Ripley Johnson leading Rose City Band at The Crescent. All pictures: Paul Rhodes
MUSIC that struck just the right chord with the time and place. With the sun still singing in the York Pride smiles, Rose City Band put on the perfect concert to celebrate a long summer Saturday.
The five-piece from Portland, Oregon, the creation of Ripley Johnson (who also helms Wooden Shjips), made it look almost effortless. Such was their empathy for one another that one glorious groove followed another.
Like the Grateful Dead’s golden early Seventies’ period (the lysergic spirit of Cumberland Blues hung over proceedings, although Frank Zappa may have also been in there somewhere), Rose City Band play extended country rock songs full of wonderful moments that merge into one overall whole. While their studio albums are beautiful slow burns, this is music made for performing live.
Rosali: “Played an excellent opening set”
Playing a well-chosen selection that took in the highs from Summerlong (one of the best lockdown albums) and their new Garden Party release, the combined musical nous of these musicians lifted Ripley’s creations into the memorable.
His clean guitar lines (with none of the fuzz that surrounds Wooden Shjips) were consistently glorious, and Ripley’s interplay with Paul Hasenberg on keyboard were high flying indeed. Ripley eschewed any rock god guitar moves while Hasenberg was a more animated figure, coaxing a range of songs from his mellotron and keyboards; giving it all for the performance.
The tone for the night had been set with North Carolina’s Rosali (full name Rosali Middleman), who played an excellent opening set. She unveiled material from her freshly recorded new album (although given how slowly the industry’s wheels turn it may not be out for some time).
Rosali playing with Rose City Band
Taking proceedings at her own tempo, she commanded the stage not unlike a younger Lucinda Williams, and shares Williams’s emotional directness. Accompanied by pedal-steel guitarist Zena Kay, it was a treat to see this instrument in the spotlight.
For her closing two songs, the rest of Rose City Band came out,and in turn Rosali took centre stage for the final four numbers of their set. In full flight these tunes were a real treat, “only on the road” musical moments that can’t be streamed.
The full house was grinning from ear to ear, many eyes closed, mesmerised as they soaked in the tunes. It was a gloriously uplifting, life-affirming show. Thanks to Joe Coates’s Please Please You, the Crescent hosts many fine concerts, but it is hard to believe this one won’t be right up there among the year’s best.
Review by Paul Rhodes
Ripley Johnson: “His clean guitar lines were consistently glorious”
Mark Padmore and Ana Manastireanu, Leeds Lieder Festival, Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, June 9
LEEDS’S incomparable festival of song has got off to a powerful start. Mark Padmore was in determined voice, adjusting his flexible tenor from a first half of Schumann lieder to English song after the interval.
Ana Manastireanu’s piano was equally alert to the possibilities thrown up by some alluring poetry. It made for an engrossing evening.
Chamisso’s transcriptions from Hans Christian Andersen, four of which Schumann set in his Op 40, are not as widely known as they deserve. They distil the dark essence of salutary tales – and prove a strong inspiration to the composer.
For the tragic death by firing-squad in Der Soldat, Padmore adopted a baritonal timbre; it was to appear often later. In Der Spielmann, where the fiddler looks on at his sweetheart’s wedding, his resonance turned positively operatic. Like his pianist, he captured the menace in these songs.
With Schumann’s Op 39 Liederkreis we were on more familiar territory, 12 settings of Joseph Eichendorff. Both cycles here date from 1840, his great year of song when confronted by the intransigence of his prospective father-in-law (the poet was going through a similarly love-lorn phase).
Yearning is at their heart. Waldesgespräch (Forest Conversation) was impeccable: Padmore’s contrasted voices for narrator and witch matched with tight ensemble in its abrupt chords made it chilling.
The toughest song of them all, at least for the singer, is Mondnacht; here the impossible rising scale was slightly fudged and a later crescendo curtailed too soon. But Padmore immediately compensated with a forthright Schöne Fremde, which Manastireanu matched, and a beautifully legato largo line in Auf einer Burg.
He resorted to a telling whisper in Zwielicht (Twilight), which underlined Schumann’s uncanny harmonies. The duo finished with quivering excitement in a fast-paced Frühlingsnacht (Spring Night).
Some of the postludes began to rallentando a touch too early, but in general the piano added plenty of colour, so emphasising that Schumann conceived these songs as duets.
Nine English composers contributed the dozen songs of the second half (I include the encore). Three by Rebecca Clarke stood out. As an evocation of the supernatural, her setting of Masefield’s The Seal Man was hard to beat, as Padmore alternated smoothly between recitative and lyricism using a wide variety of resonance.
Blake’s The Tiger showed Clarke at her most inventive, properly creepy at start and finish. Even her harmonisation of Down By The Salley Gardens (Yeats), sung as an encore, sounded at least as effective as Britten’s.
Padmore’s theatrical aptitude and textual awareness, never overstated, lay behind the success of all these songs. Tansy Davies’s repeating piano motif in Destroying Beauty (Clare) and Sally Beamish’s clever use of onomatopoeia in Hoopoe made their mark.
Holst’s bleak Betelgeuse (Wolfe) was hypnotic and the gently rolling accompaniment to Vaughan Williams’s Nocturne (Whitman) conjured whispers of eternity.
In the hands of this duo, Finzi’s Channel Firing (Hardy) became an angry lament, interrupted only by Parson Thirdly’s staccato mood-change. We were persuaded this must surely be Finzi’s greatest song.
There was Bridge, Britten and Tippett too. Yes, these were mainly slow-moving songs slanted to the darker side of human existence, so not offering huge variety. On the other hand, the duo played to the discrimination of this audience: they could have offered no greater compliment.
Review by Martin Dreyer
Leeds Lieder Festival continues until June 17. www.leedslieder.org.uk
Benjamin Durham: Playing Winnie the Pooh at Grand Opera House, York, in August
THE British and Irish premiere tour of Disney’s Winnie The Pooh The Musical will play the Grand Opera House, York, on August 1 and 2.
Rockefeller Productions, in partnership with Royo Entertainment in association with Disney Theatrical Productions, opened the production at London’s Riverside Studios in March ahead of a tour that will run until September.
Created and directed by Jonathan Rockefeller, the show features music by the Sherman Brothers with additional songs by AA Milne.
After sharing the role of Winnie the Pooh in London with Jake Bazel, who originated the part in New York, Young Frankenstein actor Benjamin Durham is leading the cast on tour.
Eeyore, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Roo will be brought to life by an ensemble of performers, including Laura Bacon(Britain’s Got Talent, Star Wars); Harry Boyd (The Play That Goes Wrong, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story); Alex Cardall (Evita, The Osmonds: A New Musical); Chloe Gentles(Mamma Mia!, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical); Lottie Grogan (Smurfs Save Spring: The Musical, The Lips For Puppets With Guys) and Robbie Noonan (Avenue Q UK tour).
Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, a new adventure will unfold with life-size puppetry. AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin and their best friends Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit and Owl – and Tigger too! – will feature in Rockefeller’s musical stage adaptation.
Accompanying the modern narrative will be an original score by Nate Edmondson, featuring Grammy award-winning songs written by the Sherman Brothers for the original animated features, including Winnie The Pooh, The Blustery Day, The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers and Whoop-De-Dooper Bounce, plus AA Milne’s The More It Snows (featuring music by Carly Simon) and Sing Ho in a new arrangement.
Family entertainment creator Jonathan Rockefeller’s puppetry has featured in productions of The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, Paddington Gets In A Jam and Sesame Street The Musical.
