Category: Breaking News

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‘The last thing you want at this time is something that’s depressing and heavy,’ says James bass player Jim Glennie

James took up temporary residence at Broughton Hall, near Skipton, in May. Picture: Lewis Knaggs

JAMES’S “sweet 16th” studio album has arrived, topical and timely, poignant and punchy, arty and anthemic, as their 40th year looms.

Climate change (Beautiful Beaches), Trump’s tinderbox America (Miss America) and last April’s Covid death of frontman Tim Booth’s father-in-law (Recover) all colour All The Colours Of You, the Manchester band’s first release for their new label, Virgin Music.

That “Manchester” tag is now more historic than present day, Clifford-born Booth, 61, having long moved to the United States, and onwards to Costa Rica, Central America, on December 26 last year with his family, in response to the “weekly fires” ravaging their Topanga Canyon neighbourhood.

“California’s becoming ecologicaly unsustainable,” he posted on Twitter shortly afterwards, adding a second reason: “I anticipate a wave of white racist terrorism”.

Fellow founder Jim Glennie, 57, is settled in the Scottish Highlands. He and Booth and the band came together for the recording sessions on three separate occasions, but the production was done remotely, under pandemic restrictions.

“Basically, because of Covid, there was nothing we could do about that situation, though fortunately we’d written the songs, four of us starting the first big session in July 2018,” said Jim, speaking in early May, when James gathered once more, this time at the resplendent Broughton Hall, near Skipton, to rehearse and promote the new album.

“We did some more song-writing at Sheffield Yellow Arch Studios in April 2019 and a third session at Gairloch in the Highlands in August, and those sessions gave us everything we needed in terms of demos.”

“Amazingly, we’ve come out with an album that we’re incredibly happy with, when we could have had disastrous results,” says bassist Jim Glennie of James’s All The Colours Of You

When the band could not gather for formal recording sessions, serendipity played its hands when Booth gave an impromptu lift and his two neighbourly passengers turned out to be the wife and daughter of Jacknife Lee, Grammy Award-winning producer for U2, REM and Taylor Swift no less. A new partnership of the virtual variety was born, prompting Booth to call the album’s arrival a “miraculous conception”, given “all the s**t that went down in 2020”.

“Jacknife worked remotely from his studio, liaising with me and Tim, Tim working more closely with him as they were in the same valley,” said Jim, recalling how they deconstructed, reimagined and reassembled the demos. “Amazingly, we’ve come out with an album that we’re incredibly happy with, when we could have had disastrous results.

“It’s very dancy, very uplifting, very poetic, though there are dark lyrics about Covid and American politics, but we were aware of the need for lightness, and Jacknife has added some fun and humour within the songs. The last thing you want at this time is something that’s depressing and heavy.”

All The Colours Of You stretches the ever-experimental James soundscape to take in psychedelia, post-rock and rave in “another big jump forward for us on the back of the last three albums,” as Booth put it.

“Jacknife has pushed us and the songs somewhere new and it’s very exciting,” said Jim. “After all these years, we are still challenging ourselves and our fans, with each record re-setting our perimeters, but with pride in what we’ve done before.

“I think there are a few reasons for that. We’ve always been a band with a broad spectrum of what we can be, from folk music to hardcore dance and anything in between, so we don’t have a sound that we’re boxed in by.

“We’re always conscious of that, but also we don’t feel we have to prove anything, other than reacting to what we did before, pushing it further or pushing it away from that, driving towards an unknown destination. It is those strides, that push, that still makes you feel relevant and that you still have the right to be here.”

The artwork for James’s 16th studio album, All The Colours Of You, released on June 4

Since re-uniting in 2007 after a six-year hiatus, James have, if anything, become an even more popular live act. So much so, tickets have sold faster than ever for their seven-date autumn travels, when notorious Manchester reprobates Happy Mondays will join them on the road for the first time since 1988, kicking off at Leeds First Direct Arena on November 25.  

“Hopefully, this time they won’t steal our rider or try and spike my drink,” said Booth, when announcing the double bill, for which remaining tickets are on sale at wearejames.com/live.

