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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2022 is full on for 75th anniversary celebrations

Kristy Matheson: New creative director of Edinburgh International Film Festival

EDINBURGH International Film Festival marks its 75th anniversary with a return to a full programme from August 12 to 20 under the leadership of a new creative director.

Back in tandem with the Scottish capital’s myriad festivals this month, the world’s oldest continually running film festival presents 87 new features, 12 short film programmes and two retrospectives in a resumption of a full-on, in-person event after the restrictions and challenges of the pandemic.

Newly at the helm is Kristy Matheson, a creative director looking to make her mark as she follows a raft of artistic directors that established and grew Edinburgh International Film Festival’s global clout.

Among those who contributed to the festival’s long-running success since its foundation in 1947 were journalist and film critic Hannah McGill, artistic director from 2006 to 2010; Mark Cousins, who made a big impact in all-too-brief tenure from 1996 to 1997 before blossoming into an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and Jim Hickey, who steered a golden era from 1981 to 1988.

Before that came Linda Myles, who ran EIFF with remarkable success on a small budget from 1973 to 1980, when she was first woman to occupy such a role at any film festival worldwide.

Not only did she pioneer screenings of the cream of the “New Hollywood” filmmakers of the day, such as Martin Scorsese, but Myles also initiated reappraisals and new viewpoints, most notably “The Women’s Event”, organised in tandem with Claire Johnston and Laura Mulvey at the 1972 EIFF.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the women’s film festival presented by Myles to showcase films made by female directors. In recognition of this ground-breaking event, this summer’s EIFF will play host to Reframing The Gaze, a retrospective programme curated by Kim Knowles.

Kristy Matheson, previously director of film at Australia’s national museum of screen culture, ACMI, is thrilled to be propelling EIFF’s milestone anniversary year. “For our 75th anniversary, we’ve embraced the very essence of cinema: from its production to its exhibition, it’s a truly collective pursuit,” says the creative director.

“Working alongside a talented team of programmers and festival producers to craft our 2022 programme has been joyous. I look forward to welcoming audiences back to EIFF this August.”

The opening gala screening on August 12 will be a home-made product: Aftersun, the debut from Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells starring Normal People’s Paul Mescal, that heads homewards buoyed by prize-winning success at Cannes Film Festival.

Further highlights to note are Armağan Ballantyne’s comedy Nude Tuesday, picked for the inaugural Central Gala on August 16, and  After Yang, an American metaphysical science-fiction drama written and directed by Kogonada, starring Colin Farrell and Jodi Turner-Smith in the closing gala on August 20.

Look out too for Peter Strickland’s latest work, Flux Gourmet, featuring Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie in the darkly comic tale of a performance art trio participating in an artist residency at the Sonic Catering Institute.

Screenings will take place at the festival’s home on Lothian Road, the Filmhouse, the Cameo Picturehouse, Everyman Edinburgh and Vue Edinburgh Omni.

The second major retrospective will focus on the work of performer and film director Kinuyo Tanaka (1909-1977), who played a key role in the history of Japanese cinema.

Further recommendations are Still Working 9 To 5, a documentary wherein Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin reunite to investigate the fight for women’s rights they kickstarted half a decade ago, and Nothing Compares, Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary about iconoclastic Irish singer Sinead O’Connor.

Renowned for its commitment to internationalism and cultural engagement, EIFF embraces more than film screenings, taking in performances and industry dialogues too.

Presented as a special live performance, The Ballad Of A Great Disordered Heart is a new collaborative film by Lau folk musician Aidan O’Rourke, Becky Manson and former EIFF artistic director Mark Cousins about Edinburgh’s Old Town and the Irish communities who have called it home.

The 2022 festival sees the return of Film Fest In The City in St Andrew’s Square, where the open-air programme offers classics such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Shrek and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This year’s programme has been brought together by a team of programmers led by Matheson, working alongside Manish Agarwal, Anna Bogutskaya, Rafa Sales Ross, Kate Taylor; animation programmer Abigail Addison; short film programmers Jenny Clarke (narrative) and Rohan Crickmar (non-fiction); black box programmer  Lydia Beilby and retrospective curator (2022 Theme) Kim Knowles.

Edinburgh International Film Festival is supported by Screen Scotland; the PLACE Programme (a partnership between the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh Festivals); the Scottish Government, through the Festivals Expo Fund and the PLACE Resilience Fund; City of Edinburgh Council; EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate, and the BFI Audience Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.

For tickets and programme details, head to www.edfilmfest.org.uk/

Two Big Egos In A Small Car culture vulture podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson will preview the 2022 Edinburgh International Film Festival in the next episode before squeezing their egos into that compact automobile to head to Scotland next week.

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REVIEW: The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal, until Sunday ***

Radiant: Kate Hampson’s Coppergate Woman sees the light in The Coppergate Woman. Picture: : Jane Hobson

THIS is the first York Theatre Royal community play in five years and, more significantly, the first since pandemic restrictions were lifted, although the cloud of Covic hangs all too heavy over Maureen Lennon’s storytelling drama.