The show’s New York run in 2021 broke theatre box-office records for the largest advance. Now it is heading to York for performances at 5pm on August 1 and 11am and 2pm the next day. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
William Robinson’s Marc Antony and Thalissa Teixeira’s Brutus in the RSC’s Julius Caesar. Picture: Marc Brenner
ATRI Banerjee directs Shakespeare’s fast-paced political thriller Julius Caesar on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s return to York Theatre Royal from tonight (13/6/2023) to Saturday.
Concerned that divisive leader Julius Caesar (Nigel Barrett) poses a threat to democracy, revolutionaries take the violent decision to murder him but without a plan for what happens next. As the world spins out of control, chaos, horror and superstition rush in to fill the void. Civil war erupts and a new leader must rise, but at what cost?
This production asks: how far would we go for our principles? “We know it’s a political play, a play that speaks to our politics, speaks to who gets to be a leader, and asks us to think about what you do when you don’t agree with the people in power,” says Atri, who is directing his first Shakespeare production for the RSC through the Open Hire scheme, set up Josh Roche and Derek Bond to encourage a more transparent application process within the theatre industry to stop it feeling like a closed shop.
Atri had first studied Julius Caesar at university. “I really felt, when coming to the play this time last year when I got this job, that this was a play that speaks about power, who holds it, who challenges it, and the gulf between politicians and the people they are meant to be leading.
“It speaks not only to the Ukraine situation but to the idea of governance in this age of Covid and Partygate. What I find interesting is that Shakespeare does not make either the leader or the conspirators the hero.”
Atri reflects on the prevailing political environment wherein Shakespeare penned Julius Caesar. “He was writing the play at a time when Elizabeth I was coming to the end of her reign. There had been plots against her, and there was a question of who would succeed her,” he says. “So even in Shakespeare’s day he was using this Roman story to talk about Elizabethan England and what happens when there is a possible power vacuum.”
Atri wanted to make a production that “felt like it could speak about today”. “I think we live in a world where a series of crises have happened, particularly over the last seven years, from Brexit, to Trump, the war in Ukraine, the pandemic, events that have revealed the massive rifts we have in our society between class, gender, race, disability, across every intersection of power,” he says.
“The questions I was asking myself were, ‘when you feel like the world is in a bad place, what steps do you actually take to make the world a better place? What are the limits of peaceful activism? How do we react, for example, to the likes of Extinction Rebellion, or the two young women who threw tomato soup at the Van Gogh painting?’.
“I’m also very aware that it’s easy to put Julius Caesar in a Donald Trump wig and cast him as the baddie in a way that’s quite black and white. But I’m more interested in creating a production that makes an audience feel the conspirators were both totally right to kill Julius Caesar, and totally wrong to kill Julius Caesar at the same time.
Nigel Barrett’s Julius Caesar in Atri Banerjee’s production. Picture: Marc Brenner
“I wanted to capture that ambivalence that’s central to what Shakespeare has written. Shakespeare isn’t offering any solutions. I don’t think he is saying one way is good and one way is wrong. Because the actions the conspirators take to assassinate Julius Caesar plunges Rome and the world into even more chaos.
“So, what appealed to me about directing Julius Caesar is that it felt like a play that could think about these huge moral grey areas that we exist in without trying to draw any easy conclusions.”
Consequently, we can always ask questions of our own society. “Cassius and Brutus were called liberators and saw themselves as trying to enact political change, seeing what might be possible through an act of radical violence,” says Atri.
“It’s about people just putting one foot in front of the other, rather than thinking about the devastating consequence for the nation, plunging people into a civil war, even though Brutus and Cassius came from a position of wanting to do the right thing, stopping autocracy by dramatic action.”
Atri continues: “I think theatre is the space for nuance; theatre can be a place for political change; not the play itself, so much as people in the audience contemplating the play afterwards, having conversations in the bar or on the way home.
“Whether it’s Novak Djokovic speaking about the Serbia-Kosovo conflict; Israel and Palestine; Stop The Boats, there is nuance in every case, and we should try to be alive to as many nuances as possible in any theatre production we do.
“The reason we keep coming back to these classics is we know Julius Caesar will be assassinated but Shakespeare’s play gives you a vessel within which you can think about things in a safe environment and look at them in a new way.”
Atri hopes audiences will come away from his production asking the questions, “What would I do? Would I go as far as to kill someone who is my best friend if I really thought that was going to make the world a better place?”
“The answer is probably no to murder(!), that’s the extremist version of it. But at what point do you glue yourself to Downing Street; at what point do you put yourself in front of a horse like the suffragettes did?” he ponders.
Jimena Larraguive’s Calpurnia. Picture: Marc Brenner
“We live through waves of political crisis, and activism tries to combat the crisis, but at what point do we resort to violence?”
As for the setting of his Julius Caesar, “it’s not in Westminster, but neither is it in ancient Rome,” Atri says. “It draws on elements of the modern and the ancient world to create our own world really.
“Taking influences from impressionist theatre, from choreographers like Pina Bausch, and from German theatre to make a world that feels quite stylised and heightened.
“I’m also very keen to convey a sense of the supernatural and time running out. The play has ghosts, omens and prophecies. The Soothsayer famously tells Caesar to beware the Ides of March. Characters are always worried about the time, and time running out.
“That relates to the climate crisis we face: if we don’t act now, we will reach the unmanageable temperature for living. It feels to me that Julius Caesar, like the world we live in today, is a play that’s set in a place of emergency. The threat of apocalypse feels very close.”
Atri’s fresh interpretation casts a female Brutus (Thalissa Teixeira) and non-binary Cassius (Annabel Baldwin). “Along with several other parts across the company, we’ve re-imagined the roles of Brutus and Cassius to tell a story about power today: who holds it, who wields it, and who gets to challenge it,” he says.
“Julius Caesar is the perfect play for our age of emergency, asking uncomfortable questions about today. When asked to imagine a better future for us all, what resources do we have left? What are the limits of peaceful activism? How far would you, personally, go to make the world a better place?
“By thinking of the roles in this play across intersectional lines – gender, race, class, disability, among others – we’re inviting audience members to think of their own place within the status quo and what might be at stake for each of us within it.”
Atri adds: “With the way we have cast it, we’ve not pitched the struggle between Caesar and Brutus and Cassius entirely on gender, but it brings different associations to that dynamic and asks us to look at the changing dynamics of power now.
Stranglehold on power: Nigel Barrett’s Julius Caesar and Thalissa Teixeira’s Brutus. Picture: Marc Brenner
“Both Thalissa and Annabel are young actors, and that means that young audiences, though not only young audiences, can identify with these characters, whereas men in togas might have felt more foreign. If people see people that look like themselves on stage, which is a question of representation, then they can identify with their situation and the question of: ‘if you were in this situation, what would you do?’.
“We have undergone seismic changes, from the Brexit vote, the election of Trump as president, Covid, Black Lives Matter, the legacy of slavery and the British Empire, all sorts of historical pressures, and that means that within the space of the arts and culture, there is such an increased awareness of gender identity and the so-called culture wars that prevail now.
“I would encourage anyone who is making the judgement, ‘oh, they are casting Brutus as a black woman’, to slow down and reflect, and I speak as someone of South Asian origin taking on directing this play.”
History repeats itself down the years. “There will always be dictators, always be politicians, tyrants and non-tyrants,” says Atri. “The idea of democracy will rise and fall, rise and fall, with the passing of time, and Shakespeare was very aware of that. Shakespeare has that meta-reality that this play will resonate through time, through the ages, and will speak to different generations.”
