DEMENTIA Friendly Tea Concerts re-start at St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, on Thursday afternoon after a two-year hiatus.
Alison Gammon, clarinet, and Robert Gammon, piano, will be giving the concert programme first planned for March 2020 but ruled out by the first Covid-19 lockdown.
“We are excited to be doing the Saint-Saëns clarinet sonata and the lovely Fantasy Pieces by the Danish composer Niels Gade,” says Alison. “As March 17 is St Patrick’s Day, we felt that an Irish composer should be represented too, so Robert will play two Nocturnes by John Field that will make a serene interlude.”
The 2.30pm event resumes the established format of 45 minutes of classical music, followed by tea, coffee and homemade cakes. “This relaxed concert is ideal for people who may not feel comfortable at a formal classical concert, so we don’t mind if the audience wants to talk or move about,” says Alison.
“Seating is unreserved and there’s no charge, although donations are welcome. We give the hire cost to the church and the rest goes to Alzheimer’s charities.”
In addition to a small car park at the church, street parking is available along Campleshon Road. Wheelchair access to St Chad’s is via the church hall.
THE Chapter House Choir performs two choral masterpieces, Bach’s motet Komm, Jesu, Komm and Victoria’s 1605 Requiem, at St Olave’s Church, Marygate, York, on Saturday.
The 7.30pm programme will be directed by Benjamin Morris, assistant director of music at York Minster. Tickets are on sale at chapterhousechoir.org or on the door.
Jonathan Hanley: Soloist for the role of the Evangelist
YORKSHIRE Bach Choir and Yorkshire Baroque Soloists perform Bach’s St John Passion at St Lawrence Parish Church, Lawrence Street, York, on Saturday.
“The Passio Secundum Johannem may be Bach’s most inherently dramatic passion setting,” says conductor Peter Seymour. “Telling the story of Christ’s sacrifice, it also offers a celebration of human feeling in evoking the joy and suffering of man’s pilgrimage on Earth.
“The vivid, colourful playing of the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists will be joined by outstanding solo interpreters of the roles of Evangelist and Christus.”
Jonathan Hanley, who will be the Evangelist, says: “It’s wonderful to be back with the Yorkshire Bach Choir, singing my favourite of Bach’s works with Peter at the helm, who taught me so much about how to perform and love the great composer.”
Stephan Loges, who will be Christus, says: “I have many fond memories of wonderful concerts and a special recording of Bach’s St John Passion with Peter Seymour and the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists. To finally be able to return to Yorkshire Bach Choir and live music-making with Bach’s masterpiece and renew old friendships will be true joy.”
Tickets cost £25, concessions £23, students £5, at ncem.co.uk or on the door.
2,000 shows and counting: Kristian Lavercombe, as Riff Raff, far right, clocks up another milestone in The Rocky Horror Show on its return to York . Picture: David Freeman
LET’S do The Time Warp again? It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to right, to enjoy plenty more of Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations.
Fancy dress invitation of the week: Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday
KRISTIAN Lavercombe celebrates his 2,000th performance as Riff Raff as Richard O’Brien’s 1973 musical extravaganza enjoys yet another York run.
Alongside Lavercombe in Christopher Luscombe’s touring production will be 2016 Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba as preppy college nerd Brad Majors, Haley Flaherty as squeaky-clean fiancée Janet Weiss and Stephen Webb as castle-dwelling Transylvanian transsexual doctor Frank-N-Furter.
Cue fabulously camp fun and even camper costumes, shlock-horror comedy and science-fiction send-ups, audiences in fancy dress and sassy songs such as Sweet Transvestite, Science Fiction/Double Feature and The Time-Warp singalong. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
New Beverly Cinema, by Imogen Hawgood, at According To McGee, York
Exhibition launch of the week: Imogen Hawgood and Horace Panter, Hyperrealism in America and Japan, at According To McGee, Tower Street, York, from 11am today until March 25
NEW According To McGee signing Imogen Hawgood, from County Durham, introduces her collection of realist paintings in a duo show with Pop artist and Ska legend Horace Panter, The Specials’ bassist.
Panter’s Edward Hopper-inspired depictions of Midwest motels, inner-lit Japanese kiosks and sun-warmed Coca-Cola crates complement Hawgood’s exploration of Americana icons and the idea of “the road” as a transitional landscape.
