetry collections include Double Persephone, The Circle Game, Power Politics, Morning In The Burned House and The Door. Her essay collections include Negotiating With The Dead and Burning Questions. Her novella The Penelopiad was published in 2005 and adapted in 2007 for the stage, marking her first theatrical work. 

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The Full Monty to play Grand Opera House, York, on 30th anniversary tour in July 2027. When do tickets go on sale?

Stripped back: The Full Monty to return in 2027 tour

THE 30th anniversary of Peter Cattaneo’s Sheffield stripping film The Full Monty will be marked by the 2027 tour of screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy’s spin-off play that will visit the Grand Opera House, York, from July 12 to 17.

The tour will be mounted by the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, and Buxton Opera House in association with Mark Goucher and David Pugh.

Tickets will go on sale to ATG+ members on Wednesday, March 11 at 10am, followed by general sales from Thursday, March 12 at 10am. Star casting will be announced in due course.

Beaufoy’s heartfelt play tells the story of an ordinary group of men in South Yorkshire’s Steel City striving to reclaim their dignity and pride. Fast paced and irresistibly humorous, it remains strikingly relevant today, resonating powerfully in an era marked once again by a cost-of-living crisis.

What happens in The Full Monty? Gaz and his mates find themselves down on their luck, cast aside and underestimated, but determined to fight back, even if it means revealing more than they ever imagined.

Beaufoy says: “A lot has changed in Britain since The Full Monty appeared 30 years ago. What hasn’t changed is our need for laughter, compassion and dignity. I’m so delighted the ‘Monty Men’ are back on the road with all their flaws, jokes and wobbly bits, bringing a bit of much-needed joy to audiences once again.”

Echoing the 1997 smash-hit film, next year’s touring production will deliver a rollercoaster of humour and heartbreak as audiences are invited to relive the iconic music of the 1990s, cheering on the unforgettable group of lads as they prepare to put on the show of their lives.

Beaufoy received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for The Full Monty, later winning  an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire.

The Full Monty tour production will be directed by Michael Gyngell, with choreography and intimacy direction by Ian West, set and costume design by Jasmine Swann, lighting design by Andrew Exeter and sound design by Chris Whybrow. The casting director is Marc Frankum.

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REVIEW: Wharfemede Productions in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Sat ****

Nick Sephton’s Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm and Jason Weightman’s Fredrik Egerman duelling and duetting in Wharfemede Productions’ A Little Night Music. All pictures: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

“LET’S make romance emotionally devastating and funny,” Stephen Sondheim once said, and the New York lyricist and composer was never more playful than in his 1973 musical A Little Night Music.

Here it forms North Yorkshire company Wharfemede Productions’ third show since being formed by Helen “Bells” Spencer and Nick Sephton in autumn 2024.

“Few writers capture the glorious mess of love quite like Sondheim,” posits director Spencer in her programme director’s note, describing Sondheim’s savvy 1902 Swedish sexual shenanigans as elegant and biting, romantic and relentless, funny and quietly heartbreaking, often all at once, in its rumble-tumble of desire, regret, hope and desperate quest for happiness

James Pegg’s Henrik Egerman: As gloomy as his cello playing in A Little Night Music

Her production, eloquent, waspish of wit, balanced between light and weighty, captures all those qualities most fruitfully and fruitily. Precise in style and movement, her direction places equal emphasis on Hugh Wheler’s fizzing dialogue and Sondheim’s confessional, candid songs that call on quintet, trio, duet and solo performance in equal measure, steered with elan by musical director and Sondheim expect James Robert Ball, in charge of his eight-piece band (split between keys, strings and reeds).

Rooted in Ingmar Bergman’s film 1955 film Smiles Of A Summer Night, whose story of several couples’ interlinked romantic lives it mirrors so smartly, Sondheim’s ever-perceptive depiction of love being “rarely simple, frequently ill timed and deeply human” – to quote Spencer once more – is played out by the juiciest of casts, assembling the cream of York and Leeds stage talent (several having appeared alongside Spencer in Les Miserables at Leeds Grand Theatre last year).

They range from Maggie Smales, Theatre@41 trustee and esteemed York actress and director, as wheelchair-bound grande dame Madame Armfeldt, with her glut of putdowns in the curmudgeonly old-stick manner of her fellow Maggie, Dame Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, to Libby Greenhill, A-level student in humanities and creative subjects, who impressed in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Fun Home last September and now plays granddaughter Fridrika with emotional frankness.

