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High-flying Jason Battersby to hit the heights in panto bow in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan at York Theatre Royal

Jason Battersby: Actor, dancer, singer and now York Theatre Royal pantomime star

THE actor, singer and dancer who will play the title role in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan at York Theatre Royal comes with “flight experience”, as this winter’s pantomime producer somewhat mysteriously puts it.

Jason Battersby will be taking one giant leap in his pantomime debut, but he is no stranger to the character of Peter, having appeared as the Lead Shadow last Christmas in Wendy And Peter at Leeds Playhouse, where he flew through the air as he shadowed the ever-boyish Peter.

Precisely what flights of imagination Jason will experience in the Paul Hendy-scripted Theatre Royal pantomime have yet to be revealed but definitely he will take to the air again.

Flying lessons for the Playhouse show will come in handy this winter too, although wondering if the pantomime will be working with single-line or double-line flying. Whichever system is used in York , the key to flying is the harness he must wear.

Jason Battersby, back right, playing the Lead Shadow in Wendy And Peter at Leeds Playhouse last winter

“It can be restricting,” he says. “When you rehearse you have all these ideas of what you want to do but then you put the harness on and realise you can’t do them. It can be painful too if you don’t quite put it on the right way.”

Before last winter’s appearance, Jason had neither read J M Barrie’s book nor watched the Disney film. He researched Peter and his creator Barrie for the Leeds show, in particular exploring the parallels between the character and the Scottish writer’s own life.

The Shadows were used at Leeds to represent the many facets of Peter’s complex personality: cocky, childish, curious, naïve, as Jason described the boy who never grew up. Now he is excited to be playing this fly-by-night in York.

“Pantomime is perfect for telling Peter’s story because he never stops playing,” he says. “It’s going to be wonderful to bring that to family audiences and have fun with it.”

As with Peter, there are many sides to Jason: actor, dancer, singer, songwriter and music producer, all by the age of 22. Such is the variety of his work so far that he has chalked up childhood roles in Macbeth, The Nutcracker and Waiting For Godot with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, plus numerous productions for Youth Music Theatre UK and National Youth Music Theatre, most notably performing Whistle Down The Wind in the presence of Prince Edward.

Jason Battersby in rehearsal for Wendy And Peter at Leeds Playhouse

This summer has been spent starring in the musical Crazy For You at Chichester Festival Theatre. While York Theatre Royal will mark his pantomime debut, he did appear in Santa Claus The Musical, a show with pantomime elements, when he was seven, having started ballet classes some years before.

Two years later, he was training with the Royal Ballet School and when he turned 11 he faced a difficult choice. “You have to decide at quite an early age if you want to be a ballet dancer and continue with that training,” he says. “I thought ‘yes, it’s something I enjoy’ but I’d never really wanted to focus on one specific aspect of performance.”

Ballet was duly left behind in favour of acting and musical theatre, as well as pursuing his interest in making his own music. “At school, I had a bunch of friends who did music, and I was one of the boys in my school who could sing. Then I found I appreciated watching them write music and dove into that myself,” Jason says.

“I’ve always found writing your own songs very therapeutic. I feel as if I write them for myself and if other people listen that’s fine. Music for me is quite grounding. Communication for me has always been a little bit difficult and there’s something about writing lyrics I really like. Pop songs get right down to the root of what you say. I really enjoy being producing music where I am the creative force behind it, with no outside influence.”

Shadow play: Jason Battersby, left, with fellow cast members in the Leeds Playhouse rehearsal room for Wendy And Peter

When it comes to ambitions, Jason recalls as a young performer often being asked that same question: “What’s your dream role?”. He had a “really stupid” answer he used to fall back on:  “It’s anything I get paid for,” he would say.

Now he takes the question more seriously. “In this industry, it’s great to have ambitions and dreams but it’s far more important to be realistic and know that as actors we’re not constantly working,” he says.

Come November, he will be joined in the panto rehearsals by creative director Juliet Forster’s already confirmed cast members for the third collaboration between York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions: CBeebies’ Mandie Moate in her first pantomime as feisty fairy Tinkerbell; social media sensation Jonny Weldon as Starkey; Faye Campbell as Elizabeth Darling and fellow returnees Paul Hawkyard as Captain Hook and Robin Simpson as Mrs Darling after last winter’s Ugly Sisters double act, Mardy and Manky.

All New Adventure Of Peter Pan will run at York Theatre Royal from December 2 to January 2. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The poster for All New Adventures Of Peter Pan at York Theatre Royal

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Girl From The North Country reimagines Bob Dylan’s songs “as you’ve never heard them before” in Depression-era musical

Writer-director Conor McPherson, second from right, directs a rehearsal for Girl From The North Country. All pictures: Johan Persson

BEFORE Irish writer-director Conor McPherson set to work on his first musical, Bob Dylan’s management company sent him a gift box. Inside were more than 60 CDs by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature-winning American singer-songwriter.

