North York Moors Chamber Music Festival: Post War Paris; Trio Mazzolini, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 19 and 20
POULENC was the chosen representative of Paris in the eras after the two World Wars, with Prokofiev in his neo-classical prime characterising the Roaring Twenties. But last Thursday evening’s programme was given in more or less reverse chronological order.
Poulenc’s only three sonatas for solo wind instruments date from the last five years of his life. All were written in memory of friends as he began to contemplate his own demise. But they are far from elegiac, combining reminiscence with levity: Poulenc is rarely able to keep a straight face for long.
The Oboe Sonata of 1962, the last to be written, is the most outwardly mournful of the three and remembers Prokofiev. Nicholas Daniel’s oboe took a leisurely approach to the opening Élégie, describing a giant arch that reached a restrained crescendo before subsiding placidly, accompanied every step of the way by Katya Apekisheva’s sensitive piano.
The scherzo was typically flippant, but more than balanced by a pensive finale, where the action was mainly in the piano while the oboe wept.
Five years earlier, Poulenc had written his Flute Sonata, formally in memory of his patron Elizabeth Sprague but fired by the spirit of his friend Raymonde Linossier. Thomas Hancox brought verve to the puckish opening, with smooth legato in the central Cantilena. He was even lighter on his toes in the finale – which is briefly interrupted by an elegy when Poulenc remembers to be serious.
Hancox brought a trigger-jerk to the start of every phrase, which was fine at exciting moments but distracting when the going was supposed to be calmer.
The sounds of Paris were much more apparent in the Clarinet Sonata, where Matthew Hunt was soloist, partnered by Alasdair Beatson’s piano. Although in memory of Honegger, it was written for Benny Goodman, hence its several nods towards jazz. Its central Romanza was especially affecting but the shrieks in the finale were pure Benny. This duo mixed flair with finesse.
Prokofiev’s Quintet in G minor, Op 39 began life as a ballet, Trapeze, written in 1924, using the unusual combo of oboe and clarinet, with violin, viola and double bass. It reeks of circus life. The winds are so dominant in the opening that one feared for balance, but the double bass led the way in the following movement, often made to sound like a cello, with quirkily dissonant outcomes.
Similarly later, rapid bass pizzicato, imitated by the other strings, led to a crazy ending in the Allegro Precipitato. Straight out of the Twenties, the finale, although in three-time, was more Charleston than waltz. Nikita Naumov’s bass was the star of this show.
Poulenc’s Trio, Op 43, written only two years after the Prokofiev, was much more backward-looking, even nostalgic in its romanticism. It linked Daniel’s oboe and Beatson’s piano to Amy Harman’s bassoon. Its long-limbed Andante might almost have been late Brahms; it was lovingly presented.
The trio made teasing use of the many rests at the end of their jaunty Rondo, probing Poulenc’s wit to its limits.
Last Friday lunchtime, it was the turn of the Trio Mazzolini to take their place as the last of the Young Artists in the festival, an initiative, incidentally, that has been a great success by all accounts.
Piano trios by Haydn and Mendelssohn framed the 1998 trio by Judith Weir. This is a work of refreshing directness and clarity that wears its heart on its sleeve. The bells of St Mark’s, Venice ring through the opening movement which radiates exotic tints of the barcarole that is Schubert’s Gondelfahrer, its inspiration.
The strings handled the harmonics of the Scherzo deftly, and the taut curlicue motif in the finale was positively crystalline here. The Mazzolinis clearly revelled in this idiom.
The Haydn, a late work in C major, was notable for the ensemble’s use of rubato, which carried more than a hint of signposting that the music does not need. Still, Harry Rylance’s piano passagework in the finale was impressive, even if his partners struggled to achieve a good balance.
We heard more from the strings in Mendelssohn’s Trio No 2 in C minor, although Yurie Lee’s cello could have afforded to project even more. The highlight was the Andante, the trio negotiating its rolling acres beautifully together and bringing it to a lovely close.
There was exciting propulsion in the Scherzo and the sweeping piano chorale in the final Allegro heralded a sweet-toned outpouring from Jack Greed’s violin. This is a talented trio, with Rylance an exceptionally agile pianist, even if one could not always be sure that he was listening to his colleagues as keenly as he might.
This brought an end to my festival, which has been even more satisfying than last year’s – and that is saying something. The Welburn Marquee must surely become a fixture. Even allowing for a few bleating lambs and the odd passing tractor, it has an intimacy that is somehow exactly suited to chamber music and the audience this year has exulted in the many treasures it has heard. The rapport between listeners and players has been second to none.
Liam Gallagher: Tomorrow’s headliner at Leeds Festival
SUMMER ends with Leeds Festival, apparently, but Charles Hutchinson begs to differ by highlighting plenty more reasons to be cheerful as nights start to lengthen.
Biggest crowd of the week: Leeds Festival, Bramham Park, near Wetherby, tomorrow (27/8/2021) to Sunday
AFTER a gap year in Covid-crocked 2020, Leeds Festival returns from tomorrow with a sold-out crowd at full capacity.
Among the first day’s top acts are headliners Lian Gallagher and Biffy Clyro, Gerry Cinnamon, Wolf Alice, Blossoms and Doncaster’s Yungblud.
Saturday’s names to watch are Stormzy, Catfish And The Bottlemen, AJ Tracey, Mabel, Sam Fender and Sports Team. Sunday promises Post Malone, Disclosure, Two Door Cinema Club, The Wombats and Slowthai.
Shed Seven: Topping the all-Yorkshire bill at The Piece Hall, Halifax, on Saturday
On the other hand, Yorkshire’s gig of the week is…Shed Seven at The Piece Hall, Halifax, Saturday.
YORK favourites Shed Seven at last can go ahead with their all-Yorkshire bill after 2020’s two postponements and a move from June 26 to August 28 this summer.
The dates may change but the bill remains the same: York’s on-the-rise, rousing Skylights, Leeds bands The Pigeon Detectives and The Wedding Present and the Brighton Beach DJs on the decks.
Never mind the clash with Leeds Festival. “Let’s just say our fans are not their demographic,” says the Sheds’ Rick Witter.
Andrew Harrison: Performing Nigel Forde’s one-man show, The Last Cuckoo, at Stillington Mill, near York, tomorrow night
Bird song of the week: Sea View Productions in Nigel Forde’s The Last Cuckoo, Theatre At The Mill, Stillington, tomorrow, 7.30pm.
ON his return home from his irascible ornithologist uncle Harry Baskerville’s ’s funeral, Duncan Campbell begins the slow, sad process of working through its effects in The Last Cuckoo, a one-man show about loss, hope and birds.
