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Francis Rossi goes down, down, deeper down into Status Quo songbook and stories at York Barbican and Bridlington Spa

Francis Rossi: Going solo with stories to tell. Picture: Jodiphotography

LET Francis Rossi introduce his solo tour show, bound for York Barbican on October 16.

“The show lifts the lid on a lot of what went on in the world of Status Quo, and I build in plenty of songs along the way – lots of my classic hits, but there are also versions of songs that I haven’t tried in the format before, and I have to say they sound fantastic. There’s a lot to get through so don’t be late!”

Welcome to An Evening of Francis Rossi’s Songs from the Status Quo Songbook and More, a chance to feature personal favourites, deeper cuts and songs never played before in this format and to offer first-hand backstage tales of appearing more than 100 times on Top Of The Pops, why Quo opened Live Aid, life with the late Rick Parfitt, more than 100 singles, 57 top forty hits, fellow rock stars and misadventures across the world.

Raconteur Rossi, now 76, is no stranger to chatter on stage, but this time he is featuring more music.

“I did a talk show, and I got asked to play a song and did two after saying I didn’t want to do them, but it made me think,” he says.

“Now doing this new show, it feels like starting again, and there’s a joy in it that I never expected – and I still don’t know what it is, except the intimacy.

“It can over-run, but I don’t mind because the more I’m on there, I so enjoy myself, whereas with Quo, you get up there and do the songs; once it starts it has a certain momentum and has to reach a finale at a certain time.

“But with this show’s audience, I can joke about them and with them, take the mick out of them and me, and if I get on to religion you can hear the breath being drawn in, or if I talk about ‘wokeism’, like saying ‘if I refer to you as ladies and gentlemen, some will be offended’, I get a cheer!”

Status Quo and Rossi himself are still going strong. “Sheer luck,” he says. “Very, very lucky. I think anyone that survives in this business, I don’t know how we do it. It must be an X factor, the way we’re still performing.

“What is it about this band that we were so lucky…and I’m still waffling after all these years! Obviously the tunes are quite good, though there’s a certain amount of ego you have to have, or you could disappear up your derriere.

“I know the tunes are quite simple, but I allude to classical music or Italian arias. Most of them are three chords. It’s still a fantastic melody and the fact you can get something so likeable out of that, whether three, four or five chords, I still love that.”

A new Rossi record is in the pipeline. “I’m going to record with Hannah Rickard. I’ve already done We Talk Too Much with her – she was on the acoustic tour with Quo. I’ve something coming out in January to be recorded with her,” says Francis.

“We’re going to write a bunch of songs together – I’ve got a studio in the garden with a new roof being put on it.”

As trim as ever in jeans, “I still exercise every day,” he says. “I now do those chair exercise, I do crunchies too, and I’ve stepped up the swimming. Everything to keep me alive. I’ll be the fittest thing in a box!”

Why jeans, Francis? “We started wearing jeans in Quo as a fight-back. I was a Mod, which is why I still wear a tie, but when I was told we couldn’t still be Carnaby Street, we rebelled against that by wearing jeans – and it meant we didn’t have to wear stage clothes, so it worked!” he says.

An Evening With Francis Rossi, York Barbican, October 16, 7pm doors. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk. Also playing Bridlington Spa, October 11, 7.30pm, and Sheffield City Hall Memorial Hall, November 5, 7.30pm. Box office: Bridlington, bridspa.com; Sheffield, sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.

Did you know?

FRANCIS Rossi will be playing mostly his Acoustasonic guitar at An Evening With Francis Rossi shows. “It’s basically a Telecaster but is more compatible with a show of this nature – it still has the ring and sound of a Tele.”

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REVIEW: Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday *****

Intertwined: Joe Layton’s Robbie and Hannah Sinclair Robinson’s Jess in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms. Picture: Scott Graham

RELATIONSHIP two-handers keep popping up on the York Stage in recent years, just as Normal People and One Day’s young lovers top the TV viewing charts.

First, in March 2022, came  the multiple universes in Black Treacle Theatre’s York premiere of Nick Payne’s Constellations at Theatre@41, Monkgate, where each scene, such as the first meeting, the first date and breaking up, unfolds in several different ways, showing how nothing is necessarily ‘meant to be’, not least a crisis that could mean the end of their time together.

Next, in November that year, White Rose Theatre staged The Last Five Years, Jason Robert Brown’s sung-through American musical with the novel structure of struggling actress Cathy telling her side of the story from the end of the relationship backwards, while, at the other end of the stage, successful young novelist Jamie does so from the start forwards, as he lands a publishing deal at 23.

Now comes physical theatre specialists Frantic Assembly’s boy-meets-girl tale, or enervated man meets sparky younger woman, if you prefer, in the London company’s 30th anniversary show in a co-production with Curve, Leicester, Mayflower, Southampton and the Lyric, Hammersmith.

Payne and Brown’s works were both festooned with multiple awards. Anna Jordan’s Lost Atoms is at least their equal and could well be the best of the three in terms of capturing the essence of a life-changing relationship through physicality. When words fail, physical expression takes over, much like how discord in discourse leads to outbursts of singing in opera and musical theatre.

In this truly memorable memory play, the present keeps being interrupted, even elbowed aside, by recollections of a past that began with a chance meeting, sharing a mobile hotspot, in a cafe where Jessie (Hannah Sinclair Robinson) had temped for four years. So stop-starts a run of awkward dates with Robbie (Joe Layton), but gradually blossoming love too.

