Category: Breaking News

Posted on

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. 

Posted on

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

Posted on

REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Ryedale Festival’s Triple Concert, Castle Howard

The Gesualdo Six: Performed in the Chapel at Castle Howard. Picture: Ash Mills

Ryedale Festival: Triple Concert, Ashley Riches; The Gesualdo Six; Joseph Shiner and the Barbican Quartet, Castle Howard, July 27

TICKETS were once again like gold dust for the triple concert in three locations at Castle Howard. Ashley Riches sang in the Long Gallery, accompanied by Joseph Middleton, the Gesualdo Six appeared in the Chapel, and clarinettist Joseph Shiner and the Barbican Quartet played in the Great Hall. This was the satisfying order in which I heard them.

Riches, who hails from this part of the world but has gone onto widespread conquests, boasts a dark basso quality to his baritone and put it to excellent use in his wide-ranging exploration of the animal world, A Musical Zoo.

His German group began pleasingly with Schubert’s Die Forelle (The Trout) and Brahms’ injunction to the nightingale to pipe down, but his legato only took full shape in Strauss’ lament for the thrush that dies in its cage.

Where his German in Wolf’s Der Rattenfänger (The Ratcatcher) was a touch wayward, his French group was on a much higher plane. Fauré’s waltz-dialogue between butterfly and flower was utterly charming, as were the solitary, rhapsodic cricket of Ravel and De Sévérac’s serene owls.

So, to England, with another nightingale soothing away the sorrows of King David, in Howells’ setting of Walter de la Mare. Its solemnity was instantly dispelled by Vernon Duke’s treatment of Ogden Nash’s musical zoo, where Riches was a veritable chameleon in his colourings of the epigrams, with an American accent into the bargain.

The Gesualdo Six under Owain Park, who also delivers a deep bass, gave a programme of slow music suitable for the Anglican office of compline, the last service of the day. It proved confusing because they omitted three-quarters of the Hildegard plainsong printed in the programme and merged the two following pieces so that their boundaries were unclear.

That aside, they were as impressive as ever, neatly blended and precisely tuned. Tallis’s evening hymn Te Lucis led nicely into Byrd’s Miserere Mihi, Domine, which was followed in turn by Look Down, O Lord, by Jonathan Seers – British, but little-known here because of being based in Germany for many years – whose setting of the Elizabethan William Leighton was a model of anguished harmony.

Nicolas Gombert’s relentlessly remorseful Media Vita started in the deepest, darkest tones. Park’s own Hail, Gladdening Light fell short of the famous setting by Charles Wood, but The Wind’s Warning, a setting of Ivor Gurney by Alison Willis, complete with whooshing gusts, was powerful. Some tortuous harmony in night settings by Reger and Rheinberger was safely negotiated. Beautiful though this programme was, it needed a little more variety for full effect.

So, to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in the Great Hall. Joseph Shiner’s clarinet was both lithe and intimate. The way, for example, that he melted back into the first movement recapitulation was exquisite and there was also a special serenity when the slow movement theme reappeared.

The minuet’s second trio had a special swagger, contrasting with the quartet’s account of the first one, where the clarinet is silent. Shiner played games with the early variations in the finale, so that when the break came – with the Adagio interlude – it was all the more effective, and the closing bars breathed wonderfully.

The strings were very much in cahoots with him and maintained a fine balance throughout. A lovely conclusion to a rewarding evening.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Posted on

Elvis is back in the building in Baz Luhrmann’s movie. Did he take care of business? Chalmers & Hutch decide

The poster artwork for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis

WHAT we saw in Austin Butler’s Elvis and Tom Hanks’s Colonel Parker is revealed in Episode 97 of culture vultures Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson’s arts podcast, Two Big Egos In A Small Car.

Under discussion too are: Beatle Paul at 80 at Glastonbury; Graham’s charmed DJ skills on a Knaresborough dancefloor and Chemical Brothers’ thunderous rave at Castle Howard.