What ensued in summer 2017 from the Dublin playwright of The Weir and The Seafarer was Girl From The North Country, the West End and Broadway hit with Olivier and Tony awards to its name, now on its debut tour, next Stop York Theatre Royal from Tuesday.

“It was Dylan’s office that approached me, so I had no idea for a musical or even a play at that stage,” Conor recalls. “I thought, ‘oh, that’s an unusual idea, and initially I was reluctant as I had no experience of doing musicals, but then I had this idea of a doing a Eugene O’Neil-style play set in Minnesota in the 1930s before Dylan was born, so it would be outside his time frame and not directly connected to him.  

“The Great Depression was happening, and I had this group of people gathered in a boarding house trying to figure out their lives. I went back to Dylan’s management; they spoke to Bob, who said he really liked it, and then it took off from there.”

McPherson duly constructed an elegiac, uplifting and universal story of family and poverty, love and loss that “boldly reimagines the legendary songs of Bob Dylan like you’ve never heard them before”.

The setting is 1934, when a group of wayward drifters and dreamers find their paths crossing in an enervated boarding house in Dylan’s hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. Standing at a turning point in their lives, they search for a future, hide from the past and face unspoken truths about the present.

An ensemble scene from Girl From The North Country

Interwoven into that story are more than 20 of Dylan’s songs. “I was firing into the dark. I’d seen some musicals but it wasn’t something I’d sought to do, but I’m a huge music fan, so using music on stage felt natural to me,” says Conor, who set about listening all 60 of those Dylan albums and was given free rein by Dylan to select songs.

“I knew a good body of Dylan’s work just from having some albums myself. They ranged from the albums of the Sixties to the Seventies, but I hadn’t really listened to much of his album work since then, so I’d listen to them on my walks by the sea, and if something struck me instinctively, if it spoke to me, I’d note it and then made a list of the songs I liked.”

Conor had no preconceptions about what made a song suitable for the musical format. Instead, he evaluated Dylan’s distinctive songwriting. “The thing about Dylan is that the majority of his songs are subjective, providing poetic images but leaving it to the listener to bring meaning and sense to them,” he says.

“That makes him more akin to a literary writer than a pop writer, and the advantage, to me, is that it allows songs to be very malleable as you can put them anywhere and they still mean something to somebody, so in this musical, they reflect each of the characters in different ways.” Perfect for a musical, as it turns out!

In a nutshell, Dylan’s songs have the ring of universality. “He manages to distil his subjective experience into something people relate to. It has the strange, odd contrariness of people’s real thoughts and it’s a language which allows us to transcend our normal way of thinking,” says Conor.

Whereas jukebox musicals are essentially a vehicle for the songs, Conor took a different approach: “We try and wrap our story around his music. Often, I think of them as parables from the Bible in a way, all the little stories that are in the show,” he says. “They are on a simple, human level, rather than being big political statements. It’s Dylan’s artistry that transforms it all into something meaningful.”

Girl From The North Country: “Searching for a future, hiding from the past and facing unspoken truths about the present”

When Girl From The North Country opened at the Old Vic, in London, in 2017, artistic director Matthew Warchus told Conor: ‘You’ve really ripped up the musical rule book’. I told him I didn’t know there was one! I wish someone had told me there was,” says Conor.

Such “innocence” worked to his advantage, however. “It’s a bit of a trap to think, ‘let’s do something that’s sure to be a big success’. If it were that easy, there’d just be a sound you’d recognise: ‘oh, that’s a Broadway musical’, but I just had to instinctively follow my nose and just do what felt right,” he says.

Conor’s story is as important to Girl From The North Country as Dylan’s songs, not least because the Great Depression resonates with our era of Covid strictures and now the cost-of-living crisis. “We all wonder how we would cope when the chips are down, because that’s who we really are,” he says.

“When all the distractions of modern life are stripped away, people think, ‘How strong am I?’ The truth is that humans are very resilient and we don’t need a lot of what we think we need. That’s a good thing to know.”

Dylan, by the way, has seen the show “a few times”. His verdict? “To be associated with Conor is one of the highlights of my professional life,” he said. “It goes without saying the man is a genius for putting this thing together and I’m thrilled to be a part of the experience. My songs couldn’t be in better hands.”

Girl From The North Country runs at York Theatre Royal from September 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Alan Ayckbourn plays with time and space, history and the present, in Family Album

Alan Ayckbourn directing rehearsals for Family Album, his 87th full-length play. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

NO sooner has the world premiere of Alan Ayckbourn’s 86th full-length play All Lies concluded at the tiny, moorland Esk Valley Theatre than his 87th opens at his regular home, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre.

Family Album is one of five plays penned by Ayckbourn in lockdown, or is it six, as Esk Valley Theatre producer Sheila Carter suggested on press night?

