Tranquillity, chalk and charcoal, by Diane Cobbold
THE Donderdag Collective will be exhibiting at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York from Saturday to June 25.
Founded in 2011 by a group of artists in York, they meet at St Olave’s Church Hall, in Marygate Lane, on Thursday evenings to sketch or paint from a life model (‘Donderdag’ being Dutch for ‘Thursday’).
The group comprises both professional artists and keen amateurs who want to hone their technique or explore new ideas by working freely with a life model.
Comfortable In Your Own Skin,life drawing artwork, by Donderdag Collective member Carolyn Coles
“This exhibition is a celebration of the art of life drawing and an opportunity for the collective to show together the art that they make for pleasure or as a means of earning a living,” says Pyramid Gallery owner and curator Terry Brett.
Fifteen members will feature in the Artists And The Human Form show, exhibiting both life drawings made during the Thursday sessions and other artworks for sale.
Away, charcoal, by Kate Pettitt
Taking part will be: Julie Mitchell; Rory Barke; Bertt deBaldock (aka Terry Brett); Diane Cobbold; Carolyn Coles; Leon Francois Dumont; Jeanne Godfrey; Anna Harding; Adele Karmazyn; Michelle Galloway; Andrian Melka; Kate Pettitt; Swea Sayers; Barbara Shaw and Donna Maria Taylor.
The artists will attend Saturday’s official opening from 11am to 2.30pm, when wine, soft drinks and nibbles will be served. Gallery opening hours are 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday; closed Sundays.
Jamie Smelt’s Recruiting Officer, Paula Lane’s Phoebe Throssel, Aron Julius’s Captain Valentine Brown and Alex Moran’s Ensign Blades in Northern Broadsides’ Quality Street
EVERYONE has a favourite Quality Street – purple, green…orange, not so keen – but there is only one Quality Street play to bite into.
Nevertheless, Northern Broadsides artistic director Laurie Sansom gives it a new wrapper, “stirring in a good helping of Yorkshire wit” from the retired workers of Halifax’s Mackintosh factory, makers of Quality Street.
And so a work from Toffee Town heads to Chocolate City this week, much later than first planned. Sansom’s Broadsides debut had to be put back in the sweetie cupboard after only four weeks when Covid put a red line through theatre shows in March 2020.
This spring he picks up the mantle with plenty of new flavours in the cast, only two of the originals still making the selection for the revived co-production with Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic Theatre.
Here is the history bit. Quality Street is a “delicious Regency rom-com” from the 1901 pen of J M Barrie, pre-dating the better known Peter Pan but a huge hit on Broadway in its own right.
Come 1936, Mackintosh’s management hit on the idea of assembling beautifully wrapped toffees, chocolates and sweets in a tin encased in a picture of Quality Street’s principal characters, Phoebe Throssel and Captain Valentine Brown.
Cue Sansom’s idea to weave verbatim recollections from the Quality Street factory floor into Barrie’s play, the red-hatted workers serving as a Greek chorus cum collective narrator, passing comment on the play’s unfolding dramas, recalling their working days and their own romances, and reflecting on how courting has changed.
The to-and-fro format takes a while to settle, not least because the ‘Mack’ workforce open the play with their fourth wall-breaking gossip and nostalgia. They are never more than convivial commentators by comparison with the fateful scene-setting of the Witches in the thunder and lightning prologue to Macbeth and their subsequent encounters with the murderous Macbeth .
Something sweet and nutty this way comes as Barrie introduces his Regency romp with Paula Lane (once Kylie Platt in a different cobbled street, of the Coronation soap variety) in the role of Phoebe Throssel, a woman scandalised by having allowed Captain Valentine Brown (Aron Julius) to kiss her on the cheek. Ten years ago.
Aron Julius’s Captain Valentine Brown and Paula Lane’s Phoebe Throssel in Quality Street: Picture: Andrew Billington
Ten years when he has been away fighting Napoleon, while Phoebe and sister Susan (Louisa-May Parker) have had to make a living, running a school for unruly children. They look exhausted, enervated, contemplating the prospect of having to add algebra to the curriculum without any enthusiasm. Understandable caution, you might say, in spite of PM Rishi Sunak’s enthusiasm for adding more Maths to the curriculum.
At this juncture, aside from Gilly Tompkins’ blunt-speaking maid Patty, more humour has been mined from the factory workers’ chatter than Barrie’s story, as supporting cast members switch between tea-break comment and rom-com roles. But once Julius’s Captain reacts so negatively to the older-looking Phoebe, still only 30, the play finds its sweet spot.
For a lavish ball, Phoebe transforms herself into lively, vivacious, flirty, flighty Miss Livvy, her “niece”, an alter-ego that will soon require her to be in two places at once in one of comedy’s favourite devices, from Shakespeare comedies of mistaken identity to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest, chaotic Mischief capers to myriad pantomimes.
Not before Jessica Worrall’s witty design has served up the gorgeous spectacle of all the ladies in Quality Street wrapper dresses, Miss Livvy in the most popular purple, of course.
Not only Captain Brown is smitten, so too are Jamie Smelt’s Recruiting Sergeant and Alex Moran’s Ensign Blades as the comedy picks up pace and impact. Cross-dressing Jelani D’Aguilar’s Fanny Willoughby adds to the fun, and Parker’s Susan, forced to play a straight bat to keep Phoebe/Livvy one step ahead, personifies resourceful understatement.
At first you may wonder – as your reviewer did when watching a performance at Leeds Playhouse – why Quality Street made Barrie a fortune, but as should always be the case, the second half is better than the first, In particular in the all-important frank discussions between Phoebe and Captain Brown, where Barrie’s writing, suddenly more serious, goes to the heart of a woman’s woes, mistreatment and frustrations.
From the brief appearances of puppets to Ben Wright’s choreography for the ball, the design’s colour palette and the cast’s colourful northern vowels to Sansom’s beautifully judged direction, Quality Street ends up being a tin of purple and green ones.
Lane’s performance, especially when she has to have a filling of Phoebe within a chocolate coating of Miss Livvy, is top Quality too.
Northern Broadsides and New Vic Theatre present Quality Street at York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Also: Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, May 25 to 27; Hull Truck Theatre, May 31 to June 3; Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, June 6 to 10; Victoria Theatre, Halifax, July 4 to 7. Box office: Sheffield, 0114 249 6000or sheffieldtheatres.co.uk; Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk; Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com; Halifax,01422 351158 or victoriatheatre.co.uk.