Maggie Smales’s grande dame, Madame Armfeldt

Libby Greenhill as Fredrika Armfeldt and director Helen “Bells” Spencer as her mother, Desiree Armfeldt, in A Little Night Music

Crucial to Spencer’s directorial impact is the prominence of the Liebeslieder Singers, alias The Quintet, omnipresent in white dresses and cream suits as they greet you at the top of the stairs, sell programmes, open Act One with the overlapping la-la-las of Night Waltz, then become a cross between a Greek chorus and Shakespeare’s mischief-making Puck, moving the principals into place as if in a dream or a pictorial tableau at the start of various scenes.

Under Rachel Merry’s slick choreography, they slip seamlessly between foreground and background as Mrs Nordstrom (Emma Burke), Mrs Anderson (Hannah Thomson), Mrs Segstrom (Merry herself), Mr Erlansson (Matthew Oglesby) and Mr Lindquist (Richard Pascoe), their harmony singing delighting in Remember? and the Act Two-opening The Sun Won’t Set, as well as when accompanying the principals in the plot-thickening and summarising A Weekend In The Country.

The sophisticated but Tabasco-saucy Scandi scandals of A Little Night Music are led by Spencer’s Desiree Armfeldt, the darling of the Swedish stage, bored by the chore of touring the same old plays but seeking satisfaction from married men, Nick Sephton’s pompous, blustering, time-keeping dragoon buffoon, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm, forever up for a pistol duel, and middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Jason Weightman), yet to consummate his marriage to 18-year-old, hair-obsessed Anne (Alexandra Mather) after 11 months but still desirous of old flame Desiree’s ample, bewitching charms.

Mind the age gap: Alexandra Mather’s 18-year-old Anne Egerman and Jason Weightman’s Fredrik Egerman, her husband, in A Little Night Music

Spencer’s programme note talks of A Little Night Music asking its performers to “live fully inside both comedy and pain”, a state crystalised in James Pegg’s Henrik Egerman, Fredrik’s troubled son, who is taking holy orders but is wholly smitten by his stepmother, Mather’s Anne, who chides his earnest outbursts as comical, the more he vexates.

Pegg’s outstanding, devastatingly honest performance recalls Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev, the suicidal student in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, and let’s hope the York debut of this Leeds actor and higher education professional service leader will lead to further roles here.

Katie Brier catches the eye in the rumbustiously fetching ‘downstairs” role of Petra, whether introducing Henrik to the birds and bees or romping with fellow servant Frid (Chris Gibson).

Swedish actress Sanna Jeppsson’s Countess Charlotte Malcolm

As Desiree’s weekend invitation to her grand and glamorous country estate leads to much web-tangling amid partner swaps, new pairings, sudden seductions and second chances, Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson comes to the fore as the dunderheaded Count’s exasperated wife, Countess Charlotte, making every ice-cold comic interjection count on renewed home turf.

Sondheim’s romping costume drama is filled with barbed wit, caustic bite and a delicious sense of Scandinavian desperation, topped off by sublime singing, from Weightman, Pegg and Mather’s complex Now/Later/Sooner to Weightman’s Fredrik in his insensitive You Must Meet My Wife duet with Spencer’s Desiree; Jeppsson and Mather’s jilted Every Day A Little Death to the sparring of Weightman and Sephton’s It Would Have Been Wonderful.

Brier maximises her moment in the spotlight in The Miller’s Son; Spencer tops everything with Send In The Clowns, all the more moving for tapping deep into Desiree’s desolation.

Make sure to enjoy Sondheim’s weekend in the country this week in Wharfemede’s combustible combination of courage, comedy, co-ordinated chaos and commitment.   

Wharfemede Productions, A Little Night Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, 7.30pm tonight, tomorrow and Friday; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Rachel Merry’s Mrs Segstrom, left, Emma Burke’s Mrs Nordstrom, Hanna Thomson’s Mrs Anderssen and fellow member of The Quintet Matthew Oglesby’s Mr Erlansson in A Little Night Music

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 8, from Gazette & Herald

Mark Simmons: Expertly crafted one-liners and off-the-cuff jinks with the audience at Pocklington Arts Centre

FISHING community memories, an abbey light installation and an exhibition addressing loneliness make for a diverse week ahead in Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations. 