“Oh lord, I’ve rather lost count, but there are two more waiting after All Lies and Family Album,” says Sir Alan, whose number of plays now outstrips his age of 83.

“Once lockdown occurred, I was like one of those ocean liners that chugged on with no brakes until running out of fuel, but there was all that frustration of no productions going on.”

What joy for Sir Alan when he could at last return to the rehearsal room in May last year for the SJT’s summer production of The Girl Next Door. “Doing that play gave me a huge charge of the batteries,” he says.

This year, already he has directed All Lies in its premiere at The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness, in May and the Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, last month. Now he is pulling the strings on Family Album as writer, director and sound designer, directing Elizabeth Boag, Georgia Burnell, Tanya-Loretta Dee, Antony Eden and York-born Frances Marshall as he tenderly chronicles the trials, tribulations and temptations of three generations of one family across 70 years in the same home.

Presented, as ever, in The Round, Ayckbourn interweaves his account of a moving-in day in 1952, a birthday party in 1992 and a moving-out day in 2022, “when all the skeletons are suddenly jumping out of their cupboards”.

York actress Frances Marshall in an early rehearsal for the 1992 storyline in Family Album. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Join housewife Peggy (Burnell) and RAF veteran John (Eden) as they proudly move into the first home they can really call their own; daughter Sandra (Marshall), frantically negotiating the challenges of her ten-year-old daughter’s birthday party without her AWOL husband; and granddaughter Alison (Boag) and her partner Jess (Dee), finally escaping the house she has somewhat unwillingly inherited.

 “My inspiration was a programme on BBC4 called A House Through Time, a fascinating piece of social history [presented by historian David Olusoga]. I thought, I could do this on a smaller scale – I didn’t want to go back centuries, so I started within my lifetime, in the 1950s.

“We have three time periods layered on top of each other happening simultaneously in the same house, following a family from the grandparents in 1952, to the children in 1992 and then the grandchildren today.”

Ayckbourn is no stranger to playing with time, but not in this way before. “For me it’s new: I’ve used time so much – I’ve run it backwards and forwards, and I’ve run it sideways, and I’ve occasionally run it forwards and backwards simultaneously and at different speeds, but never in this way,” he says.

Parallels have been drawn with Ayckbourn’s 2018 premiere, A Brief History Of Women, a comedy in four parts, each set 20 years apart, focusing on an unremarkable man and the remarkable women who loved him, left him, or lost him over sixty years, and the equally remarkable old manor house that saw and heard it all happen.

“That play was the story of the house seen through the eyes of the people who ‘mucked about with it’, as it changed from a country house to a country-house hotel,” says Sir Alan. “This time, it’s the people, seen through the house. 

“I’ve realised with age, when you have a choice, you can either look back, and I can look back to the wartime 1940s, with my first conscious memory of an air raid shelter, right up to 2022, which is one choice, or you can look forward, the other choice.

Antony Eden rehearsing his role as RAF veteran John in Family Album. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

“It’s no coincidence that our most successful children’s writers, Morpurgo and Rowling, have looked at science fiction in order to reach a generation they’re not able to reach otherwise – and the best science fiction reflects what’s happening now.

“I can write plays for my near-contemporaries, but my plays for young people also give me the chance to make up my own rules, which can apply to both me and the children I’m writing for.”

Family Album reflects on the past and its impact on the next generation, especially on women. “One of the themes is the enormous journey women have been on. My God, they have moved a long way, and the most interesting thing for me to do was to write a play set in 1952, 1992 and 2022, that would be much more interesting if I interweaved all three.

“It’s my latest exploration of the theatre space offered by The Round, which goes back to How The Other Half Loves [written in 1969], with everyone in the play occupying one space.”

Ayckbourn says a “stinging contemporary play” is not in his armoury at present – the romantic All Lies, for example, was set in 1957-58 – and he does not foresee writing “directly” about our rotten age. Instead he will continue looking at changing times. 

“I do explore the changes in men in future plays,” he says. “I’m very curious to see quite where men will go. Many men have changed; for every dyed-in-the-wool chauvinist, there is a new man.”

Alan Ayckbourn’s Family Album runs at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 1. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Georgia Burnell, who plays housewife Peggy, rehearses a scene from the 1952 storyline in Family Album. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
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More Things To Do in York and beyond in the north country. Discover the importance of reading List No 97, from The Press

A MUSICAL with Bob Dylan songs, Wilde wit with chart toppers, heavenly disco and Sunday fairytales promise intrigue and variety in Charles Hutchinson’s diary.

Boarding house tales: Girl From The North Country, the musical with Bob Dylan songs at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Johan Persson

Musical of the week: Girl From The North Country, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday

WRITTEN and directed by Irish playwright Conor McPherson, with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan, Girl From The North Country is an uplifting and universal story of family and love that boldly reimagines Dylan’s songs “like you’ve never heard them before”.