Eddie Ahrens, left, Rachel Hammond, Hannah Baker and Harvey Badger in Mikron Theatre Company’s A Force To Be Reckoned With. Picture: Anthony Robling
MIKRON Theatre Company are pursuing enquiries into the role of the pioneering women of Britain’s police force in Amanda Whittington’s new play A Force To Be Reckoned With.
After opening at the West Yorkshire company’s home of the Marsden Mechanics Hall on May 13, the premiere will be on tour nationally by canal, river and road until October 21, taking in Clements Hall, in York, on September 17 at 4pm.
Press performances will be at The Wetherby Whaler, Guiseley, tomorrownight and the Greater Manchester Police Museum & Archives, Manchester, on Saturday afternoon.
Billed as “more Heartbeat than Happy Valley”, A Force To Be Reckoned With captures a century of change in an arresting story directed by Gitka Buttoo with music by Greg Last and design by Celia Perkins.
In the cast are four actor-musician new to Mikron’s entertaining, enlightening and educational brand of theatre: Hannah Baker, Harvey Badger, Eddie Ahrens and Rachel Hammond, who played the punkish, free-spirited Peggy, one of the Amazons sisters, in Swallows And Amazons, Damian Cruden’s farewell production after 22 years as artistic director at York Theatre Royal in July-August 2019.
Equipped with a handbag, whistle and a key to the police box, WPC Iris Armstrong is ready for whatever the mean streets of a 1950s’ market town throws at her.
Fresh from police training school, she prepares for her first day on the beat. The reality is different, however. Stuck at the station, she soon finds her main jobs are typing and making brews.
Whereupon Iris joins forces with fellow WPC Ruby Roberts: an unlikely partnership, a two-girl department, called to any case involving women and children, from troublesome teens to fraudulent fortune tellers.
What starts as “women’s work” soon becomes a specialist role, one where Iris finds she is earning her place in a historic force to be reckoned with.
Along the way, she discovers the Edwardian volunteers who came before her, a lineage of Suffragettes-turned-moral enforcers, and the secrets that the police box hides.
Amanda Whittington made her Mikron debut with her women’s football drama Atalanta Forever in 2021 in a career that has accrued more than 40 plays, such as Be My Baby, The Thrill Of Love, Kiss Me Quick and her Ladies trilogy, plus seven series of D For Dexter and episodes of The Archers for BBC Radio 4.
“I’m delighted to be back at Mikron in their 51st year with A Force To Be Reckoned With. The play takes a light-hearted look at the lives of Women Police Constables in the 1950s, celebrating their spirit, optimism and heroic efforts to break the glass ceiling without a truncheon.”
Based in the village of Marsden, at the foot of the Yorkshire Pennines, Mikron have toured 68 productions over the past 51 years, spending more than 37,000 boating hours on board the vintage narrowboat Tyseley.
They perform their shows in unexpected places: a play about growing your own veg on an allotment; one about bees, staged next to hives; another about fish and chips, in a fish and chip restaurant; hostelling, in YHA youth hostels; the RNLI, at several lifeboat stations. Now into a sixth decade, the company has stacked up 5,300 performances, playing to 440,000 people.
A Force To Be Reckoned With is touring through the summer months alongside Twitchers, Poppy Hollman’s new play about the history of the RSPB (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), full of birdsong and laughter.
Dates include a 2pm open-air performance at Scarcroft Allotments, Scarcroft Road, York, on Sunday, when no reserved seating or tickets are required, and instead a ‘pay what you feel’ collection will be taken after the show.
For tour dates and information on A Force To Be Reckoned With, visit http://mikron.org.uk
Raquel Andueza & La Galanía: “17th century songs and dances of a distinctly earthy character, with lyrics that sometimes left little to the imagination”. Picture: Michal Novak
Beyond The Spanish Golden Age: Raquel Andueza & La Galanía, May 13; Concerto 1700, May 14, both at National Centre for Early Music, York
THE Spaniards rode into town over the weekend.
There is nothing quite so invigorating as hearing music that you have never had the chance to encounter before. Thanks to the sponsorship of Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish equivalent of the British Council, two groups introduced works that were certainly new to these ears and doubtless to many others in the enthusiastic audiences.
Raquel Andueza is a soprano who co-founded her support-group, La Galanía, which normally comprises violin, guitar and theorbo. Even without its violinist, who was indisposed on this occasion, they are a lively combo. They concentrated on 17th century songs and dances of a distinctly earthy character, with lyrics that sometimes left little to the imagination.
The jácara was a romance – we might call it a ballad – usually with a low-life character at its heart. The zarabanda – before the French turned into a sober sarabande – was a wildly erotic dance in its original Spanish and Mexican form, even being banned at court as early as 1583.
These, along with the folia, a lively dance-song, formed the backbone of mainly anonymous works that have been rediscovered in collections outside Spain, mainly in France, Italy and England.
Andueza’s light soprano relished the nuances in her lyrics, in a programme entitled I Am Madness, after Henry du Bailly’s famous song to anonymous lyrics with which she opened.
Andueza’s style was catchy and charismatic, made immensely more so by the stylish, distinctively ethnic playing of baroque guitarist Pierre Pitzl and theorbist Jesús Fernández Baena. They stroked and strummed with panache, alternating the percussive with the delicate. It was intoxicating.
Concerto 1700: “Their ensemble was everywhere remarkably taut”
Concerto 1700, as its name implies, takes its repertoire from the 18th century. The string trio was the dominant ensemble at the Madrid court during the reign of Charles IV, who ruled from 1788 to 1808 until deposed by Napoleon’s brother. Madrid was a magnet for Italian composers in particular. Boccherini was the best known of them and invented the guitar quintet there.
His Second String Trio, Op 34, was packed with gripping detail: headlong scales in thirds involving the two violins; a virtuoso cadenza for the cello ranging over the whole spectrum, coolly despatched by Ester Domingo, during the minuet’s trio (not a place where you expect much action); a chromatic Adagio studded with brisk interjections and ending with a violin cadenza for leader Daniel Pinteño; and a dashing final rondo. The ensemble took all this in its stride.
Cayetano Brunetti, another Italian immigrant, took on a Spanish name – he was christened Gaetano. He produced some dashing coups in his Sixth Trio, notably abrupt breaks in mid-phrase, even more daring than Haydn, and a racy finale studded with birdsong.