As he does so, he finds within the ghostly confines of this remote coastal cottage a way into a world he never knew existed: the entrance into a life he never dared hope for. However, this awareness brings with it costly choices and, most daunting of all, the possibility of real change.
Penned exquisitely by Warter poet and writer Nigel Forde, former presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Bookshelf, this beautiful theatre piece will be performed by Riding Lights Theatre Company alumnus Andrew Harrison, directed for Sea View Productions by Robin Hereford. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill.
The Carpenters Experience: Tribute show to Karen and Richard at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Tribute show of the week: The Carpenters Experience, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Saturday, 7.30pm
IT’S Yesterday Once More as British singer Maggie Nestor and eight musicians capture the smooth American sounds of Richard and Karen Carpenter.
Expect echoes of Karen’s silky contralto, Richard’s pretty piano and seamless harmonies in a big production featuring Close To You, We’ve Only Just Begun, Top Of The World, Rainy Days And Mondays, Solitaire, Goodbye To Love, For All We Know and Only Yesterday. Box office: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Being Frank: Stephen Tompkinson in Educating Rita, on tour at York Theatre Royal from Tuesday. Picture: Matt Humphrey
Theatre show of the week in York: Educating Rita, York Theatre Royal, August 31 to September 4
WHEN married hairdresser Rita enrols on a university course to expand her horizons, little does she realise where her journey will take her.
Tutor Frank is a frustrated poet, brilliant academic and dedicated drinker, less than enthusiastic about taking on Rita, but soon they learn how much they have to teach each other.
Directed by Max Roberts, Willy Russell’s comedy two-hander stars Jessica Johnson as Rita and Stephen Tompkinson as Frank. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Curtains! Another catastrophe is imminent in Magic Goes Wrong, Mischief and Penn & Teller’s calamitous comedy caper at Leeds Grand Theatre
Theatre show of the week ahead outside York: Magic Goes Wrong, Leeds Grand Theatre, casting a spell from August 30 to September 4
BACK with another comedy catastrophe, this time dusted with magic, Mischief follow up The Play That Goes Wrong and The Comedy About A Bank Robbery with a show created with Penn & Teller, no less.
A hapless gang of magicians is staging an evening of grand illusion to raise cash for charity, but as the magic turns to mayhem, accidents spiral out of control and so does the fundraising target.
On tour for the first time, the show is written Penn Jillette, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields and Teller and directed by Adam Meggido. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or at leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Fangfest co-organiser Gerry Grant dunking a raku ceramic in water
Top of the pots: Fangfest, Fangfoss, September 4 and 5, 10am to 4pm each day
FANGFEST, the celebration of pottery, crafts, art and scarecrows in Fangfoss, ten miles east of York, returns next month after a Covid-enforced hiatus in 2020.
To keep the family event as Covid-safe as possible, much of the festival organised by Gerry and Lyn Grant, of Fangfoss Pottery, will be taking place outdoors.
The weekend combines art, pottery, illustration, jewellery, printmaking, archery, wood carving, textiles, willow weaving, classic cars, East Yorkshire history, food and scarecrows. Entry is free.
Kate Winslet, left, and Saoirse Ronan in Ammonite, showing at the Yorkshire Fossil Festival in Scarborough
Dinosaurs, stones and more in Yorkshire Fossil Festival’s fistful of films: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, September 10 and 11
FOR the first time, the Stephen Joseph Theatre is teaming up with the Yorkshire Fossil Festival SJT to bring five palaeontology-inspired films to the McCarthy screen.
Highlights include September 10’s 8pm screening of stop-motion wizard Ray Harryhausen’s 1969 dinosaur classic, The Valley Of Gwangi, introduced by palaeo-artist James McKay, who hosts a post-screening Q&A too.
Further films on September 10 will be Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (2pm) and Jurassic Park (5pm); September 11, The Land Before Time (2pm and 5pm) and Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan (8pm). Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
Fish’n’quips: George Egg serves up his Movable Feast on tour in October
Meals on wheels, jokes on a plate, here comes George Egg’s cracking tour show…
COMEDY and cooking combine when anarchic cook George Egg serves up his Movable Feast on tour in Yorkshire in October.
Determined to make food on the move, Egg offers his guide to cooking with cars, on rail tracks and in the sky. “It’s time for Planes, Trains and Automob-meals (sorry),” he says.
Sprinkled with handy hacks, the 7.30pm shows conclude with the chance to taste the results on the three plates. Tour dates include Stillington Village Hall, near York, October 10; Pocklington Arts Centre, October 13, and Terrington Village Hall, near Malton, October 17. Box office: georgeegg.com.
The circus-themed stage taking shape at York Theatre Royal for this afternoon’s performance of Around The World In 80 Days
“IT’S been a few years coming, but finally getting to flail around on the @YorkTheatre main stage today. We’re here till the 28th.”
So reads actor Emilio Iannucci’s tweet, accompanying a photo of the circus-themed set in situ for this afternoon’s 2pm performance of Around The World In 80 Days.
“Flailing around” were not words that tipped off the keyboard keys for CharlesHutchPress’s review when watching Iannucci racing against time with elegant aplomb as globe-traversing Phileas Fogg in an outdoor performance on the Copmanthorpe Primary School playing fields.
From today to Saturday, creative director Juliet Forster’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel moves indoors for a York Theatre Royal homecoming finale led by Iannucci’s dual lead role of Ringmaster and Fogg.
On the back of eye-catching turns for the Theatre Royal in The Book Of Dragons and Hello And Goodbye and for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre Romeo & Juliet, Richard lll, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2018/2019, he was always Forster’s pick to have fun with Fogg. “That’s very flattering to hear, though I’m sure there are other people who could do the role!” says Emilio.
“I’ve been recovering from long Covid, so in a way I’ve been having a race against time myself to do this show. It’s not like I’m missing a physical bit of me, but there are still ups and downs, though they’re now further apart and less intense – and drawing on the energy of my fellow cast members has been very helpful.”
Phileas Fogg is noted for his efficiency and managing his life very carefully, a philosophy that Iannucci has applied to his recuperation and return to performing. “Long Covid has been a horrible thing to go through but it’s challenged me to approach things in new ways, rather than my usual process, now trying to achieve the same things but in a different way,” he says.
Emilio Iannucci in a scene from York Theatre Royal’s Around The World in 80 Days. Picture: Charlotte Graham
Iannucci’s main inspiration for his characterisation of Phileas Fogg is Verne’s novel. “That’s because the Ringmaster is adamant that we have to be faithful to the book, not the films. He’s determined to tell the story by the book, though whether that’s for budgetary reasons, like explaining why there’ll be no hot-air balloon…!” he says.