Is this the stuff of fairy tales, asks Jordan, or maybe of grimmer tales that avid researcher Jess bemoans have had their guts pulled out? Recollection by recollection,  it becomes apparent that both protagonists/antagonists are remembering  their version of the past in accounts that differ. Whose version should we trust, where does the truth lie and why do we need to re-write and embellish what has gone before – and to keep re-writing it every time we recall it? Maybe because the truth is too painful?

Do Jess and Robbie doubt each other or, increasingly, doubt themselves? Can there be a reliable witness in matters of the heart and do we ever really understand love?

For all the clash of present and past, symbolised by flashes of light and soundwaves, everything is played out  in chronological order: love’s vicissitudes; connection and disconnection; Robbie’s preference for staying in, Jess’s need for night outs; parental relationships and pregnancy; infidelity and Robbie’s request of this reunion meeting.

Jordan’s text, as full of frank humour as much as heartbreak, is seductive and insightful in  its own right as she explores how two people’s “perceptions of romantic love affected their experiences”, but works all the better for its symbiosis with Frantic’s theatrical house style. Or, as she puts it, “I am drawn to Frantic’s extraordinary ability not just to tell a story but to create feeling on stage.

“I’m always trying to find words for the things that seem impossible to describe, and I love to watch Frantic find language to describe these things through movement.”

Movement that, in the process, really lifts the impact of the language – and I do mean ‘lifts’. Scott Graham’s movement direction plays out on Andrzej Goulding set, dominated by a towering wall of filing cabinets that serves as a climbing frame for Layton’s Robbie and Sinclair Robinson’s Jessie to go clambering hither and thither, to almost dizzying effect at times, as they express a multitude of emotions from giddy joy to guttural pain, playful fun to vulnerable fall-outs, cautious start to implosive finale.

A floor drops out of the structure like a modern-day drawbridge, for sensual bedroom scenes and scrambling precipice friction alike. Drawers open, sometimes to be used as seats, more often for access to props, clothing, photos, mementoes of childhood and past pursuits that serve as welcome or unwelcome memory triggers and glowing light bulbs that set off new patterns of thoughts. Two armchairs complete the set, theatrically large to emphasise how their every reconfiguration carries significance.

Layton and Sinclair Robinson had worked together previously in Frantic’s Othello and Metamorphosis and that familiarity oozes through their kinetic, magnetic performances in Lost Atoms as, in Jordan’s words, they “recreate the extraordinary energy of falling in love, in a way that is recognisable and palpable for the audience.”

How right she is. Lost Atoms is a love story familiar in its course and feelings, but told in a thrillingly bold way, with feeling, energy and infinite hope from lessons learned for the next wall to climb, the next life file for the cabinet.

Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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How Anna Soden had the brainy idea of making an ass of herself in It Comes Out Your Bum at The Old Paint Shop

Anna Soden spouts forth in It Comes Out Your Bum

ANNA Soden was last seen on the York Theatre Royal stage as a pantomime cow.

An award-nominated bovine, no less, playing Dave The Talking Cow and Dave the Trumpet-playing Cow, to boot, in Jack And The Beanstalk in the winter of 2023-2024. And neither the back end of a panto cow, nor the front, but a full-on singing, dancing, chatterbox cow.

Now the York-raised, Brighton-based actor, comedian, musician and writer with ten million views for her comedy videos on TikTok and Instagram is returning to her home city to present her madcap debut comedy show, It Comes Out Your Bum, on night three of the new Old Paint Shop season of burlesque, comedy and live music in the Theatre Royal Studio.

Without further delay, let’s address the show title. “Anna’s brain is a bum – Come see all the nice things that come out of it!” reads the tagline on the Theatre Royal website. Cue an hour of songs, revenge and yes, “talking out your ass”.

Anna Soden as Dave The Talking Cow in Jack And The Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal in December 2023-January 2024: Nominated in Best Supporting Artist category at 2024 UK Pantomime Awards

Explain yourself, Anna. “Well, this show has been quite a long process,” she says. “Initially, as long ago as 2018, I thought, ‘why is no-one making a show about poo?’. So, I’ve been writing and re-writing it for years, starting off as a show about poo, then it became poo material, not gross, but really stupid toilet humour, which I love, and a musical fever dream too.”

A work-in-progress version of the show ran in the Wee Yurt at Hoots@Potterrow at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe, billed as: “Girls aren’t allowed to talk about poo. Even though we all do it! Is Anna sensitively exploring how we’ve managed to gender a universal body function? Or is she just talking about how she used to fancy Milo from the Tweenies and pretending to be the tiny nerdy man that lives in all the calculators in the world? Maybe both!”

The show has moved on again. “I had a chat with a comedian who said ‘you can’t call a show ‘Poo’ because there are so many rules to comedy’, but I’ve been doing so much stand-up comedy and so much new material has emerged since then for the show. It’s now a celebration of the weird stuff that comes out of my brain-bum!

“I think It Comes Out Your Bum is such a life-affirming title. It might put people off, but I don’t mind that. If you don’t feel the title’s not for you, I still don’t think that means it’s not a show for you. Maybe it’s just stubbornness on my part, but I just think it’s funny – and it sparks a lot of questions!”

“You have to find yourself funny because you have to spend so much time with yourself,” reasons comedian, writer, actress and writer Anna Soden

What’s more, “I enter the stage coming through a giant-sized bum made by Freddie Hayes [the York puppeteer and fellow comedic talent behind such shows as Potatohead and The Magic Lady}. It then just sits on stage and I make a bit of a joke about that.”

Anna’s progression into stand-up comedy has been a “natural step”, she says.  “I was enjoying doing a lot of comedy stuff in my acting, though I was also writing serious plays [her adaptation of Five Children And IT and her folk musical Mad For Our Daughters], but I really enjoy stand-up as it scratches an itch that theatre doesn’t.