These alone were eye-openers, but they were complemented by two trios composed by local talent José Castel that were brimming with good humour. His opening movements, deceptively marked Allegretto Gratioso, were anything but, quite volatile in fact.
What made Concerto 1700 so satisfying were the intimate reactions between the players, with the expressive features of the second violinist, Fumiko Morie, a weather vane of emotions linking her colleagues. As a result, their ensemble was everywhere remarkably taut.
These concerts were the first at the NCEM to be sponsored by Instituto Cervantes. We must earnestly hope that they will not be the last. This music deserves much wider currency than it has received so far in this neck of the woods. It’s simply too good to waste.
Mapped Head 1, by Nick Walters, from Navigators Art’s Hidden Treasures exhibition for the 2023 York Festival of Ideas
YORK creative collective Navigators Art & Performance are contributing a three-part project to the 2023 York Festival of Ideas, inspired by the festival theme of Rediscover, Reimagine, Rebuild.
The trio of shows and events celebrates rarely seen works in York Art Gallery, books in the city library and intriguing aspects of York life and culture that people might not notice from day to day or even be aware of.
For Hidden Treasures, five artists have sought out unfamiliar but inspiring aspects of York, reinterpreting them in their own way for an exhibition to be hosted by York Explore Library and Archive, in Museum Street, from May 27 to July 6.
Katie Lewis uses textiles and other media to reflect the story behind Thomas Baker’s Crazy Kate in the Treasures from the Stores collection at York Art Gallery.
Nick Walters animates and illuminates on screen the textures of John Davies’s Mapped Head 1, as observed by fellow characters from other works in the collection.
Peter Roman explores the library’s treasures, using collage, paint and typography to delve into the world of books and finding lyrical inspiration from York wordsmiths along the way.
Richard Kitchen switches from his trademark collage format to the camera, pairing it with manual and digital tools to reveal jewel-like qualities in city streets, walls and other surfaces.
Timothy Morrison summons the spirits of Vladimir Tatlin and Greg Curnoe to reveal an artist’s perspective on everyday objects through a variety of materials.
Navigators Art’s poster for the Living Treasures performance at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York
On June 10, Navigators Art writers, musicians and performers present Living Treasures, an evening of original music and words at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, Coney Street.
For this 7.30pm celebration of secrets of York life and culture, from folk, punk and poetry to fine art via the city streets, they have sought out “hidden treasures” to reinterpret in song and spoken word.
Musical performers include members of the White Sail alt. folk band, Navigators’ composer Dylan Thompson, singer-songwriters Miri Green and Cai Moriarty and up-and-coming York band The Corsairs.
The poster for Navigators Art’s screening of Martin Nichols’ film There’s Another Country at City Screen Picturehouse, York
In Navigators Art’s third festival event, Brighton director Martin Nichols’ film There’s Another Country will be shown at City Screen Picturehouse on Sunday, June 11 at 11am.
Nichols’ kaleidoscope of post-Brexit Britain unearths parallel traumas in public and private lives while simultaneously anticipating a rediscovery of the radical transforming spirit of 1945 in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
Here CharlesHutchPress discusses all things Rediscover, Reimagine, Rebuild with Navigators Art co-founder and artist Richard Kitchen
How did you hit on the tripartite format for this event, Richard?
“Originally, we envisaged an exhibition based on York Art Gallery’s Treasures From The Store collection of rarely seen art works, hence our title Hidden Treasures. Our artists would reinterpret some of those works in their own way to suit the festival theme of Rediscover, Reimagine, Rebuild. We also planned a performance art, music and movement event to take place in the gallery itself.
“We were very pleased that York Explore offered to host the exhibition as we’d been wanting to show something there for some time. As it happened, the gallery said they’d be in mid-changeover so we had to change tack. We expanded the brief beyond York Art Gallery to include works of literature and physical aspects of York itself.
“This will also be the basis for the performance event, which will now be on stage in The Basement at City Screen. Again, the performers have created new work based on a rediscovery of something unfamiliar about York that inspired them.
“The film came along a little later and although it isn’t based on York it is very much about rediscovering aspects of the past and how they inform the present both personally and politically.”
How did the partnership with York Festival of Ideas come to fruition?
“I’ve always enjoyed the festival and its range of events. I wanted Navigators to be involved to round off our first 15 months of activity. This year’s theme appealed, so I drafted a proposal for our involvement, which they accepted. We’re very proud to be part of it and they’ve been very accommodating of changes we’ve had to make as our plans developed.”
How does the festival theme of Rediscover, Reimagine, Rebuild resonate with the aims of Navigators Art & Performance?
“In all sorts of ways! Variously, our artists have rebuilt careers, reinvented themselves and how they work, and pursued new directions in life as well as art.
“As a group we’ve achieved extraordinary things from very little. Having no physical studio to work in and no funding, we’ve had to seek out places in which to show our work.
“The StreetLife project, in Coney Street, was a milestone for us and helped put us in the centre of artistic activity in York. I think we’ve shown people how much can be done with imagination and enterprise.
“It’s been about giving ourselves permission to do something when no-one else will. I’d say that has positive implications for society and how it might change for the better.”
York band The Corsairs: Playing the Living Treasures bill at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse on June 10
York is full of hidden treasures! Is that an inevitable problem for a city so rich in history or a joy when such a treasure is put on show and prompts an artistic response?
“Not a problem at all, unless the focus (and public funding) is always on the same high-profile things. Art and culture in this city are alive and well and there’s a lot going on, but it’s not all about tourist attractions and the well-heeled establishment.
“Anything that communicates beyond the heritage trail, makes an impact on the average resident and encourages all levels of society to engage with creative activity is a blessing. Our group seeks out and celebrates the less obvious and tries to make such things more accessible and better appreciated.”
Who put together the June 10 event. How were the Living Treasures acts chosen?
“Some of them appeared last November at our Coney St Live Jam event for StreetLife and impressed us enough to ask them back. We knew they’d be able to come up with new work based on the themes and we’ve given them more space this time to show what they can do.
“One of them actually chose themselves: The Corsairs cheekily advertised in our visitors’ book last December and I liked their attitude. They turned out to be a very exciting discovery. Then we reached out to a few writing and other creative groups to encourage under-represented performers to get involved.”
How did you discover the film There’s Another Country?