Before then, James will head to the East Coast to complete a hattrick of Scarborough Open Air Theatre appearances on September 9, after shows there on May 22 2015 and August 18 2018.

“We always have a great night there – even back in the days when you had to cross the old moat to get to the audience!” said Jim. “We’re looking forward to another very special night on the Yorkshire coast.”

James last played a gig in September 2019 in Porto. “It’s painful to think it was that long ago,” said Jim, whose band’s headline show at Deer Shed 11 at Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, was called off in both 2020 and now for this summer.

The reception will be louder than ever when they return at last. “I’m amazed that we’re still able to put on tours where there seems to be an exponential growth each time, with new people coming,” said Jim.

“That’s because we get a lot of play on BBC 6 Music, drawing 18-year-olds to the shows who don’t know the litany of hits.

“We don’t feel we have to prove anything, other than reacting to what we did before, pushing it further or pushing it away from that,” says James bass player Jim Glennie

“It’s a really exciting prospect to have the chance to play again. We’ve had a few false starts and cancellations, so it’s been difficult to get fully invested in it, because it could always change again, but it’s the essence of what we do, playing live, to show off the new album, trying out the new songs, and we need to get to that point again as musicians.”

The James anthems, from Sit Down to Born Of Frustration, Sometimes to She’s A Star, remain the driving force. “People like a sing-along, and those songs are the connection, the glue, that turn the night into being like a football crowd, but we take them on quite a weird ride to get to the big last blast, always leaving them sweaty, with a big smile, at the finish,” said Jim.

All The Colours Of You will be interwoven into the set list, and already James have been taking the songs to air while in residence at Broughton Hall. “We’ve come here not just to rehearse, but it was more that we needed to do other things, like doing radio sessions from here, and a couple of TV appearances that we have to film here,” said Jim, as this early May phone interview drew to a close.

“We’ve locked ourselves in a bubble, being Covid-tested before we arrived, so that we could do all the usual things we do to promote an album, but from one place. It’s a busy two weeks and you have to make the most of it.”

The band had done a session for Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 2 a few weeks earlier.  “That was done separately, remotely, before Tim came over and went into quarantine, so he did the interview for that one from America,” said Jim.

Such have been the changes rendered on the music industry, but not everything changes. Another year, another James album, that delivers affecting songs for now, especially Beautiful Beaches and Recover.

James play Scarborough Open Air Theatre on September 9. Tickets are available at scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

James singer Tim Booth is sure to go surfing in Scarborough in September. Crowd-surfing, that is. Picture: Laura Toomer
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REVIEW: Ryedale Festival 40th Anniversary Season, Benedetti/Elschenbroich/Grynyuk

Review: Ryedale Festival 40th Anniversary Season, Nicola Benedetti/Leonard Elschenbroich/Alexei Grynyuk Trio, Church of St Peter & St Paul, Pickering, June 4

CONCERTO soloists need to have well-developed egos. They have to put their musical personalities out there. Composers demand it, audiences expect it. But when it comes to chamber music, a completely different mind-set is required.

Nicola Benedetti is most likely to be found, professionally speaking, playing her Stradivarius in front of an orchestra; similarly, cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and pianist Alexei Grynyuk are equally renowned as soloists. But when the three of them team up they must submerge their talents into the ensemble.

In the first of two identical “launch”concerts on Friday for next month’s Ryedale Festival (whose details will be announced in a fortnight), they shared considerable insights – and immense joy – with a live audience, in trios by Beethoven and Brahms.

Czerny tells us that Beethoven wrote his Piano Trio in E flat, Op 70 No 2, for Countess Erlödy, shortly after staying with her in Hungary. Some bread-and-butter letter! His soft spot for the countess – they exchanged a number of letters – is underlined by the marking dolce (sweet) at various points in all four movements.