The vampire strikes back: Steve Steinman’s Baron von Rockula with his vampettes in Vampires Rock – Ghost Story
Rock horror show: Steve Steinman’s Vampires Rock – Ghost Train, Grand Opera House, York, tonight (12/3/2022), 7.30pm
NOTTINGHAM singer and producer Steve Steinman returns to York with his tongue-in-cheek show stacked high with rock anthems, guitar gods and vampy vampettes.
Steinman’s Baron von Rockula and his vampires take refuge in an old fairground’s ghost train as he seeks a new virginial wife after the death of his beloved Pandora. Ordering faithful sidekick Bosley to find him one, enter Roxy Honeybox.
Now in its 20th year, Vampires Rock sets a cast of singers, dancers and musicians loose on Queen, AC/DC, Bonnie Tyler, Meat Loaf, Bon Jovi, Journey and Guns N’ Roses chestnuts. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Glenn Tilbrook: Squeezing in hit after hit at The Crescent
York gig of the week: Glenn Tilbrook, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
THIS is a standing show…and an outstanding one too as endearing and enduring Deptford singer, songwriter, guitarist and troubadour Glenn Tilbrook makes his debut appearance at The Crescent.
More than 45 years after he first answered an ad placed by Chris Difford looking for like-minded sorts to form the band that became the evergreen Squeeze, an ending is nowhere in sight, even if he called his fourth solo album Happy Ending in 2014. Expect silver-tongued Squeeze and solo numbers, peppered with audience requests, tomorrow night.
Squeeze up, by the way, because this Gig Cartel-promoted gig has sold out. Fingers crossed for any returns (www.thecrescentyork.com), but otherwise you’re really up the junction for a ticket.
Alexander McCall Smith: Delving into his books at York Theatre Royal
Literary event of the week: Alexander McCall Smith, York Theatre Royal, Monday, 7.30pm
YORK Literature Festival plays host to Alexander McCall Smith as he discusses the new instalment in his long-running Scotland Street series, the warm-hearted, humorous and wise Love In The Time Of Bertie.
Fiona Lindsay pops the questions, intertwined with footage shot on location in Edinburgh, wherein McCall Smith invites guests into his study, where he writes surrounded by paintings and books, and visits key landmarks from the books.
The festival follows from March 18 to 27 with full details at yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
NOT Thu 17 March 2022 after all: It’s different for Joe Jackson now as York gig moves to the summer
Postponement of the week: Joe Jackson, Sing, You Sinners! Tour, York Barbican, moving from March 17 to July 29
BLAME Covid for this delay to only the second ever York concert of singer, songwriter and consummate arranger Joe Jackson’s 44-year career.
“After months of uncertainty, it finally became clear that continuing Covid restrictions (particularly on venue capacity) in certain countries, would make our Spring European Tour un-viable as planned,” says Jackson’s official statement. “We can’t tour at a loss, and the situation did not look like changing soon enough.”
Tickets remain valid for the new July 29 date when Jackson promises hits, songs not aired in years and new material. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Sam Freeman: Thirty years of love burst out of his storytelling show in Harrogate and York
Storytelling show of the week: Sam Freeman, Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention), Cold Bath Brewery Co Clubhouse, Harrogate, Monday, 7.30pm; York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm
FORMER York Theatre Royal marketing officer and 2009 TakeOver Festival co-director Sam Freeman heads back to his old stamping ground with his solo rom-com for the lonely hearted and the loved-up, armed with a projector, a notebook, wonky spectacles and nods to Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill.
Freeman, marketeer, occasional writer, director and stand-up comedian, combines storytelling and whimsical northern comedy in his multi-layered story of a chance encounter between two soulmates, how they fall in love, then part but may meet again. Box office: Harrogate, harrogatetheatre.co.uk; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
For Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers’ interview with podcast special guest Sam Freeman, head to the Two Big Egos In A Small Car listening link at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10231399.
Off to the woods: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It
Shaking up Shakespeare: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Tuesday to Saturday; York Theatre Royal, March 23 to 26
MARKING Northern Broadsides’ 30th anniversary, artistic director Laurie Sansom’s diverse cast of 12 northern actors captures the “sheer joy of live performance and the crazy power of love to change the world” in his bold, refreshing take on Shakespeare’s most musical comedy.