There is a sense of relief that we can gather again, perform together, build plays from scratch with faces old and new, but The Coppergate Woman is not a drama suffused with joy until its finale’s promise of a post-apocalyptic green new world.

Such a vision is ushered in with composer and musical director Nicolas Lewis’s most upbeat song, hand claps and all, but given all that is going around us, from higher and higher temperatures to higher and higher living costs and fuel prices, it is sung on a wing and a prayer.

The harsh realities of these times have seen cast members pull out through not being able to afford the travel costs or having to commit to working extra shifts to make ends meet, and therefore no longer being available for the heavy rota of rehearsals.

Ancient meets modern in The Coppergate Woman at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Jane Hobson

That said, community spirit bursts out of the 90 performers and plentiful choir members, as they build on the legacy of Blood + Chocolate (on York’s streets in 2013), In Fog And Falling Snow (at the National Railway Museum in 2015) and Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes (by the Minster and at the Theatre Royal in 2017 ).

All three were rooted in York history, and so, to an extent, is The Coppergate Woman, albeit she is as much a woman of mystery as Viking history. Her bones were found in a shallow grave in an excavation by the River Foss and she has since lain encased in glass at Jorvik Viking Centre.

Research revealed she had moved to Jorvik (York) from either South-West Norway or northernmost Scotland, was robustly built, had a pronounced limp from a degenerative joint disorder, consumed a heap of herring in her lifetime and died at 46.

Hull playwright Maureen Lennon’s number one haunt as a child was Jorvik, where she was drawn to those bones and to the model of that woman in blue. Now she puts flesh on those bones, and after the choir, ensemble and assorted principals set the play in motion on Sara Perks’s open-plan, uncluttered set with a backdrop of David Callanan’s audio-visual designs, professional actor Kate Hampson’s Coppergate Woman emerges in her glass case in that familiar blue.

Breakout moment: Kate Hampson’s Coppergate Woman emerges in her glass case. Picture: Jane Hobson

She duly smashes the case – as denoted by the sound of breaking glass and accompanying visuals – and sets about smashing the scientific facts as she re-awakes in modern-day York, charged with uncovering the answers as to why we are where we are.

She was 44, she corrects with a smile, probably a weaver, and now certainly a weaver of stories. Now let’s get down to business. She will be the conduit between past and present in Lennon’s world of myth and modern reality, but first she sets the scene, with a humorous observant eye, one that made your reviewer crave for rather more of this then-and-now contrasting York detail.

Coppergate Woman comments with amusement on Jorvik Viking Centre’s infamous stinking smell, but then sniffs 2022 York air for the first time. It smells of metal, she says, chemicals and cleaned surfaces: a triple-whammy discomfiting reminder of pollution, climate change and Covid.

Later, reference is made to King’s Square now being the place of buskers: another wry observation that plays well to the home crowd filling the Theatre Royal auditorium.

Sigyn (Catherine Edge) catches venom to protect her imprisoned husband Loki (Edward Hammond). Picture: Jane Hobson

Past and present constantly interweave in Lennon’s dense construction as she asks: “In an ever-changing world, how do we hang on to who we are when the grounds are shifting beneath our feet? How do we look forward and rebuild, when the End Times feel ever more real?”

Coppergate Woman sheds the rudimentary clothing to be revealed as a Valkyrie, a shepherd of the dead and dying, a servant of Odin, whose duty is to guide lost souls to the halls of Valhalla. Why? Because Ragnarok is coming, “when the gods will perish, fire will triumph, and only then will the world will rise again, made anew”.

In other words, Hell on Earth is nothing new, as Lennon mirrors four stories of ghastly, grim, abominable Norse legend with torrid tales of toiling, struggling people in York today.

As old gods do battle with new, Lennon favours an epic scale for the past, the world of Odin (Paul Mayo Mason), Frigg (Jessica Murray), Baldr (Andy Williams), thunderous Thor (Andrew Isherwood), cunning Loki (Edward Hammond), wife Sigyn (Catherine Edge) and Fenrir, the wolf (portrayed by a swaying sextet of bodies, superbly choreographed by movement director Xolani Crabtree).

York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, left, and playwright Maureen Lennon with the model of the Coppergate Woman at Jorvik Viking Centre

Modern York’s stories are more in keeping with soap opera or kitchen-sink drama: from Nicola Wild’s Sarah to Val Burgess’s Nana, Joanne Rule’s Fern to community play debutant Darren Barrott, constantly kicking out in frustration.

The voice of the future, the herald of hope, is young Liv (Hannah Simpson on Wednesday, sharing the role with Ilya Cuthell), driven by her predilection for painting in the rain (and if she didn’t start off with watercolours, they would be by the end).

Lennon does not shy away from the blood and guts of Norse legend, for example Loki being bound in chains made from the stretched entrails of his son. Those entrails are red, a virulent colour motif that runs throughout the play, used to powerful effect both by designer Perks and movement director Lewis.