In 1934, in an American heartland in the grip of the Great Depression, a group of wayward souls cross paths in a time-weathered guesthouse in Duluth, Minnesota. Standing at a turning point in their lives, they realise nothing is what it seems as they search for a future, hide from the past and find themselves facing unspoken truths about the present. Box office: 01904 623 568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Story Craft Theatre: A giant leap for storytelling in Once Upon A Fairytale at Stillington Mill

Children’s show of the week: Once Upon A Fairytale, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Sunday, 10am to 12 noon

IN York company Story Craft Theatre’s new show for children aged two to eight, Sunday’s audience will travel through a host of favourite fairytales and meet familiar faces along the way: Little Red Riding Hood, The Gingerbread Man and some hungry Bears to name but a few.

Storytellers Janet-Emily Bruce and Cassie Vallance say: “You’re welcome to arrive any time from 10am as we’ll be running craft activities until 10.45am. The interactive adventure will begin at 11am under the cover of our outdoor theatre, and there’ll be colouring-in sheets and a scavenger hunt you can do too.” Box office: atthemill.org.

From drag queen to society dragon: Daniel Jacob, alias Vinegar Strokes, rehearses for his role as Lady Bracknell in The Importance Of Being Earnest at Leeds Playhouse. Picture: Sharron Wallace

A walk on the Wilde side to a different beat: The Importance Of Being Earnest, Leeds Playhouse, Monday to September 17

DANIEL Jacob swaps his drag queen alter ego Vinegar Strokes for the iconic Lady Bracknell at the heart of Denzel Westley-Sanderson’s Black Victorian revamp of Oscar Wilde’s sharpest and most outrageous comedy of manners.

Premiering in Leeds before a UK tour, this Leeds Playhouse, ETT and Rose Theatre co-production “melds wit with chart-toppers, shade and contemporary references in a sassy insight into Wilde’s satire on dysfunctional families, class, gender and sexuality”. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk.

Tavares: Close harmonies and disco classics revisited at York Barbican

Disco nostalgia of the week: Tavares, Greatest Hits Tour 2022, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm

GRAMMY Award-winning, close harmony-singing R&B brothers Chubby, Tiny and Butch Tavares, from Providence, Rhode Island, bring their Greatest Hits Tour to York.

At their Seventies peak, accompanied by their Cape Verdean brothers Ralph and Pooch, they filled disco floors with It Only Takes A Minute Girl, Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel, She’s Gone and More Than A Woman, from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Every witch way: The poster for Northumberland Theatre Company’s all-female Macbeth, heading to North Yorkshire

Something wicked this way comes: Northumberland Theatre Company in Macbeth, Stillington Village Hall, near York, Thursday; Pocklington Arts Centre, September 29, both 7.30pm

YORK actor Claire Morley stars in Chris Connaughton’s all-female, three-hander version of Shakespeare’s “very gruesome” tragedy Macbeth, directed by Northumberland Theatre Company associate director Alice Byrne for this autumn’s tour to theatres, community venues, village halls and schools.

This streamlined, fast-paced, extremely physical production with original music will be told largely from the witches’ perspective, exploring ideas of manipulation through the media and other external forces. Expect grim, gory grisliness to the Mac max in two action-packed 40-minute halves. Box office: Stillington, 01347 811 544 or on the door; Pocklington, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Jess Steel: Soulful leading light of A Night To Remember. Picture: Duncan Lomax

Charity concert of the week: A Night To Remember, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm

BIG Ian Donaghy’s charity fundraiser returns 922 days after he last hosted this fast-moving assembly of diverse York singers and musicians.

Taking part will be members of York party band Huge; Jess Steel; Heather Findlay; Beth McCarthy; Simon Snaize; Gary Stewart; Graham Hodge; The Y Street Band; Boss Caine; Las Vegas Ken; Kieran O’Malley and young musicians from York Music Forum, all led by George Hall and Ian Chalk.

Singer and choir director Jessa Liversidge presents her inclusive singing group, Singing For All, too. Proceeds will go to St Leonard’s Hospice, Bereaved Children Support York and Accessible Arts and Media. Tickets update: still available at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Glass work by Crispian Heath: Selected for the Contemporary Glass Society’s Bedazzled show at Pyramid Gallery, York

Exhibition launch of the week: Contemporary Glass Society, Bedazzled, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, September 10 to October 30

THE Contemporary Glass Society will celebrate its 25th anniversary of exhibiting at Pyramid Gallery with a show featuring 60 works by 25 glass artists, chosen by gallery owner Terry Brett and the society’s selectors.

For this landmark exhibition in Pyramid’s 40th anniversary year, the society wanted a theme and title that suggested celebratory glitz for its silver anniversary. Cue Bedazzled.