“The first part is all about telling you who Fogg wasn’t, what he wasn’t, not judging him too quickly, because he’s a strange character in that he’s not very likeable at the start and not wholly likeable by the end, but gradually you do come round to his side.
“He’s the opposite of the Ringmaster, who’s stroppy, flustered and always trying to herd cats.”
Dame Berwick Kaler has often talked of the need for actors to be “likeable” in his pantomime companies, and Iannucci has displayed such likeability in buckets in myriad stage roles but says: “I’d counter that by saying I don’t try to be likeable; I try to be honest…and Fogg is very honest. He can be a bit an a**e – he may or may not be guilty of theft – so I’m just trying to stay to what’s honest to that character and let the audience judge.
“I’m more used to playing low-status characters, who have to move props and help people, but Fogg is calling the tune here.”
In this energetically humorous account of Around The World In 80 Days, Iannucci’s Phileas Fogg is sort of a double act with his servant, French-Moroccan actor Ali Azhar’s Passepartout.
Azhar made his mark previously in York in the second summer of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre at the Eye of York, appearing as a Spirit in The Tempest (“moving a tree around!”) and as the Dauphin (“a delicious part”) in 2019.
Ali Azhar, left, with Eddie Mann, Dora Rubinstein and Ulrika Krishnamurti, playing Victorian gents at the Reform Club in Around The World in 80 Days. Picture: Charlotte Graham
“It was a rewarding adventure: four months of Shakespeare, the best bootcamp an actor can have,” says Ali. “And I love York! To wake up in this city with all that lovely fresh air and beautiful sites is bliss.”
Parisian Azhar plays not only the put-upon yet resourceful Passepartout but also The Clown, part of the circus company charged with telling Verne’s tale, as well as juggling or forming human pyramids or balancing on a seesaw with fellow actor Eddie Mann.
“That’s really helpful for the play because it means the cast can tell you about British colonisation and imperialism in Victorian times [Fogg made his journey in 1871], where we can all join in the debate without schooling everyone when it’s a story and we want everyone to have fun, so it’s joyful ride.”
Introducing The Clown, Ali says: “He’s recently been hired by the Ringmaster and has no idea about Jules Verne and doesn’t know the novel. He’s wild, a joker, but when he’s told he has to play the part of Passepartout, he tries not to take too much of the attention, whereas a clown usually does that.
“I think he must be the quietest clown I’ve ever played – and he seems to be always late or trying to catch up!”
Around The World In 80 Days is at York Theatre Royal for four days, August 25 to 28; performances at 2pm and 7pm. Signed performance: August 26, 2pm. Suitable for age seven upwards. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
James Gilchrist: “As always, he brought intensity to every phrase, delving well below the surface of the poetry”
North York Moors Chamber Music Festival: Turn Of A Century/Through War, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 16 and 17
FESTIVALS would not be festive if they delivered only run-of-the-mill fare. From time to time, as here, it is absolutely right that they plough new furrows.
Turn Of A Century looked at two works written by composers before they had become famous, Richard Strauss and Béla Bartók.
Strauss was a mere 20 years old when he finished his Piano Quartet in C minor (1884). It is the work of a young man striving hard to make an impression but by and large falling short.
Neither of the opening themes has much character and sound like Brahms on an off day. The Scherzo is even more bombastic while its trio has a pallid melody that lacks definition. The Andante might have been written by Schumann, but with a whiff of the salon about it. The finale uses motifs in a series of sequences that are ultimately repetitious. In short, not exactly vintage Strauss.
Daniel Lebhardt, no doubt in an effort to ‘help’ the music, brought considerable aggression to the piano role; too many of his fortes were fortissimo or louder. It put the strings at a disadvantage, although they – Charlotte Scott, Meghan Cassidy and Alice Neary – dug in and answered as best they could. There was a brief oasis of calm near the end, but otherwise it was a harum-scarum affair, good to hear once, but no more than that.
Bartók’s youth was altogether more disciplined, on the evidence of his Piano Quintet in C, composed at the age of 23. Here there were genuine precursors of his mature style, with strongly Hungarian flavours throughout.
The richly Romantic opening contrasts a lovely viola melody – played here by Timothy Ridout – with a nervy, urgent dance, which returns even more balletically in the coda. An ethnic-sounding Scherzo is paired with a Viennese-style trio, before the menacing opening of a slow movement that turns quite lush and ends with strings muted.
The finale, following immediately, starts in folk-dance style very slowly, gathering pace wittily. There are some spaces for ruminative solos, but eventually a fugal finale boils up from the piano – crisply delivered by Katya Apekisheva, on peerless form at this festival.
But all the players deserve praise for their devotion to a work not often heard: violinists Maria Włoszczowska and Vicky Sayles and cellist Jamie Walton, along with Ridout and Apekisheva as mentioned. Their teamwork was exceptional.
The following evening’s Through War heralded an English programme that required the services of tenor James Gilchrist and a dozen players. The undoubted highlight was Gilchrist in On Wenlock Edge, Vaughan Williams’s evocative setting of six poems from Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, with piano quintet accompaniment.
What really made this performance special was his recitation of the poems in advance, loaded with emotional nuance. It made one appreciate even more the composer’s special feel for the English language, its intonation and rhythm.
As always, Gilchrist brought intensity to every phrase, delving well below the surface of the poetry. His contrast between living and dead voices in Is My Team Ploughing? reached a spine-chilling conclusion on “whose”.
His change of tone in Bredon Hill was telling. But he was matched every step of the way by the strings, whose orchestral sweep extended from the opening tremolos – “On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble” – to the muted ending of Clun. Alasdair Beatson’s piano rippled effectively, while underlining accents. They all got carried away at the top of Bredon Hill, where Gilchrist was briefly submerged. But it was a memorable account.
We had opened with York Bowen’s Clarinet Sonata, with Matthew Hunt dancing light-footedly through the roulades of the title role and Beatson’s piano in tight support. Hunt later cleverly blended his virtuoso instincts into the ensemble in Howells’s Rhapsodic Quintet, where he was joined by a passionate string quartet led by Charlotte Scott.
The tension of the opening slowly dissipated into a lyrical mood that led coolly to a lovely conclusion. The score sounded freshly-minted, beautifully integrated – and thoroughly English.
The Jubilee Quartet, with David Adams bravely stepping into their injured leader’s shows, revealed its versatility in Elgar’s String Quartet. Adams is widely experienced, currently concertmaster with the orchestra of Welsh National Opera and incidentally husband of the cellist Alice Neary (who played in the Howells).
