Sarah Belcher’s Deborah and Phil Corbitt’s Colin in Alison Carr’s All At Sea. Picture: Matt Savage
ALL At Sea, Alison Carr’s new play inspired by the notorious “canoe man” story, is making waves at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.
Maria Crocker directs Phil Corbitt and Sarah Belcher in this premiere co-production with Newcastle’s Live Theatre. “This sharp and witty play requires two expert actors to bring this extraordinary couple to life, and this casting has delivered just that,” she says.
Drawing inspiration from Seaton Carew couple John and Anne Darwin, whose insurance fraud hit the headlines in the early 2000s, All At Sea is the story of Colin and Deborah, a couple with spiralling debt, a sky-high mortgage and seemingly nowhere to turn.
Then Colin comes up with the idea of faking his own death in a canoeing accident in the North Sea for an insurance payout.
Phil Corbitt’s Colin, the canoe man in All At Sea. Picture: Von Fox Promotions
“I’m often drawn to stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and if they’re rooted in the North East, then even better,” says director Maria.
“I first approached Alison with the idea for a play about the ‘canoe couple’ five years ago. I’d always been fascinated by the story, but during lockdown, in a time of confinement and claustrophobia, when we were all ‘locked in’ our flats and houses, it got me thinking about the reality of it all.”
Maria continues: “I wasn’t interested in putting the ‘real life’ version on stage and was certain that the story needed to be reimagined by someone who could tap into the potential darkness and horror, alongside the humour and absurdity.
Sarah Belcher’s Deborah in All At Sea. Picture: Matt Savage
“I knew Alison had to write it. Thankfully, she said yes. I offered Alison the seed of an idea and handed it over to her imagination. Alison has created something totally unique, inspired by the original story but completely her own; a sharp, witty and moving exploration of a relationship surviving under extreme pressure. It has been a real privilege to bring it to life.”
Stephen Joseph Theatre and Live Theatre, Newcastle, present All At Seaat Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 31. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Did you know?
ALISON Carr’s earlier plays, Caterpillar and The Last Quiz Night On Earth, played the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 2018 and 2020 respectively.
Who is in the creative team for All At Sea?
ALISON Carr, director; Maria Crocker, director; Hannah Sibai, designer; Roma Yagnik, sound designer; Catja Hamilton, lighting designer, and Ziad Jabero, composer.
Phil Corbitt’s Colin emerging from the shadows in All At Sea. Picture: Matt Savage
Cassi Roberts’s Messenger and Andrew Wrenn’s Egeon in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s piratical The Comedy Of Errors. Picture: John Stead
IN Katie Leckey and Emily Carhart’s piratical twist on The Comedy Of Errors for York Shakespeare Project, the original text of Shakespeare’s “shortest and possibly funniest” play will be merged with slapstick, farce and physical comedy.
Opening tomorrow (21/10/2026) at Theatre@41, Monkgate, the production combines the directorial talents of Leckey, director of York company Griffonage Theatre, and Carhart, who worked with Katie on York Settlement Community Players’ staging of Joe Orton’s Loot and Griffonage’s showcase of Lady Augusta Gregory works, Fourtold.
In their opening statement, explaining the pirate overhaul, they say: “The morally questionable, yet still comedic, nature of many, if not all, of the characters put us in mind of some of our favourite piratical antiheroes.
“We felt like the framing device of piracy gave us the chance to include slapstick violence between ‘masters and servants’ in a way that wouldn’t seem too brutal or alien to a modern audience.”
Emily says: “We realised that we both wanted to pitch to direct this production, having become friends through working together, and so we chatted about it…
…“Two heads are better than one,” says Katie. “We wanted to use our individual strengths to look at different aspects to make a coherent whole, a well-rounded piece.”
The Comedy Of Errors co-director Emily Carhart
“Katie is more experienced in physical theatre and clowning, whereas I focus on the voice, text, relationships between character,” says Emily.
“It’s all in there anyway, where it begs for the comedy to be made physical,” says Katie. “Sometimes the physical just has to happen because otherwise a joke won’t land.”
Both co-directors were devotees already of Shakespeare’s “most farcical play”, the 1592 one with the two sets of identical twins. Why? “It’s just a really silly play,” says Emily. “In fairness, I think he intended it to be silly! It’s fast and zippy and a lot shorter than most of his plays, and when you unpick the language, it’s loaded with punchlines.
“It gives you a plot to play with because the characters are in a ridiculous situation and so you don’t have to take it seriously, but it’s written in a sophisticated way that uses metaphorical language. That said, it may be a controversial thing to say but it’s quite a surface-level play.”
Katie adds: “The reason I like it is because it’s a farce, and obviously I’m no stranger to farces [such as Orton’s Loot]. What drew me to it is that it’s such a succinct farce, whereas Twelfth Night and As You Like It are much longer and get muddled by having too many plotlines.
Ben Reeves-Rowley’s Solinus and Harry Summers’s Angelo in the rehearsal room for York Shakespeare Project’s The Comedy Of Errors. Picture: John Stead
“This play is cohesive, cut and dry, and that makes it easier to play with. There’s none of the weirdness of the ending of Love’s Labour’s Lost; nothing that doesn’t gel or make sense – and so I can just put slapstick in it!”
The pirate twist emerged in response to the “insinuation of domestic violence and adultery in the play”. “Characters are immoral or amoral – devoid of morals – which tonally didn’t meld with the play, so we thought, ‘how can we keep it as a light comedy?’, which led to pirates,” says Emily.
“Everyone has an idea of pirates, from Treasure Island, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Muppet Treasure Island, with all that swashbuckling flamboyancy of piracy,” says Katie, who will play Luciano, by the way. “It lightens the whole thing, with everyone knowing that pirates are into pirating and plundering, but everyone still likes them!”