The styles and techniques span engraving, blowing, fusing, slumping, casting, cane and murine work, flame working, cutting, polishing, brush painting and metal leaf decoration. A second show, Razzle Dazzle, will include small pieces that measure no more than five by five inches by 60 makers.

KT Tunstall: New album, new tour

Gig announcement of the week: KT Tunstall, York Barbican, February 24 2023

SCOTTISH singer-songwriter KT Tunstall will return to York for the first time since she lit up the Barbican on Bonfire Night in 2016 on next year’s 16-date tour.

The BRIT Award winner and Grammy nominee from Edinburgh will showcase songs from her imminent seventh studio album, Nut, set for release next Friday on EMI. Box office: kttunstall.com and yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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Once musical director for Berwick Kaler’s pantos, now James Pearson returns to York Theatre Royal with Ronnie Scott’s All Stars

James Pearson: Artistic director of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and musical director The Ronnie Scott’s All Stars…with a pantomime past in York

JAMES Pearson leads The Ronnie Scott’s All Stars on his return to York Theatre Royal tonight.

Artistic director at London’s legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, where his trio are the house band, he has worked with Paul McCartney, Dame Cleo Laine, Maria Ewing, Jeff Beck, Petula Clark, Wynton Marsalis, Dave Stewart, Buddy Greco, Richard Rodney Bennett, Ray Davies, Nigel Kennedy, Robbie Williams, Rufus Wainwright, Gregory Porter, Imelda May and…York pantomime dame Berwick Kaler.

“I’d left the Guildhall School of Music & Drama when Mick Foster, who was the York panto’s saxophone player, from Harrogate, and was at college with me, got me the chance to play keyboards for Mother Goose,” says pianist and composer James.

Subsequently he was the musical director for Aladdin in 1997-1998 and Beauty & The Beast the next winter. “I did enjoy Berwick’s ‘Me babbies, me bairns’ and the Wagon Wheel throwing,” he says. “The atmosphere was a riot! A lot of the music was scored, but you always had to have your wits about you because Berwick would go off-piste.

“The reason a lot of jazz musicians do panto is that you have to improvise. Like if someone walks across in a funny manner, it’s highlighted by the drummer doing a flip-flop sound.

“I particularly enjoyed it as I got to spend ten weeks in York each year. I’m from Hertfordshire but I know York well because my sister, Kate, lives in Sheriff Hutton, and went to the University of York, where she met her husband, Daniel. Now they both teach music there. I must have been coming to York on and off for 30 years.”

James began working at Ronnie Scott’s club in 2006, becoming the artistic director the following year. “I’m largely responsible for its output both in and out of the club,” he says.

Tonight, he is at the piano for The Ronnie Scott’s Story, whose two 45-minute sets by The Ronnie Scott’s All Stars combines live jazz, narration and rare archive photos of Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis and video footage from the 1960s and ’70s. “Putting the series of pictures and footage together really helps it become an accessible show,” says James.

Set among the dive bars and jazz jook joints of London’s Soho, the show recalls the desperate hand-to-mouth finances of the early years and the frequent police raids. 

You will hear how Ronnie Scott’s became neutral ground within rife gang territory and their scrapes with gangsters, not least the Krays, who were rumoured to have taken Ronnie and Pete “for a little drive”.

James Pearson, left, performing with The Ronnie Scott’s All Stars

“The Krays tried to take over the club in 1965 when they were looking to get a London venue before they became The Krays as we came to know them. They went to Earl’s Court instead and then tried to get a foothold in the West End. There was always a strange relationship with gangs with their links with the jazz world.”

Life at Ronnie Scott’s is reimagined through tales of the club’s past visitors, from pop stars, film stars and politicians to comedians and royalty, but above all, the musicians.

“The thing about Ronnie Scott’s is, firstly, its history and legacy. Even though no-one has smoked there for years, it still feels smoky.

“Then there’s the intimacy, where the audience are so close to the stage, three feet from Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder…Lady Gaga…Prince.

“When Stevie Wonder came, he was just in the audience and then got on stage to play with the house band. Sting has done that too. That’s one of the great things about jazz: it’s free style.

“After Lady Gaga’s second London show with Tony Bennett had to be cancelled, because she absolutely loves performing, she asked if there was any way she could play here.

“She parked her gold Rolls Royce outside the club, and because you can’t really do a Lady Gaga gig secretly, the press were there waiting for her.”

Tonight’s show is built around music from the jazz greats who have performed at Ronnie Scott’s over its 60 years and more, complemented by stories of old Soho and miscreant musicians.

Look out, in particular, for Natalie Williams performing the songs of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and saxophone player Alex Garnett, who likes to tell old Ronnie Scott jokes as the boss was famous for his humour.

James is delighted to be performing in York once more. “We loved doing the Ronnie Scott’s shows in the Parliament Street spiegeltent at the Great Yorkshire Fringe,” he says. “It was such a lovely festival and it’s sad it’s gone.”