Nevertheless, the voices took time to settle in an opening that was more calculated than spontaneous. Adams really found his wings in the central movement, guiding his charges into a nicely controlled ending. Then the quartet reached persuasive heights in a finale that was both rhythmically alert and bouncing with energy. The best had been kept to last.
Dora Rubinstein, right, as Nellie Bly with Eddie Mann, top, Ali Azhar and Ulrika Krishnamurti in York Theatre Royal’s circus-themed Around The World In 80 Days. Picture: Charlotte Graham
AFTER traversing the city on a trailer for 16 days, the York Theatre Royal circus pitches up back home in St Leonard’s Place from Wednesday for the final run of Around The World In 80 Days.
Among the travelling players for creative director Juliet Forster’ stage adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel is actor, singer, acrobatic and yoga teacher Dora Rubinstein, a North Easterner, originally from Newcastle, who has settled in York.
She has history with Forster, having voiced Mary Magdalene in the York Mystery Plays audio plays for the Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York during lockdown, under Forster’s direction, and then taken on the guise of pioneering Anne Lister, alias Gentleman Jack, for musical theatre composer Gus Gowland’s The Streets Of York at the Theatre Royal’s re-opening show, Love Bites, overseen by Forster in May.
“It was so different doing that short piece for Love Bites,” says Dora. “I was approached by Gus, as we had lots of mutual friends who work in musical theatre, and Suranne Jones, who plays Anne Lister in the Gentleman Jack TV series, is not too far away from me in terms of my looks.
“It was lovely to be back in the theatre, as though most of my recent work has been circus based, I still love singing.”
Although Dora had worked with Juliet on the Radio Mystery Plays, Covid restrictions had limited the rehearsals and recordings to being conducted remotely. “That’s why I wasn’t sure if she knew about my circus skills, so I sent her an email, but it turned out she was aware, though I don’t know how, but I’m just happy she did,” she says.
Dora, who runs workshops in acrobalance, handstands, flexibility, contortion and aerial skills in York and Leeds, is now playing The Acrobat and American journalist, industrialist, inventor and charity worker Nellie Bly, who, like the fictional Phileas Fogg in Verne’s story, made a race-against-time trip around the world.
“I grew up seeing plays at York Theatre Royal,” says Dora Rubinstein. “So it’s always felt like home”
“At the auditions, I had to do an American accent for Nellie Bly; I used a Geordie accent for The Acrobat – my choice – and I also have to play two ship captains, one from Hull, the other, a salty old sea dog,” she says.
All those acrobatic and contortionist skills naturally come in handy for The Acrobat in Around The World In 80 Days, but how come the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts graduate has developed those skills?
“My mum is a visual artist, who makes community pieces, and she was fascinated by how close the circus community was. As part of her research, she went to a trapeze class in Newcastle, and she said she felt like she’d come home,” says Dora, taking the country route in her explanation.
“She was so at home with it, whereas most people, when they first try it, find it incredibly hard. When I came back home from Arts Ed [her musical theatre diploma course in London], she knew how much I’d enjoyed the physical side of it and so she introduced me to circus culture, where I felt I really fitted into that world, the acrobatic world, rather than dance.
“Then, when I later left Mountview, I kept it up even more, doing aerial classes, and it’s since fed into my other work, with more to play with from the devising perspective.”
Dora teaches a “really wide range of people”, whether leading workshops for children and young families or teaching York burlesque performer Freida Nipples flexibility tricks to integrate into her routines.
Emilio Iannucci’s Phileas Fogg, left, with Dora Rubinstein, Eddie Mann, Ali Azhar and Ulrika Krishnamurti‘s scoffing Reform Club members in a scene from Around The World In 80 Days. Picture: Charlotte Graham
Even during rehearsals, she has continued to hold workshops at weekends, such as the acro-yoga sessions she leads at The Stables, in Nunmill Street, just off Bishopthorpe Road.
“My mum [Jane Park] is coming down to teach with me; we’re the first mother-and-daughter acro-yoga instructors,” she says.
Dora moved to York two years ago after living in London for a decade. “I felt that was long enough down there,” she says. “A lot of my work was in the north, and though you are fed this idea that you have to be based in London to make a career as a performer, I met this amazing actress, Helen Longworth, when I did two pantomimes at Lancaster.
“She was also doing TV parts and radio in The Archers, had a young child and was living in a village outside Morecambe, and I just thought, ‘why should I spend £1,300 a month on a flat in London?’.”
Why settle on York? “My boyfriend loves taking photographs, so we wanted a city that was beautiful to walk around, with good rail connections, and York really was the only one! We’ve now bought a house, so it looks like we’re staying!
“My grandfather lived in Portland Street, and I grew up seeing plays at York Theatre Royal, when I came here every two or three months. He loved the theatre too, so it’s always felt like home.”
This week will find Dora performing on that Theatre Royal stage, bringing Nellie Bly’s story to the fore as Phileas Fogg’s race against the clock to complete a full circuit of the Earth is interwoven with investigative journalist Nellie’s own record-breaking journey.
Not one to be boxed in: Dora Rubinstein in the lead-up to playing The Acrobat, a role that writer-director Juliet Forster first contemplated calling “The Contortionist” but doubted she could find one. Ironically, Dora is as equally adept at contortionism as acrobatics!
“I hadn’t heard of Nellie until I got the audition, though it’s incredible all the amazing things she did leading up to her going around the world,” she says.
“I remember being taught about Queen Elizabeth 1, Queen Victoria and Grace Darling [the English lighthouse keeper’s daughter, who risked her life to rescue the stranded survivors of the wrecked steamship Forfarshire in 1838], but not about Nellie Bly’s achievements.
“When she submitted an anonymous response to a newspaper article that said women should be in the kitchen, it was so well written that the editor put out a call to discover who it was.
“She became an investigative journalist, going undercover into a mental institution, putting her life on the line to make a difference for others. She had such chutzpah.”
As for Dora’s other principal role as The Acrobat, “Funnily enough, Juliet almost called her ‘The Contortionist’, but she didn’t think she would find one, but there I was all along, doing partner-acrobatic work and some contortion work in Japan, and performing contortion acts at the Durham Juggling Festival and Play Festival in North Wales!” she says .
Looking ahead, after undertaking research work with her mother at Dance City, Newcastle, and working with mentor and dramaturg Sarah Puncheon, Dora is creating her first acrobatics-based piece, Hold Your Own, built around family relationships. “Hopefully we’ll start doing it next year and tour it later in 2022,” she says.