One-liners of the week: Mark Simmons, Jest To Impress, Pocklington Arts Centre, tonight, 7.30pm

CANTERBURY jester Mark Simmons won Dave’s Joke of the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 with this gag: “I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship but I bottled it”. Now he follows up his 200-date Quip Off The Mark two-year UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand tour with Jest To Impress, a new show packed with one-liners, alongside his trademark off-the-cuff jokes based on random audience suggestions.

Simmons also hosts the Jokes With Mark Simmons podcast, where he invites fellow comics, such as Gary Delaney, Sarah Millican and Milton Jones, to discuss jokes that, for whatever reason, would not work. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

The poster for What The Sea Saw’s fishing stories at Helmsley Arts Centre

Rehearsed reading of the week: 1812 Theatre Company presents What The Sea Saw, Helmsley Arts Centre, Jean Kershaw Auditorium, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm

SET in Scarborough’s Bottom End and capturing the verbatim first-hand testimonies of remaining members of the fishing families, Helena Fox’s new play recounts the tragic events of the 1954 Lifeboat Disaster through the eyes of witnesses, as well as capturing the lost cultures and working practices of the coastal community, including the role of women in skeining and baiting.

Directed by Heather Findlay, the fundraising event for Scarborough RNLI features Stamford Bridge’s Big Shanty Crew’s performance of Scarborough 54. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Imitating The Dog light up Selby Abbey for three days of Selby Light 2026

Installation of the week: Selby Light 2026, Selby Abbey, tomorrow to Saturday, 6pm to 9pm

SELBY Abbey will be the setting for Homeward, Leeds company Imitating The Dog’s large-scale installation celebrating our different stories and the unified feeling of finding home, framed by the question How Did You Get Here?

Inside, the installation continues as a walk-through experience, complemented by Jazmin Morris’s Through The Liquid Crystal Display, a series of visual code illustrations inspired by Selby Abbey. The trail then extends into the town centre with works by Selby College students. Admission is free.

The 20ft Squid Blues Band: Combining 1950s’ Chicago style with 1960s’ blues explosion at Milton Rooms, Malton

Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents The 20ft Squid Blues Band, Milton Rooms, Malton, tomorrow, 8pm

THE 20ft Squid Blues Band, from Sheffield, play upbeat, fast, irreverent blues, combining elements of the 1950s’ Chicago style with the more wayward aspects of the 1960s’ blues explosion.

They mix self-penned songs with numbers made famous by Howling Wolf and Little Walter, while throwing in artists not so obviously from the blues tradition, such as Tom Waits and Prince. Expect eye-popping harmonica, thundering bass, intricate beats and choice guitar. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Nick Doody: Topping Hilarity Bites Comedy Club line-up at Milton Rooms, Malton

Comedy bill of the week: Hilarity Bites Comedy Club, Nick Doody, Ed Purnell and Will Duggan, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm

IN the first Hilarity Bites bill of 2026, Nick Doody will be joined by Ed Purnell and Will Duggan. Doody first performed as a student in the 1990s when he supported Bill Hicks at Hicks’ request, since when he has performed all over the world and written for Joan Rivers, Lenny Henry, Dame Edna Everage and Mock The Week regulars aplenty.

In a clever spin, Purnell, Ecuador’s numero uno comedian, delivers his set in Spanish with a sprinkling of English, whereupon audiences realise they can understand him without speaking his mother tongue. Duggan is a quick and witty host. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Phoenix Dance: Presenting world premiere of Interplay at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Drew Forsyth

Dance show of the week: Phoenix Dance Theatre, Interplay, York Theatre Royal, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2pm, 7.30pm

LEEDS company Phoenix Dance Theatre’s world premiere tour of Interplay opens at York Theatre Royal, featuring dynamic works by Travis Knight and James Pett (Small Talk), Ed Myhill (Why Are People Clapping?!) Yusha-Marie Sorzano & Phoenix artistic director Marcus Jarrell Willis (Suite Release) and Willis’s Next Of Kin. 