Nicola Benedetti, Alexei Trynyuk and Leonard Elschenbroich: “When the three of them team up they must submerge their talents into the ensemble,” says reviewer Martin Dreyer

The opening Poco Sostenuto evoked poignant reflection on the tribulations of the pandemic. Thereafter, barely a passing cloud disturbed the music’s sunny charm and good humour. The key to its success was the restraint and sensitivity of Grynyuk’s piano. Time and again his quiet intelligence drew us into the intimacy of the texture.

The double theme and variations of the second movement – very rare in Beethoven – attracted a little fierceness when in the minor key, as a Hungarian dance should, but was teasingly spaced at the end.

The second Allegretto’s Schubertian melody was neatly shared between violin and piano, while the unrelenting energy of the finale was irresistibly invigorating. Just what the doctor ordered.

Brahms’s Second Piano Trio, in C major, opens with such an impetuous, heavily larded piano role that the strings are always going to be stretched to maintain some kind of balance. There were moments here when they became temporarily submerged. But order was restored when dialogue between the strings emerged with clarity in the development section, and the approach to the closing unison was reached in satisfying style.

The slow movement was contrastingly sombre, its second theme serenely introduced by the cello. The will-o’-the-wisp scherzo – with a very smooth trio – was crystallized by its final pizzicato. The finale threw caution to the winds, in the grandest romantic manner. At no time did we feel that this was anything but a well-oiled ensemble, quite without individual pretensions. It was all about teamwork.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: I Fagiolini, St Lawrence Parish Church, York, June 2

I Fagiolini:

HURRAH! Live music is back. There was tangible hope in the air on this lovely summer evening, as Robert Hollingworth’s crack vocal group I Fagiolini returned to the fray in front of an eager audience (albeit socially distanced and masked), promoted by the University of York.

We must be grateful for the efforts of many musicians who have toiled to stream concerts over the past year. But nothing beats the real thing, for performers and audiences alike.

Hollingworth’s programmes are always imaginative, not to say challenging, and this one was no exception. Au Naturel was inspired by the four-season canvases painted by Pieter Brueghel the Younger in 1624, in which peasants labour outdoors in the foreground and make merry in the mid-ground, against reassuring landscapes.

 “The paintings are … a hymn to the majesty of nature in its whole and parts” in the words of Martin Kemp’s programme-note, and a timely reminder that nature needs our co-operation. The programme helpfully reprinted extracts from all four paintings, in full colour.

Autumn kicked off with Leighton’s setting of Hopkins’s God’s Grandeur, which celebrates nature’s powers of recovery after man’s mistreatments. Leighton observes all this, acerbic at first, then gradually gentler: the seven singers, uneven to start, settled into a smooth flow.

Rheinberger’s Evening Song offered soothing compensation. In total contrast was the Monégasque composer Léo Ferré’s scatty Chanson d’Automne, its anarchic fragments fluttering like falling leaves.

Winter was entirely dedicated to Ed Hughes’s Sun, New Moon and Women Shouting, a 10-minute setting of a Tom Lowenstein poem inspired by three dark winters among the Alaskan Inuits. The music, like the poem, does not gloss over the hardships, but finds solace in the moon when the sun fails to appear. A dialogue between male and female elders leads towards an upbeat ending. The composer was present to receive deserved applause.

The male singers removed their ties for Spring, which opened with sprightly seasonal madrigals by Monteverdi and Claude Le Jeune, the one springy and vivacious, the other more alive to Cupid’s darts among both mankind and animals, with a cheery refrain. Howells’s 1964 setting – his last secular part-song – of Bryan Guinness (2nd Baron Moyne), The summer is coming, beautifully captured the anticipation of springtime in Ireland.

And so to Summer itself, this time with jackets removed. Sumer is icumen in made the perfect start, timeless in its clarity. Schütz’s The heavens declare had terrific rhythmic zest. Janequin’s zany La Chasse was made more hilarious still by vivid gesticulations and a ‘galloping’ tutti, a tour de force to close an exhilarating evening.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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Why Grayson Perry is Top of the Pots, Kinky Sex plate and all…

Kinky Sex: Grayson Perry’s first ceramic, from his Pre-Therapy Years exhibition at York Art Gallery

SHEER art attack podcasters Chalmers & Hutch discuss the cracking ceramics exhibition Grayson Perry: The Pre-Therapy Years at York Theatre Royal in episode 45 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car.