“Theatre makes you have to be earnest, and I respect that as a jobbing actor, whereas there are no rules to comedy, performing solo, which makes me a better jobbing actor because it keeps my naughtiness, my playfulness, alive – and as a jobbing actor, I’m happy to collaborate with others.”

Performing comedy could be a lonely experience, but Anna takes it in her stride. “The feeling of fear is not that deep,” she says. “If you bomb, it’s not an attack on you personally. It’s just that those people on that night didn’t find it funny. It’s not that deep!

Anna Soden in rehearsal for her adaptation of Five Children And IT

“I was very serious at drama school. I just wanted to do Ibsen plays, and I did that for two years, but you’ve got to have variety – and also I think I have an excellent sense of humour, so why wouldn’t I want to use that?! You have to find yourself  funny because you have to spend so much time with yourself!”

After six successive years of pantomime commitments, Anna will be taking a break this winter. “I did have a couple of offers, including a big Georgian panto, and I’ve loved doing them, but I don’t want my year to revolve around panto,” she says.

“I’ve started being part of the Future Theatre Makers cohort of associate artists, where Chichester Festival Theatre is giving each of us theatre mentorship and then we each write and put on a show in 2027. We’re given funding to support our involvement, enough not to do a panto in a random town.

Anna had planned to do a month-long tour of It Comes Out Your Bum shows. “But then I got cast in Ian Jarvis’s play Steve And Stuff Forever at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, where I was for six weeks,” she says.

Anna Soden’s fairy with her fellow York Theatre Royal Travelling Pantomime cast members, Robin Simpson’s dame, Faye Campbell’s hero, Reuben Johnson’s villain and Josh Benson’s comic turn, in 2020

Robin Simpson’s dame, Anna Soden’s fairy, Faye Campbell’s hero and Reuben Johnson’s villain“It was a romantic play, where I played Steff, not a manic pixie dream-girl, but a spontaneous, free-spirited, heart-on-your-sleeve girl, whereas Steve was very serious and very sensible, planning everything. Classic rom-com!”

What should Saturday’s audience expect in It Comes Out Your Bum? “Don’t expect any narrative or any big meanings. It’s just an hour of ‘stupidness’; five minutes where I pretend to be a sausage; five minutes where I apologise to Andrew Lloyd Webber for what I said about him in my videos, and lots of songs.”

Anna Soden: It Comes Out Your Bum, The Old Paint Shop, York Theatre Royal Studio, Saturday (11/10/2025), 8pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

“Don’t expect any narrative or any big meanings. It’s just an hour of ‘stupidness’,” says Anna Soden of her hour-long comedy show It Comes Out Your Bum

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REVIEW: Griffonage Theatre in FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Sat ***

Making a splash: Katie Leckey’s Darby and Ben Koch’s Taig in The Bogie Men in Griffonage Theatre’s FourTold showcase of Lady Augusta Gregory plays. Picture: John Stead

THIS is a landmark production by Griffonage Theatre, the York company that likes to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

Certainly Lady Augusta Gregory’s plays would qualify as unfamiliar, but maybe it is not so strange that they are strangers to the British stage. They were, they are, Irish plays about Irish people for Irish actors and Irish audiences, presented predominantly at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and in America too but rarely crossing the Irish Sea.

Now, Katie Leckey, Northern Irish actor-director, University of York MA graduate and co-founder of Griffonage Theatre, is presenting her adaptation of four of the late-blooming County Galway playwright’s largely forgotten one-act plays, penned from 1903 to 1914 and never previously staged together over here.

This is a passion project for Leckey, a Lady Augusta enthusiast with plans to study the “criminally under-performed” plays of the Roxborough rural estate dramatist, folklorist and Abbey Theatre co-founder for a PhD. Theatre@41, sure to become increasingly experimental under Tom Bellerby’s directorship, is just the place to dust off her ladyship’s light comedies for reappraisal.

Grace Palma’s Mrs Tarpey and Ben Koch’s James Ryan in Lady Augusta Gregory’s one-act comedy drama Spreading The News. Picture: John Stead

The black-box theatre takes on a traverse configuration, the audience seated to either side of the combustible capers that unfold in Baile Aighneas, or “The Town of Dispute”, as Leckey terms it to reflect how each play is so disputatious.

As presented in the Fay Brothers’ house style at the Abbey Theatre, performances would focus on the storytelling, the voice, the lyrical Irish dialect. Leckey emphasises that too, but rather than “park and bark” theatre, she has favoured the injection of physicality, both in the presentation of that language and in the characterisation, now rooted as much in movement as meter.

You might see parallels with Dylan Thomas’s Welsh village Llareggub in Under Milk Wood; Leckey sees the plays as a “snapshot of a very strange rural Irish town: like Royston Vasey, home of The League Of Gentlemen, meeting Father Ted”.

The League Of Gentlemen is closest to the exaggerated comedic style here, where the comedy may be billed as light but is invariably darker and more heavy handed in performance. The audience laughter comes more from the physicality than Gregory’s often truculent dialogue, penned in Irish dialect but now performed in myriad accents.

Clash of coats: James Lee’s Mr Mineog and Katie Leckey’s Mr Hazel, newspaper editors writing each other off in Lady Augusta Gregory’s Coats. Picture: John Stead

What’s more, being convoluted and percussive in sentence structure, its loquacity can make it hard to follow. The tendency is for the playing to be so boisterous in pushing for the laughs that combative voices become cacophonous, but pumping up the volume is no guarantee to tickle the funny bone.