Hampson, in her belated Theatre Royal debut in the city where she has lived for three decades, leads with a performance that glows: she can be gravely serious, frustrated, questing, comforting, resolute, but also delights in shards of humour and a narrator’s permission to step outside the action.

Hammer to the Thor: Andrew Isherwood enjoys delivering another blow in The Coppergate Woman. Picture: Jane Hobson

Isherwood’s Thor, hair extensions et al, has something of the Marvel comic-book about him; Barrott and Hammond stand out too, but this is a team show, from ensemble to choir, musicians to a multitude of costume makers and the hair and make-up crew.

Hazel Jupp’s costume designs are worthy of a carnival, and praise too for Craig Kilmartin’s lighting and Mike Redley’ sound (making light of having so many voices on stage).

Nicolas Lewis’s largely earnest compositions would benefit from more oomph and greater contrast, characteristics essential to community singing that demands rather more fun and coloratura. Too much had to weigh on that last number.

Directors Juliet Forster and John R Wilkinson pull the strings of such a large-scale enterprise with a passion for community theatre writ large, spectacle aplenty and more than a nod to in-vogue gig theatre. The joy here, however, rests more in that return after five years than in a troubling play for the End of Days that feels a bit of a drag when we need an uplift.

The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm tonight until Saturday; 2.30pm matinees, Saturday and Sunday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

The end: Composer and musical director Nicolas Lewis, centre, leading the finale to The Coppergate Woman. Picture: Jane Hobson
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Theatre@41 combines the new and familiar in autumn and winter of theatre, music, comedy, cinema and pantomime rehearsals

Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Helen Bauer in Madam Good Tit at Theatre@41 in October

NEW partnerships, returning performers, comedy acts aplenty and community theatre regulars make up the autumn and winter season at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.

One year on from throwing open its doors post-pandemic, the black-box studio will play host to Yorkshire and national companies and artists alike.

“We’re doing all right, whether by chance or design!” says chair Alan Park.  “In the year since we took over the programming, there’s been a nice balance between comedy, music and theatre, with a focus on new writing, as well as continuing our relationships with York Stage, Pick Me Up Theatre, White Rose Theatre, York Settlement Community Players and York Musical Theatre Company.

“The mailing list has gone up from 40 to 2,000 and we feel that people are invested in the building, our charity status, the work we present, and want us to do well. There are plenty of people who run theatres, but we want to run a ‘movement’ and we think we’re getting there.”

Colin Hoult in The Death Of Anna Mann. Picture: Linda Blacker

Looking ahead to the new season, one new partnership finds Theatre@41 linking up with York promoter Al Greaves’s well-established Burning Duck Comedy Club, complementing his programme at The Crescent (and previously at The Basement at City Screen Picturehouse).

“Maggie Smales, one of our trustees, reached out to Al,” says Alan.  “Initially, comedy promoters were contacting us directly, and we were doing maybe two comedy shows a season, but we got in touch with Al to say ‘we don’t want to tread on your toes, but we’d love to work with you’, and so now we have six shows this autumn through linking up with Al.”

Among those shows will be Lauren Pattinson’s It Is What It Is on September 16; Colin Hoult, from the Netflix series After Life, presenting The Death Of Anna Mann  on October 8; the returning Olga Koch, star of her own BBC Radio 4 series, in Just Friends on October 15 and fellow Edinburgh Festival Fringe Best Newcomer nominee Helen Bauer’s Madam Good Tit, on October 22. Look out too for Taskmaster winner Sophie Duker next April.

Returning to Theatre@41 will be Dyad Productions, following up the sold-out I, Elizabeth with Christmas Gothic, adapted and performed by Rebecca Vaughan, on November 26 and 27, and  Sarah-Louise Young, building on the sold-out success of Alan’s favourite show so far, An Evening Without Kate Bush, by presenting her charming yet cheeky West End and Off-Broadway cabaret hit Julie Madly Deeply, a tribute to Julie Andrews.

Sarah-Louise Young in her Julie Andrews tribute, Julie Madly Deeply. Picture: Steve Ullathorne

Further returnees will be East Riding company Other Lives Theatre Productions in Landmarks, Nick Darke’s environmentally topical story of a farming family feud, and Nunkie Theatre’s Robert Lloyd Parry with two more gripping MR James ghost stories by candlelight in Oh, Whistle on November 25.

“We’ve had a lot of good feedback from artists, such as Olga Koch’s agent,” says Alan. “We know there’s paint peeling off walls, the roof is leaking, but we believe in making the artists welcome, like giving them a little York Gin pack on arrival. We try to be a friendly venue where everyone will want to come back.”

Endorsements for Theatre@41 are spreading, leading to debut visits by Mark Farrelly in his Quentin Crisp show, Naked Hope, on September 7 and Olivier Award-winning actor and director Guy Masterson, staging his one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol on November 24.