“That’s why you buy into the convention that it’s fun and silly,” says Emily. “I think it also makes it more accessible to modern audiences because of the dynamics of ‘masters and servants’, so we’ve set it in the golden age of piracy,” adds Katie.
When? The end of the Stuart era/beginning of the Georgian era… “but we’ve added Victorian costumes too because of how people think of pirates in that time,” says Katie. “It’s very much a vibe, rather than historical accuracy,” says Emily, who will bring her puppetry skills to the show.
The Comedy Of Errors co-director Katie Leckey
The co-directors were keen to apply gender swapping to “make some things less unpalatable while still drawing attention to how sexist the text is”.
“We were intrigued by the lack of traditional gender and romantic dynamics in the play,” they say. “In Elizabethan culture, as depicted in many of Shakespeare’s plays, there was a more flexible understanding of physical and romantic intimacy between same sex partners, as well as a fluid approach to the representation of gender on stage. We feel our production is a celebration of relationships of many kinds, platonic, familial and romantic.”
Katie says: “We’ve made it a matriarchy, rather than a patriarchy. We also have a same sex couple now, which I was keen to do as it feels the perfect time to do it, without shoehorning it into the plot.”
Emily adds: “It’s interesting to see a woman play such an unpleasant character [Antipholus], when we’re used to seeing men playing the role, which makes it all the more jarring.”
Katie concludes: “People will hopefully accept what we’ve done with the play. It feels right, rather than forced, so I can’t see it being done any other way now!”
York Shakespeare Project in The Comedy Of Errors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 21 to 24, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
High laughs on the high seas: York Shakespeare Project’s piratical poster for this week’s production of The Comedy Of Errors
Plot summary for York Shakespeare Project’s The Comedy Of Errors
“AVAST ye landlubbers! Set sail for York Shakespeare Project’s piratical production of The Comedy of Errors!,” reads the invitation from directors Katie Leckey and Emily Carhart.
“The flamboyant captain Antipholus and flirtatious first mate Dromio arrive at the corrupt pirate isle of Ephesus to find that it has everything a salty sea dog requires: a tavern, a shipwreck, sea shanties, talking parrots, general debauchery and (of course) a whole lot of booty!
“However, things start to get very confusing very quickly, when both the captain and first mate don’t seem to be acting like themselves.
“In a plot laden with mistaken identity, colourful characters, swashbuckling action and a fair bit of slapstick, this be Shakespeare but not as ye know it.”
Who is in the cast for The Comedy Of Errors?
Antipholus of Syracuse: Helen Clarke Dromio of Syracuse: Kat Lazarus Antipholus of Ephesus: Laura Broughton-Janes Dromio of Ephesus: Liz Duggan Adriana: Ro Trimble Luciano: Katie Leckey Solinus, The Duke of Ephesus: Ben Reeves-Rowley Egeon: Andrew Wrenn Emilia, The Abbess: Andrea Mitchell Angelo: Harry Summers Balthazar: Grace Scott Officer/Messenger: Cassi Roberts Courtesan: Jacob Bassford Dr Pinch/Nell: Jess Netherway First Merchant/Nell: Stuart Green Second Merchant: Thomas Jennings
Teacher Miss Hedge (Katie Spencer) steps in between school bully Dean Paxton (Cain Branton) and dreamer Jamie New (Frankie Bounds) in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
THIRD time, even luckier. After York Stage’s Teen Version at Theatre@41 in June 2023 and Pick Me Up Theatre’s Joseph Rowntree Theatre run in July 2025, Sheffield musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is being re-made in York for the third time.
This one is the best yet, wholly justifying Nik Briggs’s decision to revisit Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells’ musical after directing the York premiere in 2023. “When the full version became available I knew I had to bring it to the Grand Opera House,” he said, promising a “truly beautiful, bold and gritty new production, capturing the electricity, humour and heart that has made ‘Jamie’ a modern British classic”.
Electricity. Tick. Humour. Tick. Heart. Tick, tick, ticker. They are all here in abundance in a production driven by Briggs’s thrilling direction, bold and beautiful performances and A J Powell’s choreography, full of punch and panache. What lifts it even higher, to five- star status, is Briggs’s costume and especially set design.
In a story so fast moving, where Jamie’s life is always on the edge of being out of control, where he wants to run before he can strut in heels, Briggs’s revolving stage is the perfect way to encapsulate the commotion. It enables the next scene to be set up out of sight, in transitions from Mayfield School classroom to Jamie’s house; classroom to Victor’s Secret clothes shop; a street bench to Jamie’s house; outside Legs Eleven nightclub to inside.
Nik Briggs: Director-designer of York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
There is no need for stage hands to be in view, save to push the merry-go-round for the next triangular stage to lock into place. It is so quick and efficient that the only things not to be on the move are the hands of the classroom clock. Then again, time waits for no man, or rather teenage boy in this case.
After Ryan Addyman, at the age of 17 in 2023, and Harvey Stephens, at 15 in 2025, now 16-year-old Sheffield council estate schoolboy Jamie New is played by Huby professional actor Frankie Bounds, who is fully ten years older than Harvey at 25, but still boyish of frame, cherubic in his cheekiness and lithe of limb to complement boundless mischievous energy and singing skills honed by his training in both opera and musical theatre.
Inspired by the Firecracker documentary Jamie: Drag Queen At 16, composer Gillespie Sells (from Horsham pop practitioners The Feeling) and writer/lyricist MacRae draw on an original idea by co-writer Jonathan Butterell for the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen in this classic teen rebel story.
Withering wit, northern nous and sassy social awareness all pepper their unflinching account of societal and classroom attitudes towards gender, bigotry, bullying, homophobia, absentee fathers and the right to self-expression. Nine years on from the Sheffield Crucible premiere, post-Covid strictures and the rise of right-wing intolerance, ‘Jamie’ hits home all the harder.