Was working for the RSC always on Atri’s radar? “I come from Oxford, so the RSC was somewhere I used to visit as a teenager as it’s only an hour away [in Stratford-upon-Avon],” he says. “I saw productions like Rupert Goold’s The Merchant Of Venice and Maria Aberg’s As You Like It.
“I directed a community production for the RSC at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury in Autumn 2021 called Error, Error, Error. Over half the company was made up of people affiliated with Canterbury Umbrella; adults with mental health or learning disabilities and those who are isolated in the community.
“It was an extraordinary experience to work on a show that gave this group of people the opportunity to experience what theatre making is.”
Now he is directing his first professional Shakespeare production.“It feels like a homecoming,” he says.
“It’ll be my first show to play York too. The Theatre Royal is a very beautiful space.”
Royal Shakespeare Company in Julius Caesar, York Theatre Royal, June 13 to 17, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Atri Banerjee: back story
Director Atri Banerjee in rehearsals for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s touring production of Julius Caesar. Picture: Marc Brenner
WON The Stage Debut Award for Best Director and a UK Theatre Award nomination for his production of Hobson’s Choice at Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.
Other credits include: The Glass Menagerie (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Britannicus (Lyric Hammersmith); Kes (Octagon Theatre,Bolton/Theatre By The Lake, Keswick); Harm (Bush Theatre, London, also broadcast on BBC Four) and Utopia (Royal Exchange Theatre).
Named in The Stage 25 list of theatre-makers to look out for in 2022 and beyond.
In November 2022, along with Rachel Bagshaw, he was awarded a Peter Hall bursary by the National Theatre to support him in developing work for the NT’s stages.
Recruited for role as director of Royal Shakespeare Company’s Julius Caesar through Open Hire, a new initiative to improve transparency and access to freelance creative jobs in theatre.
“I got into directing when I was still at school,” says Atri. “I wrote a version of Macbeth with two of my friends, set in 1950s’ Hollywood and called Big Mac. I didn’t really know I wanted to be a director as a teenager, but I saw lots of shows – at places like the Oxford Playhouse, where I grew up – so regional theatre and touring theatre are really important to me.
“I went to university to study English and then did a Masters in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, and throughout that time I did a lot of shows with my student drama society, including quite a bit of Shakespeare.
“When I left university, I still didn’t know if I wanted to be a director, partly because of the freelance struggle of it all, so I got a job as the press assistant at the National Theatre, where I met lots of amazing creatives and artists, and I decided that directing was the thing I wanted to do.
“I did a Masters in directing at Birkbeck [University of London], where the first year is training and the second year is a placement. I was at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, where I stayed for a couple more years.
“Some of my career highlights to date include Hobson’s Choice, my first big show at the RoyalExchange, which was a South Asian version of [Harold] Brighouse’s play; Harm at the Bush Theatre, and more recently, Kes at the Bolton Octagon; Britannicus at the Lyric Hammersmith; and The Glass Menagerie, again at the Royal Exchange. The Glass Menagerie had been cancelled by the pandemic, so it was amazing to finally bring it to the stage.”
“I got into directing when I was still at school,” says Atri Banerjee. Picture: The Other Richard
THREE early works by Vaughan Williams made an invigorating evening, when the choir of York’s twin
city, Münster, joined forces with York Musical Society’s choir and orchestra, all conducted by David Pipe.
The programme was dedicated to Philip Moore, organist emeritus of York Minster, who celebrates his 80th birthday in September. It also marked 25 years since Martin Henning – present here as a tenor – became conductor of the Münster choir.
Vaughan Williams’s first essay into symphonic realms, A Sea Symphony, was premiered at the Leeds Festival of October 1910, with the composer conducting and Edward Bairstow as organist. But he revised it extensively over the years until 1923.
He emphasised that the words are used symphonically, as a vehicle for the choir, which must therefore be considered an extension of the orchestral textures. Walt Whitman’s poetry is not unimportant, but the overall theme of human endeavour and the brotherhood of man is what really matters.
This message was at the heart of its success here. The symphony is a rambling affair, well over an hour, and not easy to distil. But Pipe kept his eye on the ball and his singers’ eyes on him, nursing them deftly through the work’s many minefields.
We must not, however, forget the sterling contribution made by the orchestra led by Nicola Rainger. The strings worked with ferocious devotion, while the brass – who have a much easier time of it – made hay, never looking back after blasting out the crucial opening fanfare triumphantly.
Solo soprano Elinor Rolfe Johnson was straight into her stride in Flaunt Out, O Sea, doubtless inspired by several thunderous moments in the first movement. She generated considerable resonance throughout the work with a cutting edge that was ideal in this company. The choral sopranos took courage from her and sustained their high tessitura superbly.
Julian Tovey’s pleasing baritone was at his best in the slow movement On The Beach At Night, Alone, evoking a “vast similitude” under a starry sky against a gentle orchestral swell. The movement ended marvellously quiet.
In the scherzo The Waves, string tremolos offered exciting underpinning to the gurgling ocean, where the choir really laid into their lines with relish. Its finish was thrilling.
The finale is long and floundering, not easy to sustain. But the choirs’ reserves of stamina carried the day. Pipe’s broad tempos were excellently judged for this vast acoustic; he wisely concentrated on the wood, not the trees, and took us from climax to climax with increasing fervour. The offstage semi-chorus provided by the Ebor Singers was eerily effective.
In their duet, the baritone did not quite balance the soprano, needing more operatic heft; he compensated on his own later. What mattered, though, was the exhilarating timelessness of Whitman’s vision, crystallised here in the ultra-soft ending.
The evening had begun with the composer’s first work to capture the attention of critics and public alike, Toward The Unknown Region (1907), a setting of Whitman’s Whispers Of Heavenly Death. Its opening was amorphous, even nervy, where the choral basses needed to deliver more. But it came to a fighting finish, spearheaded by the excellent sopranos.
Earlier still was the composer’s first orchestral work, Serenade in A minor (1898) for small orchestra, which followed. The orchestra enjoyed – and deserved – the spotlight it offered. The cellos framed a tidy Prelude and the galloping Scherzo was redolent of rural pursuits.
The Intermezzo found Vaughan Williams experimenting with different groupings, but the rhapsodic Romance had a pleasing clarinet solo and an unforgettable passage of very high coloratura for the first violins, which was despatched with panache. The Finale had a martial flow, ending with a fanfare flourish. It was well worth exhuming.
Review by Martin Dreyer
PREVIEW: Academy of St Olave’s Summer Concert, St OLave’s Church, Marygate, York, June 17, 8pm
The poster for the Academy of St Olave’s summer concert
THE Academy of St Olave chamber orchestra rounds off its 2022-23 season with a summer concert centred on England’s musical legacy, from symphonies written for London audiences by the great Austrian composers Mozart and Haydn, to works by English composers Frederick Delius, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Paul Patterson.
The concert is book-ended by Mozart’s first symphony and Haydn’s 100th, known as “The Military”. Mozart composed his work in London during his family’s Grand Tour of Europe in 1764, when the boy wonder was eight.
Likewise, Haydn’s composition was one of his 12 “London symphonies”, to be performed during his second visit to England in 1794-95. The prominent fanfares and percussion effects employed in the second and fourth movements prompted its “Military” moniker.
Delius’s Summer Night On The River and Vaughan Williams’s rarely heard Harnham Down are short impressionistic tone poems, with each composer taking inspiration from continental counterparts: in Delius’ case, Debussy, whereas the young Vaughan Williams was clearly still working under the influence of Wagner.