What’s on Graham’s Lonely Film Club Night list?

How does the passing of time judge Nick Drake, Bowie, Dylan and…Sinead O’Connor, singer, agent provocateur and now autobiographer? More Sinned against than Sinning?

What are all those flags on Harrogate Stray? Graham flags up Luke Jerram’s NHS tribute installation, In Memoriam.

Here’s the link to hear more: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/8636988

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John Godber Company sets sail at Hull dry dock with filleted, better, topical Moby Dick

Director John Godber watching a rehearsal for Moby Dick at Stage @TheDock, Hull. Picture: Antony Robling

WHERE better to stage John Godber and Nick Lane’s radical reworking of Herman Melville’s maritime (mis)adventure Moby Dick than at Hull’s dry dock amphitheatre.

Welcome to Stage@TheDock – nearest car park, the new Fruit Market multi-storey – where the John Godber Company is presenting a 70-minute, no-interval, fast-paced, socially-distanced, physical production with a cast of eight until June 12.

“We are the first people to put a show on there for more than a couple of nights,” says director and co-director Godber.

What exactly is the Stage@TheDock? “The amphitheatre was established for Hull’s UK City Of Culture in 2017, up by The Deep. It’s what was called Hull’s dry dock and it’s now part of a new development of offices, digital spaces and restaurants,” says Godber.

“It’s also the HQ of the development company, Wykeland Property Group, who put money into setting up the venue and have given us financial support for this show: enough to put the production on in these times; enough to energise us all.

“We started talking with Wykeland in the middle of last year and then nothing developed, but now [with Step 3 of the Government’s roadmap] the opportunity has come up.”

Adhering to social-distancing rules is restricting the 350-seat amphitheatre to a Covid-secure capacity of around 90. “That meant we needed to do a story with a classical arc, one that would fill that space, but we knew that staging Moby Dick would not be possible without funding support,” says Godber.

Frazer Hammill, Sophie Bevan and Lamin Touray in rehearsal for Moby Dick. Picture: Antony Robling

“That’s why, though we don’t normally seek Arts Council [England] funding, we put in a Culture Recovery Fund bid that’s given us more than a match for Wykeland, and we put some money in too.”

The revised adaptation by Yorkshire playwrights Godber and Lane transports audiences from what was the port’s central dry dock to the deck of Captain Ahab’s ship the Pequod in his catastrophic, deranged battle with the monster white whale, Moby Dick.

“It’s a show we first did at Hull Truck in 2002, and I was really pleased with it. We had a cast of only four: what were we thinking?! It was almost impossible,” recalls Godber.

“We’re delighted to have a cast of eight this time because the pandemic has been a crucifying time for anyone in the creative arts. They’re all local professionals, with two of them new to the professional stage, and we wanted actors with a relationship with this city and this coast.”

Godber’s cast duly draws on actors from Sproatley, Long Riston, Hornsea and Goole, alongside former Wyke College students and locally born actors who have appeared at the National Theatre in War Horse, Warner Bros films and BBC Radio Four soap opera The Archers.

Step forward Frazer Hammill as Frank; Nick Figgis as Rob; Tom Gibbons as Pat; Martha Godber as Lucy; Lamin Touray as Ant; Sophie Bevan as Kate; Caitlin Townend as Sue and Goole-born May Tether as Lily, following her appearance as Jill in the York Stage pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk.

“The Covid-compliance to put on this show is almost a show in itself. The actors are staying together in an Airbnb in Hull, doing Covid tests twice a week,” says Godber.

Once Hull’s central dry dock, now the home of Stage @The Dock, where the John Godber Company cast is seen in rehearsal. Picture: Antony Robling

“We’ve employed 20 people overall, from producer, production manager and company manager to front of house, stage manager and costume designer, to actors and outreach educators. We’ve all thought, ‘what would we have done without this?’. Not the finance, but the sense of purpose.”