Mum Margaret New (Joanne Theaker), left, and friend Ray (Julie-Ann Smith) organising the 16th birthday party for Jamie (Frankie Bounds) in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Significantly, every Jamie putdown of loathsome, self-loathing school bully Dean Paxton (Cain Branton) is met with cheers, cheers that grew even louder to greet Bounds’ exit from the Stage Door after Saturday’s matinee. Likewise, Jamie’s best friend, assured York Stage debutante Roxanne Hall’s Priti Pasha, the Muslim student destined to study Medicine at Cambridge, puts dunderhead Dean in his place too. This bravura musical not only celebrates difference but what a difference for the better it makes too.
Among the Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School, a typical northern comprehensive classroom of hope-filled, yet cynical and unruly 16-year-olds, Bounds’ Jamie is a restless Yorkshire dreamer in need of escape. He wants to be a performer, not the fork lift driver his career advisor suggests.
Breaking rules and hearts alike, this lippy kid in lip gloss is outwardly confident but he is naive and vulnerable too, wounded by the barbs of his stay-away father (Adam Thompson) and discouraged by his narrow-minded teacher Miss Hedge (Katie Spencer).
The grit promised by Briggs is delivered through the kitchen-sink drama frankness not only of blinkered teacher and bigoted father but also of Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever-supportive mum Margaret (Joanne Theaker, whose rendition of heartfelt ballad He’s My Boy is the Act Two show-stopper).
Class act:Frankie Bounds in his glittering yet shattering performance as teenager Jamie New at the heart of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
High quality is guaranteed by the presence of both Theaker and Julie-Ann Smith’s Ray, who brings a sharp tongue and kind heart to every domestic drama. Together they form a formidably forthright duo taking on both authority and convention.
To go with the grit, here comes the glitz and bravado of dress-shop boss Hugo/veteran drag act Loco Chanelle (Grant McIntyre) and the drag-queen veterans Sandra Bollock (Thompson’s second role), Tray Sophisticay (George Cornell, reprising his Teen Version role) and Laika Virgin (the thoroughly fabulous Stu Hutchinson), in Sheffield’s answer to The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.
Supporting roles and ensemble cast are in fine form too, as is Jessica Viner’s band, where James Lolley’s trumpet is particularly potent. Briggs has hit new heights in his director-designer double whammy, bringing out the best in his cast, boosted by Powell’s fabulous choreography, where even the cans on a schoolroom table dance in rhythm.
York Stage presents Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Year 11 pupils, led by Frankie Bounds’ Jamie New in red nail varnish, turn the classroom into a dancefloor of defiance in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
The Portrait Players: Playing four Baroque Around The Books concerts in York on November 7 and 8
THE National Centre for Early Music, York, is to receive a three-year funding package from the John Feldberg Foundation to ensure the continuation of the Baroque Around The Books community concert series that will expand into the East Riding Libraries too.
Baroque Around the Books presents free, informal and accessible performances in York’s community libraries, bringing high-quality Early Music to audiences across the city in a familiar community setting. Funding is now in place until the end of 2028.
Since 2024, Baroque Around The Books has featured musicians of the highest calibre who also perform on stage at the National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate.
Taking part so far have been Dowland’s Foundry, featuring lutenist Sam Brown and tenor Daniel Thomson, setting Shakespeare to music by Elizabethan composers; Intesa, European musicians Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti, who combine the sound of the viol with the voice, and Flutes and Frets, who performed at the first series in March 2024.
Dowland’s Foundry lutenist Sam Brown with audience members at Baroque Around The Books. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
The concerts have played to enthusiastic audiences and become an important part of the libraries’ work, providing both a community cultural experience and a development opportunity for the NCEM’s emerging ensembles to learn new skills in engaging with audiences in a celebration and discovery of Early Music.
This year’s concerts will be performed by the all-female British ensemble The Portrait Players, bringing 17th and 18th century music to modern audiences, as they will be too at the York Early Music Christmas Festival when performing À la Venue de Noël: As Christmas Approaches at Bedern Hall, Bedern, on December 6 at 2pm.
For Baroque Around The Books, Emilia Agajew, harp, Miriam Nohl, viola da gamba, Claire Ward, soprano, and Kristiina Watt, theorbo and soprano, will visit Acomb Explore (11am) and Clifton Explore (2pm) on December 7, then Tang Hall Explore (11am) and York Explore (2pm) on December 8, to share the music and poetry of 17th century women in a programme entitled The New Lyre. Entry is free with no booking required.
Welcoming the funding for this NCEM cultural wellbeing initiative, NCEM executive director Cherry Fricker said: “We are very grateful to the John Feldberg Foundation for providing the funding to deliver this wonderful community experience in partnership with Explore York Libraries and Archives.
Intesa’s Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti performing at Baroque Around The Books. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
“This three-year support enables the National Centre for Early Music to continue sharing the extraordinary array of talent within the UK’s vibrant Early Music scene with communities across York, while reinforcing our ongoing commitment to supporting, encouraging and nurturing the skills of emerging artists in the UK and beyond.”
The John Feldberg Foundation said: “The foundation is delighted to be part of this innovative and ground-breaking project, which gives everyone the chance to experience the excitement of Early Music in their local community library.”
Dave Fleming, creative producer for Explore York, said: “Baroque Around The Books demonstrates the vital role libraries play as community and cultural spaces. These performances bring high-quality live music into welcoming, accessible settings, creating memorable experiences for our communities.
“One of the joys of the programme is seeing people call in to borrow a book and leave having discovered an exceptional live performance. We’re delighted that this successful partnership will continue for another three years.”
Intesa’sLucine Musaelian entertaining a child at Baroque Around The Books. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
A poster for No Spinoza and Nick Walters’ exhibition The Wisdom Of The Desert
YORK arts collective Navigators Art will bring together two multi-media artists for The Wisdom Of The Desert, an exhibition of film, sound and sculpture in the historic Red Tower, Foss Islands Road, York, on November 7 and 8.