The programme is completed by Paul Patterson’s Westerly Winds, a four-movement suite for wind quintet commissioned in 1999 by the Galliard Ensemble. The composer describes it as “essentially a sequence of four short fantasias based on West Country folk tunes”, including Farmer Giles and Linden Lea.
Musical director Alan George says: “While our summer concert has a nominally English theme, the programme also serves to demonstrate the rich cultural exchanges with European neighbours that have helped form today’s musical landscape, with pieces originating from more than two centuries apart.
“I’m sure our audience will be delighted by the range of music on offer, including some relative rarities, all performed by the highly skilled musicians of the academy.”
The concert is in aid of St Leonard’s Hospice, the independent York charity that provides specialist palliative care and support for those with life-limiting illnesses.
Tickets cost £15 or £5 for accompanied children (18 and under) at academyofstolaves.org.uk or on the door, if any are unsold.
“I don’t want to shock in my shows, I just want to entertain people,” says Hannah Byczkowski
JOIN The Traitors winner Hannah Byczkowski as she delves into the game that changed her life in her Games gig, opening At The Mill’s theatre season in Stillington, near York, tonight (10/6/2023).
Deemed a comedy goddess by the hit BBC show’s presenter, Claudia Winkleman, Hannah shared the £100,000 prize with her fellow Faithful contestantsAaron Evans and Meryl Williams in the game of skullduggery.
Now Byczkowski (pronounced Bitch-Cough-Ski, should you be wondering) is back on the comedy beat full time, wearing her heart on her sleeve and making sure everyone has a good laugh with it as she dips into her observational and relatable material and store of unbelievable stories.
Regularly performing as an MC in and around London, in addition to performing stand-up sets nationwide, she heads to Stillington for the first time this weekend. “My agent books the other stuff; my sister books the live shows,” she says.
“I won’t be debuting the Games show fully until 2024 but I will do shows at the Free Fringe in Edinburgh this summer, and I’ll be doing live podcasts from Edinburgh with my Ghost Huns co-host Suzie Preece, telling ghost stories and trying to contact the dead at the end of each show.”
Why pick Games for a title, Hannah? “Mainly because of going on The Traitors. It’s that vibe,” she says. “It’s not explicitly about my experience on that show but it does have references to it, about how I ended up on it, how I was recruited.”
Hannah, you may recall, was a Faithful contestant throughout this year’s debut series. “I am faithful by nature, but I really wanted to a Traitor because it looked more fun. Being a Traitor gives you permission to behave in a way you couldn’t in the real world – though people will resonate with you being a good person.”
Her television exposure has been hugely beneficial. “Definitely it’s helped me to change my career very quickly, having been a comedian before the show for two years, though it felt like I’d only been doing it for two minutes,” says Hannah, 32, originally from Lightwood, Stoke-on-Trent, and now based in London.
She revels in being a stand-up. “Who can tell sex jokes to a room full of strangers except for a comedian, where you can get away with a lot? I can be utterly and completely who I am on that stage,” she says.
“I just don’t take anything seriously, except that I did work in palliative care and that makes you realise you shouldn’t take anything else seriously. Now I won’t do anything I don’t want to do.
“I don’t want to shock in my shows, I just want to entertain people while I have them in the palm of my hands.”
Palliative care, by contrast, required a serious disposition. “I don’t think anyone would be able to carry on in a job like that if that were not the case. I quit my job before I went onto The Traitors, and I had to make the decision to give up regular income, but I don’t want to have any regrets, to not do things in my life.
“I ended up assessing in the palliative care field, getting up in the morning, doing the job and thinking, ‘is this it?’. I decided ‘, ‘this is not what I want’. I’d get up seven, work till five, and then be out till 1am because of doing a gig in the evening, working on the London circuit. Not a lot of sleep.”
The Traitors has enabled Hannah to travel further for her gigs, playing up north more often. Like tonight in Stillington. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill/913281
Driller thriller: Birmingham Rep in David Walliams’ Demon Dentist at the Grand Opera House, York
COMEDY aplenty, musical collaborations, dental mystery adventures and soul seekers make a convincing case for inclusion in Charles Hutchinson’s list.
Children’s show of the week: David Walliams’ Demon Dentist, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday, 1.30pm, 6.30pm; Friday, 10.30am, 6.30pm; Saturday, 11am, 3pm
CHILDREN’S author David Walliams has teamed up with Birmingham Stage Company for Demon Dentist, their third collaboration after Gangsta Granny and Billionaire Boy, aapted and directed by Neal Foster.
Join Alfie and Gabz as they investigate the strange events happening in their hometown, where children are leaving their teeth for the tooth fairy and waking up to find odd things under their pillows. No-one could have dreamed what Alfie and Gabz would discover on coming face to face with the demon dentist herself in this thrilling adventure story. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Isabelle Farah: Sadness meets humour in Ellipsis at Theatre@41
Therapy session of the week: Isabelle Farah: Ellipsis, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 7.45pm
STAND-UP is the outlet that keeps you sane, where the nature of the game is to turn everything into punchlines. But can you do it if you feel all-consuming sadness, ponders comedian/actor/writer/nightmare Isabelle Farah in Ellipsis.
“I wanted my therapist to come and watch me to see how hilarious I am, but I thought how odd it would be performing to someone who’s seen so far behind my mask,” she says. “Would he even find it funny or just sit there knowing what I was hiding?” Cue her exploration of grief, authenticity and being funny.
Elinor Rolfe Johnson: Soprano soloist at York Minster tonight
Classical concert of the week: Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony, York Minster, tonight, 7.30pm
YORK Musical Society and Philharmonischer Chor Münster from York’s twin city in Germany mark 30 years of concert collaborations with Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, using text from Walt Whitman poems.
Toward The Unknown Region, another Whitman setting, takes a journey from darkness to light, followed by the beautiful orchestral work Serenade in A minor. Tonight’s soloists are soprano Elinor Rolfe Johnson and bass Julian Tovey. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; on the door from 6.45pm.
Frankie Boyle’s tour poster for Lap Of Shame, doing the rounds on tour at the Grand Opera House, York
Great Scot of the week: Frankie Boyle, Lap Of Shame, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
SCATHING Scottish comedian, surrealist, presenter and writer Frankie Boyle, 50, is on tour. “Buy a ticket, because by the time I arrive, the currency will be worthless and you and your neighbours part of a struggling militia that could probably use a few laughs,” advises the often-controversial Glaswegian.
Only a handful of tickets are still available at atgtickets.com/york. Please note: no latecomers, no readmittance.
Scott Bennett: Heading to Selby Town Hall
Great Scott of the week: Scott Bennett, Selby Town Hall, Sunday, 7.30pm
SCOTT Bennett has been blazing a trail through the stand-up circuit for the best part of a decade, writing for Chris Ramsey and Jason Manford too.
After regular appearances on BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz and The Now Show and his debut on BBC One’s Live At The Apollo, he presents Great Scott! in Selby. Box office: selbytownhall.co.uk.