“It’s directed by one of my oldest friends, Martin Nichols. After many years exploring familial and social issues in writing and film, he’s found the perfect vehicle for his concerns. It’s highly original in style and while moving and beautiful, it’s also highly critical, irreverent and angry.”
What would a York version of that film look like?
“It’s not ‘about’ any particular place. Its range of reference encompasses a 1913 Welsh mining village, the Second World War, a suburban town in the 1970s and recent anti-government demonstrations in London. It’s pretty universal. A York version would just have the Minster in the background!”
What’s next for Navigators Art?
“We’ll be compiling our next collection of pictures and words for the York Zine Fest in July. We’ll have a spot at the York River Art Market in August and then a short and well-deserved rest before our next show at Micklegate and Fossgate Socials. Nothing concrete for next year as yet but we’re already getting involved in some major plans.”
Navigators Art & Performance: the back story
ESTABLISHED in 2019, this group of York creatives has expanded to a collective of 12 artists, writers, performers, musicians and a composer.
Their mission is to work with community groups and projects, to enhance and creatively interpret their activities for as wide an audience as possible.
In January 2023 they completed a three-month residency at the StreetLife hub in Coney Street, York, presenting a large-scale exhibition and a charity fundraising performance.
They encourage enquiries from potential collaborators, particularly those who are less established or underrepresented, via navigatorsart@gmail.com; likewise head that way for sales and commissions.
Keep an eye on Navigators Art on Instagram and Facebook at: @navigatorsart.
Detail of interior window, Huntington, by Richard Kitchen, from the Navigators Art exhibition at York Explore Library and Archive
UPDATE: 12/6/2023: What was the reaction to Living Treasures and There’s Another Country?
“WE have had the most extraordinary weekend,” says Navigators Art co-founder Richard Kitchen. “Mark Nichols’ film, a kaleidoscope of post-Brexit Britain, generated a passionate discussion with the audience at City Screen Picturehouse.
“Saturday’s Living Treasures in The Basement at City Screen sold out. The performers were tremendous and the more experimental improvised pieces involving musicians from very different backgrounds, ages and experiences worked superbly well.
“The audience loved it and we’ve been offered a regular spot at The Basement. We actually have plans for a fluid Navigators ‘big band’ to work up some pieces for performance, such as ambient pieces, songs, spoken-word interactions and experimental collaborations.
“It felt very special and inspiring and perhaps the beginning of a unique venture in York.”
Alan Park: So happy to be performing Duncan Macmillan’s solo show Every Brilliant Thing. Picture: Ben Lindley
YOU are seven years old. Your mum is in hospital. Your dad says she has “done something stupid”. She finds it hard to be happy.
You make a list of everything that is brilliant about the world. Every small miracle to make mum realise life is worth living. 1. Ice cream. 2. Water fights. 3. Staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV. 4. The colour yellow. 5. Things with stripes 6. Rollercoasters. 7. People falling over.
Prompted by a mother’s attempted suicide, what starts as a small gesture turns into thousands of entries that follow the boy throughout a life spent trying to define and capture happiness.
That list’s mission to prove life is beautiful is the basis of Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man play based on Paines Plough playwright Duncan Macmillan’s short story Sleeve Notes, adapted for the stage with input from actor Jonny Donahoe.
Settled after two years of improvisation and Donahoe performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, in London and at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre, Macmillan’s text now forms the debut production by new York company Shared Space Theatre, directed by Maggie Smales.
Theatre@41 chair Alan Park will be on home turf, performing the solo show only weeks after stepping in to play the lead in York Settlement Community Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at York Theatre Royal Studio.
Alan Park and Victoria Delaney in a scene from York Settlement Community Players’ April production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing
“Everyone I have spoken to about doing it has said ‘oh, we need that show now more than ever’,” says Alan. “A friend [Theatre@41 supporter Cate Birch] suggested we try and book the show to tour into York but when I read it, and found there were no other productions around, I decided to apply to do it myself.”
Much to Alan’s delight, Macmillan gave his approval to Shared Space staging a production in York. “It really is one of the most uplifting plays I’ve ever read. It’s a brilliant thing,” says Alan. “The world does feel a bit of a challenge right now, not just because of the Covid years but for longer than that.
“What I like about it is how it responds to our tendency not to focus on brilliant things but on things that go wrong, so we then miss out on appreciating the obvious things, like ice cream, which is the first thing on the boy’s list that becomes a list of 1,000,000.
“On the list at number 123,321 is palindromes, which a nice joke on the meaning of ‘palindrome’, while number 2,001 is movies that are better than the book such as 2001: A Space Odyssey], but basically it’s saying the best things in life are just ordinary.”
Every Brilliant Thing will be staged in the round, lending an intimate atmosphere to Theatre@41, where the audience will play a crucial role in compiling the list of brilliant things.
“The result is an unforgettable communal experience that reminds us of the power found in connecting with the people around us,” says Alan, whose production run coincides with Mental Health Awareness Week (May 15 to 21).
“I’m loath to call it a play about mental depression as it’s about brilliant things,” says Alan Park
“I’m loath to call it a play about mental depression as it’s about brilliant things. The great premise within it is that the audience can play their part, though you can be as involved or uninvolved as you want to be.”
Director Maggie Smales has emphasised the need for Alan to be fleet of foot in each performance. “I have to react to whatever happens. Equally, the audience has the chance to play characters within the story, such as a teacher and the boy’s father, and you have to be prepared for the possibility of everybody’s reaction being different.
“That’s why it’s difficult to rehearse as you will have to come out with all these possible responses.”
Macmillan has decreed that the audience should be seated as democratically as possible. “No-one will be sitting upstairs as that wouldn’t be democratic,” says Alan. “There’ll be two rows of seating in the round, with a very blurred line between the performer and audience and no theatrical lighting, no props and no set.
“It’s very much a storytelling show and that’s partly what drew me to it, that emphasis. I don’t mind shows with sets, but they can be distancing, whereas what you want to do with a show like this is engage people directly in a story for an hour with naturalistic storytelling.”
Shared Space Theatre in Every Brilliant Thing, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk
List entries as a teenager in Every Brilliant Thing include:
Jamie Smelt’s Recruiting Sergeant, Paula Lane’s Phoebe Throssel, Aron Julius’s Captain Valentine Brown and Alex Moran’s Ensign Blades in Northern Broadsides’ romp through J M Barrie’s Regency rom-com Quality Street at York Theatre Royal
LOOKING to make a list of every brilliant thing you could do? Here are Charles Hutchinson’s suggestions for the week ahead.