No Spinoza (Thomas Pearson) and Nick Walters share an interest in the symbolism of found materials and the mystical traditions of the wilderness. Assembling a range of new work, they will create an immersive, provocative, multi-sensory experience.
Honey has long been revered by ancient desert cultures as a life-giving substance, associated with ideas of rebirth and immortality. Famously, Saint John the Baptist is said to have survived alone on a diet of wild honey and locusts.
Nick Walters’ Honey Dipper: Passing electrical current through honey to create mysterious and ever-changing textures of sound
Walters’ Honey Dipper (2026) passes electrical current through the material to create mysterious and ever-changing textures of sound. Ex-voto (2026), a series of small sculptures set in niches in the tower walls, alludes to beeswax votive statues placed in shrines as a gesture of gratitude and devotion.
No Spinoza presents Jupiter’s Great Hurricane (2026), a cycle of experimental music and film that broadly explores themes of temptation, progress and inheritance. Various references are made to desert spirituality, including the words of Saint Anthony the Great, the father of Christian monasticism.
The work broadens out to consider blood, stars, sub-atomic particles and the geopolitical importance of oil. The videos accompany an album of music and a book of essays that will be available to buy at the exhibition.
Thomas Pearson aka No Spinoza
The work of north eastern artist Thomas Pearson (No Spinoza) spans music, poetry and film, linked by themes including folklore, industrial heritage and postmodernism in art and architecture. He exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2018 and the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre, London, in 2023 and created a large-scale solo poetry/sculpture installation in the marshland of RSPB Saltholme, Middlesbrough, in 2019. (2019).
He is a widely published writer and was long-listed for the 2025 National Poetry Competition. His music has been featured on BBC Radio 6 Music and live in session on BBC Radio York.
York mixed-media artist Nick Walters combines recycled materials and found objects with technology to create interactive and immersive projects, installations and sculptures.
Nick Walters’ Ex-voto: Small sculptures set in niches in the tower walls, alluding to beeswax votive statues placed in shrines as a gesture of gratitude and devotion
His past exhibitions include HOPE: Shadow and Light (2023) in the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre chapel in York, in partnership with York arts charity New Visuality, and Soundscaping (2026) at the National Centre for Early Music in York and at Greenbelt Festival.
Sited on York’s medieval City Walls to the east of the city centre, the Red Tower dates originally from 1490, although the present building was restored heavily in the Victorian period. Built as a watchtower, when the area to the north was a flooded lake known as the King’s Fishpool, today the tower is a charity-run community hub.
No Spinoza (Thomas Pearson) and Nick Walters present The Wisdom Of The Desert, The Red Tower, Foss Islands Road, York, November 7, 6pm to 9pm, and November 8, 1pm to 4pm.
Another poster for No Spinoza and Nick Walters’ exhibition at the Red Tower
In the spotlight: Frankie Bounds’ Jamie New, front, in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
FROM added grit in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie to a piratical twist on The Comedy Of Errors, Brandon Flowers in full bloom at York Barbican to drag diva Velma Celli rocking out, Charles Hutchinson spots pearls aplenty.
Bold and unapologetic musical of the week: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, until October 24; 7.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinees and 4pm Sunday
TOM MacRae and Dan Gillespie’s Sheffield musical plays the Grand Opera House for the first time in Nik Briggs’s production for York Stage that restores the grit to both complement and counter the glitz in the uplifting underdog story of Jamie New (Frankie Bounds), a 16-year-old schoolboy from a Steel City council estate with big dreams and the courage to stand out when it would be easier to stay quiet.
Equipped with the strength to face the world head on, Jamie fights prejudice, finds his voice and discovers the freedom of stepping into the spotlight on his own terms. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Greek tragedy twist of the week: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Odyssey: Her Story, York Theatre Royal, until October 31
BOOKER Prize winner Margaret Atwood revisits Homer’s The Odyssey in an exuberantly irreverent and darkly humorous retelling where she gives voice to Odysseus’s silenced wife, Penelope – still awaiting his return 20 years after the Trojan War – and her chorus of maids in a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge that exposes the truth behind the myth. Creative director Juliet Forster’s cast is led by Happy Valley and Riot Women star Amelia Bullmore. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Recommended but sold out already: An Evening With Kristin Hersh, National Centre for Early Music, York, tonight,7.30pm
OVER three decades, Atlanta, Georgia singer, songwriter and guitarist Kristin Hersh, 60, has been heralded queen of the alternative scene with Throwing Muses, 50Foot Wave and on her own, releasing her latest 12th solo album, Sugar On Blackstone, on Fire Records on September 18. Recorded at Stable Sound Studio in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, with Steve Rizzo, it features Rob Ahlers on drums and Pete Harvey on cello.
Since signing to Fire Records in 2018, the prolific Hersh has released tenth studio album Possible Dust Clouds, Throwing Muses’ Sun Racket in 2020, 50Foot Wave’s Black Pearl in 2022, her book Seeing Sideways in 2022 and self-produced 11th solo album, the cinematic road trip and personal vignettes of Clear Pond Road, in September 2023.
Velma Celli: Drag diva delights…including a tribute to Dolly Parton RIP
Drag delights of the week: The Velma Celli Show, with special guest Jessica Steel and guitarists Stuart Allan and Olly Chilton, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 6pm
YORK vocal drag act deluxe and international cabaret superstar Velma Cell moves to a new location for her camp, spectacular song and comedy home-city performances. “My last two shows at York Theatre Royal – Snow Queen and Rock Queen – had been among my favourites, so this one will be a mixture of Snow Queen and Rock Queen and musical theatre material,” says Velma’s creator, actor and West End star Ian Stroughair.