Kiki Dee & Carmelo Luggeri: On the road to Helmsley Arts Centre
Rescheduled gig of the week: Kiki Dee & Carmelo Luggeri, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 7.30pm
MOVED from March 3, Bradford soul singer Kiki Dee and guitarist Carmelo Luggeri head to Helmsley for an acoustic journey through stories and songs, from Kate Bush and Frank Sinatra covers to Kiki’s hits Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, I Got The Music In Me, Loving And Free and Amoureuse. Songs from 2022’s The Long Ride Home should feature too. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Neil Warnock: Moving his York Barbican show from June 15 to next May
Re-arranged show announcement: Neil Warnock, Are You With Me?, York Barbican, moving from June 15 to May 31 2024
ARE you with Neil Warnock on Thursday? Not any more, after “unforeseen circumstances” forced the former York City captain and Scarborough manager (and town chiropodist) to postpone his talk tour until next spring. Tickets remain valid.
After guiding Huddersfield Town to safety from the threat of relegation in the 2022-2023 season, Warnock, 74, was to have gone on the road to discuss his record number of games as a manager, 16 clubs and 8 promotions, from non-league to Premier League, and a thousand stories along the way that have never been told. Now those tales must wait…and whose season might he rescue in 2023-24 before then?! Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Kyshona: Protest singing in Pocklington
Discovery of the week: Kyshona, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm
UNRELENTING in her pursuit of the healing power of song, community connector Kyshona Armstrong has the background of a licensed music therapist, the curiosity of a writer, the resolve of an activist and the voice of a protest singer.
As witnessed on her 2020 album Listen, she blends roots, rock, R&B and folk with her lyrical clout. Past collaborators include Margo Price and Adia Victoria. Now comes her Pocklington debut. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
The Illegal Eagles: Taking it easy at York Barbican
Tribute show of the week: The Illegal Eagles, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm
THE Illegal Eagles celebrate the golden music of the legendary West Coast country rock band with musical prowess, attention to detail and showmanship. Expect to hear Hotel California, Desperado, Take It Easy, New Kid In Town, Life In The Fast Lane and many more. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Shalamar: Toasting 40 years of Friends at York Barbican
Soul show of the week: Shalamar Friends 40th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, June 17, 7.30pm
SHALAMAR mark the 40th anniversary of Friends, the platinum-selling album that housed four Top 20 singles, A Night To Remember, Friends, There It Is and I Can Make You Feel Good, outsold Abba, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Culture Club and Meat Loaf that year and spawned Jeffrey Daniels’ dance moves on Top of The Pops.
Further Shalamar hits Take That To The Bank, I Owe You One, Make That Move, Dead Giveaway and Disappearing Act feature too. Special guests are Jaki Graham and Cool Notes’ Lauraine McIntosh. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
The poster for the Academy of St Olave’s summer concert
Celebrating England’s musical legacy: Academy of St Olave’s, St Olave’s Church, Marygate, York, June 17, 8pm
THE Academy of St Olave’s chamber orchestra rounds off its 2022-23 season with a summer concert centred on England’s musical legacy, from symphonies written for London audiences by the great Austrian composers Mozart and Haydn, to works by English composers Frederick Delius, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Paul Patterson.
The concert is book-ended by Mozart’s first symphony and Haydn’s hundredth, known as “The Military”. Mozart composed his work in London during his family’s Grand Tour of Europe in 1764, when the boy wonder was eight. Likewise, Haydn’s work was one of his 12 “London symphonies”, to be performed during his second visit to England in 1794-95. Box office: academyofstolaves.org.uk or on the door.
In Focus: Who are the York community chorus in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Julius Caesar at York Theatre Royal?
Community chorus sextet Hilary Conroy, Astrid Hanlon, Elaine Harvey, Stephanie Hesp, Anna Johnston and Frances Simon with music director Jessa Liversidge, right
SIX women – all inspirational leaders within the York and North Yorkshire community – will form the Chorus when the Royal Shakespeare Company’s touring production of Julius Caesar visits York Theatre Royal from June 13 to 17.
Step forward Hilary Conroy, Astrid Hanlon, Elaine Harvey, Stephanie Hesp, Anna Johnston and Frances Simon, under the musical direction of community choir leader Jessa Liversidge, from Easingwold, with Zoe Colven-Davies as chorus coordinator.
The women in next week’s chorus have roles in the community spanning activism and campaigning to charity and social work, lecturing, teaching and coaching. In their day-to-day lives they each make an impact on the York community, whether through fighting for social change, championing community voices, supporting vulnerable groups or encouraging engagement in the creative arts.
Between them, they lead and support a diverse range of groups and community causes, including supporting disabled and neurodivergent people, those impacted by dementia and mental health issues, people affected by loneliness and those suffering from domestic abuse. They empower others through the creative arts and performance and champion wellbeing in marginalised groups.
Leading the York group is music director Jessa Liversidge, calling on her wealth of experience with community choirs, inclusive singing groups and working with people of all ages to inspire them through music.
Juliet Forster, York Theatre Royal’s creative director, says: “It’s a huge privilege for us to have these voices heard alongside the RSC’s actors, and we are so thankful for their input and commitment to the project.
“This production explores what makes a leader and asks questions about gender and power. Who better to take part than women who are already leaders in our community and in their workplace?
“The opportunity is exciting and empowering and is strong evidence of how committed the RSC is to meaningful collaboration with its regional theatre partners. We are incredibly proud to be able to contribute a local perspective into this nationwide conversation, and I can’t wait to see what our York women do.”
Explaining the role that the York community chorus will play, RSC director Atri Banerjee says: “Julius Caesar is a play about a nation in crisis, a play about the gulf between politicians and the people they are trying to rule.
“It just makes so much sense to me that this production would include ‘real’ people from where we are touring. So, alongside the professional acting company, we have found a way of integrating the communities from all the areas the show is playing.
“Community work has always been important to me, making work with non-professionals, whether that’s young people or non-professional adults.
“It’s not unusual for productions of Julius Caesar to have a chorus who come on to be the citizens of Rome and say ‘Read The Will’ and then you never see them again. But I wanted to include them to amplify the supernatural, apocalyptic terror within the play. They’ll be singing, using their voices, and will be present on stage for significant parts of the play. They will be something akin to the chorus you’d see in a Greek tragedy watching the action.
“Premonitions of death really. Premotions of figures who embody death in ways that go beyond these characters.”
Royal Shakespeare Company in Julius Caesar, York Theatre Royal, June 13 to 17, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Mike Peters: Playing a “one-man band electro-acoustic setlist ” at The Crescent, York, on June 8
MIKE Peters took his guitar into hospital to write The Alarm’s new album, Forwards, out on June 16.
After a year of heightened health challenges, the 64-year-old Welshman is on tour, performing a one-man band electro-acoustic setlist of songs from all four decades of The Alarm discography at The Crescent, York, on Thursday.
“The album title came to me when I was in hospital, at the North Wales Cancer Treatment Centre [at Glan Clwyd Hospital, Rhyl], and things weren’t looking good,” he says.
“I was in a ward where someone had flown in from America to visit their father for the last time, and they said, ‘oh my God, it’s Mike Peters from The Alarm’. I realised I would need to write a letter to The Alarm fans and I signed off the note, ‘Forwards, Mike Peters’. That’s when I thought, ‘that would make a great album title’.”
Mike was suffering from both pneumonia and a leukaemia relapse. “I’ve been living with leukaemia since 1995. I’ve probably had more [leukaemia treatment] than any person alive and I’m still here to tell the story,” he says.
“But all the drugs that had kept me alive were now working against me, which was why I was in such a dire position. It would take three weeks to get used to the new drug, and luckily I made it through to be able to take the full dose. That’s what’s keeping me alive today.
“I asked if I could bring my guitar in, when I was lying on my side for eight days while five litres of blood were drained out of me, through the back. I was walking the corridors when I could to keep functions going – and playing the guitar to do that too.”