Around The World In 80 Days races around York Theatre Royal from August 25 to 28; performances at 2pm and 7pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Suitable for age seven upwards.
What can George Egg rustle up with a couple of cabbages? Find out in Movable Feast
COMEDY and cooking combine when anarchic cook George Egg serves up his Movable Feast at Pocklington Arts Centre on October 13.
Here comes a live cookery show like no other from the award-winning stand-up who makes real gourmet food live on stage but not in the way you would Eggspect.
In his first show, Anarchist Cook, Egg made a meal in a hotel room with the complimentary appliances. In his second, DIY Chef, he was stuck in a shed cooking with power tools. In Movable Feast, he is on the road with his guide to cooking with cars, on rail tracks and in the sky. “It’s time for Planes, Trains and Automob-meals (sorry),” he says.
During his evening focused on making food on the move, the ever-experimental Egg shows ways to cook with a car engine, achieve the most from the battery and even utilise the air-conditioning.
Shocking meal: George Egg cooks up a storm
He also demonstrates how to procure items from the train buffet trolley, beat rip-off restaurant prices at airports and reveal how to turn unexpected roadworks into a picnic.
This cheeky, creative, multi-sensory show, rich in humour and sprinkled with handy hacks, concludes with the opportunity to taste the results on the three plates.
Pocklington Arts Centre director Janet Farmer says: “When I saw George Egg in this sell-out show at the Edinburgh Fringe, I wasn’t sure what to expect but loved it. A hybrid of comedy and unconventional cooking it is hugely entertaining.”
Egg’s show Snack Hacks ran on BBC Radio 5 Live throughout Euro 2020 this summer, when he was challenged to create food during half-time, combining cuisine from the two nations playing that day.
On the road again: George Egg’s poster for Movable Feast
Egg has appeared and cooked on Channel 4’s Bake Off: An Extra Slice, ITV’s This Morning and BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends and in 2019 he presented an episode of Radio 4’s The Food Programme, recorded at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Tickets for Egg’s 7.30pm show are on sale from today at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk or on 01759 301547.
Movable Feast has further Yorkshire gigs at Potto Village Hall, near Northallerton, on October 9; Stillington Village Hall, near York, October 10; Kilburn Institute, near Thirsk, October 14; Newton-le-Willows Village Hall, near Bedale, October 15; St John’s Church, Sharow, near Ripon, October 16, and Terrington Village Hall, near Malton, October 17.
For ticket details and show times, go to: georgeegg.com.
Egg’n’quips: Comedian and cook George Egg tools up for making an unconventional meal
Fangfoss Pottery potter Gerry Grant dunking a raku ceramic in water
FANGFEST, the celebration of pottery, crafts, art and scarecrows in Fangfoss, will return on September 4 and 5 after a Covid-enforced hiatus in 2020.
“We didn’t hold it last year but we carried out a questionnaire around the village to see what the residents thought about holding it this year,” says Lyn Grant, who co-organises the festival of practical arts with husband and fellow potter Gerry Grant in the village ten miles east of York.
“There were a few who didn’t want it to go ahead, but the majority did, and that’s why it’s back! The original idea of Fangfest was to try and get visitors to be involved and perhaps encourage them to pick up a craft or hobby. So, many of the exhibitors will be demonstrating and talking about their work with opportunities for people to have a go themselves.”
To keep Fangfest 2021 as Covid-safe as possible, much of the festival will take place outdoors. “At Fangfoss Pottery, at The Old School, we’re holding a ‘Play with Clay Zone’ in the pottery garden under gazebos, where visitors can have a go on the wheel, paint and decorate a little pot and make their own version of the ‘Lambton Worm’. These activities will be free,” says Lyn.
Scarecrows at a past Fangfest
“Inside the pottery, we have re-organised things. For the first time in 46 years, Gerry will move his wheel to enable pottery-throwing demonstrations to take place safely. Outside, there’ll be raku-firing demonstrations.”
The weekend of art and crafts for all the family will combine art, pottery, illustration, jewellery, printmaking, archery, wood carving, textiles, willow weaving, classic cars, East Yorkshire history, food and scarecrows. Entry will be free.
An archaeology display spanning the Stone Age to Victorian times will be on show in St Martin’s Church, featuring artefacts found in the area, with some available to be handled, plus a “Guess the mystery objects” section. Outside the church, members of a history society from Stamford Bridge will discuss their work.
“Fangfoss residents will be showing just how artistic they are when it comes to making scarecrows and there’ll be a scarecrow trail around the village,” says Lyn. “That’s why you’re invited to make a Lambton Worm. Lambton and his worm are going to be my scarecrow this year.
A pottery-making session at Fangfoss Pottery
“There’ll be plenty of art and crafts on display, spread around the village green and down at the Rocking Horse Shop in Main Street. Taking part will be willow workers, felt makers, medieval tilers, stained-glass workers and decorative forged-iron makers, to name but a few.
“At the Rocking Horse Shop, you can watch how rocking horses are made. Beyond the shop there’ll be an opportunity to have a go at archery. Look out too for a small classic car show on The Green.”
Refreshments will be available at the Carpenters Arms and the Jubilee Park Committee will host a barbecue and serve teas in the Rocking Horse yard.
Fangfest will run from 10am to 4pm each day and will be opened officially by Geoff Sheasby, Pocklington’s Town Crier for 20 years, on the Saturday. He will judge the scarecrows and award a special prize, although a public vote will be held too. Tony Dew will award the best “Fangs” prize.
For more information, go to: facebook/fangfest.
Emma with her Best Scarecrow prizes for her scarecrow at the 2019 Fangfest
OPEN-AIR cinema and myriad concerts, Proms and wild beasts affirm that summer is not yet over for Charles Hutchinson or for you.
Theatre one-off of the week outside York: Casey Jay Andrews in Every Wild Beast, Theatre At The Mill, Stillington, tonight (19/8/2021) at 7.30pm
FRINGE First award-winning theatre-maker and storyteller Casey Jay Andrews weaves folklore and fable into her magical coming-of-age tale of courage, curiosity and running away from big scary things.
Casey Jay Andrews: Weaving folklore and fable into a magical coming-of-age tale
What happens? The stars are empty, the moon has fallen from the sky and the mountains are full of monsters, as Barri collects newspaper clippings and listens to vinyl in her grandmother’s attic, while Sam tries to outrun a community support officer investigating the murder of several domestic badgers.
“If you like your storytelling full of beauty, skill, fable and reality, this will be right up your alley,” says Theatre At The Mill programmer Alexander Wright. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill.