Across duet and ensemble works, Interplay explores themes of duality and shared authorship, revealing how distinct artistic voices can intersect to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Each piece offers a unique perspective, united by a bold physicality and a deep curiosity about human relationships, rhythm and collective experience. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Holly Taymar: Performing the best of Eva Cassidy’s back catalogue at Milton Rooms, Malton

Tribute gig of the week: Holly Taymar Sings Eva Cassidy, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 8pm

YORK singer-songwriter Holly Taymar turns the spotlight on Eva Cassidy, one of the most beloved voices of the 20th century. Revelling in Cassidy’s blend of folk, jazz and blues, she performs renditions of Fields Of Gold, Songbird, Over The Rainbow and Autumn Leaves.

“My show show is not an impersonation,” says Taymar. “It’s a heartfelt homage to an artist who left a lasting impact on my development as an artist and on the world of music.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Loneliness Is Not A Dirty Word: Exhibition collaboration between Hannah Turlington and local and wider community at Helmsley Arts Centre

Exhibition launch of the week: Hannah Turlington, Loneliness Is Not A Dirty Word, Helmsley Arts Centre, March 3 to May 1

LONELINESS Is Not A Dirty Word is a collaboration between artist Hannah Turlington and the local and wider community, involving sessions where participants were invited to share their own experiences of loneliness by creating pieces of visual art in a variety of mediums.

The resulting exhibition aims to create space for the viewer to consider their own narratives of loneliness and reduce the stigma associated with being lonely.

Del Amitri’s Justin Currie, left, and Iain Harvie: Cherry-picking from four decades of songs at York Barbican in November

Gig announcement of the week: Del Amitri, Past To Present UK Tour 2026, November 16

GLASGOW band Del Amitri will open their 17-date Past To Present autumn tour at York Barbican, where core members Justin Currie and Iain Harvie will mark four decades of songs, stories and live shows. Ticket will go on general sale on Friday at 9.30am at www.gigsandtours.com, www.ticketmaster.co.uk and www.delamitri.info.

The career-spanning set list will chart their early breakthroughs, classic singles such as Nothing Ever Happens, Always The Last To Know and Roll To Me, fan favourites and recording renaissance after an 18-year hiatus with 2021’s Fatal Mistakes.

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York printmaker Michelle Hughes publishes debut artbook Printing Birds And Wildlife In Linocut. Official launch to follow on April 15

York landscape artist, printmaker, workshop tutor and now author Michelle Hughes in her garden studio. Picture: Jackson Portraiture

YORK printmaker and workshop tutor Michelle Hughes’ debut art book, Printing Birds And Wildlife In Linocut, is published today by the Crowood Press.

“The slow boat from India must have sped up significantly as my publisher has emailed me to say it’s arrived at the distributors,” says a delighted Michelle, of St Swithin’s Walk, Holgate, York. “It’s all a bit of a surprise that it’s here because there’d been a delay.”

That delay led Michelle to decide to arrange the official launch for Wednesday, April 15 in the Harriet Room at York Cemetery, where doors will open at 6.30pm for the 7pm start. 

“It will be by invitation only due to space constraints,” says landscape artist Michelle, who makes limited-edition linocut prints inspired by the Yorkshire coast, Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors and the Lake District and the wildlife observed from her garden studio.

“Partly because of the date, the launch will have an element of a ten-year celebration too to thank everyone who’s supported and been part of my journey as a printmaker since June 2016, when I launched my business. I’ll probably do a short talk and have examples of the prints and blocks. Plus, of course, I’ll be signing books.”

As of today, Printing Birds And Wildlife In Linocut is available from online retailers and bookshops. Alternatively, to order  the book for delivery or to pre-order signed copies to collect from Michelle’s studio, visit: https://www.michellehughesdesign.com/printing-birds-and-wildlife-in-linocut-book.

Michelle Hughes’s book cover artwork for Printing Birds And Wildlife In Linocut

“In August 2023, I was approached by the Crowood Press [independent publishers of specialist books at The Stable Block, Ramsbury, Marlborough] to write a book on making linocut prints,” she says. “It took me 20 months to write, make the linocut prints, photograph each step, edit it, and have friends proof-read it.

“As I went along, I laid it out in line with Crowood’s in-house style and formatted it as I wanted it to appear in the book, to understand how it would visually look to the reader. I’ve poured my heart and soul into it.” 