After a couple of phone discussions with Lane, Godber was the one to put the new script together. “It’s a better show because we’ve filleted it. We didn’t want it to be longer than 70 minutes, because the book [written in 1851] is unwieldy to say the least!” he says.

“Our first version was told by four old soaks in a bar that was about to be knocked down, but now instead all eight characters have a relationship with this part of Hull, through their parents or grandparents, as a place for a sandwich and a chat.”

Significantly too, the script makes reference to Hull’s global importance as a port, its former prowess as a whaling centre and contemporary issues of conservation (that chime with Godber, wife Jane and daughter Martha becoming vegans).

“When I was at Hull Truck, I didn’t write about fishing and trawling at first as I didn’t believe it was my privilege, as I came from a mining family, not a fishing one,” recalls Godber.

“But then I thought, if we are going to do something about the fishing industry, it better be the biggest: Moby Dick!

“I like going to Bruges on the Hull Zeebrugge ferry, but that’s only 14 hours; The Prequod is setting off for three years!”

John, Martha and Jane Godber in their Stephen Joseph Theatre dressing room during last autumn’s run of Sunny Side Up

Godber smiles at the rise to the top of the charts of a certain former Aidrie postman with a sea shanty in the pandemic. “One of the weird things, in lockdown, was how Wellerman caught on on TikTok, when Nathan Evans said he wanted to do something to get him ‘out of lockdown’, with all the stoicism lockdown demanded,” he says.

Last autumn, the Godber family bubble of John, Jane, actor daughter Martha and company manager daughter Elizabeth premiered his play Sunny Side Up at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, between lockdowns, rehearsing at home. “It was the only way we could physically put on a new play that wasn’t a one-man show,” he says.

Now, Godber is at the forefront of the second wave of theatre’s return. “The fact you know, without funding, you’re not going to break even, you could think, ‘so what’s the point of it?’, but the point of it is that this is what we do,” says Godber. “Even if has to be a stab in the dark.

“I do believe there’s been a dissolving into Ground Zero for the arts. A survey said 31 per cent of people won’t go back to cultural activities in the same way. That’s a lot of people and they won’t return. I hope people will, but I don’t know if it will materialise.

“That’s why we’re doing this play in the open air for a number of reasons. It’s almost Covid-zero with social distancing, people in masks,  sanitisers, the space being wiped down regularly.”

John Godber Company in Moby Dick, Stage@The Dock, Hull, until June 12, 7pm nightly plus 4pm matinees on June 5, 9 and 12.

To maintain social distancing, tickets must be bought in groups of one, two or four; wheelchair spaces are available. Seating is unreserved, so early booking is recommended to avoid disappointment. Tickets cost £20 at Eventbrite.

John and Martha Godber in rehearsal for Moby Dick. Picture: Antony Robling
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‘It’s time,’ says Emma Rice as Wise Children’s long-promised Wuthering Heights is confirmed for York Theatre Royal

The first poster for Wise Children’s Wuthering Heights, starring Lucy McCormick as Cathy. Picture: Hugo Glendinning

YORK Theatre Royal will play host to the world premiere of Emma Rice’s long-touted adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights from November 8 to 20.

Rice’s company, Wise Children, is mounting the touring co-production with the Theatre Royal, the National Theatre and Bristol Old Vic (in the city where Wise Children are based in Spike Island).

Lucy McCormick’s Cathy will lead artistic director Rice’s company of performers and musicians for an elemental stage adaptation that brings new life to the epic Yorkshire moorland story of love, revenge and redemption with Rice’s trademark musical and visual style.

Emma said today: “It is with an earthy spring in my step and epic twinkle in my eye that I announce our new plans for Wuthering Heights. So many projects have fallen by the wayside during lockdown that there were times when I lost hope – but there was no need!

“Wise Children are back; stronger, wiser and grateful for the chance to sing and dance again. The exceptional cast, crew, administrative and creative teams are ready to go and we are fizzing with ideas, dreams and anticipation.