To listen, head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/11013513

Meanwhile, in Episode 96…

The artwork for A Light For Attracting Attention, the debut album by The Smile, alias Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner

CHAMERS & Hutch check out Thom Yorke’s Smile. Graham makes Danish news then dissects David Hepworth’s book on the rise and fall of rock’n’roll stars, Uncommon People. Charles demystifies the York Mystery Plays, “on the waggon” for 2022.

To listen, head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10899683

Posted on

Bunker Of Zion brings burst of Zimbabwean joy to Bridlington tonight and tomorrow

Bunker Of Zion dancer Kudzanai Chikowe and musician Tawanda Mapanda standing on the Bridlington sea front

HOT on the heels of two work-in-progress performances of her climate-change cautionary tale The Ballad Of Blea Wyke at the Stilly Fringe last weekend, York theatre-maker, writer, spoken-word slam champion, university lecturer, poet and performer Hannah Davies is the associate artist for tonight and tomorrow’s performances of Bunker Of Zion in Bridlington.

Funded by Arts Council England, the first Collaborative Touring Network project with Arcade and The Old Courts brings a joyous and colourful celebration of Zimbabwean culture to St John’s Burlington Methodist Church at 7pm this evening and 2pm and 7pm tomorrow.

Musician, actor and performance artist John Pfumojena’s theatre piece will combine acrobatics and breakdance with a jazz and hip-hop vibe.

Hannah Davies: Associate artist for Bunker Of Zion

“Come and immerse yourself in something totally new at the Bunker; a taste of Zimbabwean theatre on your doorstep. Experience the artists’ stories through live music, dance and songs,” reads the invitation to a 60-minute performance devised by John with Kudzanai Chikowe, Tawanda Mapanda, Farai Nhakaniso and Niyi Akin. “Expect influences of jazz and hip-hop and the distinctive sounds of Zimbabwean instruments such as the mbire and marimba.”

​Arcade’s Young Women’s Creative Company members have worked with the artists to share their individual stories and talents to make the show.

Introducing Bunker Of Zion in a blog, associate artist Hannah says: “Imagine a world without creativity; no stories, no dance, no music, no art. Self-expression is forbidden, on pain of death. Then imagine a secret bunker in that world. A place where people meet illicitly, to tell their tales, dance their passions, and save their souls.

Zimbabwean musician Tawanda Mapanda, part of the Bunker Of Zion ensemble for tonight and tomorrow’s performances

“Bunker Of Zion is a performance experience created by John and his ensemble, rooted in the lived traditions and cultures of the Shona people, a vibrant explosion of music, storytelling, playfulness, and dance.”

When Hannah and the Collective met up with John, dancer Kudzanai Chikowe and musician Tawanda Mapanda for the first time, they spent time experiencing the Marimba music and learning the rhythms and dance that will define the show.

They were joined by Diana Logan, Arcade’s producer for the Bunker Of Zion project, who is a leader on Coventry University Scarborough’s Actor Training course in partnership with the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.

Bunker Of Zion dancer Kudzanai Chikowe

“Diana brought some of the course’s first graduating students along with her to join us for the sessions with John and his team,” Hannah’s blog continues.

“We all spent a joyful weekend in workshops that brought us together, clapping and dancing the Shona people’s traditional Mhande rhythm – a tempo that is used to call on higher powers and to connect with the wisdom of ancestors.

“Led by John and his ensemble, we all had fun embedding this tempo into our bodies, and though we started out with shuffling, giggling and getting claps and steps all over the place, by the end of the weekend we were all able to hold time together and move as one through the sequence.

The poster for tonight and tomorrow’s performances of Bunker Of Zion in Bridlington

“John taught us how essential rhythm is to their culture and likened the very nature of being human to a drum, the heart within us beating our life force out with every step we take through life.”

They also played playground games, an important Zimbabwean tradition. “As John said, ‘we are serious about playing’! We all worked together swapping and sharing games with Tawanda and Kudzanai while John played live music to support our running, jumping, leaping and laughing,” Hannah says.

“When you commit with full-focused intent to playing and being silly, the joyful energy you get in return is threefold, and I cannot wait to see how we bring audiences together in Bridlington to remind them of the simple life-affirming power of play.”