Play of the week: Northern Broadsides in Quality Street, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm, plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
NORTHERN Broadsides, from Halifax, the home of Quality Street chocs, heads to the chocolate city of York with this delicious J M Barrie farce, whose lead characters featured on the first tin to take the Regency rom-com’s title in 1936.
Artistic director Laurie Sansom stirs a good helping of Yorkshire wit from retired workers at the Halifax factory into Barrie’s story of determined heroine Phoebe Throssel, who runs a school for unruly children, and Captain Valentine, who needs teaching a lesson in love. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The poster for Lisa Cortés’s documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything, showing at City Screen Picturehouse
Film event of the week: Little Richard: I Am Everything, City Screen Picturehouse, York, Tuesday, 8pm
DIRECTOR Lisa Cortés’s documentary tells the story of “the black queer origins of rock’n’roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman”.
Delving into Little Richard’s complicated inner world, with its switchbacks and contradictions and service to both God and music, Cortés conducts interviews with family, musicians and scholars to reveals how he created an art form for ultimate self-expression, and yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Box office: picturehouses.com.
Park life: Alan Park enlists for performing list-making solo show Every Brilliant Thing, Shared Space’s debut production
List of the week: Shared Space presents Every Brilliant Thing, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
THEATRE@41 chair Alan Park swaps off-stage duties for on when appearing in Every Brilliant Thing, an hour-long show built around a list that spans a lifetime spent trying to prove life is beautiful, written by Duncan Macmillan with input from Jonny Donahoe.
Based on both true and untrue stories, this play about depression and the lengths we go to for those we love is staged by new York theatre company Shared Space, directed by Maggie Smales. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Morgan Wade: Making her York Barbican debut on Thursday
Country gig of the week: Morgan Wade, Crossing State Lines (And Oceans!) Acoustic Tour, York Barbican, Thursday, 8pm
MORGAN Wade, the 28-year-old country singer from Floyd, Virginia, plays York on the back of her “once-in-a-decade debut”, 2021’s Reckless, first released through Thirty Tigers and later picked up by Sony Music Nashville.
Wade wrote or co-wrote a song cycle that addressed the reality facing teens and 20-somethings, embracing raw desire, the reality of getting high and getting sober and the realm of crawling through the wreckage, with tough vulnerability and hurt in her voice. Kat Hasty supports. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk (limited availability).
Jamie Stapleton’s Cap’n Billy Bones, left, Jack McAdam’s Dirk, Lee Gemmell’s Long John Silver and Paul Toy’s Doctor Livesey in Baron Productions’ Treasure Island
Adventure of the week: Baron Productions in Treasure Island, St Mary’s Church, Bishophill Junior, York, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm
YORK company Baron Productions stages Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 coming-of-age adventure story of buccaneers and buried gold, wherein 12-year-old Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map that belonged to the pirate Captain Flint. On board the Hispaniola, he and his friends Squire Trelawney and Doctor Livesey duly set off to a faraway island.
Daniel Wilmot’s thoroughly dashing cast includes Lee Gemmell’s Long John Silver, Paul Toy’s Doctor Livesey, Ellie Guffick’s Dick Johnson, Jamie Stapleton’s Cap’n Billy Bones, Molly Barton-Howe’s Morgan and Jack McAdam’s Dirk. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/baron-productions.
The agony and the Ecstasy: Octopus Dream in I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die at York Theatre Royal Studio
Studio show of the week: Octopus Dream in I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die, York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm, and Saturday, 4pm and 7.45pm
MARK Wheeller’s fast-moving, emotionally charged play tells the true story of the tragic death of Dan, a cool, creative and talented South London schoolboy, who took a lethal dose of Ecstasy at an illegal rave.
At 16, he had plans, plenty of them, but losing his life was not one of them. Directed by Elliot Montgomery, Cobie Scott-Ward, Amy Zoldan, Alex Colley and Sean Radford use Dan’s own words to describe the choices he made and the impact on his family and friends in a journey from tragedy to redemption. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Nicholas Wright: Violin soloist at York Guildhall Orchestra concert at York Barbican
Classical concert of the week: York Guildhall Orchestra, Bernstein, Korngold & Rachmaninoff, York Barbican, May 20, 7.30pm
VIOLINIST Nicholas Wright heads back to York from his Vancouver home to play Hollywood film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D with the York Guildhall Orchestra.
Conducted by Simon Wright, the orchestra’s final concert of the 2022-2023 season also features Bernstein’s Overture to Candide and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No 2, written nine years after his first. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Sarabeth Tucek: Re-emerging as SBT at STH, as in Selby Town Hall
Long-awaited return of the week: Sarabeth Tucek, Selby Town Hall, May 20, 8pm
AMERICAN singer-songwriter Sarabeth Tucek has re-emerged from a decade in hibernation – or more precisely “concentrating on other creative endeavours” – with a May 19 double album, Joan Of All, and a new moniker, SBT, her long-time nickname.
On her first British itinerary since 2011, she will be joined by her band for 18 dates. Support slots go to Kiran Leonard and dbh. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.
In Focus: Ben Fogle: Wild, York Barbican, May 19, 7pm and Harrogate Royal Hall, May 21, 7.30pm
Ben Fogle: Helping to find “the ocean of possibility” in his Wild show
BROADCASTER and adventurer Ben Fogle’s latest walk on the wild side is a 22-date tour full of hair-raising and uplifting stories from a life of amazing encounters.
Taking in Yorkshire trips to York and Harrogate next week, the Animal Park, Lost Worlds and New Lives In The Wild presenter will be sharing stories of hope, possibility and positivity and offering tips on “finding your ocean of possibility”.
Lessons learned from a career that has taken the 49-year-old Londoner to some of the most extreme locations in the world, whether filming for documentaries or tackling some of mankind’s greatest physical challenges.
A former Reservist in the Royal Navy, Ben embarked on the BBC’s ground-breaking Castaway series in 2000, when 36 adventurous souls ditched the rat race for a year-long social experiment, marooned on the remote Scottish island of Taransay in the Outer Hebrides.