Seven York companies and performers are booked in. Robert Readman’s Pick Me Up Theatre will stage Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical Jr from September 23 to October 2 and The Sound Of Music from December 16 to 30 in the Christmas slot. York Settlement Community Players will perform Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning Broadway comedy Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike from November 3 to 5.

Rebecca Vaughan in Dyad Productions’ Christmas Gothic. Picture: Ben Guest

White Rose Theatre will deliver The Last Five Years, an emotionally charged musical full of upbeat numbers and beautiful ballads by Jason Robert Brown that tells the story of two lovers over the course of five years, with Cathy starting her tale at the end of the relationship and Jamie telling his story from the beginning. Directed by Claire Pulpher, it will run from November 9 to 12.

Barnstorming country-rock band The Rusty Pegs will play Rumours (Again!) in a 45th anniversary celebration of the Fleetwood Mac nugget on October 9, after giving Theatre@41’s re-launch gig post-Covid; Jessa Liversidge will sing Some Enchanted Sondheim on October 9, and York Musical Theatre Company will mark their 120th anniversary with A Musical Celebration on October 13 and 14.

Spookologist and ghost-botherer Doctor Dorian Deathly, a winner in the 2022 Visit York Tourism Awards, will make his Theatre@41 debut with his Halloween show, A Night Of Face Melting Horror!, from October 26 to 31.

“Each night, Dorian will be hot-footing over here after doing his Deathly Dark ghost tour for a cabaret evening with a bar of the dead and cocktails,” says Alan. “He came to us with the idea, and we thought, ‘yeah, let’s do it’. He has a huge following, so we’re delighted he wanted to come here.”

The horror! The horror” The poster for Doctor Dorian Deathly’s Halloween show, A Night Of Face Melting Horror!

Paul Birch, one of the stand-outs in York Theatre Royal’s Green Shoots showcase for new work in June, will bring his improv group, Foolish, to Theatre@41 for the third time. On September 15, he will host a night of ad-hoc comedy improvised from suggestions written in chalk on the stage floor under the title of Cobbled Together.

Seeking to foster a growing relationship with The Groves community, Theatre@41 will play host to the inaugural Groves Community Cinema: a weekend of classic films old and new right on residents’ doorsteps when visitors will be invited to “pay what you feel”, with support from an ARG Events and Festivals Grant in partnership with Make It York and City of York Council.

“Historically, we’re on the edge of The Groves, and maybe The Groves has never quite felt this is The Groves’ theatre, but we hope that putting on a community cinema weekend will make it feel more like it’s part of their community, rather than people just walking past our doors,” says Alan.

Olga Koch: Returning to Theatre@41 to present Just Friends

September 10 will offer Encanto Singalong at 2.30pm and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind at 6pm; September 11, Kes at 2.30pm and Nomadland at 6.30pm.

Three more new additions add to the sense of momentum at Theatre@41. Firstly, £5,000 funding from City of York Council and the Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation will ensure the lighting rig “no longer wobbles”; secondly, the theatre will resume being a polling station for elections.

Last, but not least, the Monkgate building will be turned into the rehearsal rooms for veteran dame Berwick Kaler’s Grand Opera House pantomime, Old Granny Goose. “We’re giving them multiple rooms, including the dance studio,” says Alan. “They’ll have the run of the building basically.”

For performance times and to book tickets for the new season, head to: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

Pantomime dame Berwick Kaler and daft-lad sidekick Martin Barrass will be rehearsing Old Granny Goose at Theatre@41 ahead of its run at the Grand Opera House, York

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REVIEW: The Osmonds: A New Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Jay Osmond with the principals from The Osmonds: A New Musical, Jamie Chatterton, left, Danny Nattrass, Alex Lodge, Ryan Anderson and Joseph Peacock, by the River Ouse

SLADE, Marc Bolan & T. Rex, David Bowie, Sweet, er, Gary Glitter, Gilbert O’Sullivan, even David Cassidy, who shared a birthday, were early Seventies’ favourites in the Hutch household.

The Osmonds, however, were not, save for the somewhat bizarre presence of nine-year-old Little Jimmy’s excitable Long Haired Lover From Liverpool in 11-year-old Hutch’s Christmas stocking in 1972. Today it would pass as a guilty pleasure. Back then, well, the Osmonds were everywhere. Osmondmania, as it was called.

“We want The Osmonds,” went the chant. “We want The Osmonds”. Ah, but do we still want The Osmonds? On the evidence of Tuesday night’s audience, there are plenty who still do: mainly women of a certain age who were taken back to all their yesterdays, whether waving Osmonds flags rescued from the attic or hearts a’flutter anew when Joseph Peacock donned Donny’s trademark peaked cap for Puppy Love.

This was the moment when this show truly took off: just like when young brother Donny first became the number one pin-up. And they still call it puppy love on August 2 2022.