Musician, actor and performance artist John Pfumojena

Recognising and celebrating our lineage and passing on stories on our own terms are key themes in Bunker Of Zion. “There was time in the weekend to swap stories and consider the way that we tell them,” says Hannah.

“The Shona people’s culture is an oral tradition, which means that storytelling and narrative is truly sacred. When stories are oppressed and silenced, the culture is destroyed. Whose story we tell, how we tell it, when, how and why, are all important factors within the imagined world of the bunker.

“In the workshop we shared snapshots, fragments and moments from our own ancestry, and thinking about how we celebrate and engage with stories and traditions from other cultures was a powerful way to end the weekend.”

All three performances tonight and tomorrow have sold out.

Kudzanai Chikowe dancing on the Bridlington sea front
Posted on

Beat that! The Shakers celebrate Sixties’ Liverpool sound in This Is Merseybeat musical at Joseph Rowntree Theatre

The Shakers: The band fronting the Liverpool musical This Is Merseybeat, featuring York musician Kevin Benson on bass

BEAT City Productions’ nostalgic Liverpool musical This Is Merseybeat heads back to the 1960s at at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, on August 6.

This vibrant celebration of all things Merseybeat features the Cavern Club’s resident Merseybeat combo since 2006, The Shakers, whose line-up includes York resident Kevin Benson on bass and vocals.

Every weekend he travels over the Pennines for their regular Shakin’ Sunday slot at the world-famous Liverpool club, in addition to playing their many other gigs around Britain and abroad.

This Is Merseybeat was devised, written and produced by Liverpool musician, actor and The Shakers founder Tony O’Keefe, building momentum around the North West since its Southport debut in 2018 until the pandemic intervened.

Billed as “Merseyside’s foremost beat combo around today”, The Shakers have shared a stage with Liverpool legends The Searchers and the late Gerry Marsden, as well as backing Sixties’ stars Tommy Roe, Chris Montez and Elvis Presley’s guitarist, James Burton, and performing with Hamburg legend Tony Sheridan at the Lennon Remembered concert at the Liverpool Echo Arena.

Add to that list such Merseybeat alumni as The Searchers’ Mike Pender; The Merseybeats’ Billy Kinsley; The Hollies’ Terry Sylvester; The Swinging Blue Jeans’ Ray Ennis; The Mojos’ Nick Crouch; the late Undertakers frontman Geoff Nugent; The Big Three’s Brian Griffiths; Kingsize Taylor; Karl Terry; Beryl Marsden and Lee Curtis.

For This Is Merseybeat, they will be joined by guest artists Neil Ainsby as Gerry Marsden and Sophie Irene, stepping in at short notice to cover the Cilla Black role. Liverpool actor Paul Codman will be the host.

The poster for This Is Merseybeat’s visit to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre on August 6

“It’s very much a celebration, not only of Liverpool but also of the man who was the architect of the Merseybeat boom, Brian Epstein,” says Tony O’Keefe. “Uniquely, every song in the show was performed by a Liverpool Sixties’ artist and showcases the city’s world-beating musical heritage like no other touring production today.”

Here is Tony’s synopsis of the show. “It’s 1962 and there’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on in a backstreet beat cellar in Liverpool called the Cavern Club. This is Merseybeat, the Sixties’ sound of Liverpool, from the depths of Number 10, Mathew Street.

“The ‘Beat Boom’ starts here and during the next two years ‘Merseymania’ rules the world! You will hear the big Mersey Sound hits, classic Cavern stompers and a shot of rhythm & blues, with just a little rock’n’roll on the side, just for good measure, from The Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Searchers, Cilla Black, The Swinging Blue Jeans, The Merseybeats, The Big Three and many more. It’s the beat that’s hard to beat!”

Tony continues: “Merseybeat was the bedrock of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and the key that opened the door for the British Beat Boom in 1963 and the worldwide British Invasion of 1964 with The Beatles leading the way.