“The first set will be musical theatre favourites, songs from my career in West End musicals – Cats, Fame, Chicago and Rent – and an homage to Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. In the second set we’ll rock out with York. There’ll be songs by David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Bryan Adams, Bonnie Tyler, Guns N’ Roses, Roxette, Alanis Morissette, Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game – and I’ll do a Dolly Parton section too. There has to be!” Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Ballet of the week: Imperial Classical Ballet presents Swan Lake, York Barbican, October 19, 7.30pm
IMPERIAL Classical Ballet performs Swan Lake, the powerful tale of Princess Odette, cursed to live as a swan by day and a woman by night. When Prince Siegfried discovers her under the moonlight, he vows to break the spell, yet the evil sorcerer Rothbart and his daughter Odile plot a deception that threatens them both.
From the haunting beauty of the lakeside scenes to the electrifying Black Swan pas de deux, Swan Lake is a visual delight, performed to Tchaikovsky’s soaring score, played live by an orchestra. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Gig of the week: Brandon Flowers, York Barbican, October 21, 7.30pm
THE Killers’ frontman, Brandon Flowers, plays York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue on his nine-date UK and Ireland tour, promoting Thrasher, his third solo album and first since 2015, which peaked at number three on release in August.
Fans can look forward to hearing songs from Thrasher, played live for the first time, alongside highlights from his British chart-topping solo albums, 2010’s Flamingo and 2015’s The Desired Effect, as well as beloved tracks from The Killers’ catalogue. No support. Ticket update: Sold out; for returns only, go to https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/brandon-flowers.
Shakespeare shake-up of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Comedy Of Errors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 21 to 24, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
KATIE Leckey and Emily Carhart co-direct York Shakespeare Project in “ an exciting take on Shakespeare’s shortest and possibly funniest play”, giving a piratical, gender-swapping twist to The Comedy Of Errors in a convergence of the original text with slapstick, farce and physical comedy and a “celebration of relationships of many kinds, platonic, familial and romantic”.
“The morally questionable, yet still comedic, nature of many (if not all) of the characters put us in mind of some of our favourite piratical anti-heroes,” they say. “We felt like the framing device of piracy gave us the chance to include slapstick violence between ‘masters and servants’ in a way that wouldn’t seem too brutal or alien to a modern audience.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Going back to Back To Black: The Amy Winehouse Band, York Barbican, October 22, 7.30pm
AMY Winehouse’s original band, who played with her from the very start, are marking the 20th anniversary of her iconic second album, Back To Black, the one that brought her five awards at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Performing with Amy that evening, as these musicians had done since her earliest gigs in London pubs, was her band.
Led by Amy’s long-time musical director and bass player, The Amy Winehouse Band features members who both toured and recorded with her throughout her career. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope, left, comes face to face with Charlie Russell’s returning Odysseus. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
THE Penelopiad is the heavyweight centrepiece of York Theatre Royal’s autumn programme, Wednesday’s press night being marked by the presence of Arts Council England luminaries.
Creative director Juliet Forster’s plans to mount Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood’s re-spinning of Homer’s yarn in 2020 were scuppered by Covid’s clenches. Roll on to 2026, when Forster’s all-female production finds its counter-Homer home at last with the self-explanatory full title of The Penelopiad, The Odyssey: Her Story in the city where Actors Of Dionysus and Wright & Grainger’s Greek tragedies have made their mark.
Not only is The Penelopiad “her story” but “their story” too. After The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood delivers a multitude of Maids here, Penelope’s hand-picked slaves’ daughters: wronged, vengeful and constantly meddling in Penelope’s wishes to re-tell her tale, post-death, in the Underworld.
The glacial Penelope may want to miss out chunks, just like Christopher Nolan’s film made no mention of Odysseus’s philandering ways in his 20-year avoidance of coming home from the Trojan Wars, but the Maids have other ideas, and they will do anything to re-route The Penelopiad’s journey, from child puppetry to a rather short tap dance, girl group singing to acrobatic aerial skills, macho masks to more macho masks.
Pena Iiyambo’s Helen goes full Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch mode with the masked Maids in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
Riot Women actress Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope is still at the core, still an honourable figure of loyalty and restraint, but the restless riot women of this piece, the Maids, keep breaking her poised rhythm, shattering her sang froid and melancholic air.
Nevertheless, especially in Bullmore’s honeyed tones and elegant white jumpsuit and coat, Penelope’s dry-witted putdowns are the embodiment of Atwood’s own irreverent humour, becoming a particular joy of her ice-queen performance.
Her spat with Pena Iiyambo’s preening Helen, trollop of Troy, could launch a thousand quips, but one withering epithet suffices, although Iiyambo’s pulchritudinous Helen still has her Marilyn Monroe moment in screen goddess frills in the face of Penelope’s enmity.
Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope, surrounded by her Maids with their macho masks to portray aristo Suitors. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
Atwood had been haunted by the fate of the Maids, under Odysseus’s orders, prompting the vengeance of The Penelopiad, where the horror counters the jesting humour that mocks Charlie Russell’s Odysseus for having short legs, much as Eric Morecambe would tease Ernie Wise.
Atwood’s Penelope comes across as “methinks she doth protest too much” with her First World problems, complaints of being busy without being so and eating only asphodel flowers in Hades, while using the Maids’ wiles to stave off the unwanted attentions of the Suitors, whereas the Maids are up against it, putting themselves at risk on her behalf.
They do, however, find common ground when working together to weave and unpick Penelope’s tapestry to ward off those pesky Suitors. Ropes emerge as the motif that weave their way through Forster’s production and Sara Perks’s design, whether in the tapestry, the aerial circus skills of assorted Maids, pulling Penelope’s bed upwards or downwards, becoming a hissing snake or, spoiler alert, a hangman’s mode of execution.
Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope, right, in discussion on her bed with her Maids. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
Bullmore’s Penelope has a stillness and depth of character that contrasts with the Catherine Wheel fizz of the octet of multi-rolling Maids, especially when they play the leery, lecherous aristo Suitors, very much 2D stereotypes. Having women taking these roles is a further way of Atwood taking revenge on Homer’s misogyny, all the more forceful for the choreography of Frantic Assembly’s Michelle Edwards.
These graphic caricatures climax in the form of Russell’s Odysseus, mocked by Atwood not only for short legs, but in no longer being a mighty physical specimen, full stop, but a mendacious trickster with dubious moral values.
The Maids (Iiyambo, Russell, Nell Baker, Danielle Bird, Olivia Burton-Laws, Faye Campbell, Kat Johns-Burke and Syakira Moeladi) achieve both individuality and collective vigour the more they come to the fore, while Bird stands out as Eurycleia, the Odysseus loyalist who besmirches the Maids and cuts Penelope out of nursing her son Telemachus.
The Maids displaying rope and aerial skills in The Penelopiad. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
What are the plus points beyond Bullmore’s elegance with Atwood’s eloquence and the Maids’ zest? Perks’s design, described as chic by Bullmore in her interview, is startling, bright, white, modernist and minimalist, but timeless too, countered by Alexandra Stafford’s palette of colours in her lighting, most notably red to evoke the night of the Trojan Horse.
Edwards’s movement direction maximises the physicality of women playing men; Kate Marlais’s compositions, varying from rousing declamations to quieter underscoring and laments, are at their best when haunting.
The negatives? Whereas the humour in Bullmore’s Penelope is assured, polished and consistent in tone, elsewhere it is more erratic, uneven, sometimes pushing too hard. Given the harrowing denouement to come, it is a difficult balancing act for Forster to achieve, especially when comedy has a tendency to undermine tragedy and outrage, rape and execution. Ultimately, this account of The Penelopiad plays more to the head, the senses of sight and sound, than to the heart.
The Penelopiad, York Theatre Royal, unravelling the strands until October 31. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope and Charlie Russell’s Odysseus in The Penelopiad. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
York author Miles Salter holding a copy of his investigative rock biography A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83ahead of the book launch and signing session at Topping & Company on November 10
YORK author, journalist, songwriter, band leader, podcaster, storyteller, festival organiser and poet Miles Salter will launch his new book, A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, at Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York, on November 10 at 7pm.
“I hope you will join me as I talk to poet and author John Goodby about The Pretenders and their remarkable, strange, dark, sad tale,” says Miles, introducing his no-holds barred account of ego, bust-ups and drug usage that forms his first narrative non-fiction work and first book since 2020.
As long ago as December 1991, Miles wrote and recorded the song Voice Of A Dead Man at Old Dairy Studios in York. “It was all about rock stars who were no longer with us: Freddie Mercury, who had died the previous month, Roy Orbison, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and it also mentioned Pete Farndon, so I was aware of the Pretenders’ story already, but then I became really interested in it.”
Thirty-five years later, A Dangerous Band is the result. “It tells the compelling true story of The Pretenders, one of New Wave’s most exciting bands,” says Miles. “Chrissie Hynde arrived in London from America in 1973. Tucked under her arm were the three albums she most treasured.
“She wrote for the NME [New Musical Express] and fell in with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood via Sex, the provocatively named shop they ran on King’s Road. She hung out with The Sex Pistols and The Clash. After numerous near-misses, she formed The Pretenders in 1978 with three young men from Hereford: guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers.”
Within 18 months they had released “one of THE great albums of the era”, as Miles bills 1980’s “incredibly aggressive” Pretenders, whose chart-topping single Brass In Pocket launched the band to international success and fame.
Chrissie Hynde: Lead singer of The Pretenders
“But tragedy ensued: by mid-1983 both Farndon and Honeyman-Scott were dead from drug abuse, dying within ten months of each other,” says Miles. “Beginning in February 2025, and drawing on previously recorded interviews , including one with Martin Chambers, I spent 18 months writing and researching the book, returning to Honeyman-Scott and Farndon’s home city, interviewing band members, romantic connections, family members, friends, record company staff and music journalists.”
In his three poetry collections, Miles writes of garden gnomes, strange neighbours, a bloke who shouts at the moon, a Brummie vampire, global catastrophe and near-death experiences, so what drew him to the story of The Pretenders, with its “rise of Chrissie Hynde from Akron outsider to London rock royalty, the sonic genius of their self-titled debut and the chaotic drug-fuelled spiral that tragically cut short the lives of James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon”?
“The story was a gift to a writer,” says Miles. “Every time I thought ‘this can’t get any stranger’, something else came up. The more I talked to people, the stranger it became, the darker and darker it became. A story of totally living that rock’n’roll life but to their detriment as it cost them their lives.”
Miles found the writing experience “emotional”. “It’s just such a sad story. I wept often as I wrote. People told me how funny and charming and likeable Jimmy and Pete were, and they both died in the most appalling ways. I sent some of it to Lyn Honeyman Scott (sister of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott) and she said the same thing: ‘It’s desperately sad’.
“In terms of telling a story, I got lucky. Every time I thought things couldn’t get weirder, something more shocking emerged. It’s a real-life tragedy packed with all the elements of a compelling story.”
York author Miles Salter and the cover artwork for his book A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, published by Winter & May on November 1
That story has a Faustian element, suggests Miles. “They made a deal with the devil. It’s a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Chrissie Hynde wrote in one of her later lyrics, ‘what’s the price of fame?’. I think that sums up the book. It’s a question that has haunted her.”
Salter’s meticulous research uncovers the personal lives, conflicts and rivalries behind the hits, while exploring Hynde’s driven yet complex personality and the childhood trauma that shaped three of the band members.