Nile Rodgers: C’est Chic at Scarborough Open Air Theatre
Coastal concerts of the week: Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Nile Rodgers & Chic, tomorrow (20/8/2021); Keane, Saturday, gates open at 6pm
AFTER Stereophonics, Kaiser Chiefs, Culture Club and Westlife, the Scarborough OAT summer season gathers still more pace by welcoming back Nile Rodgers & Chic, who first played there in 2018, tomorrow night.
Chic co-founder Rodgers and his band will be reactivating such dancefloor fillers as Le Freak, Good Times and Everybody Dance.
Saturday’s headliners, East Sussex chart-toppers Keane, drew a six-year hiatus to a close with their 2019 album Cause And Effect. The Sherlocks will be supporting. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Forever Tenors: Yorkshire classical-crossover singers Rob Durkin and Adam Lacey, performing at the Castle Howard Proms
Pomp and circumstance of the weekend: Castle Howard Proms, Castle Howard, Saturday (21/8/2021); gates, 5pm; concert, 7.30pm
YORKSHIRE’S own Forever Tenors, best friends Rob Durkin and Adam Lacey, are confirmed as the opening act at the Castle Howard Proms.
The classical crossover duo joins a bill featuring Welsh tenor Wynne Evans, alias Gio Compario off the telly, soprano Victoria Joyce and the London Gala Orchestra under the baton of Stephen Bell, plus a Spitfire flyover, lasers and a firework finale.
Castle Howard’s concert weekend opens with Café Mambo Ibiza’s sold-out show tomorrow (20/8/2021, gates, 4pm) and concludes with Queen Symphonic on Sunday, when Forever Tenors support again from 5pm. Box office: castlehoward.co.uk.
Evans, above: Wynne Evans will be the tenor soloist at the Castle Howard Proms
Film event of the week: The Luna Cinema at York Minster, August 24 to 29; doors, 6.45pm; screenings, 8.15pm
BAZ Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet opens five days of Luna Cinema open-air screenings against the backdrop of York Minster on Tuesday.
To follow will be the Elton John story, Rocketman, on Wednesday; The Greatest Showman on Thursday; Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, next Friday; Dirty Dancing next Saturday and Rian Johnson’s American mystery, Knives Out, next Sunday. Tickets are available from thelunacinema.com/york-minster2.
LS6 Theatre’s poster for Life Below, on tour at Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York
Theatre one-off of the week in York: LS6 Theatre in 90’s Kids Only and Life Below, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
LS6 Theatre serve up a touring double bill of new theatre: writer-director Spike Woodley and Laurentz Valdes-Lea’s comedy-drama 90’s Kids Only and writer-director Dec Kelly’s gritty mining drama Life Below.
When did the universe begin? 1990. At least according to Ozzy and his friends in 90’s Kids Only, where what starts as a celebration of 1990s’ nostalgia ends in confusion, hysteria and the kidnapping of a beloved TV presenter.
In Life Below, Kelly chronicles two generations of a northern mining family that each had to endure treacherous conditions to stay alive. In 1984, Rosie Gooder fights for her community’s rights under the threat of Margaret Thatcher’s pit closures. Box office: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
The Magpies: Playing The Crescent in York in September
Magpies in twos: First a North Yorkshire festival, now a York gig for The Magpies next month
FRESH from hosting their sold-out first festival last Saturday at Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, contemporary roots trio The Magpies are off on a 16-date tour next month.
York guitarist, banjo-player and singer Bella Gaffney, clawhammer banjo player and singer Kate Griffinand fiddle-player and tunesmith Holly Brandon will be showcasing their June 2020 album, Tidings, and latest single I Will Never Marry, a traditional tale of lost love, handed down from woman to woman over the centuries.
Among the dates will be The Crescent, York, on September 10. Tour tickets are on sale at themagpiesmusic.com.
Matt Bowden at his Natural Landscape Of Yorkshire exhibition at City Screen, York
York exhibition of the week: Matt Bowden’s The Natural Landscape Of Yorkshire, City Screen, York, until September 11
FILM and television location manager and photographer Matt Bowden’s exhibition has re-opened at City Screen, York, after its Covid-enforced premature closure during lockdown.
“Growing up in North Yorkshire, with such natural beauty on my doorstep, meant it was almost inevitable I would develop an appreciation and interest in wildlife from an early age,” says Matt. “My grandfather Eric was a keen bird-watcher, often taking me to local nature reserves for days out, binoculars around our necks.
“But the desire to capture images of wildlife came to me relatively late in life, as my growing interest in photography through my job collided with the joy and fascination I found in the natural world that surrounded me.”
Double act resumes: Dominic Goodwin as Dr Watson, left, and Julian Finnegan as Sherlock Holmes in Pyramis and Thisbe Productions’ revival of Holmes And Watson: The Farewell Tour
When is The Farewell Tour not the farewell tour? When Pyramus and Thisbe Productions revive Holmes and Watson next month
DOMINIC Goodwin thought he had called time on Stuart Fortey’s Holmes And Watson: The Farewell Tour in 2017, but now his double act with Julian Finnegan will have its miraculous Lazarus reawakening, on tour for 18 dates from September 3 to October 9.
Goodwin once more will play Dr Watson opposite Finnegan’s Sherlock Holmes in Kirkbymoorside company Pyramus and Thisbe Productions’ re-enactment of The Case of The Prime Minister, The Floozie and The Lummock Rock Lighthouse, an affair on whose outcome the security of Europe once hung by a thread.
For full details of a tour with 11 North and East Yorkshire performances, go to: pyramusandthisbeproductions.com
“It’s a high-risk show, as it’s a farce, which is pretty out of fashion,” says Nigel Planer, introducing his new play , All Above Board
REMEMBER Neil the hippy in the Eighties’ student sitcom The Young Ones or maybe Ralph Filthy in Filthy Rich And Catflap?
They were but two of the creations of British comedy legend Nigel Planer, actor, West End musical theatre performer, comedian, novelist and playwright, whose latest premiere is on its way to York.
Planer, Westminster-born star of The Comic Strip Presents, Blackadder and Death In Paradise too, has penned All Above Board, his sixth stage play, for St Helens company Northern Comedy Theatre to tour across the north and the Midlands.
On Thursday and Friday, this typically British farce of mistaken identities and disastrous decisions will play the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.
“You send out loads of plays to loads of theatres, but a friend of mine, who also writes comedy, suggested I should get in touch with Northern Comedy Theatre artistic director Shaun Chambers, and three words appealed to me,” says Planer, 68, explaining how the new partnership was formed. “Northern! Comedy! Theatre!”
“After a sketchy first draft caught Shaun’s eye, it’s on to its fourth draft for the rehearsals, and I went up there for the fourth read-through, with a really impressive casting pool. All of them are just good, funny people.