“As our story unfolds, you will experience the birth of the beat in the Cavern Club right up to the ‘Merseymania’ hit parade years, when Liverpool established its formidable status as top of the pops!”

Next Saturday’s audience is invited to “experience the ‘Benzedrine beat’ up close and personal, in all its savage glory, with Liverpool’s premier beat merchants, The Shakers, as this fab beat combo perform the hits, misses, B-sides and lost classics from the golden age of Merseybeat with a passion and energy not seen since the heady days of the Sixties’ beat boom”.

“Our ethos is based around the early Sixties when beat music was at its most exciting, so don’t expect anything past 1965,” says Tony.

Tickets for this 7.30pm show are on sale at £18 on 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Posted on

REVIEW: Grainger & Wright in The Gods The Gods The Gods, Stilly Fringe, At The Mill, Stillington, tonight at 8.45pm ****

Alexander Flanagan Wright, left, Phil Grainger and Megan Drury in The Gods The Gods The Gods

WHY call this Wright & Grainger show The Gods The Gods The Gods, rather than plain old The Gods?

“A lot of things come in threes and a lot of things in this show fall naturally into threes,” reasons Alexander Flangan Wright, the Wright to Phil Grainger’s Grainger in this enduring Easingwold partnership.

“It’s one of those powerful numbers: a triad, with the three of us telling the story.” Make that Grainger & Wright & Drury, the trio being completed by Megan Drury, Australian actor, blues singer, writer, creative artists and dramaturg – oh, and newly married to Alex too.

The Gods The Gods Gods is the third in the trilogy of myth, music and spoken word shows by Grainger & Wright, premiered in a Covid-curtailed Australian visit in 2020 and now following Orpheus and Eurydice into open-air performances under the sails at Stillington Mill, near York.

The Gods X 3 will be heading indoors at the Edinburgh Fringe, with lighting pyrotechnics re-booted in the Assembly Rooms’ Bijou tent from August 3 to 29, when this dancier variation on gig theatre will carry the warnings: “Audience participation, Involves walking, Strobe lighting, Strong language/swearing”.

Saturday night was rather more informal, Alex, Phil and Megan testing out their hi-tech electronic requirements, spread out in a triangle of stations of equipment, as the audience gathered on the banks of seating. “Still not the show,” Alex would say, as another adjustment was made.

Such is the nature of a Fringe warm-up and of a first performance in this al-fresco iteration minus the probing strobe lighting. It was all very much in keeping with the spirit of At The Mill, where theatrical magic is made on the hoof, aided by Abbigail Ollive’s pizzas adding culinary pizzazz to the occasion and cocktails playing on the tongue.

Still doing the Maths, The Gods The Gods The Gods is in fact four, not three, stories, spread over 11 original musical tracks arranged by Grainger and Tom Figgins. They are stories of faith and loss of faith; love and loss of love; faith in anything but religious faith; false gods and new gods; a search for holy ground or finding heaven on earth. All set against a final council of the old Gods, Zeus and co, gathering at the end of days.

As Wright elucidated at the close, they are stories grown freshly from the seeds of Kae Tempest, Walt Whitman and David Whyte (Finisterre), and the messages on 28 signs posted on London’s Millennium Bridge, read by Alex and Megan as they crossed over between  St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern, the towers of God and gallery, religion and art, that now do battle in The Gods The Gods The Gods.

Phil plays guitar and sings mightily yet tenderly, a Yorkshireman as soulful as Joe Cocker and John Newman; Megan throws shapes and switches between heartfelt spoken word and blues singing that brings out the bruises; Alex plays bass and percussion and spins words of dazzling rhythm, breath-taking in their imagery and rapper’s speed. All three tap away at technology too, evoking Kraftwerk.

Grainger & Wright promised a big, loud, bopping night in the garden – and delivered exactly that. In every way it is the biggest show of the trilogy; the spoken word now complemented by a broader musical palette that combines classic songwriting tropes and lyricism with dancefloor pulses and electronic flash to induce a state of euphoria.  