Exiled from the court, high-spirited Rosalind, devoted cousin Celia and drag queen Touchstone encounter outlaws, changing seasons and life unconfined by rigid codes in the forest.
Gender roles dissolve and assumptions are turned on their head in a natural world of endless possibilities. Box office: Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Lola May as daughter Aramide, Oyi Oriya as mother Omotola and Anni Domingo as grandmother Agbeke in Utopia Theatre’s Here’s What She Said To Me
Touring show of the week: Utopia Theatre in Here’s What She Said To Me, York Theatre Royal Studio, Thursday and Friday, 7.45pm
MEET Agbeke, Omotola and Aramide, three generations of proud African women connecting with each other across two continents, time and space, in Oladipo Agboluaje’s distaff drama, conceived and directed by York St John University graduate Mojisola Elufowoju.
Together the women share their struggles, their joys, tragedies and broken dreams, in order to find healing in the present. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Joanna Holden’s Mrs Snowball and Adrian Hood’s Our Seth
71 Coltman Street, Hull Truck Theatre, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 01482 323638 or at hulltruck.co.uk.
HULL Truck was not formed in a van – that came a little later – but a squat in Coltman Street in 1971, founded by actor-musician Mike Bradwell when unable to find work.
“I wanted to be nuisance,” said Bradwell, a firebrand iconoclast who sought to make theatre about, by and for real people. Even the left-leaning, arts-championing Guardian met his scorn.
To kick start Hull Truck’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2022, artistic director Mark Babych asked Hull playwright and film writer Richard Bean to tell the story of those Coltman Street revolutionary beginnings.
The result is a “riotous new comedy” from the ever-irreverent Bean, a former stand-up and psychologist with a love of people showing two fingers to – or at least challenging – authority and the status quo, be it Francis Henshall in One Man, Two Guvnors or Kempton Bunton in the newly released film The Duke.
Bean did extensive research for 71 Coltman Street, interviewing Bradwell and fellow hippy-haired revolutionaries, and what appears on stage is a fusion of the truth and the not-so-true but you wish it were, matched by the songs of Richard Thomas (of Jerry Springer: The Opera notoriety).
Sara Perks’s set design is an open-plan lay-out of the freezing-cold 71 Coltman Street, where Bradwell (Kieran Knowles) and his fellow unemployed actors burn furniture to keep warm. Guitars, drums and a piano, sofas, cushions and theatre posters fill the room, where they improvise a play with no name, no plot, no budget and no bookings. Their phone is the nearest Hull white phone box.
There are two forms of funding theatre, says Bradwell: Arts Council support or, in their case, social security, and Hull is the perfect place to be “looking for work” and setting up a theatre company because there are no jobs. Whereas, don’t sign on in Stratford-upon-Avon, he advises.
Played by Babych’s actor-musicians, in the pioneering company are Linda (Lauryn Redding), Bradwell’s girlfriend; up-for-anything Manchester lad Stew (Laurie Jamieson) and knows-everything-but-rather-charming, public school-educated Julian (Jordan Metcalfe). Enter Bea (Hanna Khogali), newly up from Oxford.
Bradwell encourages, nay, demands, that they take on the guise of potential characters for plays, when on the streets, for research purposes, be it Stew’s comedic Italian Dave, Julian’s vicar, Bea’s thief with a troubled past or Linda’s former hippie.
As if 71 Coltman Street were not already ripe with characters, Bean serves up two caricatures of chaotic comic delight: no-nonsense, leather-tongued landlady Mrs Snowball (Joanne Holden), who holds no truck with theatre luvvieness, and her equally blunt, not-all-there son, Our Seth (Adrian Hood), first encountered bringing a huge dead dog into the flat. Can two people scene-steal the same scenes? Oh, yes they can.
Another Hull Truck favourite, Matthew Booth, is more low key in his cameos, but you will particularly enjoy his Hell’s Angel, Daz, delivering frozen fish and a nonsensical story.
Bean’s celebrates the character of Hull itself, just as it drew Philip Larkin and John Godber to the coastal city, and he captures the world of making performances brilliantly too, not least in a scene that draws on Lee Strasberg’s workshop techniques.