His fellow patients encouraged him to “keep going” with his guitar playing. “They were enjoying it, and I found myself coming up with new chords. By the time I came out of hospital, I had all these new songs and did the demos really fast in the caravan by my house, when my voice was working well before I lost it again,” says Mike.
“My manager said, ‘you’ve got to record this’ – and I was down to a whisper at the time – so I thought it might the only vocals we could use but could rebuild the music sonically around them, but later switch back to the caravan to record the vocals again.”
Mike was last on the road with The Alarm in 2019, playing a 38-date American tour and subsequently did a spoken-word show called Stream, piecing the story together from the albums Eye Of The Hurricane [1987] and Change [1989]: a story of leaving your environment, going downstream and then realising you can’t really leave your roots behind.
“So I did the show, one performance with a proper immersive theatre experience working with the Brecon Theatre company in South Wales, which was amazing, and I was about to stage it at the Edinburgh Fringe when the pandemic came.
“We hope to revisit that show with an open invite to bring it to the Fringe, but for now I have this solo tour in May and June, doing ten dates, just to get the voice into action again, then two dates in America.”
All this is against a backdrop of Mike having to take a regular “huge dose” of chemotherapy in tablet form. “I also have to go to hospital to have different drugs put in my bloodstream two weeks apart,” he says.
His solo show takes the form of a one-man band. “I play drums with my feet and my guitar is acoustic or electric, which is a lot of noise for one man – and that’s how The Alarm started without a bassist. It’s like a one-man White Stripes: I can play bass, acoustic and electric all in one on my guitar,” he says.
“I like going on without a setlist, just playing what comes into my head and whatever people shout out for, so there are endless possibilities. That’s why people come to the gigs: they want spontaneity. I want that moment of surprise too.
“One night I wrote a whole song on the spot around a setlist I found on the floor from the gig there the night before and that song’s never been repeated – I didn’t even know who the band was!”
Being in a band allows you to run away from life, says Mike. “Now music is my form of escape to forget about cancer and live in the moment, so it’s been a great release for me.”
At one point he was set to have a bone marrow transplant. “I said, ‘that’s great, but I’ve got a tour to play. Let me do that and come back in a really positive state of mind’, but when I came back my blood cell count had gone in the wrong direction,” he says.
“At first, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma but then I was re-diagnosed with chronic lymph Leukaemia. The disease I’ve got does ebb and flow in its intensity and it came back with a vengeance in its intensity last year, but hopefully it will stay stable for a few years.
“The music keeps me alive and gives me a reason to look forwards. Just because you’ve heard the word ‘cancer’ doesn’t mean you stop going for a run, going to work, but no-one prepares for it, thinking ‘I’ll read a book about it’.
“You only read about it when the doctor says ‘you’ve got cancer’, which could send you plummeting, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You have to stay at the highest point you can.”
Mike’s wife, Jules, has been through breast cancer, charting both her and Mike’s cancer journeys in a documentary for the BBC, and now she mentors cancer patients.
“We run our own charity, the Love Hope Strength Foundation, which takes people to Everest, helping to build a cancer treatment centre, speaking at the World Cancer Congress,” he says. “Every year we climb Snowdon, taking other survivors with us, showing that with a good attitude, you can ‘buy yourself’ days, months, years, through a positive attitude.
“Exiting from life can be just as beautiful as the entrance point, and we have to accept that sometimes we’re going to have to go through that, and maybe cancer will save you from other horrors. You have to respect cancer, as it comes from the same life as all the positive things.
“In my case, I try to be in control, and I know that some people don’t have that disposition, but if you can find some inner strength, you will be better for it.”
Mike Peters presents The Alarm (Acoustic), The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
The Way Old Friends Do writer and lead actor Ian Hallard and director Mark Gatiss. All pictures: Darren Bell
IN 1988, two school friends tentatively come out to one another: one as gay, the other – more shockingly – as an Abba fan. Nearly 30 years later, a chance meeting sets them on a new path, one where they decide to form the world’s first Abba tribute band – in drag.
So begins The Way Old Friends Do, Ian Hallard’s new comedy about devotion, desire and dancing queens, directed by his marital partner, Dr Who and Sherlock writer and producer and The League Of Gentlemen member Mark Gatiss, on tour at York Theatre Royal from June 6 to 10 in the itinerary’s closing week.
“I thought, if I’m going to write a play, there should be a bit of wish fulfilment with no-one to stop me,” says Ian.
Cue a play with an Abba drag act and questions of whether a revived friendship can survive the tribulations of a life on the road that embraces platform boots, fake beards and a distractingly attractive stranger.
Hallard himself will be joined in Gatiss’s cast by Donna Berlin,James Bradshaw, Sara Crowe, Rose Shalloo and Andrew Horton (understudied by Toby Holloway on June 6 and 7). The play also features the voice of Miriam Margolyes.
Here Gatiss and Hallard discuss The Way Old Friends Do, friendship, comedy and being Abba fans.
What appealed to you about this project, Mark?
“I knew Ian was up to something. I was away on holiday on the Isle of Wight with the rest of his family, and he was in a show in London and so couldn’t come. He told me, ‘I’ve been writing something’, and when I read it, I thought it was great.
“It was fully formed. It was very touching, very funny, very true. A delight really. Write what you know, as they say – it felt very authentic.”
[Editor’s note: The script was so “fully formed” that four years after that first draft, the finished version is “virtually unchanged”.]
After your online play Adventurous, produced by Jermyn Street Theatre, was premiered in March 2021, this is your first full-scale stage play, Ian. Discuss…
“I’d always thought it seemed to require a colossal amount of confidence, if not arrogance, to say, ‘there hasn’t been a play that’s sufficiently tackled this one particular topic, and I am uniquely placed to be the person to write this play’.
“Then I just got over myself, and once I’d decided to try and write something, it was motivated by what I myself wanted to be in. I thought, ‘well, if it’s the first thing I write, I’m going to write a part for myself. What would I be most excited about if my agent rang tomorrow with a script for me to read?
“It would be an offer to play Agnetha from Abba’. Then I just had to reverse engineer things and construct a storyline in which that could happen.”
What was the inspiration behind The Way Old Friends Do, Ian?
“It’s very easy to pitch in one line: two old school friends form the world’s first drag Abba tribute band. It does exactly what it says on the tin. When I told my friends, they got excited because, at first, they thought I was actually setting up a drag Abba tribute band.
“Then, once I’d had the idea, I did extensive Googling to see if such a thing already existed, and as far as I’m aware, it doesn’t. Who knows? It might give somebody else the idea now.”
Will The Way Old Friends Do provide much-needed escapism, Mark?
“Absolutely. It’s just the sort of play that people need right now. It’s extremely celebratory, it’s about friendship, about love, about fun. It’s also about life and about time and how it changes us. But principally, it’s just a really entertaining show.”
“I thought, if I’m going to write a play, there should be a bit of wish fulfilment with no-one to stop me,” says Ian Hallard
Is the play autobiographical, Ian?
“The background setting is autobiographical. It’s about a gay, middle-aged man from Birmingham who is a massive Abba fan. So that much is very much based on real life. But the actual events of the play are entirely fictitious.
“I was a teenager in the 1980s, a time of homophobia in the media; the rise of AIDS with that image of the tombstone in the advert, and Section 28 too. That’s all there in the background in this play and makes the lead characters what they are now.”
What can you reveal about Peter, your character in the play, Ian?