Alas, more Gods than advertised played their hand as the night darkened: the Weather Gods raining on the parade – and all that technology – with one story yet to be completed. Suddenly, the night “involved walking” as we were ushered to the café bar, where Wright gave a resumé of the closing chapters, finishing with that inspirational walk across the London bridge. Trouble at The Mill? Not when they can improvise like that.

An album is in the offing too, and that won’t be in the lap – or laptop- of the Gods, the Gods, the Gods.

Holly Beasley-Garrigan in Opal Fruits, tonight at 7pm

THE Stilly Fringe presents Opal Fruits, Holly Beasley-Garrigan’s solo show about class, nostalgia and five generations of women from a London council estate in South London, tonight at 7pm; Casey Jay Andrews’ The Wild Unfeeling World, a tender, furious and fragile re-imagining of Moby Dick, and A Place That belongs To Monsters, a re-imagining of The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, tomorrow at 7pm and 8.45pm respectively.

Lucy Bird, originally from Ampleforth, heads back north with her Birmingham company Paperback Theatre for an “utterly Brummie” re-telling of The Wind In The Willows on July 30 at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.

Yoshika Colwell returns to The Mill for the Stilly Fringe finale, Invisible Mending, her exploration of the power in small acts of creativity through original music, metaphysics and verbatim material, in collaboration with Second Body’s Max Barton, on July 31 at 7pm.

For tickets, head to atthemill.org.

Posted on

Like father, like daughter, as Richard and Chantal Barnes return to York for According To McGee’s farewell to Tower Street show UPDATED 29/07/2022

Golden Memory Of York, by Richard Barnes, at According To McGee

AFTER 17 years, York contemporary gallery According To McGee is to close its Tower Street doors in September.

Acomb husband and wife and business duo Greg and Ails McGee are looking forward to the next stage but in the meantime they are “ready to go out with an incendiary confetti of contemporary collectibles”, as Greg puts it.

“Every chapter comes to an end,” says Ails, “And before we launch Part Two, we thought let’s finish our tenure at Tower Street by going full circle. We started back in 2005 with a Richard Barnes show, and I had just finished teaching his daughter Chantal Barnes as an A-Level student at Huntington School.

“Chantal is now an internationally sought-after artist and has work appearing in Vogue magazine, while Richard has retired from teaching art at Bootham School and is now a full-time painter after moving south from York.” 

Richard Barnes delivers the new Barnes + Barnes collections to the According To McGee curatorial team, Nell Bannister and Rhys Davies Brackett

Barnes at the double opened over the weekend. “This is a victory lap for us,” says Greg. “We are in many ways going back to our source with Richard’s York cityscapes, but the art scene in York has changed so much, and the paintings of both Barneses are now so collectible, that though we’re tipping the hat to our first exhibition, we’re much more excited about the here and now.

“The York that Richard paints feels very contemporary, very now, and the idiosyncratic vigour with which Chantal pushes paint around is a wholly new visual idea.”

Richard moved to “just north of London” a little over a year ago. “Both my daughters had had babies – on the same day in the same hospital! – and we were going up and down the country to see them,” he says, explaining the move south.

“I also think the experience of lockdown made us think about moving, giving me a new challenge of building a studio in the back garden. That’s been an exciting adventure, building it from scratch, with views out over the Chilterns.

“I’ve always thought of York as this incredibly exceptional place, and I’ve tried to make it magical in my paintings,” says Richard Barnes. Witness Magical Monk Bar, one of his new works at According To McGee

“It’s my absolute dream, having had all those experiences of painting for so long. I’ve designed it just right for painting big paintings – it’s like the length of a New York loft, but it’s not a warehouse! – and I’m able to paint paintings up to 16ft by 8ft.”

All Richard’s works on show are being exhibited for the first time, some developed from initial drawings in lockdown, some painted since leaving the city. “During lockdown, I was still in York. When it was completely empty, I’d walk into York city centre in the early morning, around six o’clock, and set up by the Minster,” he says.

“It was the most remarkable experience, where you could even hear the echo from the Minster walls of the birds flying by. It was like walking on an empty beach; a sensation you don’t ever experience in York.