“I think it’s all luck, but you make a bit of that yourself,” he says, reflecting on the past 23 years. “I have always loved travel, nature, the outdoors – that’s why I did Castaway. But it was a much more intense experience than anything I could have had under normal circumstances.
“I get asked about Castaway a lot and will be talking about it on the tour, as it’s a big part of me and relative to so much of what I do and have done.”
“Y2K” was “a definitive time”, Ben says. “It was pre-mobile phones, social media didn’t exist, so many things were very, very different. Now things have changed so profoundly, it would be difficult to go back to that innocence and simplicity.
“A [television] channel might try it again one day but no one has replicated it so far. Partly due to the fact nothing like it existed at that time, and people went for very pure and innocent reasons. The landscape has changed, people go on TV now for fame and fortune and that naturally changes the dynamic.
“Heading off to spend a year on an island with a load of strangers gave me a real grounding and a foundation of what it takes to make a simple, off-grid life.”
Those foundations allowed Ben to build his career and stood him in perfect stead for his many varied TV projects. Perhaps none more so than the 12 years of global travel for New Lives In The Wild, wherein he meets people living extreme, off-grid lives in a world now dominated by ease of communication and all too often dictated by being on-grid.
“Castaway definitely gave me the qualifications to be able to do a series like New Lives – to spend time with people living their whole life the way I did for 12 months,” he says. “I have a better understanding of the trials and tribulations, the highs and lows, the benefits and sacrifices they make.
“The more people I have spent time with over 12 years of making that show, the more I understand what goes into making a sustainable, off-grid life like that. A lot of these people are quite reserved, not anti-social necessarily, but they perhaps don’t enjoy being round other people. But as I have experienced it, they can open up with me – there’s almost a mutual respect between us.”
Ben’s experience of meeting those who live in some of the world’s most diverse environments forms the basis of his Wild tour as he takes audiences on a journey to relive inspiring and uplifting tales he has encountered on his travels to the wilderness of northern Sweden, the jungles of Honduras, the hostility of Chernobyl and the mountains of Nepal.
Having previously filmed in Chernobyl, when he met those who returned to live there as it continues to recover from the 1986 nuclear disaster, Ben made a private visit in September after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Early in the conflict, Russian armed forces seized the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – and soldiers were later reported to have radiation poisoning following their operations in the highly contaminated area.
More than a year after the invasion, he does not foresee the conflict ending soon. “I fear this is in for the long run, decades and decades of unrest in that part of the world,” he says. “I can’t see a quick resolution unfortunately.
“It’s another thing the tour will look at: the effects that war and disaster can have on places, not just the landscape but the people too. It seems harsh to say, but war is part of what happens in a world where seven billion people live. It’s another way that man destroys the environment around us, but can also provide examples of how a place can bounce back.”
Ben’s love of the great outdoors reaches back to his own childhood, where his time was divided between rural Dorset and central London, complemented by extended school holiday trips to the Canadian wilderness to visit his paternal grandparents.
Could he ever step fully out of modern life and would he take his family, wife Marina and children Ludo and Iona, along for the adventure?
“I’m incredibly lucky that I get to straddle two worlds, being in the urban world with all it offers, then going off to the wilderness – and that gives me perspective, which is so important in life,” he says.
“There’s definitely something about that kind of life that appeals to me, but not right now. Ludo and Iona are 14 and 12 this year and are very much involved in urban living.
“They are very well travelled. They have spent time in the jungle, in remote islands, wood cabins, the Norwegian wilderness. But then they go to school and are very much engaged with ‘normal’ society, and love researching on computers, having pizza or going to the cinema.”
Ben’s family lives outside London now. “That helps,” he says. “We ride horses, go wild swimming, long dog walks. But it’s balance; I want them to be street savvy as well as being able in bush craft skills. I want my children to be able to wire a plug and start a fire, to make a bed and to put up a tent. They’re all skills for life and don’t need to be exclusive.
“It’s one of the biggest lessons I think I’ve learnt from meeting hundreds of people all over the world – that too many people follow a prescription for life and don’t think about how you can change that.
“Yes, on one hand I live a prescriptive life with two children, a couple of dogs, paying taxes, being very much part of society. But on the other hand, I have a pretty alternative life, spending the majority of the year away from home because of what I do for a living.
“People ask why I’m not living in a cabin in the woods, but there are sacrifices to make for that life – and I love those great cultural events, arts, cinema, books, so what I have realised is that the search for a perfect balance is what is more important.
“My life is not something everyone could have, not everyone could do it. But I hope that after joining me on the Wild tour, people will consider what kind of things they can do in their own life, the small changes to make to find that balance.”
“Too many people follow a prescription for life and don’t think about how you can change that,” says Ben Fogle
Ben Fogle: the back story
FORMER Royal Navy Reservist Ben appeared on the BBC series Castaway in 2000, marooned on an island in the Outer Hebrides for a year.
He has since presented Animal Park, Countryfile, Wild In Africa, Wild On The West Coast, Crufts, One Man And His Dog, Country Tracks Extreme Dreams, A Year Of Adventures, Storm City, Harbour Lives, Countrywise, Trawlermen’s Lives and New Lives In The Wild.
Hehas made documentaries on Prince William in Africa, disease in Ethiopia, Captain Scott in Antarctica and crocodiles in Botswana.
He has travelled extensively in South and Central America and has toured the world for various broadcasting assignments to more than 200 places including Tristan Da Cunha, Pitcairn, St Helena, East Timor, Nepal, Namibia, Kenya, the Arctic Circle, Zambia, Papua New Guinea, Uganda, Libya, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Tahiti, Maldives, Tanzania and Morocco.
He has worked as a special correspondent for NBC News and has published more than 15 books, including The Teatime Islands, Offshore, The Crossing, Race To The Pole, The Accidental Adventurer, The Accidental Naturalist, Labrador, Land Rover and English.
He has run the Marathon Des Sables, swum from Alcatraz to San Francisco, and is a keen sailor, marathon runner, boxer and cyclist.
Ben married Marina in 2006 after meeting her in the park while walking their dogs, Inca and Maggi. They have two children, Ludo and Iona.
For Wild tickets: York, yorkbarbican.co.uk; Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.
The elephant in the room: Around The World In 80 Days at Hull Truck Theatre
REVIEW: Hull Truck Theatre/Theatre By The Lake, Hull Truck Theatre, until May 20 ***
AROUND The World In 80 Days is a race against time, a race that involves cramming in so much that ironically Laura Eason’s play runs the risk of feeling like it is taking too long.