Blarney and bluster are the heartbeat of the four plays, first up the bustling market place of Spreading The News, where town gossip wreaks havoc, rumours spiral beyond control, apples and maybe blood is spilled, tongues wag and Leckey’s tricycle-riding magistrate is a law unto himself, imagination running roughshod over the truth.

Ben Koch’s James Ryan, spiralling around his walking stick, and Grace Palma’s bow-legged, bent-double Mrs Tarpey bring clowning personality to their roles.

Coats has the classic comedic structure of a mix-up: two coats being taken off, then the wrong one being put back on, with a piece of paper in the pocket of each coat now being in the possession of the wrong person.

Cheered to the rafters: Ben Koch’s Hyacinth Halvey in Lady Augusta Gregory’s Hyacinth Halvey at Theatre@41, Monkgate. Picture: John Stead

Caught in a war of words are two highly competitive newspaper editors, James Lee’s Mr Mineog and Leckey’s Mr Hazel, who have brought each other’s obituary notice to their club restaurant, where polite etiquette comes under ever greater threat as the heat and volume rises in the serpentine scheming.

Next stop, the post office, where Hyacinth Halvey (Ben Koch) has sent word he is coming to town. The young dandy’s reputation precedes him, sending the townsfolk into a frenzy, hanging on his every word on arrival, no matter what he says. Wilf Tomlinson’s preening James Quirke comes to the fore too as Koch’s Hyacinth takes everything in his stride.

Leckey and executive producer Jack Mackay’s company like their shows to stand at the intersection of the madcap and the macabre. Gregory tends more towards the madcap, although the macabre, or maybe the grotesque, nudges into Spreading The News and Hyacinth Halvey.   

The climactic two-hander The Bogie Men could be a forerunner of fellow Irish playwright Samuel Beckett’s 1952 tragicomedy Waiting For Godot, with its chimney-sweep protagonists, Leckey’s Darby and Koch’s Taig, forging a double act in Vladimir and Estragon mode, in matching brace, shirts, trousers, boots and even battered hats at one point.

Helen Clarke-Neale’s Mrs Delane and James Lee’s Miss Joyce in Griffonage Theatre’s Hyacinth Halvey. Picture: John Stead

Rather than passing the time waiting for Godot, they find themselves at a coach stop, “almost indistinguishably similar” but soon finding mutual reasons to argue and fall out. Again, the volume is turned up as high as Spinal Tap’s “11”, but Koch and Leckey elicit the show’s most successful comic friction.

Helen Clarke-Neale, Emily Carhart and Peter Hopwood add to the ensemble’s colourful characterisation, while James Lee cos-plays mischievously as Mrs Tully and Miss Joyce. 

Joined by Leckey’s lusty vocals for Irish pub songs in the interval, Ayse Kaban-Bowers delights with her fiery fiddle when playing between plays.

Truth be told, FourTold is unlikely to spark a nationwide rush to rediscover Lady Augusta Gregory’s obscure curiosities, but Leckey’s enthusiasm is matched by a cast determined to re-light their fire in explosive fashion.

Griffonage Theatre presents FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Griffonage Theatre’s poster for this week’s quadruple bill of Lady Augusta Gregory comedies at Theatre@41, Monkgate

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REVIEW: Paul Rhodes’s verdict on Tom Smith, Stockton on the Forest Village Hall, near  York, October 3

Tom Smith takes his seat at Stockton on the Forest Village Hall. Picture: Carl Letman

A RARE chance to see a bona-fide star up close. Tom Smith is a lynchpin of Editors, a band who rose stealthily and swiftly in the Noughties and have endured, despite personnel changes and a blander direction.

It was no surprise that the village hall was full to bursting; more startling to this neutral was the warmth and volume of the welcome. Smith and his Editors accomplice Nick Willes (keyboards and guitars) got the full red-carpet treatment. 

The 20-strong, 75-minute set was both a showcase for his new solo album There Is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light (to be released December 5) and acoustic renditions of Editors’ favourites.

Without the splenetic, U2-esque guitars or synths, older tunes sat on an equal footing with the brand new ones. Smith wisely drew most from the first two albums, including Munich, Blood and the standout Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors, the encore.

Tom Smith on stage with Editors’ accomplice Nick Willes at Stockton on the Forest Village Hall. Picture: Carl Letman

The crowd was lively and ready to enjoy themselves. In truth they probably gave Smith an easy ride, since some of his new solo songs were unremarkable.

With only two on stage, the focus was firmly on Smith and his great voice. His powerful baritone was wonderful, lifting anything it touched.

He has a distinctive way of leaning in, tucking his neck down into his left shoulder as he plays. To see him leaning into the words too, treating them tenderly and not over-singing was a treat.

Tom Smith: “Distinctive way of leaning in, tucking his neck down into his left shoulder as he plays“. Picture: Carl Letman

Smith might have been dressed like everyman, but he was anything but. Not for him much in the way of banter or small talk – the room was his anyway – rather an evening where the songs did the heavy lifting.

Nor did Smith have anything new to say on matters of the heart (although you could argue who does). His place-based songs, Northern Line and Lights Of New York City, were better, and could (almost) have been written by Tom Waits.

Recast for the moment as a big-voiced crooner, the crowd lapped it up. The Weight Of The World was enhanced by the sound of Friday night beer cans opening in unison – drawing a wry Smith smile. Endings Are Breaking My Heart was memorable, and as we scattered into Storm Amy after the standing ovation, we felt the same, only in a good way.