“It can make you a bit nervous going to a read-through, especially as serious actors can subtract from the jokes, but that wasn’t the case!”
All Above Board finds an unlikely bunch of modern-day do-gooders trying to make the world a better place, but they lose the plot, their morals and even their clothes in farce tradition.
In a nutshell, Timothy Upton-Fell has quit the world of banking and now – for all the wrong reasons – he wants to give something back by helping those less fortunate. Along with his brazen and shameless PR agent, Florence, he plans a charity auction to raise money for good causes, but misguidedly he enlists the help of narcissistic television personality, Matthew Board, a man clearly on the edge in more ways than one.
Matters are made worse by Sir Ommany John, a geriatric world-famous artist who still has an eye for the ladies; Katia, a confused Finnish exchange student, and not least Cressida, Timothy’s crazed and vengeful ex-wife. Furthermore, will Walji, the Punjabi plasterer, ever turn up?
“It’s a high-risk show, as it’s a farce, which is pretty out of fashion,” says Planer. “It’s high risk too because, with a farce, you just set off and it can all come crashing down around you as it relies on speed, dexterity and team play.
“It’s like a sports team: they have to play with each other, whereas in the days of doing stand-up comedy, that’s something they’re not used to having to do. You have to pick up the baton and pass it on.
“I say it’s high risk, but when it’s working, there’s nothing like a good farce, like those Brian Rix farces on television that were always broadcast live – and that’s the way to do it.”
Planer’s last but one play was based on an 18th century farce, The Game Of Love And Chance, re-set in the suburban world of a well-off, middle-class Asian family, with an arranged marriage at its core. “It was that play that made me feel, ‘maybe I should have a go, not at an adaptation, but an original piece’,” he says.
In the rehearsal period for his plays, Planer likes to combine being involved with keeping his distance. “In the past, I’ve gone in for the first two days, then I’d leave them for three weeks and go back in when there’s still time to have a look at what they’ve got. Once it’s the final few days, you’re best out of the way, when it’s all about getting it right and you mustn’t get in the way,” he says.
“But this time I’m going in a week before it opens, maybe to make a few cuts, or maybe to write a few things, though it would be wonderful if I could just say, ‘that’s wonderful, darling’!”
Planer’s participation “depends entirely on the director”. “For my first play, On The Ceiling, a historical comedy about two guys working on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, who got fired by Michelangelo, I was there for half the rehearsals for the original production, putting my oar in,” he says.
“Then, another company said they wanted to do it in a Clapham fringe, but I didn’t know anything about it until it was about to open, so I just watched it, rather than having any input.
“I was involved in the radio version, and then there was a Catalan version in Barcelona that I had nothing to do with as I don’t speak Catalan…and it was the best version yet! The Catalan cast were hitting each other on stage, whereas English casts couldn’t give it that oomph.”
Planer has sought to maintain a balance between performing and writing. “I’ve been doing more of the writing in the past two years, partly because of Covid,” he says. “For ten years, I was doing shows in the West End, which was pretty time-consuming. The last one was Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, and now released from that, I can concentrate on those things I couldn’t do, but I’m comfortable with still doing a few weeks’ TV acting work here and there, like doing Father Brown and Death In Paradise.
“It’s great fun to go on other people’s shows, like There She Goes, working with David Tennant and Jessica Hynes, where I play grumpy Gandalf Pat. It keeps you in touch, and that’s part of the joy of it, whereas writing is lonesome.”
The poster for Nigel Planer’s new farce, All Above Board
What’s coming next? Planer hopes to re-activate the play he co-wrote and performed in 2018 with The Young Ones cohort Adrian Edmondson, Vulcan 7, a Waiting For Godot-echoing comedy wherein two past-it actors are stuck in their trailer on the slopes of an Iceland volcano, unable to film their low-budget sci-fi adventure because of an avalanche.
“We’re hoping to remount it as It’s Heading Straight Towards Us,” he says. Not only the title is new, but the cast will be too. “We’re slightly too old to play these characters now, and besides, when you’re performing it, you have half your brain going, ‘Oh, that’s a line I could re-write’, or ‘Does that work?’, so there’s too much over-thinking going on.”
What does not change is Planer’s appreciation of comedy and farce. “If you look at farce, historically it’s about pompous people having their pomposity punctured. It’s fun seeing someone who thinks a lot of themselves with their trousers down,” he says.
“In this new play, it’s a cast of indefensible characters, where the Punjabi plasterer is pretty much the only nice person in it!
“Farce is a much-maligned artform and yet there is such delight in revisiting characters that we know really hit the spot, like Arthur Lowe’s Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army: the man who’s in charge is incompetent but determined to put everyone in their place. To go back to those kinds of characters, or to Brian Rix’s characters, there’s a recognised hilarity in them.”
How come farces are “out of fashion”, Nigel? “I can’t give a definitive answer, but I suspect there are a number of elements,” he says. “Firstly, they often need big casts, when theatres are now saying, ‘Can you write a two-hander for telly stars?”, which is a producer’s dream.
“Farces are difficult to stage, because of the design requirements, and they’re difficult to get right. It’s also probably my generation’s fault that there was a big shift to stand-up comedians, who just needed a microphone, when farces can need a cast of 12.”
British farce became associated with Brian Rix and then Ray Cooney, “a good friend of mine, who’s still at it, still directing his plays”, says Planer. “But these farces have elements that are now seen as antiquated in terms of their content, gender politics and the concerns of people today, so farce is no longer fashionable, but what I’m hoping is to be able to take the form and make it more acceptable to modern audiences, more groovy, more cool.
“In fact, I’ve been working with Ray Cooney on another farce, giving Run For Your Wife an update, making it Asian as Rani For Your Wife (Rani being an Asian name). It works, and we’re just waiting for a theatre to have the courage to take it on.”
How do characters in All Above Board differ from farces of the past? “Now they have to behave in the right ‘woke’ way, which is part of their pomposity, and hopefully it will be a relief for the audience to be able to laugh at that. If the comedy manages to tickle the funny bone, it will take off.”
Asked to reflect on Planer’s five-decade impact on British comedy, he says: “At the beginning, it was all a mad rush because it was brilliant to find the opportunities at the Comedy Store and with the Comic Strip, with my comedy partner, Peter Richardson.
“We had compatriots who wanted to do stuff like us, forming a company with Ade Edmondson, Rik Mayall and Alexei Sayle, later joined by [Dawn] French and [Jennifer] Saunders, but it was a stroke of luck that it gave us the chance to be able to do so many things.”