“The book makes some pertinent observations about the psychology of creatives, showing how fame can destroy even the most talented,” says Miles of his behind-the-scenes look at the cost of success that weaves John Lydon, Sid Vicious, Ray Davies, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Lowe and music executive Seymour Stein, as well as McLaren and Westwood, into the tale.
“I learned that Pete Farndon felt nothing when Brass In Pocket went to number one,” says Miles. “It just felt anti-climactic, after watching footage of The Beatles at Shea Stadium and thinking that was the life he wanted.”
Miles did not interview Chrissie Hynde. “People kept asking, ‘have you spoken with Chrissie’, but the Pretenders’ story is not just about her, it’s about band members, brothers, sisters, family, friends, the whole community affected by Pete and James’s deaths.”
Book launch: A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 author Miles Salter, in conversation with poet john Goodby, followed by signing session, Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York, November 10, 7pm (doors 6.30pm). Tickets cost £17.95, including hardback book or £5 “if you just want to come and listen”. To book, go to: https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/york/miles-salter-the-pretenders/.
Verity Wingate as Tatyana in Opera North’s Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop
IMAGINE, if you will, a black-tie party, with long dresses and lots of fizz, taking place in the cramped space between two sets of bleachers in a gymnasium, where the paint is peeling off all the doors.
Then again, the same setting has earlier accommodated a young girl writing a letter to her putative lover, scribbling with a ball-point pen in a ring-bound notebook, from which she tears off a page to send.
These scenes may not sound like the stuff of opera, but they are taken directly from Opera North’s new Eugene Onegin, a co-production with Irish National Opera and with Opera Queensland, whose artistic director Patrick Nolan leads this production. They are respectively the ball in Act 3, Scene 1 and Tatyana’s Letter Scene, Act 1, Scene 2.
Tchaikovsky’s setting of Shilovsky’s libretto, in turn derived from Pushkin’s verse novel, inhabits both a country estate and St Petersburg in the 1820s. The current production is set in the 1980s, before and after the time of Gorbachev’s perestroika. In the spirit of glasnost – greater openness – we must seek an explanation.
John Brancy’s Eugene Onegin and Joshua Bloom’s Prince Gremin in Opera North’s Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop
The creatives involved, primarily Nolan, along with set designer Leslie Travers and costume designer Elizabeth Gadsby, begin their production in a small rural community in 1980, as it prepares its contribution to that summer’s Olympics in Moscow, in a gymnasium festooned with portraits of Lenin. It closes in 1991 as the new Russian Federation supplants the collapsed Soviet Union.
While admitting that the correlation between this period and the 1820s is not exact, the group expresses a “desire to bring a contemporary energy to the piece.” It is not immediately apparent that Tchaikovsky’s original lacked energy. Nor is the raw human emotion of that time any less forceful than it was in the 1980s. Indeed general director Laura Canning highlights Tatyana’s resilience as “straight out of Austen”.
While this drab setting may be visually unappetising, there are some musical compensations. Verity Wingate, one of six principals Opera North debutants, makes a properly vulnerable teenage Tatyana.
Although she started uneasily on this opening night, she suddenly found a higher gear for her Letter Scene, which is very much the touchstone of the role. She also achieves a smooth transformation into society’s upper reaches, so that her ultimate rejection of Onegin carries moral weight.
Jingwen Cai as Olga with members of the Chorus of Opera North as villagers in Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop
He is John Brancy, another debutant, whose haughty demeanour is matched by a clean-cut baritone that speaks of self-assurance linked to insensitivity. His friend and ultimate foe, Lensky, is a less appealing figure in Caspar Singh’s hands. While he paces his pre-duel aria delicately, there is also a disturbing unevenness in his focus, now forward, now back, so that the voice comes and goes.
Jingwen Cai is a sparky Olga, Tatyana’s younger sister, full of mischief. Hannah Mason is charming as their mother, Madame Larina, and Claire Pascoe makes a personality of Filipyevna, both amply justifying their elevation from the chorus. So too does Simon Grange as Zaretsky. Florian Panzieri makes pleasingly light work of Triquet’s aria. Joshua Bloom’s dry bass as Prince Gremin lacks aristocratic authority.
The chorus projects with its customary vigour but looks uncomfortable with some of the 1980s vibe that Maxim Braham’s choreography is presumably intended to convey, not helped by casual dress. Even the orchestra under Garry Walker was less than compact in Act 1, but was in impressive stride thereafter on this occasion, as doubtless it will be throughout the run.
Opera North, Eugene Onegin, Leeds Grand Theatre, until November 29. Box office: operanorth.co.uk.Sung in Russian with English subtitles.
Review by Martin Dreyer, Leeds Grand Theatre, 9/10/2026
John Brancy’s Eugene Onegin, front left, in a punch-up with Caspar Singh’s Lensky as Chorus of Opera North members look on. Picture: James Glossop
Shed Seven’s Rob ‘Maxi’ Maxfield, left, Paul Banks, Tom Gladwin, Rick Witter and Tim Wills at LNER Community Stadium, York, where they will play to 14,000-capacity crowd on May 29 2027. Picture: Tom Oxley
SHED Seven are to headline a stadium show for the first time at York’s LNER Community Stadium on May 29 2027, a stone’s throw from where a teenage Rick Witter and Paul Banks first composed songs at Huntington School.
Joining the Sheds for this hometown gig – at the football ground where Chasing Rainbows rings out before every York City home match and has become a “Chasing City” terrace anthem too – will be special guests The K’s, Reverend And The Makers and The Mersey Beatles.
“Our ambition, even as school kids, was to one day play our own stadium show,” says lead singer Witter, now 53. “What kid who dreams of being in a rock’n’roll band doesn’t want to do that? Now, almost 40 years later, we’ve reached the point where we thought… it’s now or never. And if we were going to do it, it had to be York.