“Painting by the Minster at that time made you much more aware that you were only there in this world for a brief moment, but the Minster had been there forever. That was a big influence on me wanting to do one last York hurrah, even though the paintings are in the same style as before.”

“The idiosyncratic vigour with which Chantal Barnes pushes paint around is a wholly new visual idea,” says According To McGee co-director Greg McGee

Richard still feels the magnetic pull of York. “There’s that yearning for a place when you leave, and I’m like that about York,” he says. “When I go back to do some drawings, I feel so drawn to it, having spent most of my artistic life there.

“I’ve always thought of York as this incredibly exceptional place, and I’ve tried to make it magical in my paintings. Leaving York has made it feel even more so. Getting there takes less than two hours on the train, and it’s now like a place of memory for me.  Because I’ve painted it so often, I wanted to capture that in one last exhibition for Greg and Ails.”

Greg looks back fondly over the McGees’ Tower Street years, not least Richard’s impact. “Richard really helped to galvanise our business plan back in 2005, which was at that point a general desire to exhibit exciting art. He helped distil that down into an irreducible manifesto.

“Go primarily for paintings, paintings that are instantly recognisable as being from the McGee stable. Grab the attention of passers-by, paint the gallery front yellow, which, although a Choir of Vision inception, had its roots in the initial vision Richard helped us shape.

Chantal Barnes at work on a painting

“Since then, we’ve exhibited Elaine Thomas CBE; Dave Pearson; ska legend Horace Panter, of The Specials. We’ve had exhibitions officially opened by Sir Ian Botham, when we launched art from Dubai celebrity artist Jim Wheat; 1960s’ painter and friend of The Beatles Doug Binder has had solo shows here.

“It’s been a wild and fulfilling ride here, opposite York’s most recognisable landmark [Clifford’s Tower], but the time has come to leave the building, and we’re doing it in style with Barnes + Barnes.”

Contemporary Painting: Barnes + Barnes’ straddles According To McGee’s past as gallerists but looks forward too. “As an exhibition, it transcends this building, and so we’ll be ready to run it again in the future,” vows Greg.

“Where that will be, we can’t yet say, but that unpredictability, with the liberty and excitement that come with it, was the reason we got into running an art gallery in the first place. This exhibition reflects that. As soon as Chapter II emerges over the horizon, we’ll let you know.”

In turn keen to praise the McGees – who started their gallery under the name of The ArtSpace – Richard says: “Greg and Ails have made an exceptional contribution to the city’s contemporary art scene.

Greg and Ails McGee: One chapter is closing for According To McGee but another will open

“York is often seen through a traditional lens, but they have taken a bold approach by exhibiting all sorts of artists, and their first reason for exhibiting any artist hasn’t been for commercial potential but because they loved the work.

“They have taken that risk, and for someone to do that, to just say ‘let’s give this a go’, has made a huge impact on York’s art world. They could easily have played to the tourists, but they have steadfastly not done that.

“They’ve given so many artists a show who have gone on to be very successful. They always look to support artists, and because they’re very independent minded they don’t seek Arts Council backing, but artists reciprocate their support by wanting to exhibit there.”

Daughter Chantal is one such artist. Born and bred in York, she attended Huntington School, where her art teacher just happened to be a certain Ails McGee. “She really loved the vibe of the art department,” recalls Richard.

“She then studied Fine Art, Film and Television at Aberystwyth, graduating with a First, and supported her travels around the world with her painting, before becoming a successful television producer.

Artwork from the Barnes + Barnes exhibition by Chantal Barnes

“But during lockdown she realised she wanted to commit more fully to painting, and winning a prize at a North York Moors National Park exhibition [at the Inspired By…Gallery in Danby] encouraged her even more.”

Chantal began to paint abstract works to complement her landscapes and portraiture. “She’s been influenced by her experiences in North Yorkshire, painting the coast, and she’s had plenty of success in London, working with galleries and doing commissions, and in the States too,” says Richard,

“Her studio is very near mine and now our relationship is not just being her dad but being another artist too. The nice thing is that we can go to exhibitions together [in London] and she’s really in tune with much more contemporary work!”