Early steps: Osian Salter as Young Donny and Alex Cardall as Andy Williams in The Osmonds: A New Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

The Osmonds: A New Musical is the Osmonds’ story, or rather it is Jay Osmond’s story, filtered from his 2010 autobiography, Stages, now on stage as the family drama from the family drummer. Jay, played so handsomely by Alex Lodge, is the narrator, the guide, through the lives of the American boy band from Ogden, Utah, from their milk-teeth days singing barbershop on The Andy Williams Show (days when Jay once sat on Walt Disney’s knee).

Faith, first, then family, then career, was the motto of these clean-cut, clean-living boys, as espoused by their disciplinarian father George (Charlie Allen), who controlled the Mormon family music-making operation with military precision. The boys called him sir, saluted him, showed respect at all times, to everyone, just like Elvis did in all his early black-and-white interviews.

Faith, first. Well, ‘Mormon’ was name-checked only once; the ‘Church of Latter-day Saints’ not at all, but there were references to “mission” and “faith”. This was a polite, respectful musical, one that showed the influence of their faith without hammering home their Mormon roots. 

Father George Osmond, who wears the same suit throughout to emphasise his unchanging ways, imposes his will. Mother Olive (Nicola Bryan) is more comforting, a listening ear, but she too preaches the collective good, the cause of faith and family.

Country girl: Georgia Lennon as Marie Osmond, Picture: Pamela Raith

What Julian Bigg and director Shaun Kerrison’s book for this Osmond celebration does do is show what made The Osmonds unique: a family boy band, who all could sing lead vocals, play any number of instruments, grew into writing their own songs, and kept adding new members, from Donny to country-loving sister Marie (Georgia Lennon) and, yes, Little Jimmy (Austin Riley) with his five-week chart topper.

It doesn’t matter who is singing the lead vocal, as long as it is an Osmond, was the other family motto, but as with all bands, gradually individual needs percolate through the shiny surface. Merrill (Ryan Anderson) starts to struggle with his mental health; Jay talks of always being stuck in the middle, the drummer holding things together from the back; Wayne (Danny Nattrass) tends to be the one in the back seat until darkness consumes him.

The brothers, suddenly expected to be Donny’s backing band and to play second fiddle on the Donny & Marie TV shows, deem his hit songs to be lightweight froth.

Alan (Jamie Chatterton), picked by his father to be the leader, takes that to the point – in tandem  with Merrill – of plunging the family  into financial crisis with one disastrous business decision.

Keeping it clean: The Osmonds performing under their parents’ watchful gaze in The Osmonds: A New Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

Jay’s story and Bigg and Kerrison’s stage adaptation achieve the right balance of nostalgia and exhilaration, knowing humour and candour, full of concert, TV studio and recording session detail, topped off by an off-stage vocal cameo by Elvis Presley, offering the brothers advice on their next step and fashion tips. Letters sent to Jay by Wendy (Katy Hards), his number one fan from Manchester, weave a British  thread through the story to amusing effect.

If this feels a clean-cut version, then this is the one band for whom that is entirely warranted. This is not a story of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll, unlike the jukebox musicals for Marc Bolan, The Kinks and The Small Faces that have passed through York previously.

It is, instead, a story of many highs, an almighty crash, and a reunion resurrection in the 2008 finale. The hits keep coming, first with the cutesy children’s cast with their immaculate harmonies and matching attire, then One Bad Apple, Let Me In, Marie’s Paper Roses, et al.

Songs feed into and off the story, especially for Merrill and Wayne’s frustrations; Lodge’s Jay breaks down theatre’s fourth wall with rosy charm, and the principals’ performances grow as the story progresses. Knock-out singers, good movers, equally adept in their dialogue, they honour the Osmonds to the max. As do Lucy Osborne’s set design, Bill Deamer’s snappy choreography, Sam Cox’s wigs, hair and make-up design, the ensemble cast and band.

Ouse-mond! Jay Osmond stands by the River Ouse on his visit to York. Picture: Aaron McCracken

Love Me For A Reason and Crazy Horses are held back, perfectly judged to bring the standing ovation. If you were never a fan, or found many of the songs too sugary, nothing can change that, but The Osmonds: A New Musical will delight all those ‘Osmondmania’ devotees once more and may well draw new converts too with its froth and fun, spirit and smiles, American good cheer and Seventies’ style.

Jay Osmond, pictured in York this week with the show’s principals, will be there again tonight, watching his family’s story unfold once more, still taking care of business. Faith, family, career, discipline, devotion and no bad apples.  

The Osmonds: A New Musical, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm, tonight until Saturday; 2.30pm matinees, Thursday and Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/york

By Charles Hutchinson 

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Singer-songwriter Lady Nade is willing to play Pocklington Arts Centre in October

Bristol singer-songwriter Lady Nade. Picture: Joseph Branston

AMERICANA folk singer-songwriter Lady Nade will return to Pocklington Arts Centre on October 15 after supporting Spiers & Boden there in October 2021.

This summer, the Bristol musician has played such festivals as Glastonbury, Latitude and Black Deer in the wake of releasing her third album, Willing, in June 2021.