“Emboldened and humbled by the enforced break, I feel truly lucky. I cannot wait to get back to doing what I love most and to share this thrilling and important piece with the world. It’s time.”

“I cannot wait to get back to doing what I love most,” says Wise Children artistic director Emma Rice

Should you need a reminder, this is the Brontë one where, rescued from the Liverpool docks as a child, Heathcliff is adopted by the Earnshaws and taken to live at Wuthering Heights, finding a kindred spirit in Catherine Earnshaw as a fierce love ignites. When forced apart, a brutal chain of events is unleashed.

“Shot through with music, dance, passion and hope, Emma Rice transforms Emily Brontë’s masterpiece into a powerful and uniquely theatrical experience,” the tour publicity states. “Lucy McCormick leads the company of performers and musicians in this intoxicating revenge tragedy for our time, with set and costume design by Vicki Mortimer; sound and video by Simon Baker; composition by Ian Ross; movement and choreography by Etta Murfitt and lighting design by Jai Morjaria.”

Rice’s production will open at Bristol Old Vic with previews from October 11 and livestreams to be confirmed for the first week in November. Before all that, this summer Rice directs her Wise Children adaptation of Percy and Eleonore Adlon’s Bagdad Cafe at The Old Vic, in London, from July 17 to August 21, with a livestream for Old Vic: In Camera 25 on August 28.

Wise Children – the company Rice formed when her artistic directorship of Shakespeare’s Globe ended in acrimony in April 2018 after only two seasons – will be completing a hat-trick of visits to York Theatre Royal after staging Rice’s adaptation of Angela Carter’s Wise Children in March 2019 and Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers in September that year in a co-production with the Theatre Royal.

On that visit came the promise of first news of “a third collaboration between Wise Children and York Theatre Royal, this one with a Yorkshire core and National significance in 2020. Watch this space,” as The Press, York, teased. In other words, after much more space watching than first planned, here comes Wuthering Heights and the National Theatre as co-producers.

In her 2016-2018 tenure at Shakespeare’s Globe, Rice directed Romantics Anonymous, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Little Matchgirl (and Other Happier Tales).

Class act: Wise Children’s stage adaptation of Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers at York Theatre Royal in September 2019

For the previous 20 years, she had worked for Kneehigh Theatre as an actor, director and artistic director, putting the company on the national map and becoming favourites at West Yorkshire Playhouse (now Leeds Playhouse) on regular sold-out visits to Yorkshire with bravura shows replete with magical storytelling, rumbustious music and circus daring.

However, in a tale of Rice and fall, the news of Wuthering Heights’ tour comes only a day after Kneehigh announced their exit stage left bereft after “changes in artistic leadership raised questions as to whether Kneehigh could sustain their vision going forward”.

In March, founding artistic director, actor, director and teacher Mike Shepherd announced his departure – “the end of this glorious book,” he said – after more than 40 years at Kneehigh. Only two months earlier, deputy artistic director Carl Grose had left too.

The company statement reads in full: “With sadness and regret, the trustees of Kneehigh are announcing the winding down of Kneehigh Theatre.

“While the last year has been a difficult time for many people, including those employed in the arts, performance and theatre, Kneehigh’s financial stability has enabled the company to continue to create work throughout the pandemic.

“Kneehigh is grateful to its principal funder, Arts Council England, and for the significant support received from the Culture Recovery Fund, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Coastal Communities Fund, Cornwall Council and Garfield Weston Foundation.

“Recent changes in artistic leadership raised questions as to whether Kneehigh could sustain their vision going forward. The trustees and company reflected on a possible new future but concluded that it was better and more responsible to close Kneehigh and ensure an orderly wind-down.”

Farewell, Kneehigh

“The company wants to thank everyone who came to watch the performances, the artists they have had the pleasure to work alongside, the industry collaborators and partners, the volunteers and community groups who shared their time, knowledge and stories, as well as the funders and the friends – all of whom made the work possible.”