For Barnes + Barnes, they have painted one work together of Wast Water in the Lake District. “The reason we chose there was because we did a joint exhibition with my mother in aid of Water Relief in Africa, and my mother had painted Wast Water for that show,” says Richard.

“As a tribute to her, Chantal and I went back to Wast Water to paint from the same viewpoint. We were hoping for one of those glorious, beautiful, sun-lit Lakes days, but it was one of those equally glorious, dark but spectacularly gloomy days!”

Seek out the resulting painting in Contemporary Painting: Barnes + Barnes, running at According To McGee, Tower Street, York, until Sunday, September 25.

Greg and Ails McGee stand beside the bright yellow facade they introduced to According To McGee in 2018

 

Posted on

Who was the Coppergate Woman? Kate Hampson prepares to put flesh on Viking bones in Theatre Royal community play

Shrouded in mystery: Shrouded in mystery: Kate Hampson prepares to tell the Coppergate Woman’s story at York Theatre Royal

REHEARSING the lead role in York Theatre Royal’s summer community production can be lonely for Kate Hampson.

“On a morning rehearsal, it’s usually just been me and the directors,” says Kate, the only professional in Juliet Forster and John R Wilkinson’s cast of 90 for Maureen Lennon’s epic storytelling drama The Coppergate Woman.

This is partly because the York actor and yoga enthusiast had to play catch-up. “I’ve stepped into rehearsals when you don’t want to feel like you’re on the back foot, but Juliet and John have done a great job in integrating me after the community cast started a while before me and had already formed various scenes. My task has been to think, ‘how do I enhance those scenes?’.”

Fostering a love of theatre from the age of eight and trained in theatre, film and television at York St John University and clowning at the Utrecht School of Arts, Kate has performed for Northern Broadsides, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Oldham Coliseum and Hull Truck Theatre, playing Mother and Mrs Perks in The Railway Children last winter, but The Coppergate Woman will mark two firsts.

Kate Hampson in rehearsal for The Coppergate Woman

“I’m working with a community cast for the first time,” she says. “There’s a little bit of pressure there; it’s a challenge, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say there was a feeling of it being daunting, but everyone has been really supportive and it’s been exhilarating to work with so many people. I think it’s perfect that a play all about the community has been cast from the community.”

Despite living in York for 27 years, Huddersfield-born Kate has never performed on the Theatre Royal’s main-house stage. “I did some work on a New Playwrights project, doing play readings with Damian [former artistic director Damian Cruden], but that was in the Studio, so Saturday will be my first time,” she says.

She will be keeping it in the family, however, as her husband, fellow professional actor Julian Kay [from the  Kay family of York lawyers] has graced that stage, performing in pantomimes.

Kate took a ten-year break from the stage to focus on bringing up their two children (son Arthur, 14, who has taken his first steps as an actor in Doctor Who and Brassic, and daughter Elsie, 12).

York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, left, and The Coppergate Woman playright Maureen Lennon with Jorvik Viking Centre’s model of the Coppergate Woman

“I admire actors who do continue to work in theatre when they have a young family, but with both Julian and I doing theatre professionally, it just felt that wasn’t possible,” she says.

“In those ten years off stage, I did some TV and commercials, and if you’re lucky enough the corporate world will sustain you. I love theatre but with young children, they’re the priority.”

The Railway Children at Hull Truck was a joyous return. “It’s lovely to be back in theatre, playing to live audiences, working with people in the business again,” says Kate.

From Saturday, she will be experiencing that excitement again, playing the title role in The Coppergate Woman, Maureen Lennon’s story that puts the flesh on the bones of a woman whose remains were found near the River Foss and are now exhibited under glass at the Jorvik Viking Centre.

“That’s another pressure. To do her justice, this woman who had family, friends, a job, and you want to recognise that sensitively,” says Kate Hampson of playing the Coppergate Woman

“What we know from history is that she was either Norwegian or northern Scottish and you can tell from her teeth that she’d eaten a lot of herring,” says Kate.