71 Coltman Street is long and yet it flies by, constantly on the move, adding more characters, building momentum, passing social comment and showing all sides of Bradwell.
Bean spears all things 1971, from flares to a raucous, coarse Hull Truck cabaret night at the Hull & East Riding Institute for the Blind, audience bingo et al, before a climactic performance of debut play Naked turns into a sideshow for Mrs Snowball and Our Seth.
Thomas’s rough and ready songs add to the comic mayhem, and whatever is thrown at them by Bean, from agit-prop drama to cabaret, satirical comedy to Ortonesque farce, Babych’s cast are terrific, especially Knowles’s grouchy but resolute Bradwell and Metcalfe’s Julian, winding him up so unintentionally.
The Covid curse put paid to last week’s performances, but undaunted, in an echo of Bradwell’s pioneers, the bloody-minded Hull Truck spirit has prevailed.
TWO Big Egos In A Small Car podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson look back on the life and wild times, the bands and the books, of Seattle singer, songsmith and writer Mark Lanegan.
Under discussion too in Episode 80 are Bielsa’s Leeds legacy; Sonita Gale’s Hostile immigration documentary, plus The Wedding Present and Ukrainian music in Leeds.
Becky Gee, curator of fine art for York Museums Trust, at the launch of the Beyond Bloomsbury exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham, courtesy of York Museums Trust
BEYOND Bloomsbury: Life, Love & Legacy, the spring exhibition at York Art Gallery, explores the extraordinary lives and work of the Bloomsbury Group of writers, artists and thinkers.
Active in England in the first half of the 20th century, the amorphous but amorous group met for 30 years, but with their unconventional lifestyles, bohemian airs and smart London and southern country addresses, they have since drawn opprobrium for their elitism as much as praise for the artistic acuity, audacity and intellect of writer and feminist pioneer Virginia Woolf, her sister, painter Vanessa Bell, and their contemporaries.
Acerbic New York satirist, poet, writer and critic Dorothy Parker famously drew on geometric imagery to say the prolific, passionate and hugely gifted group “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”.
Now, Beyond Bloomsbury finds a different angle, telling the story of not only the artists, but also the group’s writers, dancers, activists and philanthropists, as York Art Gallery and exhibition partners Sheffield Museums and the National Portrait Gallery showcase 60 major loans of oil paintings, sculpture, drawings and by Bell, Dora Carrington, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Gwen Raverat and Ray Strachey.
Alongside them are four new portraits by Sahara Longe, commissioned by York Museums Trust and Sheffield Museums to respond to the Bloomsbury Group and the exhibition themes.
Becky Gee, curator of fine art at York Museums Trust, says: “We proposed a show at York Art Gallery to the National Portrait Gallery in 2019, and when they said they were looking for a gallery to tour it to too, that’s when Sheffield Museums became involved, and we worked closely together on the research.
“The exhibition should have opened here, but then Covid intervened, so Sheffield hosted it first at the Millennium Gallery.”
York Art Gallery staff take in the expanse of Lydia Caprani’s expansive mural wall at the Beyond Bloomsbury exhibition. Picture: Charlotte Graham, courtesy of York Museums Trust
Now, for the York run, Bloomsbury-inspired murals and fireplaces by graphic artist Lydia Caprani have been added, while Caprani has worked collaboratively with York LGBT Forum and Kyra Women’s Group to create decorative pieces to complement the Bloomsbury works.
“The reason I proposed this show is that, firstly, I knew the National Portrait Gallery had a strong holding of Bloomsbury Group artworks, offering the chance to equally profile the work of men and women: highlighting women’s art, women’s histories,” says Becky.
“Because of the nature of the portraits, we could tell the stories of writers, dancers and activists, as well the artists.”
Equally important to Becky was a desire “for a long time to examine how LGBT histories and women’s histories are present in our own York Art Gallery collection, whether through the artists identifying as LGBT or through the subject matter.
“I knew that the Bloomsbury Group were involved in a lot of gay relationships, so we worked with York LGBT Forum, and there’s now a permanent display on that theme.
“To make that work happen, it’s good to attach it to a bigger project and I knew that would be a way to work with the LGBT Forum.”