Such a challenge faces both American writer Eason and director Hal Chambers, although designer Louie Whitemore definitely has the right idea in utilising a revolving stage to build the sensation of constant movement.
Whitemore’s basic set is bare: a set of the imagination on which anything can happen, anything can arrive: an elephant, a sledge, a train, a trading vessel, even a circus to start the second half.
Naomi Oppenheim’s puppetry, Jess Williams’s movement direction and Claire Llewellyn’s fight direction all add to the visual spectacle in a production rooted in physical theatre and dextrous feats as much as symbols of English Victoriana and colonialism.
French novelist Jules Verne’s story finds eccentric Victorian English gent Phileas Fogg (Stefan Adegbola) placing a wager with his stuffy Reform Club cronies that he can traverse the globe in 80 days. His entire fortune is at risk.
Adegbola’s immaculate, precise, tea-drinking, unflappable but not-always scrupulous Fogg takes on his challenge with the help, sometimes hindrance, of French valet Passepartout ( a clowning, Chaplinesque little tramp of a comic turn from Miriam O’Brien).
On his trail and on his tail is Dyfrig Morris’s Inspector Fix, who has convinced himself Fogg is a thief and will go to the ends of the world to prove it. He plays the buffooning fall guy in comic tradition.
As Fogg races from Italy to India, skips ship in Hong Kong and heads into dustbowl America, into the story are woven Tricia Adele-Turner’s Captain Speedy, Purvi Parmar’s Captain Blossom, Nicholas Prasad’s Mr Naidu and Niall Ransome’s scene-stealing, all-American Colonel Stamp Proctor when Chambers’ production hits its stride in the more inventive, more thrilling second half.
The danger rises and suddenly romance is in the air. Saba Shiraz’s Mrs Aouda, joining the protective Fogg from India onwards, has the measure of the Englishman, challenging him in a discussion on Britain’s colonial acquisitions, not least because Adegbola’s Fogg carries himself with an air of arrogant assumption of superiority.
Amid the chaotic humour, the playful music, the crazy commotions reminiscent of a Mischief caper, and the celebration of Britain’s age of invention, that more serious note gives Eason’s script a topical resonance.
Pop of the Gold Tops: Zach Atkinson’s milkman Eddie with fellow cast members Emily Chattle and Richard Galloway in Badapple Theatre’s Eddie And The Gold Tops. Picture: Karl Andre
GREEN Hammerton company Badapple Theatre’s 25th anniversary tour of Eddie And The Gold Tops is doing the milk rounds.
Delighted to have secured “crucial 11th hour funding” from Arts Council England in March, North Yorkshire’s “theatre on your doorstep” practitioners are back on the road with their best-selling show on its first outing since 2017.
“We’re thrilled to have made it to our quarter century,” says funding and media manager Annabelle Polito. “After two unsuccessful requests for funding support across the autumn/winter of 2022, we were looking at having to close the company this year.
“So, this £24,283 in support means a huge amount. We hope it means we can add to the life of the small communities that we serve right across the country and spread a bit of theatre joy and bring folk together.”
Travelling by van rather than milk float, a cast of York actress Emily Chattle, Zach Atkinson and Irishman Richard Galloway has been milking every laugh from artistic director Kate Bramley’s 1960s-inspired comedy since April 15.
The tour will conclude back home at Green Hammerton Village Hall on June 13 after travels to Northumberland, Cumbria, Lincolnshire, the Midlands and down to Bristol, as well as across Yorkshire, on the company’s return to full-scale touring for the first time since the pandemic hiatus.
Zach Atkinson, left, Emily Chattle and Richard Galloway in a scene from Kate Bramley’s 2023 tour of Eddie And The Gold Tops. Picture: Karl Andre
Eddie, the much-loved village milkman, becomes a pop star, completely by accident, in the frenzy of 1963’s music fever, when The Beatles were the cream rising to the top. “You could become an overnight star,” says Kate.
No sooner has Eddie inherited the family milk round from his father than suddenly his songs are heading up the charts. If he can arrive by tonight, he will be on Top Of The Pops [Editor’s pedantic note: TOTP did not start until January 1 1964!].
Confusion reigns and when things take a ‘churn’ for the worse, how will Eddie get back for the morning milk round?
“It’s a very cheerful piece, really funny,” says Kate. “People love the Sixties because it was a very full-on time and the songs were great! It’s definitely got a real feelgood factor, and what’s endured in the 12 years since we first did it is that people need to have a good time. This is our vocation: generating joy!”
Recalling the play’s origins, Kate says: “It took a while to come up with the title. We had the story first, and the reason the main character is a milkman came from a wartime land girl telling us about her time as a milk lady just after the war. Green Hammerton was ahead of the times!
“So, I’d already collected stories from Liz Powley about those experiences, storing away that idea, and then when Jez [composer Jez Lowe] and I started talking about doing something rooted in Sixties’ music culture, it came down to putting a milkman in the story!
Voice of the BBC: Richard Galloway in Eddie And The Gold Tops
“It’s not that he’s a ‘singing milkman’, but it’s the contrast between his village life and how he wanders through life saying yes to everything and everybody. He’s just a really nice fellow who, when a producer needs a singer, he says yes, as long as he can be back for morning milk deliveries.”
Compare and contrast with today’s wannabe pop stars. “What’s pure about this story is that Eddie doesn’t want to be a star, he just becomes one by accident, whereas now people say, ‘I’m going to be famous’ and then find a way to do it,” says Kate.
She knew the dawn of the Beatles era would be the ideal setting. “That sound of the Sixties, we were just coming out of the skiffle craze, and everything was really upbeat: Elvis, Eddie Cochran, The Beatles. That’s why people are still drawn to the Sixties’ style. Great fashion; really colourful; anything goes. Teenage led. Politically switched on too. It was a time of excitement and a quest for happiness and not just for yourself.”
As for the cast’s milk tastes, Zach says: “I’m addicted to milk, but it’s got to be refrigerated, not warm.” Richard says: “I don’t really drink milk, but I’d have it in cereals, though I do like coconut milk.” Emily? “I’m vegan, so it’s oat milk or soya milk for me,” she says.
“None of their milk preferences affects their acting,” says Kate, who resides in a North Yorkshire village with dairy herds in the fields. “I’ve written a play about milk. What more do you want?! I’m guilty [of drinking milk] by association!”