“So, you make choices from that. Is she Scandinavian, is she northern? We’re identifying her as Yorkshire; we know she came to York in her teens. It’s curious to think about what her accent would have sounded like, and I guess we can’t really know, so you just have to decide.”

Kate was familiar with the Coppergate Woman from the many visits she undertook to Jorvik with her children. “I felt like we were almost on speaking terms as we went there so frequently. At one point, the children kept wanting to go every weekend!” she recalls.

In Lennon’s play, the Coppergate Woman vacates her Jorvik resting place to venture into “crisis-hit modern-day York”. “Maureen weaves post-Covid stories into the play, when there’s still a hangover from such challenging times,” says Kate. “She also weaves in more Norse myths and legends and stories of everyday York folk today.

“My task has been to think, ‘how do I enhance those scenes?”, says Kate Hampson, after joining rehearsals for The Coppergate Woman with the community cast’s preparations already well under way

“Ultimately, it’s all about storytelling, connecting  and communicating, and how we collaborate with each other. It’s a play about hope and how we need to come together for our future.”

At the core of that play is the Coppergate Woman, as portrayed by Kate. “It’s a privilege to be playing a real person – wondering what she looked like, what she thought and what her origins were. You want to honour her, as you would with any real person you play,” she says.

“That’s another pressure. To do her justice, this woman who had family, friends, a job, and you want to recognise that sensitively – and Maureen has done that in her writing.

“I listened to a podcast about the Coppergate Woman, where they looked at historical artefacts, and then historians created her life from that, but not just one life, but various options. Maureen listed to that podcast too and chose the play’s path from that.”

Kate Hampson looks forward to performing on York Theatre Royal’s main-house stage for the first time

Summing up The Coppergate Woman, Kate says: “For me it’s about Norse legends and myths, and though Norse gods are usually imposing figures, the Coppergate Woman is a real woman who existed, and it’s important to see her as a human that the audience can connect with.

“We know very little about her, but we’re trying to get the essence of her, and that’s why you have to ground her in a real person.”

Championing York Theatre Royal’s passion for staging community theatre productions, Kate concludes: “It’s become a tradition here, and one the management wants to continue as the Theatre Royal were leading lights in establishing such shows. It’s a real testament to the theatre’s commitment that so soon after the Covid lockdowns, they’re mounting a play on such a scale.

“It’s remarkable how so many people want to give so much time to make a drama together, telling stories of York.”

The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal, July 30 to August 7 (no shows on July 31 and August 1). Performances: 7.30pm, July 30, August 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; 2.30pm, August 6 and 7. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

Posted on

Oysterband pick Pocklington Arts Centre for northern showcase for Read The Sky

Oysterband: BBC Folk Award winners heading for Pocklington

OYSTERBAND will play Pocklington Arts Centre on November 24 in the only northern gig confirmed in their 2022 diary.

Formed in Canterbury in 1976, the veteran six-piece still perform with that spirit of the punk ceilidh band that roared through people’s lives all those years ago, but the growing depth and sensitivity of their songwriting, coupled with the strength of John Jones’s voice and their musicianship, has lifted their folk and roots music into a richer, more acoustic arena.

Songs from the five-time BBC Folk Award winners’ latest album, Read The Sky, are sure to feature in their autumn set. Released in March, it prompted Mojo’s reviewer to enthuse, “they tackle their task with rare urgency and valour, John Jones’s voice still magnificent, and the tough arrangements and musical barrage around him delivered with blistering gusto”, while Folk London deemed it to be “a soundtrack of our times”.

Pocklington Arts Centre manager Dave Parker says: “Our stage is certainly no stranger to welcoming legends from the world of folk music, and Oysterband are no exception. With this being one of only a handful of UK tour dates coming up this year, and their only northern date for 2022 so far, this really is your chance to catch a phenomenal live gig by an amazing band within the intimate surroundings of our auditorium. I wouldn’t want to miss this opportunity.”

Tickets for this 8pm gig are on sale at £24.50 on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

The artwork for Oysterband’s March 2022 album, Read The Sky
Proudly powered by WordPress