Explaining the reasoning behind the Sahara Longe commissions, Becky says: “I thought, it’s not good enough just to put the LGBT histories and women’s histories on show, but we should also look at how the Bloomsbury Group was not progressive in certain areas.
Roger Fry’s portrait of Edith Sitwell in the Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Love & Legacy exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham, courtesy of York Museums Trust
“It soon became apparent that the collection we were working with was not telling the full story, so to broaden that narrative, Sahara was perfect to work with.
“She studied painting at a very traditional Italian school, studying the techniques of master painters, and in her work she places Black figures in spaces traditionally filled by white portrait subjects, and luckily she thought it was right to do the portraits for this exhibition in a post-Impressionist style.”
Among Sahara’s portraits – along with novelist Mulk Raj Anand, Black queer Jamaican dancer and choreographer Berto Pasuka and Patrick Nelson, Jamaican boyfriend of Bloomsbury Group artist Duncan Grant – is the Jamaican writer and activist Una Marson, painted in oils on jute.
“She was the first Black woman to broadcast on the BBC, and as far as I’m aware, there have been no portraits of her until now. She featured in Voice, a radio series produced by Goerge Orwell for the India section on the BBC Eastern Service in 1941, and she wrote poetry and plays, as well as her radio broadcasts, many of which contributed to her feminist, anti-colonial and anti-racist actions.”
Visitors move through three galleries, the first introducing the figures associated with the Bloomsbury Group, highlighting the importance of personal relationships, conversation and the privilege of time and space wherein to pursue creative practice.
Even if Vanessa Bell expressed initial disquiet at moving to Charleston Farmhouse in the Sussex countryside in 1916 with her sons Quentin and Julian: “It will be an odd life…but it seems to me it might be a good one for painting,” she wrote.
The second centres on the Omega Workshops, an enterprise established by Roger Fry in 1913 to sell furniture, fabrics and homeware designed by leading artists of the day, plus the rival Rebel Arts Centre.
Becky Gee, curator of fine art at York Museums Trust, who worked for three years to put the Beyond Bloomsbury exhibition together . Picture: David Harrison
The third gallery focuses on activism and philanthropy, identifying causes of importance to group members and highlighting how such beliefs shaped the group’s collective mentality, such as being involved in establishing the Contemporary Art Society, in which York Art Gallery has played its part since the 1920s.
Summing up Beyond Bloomsbury, Becky says: “One of our aims is to celebrate the good but to critique the bad too, because if we didn’t do that, we’d just be telling the same story again.”
Oh, and should you be wondering what an exhibition about a bunch of posh arty southerners is doing in a Yorkshire gallery, Becky is quick to point out: “Look out for the portrait of Edward Carpenter, who lived just outside Sheffield.
“He was a Victorian gay rights activist and writer, so he’s from the generation just before the Bloomsbury Group, and he influenced EM Forster, a gay writer who did not come out in his lifetime.
“Edith Sitwell features in the exhibition, and the Sitwells had Scarborough connections, owning Woodend in the resort.”
Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Love & Legacy runs at York Art Gallery until June 5. To book tickets, go to: yorkartgallery.org.uk.
Morgan Feely, senior curator at York Museums Trust, stands by Vanessa Bell’s portrait of David “Bunny” Garnett, painted in oil and gouache on cardboard, at the Beyond Bloomsbury exhibition. Picture: David Harrison
FREEDOM. What better title could South African dancer and ground-breaking Strictly Come Dancing star Johannes Radebe give his debut British tour.
“It is the freedom to dance to my own tune for the first time,” says 34-year-old Johannes, ahead of his itinerary opening with a Yorkshire show at Bridlington Spa on Wednesday (16/3/2022) before playing the Grand Opera House, York, on April 12.
“I’ve danced in many productions around the world but I’ve never been able to capture on stage where I came from, and I never thought I’d be able to go on my own tour, so it’s a very welcome surprise.”
Radebe (pronounced Ra-dee-bay) was catapulted to new heights of popularity by bonding so exhilaratingly with 2012’s The Great British Bake Off winner and TV chef John Waite as the first all-male couple in 2021’s series of Strictly, pipped for the Glitterball by first deaf contestant Rose Ayling-Ellis and professional partner Giovanni Pernice.