Pocklington Arts Centre manager Dave Parker says: “Lady Nade’s last appearance here last October created a real buzz amongst our audience, with many coming away from the show blown away by her performance as the special guest of Spiers & Boden.

“So, we’re incredibly excited to be welcoming her back to the venue and putting her centre stage for what we know will be a fantastic night of live music in a unique intimate setting. Snap up your tickets fast or risk missing out!”

The forced stillness of the pandemic led to a prolific outpouring of creativity and words by Lady Nade, resulting in Willing, a collection of stories about love and friendship, both regular subjects in her work. Her songs explore self and loneliness, emotions that she brings to audiences with a sense of finding and losing these feelings during such strange times.

Tickets for this 8pm concert cost £14 on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

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Who’s better? Picasso or Warhol? Here’s the verdict of acerbic New Yorker Fran Lebowitz in arts podcast Two Big Egos…

Fran Lebowitz: Opinions aplenty at Grand Opera House, York

CULTURE vultures Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson mull over American writer and Netflix documentary acerbic wit Fran Lebowitz’s night with bite at the Grand Opera House, York, in Episode 98 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car.

Under discussion too are Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant talking politics, The Smile’s detour from Radiohead and the new Suicide compilation.

Final thought: is the writing on the wall for Eng. Lit studies at university? To listen, head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/11013535

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York folk storyteller Joshua Burnell and his band to play The Crescent on October tour

JOSHUA Burnell & Band will play a home-city gig at The Crescent, York, on October 16 on his nine-date autumn tour.

Tickets for this 8pm gig cost £12 in advance from joshuaburnell.co.uk/tour or ticketweb.co.uk. Doors will open at 7.30pm for this “folk-fused baroque’n’roll” UK tour date.

Burnell will perform further Yorkshire gigs at The Greystones, Sheffield, on October 14 and Otley Courthouse on October 22, complemented by shows in Manchester, Glasgow, London (Cecil Sharp House), Brighton, Milton Keynes and Bristol .

Burnell has made his mark on the folk scene by winning the Rising Star Awards in the Folking Awards, playing Cambridge, Manchester and Sidmouth folk festivals and receiving multiple plays on Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Show. His psych-trad single The Snow It Melts The Soonest was deemed “outstanding” by Folk Radio UK.  

Although Joshua’s roots are grounded in folk, this multi-instrumentalist singer, songwriter and storyteller is not afraid to push back boundaries to create a sound somehow both retro and artfully contemporary. “Think The War On Drugs meets Seth Lakeman on Ziggy Stardust’s spaceship,” he suggests.

How might Joshua Burnell’s music be summed up? “Think The War On Drugs meets Seth Lakeman on Ziggy Stardust’s spaceship”. Picture: Stewart Baxter

Or, as the Guardian put it: “Burnell adds lashings of Peter Gabriel stylings to the world of trad arrangements”.

Joining Joshua on stage will be globe-trotting violinist Frances Archer; guitarist Nathan Greaves; multi-instrumentalist Oliver Whitehouse; drummer Ed Simpson and vocalist Frances Sladen.

“Frances flits from fiddle tune to one-woman string section with apparent ease,” says Joshua’s publicity machine. “Nathan plays a mysterious instrument of his own invention, known only as PIIönk; Oliver is quietly excellent; drummer Ed brings the thunder like something out of the Seattle Grunge era, and breathtakingly evocative singer Frances surely deserves to be a recognised name in her own right.”

Noted for his arrangements, piano riffs and melodies, Burnell’s songs veer from stomping, acoustic singalongs and Bowie-style music hall epics to alt-pop singles that conjure up imagery akin to the cover of a retro sci-fi pulp-fiction novel.

Tickets for all Joshua’s tour dates are on sale at joshuaburnell.co.uk/tour.

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Ghosts, butterflies and theatre tales arise in 122 Love Stories at Harrogate Theatre

Ghostly experience: Carole Carpenter’s Alice in 122 Love Stories

HARROGATE Theatre’s summer community play, 122 Love Stories, is a heart-warming ode to love, wrapped inside an interactive ghost-walk adventure.

Written and produced by Rachael Halliwell and directed by Amie Burns Walker – the artistic partnership behind last summer’s Our Gate –  this epic peripatetic drama promises “a different kind of night out at the theatre”.

Or indeed day out because today offers both a 2pm matinee and 7.30pm evening show with tickets still available for both on 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk.

The invitation reads: “Join the ghosts of Harrogate Theatre on the ultimate quest to mend a broken heart. Journey with us as we travel across time to meet the owner of the theatre, Alex. Overcome with grief, Alex is ready to sell up and move on, but the theatre has other ideas…

“…See the theatre come to life as you meet a host of colourful characters from a forgotten past as they piece together the fragments of that broken heart.” 

Created with a community and professional cast, 122 Love Stories combines storytelling, live music, pigeons and butterflies in a celebration of 122 years of Harrogate Theatre.