“He’s lived in Birmingham all his life. He’s 39; a big Abba fan, obviously. He got into them through his mum, who died when he was only a child. So, he was brought up by his grandmother, which mirrors the real life of Frida from Abba.
“Then a chance meeting via a gay dating app means he ends up running into the kid he was great friends with at school whom he’d lost touch with, and that sets the whole crazy series of events in motion.”
What about the rest of the characters, Ian?
“Well, they’re a pretty diverse bunch. There’s Peter’s old schoolfriend, Edward, who is played by James Bradshaw, best known for his role as Max DeBryn in Endeavour. Edward’s camp and waspish, but deeply insecure underneath it all.
“Jodie – as played by Rose Shalloo – is a young actress who you could say has more enthusiasm than talent. Then there’s the gorgeous Australian photographer Christian, played by Andrew Horton – who’s just finished playing a superhero in Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy.”
Who else, Mark?
“The wonderful, Olivier-winning Sara Crowe is the eccentric Mrs Campbell, who among other quirks, has a deep-seated suspicion of Michael Palin. And finally, there’s their long-suffering, no-nonsense stage manager, Sally, played by Donna Berlin, who has to try and corral them all into some kind of order.”
What’s the result, Ian?
“A lot of the comedy in the show comes from flinging these six characters together and observing how they interact.
“As well as me and Mark, the producers had input into the casting and happily all our first choices said yes.”
How did Sara Crowe become involved in the production, Ian?
“Sara had done a couple of rehearsed readings with me in the past and is a friend of mine, so I was delighted when she agreed to be in the cast. The comic potential in that set-up – putting Olivier Award-winning Sara Crowe in a wig as the quirky Mrs Campbell – was not lost on me and now there’s a five-minute section that I can’t take any credit for that she improvised in the rehearsal room with Mark saying, ‘have fun with this’.”
Friendship is a major theme in the play. Why, Ian?
“I was interested in exploring friendship, as opposed to a romantic relationship between these two middle-aged, queer men. With The Way Old Friends Do, I had a ready-made title from Abba’s back catalogue, and I knew very early on that the final scene of the play would revolve around that song. So everything leads up to that.”
“Seeing each other for the five-week rehearsal period was a real luxury for us,” says Ian Hallard of working with husband Mark Gatiss
What’s it like working professionally with your husband?
Mark first: “We can compare notes at the end of the evening without having to organise a special notes session.”
Ian: “We’ve done it quite a few times before, but this has a slightly different dynamic because we haven’t worked together as director and writer, and certainly not on stage, so watch this space. But given past experiences, I have no cause for concern.”
Mark: “These things aren’t guaranteed to work, of course. A lot of couples never work together because they’d rather leave it at the door, but so far, so good!”
Ian: “Look at Abba. Romantic relationships kick-started the band, although admittedly it did all go awry subsequently.”
Mark: “Yes, we’d better not follow Abba down that line.”
Ian: “Ah well, if we do, we’ll just end up getting back together in 40 years’ time.”
Talk about your working relationship with Mark, Ian…
“We’ve collaborated on stuff before where I’ve been his sort of unofficial script editor. I’m the first person to read anything he writes.
“I trust him implicitly. We’ve acted on stage together, and everything went very happily in the rehearsal room this time. Seeing each other for the five-week rehearsal period was a real luxury for us.
“The very first draft of this play had a flashback to seeing the men as 15-year-old schoolboys and that was one of Mark’s biggest notes for script changes. He said, ‘that can be left as a back story’. We’ll leave adults playing schoolboys to Blood Brothers!”
Just checking, The Way Old Friends Do isn’t a musical, is it, Ian?
“That’s right, it’s a play rather than a musical. We’re not trying to compete with Mamma Mia! It’s a backstage play, very much in the vein of The Full Monty or Stepping Out: a bunch of plucky amateurs deciding to put on a show. It’s about those characters and their relationships.
“Although Abba is very much the setting, and it’s part of the show, it’s not a play about Abba, it’s a play about being an Abba fan.”
Did you acquire the approval of the Abba estate, Ian?
“Yes. They know about it and they’re happy for it to go ahead. I would have been devastated to be slapped down by my heroes because they didn’t want the play to happen. Happily, we do have their blessing!
“We have the rights to sing one Abba song. We’ll keep that as a bit of a secret but there may be a clue in the title of the play!”
Director Mark Gatiss and writer-actor Ian Hallard with The Way Old Friends Do cast members Donna Berlin, Rose Shalloo, Andrew Horton, Sara Crowe and James Bradshaw
Have both of you always been Abba fans?
Mark first: “Yes. They’ve had different phases of their existence which people can hop on at: Eurovision, the Abba Gold revival, Mamma Mia! and now Voyage! But they’re loved because they’re just so bl**dy good.
“Quality will out. They have just an astonishing range of hits and styles and genres. They’re both gloomy Swedes and insanely infectious disco-mongers.”
Ian: “My mother was pregnant with me when they won Eurovision in 1974. Although that makes it sound as if it was some kind of immaculate conception via the magic of Waterloo. I should add that I wasn’t actually conceived at that precise moment.
“But yes, it’s been a lifetime of devotion for me. I have an old university friend who I’ve known since I was 21. I hadn’t seen her for years, but just after the pandemic she came down to visit.
“We went for dinner and we were chatting about my play. I said, ‘I don’t know if you remember, but I’m a bit of an Abba fan’. And she just looked at me and said, ‘Ian, it’s literally the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about you’!”
So, Ian, why do you like Abba?
“I guess that’s the 64 million dollar question: why do you like a band or a football team? But there are certain things you can talk about objectively. The music has stood the test of time after 50 years, and though the songs are deceptively simple, there are flourishes you don’t notice on a cursory listen, but you would miss them if they weren’t there.
“Their ability to interpret the language of pop is almost second to none, writing in their second language, and they were quite experimental in going from glam rock to pure pop to disco and embracing digital technology in the early 1980s.”
What do you hope next week’s audiences in York will take away from the play?
Ian first: “Just a great night out. If you love Abba, there are plenty of little Easter eggs and moments for you. But if you don’t know anything about them, or don’t even like them – yes, there are such people out there! – it speaks about being a fan. We’re all a fan of something. That level of devotion and ownership is universal.
“But I also think the six characters are fun people that audiences will enjoy spending time with. I hope people will laugh and be touched – and then rebook!”
Mark: “It’s truthful, it’s moving and it’s joyous – that’s what I like to see in a play. Like Abba, it’s bittersweet, but ultimately very, very upbeat, and a joy to be around.”
Have we reached Abba saturation point yet, Ian?
“It was something I was aware of, that question, but I thought, write what you know, and it’s different. It’s a play, not a musical, and it’s not about Abba but about the characters in the play and the journey they’re going on.”
The Way Old Friends Do runs at York Theatre Royal from June 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Claire Richards: Taking Steps to headline York Pride’s main stage
PRIDE is loud and proud this weekend in a city full of ideas, heated politics and apocalyptic music, as recommended by Charles Hutchinson.
Diverse celebration of the week: York Pride, city-centre parade at 12 noon, followed by festival until after-hours on Knavesmire
NORTH Yorkshire’s largest LGBT+ celebration sets out on a parade march from Duncombe Place, outside York Minster, processing along Bishopthorpe Road to the festival site on Knavesmire.