The Ronnie Scott’s Story, York Theatre Royal, tonight at 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The poster for The Ronnie Scott’s All Stars, featuring vocalist Natalie Williams and saxophonist Alex Garnett
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Contemporary Glass Society marks 25 years at Pyramid Gallery with Bedazzled

Monette Larsen: Exhibiting in the Contemporary Glass Society’s Bedazzled show at Pyramid Gallery: Picture: Valerie Bernadini

THE Contemporary Glass Society will celebrate its 25th anniversary of exhibiting at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, with the Bedazzled show.

Sixty glass works will be on show from September 10 to October 30 as part of the gallery’s 40th anniversary programme.

Pyramid Gallery and the Contemporary Glass Society have been working together since 2008, promoting the society’s membership of 800 glass artists.

Contemporary Glass Society member Morag Reekie at work in her studio

For this landmark exhibition, the society wanted a theme that suggested celebratory glitz for its silver anniversary and duly came up with the title Bedazzled.

Between gallery owner Terry Brett and the society’s selectors, 25 artists were chosen, their styles and techniques spanning engraving, blowing, fusing, slumping, casting, cane and murine work, flame working, cutting, polishing, brush painting and metal leaf decoration.

“I’m expecting visitors and collectors to be amazed at the range of different types of ‘glass art’ and the quality of the work on display,” says Terry, who has acquired a passion for studio glass since taking on the business in 1994.

Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett holding a sculpture by David Reekie, surrounded by glass works from the Bedazzled exhibition

“There are so many different ways to create a work of art using glass and we have some really stunning and imaginatively made glass treasures in this show.”

A second exhibition, named Razzle Dazzle by the Contemporary Glass Society, will include small pieces that measure no more than five by five inches by 60 makers, some of whom were selected for the Bedazzled exhibition.

Gallery opening times are 10am until 5pm, Monday to Saturday. “The exhibition can be viewed online on the gallery website at www.pyramidgallery.com, but the only way to fully appreciate the display is to visit the gallery from 11am on September 10 onwards,” says Terry.

The poster for the Bedazzled exhibition at Pyramid Gallery, York
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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Spring, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival

Charlotte Scott: “Sweet-toned violin”

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival: Spring, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 19

ONCE again it was the ever-reliable, sweet-toned violin of Charlotte Scott that took the lead in this afternoon’s works, Beethoven’s ‘Spring’ Sonata, Op 24 in F, and Schumann’s Second Piano Trio, Op 80 in D.

Up to this point, the piano – a medium-size Steinway – had been the cause of several comments, mainly negative, about its tone. To these ears, it verged on the clangy; others thought it tinny.

Certainly James Baillieu, the admirable pianist here, had appeared to struggle to produce the kind of sound he wanted. But by now, something had changed, adjustments made no doubt, and the piano returned to something like mellowness.

F major has often been a key indicating the joys of nature, especially for Beethoven. Think of his Pastoral Symphony or the last string quartet. All that was here, in the nuances delivered by both players.

Cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson

The exposition was given a full repeat, just as it should be (but isn’t always). The mood music continued in the daydream of an Adagio, with the violin tone now more intimate and the pair enjoying gentle dialogue in the third of its three variations. After the comic Scherzo, with the violin intentionally lagging a beat behind, the rondo found the pair in wonderful harness, melting teasingly back into repetitions of the theme.

They were joined by cellist Jamie Walton for the Schumann. The early tremolos in the strings became tempestuous, but clarity never suffered, even through the long acceleration into the final climax of the first movement.

The cello was the first to break out of the introspective ruminations of the slow movement and Baillieu’s piano became a little over-dramatic before the return of the theme. But there was a delightful ebb and flow as little motifs were tossed around in the succeeding dance. The finale was lent an attractive urgency by the lightness of the semiquavers in all three voices, as the counterpoint fizzed.

Smiles all round.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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KT Tunstall to follow up Nut album release with York Barbican return next February

SCOTTISH singer-songwriter KT Tunstall will play York Barbican on February 24 on her 16-date tour in 2023.

Tickets for her only Yorkshire gig will go on sale on Friday at 10am via ticketmaster.co.uk, gigsandtours.com, kttunstall.com and yorkbarbican.co.uk.

The BRIT Award winner and Grammy nominee, from Edinburgh, will showcase songs from her imminent seventh studio album, Nut, set for release on September 9 on EMI.

“This will be my first full UK headline tour since the pandemic, and I’m so looking forward to playing a completely different show with a brand-new line up of amazing musicians,” says Tunstall, 47. “Included in that line-up will be the brilliant Andy Burrows, of Razorlight, on drums, who played on Nut. He’ll also be opening the gigs with his own excellent show.”