Review by Paul Rhodes

Tom Smith was presented by Off The Beaten Track and The Crescent, York, at Stockton on the Forest Village Hall.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, ‘Tread Softly’, W B Yeats, He Wishes For The Cloths O Heaven), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 19

Tenor James Gilchrist

THIS was an all-English evening and the first this year to include a singer. James Gilchrist lent his eloquent tenor to songs by the first great song-writer John Dowland and by Rubbra and Leighton, alongside instrumental works by Bliss and Britten.

It was a smart idea to include the two Dowland songs upon which Britten based his Lachrymae variations. Both were given in ‘consort’ versions, with a string quartet mimicking the sound of viols. It was certainly satisfactory, although we hardly felt the dance rhythms on which they were built.

What madethem a success, however, was Gilchrist’s intensity, allied to excellent diction. A sole example was his spine-tingling sforzando twice on ‘hell’ in the final verse of ‘Flow my tears’. ‘If my complaints’ was the very essence of melancholy, Dowland’s forte.

Britten wrote his Lachrymae, subtitled ‘Reflections on a song of John Dowland’, in 1950 for viola and piano. But this was his Op 48a, that tiny ‘a’ indicating the version he wrote 26 years later for viola and small string orchestra. It was a treat to hear it in this format, which turns the work into a virtual concerto. Simone Gramaglia was the thoughtful soloist, partnered by a star-studded octet.

Essentially this is a theme and variations in reverse, with Dowland’s ‘Flow my tears’ emerging radiantly at its close after a tortuous journey. Gramaglia led from the front, invigorating his posse with his rhythmic verve and insights.

When bold low strings (built on Will Duerden’s double bass) grew urgent, he soared high above, then asserting his authority in the cadenza. His tremolo led into a rushing passage before the calm dénouement.

In a sense we had also been in the Elizabethan era with Rubbra’s Two Sonnets by William Alabaster (1567-1640). These involved the viola of Simone van der Giessen, along with Gilchrist and the piano of Anna Tilbrook.

They were intense and prayerful, with tenor and viola blending especially well. In ‘Upon the Crucifix’ the pleading was mellowed by more positive thoughts, whereas the quite deliberate tempo of ‘On the Reed of Our Lord’s Passion’, with insistently dissonant viola and piano, underlined the agitation involved in Christian belief. Gilchrist’s delivery was a model of dramatic perplexity.

Gilchrist and Tilbrook also presented two movements from Kenneth Leighton’s cantata Earth, Sweet Earth. ‘Prelude’ sets a passage from Ruskin’s autobiography as a dreamscape, finishing high on a pianissimo falsetto. Gilchrist took it in his stride.

The icy terrain of ‘Contemplation’ by Hopkins grew ever more intense, and demanded particular accuracy from Tilbrook. She delivered in spades.

This left Bliss’s Clarinet Quintet, with Matthew Hunt in the leading role. Benjamin Baker led the strings, with the support of Emma Parker, Simone van der Giessen and Rebecca Gilliver. There was a lovely flow to the dialogue at the start, contrasting strongly with the taut, staccato excitement of the Allegro molto which melted into a contemplative mood.

The Adagietto had an elegiac aroma, progressing into a sighing romanticism. The finale was a real caper, leavened by syncopation right from the start. But there was still room for Hunt’s trademark cantabile before an exciting coda. The strings had kept close order with the clarinet, making their presence felt whenever possible. Teamwork was the order the evening.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on The Secret Of The Black Spider, Opera North Youth Company, Leeds Grand Theatre, September 26

Abigail McHale as Investigator with members of the Opera North Youth Company in Judith Weir’s The Secret Of The Black Spider. Picture: James Glossop

OPERA North opened its new season with the UK premiere of Judith Weir’s comic thriller in the version first seen at Staatsoper Hamburg in 2008 as Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Spinne.

It features orchestration expanded by Benjamin Gordon from the original 1984 score, which was simply The Black Spider.

It was a bold move by the company to put its youth branch front and centre – and it worked astoundingly well. Weir’s own libretto interweaves two tales, primarily a 19th century novella by the Swiss writer and pastor Jeremias Gotthelf, set in the late 15th century, but also a 1983 report in The Times about excavations at Wawel Cathedral in Kraków.

Ross Ramgobin as Count Heinrich with members of the Opera North Youth Company. Picture: James Glossop

Both stories involve mysterious spiders thought to be lethal. Weir runs them in parallel by inserting five modern interludes, staged as a documentary, into two acts built around the mediaeval fairy-tale.

So we began with journalists interviewing an archaeologist about excavations of King Casimir IV’s tomb in Kraków. By the end we had learnt from a pathologist that a spider had emerged from inside the tomb, followed by the unexplained deaths of several excavators.

Back in 1492, the despotic Count Heinrich’s villagers in the Carpathian mountains are unable to plant a shady grove for his mountain-top castle, but take up the Green Man’s offer to help out. In return, he demands marriage to Christina, who pretends to jilt her fiancé Carl.

Daniel Wright as The Green Man with members of the Opera North Youth Company. Picture: James Glossop

Marrying him anyway, she is punished with a painful hand, from which emerges a plague-bearing spider that crawls inside the Count’s helmet. Driven mad and insensible with drink, he rides to his death. Christina eventually captures the rampaging spider in a trumpet and persuades the sculptors to bury it in the tomb they are preparing for the recently-deceased Casimir IV.

The two stories thus coalesce: cue general rejoicing in the mountains, while a modern-day investigator deduces that “there is a rational answer to everything”.