Hosted by Sordid Secret and Mamma Bear, the Main Stage welcomes Claire Richards, from Steps, Pussycat Doll Kimberly Wyatt, Union J’s Jaymi Hensley and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK finalist Kitty Scott-Claus. Plenty more acts take to the YOI Radio Stage and Family Area and the new Queer Arts Cabaret Tent (1.30pm to 7pm, headlined by York’s pink-attired Beth McCarthy). Full festival details at: yorkpride.org.uk.
In the pink: Beth McCarthy tops the Queer Arts Cabaret Tent bill at York Pride this evening
Festival of the week and beyond: York Festival of Ideas 2023, until June 15
THIS University of York co-ordinated festival invites you to Rediscover, Reimagine, Rebuild in a programme of more than 150 free in-person and online events designed to educate, entertain and inspire.
Meet world-class speakers, experience performances, join entertaining family activities, explore York on guided tours and more! Topics range from archaeology to art, history to health and politics to psychology. Study the festival programme at yorkfestivalofideas.com.
Ocean-loving Kentviolinist and composer Anna Phoebe performs her Sea Soul album with Klara Schumann and Jacob Kingsbury Downsat the National Centre for Early Music, York, tonight at 7pm as part of the York Festival of Ideas. Picture; Rob Blackham
Don’t myth it: The Flanagan Collective in The Gods The Gods The Gods, York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7.30pm; Slung Low at Temple, Water Lane, Holbeck, Leeds, tomorrow, 7.30pm (outdoor performance); Hull Truck Theatre, Stage One, June 29,7.30pm
WRIGHT & Grainger’s myth-making The Gods The Gods The Gods is performed as a 12-track album in an exhilarating weave of big beats, heavy basslines, soaring melodies and heart-stopping spoken word. In the absence of co-creators Alexander Flanagan-Wright and Megan Drury in New York and Australia respectively, Easingwold birthday boy Phil Grainger, 34 today, will be joined by Oliver Towse and Lucinda Turner from the West End original cast of Wright’s The Great Gatsby.
The 65-minute performance links stories of two youngsters who meet when out dancing, destined to fall hard; a woman on a beach, alone at night, looking at the stars, and a bloke on a bridge, thinking about jumping, just before dark, all at the crossroads where mythology meets real life. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Leeds, slunglow.org; Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk.
Upwards and onwards: Oliver Towse, left, Lucinda Turner and Phil Grainger survey the auditorium ahead of their Harrogate Theatre performance of The God The Gods The Gods. York, Leeds and Hull dates lie ahead
Comedy gig of the week: Patrick Monahan, Classy, Pocklington Arts Centre, tonight, 8pm
IN a world of groups, hierarchies and class systems, everyone tries so hard to fit in. What’s wrong with being a misfit? Be you, be proud!
From the caravan to the middle-class neighbourhood, Irish-Iranian comedian Patrick Monahan, 46, has taken four decades to realise this. Time for the Edinburgh Fringe regular to pass on his observations on living his contemporary life alongside stories of his upbringing. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Patrick Monahan: Classy performance at Pocklington Arts Centre
Apocalypse now: Late Music presents Late Music Ensemble, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, tonight, 7.30pm
YORK Late Music concludes its 2022-23 season on a spectacular – if not entirely optimistic! – note tonight when the Late Music Ensemble, conducted by Nick Williams, opens up the End Of The World Jukebox.
Composers and players re-imagine the pop songs they would like to hear if Armageddon were nigh in arrangements of Imogen Heap’s Hide And Seek, David Bowie’s Warszawa, Cole Porter’s Every Time We Say Goodbye and Bob Dylan’s Cat’s In The Well. The Beatles will be represented by The End from Abbey Road, alongside new works by Christopher Fox and Anthony Adams.
Williams’s nine-strong ensemble promises a broad musical spectrum through the presence of Edwina Smith (flute, piccolo), Jonathan Sage (clarinet, bass clarinet), Iain Harrison and Lucy Havelock (saxophones), Murphy McCaleb (bass trombone), Kate Ledger (piano, toy piano, voice), Tim Brooks (keyboards, piano), Catherine Strachan (cello) and Anna Snow (voice).
Due to unforeseen circumstances, today’s lunchtime concert by Stuart O’Hara has been postponed. It will, however, be rescheduled in the 2023-24 season, whose programme will be announced in the next few months.
While the End of the World cannot be avoided, York Late Music adminstrator Steve Crowther is an optimist who believes that, for now at least, the end is no nigher. A 6.45pm, pre-concert talk by Christopher Fox includes a complimentary glass of wine or fruit juice. Box office: latemusic.org or on the door.
Kate Ledger: Pianist playing in the Late Music Ensemble’s end-is-nigh concert tonight
Folk gig of the week: Spiers & Boden, The Crescent, York, Wednesday, doors 7.30pm
THIS weekend the focus falls on the City of York Roland Walls Folk Weekend at the Black Swan Inn, Peasholme Green. Meanwhile, the organisers, the Black Swan Folk Club, have teamed up with The Crescent to present Bellowhead big band cohorts Spiers & Boden in a seated concert next week.
John Spiers and Jon Boden re-formed their instrumental duo in 2021 after a seven-year hiatus to release the album Fallow Ground. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Seated gig: Folk duo Spiers & Boden atThe Crescent on Wednesday
Defiant gig of the week: Mike Peters presents The Alarm (Acoustic), The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm
AFTER a year of health challenges, The Alarm leader Mike Peters returns to the stage this spring with a new album set for release in the summer.
Co-founder of the Love Hope Strength Foundation, the 64-year-old Welshman will be performing a one-man band electro-acoustic set list of songs from all four decades of The Alarm discography. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Mike Peters: Setting The Alarm songs acoustically at the Crescent on Thursday
Troubadour of the week: Steve Earle, The Alone Again Tour, Grand Opera House, York, Friday, 7.30pm
AS his tour title suggests, legendary Americana singer, songwriter, producer, actor, playwright, novelist, short story writer and radio presenter Steve Earle will be performing solo and acoustic in York: the only Yorkshire gig of a ten-date itinerary without his band The Dukes that will take in the other Barbican, in London, and Glastonbury.
Born in Fort Monroae National Monument, Hampton, Virginia, Earle grew up in Texas and began his songwriting career in Nashville, releasing his first EP in 1982 and debut album Guitar Town in 1986, since when he has branched out from country music into rock, bluegrass, folk music and blues. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
Steve Earle: Heading from New York to York for the opening night of his British solo tour. Picture: Danny Clinch
Brass at full blast: Shepherd Group Brass Band: Stage And Screen, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, June 10, 7pm
SHEPHERD Group Brass Band’s late-spring concert showcases music from across the repertoire of stage and screen, featuring five bands from the York organisation, ranging from beginners to championship groups, culminating with a grand finale from all the bands. Tickets update: only the last few are still available on 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Thalissa Teixeira: The Royal Shakespeare Company’s first black female Brutus in Julius Caesar, directed by Atri Banerjee, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Marc Brenner
Power play: Royal Shakespeare Company in Julius Caesar, York Theatre Royal, June 13 to 17, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees
ATRI Banerjee directs this fast-paced political thriller on the RSC’s return to York Theatre Royal in a fresh interpretation of Julius Caesar with a female Brutus (Thalissa Teixeira) and non-binary Cassius (Annabel Baldwin) that asks: how far would we go for our principles?
Concerned that divisive leader Julius Caesar (Nigel Barrett) poses a threat to democracy, revolutionaries take the violent decision to murder him but without a plan for what happens next. As the world spins out of control, chaos, horror and superstition rush in to fill the void. Civil war erupts and a new leader must rise, but at what cost? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