Nut completes the trilogy of albums that Tunstall began recording seven years ago. Each part relates to the three existential parts of ourselves: 2016’s Kin = Spirit, 2018’s Wax = Body and 2022’s Nut = Mind.

Latest single Private Eyes is out now in the wake of I Am The Pilot and another taster track, Canyons.

“Nut is the culmination of a seven-year project,” Tunstall says. “It’s the final part of a trilogy of records that has spanned probably the most extreme and profound period of change in my life. The personal arc of these three records has been pretty extraordinary for me.”

Explaining the inspiration behind the album title, Tunstall says: “Growing up in Scotland, if someone was losing their temper you would say, ‘Dinny lose yer Nut’!

The artwork for KT Tunstall’s new album, Nut

“I love that the word also means a seed. The album artwork is all about the brain being a garden; you reap what you sow, you need to keep the weeds at bay, and there is an almost supernatural beauty to when things blossom.”

Tunstall first made her mark with her 2004 debut, Eye To The Telescope, propelled to multi-platinum sales by the global hits Black Horse And The Cherry Tree and Suddenly I See.

Introspective folk and propulsive rock remain the cornerstones of her songwriting. “There are two immediate, recognisable pillars of my style,” she says. “I have this troubadour, acoustic guitar-driven emotional side. Then there’s definitely an electrified rock side of my work with rawness and teeth.”

After selling everything she owned and moving to California in 2015, Tunstall took a break before spending the next seven years on the album trilogy. “Kin was an absolute Phoenix out of the ashes,” she says. “It was the result of a profound personal shift and finding my feet again after facing some really hard truths.” 

Among other things, Tunstall’s father died, making her realise she was unhappy in her marriage, in turn leading to her divorce.

More challenges awaited when she released Wax. “Halfway through the tour for Wax, I completely lost my hearing in my left ear overnight, which never returned,” she says. “I lost an extremely important physical part of my body while touring a record all about the body.”

Understandably, Tunstall was wary about what might happen while making her mind record, Nut. Cue a global pandemic, but now that the trilogy is complete, she has the perspective to appreciate the solace and healing she experienced as the songs unfolded.

“I did not foresee how visceral an experience it would be making this music about myself. It became the audio accompaniment to a deeply transformative period of my life. It’s the soundtrack to me creating a new version of myself.” 

Tunstall last lit up York Barbican on Bonfire Night, November 5, in 2016.

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Fringe First winner Happy Meal to serve up Millennial meets Gen X rom-com story of transition at York Theatre Royal Studio

Sam Crerar in the Fringe First-winning Happy Meal

FRESH from winning a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Fringe, Tabby Lamb’s joyful trans romantic comedy Happy Meal visits the York Theatre Royal Studio from tonight to Saturday.

Lamb invites the audience to “travel back to the quaint days of dial-up and MSN, where you’ll follow two strangers on their journeys to become who they always were, in a funny, moving and nostalgic story of transition: from teen to adult, from My Space to TikTok, from cis to trans”.

Sam Crerar and Allie Daniel reprise their roles from the Traverse Theatre run in Edinburgh, directed by Jamie Fletcher, whose 2022 production of Hedwig And The Angry Inch drew five-star reviews at Leeds Playhouse.

Allie Daniel and Sam Crerar: “Capturing the intensity of the onlife life of 21st century teenagers”

In a story where Millennial meets Gen Z and change is all around, transgender teenagers Alex and Bette find one another on the internet, become close friends, but then experience whole worlds of estrangement, as relatively middle-class Alex makes a transition to student life as Alec, while Bette struggles to come out as trans to anyone except her online best friend.

As described by the Fringe First judges, Happy Meal “fully captures the intensity of the online life of 21st century teenagers in a simple one-hour tale of young love made complicated by society’s attitudes to shifting gender, but now free enough to find a true happy ending”.

Played out on a witty Ben Stones set, this Roots and Theatre Royal Plymouth co-production in association with English Touring Theatre (ETT) and Oxford Playhouse is suitable for age 12 upwards. Tickets for the 7.45pm evening performances and 2.45pm Saturday matinee are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Sam Crerar and Allie Daniel in Tabby Lamb’s funny, moving and nostalgic story of transition
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More Things To Do in York and beyond when questions needs answering. Such as? Find out in List No. 96, from The Press

Barrel of laughs: Al Murray, the Pub Landlord, has the answer, whatever the question

FOOD and food for thought, pub concert and Pub Landlord, outsider comedy and  family drama whet Charles Hutchinson’s appetite.

Comedy gig of the week in York: Al Murray: The Pub Landlord, Gig For Victory, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

“AS the dust settles and we emerge blinking into the dawn of a new year, the men and women of this great country will need answers,” reckons the Guvnor, Al Murray. “Answers that they know they need, answers to questions they never knew existed.”