The score calls for two professional singers. Ross Ramgobin brought a commanding baritone to Heinrich, cleverly blending menace with mirth, while Pasquale Orchard’s vivid soprano allied to her background in dance made for a lively Christina.

Akele Obiang as Caspa. Picture: James Glossop

A variety of cameos were spread throughout the Opera North Youth Chorus and taken with enthusiasm and aplomb. Special mention must go to Daniel Wright who doubled as the Green Man and as a priest attempting to point a final moral, Jeannot Gantier-Hudson as Carl and Akele Obiang as Christina’s visiting cousin Caspa; all three contributed important solos.

Weir’s music, always with tonality not far from the surface, has an irrepressible momentum, which combines tellingly with the wry humour that underlies much of the libretto. It even spoofs operatic conventions. A spider motif dominates the latter stages, and she convincingly interpolates ‘Now thank we all our God’ into the celebrations.

Nicholas Shaw kept a firm hand on the tiller, steering the chamber-sized Opera North Youth Orchestra through tricky rhythmic waters and easily keeping his singers afloat. Chorus discipline under Rosie Kat’s direction was superb, even when tested by the imaginary spider’s rapid reappearances amongst the crowd.

Jeannot Gantier-Houston as Carl, Pasquale Orchard as Christina and Akele Obiang as Caspa in The Secret Of The Black Spider. Picture: James Glossop

Zara Mansouri’s set and costumes conjured both period and topography, with Jake Wiltshire’s flexible lighting adding to the mystery but without gloom.

It should be unnecessary to mention that this was the company’s first main-stage opera by a female composer.

All the creative team was at pains to point out that much of the production’s subtlety originated with the performers themselves. It highlighted the vital importance of the whole undertaking: educational outreach is one thing, but putting young performers before the general public quite another. It also offered as powerful a guarantee as can be imagined of the company’s future health.

Review by Martin Dreyer

The Opera North Youth Company in The Secret Of The Black Spider. Picture: James Glossop

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York Theatre Royal launches Sleeping Beauty with fire show. Who’s in the cast?

Sleeping Beauty cast members, left to right, Tommy Carmichael, Jennie Dale, Robin Simpson, Aoife Kenny, Sophie Flora and Chris Morgan outside York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick Photography

THE York Theatre Royal pantomime cast for Sleeping Beauty has met up for the first time.

In attendance too at the costumed press launch were the regular production team of director Juliet Forster, the Theatre Royal creative director; writer Paul Hendy, artistic director of panto partners Evolution Productions, and choreographer Hayley Del Harrison.

Dressing up for the occasion were Robin Simpson, returning for his sixth year as dame, easy to spot in polka dots as Nurse Nellie; fellow returnee Tommy Carmichael, on daft lad duty as Jangles; CBeebies’ star Jennie Dale, making her very first visit to York ahead of playing Fairy Moonbeam, and Irish-Jamaican actress Aoife Kenny, likewise setting foot in York for the first time, in readiness for her title role (also known as Aurora).

Present too for the photoshoot were ensemble cast members Sophie Flora and Chris Morgan – who will be joined in the show by returnees Charlotte Wood and Christopher Morgan-Shillingford. Turning up the heat in a demonstration on stage was fire act Kris Madden, the bright spark who will be the panto’s variety turn.

He is the fire starter: Kris Madden, the specialist fire act, warms up for his variety turn in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick Photography

Absent on the day, on account of performing commitments elsewhere, but also confirmed for their Theatre Royal pantomime debuts were West End actress Jocasta Almgill, from East Yorkshire, as wicked fairy Carabosse, and Scott Goncalves, a name familiar to York audiences from his days in York Orchard Musical Theatre Company, Pick Me Up Theatre and York Light Opera Company.

“We’re very excited that Scott will be playing our prince, Prince Michael of Moravia,” said Juliet. “He did a couple of York Light Opera shows here and was one of our young Lancelots when we did The Legend Of King Arthur [July 2013], when Anna Soden and Laura Soper, both now professionals too, were also the cast too. Scott went off to drama school and has been doing musical theatre shows.”

Jennie, from Brighton, has made a habit of playing the fairy in panto, “though I did play the Witch in Hansel & Gretel and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, which I absolutely loved, but other than that I’ve always been a goodie,” she said, before heading off to Bradford to rehearse and record this winter’s CBeebies’ pantomime, Cinderella.

“The fairy is a bit of a safety net for children because, when they see me, they know everything will be OK,” says Sleeping Beauty’s Fairy Moonbeam, played by CBeebies star Jennie Dale, PIcture: Charlie Kirkpatrick Photography

“Funnily enough, the character I’m known for on CBeebies is a baddie. I play Captain Captain in Swashbuckle, though I also have my own series called Jennie’s Fitness In Five, five minutes of attempting to get children to do some exercises, where it all goes wrong!

“But in panto I love how the fairy has an important thread that’s carried throughout the performance, explaining to the children what’s going on, but also with lovely humour. She’s a bit of a safety net for children because, when they see me, they know everything will be OK.”

Sleeping Beauty will run from December 2 to January 4 2026. Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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In Focus: Return of The Old Paint Shop, York Theatre Royal Studio, October 9 to 25

The Old Paint Shop, pictured on its inaugural night on October 5 2024, returns to York Theatre Royal Studio tomorrow

THIS autumn, York Theatre Royal Studio is being transformed once again into cabaret club The Old Paint Shop for a season of comedy, live music, burlesque and more, featuring Paint Shop favourites and exciting new acts.  

Seating will be cabaret club style and unreserved, offering an intimate theatrical experience where audience members are encouraged to grab a drink at the bar, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.   