“What will make it even more special is that the stadium is a stone’s throw from where me, Paul and Tom [bassist Tom Gladwin] met, went to school and where we first formed a band. We’re coming back to pretty much where it all began – I remember when it was just fields – to play the biggest show of our career and that is a proper full-circle moment.”
Speaking in York City’s dressing room at Wednesday morning’s press launch, Rick adds: “This gig has been mooted for about a year. We were approached by Cuffe & Taylor, who we’ve done shows for at Scarborough Open Air Theatre last summer and Halifax Piece Hall this summer, so we have history and a good working relationship with them already, and why would we not want to do a concert like this in our home city?
The poster for hometown heroes Shed Seven’s May 29 2027 gig at LNER Community Stadium featuring lead singer Rick Witter in SHED 7 York City shirt
“It’s always been a thing, growing up here, to play at York City’s ground, because it’s so connected with us. We always talked about playing Bootham Crescent, but that ground went, and there was even talk of us doing a last hurrah there [before its conversion into housing], but this show makes more sense.
“It’s a new ground; we’ll be the first band to play there, just like we were the first rock band to play at York Museum Gardens in many years [since Roxy Music in 1973], and fingers crossed it will set up the stadium for more gigs.”
To promote the gig with a 14,000 capacity, look out for a special pre-sale for people in York that will see the city being flooded with Shed Seven posters and beer mats carrying QR codes to give local fans access to tickets before they go on general sale at 10am on Friday, October 23 via ticketmaster.co.uk.
In addition, an exclusive Shed Seven artist pre-sale will open at 10am on Tuesday, October 20 for anyone signed up to the Shed Seven mailing list at https://shedseven.os.fan/sign-up?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Fans wishing to access the artist pre-sale must sign up by 12 noon on Monday, October 19.
Next spring’s stadium extravaganza will build still more on the momentum of two number one albums, January 2024’s A Matter Of Time and September 2024’s Liquid Gold, in a year when Shed Seven heralded the launch of Futuresound’s Live At York Museum Gardens concerts with two sold-out July shows.
The green, green grass of a hometown stadium show: Shed Seven look forward to playing the LNER Community Stadium next May. Picture: Tom Oxley
The Sheds have since been crowned Best Live Act at the AIM Independent Music Awards; returned to Glastonbury Festival last July after a 30-year hiatus since their NME Stage debut; played the BBC Radio 2 Piano Room, backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, and opened Cuffe & Taylor’s 42-gig 2026 calendar at The Piece Hall, Halifax, on June 6, when playing 1996’s hit-laden A Maximum High in full to mark its 30th anniversary.
In the in-tray for the Sheds are their biggest UK winter tour to date, Shedcember X, climaxing with Leeds O2 shows on December 12 and 13, ahead of chasing a hat-trick of number ones with the January 8 2027 release of their self-titled seventh studio album on Cooking Vinyl, showcased already by the singles Stand Together and The Centre Of My Everything .
Looking forward to returning to the York outdoors, Rick says: “The York Museum Gardens shows in 2024 were incredible…and to see Shed Seven fans travelling from all over the country to our hometown was amazing.
“Our fanbase has been incredibly loyal to us and they’re the reason we’re even in a position to attempt something like this. We really hope they’ll travel from all over again, make a weekend of it and let us welcome them to our wonderful home.
“Expect a huge career-spanning set and for us to push the production further than we ever have before. If we’re going to do it, we want to do it properly and make this the biggest and best Shed Seven show we’ve ever put on.”
CharlesHutchPress editor Charles Hutchinson talking tactics with Shed Seven frontman Rick Witter in the York City dressing room on October 14. Picture: Sarah Rhodes
What will “pushing the production further” entail, Rick? “It’s out first stadium headline show, so we’ll be pulling out all the stops with a hit-filled show with guests, and we’ll have to ramp up the spectacle, but these are the things we always enjoy doing,” he says.
To mark the landmark show, Shed Seven will release a special limited-edition York Edition of their forthcoming album, featuring unique artwork and live versions of fan favourites Let’s Go Dancing, Talk Of The Town and Chasing Rainbows, the anthem that fans take delight in sending Witter videos of their train-journey renditions from York City away matches.
From every York Edition CD sale, £1 will be donated to York City Foundation, supporting its work with communities across York. To buy, go to: https://store.shedseven.com/.
Furthermore, at the May 29 gig, Shed Seven will support York’s next generation of musicians, with a fan zone stage ahead of the main stadium show featuring up-and-coming artists from the city.
Introducing the special guests at Shed Seven’s LNER Community Stadium concert
The K’s: Album chart toppers from Earlestown
The K’s
EXPLOSIVE four-piece from Earlestown, near St Helens, Merseyside, riding the crest of a massive wave that has been building over the past few years. Debut album I Wonder If The World Knowsreached number three in UK charts in April 2024; sophomore album Pretty On The Internet hit the top spot on August 1 2025. Headlined sold-out shows this summer at The Piece Hall, Halifax, and Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl this summer.
Jon McClure: Putting “the Reverend” into Reverend and The Makers
Reverend and The Makers
FORMED by Jon “The Reverend” McClure and Laura McClure in Sheffield in 2005, their continual evolution has seen them cut across the creative spectrum and across many genres. June 2023’s seventh studio album, Heatwave In The Cold North, was their first Top Ten hit since 2007 debut The State Of Things, featuring fan favourites Heavyweight Champion Of The World, He Said He Loved Me and Open The Window. Laura McClure duetted with Rick Witter on Shed Seven’s Tripping With You, from the Sheds’ 2024 chart topper A Matter Of Time.
The Mersey Beatles
LIVERPOOL tribute to the Fab Four, resident at Cavern Club for more than a decade. Toured the world many times over the past 25 years.
The Mersey Beatles: Opening Shed Seven’s stadium gig with tribute to The Beatles