Badapple Theatre are on tour with Eddie And The Gold Tops until June 13. For tour and ticket details, go to: badappletheatre.co.uk. Yorkshire tour dates include:Sutton upon Derwent Village Hall, May 13; Cherry Burton Village Hall, May 21; Husthwaite Village Hall, May 24; Tunstall Village Hall, May 25; Otley Courthouse, May 28; June 9, North Stainley Village Hall, near Ripon, June 9, and Green Hammerton Village Hall, June 13 (box office,01423 331304). All shows start at 7.30pm.
Kate Bramley: Badapple Theatre artistic director
Did you know?
IN a brief tour break in June, Badapple Theatre cast member Emily Chattle will be exchanging her wedding vows. Congratulations!
Ryedale Festival Community Song Cycle, Church of St Peter & St Paul, Pickering, April 29
TO travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, wrote the Scottish poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. He later amplified that thought in his evocative Songs Of Travel, nine poems from which were memorably set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
That was the foundation of Ryedale’s new community song cycle entitled Give To Me The Life I Love, the opening words of Vaughan Williams’s original cycle. It was commissioned by Ryedale Festival from composer Bernard Hughes and librettist Hazel Gould, with assistance from the Richard Shephard Music Foundation. This was its world premiere.
Both composer and librettist freely admit that its primary inspiration lay in the participants themselves, who were widely canvassed in advance and largely responsible for the additional texts in the work.
The children’s chorus, which performed entirely from memory, was Ryedale Primary Choir, trained by Caius Lee, who also conducted the combined forces with considerable aplomb, not to say enthusiasm.
Shining Brass, youngsters who are training with the Kirkbymoorside Town Brass Band group, sounded fully trained to these ears. Adult assistance came from Ryedale Festival Community Choir, whose director is Em Whitfield-Brooks. The only other professionals on hand were tenor Nicky Spence, appropriately a Scot, and pianist Krystal Tunnicliffe.
Inevitably Spence was at the very heart of the work’s success. Standing in the pulpit he manoeuvred his way deftly through the original songs with a strong feel for the words and stirring resonance. But whenever called upon to join the choirs he also scaled down his tone sensitively.
Tunnicliffe’s piano contributed colourful but well-blended accompaniment, as did the brass band, which was particularly smooth during an interlude that was nicely shaded.
The children’s choir contributed considerable gusto, its remarkable diction early on, in All I Need Is Just Enough, setting the tone for the whole exercise. The adult choir was less extrovert but coped well with some gentle polyphony. It would have benefited from a handful more male voices.
Hughes’s score was essentially a clever pastiche of Vaughan Williams and none the worse for that. It reached a peak in the inspirational finale where, having left Vaughan Williams behind, we encountered the full ensemble, with the soloist and adult choir looking backwards nostalgically – “I have lived and loved” – and the children looking ahead, urged by their elders to “Follow your path”. Amateurs and professionals coalesced happily.
This music will introduce the original cycle, one of the finest of all in our language, to audiences that would not normally encounter it in its usual habitat, a song recital. That alone is invaluable. It will also happily transplant to other arenas. We may just add a coda, from the golfer Walter Hagen, to Stevenson’s exhortation about travel: “Be sure to smell the flowers along the way”.
Review by Martin Dreyer
Nicky Spence is an artist in residence at this summer’s Ryedale Festival (July 14 to 30), appearing in events 12, 19 & 24. For the full programme, head to: www.ryedalefestival.com.
Four recitals promoted by Ryedale Festival were recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast from May 9 to 12 at 1 p.m.
Ailish Tynan and Christopher Glynn, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, May 3
I ABSOLUTELY love Schumann’s Liederkreiss: a sublime marriage of Eichendorff’s poems.
This performance by Irish soprano Ailish Tynan and pianist Christopher Glynn was simply superb; the songs fresh and full of insight, of rediscovery.
In Der Fremde had that remoteness, palpable longing, a heartfelt intermezzo and the oh-so-delicately delivered Mondnacht, with the delicious, gentle melodic embellishments. And then, not sure when, three things happened to jolt me out of this musical love-in.
A young lady in front decided to check for text messages; this suddenly morphed into a coughing fit by the singer, and the resuming cycle was in English; albeit an impressive translation by Jeremy Sams (commissioned by Christopher Glynn). I was so immersed, captivated by the performance, I hadn’t realised. Some reviewer, eh?
The recital had opened with Grieg’s Sechs Lieder. What was obvious from the outset was the instinctive musical chemistry between the performers. For example, the genuine sense of fun and cheeky exchanges in Lauf der Welt, the quietly driven urgency and touching reflection of Goethe’s Zur Rosenzeit and blending of vocal line and piano accompaniment in the closing Ein Traum.
Much of the second half was dedicated to settings of James Joyce. Bridge’s Goldenhair was fluent and hugely enjoyable, Barber’s Solitary Hotel came across as sultry, smouldering music-making with a passionate tango-influenced accompaniment.
Pianist Christopher Glynn
But the most rewarding was John Cage’s The Wonderful Widow Of Eighteen Springs. Ms Tynan sang the minimalist vocal line without any vibrato; it sounded like an elegant sacred chant.
Christopher Glynn’s percussive commentary – hitting the lid or other parts of the piano in a variety of ways with his fingers and knuckles – was so nuanced, almost ritualistic. The performance had an other-worldly quality, which gently dramatised Joyce’s nocturnal, expressive text.
The sexy, Spanish dancing lady was flirtatiously animated by Ms Tynan in a much-appreciated encore. Personally, I would have left the last word with Joyce and Edmund Pendleton’s Bid Adieu; a moving farewell with a lovely soft landing.
All of which doesn’t lead me to the performance of Strauss’s Four Lieder, op.27, but here we are. The performance was simply sublime. Ruhe, Meine Seele was latent with expectation, simmering with sadness.
In Cäcilie, the floodgates opened in an almost operatic outpouring of emotion. The idiomatic pianism and, at times, telling recitative delivery in Heimliche Aufforderung were really effective.
But it was the performance of Morgen! that moved me to the core, as it always does. A most exquisite piano opening by Christopher Glynn, then the bleeding in of Ms Tynan’s vocal line into the piano narrative producing a deeply touching musical image of lyrical togetherness. Magical. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop at the close.