Evolution Of Fishermen: Opening new season tomorrow. Picture: Luke Ryan Photography

Evolution Of Fishermen, October 9, 8pm 

EVOLUTION Of Fishermen are a contemporary folk band, brought together by a mutual love of storytelling, harmony and original folk songs. Since forming in 2021, they have played Green Note, O2 Academy Islington, Old Blue Last in London and The Crescent in York, plus festival appearances at Wilderness, Deershed, Gate To Southwell, LOOP fest & Sam Lee’s The NEST stage at Medicine Festival.

Nun better than Freida Nipples in the company of The Exhibitionists. Picture: Fake Trash Studio

Freida Nipples presents The Exhibitionists, October 10, 8pm  

JOIN York’s international award-winning burlesque artiste Freida Nipples as she welcomes some of her favourite and most fabulous performance artists from across the UK. From burlesque to drag and beyond, be sure to expect the unexpected.

Anna Soden: Talking out of her ass in brain wave of a debut comedy show

Anna Soden: It Comes Out Your Bum, October 11, 8pm  

ANNA Soden’s brain is a bum. “Come see all the nice things that come out of it,” says the York-raised, Brighton-based comedian, actor and award-nominated York Theatre Royal pantomime cow.

It Comes Out Your Bum is Anna’s madcap debut comedy hour, full of songs, revenge and talking out your ass. This 2025 Komedia New Comedian semi-finalist has featured on Absolute Radio, iHeart Radio and BBC Upload  and attracted more than 11million views on TikTok/Instagram. 

Fool(ish) Improv: Talking cobblers

Fool(ish) Improv: Cobbled Together, October 11, 8pm 

FOOL(ISH) are delighted to deliver a new kind of improv gig as they return to York Theatre Royal. Inspired by York’s most famous street [Shambles], Cobbled Together is a show where the audience brings its own stories and memories of York to pave the way for some freshly ground comedy.

“All things local are about to get a little bit more ludicrous” say Fool(ish).  “Join us for a spontaneous and ‘shambolic’ comedy where everything is made up… apart from the bits that happen to be true!” 

Kiki Deville: Amusing tales to heartfelt confessions. Picture: Veronica Vee Marx

An Evening with Kiki Deville, October 17, 8pm   

COMBINING a big voice, big humour and an even bigger heart, award-winning cabaret diva Kiki DeVille presents a dazzling night of storytelling, sharp wit and unforgettable moments.

From amusing tales to heartfelt confessions, Kiki serves it all, seasoned with her signature sass and a splash of vintage glam. Expect wonderful songs, side-splitting stories and perhaps a visit from glamorous guests along the way.

The Jazzville Quartet’s singer Raquel Alvaro

The Jazzville Quartet, October 18, 8pm  

JOIN York jazz combo The Jazzville Quartet for a joyful celebration of Latin favourites (some sung in the original Portuguese), swing classics and haunting jazz ballads, led fabulous Portuguese jazz songbird Raquel Alvaro.

Accompanying Raquel will be piano maestro, arranger and composer Alec Robinson, saxophone legend Jon Taylor and double bass player Tim Murgatroyd.

Queer Spaces: Imagining a better world through a queer lens

Queer Spaces: Climate Pride, October 22, 7pm  

THIS one-off night of sparkling new stories imagines a better world through a queer lens. Written and performed by York LGBTQIA artists trying out new work for the first time, Queer Spaces is presented by Roots in association with York Theatre Royal and the Stephen Joseph Theatre.  

Pianist Karl Mullen: Everything from Chopin to Oasis, via Led Zeppelin and Les Dawson

Karl Mullen, October 23, 8pm  

KARL Mullen is a familiar sight to York visitors as the busker with an upright piano playing outside York Minster, jazz fixture at The Phoenix Inn, in George Street, and Pub Piano Champion at the Leeds Piano Competition.

Mullen has a huge repertoire and specialises in virtuosic arrangements of material from The Great American Songbook, classic pop and rock, boogie-woogie and blues. Expect a highly entertaining mix of everything from Chopin to Oasis, via Led Zeppelin and Les Dawson, delivered with a large dose of humour and stories. 

Jazz singer and pianist Nicki Allan

The Nicki Allan Quartet, October 24, 8pm  

LEEDS jazz outfit The Nicki Allan Quartet are headed by jazz singer and pianist Nicki Allan, whose vocal style blends wholesome blues sound with soulful jazz and a hint of R&B. Together, the quartet plays a lively and varied set of up-tempo music with a fresh, modern sound interwoven with bold improvisation, scat and a deliciously driving feel.  

The Isolation Creations: Hosting The Haunted Haus Of Games

The Haunted Haus Of Games with The Isolation Creations, October 25, 8pm 

EYES down for a full Haus of spooky shenanigans as drag queen comedians The Isolation Creations return to York Theatre Royal with their Halloween show, full of ghosts and ghoulies!

Join Jamie Honeybourne and Alan Gibbons for an evening of bingo, laughter, games, surprises and cheesy prizes. “Dress in your best spooky fancy dress and you might go home with a trick and a treat,” they say. 

Tickets for The Old Paint Shop are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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New dad Joshua Burnell plays Rise at Bluebird Bakery with full band as he revisits debut album Lend An Ear for book version

York musician Joshua Burnell in the woods. Picture: Frances Sladen

JOSHUA Burnell makes retro folk-pop-rock for the modern world.

Next up for the York keyboard player, guitarist, singer and songwriter – and teacher and cafe pianist to boot – is a sold-out gig with his full band at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, on Saturday night.