Planer had been working as a “straight actor” too, starring in Shine On Harvey Moon, for example, “but after The Young Ones, we were very well known, which was wonderful but also limiting, as I’d always played ‘weird’ characters,” he says.
“Through all that exposure, the character of Neil took over and I exploited that: I did the record and the book. But Neill wasn’t a part that I played that was scripted for The Young Ones. He was a character that I’d created four or five years before we ever got on television. He was already my Dame Edna Everage for years before the TV series. He was my alter-ego.”
Neil the hippy lives on, still Planer’s best-known and best-loved character, one who could only be British. “It’s the individual sense of humour we have,” Nigel reasons. “There are different types of comedy in different countries. In America, they may speak the same language as us but they don’t like losers, whereas we love the losers in our comedy, with all the cruelty that goes with that.”
Northern Comedy Theatre in Nigel Planer’s All Above Board, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 26 and 27, 7.30pm. Box office: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Nigel Planer on his past appearances in York
“I’VE never worked as an actor at a York theatre, but I may well have done a gig there as we did various tours with the Comic Strip and The Young Ones. I bet I have, but sometimes when you play all these one-night gigs, you can’t remember, though the chances are that I must have.
“I seem to remember hanging around York on a poetry tour, when I was hanging around as a performance poet in 1995-1996, touring with Henry Normal.
“I do have a memory of coming to the Theatre Royal in the Seventies, either for an audition or because I was working at the Leeds Playhouse.
“Hang on…I have a memory of being in York for a book launch at the Barbican with Joan Le Mesurier, John Le Mesurier’s wife, who was there to promote her book Lady Don’t Fall Backwards. I must have been promoting one of my books and had to make a speech.
“So, you could say All Above Board is officially my York debut but I have a long association with the city.”
Greece is the word: Ashley Hope Allen’s Shirley Bradshaw with her holiday tickets. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
ESK Valley Theatre producer Sheila Carter has strived for five years to acquire the performing rights for Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine.
“I knew it would really suit us and our audience,” she said, beaming, as Tuesday’s full house gathered outside the Robinson Institute for a pre-show catch-up after a Covid-enforced fallow summer in 2020.
Persistence paid off when, bingo, Carter spotted the 2021 availability of Russell’s one-woman play. A contract was duly signed to complete Esk Valley Theatre’s hattrick of Russell comedies after the two-hander Educating Rita in August 2016 and the push-the-boat-out tenth anniversary production One For The Road with its cast of four two summers earlier.
From four to two to one, the cast size drops, but what a one: size really does not matter here! Quality over quantity, as the saying goes.
Director Mark Stratton has picked a right good one too in Ashley Hope Allan, who Coronation Street devotees will recall from her soap role as TV star medium Crystal Webber.
A medium is defined as “a person who claims to be able to contact and speak to people who are dead, and to pass messages between them and people who are stillalive. Without stretching the connection with Ashley’s soap role too far, Russell’s story serves as a medium for bored, enervated Liverpool housewife Shirley Bradshaw as she reconnects with her younger self, the Shirley Valentine of the title, wondering where she had gone, in a death of sorts.
“We’ve probably all felt a bit like Shirley recently,” says Stratton in his programme notes. “Stuck in our homes with a life we don’t want. It feels appropriate that we can join her, as she re-discovers who she is and sets off on an adventure that will change her life forever.”
Everything is brown at the start: the Seventies’ décor in the kitchen of Shirley’s semi-detached Liverpool house in Graham Kirk’s set design, matched by costume designer Christine Wall’s mood-board palette for Hope Allen’s skirt. Her marriage is brown too: she and husband Joe are attached yet detached, in a rut of routine and rotas.
Shirley is stuck in a world of domestic monotony at 42; her children are already grown up and no longer at home; Joe expects his set tea on the set table at the set time each day, on the dot of his arrival home from work.
If Shirley hasn’t yet been driven up the wall, she is certainly talking to it – isn’t she, wall? Today should be steak day, but Joe will just have to do with chips and egg, prepared in real time by Hope Allan’s Shirley in Act 1, Scene One.
Here comes the sun: Hope Ashley Allan’s Shirley feeling so at home with the Greek way of life in Esk Valley Theatre’s Shirley Valentine. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Pouring herself a glass of white as the one perk-up of her day, Shirley pours out her heart to…us. Immediately this feels more intimate, more personal, than the 1989 film that starred Pauline Collins, Tom Conti and Alison Steadman in its expanded focus, but Russell’s stage version is all the better for everything being seen through Shirley’s eyes.
From slicing potatoes to frying the egg, Shirley chats away about her happier past and drab, flat-tyre present with Joe; her son’s cheeky Nativity Play exploits back in the day; and her sudden chance to escape to a Greek island for two weeks with best friend Jane, without telling Joe, because she knows exactly what he would say.
Confessional Shirley is engaging, amusing, frank company, fearless in self-expression in a way she has not been in her stymied day-to-day, no-holiday grind. Just as she brings herself back to life, so every character is brought to life by vocal dexterity and facial expression, and when applied with the chameleon skills and comedic timing of Hope Allan, this is Valentine’s day all over again as she emboldens herself to head for the sun.
Come Act Two, Kirk’s design swaps a backdrop of grey Liverpool postcards for sun-tanned Greek island ones, and brown wallpaper makes way for everything in signature Greek blue and white, right down to the beachside recliner.
In sun hat, sunglasses and floaty beach wear, Shirley is revived by the weather, the food and new company alike as she switches from conversing with a Liverpool wall to a Greek rock.
Russell, whose economical yet still rich script never wastes a word, now taps into tenderness to add to the comedy and drama, rather than echoing the pathos of ancient Greek plays. Instead of bitterness or regret, Shirley looks forward, to bright skies and a brighter future, responding to re-connecting with her Valentine heart.
Under Stratton’s light-touch, just-right direction, Hope Allan is a joy to behold, both fun and funny: spot-on with her accents and characterisations, uplifting in spirit, astutely paced and rhythmical in her storytelling, always aware of when and where to move.
Russell’s sharp, yet blunt Liverpool humour resonates anew. For all its period setting, the play’s truths hit home more than ever, four decades on, all the more so for the emotional honesty of writer and performer alike.
A glorious surprise awaited at the end: after all those disparate voices, Ashley Hope Allan turned out to be Scottish. Who knew!
Esk Valley Theatre’s Shirley Valentine can be seen at 7.30pm, Mondays to Saturdays, until August 28, complemented by 2.30pm matinees on August 19, 24 and 26. Tickets cost £16, concessions £15, on 01947 897587 or at eskvalleytheatre.co.uk.