“It was liberating and healing as well,” says Johannes. “I’ve got a better relationship with my mum now, as we can talk about my sexual orientation – and people’s lives have changed for the better too.
“In a world where two men still can’t be free to be together, I hope to be able to educate the masses, and if people had a glimpse of that with me and John dancing together, then they can think about it.”
Such was the appeal and dancing brio of both partnerships, each marking a first for Strictly, that many would have loved them to have been declared first equal. “I’m with you!” says Johannes, bursting into laughter. “John kept saying, ‘it’s fine if we don’t win’, and yes, it is s fine! At the finale, we both stood there as couples thinking ‘it’s fine’. That’s the friendship that comes through the show.”
After touring the world in Burn The Floor, Joahannes was head-hunted to join the Strictly professionals for the 2018 series, first moving to Britain that year. In his second season, when partnering Catherine Tyldesley in 2019, he danced the first same-sex routine with fellow Strictly pro Graziano Di Prima.
The tour poster for Johannes Radebe’s Freedom show
Last year was to be even more significant. “My decision to finally dance with another man in the competition came about after I lost a friend of mine within our community. He was murdered, and the last words that were uttered to him by his killer was that he was a ‘faggot’,” says Johannes.
He paused, consumed again by the pain of what his friend had suffered, then said: “I get a moment to highlight it in the show. This is something that needs to be done, to give it that platform, and it’s important to keep being flamboyant – but that does require bravery.”
Freedom marks Johannes’s return to the Grand Opera House for the first time since sharing the York stage with Strictly alumni Kevin Clifton and Graziano Di Prima in Burn The Floor in July 2019.
On tour from March 16 to May 1, Johannes Radebe: Freedom is billed as “a celebration of music and dance, from African fusion to fiery Latin, from classic dance arrangements to huge party anthems”, as Radebe and his dancers take the audience on his personal journey, from starting to dance at seven to leaving South Africa at 21 to travel the world, winning international titles and electrifying Strictly Come Dancing.
Now he will be expressing himself to the full in Freedom. “I’ve been on a quest to find Black dancers in this country that are versed in all dance styles, but not many of them are ballroom dancers, whereas where I come from everyone can do the Cha-cha-cha,” says Johannes.
“I’ve chosen everyone through auditions. I had to be in the room to feel their energy, to see if they move me as a dancer, so I’ve found beautiful, individual dancers, which will make it feel a different show.
“It’s a show designed to be representing everyone, and it will be so beautiful to have audiences that support our artform – and I know we have that privilege because of the Strictly audience.”
Johannes has a theory as to why dance and TV audiences feel such a strong connection with him. “It’s because I have no inhibitions. I know that I come alive when I dance. Something takes over. It’s a feeling as an artist that I can’t explain but people connect with it,” he says.
In a nutshell, Freedom. “Absolutely! Nothing is going to stop me. It’s about the joy that my dancing has brought to my mother. Nothing was more important to me than to see my mum be happy when often she would be sad,” says Johannes.
“I was only a child and so I didn’t understand the magnitude of it when she carried me on her back, telling everyone I’d got a prize in a dance competition. She was so proud, even though it wasn’t first place. But that’s the thing. That talent was nurtured from a young age, and though my mum couldn’t support it financially, everyone else contributed.”
Johannes Radebe’s pathway to Freedom was set in perpetual motion, and hopefully another Strictly series awaits too. “We haven’t had the phone-calls yet, but I’ll gladly do it for as long as they will have me,” he says.
Might he look to do another all-male coupling? “Well, you never now. I’m just glad to have kicked down that door.”
Johannes Radebe: Freedom, Bridlington Spa, Wednesday, 7.30pm; Grand Opera House, York, April 12, 7.30pm. Box office: Bridlington, 01262 678258 or bridspa.com; York, 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.Further Yorkshire performances: Sheffield City Hall, April 3, sheffieldcityhall.co.uk; Bradford St George’s Hall, April 9, bradford-theatres.co.uk; Hull City Hall, April 23, 01482 300306 or hulltheatres.co.uk.
YORK gallery According To McGee introduces a new painter and illustrator to their growing stable of artists this weekend for the Hyperrealism in America and Japan show.