Joining Joshua (piano, Hammond organ, guitar and vocals) in the bakery will be Nathan Greaves (electric guitar), Ed Simpson (drums), Olly Whitehouse (bass), Kat Hurdley (violin) and, hopefully, Frances Sladen (vocals). 

Expect hooky melodies drenched in warm, retro-synth textures, reverbing guitars, lush harmonies and words that make you think. Imagine The War On Drugs meets Peter Gabriel-era Genesis as 1970s’ glam makes peace with psychedelia.

Through his intricately crafted lyrics, Joshua creates a multiverse of settings, from apocalyptic love songs to re-imagined fairy tales, and introduces otherworldly characters, such as the Glass Knight, resurrected from an old English folk tale to reflect the foibles of today.

“This one’s for fans of Stranger Things, Seventies’ art rock and everything in between,” says Joshua as he answers CharlesHutchPress’s questions ahead of Friday’s gig.

What form will the Rise gig take, Joshua? 

“Full band! 🤘 It’s sold out so should be a great night. We sold out over a year ago so I want to give a huge shout-out to everyone who bought a ticket.”

What is the story behind your decision to revisit your debut album Lend An Ear with an upcoming new audio and book edition?

“In 2013, I recorded an album in a student bedroom with a broken MacBook and a guitar I barely knew how to tune. The songs were strong; the execution wasn’t. I’ve been gradually correcting my mistakes ever since.

“This new album is the story of finishing unfinished business. Of doing something again for the sake of doing it properly. The album contains completely re-arranged and re-imagined versions of the songs, to the standard I’d always intended, now re-recorded partly at Young Thugs Studios [at South Bank Social Club, Ovington Terrace, York] and partly in a cottage in rural Wales.

“At one point last year, everything just got a bit too much and I found myself unable to focus properly. I always loved the mythology of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page hiding away in a cottage in Wales to write Led Zeppelin III, so I decided I should do the same. It was exactly what I needed and most of the album took shape during that time. 

“In a quiet rebellion against streaming platforms who have successfully managed to devalue music, I’m releasing this one exclusively on CD. It’ll be heard by fewer people, but if it makes it sustainable, that’s enough for me.

“To make it extra special for those people who do choose to support the project and buy a copy, it will come as a hardback book with the full story behind the album and songs.”

What have you been up to in 2025? 

“One of the highlights of my life: my daughter Lyra was born! I’ve become a dad, which is the most beautiful thing but also makes you ask yourself some pretty serious questions.

“I knew I couldn’t sustain teaching and music and be a dad, so I’ve taken a year away from teaching to have a go at supporting my family with music. It’s difficult, but I feel very supported by my friends, family and fans.

“This is also part of the reasoning behind ditching streaming platforms – it seems reckless to release music that way when the stakes are so high.”

Have you ever snuck one of your own songs into your piano playing at Bettys cafe?!

“I actually wrote a song about Bettys – or, rather, a love story that takes place there – so I play that one every time! It’s called The Snow On St Helen’s Square. Lucy and 59 occasionally sneak in there too.” 

The long hair has gone… why?!

“I wish there was a more profound explanation… it was for a music video! The song is called 59 and is about the last second in a minute; the last minute in an hour; the moment before something new begins.

“It was released just before Lyra was born and was part of that excitement in the unknown. I wanted it to look quite sharp and Eighties-inspired, and I think the short hair suited it well. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMsziLvQ_BI .

“I’m growing it long again now. I’m an elf at heart.”

How has your songwriting changed down the years?

“I would like to think I’ve started to consider why I am writing a song more: what problem will my songs solve or who will they serve? I’ve also learned to arrange my songs better, which is a difficult skill.

“Because I write in the studio a lot of the time, the arrangement can happen simultaneously. It’s about having the foresight to hear what the finished song will sound like, and making choices accordingly. There was a time I used to throw in everything and the kitchen sink – now I only use the kitchen sink if there needs to be a kitchen sink.”

How is the Road to the Royal Albert Hall campaign progressing, as highlighted on your website?

“It’s always been my dream to perform a headline show there, so shall we try to make it happen? We’ll need at least 4,000 people to sign up, and we’ll have to prove we mean business at the venues we play along the way.

“There are 2,534 more subscribers to go. If people want to come along, they just have to sign up at https://www.joshuaburnell.co.uk/roadtotheroyalalberthall.

“I’ll keep updating on our progress. Emails will go out on the first day of each month. Be sure to check your junk folder!”

Joshua Burnell with full band, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, October 11, doors, 7.30pm. SOLD OUT

The album cover artwork for Joshua Burnell’s Lend An Ear

Lend An Ear revisited: the back story

“THIS album will only be heard by a finite group of people,” says Joshua. “I’m starting a small, musical rebellion: the album will not be released on streaming platforms. Instead, this album will be limited to a small number of physical copies, beautifully packaged in a hard-back book because I believe the context and stories are as important as the songs themselves. 

“To keep the music coming, this needs to be sustainable. A small number of people will own and hear this music. It will be special for them and more than rewarding enough for me. 

“The album contains the re-recorded versions followed by the original versions. I hope you enjoy the depth and lived experience in the music and sense of adventure hidden in each layer of every song.”

Lend An Ear (Revisited) contains:

*Re-recorded version of Joshua Burnell’s debut  album

*All tracks from the original 2013 release

*Hardback book(lette!) of extensive sleeve notes and stories behind the songs

*7x ‘deep dive’ posters, breaking down the tracks 

*The warm feeling that you supported an independent artist to continue making music!

Lend An Ear can be pre-ordered at https://www.joshuaburnell.co.uk/product-page/lend-an-ear-revisited-cd-book.