After a callout for real-life love stories connected with the building and the theatre-going experience, Halliwell’s show is part-installation, combined with an immersive experience that explores the untold stories in the unseen spaces of Harrogate Theatre, a rabbit warren path evoking Alice In Wonderland.

122 Love Stories travels between locations through the theatre rather than being fixed on the stage like a traditional show. The cast guides you around the building into the different spaces, whether steep stairways, low-ceiling cellars or the newly renovated wardrobe department. Here you meet and interact with the characters from the show as the story unfolds.

CharlesHutchPress’s review will appear on Monday. 

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More Things To Do in York and beyond amid festival fever and a Viking reawakening. List No. 93, courtesy of The Press, York

Bull : York band play Deer Shed Festival 12 on Sunday

MUSIC in meadows and parks, a Viking community play and Osmondmania revisited, knitting and a superstar by the sea are Charles Hutchinson’s alternatives to summer holiday queues at ports.    

Festival of the weekend: Deer Shed Festival 12, Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, near Thirsk, today and tomorrow

DEER Shed Festival 12 takes the theme of Pocket Planet, “a celebration of different things from different planets”, spanning live music, DJ sets, comedy, science, Fringe and children’s shows, spoken word, films, sports, workshops and wellbeing.

John Grant, from Buchanan, Michigan, headlines the main stage tonight, preceded by a special guest set from Self Esteem, alias Rebecca Lucy Taylor, from Sheffield/Rotherham. Art-rock Londoners  Django Django top Sunday’s bill, backed up by South London post-punk hipsters Dry Cleaning, while York’s ebullient Bull headline the Acorn Stage that night. For ticket details, head to: deershedfestival.com.

The Feeling: Headlining MeadowFest in Malton. Picture: Andy Hughes

The other festival at the weekend: MeadowFest, Talbot Hotel gardens and riverside meadows, Malton, today, 10am to 10pm

MALTON’S boutique midsummer music festival, MeadowFest, welcomes headliners The Feeling, Alistair Griffin, New York Brass Band, Huge and Hyde Family Jam to the main stage.

Performing on the Hay Bale Stage will be Flatcap Carnival, Ross McWhirter, Simon Snaize, George Rowell, Maggie Wakeling, Nick Rooke, The Twisty Turns and Graeme Hargreaves.

Children’s entertainment, inflatables, fairground rides, street food and a festival bar are further attractions. Bring folding chairs, picnics…and well-behaved dogs on leads. Tickets: tickettailor.com/events/visitmalton.

Kate Hampson in the title role of The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal’s summer community play

Play of the week: The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal, today until August 7

IN an ever-changing world, how do we hang on to who we are when the grounds are shifting beneath our feet? How do we look forward and rebuild, when the end times feel ever more real? In the heart of York lies a woman with the answers.

Discovered in a shallow pit by the River Foss, the remains of an unknown woman are displayed in a Jorvik Viking Centre glass cage for all to see. Until, one day, the visitors are no more, the city is quiet and the Coppergate Woman rises again in Maureen Lennon’s community play, directed by Juliet Forster and John R Wilkinson with a cast of 90 led by Kate Hampson. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Crowning glory: Annie Stothert’s papier-mâché sculpture at Blossom Street Gallery

Exhibitions of the week: Colourforms, by Fiona Lane and Claire West; Enchanted Forest, by Annie Stothert, Blossom Street Gallery, York

BLOSSOM Street Gallery has two exhibitions running simultaneously until the end of August.

Colourforms presents brightly coloured paintings by York Open Studios mixed-media artist Fiona Lane and “art to make you smile” painter Claire West, from Beverley. Enchanted Forest brings together a highly imaginative collection of papier-mâché sculptures by Annie Stothert, from Yorkshire, inspired by folklore, myth and fairy tales.

Yoshika Colwell: Knitting together music, metaphysics and words in Invisible Mending at the Stilly Fringe

Edinburgh Fringe taster of the week: Yoshika Colwell in Invisible Mending, Stilly Fringe, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Sunday, 7pm

IN the summer of 2020 as a pandemic raged, Yoshika Colwell was processing the death of her beloved grandmother, Ann. A woman of few words, Ann’s main outlet was her glorious, virtuosic knitting. As she approached the end of her life, Ann started a project with no pattern and no end goal.

Yoshika takes up this piece where Ann left off, creating a show about love, grief and knitting with fellow experimental music/theatre-maker Max Barton, from Second Body. Original music, metaphysics and verbatim material combine to explore the power in small acts of creativity. Box office: atthemill.org.

How they became big in the Seventies: The Osmonds: A New Musical tells the family story in song at the Grand Opera House, York

Musical of the week: The Osmonds: A New Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday

YOU loved them for a reason. Now, for the first time, family drummer Jay Osmond turns his story into a family drama on the musical stage, offering the chance to re-live the ups and downs, the hits and the hysteria of the clean-living Seventies’ boy band from Utah, USA.