Imogen Hawgood, from County Durham, brings her collection of realist paintings to Tower Street for a duo show with Pop artist and Ska legend Horace Panter, The Specials’ bassist.
“The inaugural aspect is important to the gallery as we continue to celebrate our 17th anniversary,” says co-director Greg McGee. “We’ve been blessed to run an art gallery in such a wonderful city through so many triumphant and difficult times.
Beer Crates, Tokyo, by Horace Panter
“The worst thing to do is fossilise and rely on our biggest sellers. The beauty of York is that, as a city with so much heritage, there’s a huge market for all things contemporary, and we’ve always tried to engage with that.”
Horace Panter and his hyper-art is no stranger to the McGees. “I’ve been working with According To McGee for a number of years now and am delighted to be bringing Americana and Japanese street scenes to this exhibition with Imogen,” he says.
Panter’s slices of punk-infused realism are instantly recognisable on the gallery’s white walls. “From Edward Hopper-inspired depictions of Midwest motels to the inner-lit thrum of Japanese kiosks and sun-warmed Coca-Cola crates, his collection complements perfectly Imogen’s art, which explores the icons of Americana and the idea of ‘the road’ as a transitional and symbolic landscape,” says Greg.
New Beverly Cinema, by Imogen Hawgood
Hawgood’s focus has turned to American landscapes and roadside imagery, together with experimentation with light leaks and colour effects. “Imogen spent some time in Los Angeles and is now lasering in on the American Dream, with its mythic allure of the West,” says gallery co-director Ails McGee.
“Viewers will see that her work is instantly cinematic. There’s the composition and lighting that feels really filmic and looks iconic and stylish, like a modern Hopper. Depictions of Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema help hammer home this vibe.”
Imogen says: “The freedom of the American open road has been a powerful image for generations on both sides of the Atlantic, representing for some self-discovery, for others a path to redemption.
“I try to capture a sense of movement through my composition and use of colour and lighting,” says County Durham painter and illustrator Imogen Hawgood
“Through the use of my own photography, as well as found footage, the images I create juxtapose an air of nostalgia with contemporary viewpoints. I often use the interior of a car as a frame through which to view a passing landscape and try to capture a sense of movement through my composition and use of colour and lighting.”
While working on new images, Hawgood works up ideas by using a thumbnailing process influenced by film storyboarding. “Film is an important source of inspiration across many areas of my practice, influencing my choices across composition, colour and lighting,” she says,
“I’m particularly drawn by stark lighting traditionally used in film noir, and more contemporary takes on this genre, like the neon chaos of Ridley Scott’s neo-noir Blade Runner.
Las Vegas Double Exposure, by Imogen Hawgood
“Thematically, I’m also inspired by films such as Easy Rider, Thelma And Louise and Kalifornia; examples of narratives which also question the allure of the road and where it may lead.”
Hawgood has exhibited in the New Light exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery and at the Holt Festival in Norfolk. In 2020 she was shortlisted for the ING Discerning Eye, John Hurt and Sworders art prizes; last year she was highly commended in the watercolour category at the Broadway Arts Festival competition. Overseas, her work has been shown at the Vestige Concept Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Ails concludes: “Horace Panter has taken his position in the pantheon of UK Pop artists. His contribution to the cultural landscape is indisputable, so it’s especially exciting to introduce Imogen to our collectors in this way.
Japanese Vending Machine, by Horace Panter
“When established artists are in such proximity to rising stars, it can really make a gallery’s walls zing. This is a great result, not only for York’s cultural life, but also for the north, and we’re looking forward to seeing existing collectors and meeting new collectors this weekend.”
Horace Panter and Imogen Hawgood’s Hyperrealism in America and Japan exhibition runs at According To McGee, Tower Street, York, from March 12 to 25.
Gallery opening hours are: Monday to Friday, 11am to 3pm; Saturday, 11am to 4pm; or by appointment on 07973 653702.
KENTMERE House Gallery, in York, is holding an exhibition in celebration of the work of Suffolk artist and teacher Roy Freer (1938-2021).
“Roy, who died on March 3 last year, was regarded as one of the finest painters of his generation,” says Ann Petherick, owner and curator of the Scarcroft Hill gallery. “He had been showing with Kentmere House ever since we opened in 1991 and before that at Grape Lane Gallery in the city centre.