Hedda Archbold, chair of the board, said: “The board wants to acknowledge that this is a difficult time for the Kneehigh team. We want to thank them for the excellent work they have done and pay tribute to their passion and commitment to Kneehigh.

“Last Saturday, the brilliant Random Acts Of Art had its final performance. The project has been a high point on which to end. These bold, playful, humorous and thought-provoking creative works brought together dozens of collaborators all across Cornwall, and delighted audiences out and about as well as online.

“Eclectic, anarchic, inspiring and inclusive, it embodied the spirit of Kneehigh we have loved for the past 40 glorious years. Despite the challenges of the past year, it has been an incredible journey filled with joy and delight.”

Bless you, Kneehigh, for the treasured memories, whether at the Playhouse in Leeds or on a holiday visit to the Asylum at Heligan Gardens, Cornwall, in September 2018 for Fup: A Modern Fable. Thank you and goodnight after many a good night. Your work here is done: you changed the face, the reach, the possibilities, of theatre.

Rice’s snap, crackle and pop theatre goes on, however, and tickets are sure to sell fast for Wuthering Heights on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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CBeebies faves Twirlywoos are on their way to York Theatre Royal in the Big Red Boat

Twirlywoos Live!: Expect mischief, music and surprises aplenty at York Theatre Royal

TOODLOO, Great BigHoo, Chick and Peekaboo set sail for York next week on board the Big Red Boat for their Theatre Royal theatrical adventure Twirlywoos Live!.

These CBeebies TV favourites will be brought to life with inventive puppetry on stage from June 11 to 13 when mischief, music and plenty of surprises are in store for “little ones”.

For the uninitiated, the Twirlywoos are “four small, bird-like characters who are inquisitive, enthusiastic and always looking to learn something new about the world. Ever curious, they seek adventure and fun wherever they go. Whether in the real world or on their big red boat, they love to hide, imitate and be surprised as they discover fresh things”.

Twirlywoos was first broadcast on CBeebies in 2015 and celebrated its 100th episode in 2017. The series was co-created by Teletubbies devisor Anne Wood, and Steve Roberts, Wood’s co-creator of the BAFTA-winning CBeebies series Dipdap.

Inquisitive, enthusiastic and always looking to learn something new: the world of the Twirlywoos

Twirlywoos Live! is brought to the stage by MEI Theatrical, the producers behind  CBeebies favourite Sarah And Duck Live On Stage and the smash hit The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show. 

Written by by Zoe Bourn, whose stage-transfer credits include Thomas And Friends and Fireman Sam Live!, Twirlywoos Live! is recommended for ages 1+. Babes in arms are welcome.

Performances will be at 1.30pm and 4pm on June 11, then 10am and 2pm, June 12 and 13, with a running time of 55 minutes and no interval. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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Trailblazers Arthur Kleinjan and Juliana Kasumu win Aesthetica Art Prize awards at York Art Gallery in timely ‘call to action’

Arthur Kleinjan’s Above Us Only Sky: Winner of the 2021 Aesthetica Art Prize Main Prize

ARTHUR Kleinjan has won the 2021 Aesthetica Art Prize Main Prize and Juliana Kasumu, the Emerging Prize, in York.

The winners were announced in a virtual private view and awards ceremony online, ahead of the public opening of the exhibition at York Art Gallery, Exhibition Square, that will run until September 5.

Both artists’ moving-image works question the world in which we live, diving into some of today’s most pressing topics, from the construction of complex identities to notions of truth and storytelling.

Dutchman Kleinjan’s winning work is Above Us Only Sky, a compelling film wherein a narrator leads the viewer into a magical-realist history bereft of fabrication. The story begins with an investigation into a plane crash in communist Czechoslovakia, when one woman survived after an unlikely fall from the air.

“This event becomes the point of entry to a dense web of seemingly unrelated events that question the logic of chance and synchronicity,” says Aesthetica Art Prize director Cherie Federico.

Technical gremlins with the sound prevented Kleinjan from making an acceptance speech from his home, but he could be seen on screen, cupping his hands in thanks, making heart signs and giving thumbs-ups.