Directed by Shaun Kerrison and choreographed by Olivier Award-winning Bill Deamer, this is Jay’s official account of how five brothers born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faith were pushed into the spotlight as children on the Andy Williams Show and the hits then flowed, Crazy Horses, Let Me In et al. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Christina Aguilera: Biggest American female star to play Scarborough Open Air Theatre since Britney Spears

American superstar grand entrance of the week: Christina Aguilera, supported by Union J, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Tuesday, gates open at 6pm

CHRISTINA Aguilera piles up the Billboard Hot 100 hits, the Grammy awards and the 43 million record sales, to go with the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the honour of being the only artist under the age of 30 to feature in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.

Add to those accolades her coaching on NBC’s The Voice and her role as a global spokesperson for World Hunger Relief. Tuesday, however, is all about Genie In A Bottle, Beautiful, What A Girl Wants, Dirty and Fighter. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Kate Pettitt: Kate Pettitt: One of the artists taking part in Arnup Studios Summer Open Weekend. Picture: Olivia Brabbs

Open studios of the week: Arnup Studios Summer Open Weekend, Panman Lane, Holtby, near York, August 6 and 7, 10am to 5pm

ARNUP Studios open their countryside doors for a weekend of art, craft and, fingers crossed, summer sunshine.

Once the home and workplace of the late potter and sculptor Mick and Sally Arnup, Arnup Studios are now run by daughter and stoneware potter Hannah, who oversaw their renovation. Liz Foster, Michelle Galloway, Kate Pettitt, Reg Walker, Emma Welsh and Hannah all have working studios there.

All but abstract sculptor Reg of these resident artists will be taking part, showing a mix of painting, print, drawing, ceramics and jewellery. They will be on hand to discuss their work and share processes and techniques with visitors, who are invitated to buy original one-off pieces of art and craft, smaller gifts and cards direct from the makers or simply to browse and enjoy the day.

As well as a small carpark on site, free on-street parking is available in the village. The studios are bike and dog friendly; families are welcome. 

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Stephen Kovacevich at Ryedale Festival

Stephen Kovacevich: “Hearing him in solo recital was a rare opportunity”

Ryedale Festival: Stephen Kovacevich, Duncombe Park, July 28

THIS was the second of two remarkable, and remarkably different, piano recitals during Ryedale’s second week.

Stephen Kovacevich will celebrate his 82nd birthday in October. He has been a fixture on the musical scene for 60 years and has lived in Hampstead for many years, so he is practically one of us.

Hearing him in solo recital was a rare opportunity, since these days you are more likely to hear him in chamber music or duetting with his long-time friend Martha Argerich (now there’s a thought for a future festival).

His programme opened with Berg’s single-movement sonata, continued with Beethoven’s penultimate sonata, Op 110 in A flat (not the advertised Op 109) and ended with Schubert’s final sonata, D.960 in B flat.

The piano sonata was far from being Berg’s earliest work – he finished it in 1909 at the age of 24 – but he called Op 1. In it he kindles the dying embers of romanticism, showing himself wrestling with the (for him) magnetic tug of atonality.

Kovacevich presented the theme and its offshoots with a clarity it hardly deserved, so that it was possible to pick out some logic in Berg’s machinations. Whether the rubato he employed was supposed to be part of the original deal is open to question but it certainly helped this listener. The work would not have been many people’s choice of opener, on either side of the platform, but it worked here.

Nevertheless, moving back to the purer tonality of Beethoven came as something of a relief. Kovacevich’s last-minute change of sonata – excused by a recent bout of Covid – was something of a mystery, because his opening movement was wayward. Marked ‘con amabilità’ (lovingly), it was certainly caressed, but it also rambled and some of the runs were too fast for their own clarity.

Kovacevich came back into better focus with the scherzo, which was percussive to the point of anger in its C major sections. The trio was hardly less forceful and he coped admirably with its abrupt leaps.

The finale is a tricky mixture – and sounded it. Its slow opening and elegiac first arioso led smoothly into the first fugue, which was impressively delivered, with special clarity in the left hand. The second arioso was less comfortable and led into an aggressive second fugue, untidily banged out in places, even though it ended convincingly enough. This was not so much faltering technique as the idiosyncrasies that come with age, undeniably reminiscent of Horowitz in his later years.

We looked for recompense in Schubert after the interval. It came, gradually at first, reaching full flowering in a finale that was by far his best movement of the evening. The sonata, for all its use of the major key, is clouded with the darkness of Schubert’s knowledge that he had not long to live (he died two months later, at the age of 31).

Its otherwise soothing melodies also conveyed doubt here, in the dark, low trill near the start, for example. There was a well-worked acceleration when the main theme was repeated, but the first movement ended in a beautiful calm.

The dotted rhythms of the Andante were almost Baroque, but its answering theme was too hasty, lacking nobility, even if the later key-changes were negotiated persuasively. The Scherzo was a little rough at the edges, but it was a warm-up for a finale whose drama dazzled. This was the Kovacevich we had been waiting for and it did not disappoint in any way.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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