“We have a small number of his works for sale, with prices held at their original levels of £550 to £1,800, to be followed by a larger exhibition in association with his family in the autumn.”
Roy had studied at Bourneville College of Art and Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts from 1956 to 1958. After becoming a full-time artist more than 30 years ago, he showed a single-minded focus in using overlays of rich colour to depict still-life, figure and landscape as a way of presenting a visual understanding of his subject.
“Working from a familiar selection of either studio-based still-life objects or outdoor features, Roy was concerned with the interpretation of the subject as a visual experience rather than a factual response,” says Ann.
“In his paintings, the over-layering brush marks underpin the main structure and the whole is suffused with light, depicted in strong shafts of colour across the canvas. Although still-life or landscape was his usual subject matter, he was also a very fine portrait painter.”
Roy Freer said of his work: “Scattered objects, shaded objects, bright objects; snatches of coloured material and papers; windows of summer brightness and the darkness of winter; familiar objects not quite seen, veiled behind light, shadow and colour. These are the concerns of my painting.”
Golden Apples, by Roy Freer
Roy, who lived in a riverside house in Sudbury, was drawn to colour, seeing the world as a very colourful place even on rainy days. “For me, the fascination of painting is to be found in the experience of the subject as moments of stillness and change,” he said.
“A landscape, for example, is a continual source of change, and one is ever aware of the passage of time, as with the movement of light from morning to afternoon. Both in landscape and still life, I want to show through colour and brush mark, a visual interpretation of the subject that reflects the magical substance of sensation and experience.”
He was a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI), New English Art Club (NEAC), and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours; painted leading players Steve Davis and Jimmy White for Snooker International and was commissioned by Shell UK to provide work for their calendar.
Although most of his work has been shown in the south, he was artist-in-residence for the York Early Music Festival and took part in two exhibitions of paintings of Yorkshire gardens in association with the National Gardens Scheme and the Royal Horticultural Society, both curated by Kentmere House Gallery.
Roy showed regularly with Mall Galleries, London; Catto Gallery, Hampstead, London; David Messum Gallery, Cork Street, London, and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.
Paying tribute to Roy, Salliann Putnam, of the New English Art Club, says: “I had been so inspired by Roy that I invited him to run a weekend workshop for the society. He ended up running three and they were all brilliant.
“He arrived in a small van, which was packed to the roof. We had a large village hall that Roy transformed into a world of pure colour.”
Roy assembled three large white platforms, placing deckchairs, sunflowers, pots, fabrics, cubes, painted chairs and many other objects on and around them.
Harbour Shelter, by Roy Freer
“It was a colourist’s paradise,” recalls Salliann. “Roy then demonstrated his approach to painting, and it was a revelation. From the very first mark, there was life and energy. He would mass in the big areas in wonderful colour.
“Then he would gradually move into smaller marks, mixing the colour and transferring it to his brush. He would then study his subject with a searching eye before making a mark. His work looks so free, but it is carefully considered.”
Roy taught Salliann how to look. “I recall him showing a slide of an interior with the light flooding in through the window,” she says. “Roy then adjusted the lens on the projector so that everything was out of focus.
“This was a moment of magic as the image was transformed into pools of light. Edges disappeared; tones became all important; masses appeared. Colour and tone were more important to Roy than the subject.”
Summing up, Salliann says: “Roy was an inspirational painter; he was very much a painter’s painter. I was privileged to attend a number of his courses and came away totally inspired. The art world has been enriched by Roy’s painting and his teaching. He will be so missed.”
Paul Curtis, also from the New English Art Club, says: “Roy Freer’s paintings softly tap you on the shoulder as you walk by, pulling you back to look again at the quiet, close-toned colour with one accent of light. They reflected his personality and determination to take a chance with his work in order to get it right.”
Club president Peter Brown always found Roy’s paintings “remarkably fresh”. “His ability to design the picture surface while describing form and space created welcoming atmospheres for us to enter and enjoy,” he says. “He appeared to show respect for his subject, sometimes monumentalising – say – the end of a terrace, and yet was never a slave to his subject.
“I was so pleased to hear from [his wife] Sally that his sons plan to publish an archive of Roy’s work online. Something for us all to look forward to after his sad passing.”