When that moment comes, who better to show the way, to provide those answers, than the people’s man of the people, Murray, The Pub Landlord? Cue his pugnacious bar-room wisdom in the refurbished Grand Opera House. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Miles and The Chain Gang: New territory tonight

Pub gig of the week: Miles and The Chain Gang, The New Smithy Arms, Malton Road, Swinton, near Malton, tonight (27/8/2022), 9pm

YORK band Miles and The Chain Gang are heading to the New Smithy Arms gastro pub this weekend.

“It’s our first time performing in the Malton area,” says songwriter and singer Miles Salter. “We’ll be playing a selection of our own songs, plus some old classics from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and The Rolling Stones.”

Latest single Love Is Blind has been aired 400 times on radio stations around the world, YouTube views of the band have topped 50,000 and their 2022 gig diary has taken in Doncaster, Harrogate and Helmsley.

Three-day event: Malton Summer Food Lovers Festival

Festival of the week: Malton Summer Food Lovers Festival, today (27/8/2022) and tomorrow from 9am, Bank Holiday Monday, from 10am.

THIS is the second Malton Food Lovers Festival of 2022, taking over the streets of “Yorkshire’s food capital” for three days in a celebration of fine produce and cooking.

Expect artisan stalls, street food, talks, tastings, celebrity chefs, cookery and blacksmith demonstrations, a festival bar, buskers, brass bands and Be Amazing Arts in the Creativitent.

Look out for Tommy Banks, from The Black Swan, Oldstead, and Roots, York, on the festival demo stage today at 1pm. Festival entry is free.

Daniel Kitson: Wanting a word with you Outside

Comedy gigs of the week outside York: Daniel Kitson: Outside, At The Mill, Stillington Mill, near York, Monday (29/8/2022) to Wednesday, 7.30pm

DENBY Dale stand-up comedian Daniel Kitson had not been on stage for two years when he contacted At The Mill promoter Alexander Flanagan Wright to say “hello, could I come and do a show?”.

Not one show, but six work-in-progress gigs, performed in two sold-out blocks from May 23 to 25 and June 8 to 10. He enjoyed the Mill outdoor experience so much, he has added a third run for August’s dying embers.

Tickets have flown again for the latest chance to watch Kitson “find out whether he can still do his job and what, if anything, he has to say to large groups of people he doesn’t know”. For returns only, contact atthemill.org.

That’ll be Mel Day: Guest star for The Story Of Soul. Picture: Entertainers

History show of the week: The Story Of Soul, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm

FROM the producers of Lost In Music and The Magic Of Motown comes The Story Of Soul with special guest Mel Day, “The Soul Man” from Britain’s Got Talent.

This journey through the history of sweet soul music takes in the songs of Aretha Franklin, Earth Wind And Fire, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, The Pointer Sisters, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, Ben E King, Barry White and plenty more. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Foy Vance: Showing Signs Of Life at York Barbican

Blues gig of the week: Foy Vance, Signs Of Life Tour, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.50pm

NORTHERN Irish singer-songwriter Foy Vance plays York Barbican in support of his fourth studio album, Signs Of Life, in a gig rearranged from March 25.

The redemptive record finds Bangor-born Vance – husband, father, hipster, sinner, drinker – belatedly coming to terms with his demons in his late-40s.

The storytelling bluesman, survivor, rocker and folk hero calls Signs Of Life “an album of dawn after darkness, hope after despair, engagement after isolation, uplift after lockdown”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

One for the Family Album: Writer-director Alan Ayckbourn, left, Jude Deeno and David Lomond in rehearsal for his 87th play, premiering at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Play launch of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s Family Album, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Friday to October 1

FAMILY Album, his 87th full-length play, is written, directed and sound designed by Alan Ayckbourn for its world premiere in The Round at the SJT.

Ayckbourn tenderly chronicles the trials, tribulations and temptations of three generations of one family across 70 years in the same home. 

Join RAF veteran John and housewife Peggy as they proudly move into the first home they can really call their own in 1952; daughter Sandra, frantically negotiating the challenges of a ten-year-old’s birthday party without her AWOL husband in 1992, and granddaughter Alison, finally escaping the house she has somewhat unwillingly inherited in 2022. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

The poster for In The Name Of Love, The Diana Ross Story tribute show

Tribute show of the week: In The Name Of Love, The Diana Ross Story, York Barbican, September 3, 7.30pm

IN the wake of Diana Ross headlining the Platinum Party At The Palace at 78 and playing Leeds First Direct Arena in June with a 14-piece band, here comes the tribute show.

In a chronological set list, Cheri Jade takes on The Supremes’ catalogue before Tameka Jackson handles the solo Diana years.

Here come Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love, Stop In The Name Of Love, Reflections, You Keep Me Hanging On, You Can’t Hurry Love, Stoned Love, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Touch Me In The Morning, Upside Down, My Old Piano, I’m Coming Out and Chain Reaction. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.