Last May, Michelle handed in her 42,000-word, 660-photograph manuscript and lay-out to the publishers. Several rounds of proof-reading and lay-out by a professional typesetter ensued, and now the 176-page book is not only published at £18.99 but has been selected as one of the top 25 books to have generated the most support for independent bookshops in the past month. 

“This beautiful book explains how to capture the joy of nature in the versatility of linocut,” says Michelle. “From a simple idea or sketch, it guides you through the process of planning designs, carving and then successfully printing your work.

“Projects with detailed step-by-step instructions further demonstrate the process with one-colour and jigsaw prints, before advancing to reduction and multi-block prints. All are shown with the most endearing images that capture the enchanting characteristics of our much-loved British birds and wildlife.”

She continues: “With clear instructions, detailed demonstrations and expert tips developed from years of teaching, this book is designed to help you grow with confidence at any stage of your creative journey.

A close-up of Michelle Hughes carving a linocut. Picture: Jackson Portraiture

“Inside the book, you’ll discover 15 newly created linocut prints celebrating British birds and wildlife, alongside a selection of much-loved favourites. Each print is inspired by wildlife which visits my own garden and memorable encounters on countryside walks.”

Michelle grew up making things, sewing, not least crafting, and creating her own clothes, then studied for an ND in Design at Mid-Warwickshire College of Further Education, Leamington Spa, from 1987 to 1989 and an HND in Fashion Design at Southampton Solent University from 1989 to 1991.

After  25 years of designing fashion, textiles and homeware for major high-street brands, a fourth redundancy in 2016 gave her the space to experiment and play with linocut printmaking, becoming a self-taught printmaker. 

She now exhibits at open studios and print fairs, works on commissions, including for the National Trust, and has taught more than 1,000 students worldwide through small group workshops in her print studio since July 2017 and online linocut courses since the Covid pandemic of 2020-2021.

“My creative process starts with photographs taken while walking and cycling,” she says. “I then transform landscapes and wildlife into simplified graphic shapes, applying a limited colour palette. I create limited-edition prints using the multi-block linocut method, hand-carving lino blocks for each colour and printing with oil-based inks.”

Michelle will be demonstrating that technique when participating in York Open Studios 2026 at 67, St Swithin’s Walk on April 18 and 19, when 150 artists and makers will be taking part at 107 venues, including 27 new artists in the 24th year of the annual art festival. Full details can be found at https://yorkopenstudios.co.uk/artists-makers/.

Michelle’s book will be on sale at York Open Studios, where once more she will be signing copies.

Michelle Hughes printing a linocut in her St Swithin’s Walk studio

Michelle Hughes: back story

Education

1971: Born in Coventry and grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.

1987-1989: ND in Design at Mid-Warwickshire College of Further Education, Leamington Spa.

1989-1991: HND in Fashion Design at Southampton Solent University.

Fashion, textiles and homeware career

1991: Moved to London.

1991-2003: Fashion and textile design for Gable Clothing Company UK Ltd, H.A. Clothing Company, Principles and Evans (The Arcadia Group), Freemans Plc and River Island. 

2003-2005: Regional creative manager for Disney Home Europe.

2005-2006: Career break, volunteering for Rajana Arts and Crafts, Cambodia, and travelling in Southeast Asia. 

2006: Moved to York.

2006-2009: Design manager, for Shared Earth, Fair Trade homeware and giftware retailer. 

2009-2011: Senior graphic designer for Room for Design. 

2011-2016: Design manager for cook and dine range at George Home, Asda Stores Ltd. 

Michelle Hughes Design business

Jan 2016: Redundancy for fourth time.

June 2016: Started own business, Michelle Hughes Design.

April 2016: Joined York Printmakers.

Oct 2016: First exhibition at Blossom Street Gallery in York with York Printmakers.

July 2017: Started teaching linocut workshops in garden studio.

April 2018: First exhibited at York Open Studios.

March 2020: Launched e-commerce shop.

July 2020: Launched How To Make A Linocut Print For Beginners online course.

May 2021: Launched How To Make A Multi-block Linocut Print online course.

August 2023: Approached by independent publisher The Crowood Press to write book about how to make linocut prints.

February 24 2026: Publication of first book Printing Birds And Wildlife In Linocut