British-Nigerian artist Kasumu’s winning Emerging work, What Does The Water Taste Like?, was prompted by intimate conversations, “questioning the production of identity as it relates to her own personal affiliations with the complex ways where past and present remain in constant dialogue”.

“This engages in interpersonal speculation regarding identity production and sentiments of ‘home’,” says Cherie. “Juliana’s work presents perspectives on the intimacy between kith and kin.”

Juliana Kasumu’s What Does The Water Taste Like?: Winner of the 2021 Aesthetica Art Prize Emerging Prize

“I’m honoured, I’m excited, I’m grateful, so excited that the project is being seen in this way, as it’s so meaningful, not just to me, but to my family,” said Juliana, in her digital livestream interview with Cherie, later revealing she happened to be “in York right now”.

What inspired Juliana’s artist film? “My practice has been such a long journey of questioning, asking questions and wanting to resolve my feelings about my identity as a British Nigerian, the disconnection, when I’m here, or in Nigeria, or travelling the world,” she replied.

Kasumu is resolving her journey to her identity, such as the matter of her name, and trying to understand that path as a “second generation child of two immigrant parents”. “Even people who are not second generation will understand it,” she said.

The straightening of hair was central to the film, noted Cherie. “I guess for me, in retrospect, I feel that even in the pain and the frustration, there is also love,” Juliana said. “You will see she [the mother] is nurturing the hair as a labour of love, even though the things that have brought it about are painful. There is a tenderness that can exist, where love can exist, but pain can also exist.”

What’s next for Juliana? “I’m in post-production for a short documentary I made in New Orleans about this amazing woman who runs the Baby Bangz hair salon [at 223, N. Rendon Street],” she said.

Cherie describes the Aesthetica Art Prize as a place of discovery, sculpting the future of the art sector through supporting the most talented new practitioners from across the globe, from the UK to the USA, Italy to Norway, Germany to Brazil, Singapore to Mexico, Taiwan to Australia: “trailblazers who digest the very nature of life in the 21st century, further questioning and making sense of a rapidly changing world”.

In all, more than 4,000 artworks were submitted for the 2021 prize; 125 entrants making the long list; 20, the short list of “new luminaries and chroniclers of our times”, chosen for their originality, skill and technical ability for the exhibition at York Art Gallery.

Cherie says: “Life was complicated before Covid-19, and the pandemic has placed a new set of constraints and challenges on society. The question that runs through all of our minds like a ticker tape is: ‘where do we go from here?’

Straighten, from Juliana Kasumu’s prize-winning art film What Does The Water Taste Like?

“The winning works are just that: a call to action. These works are covering themes such as the climate crisis, colonial histories, racism, new technologies and the impact they have on our lives. Both Juliana Kasumu and Arthur Kleinjan draw on personal and universal narratives, with immediate artworks that reflect on the times in which we live.”

Hosted by the York-published international art magazine Aesthetica, the Aesthetica Art Prize was set up 14 years ago to provide a platform for those redefining the parameters of contemporary art.

It has since supported practitioners to gain funding, residencies and commissions, while finalists have featured in exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery, V&A, MoMA, Barbican and the National Portrait Gallery, in London. Winners receive prize money, exhibition and publication opportunities , plus further opportunities for development.

The 2021 shortlisted artists with work on show at York Art Gallery are: Kleinjan; Kasumu; Monica Alcazar-Duarte; Andrew Leventis; Chris Combs; James Tapscott; Alice Duncan and Cesar & Lois Collective; Carlos David; Seb Agnew; Kitoko Diva; Christiane Zschommler; Henny Burnett;   Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard; David Brandy; Shan Wu; Cathryn Shilling; Dirk Hardy; Gabriel Hensche and Erwin Redl.

The work spans painting and drawing; photography and digital art; three-dimensional design and sculpture; installation, performance and video art. As with each year, the selected pieces push the boundaries of form and genre, inspiring viewers to see the world in new ways.

“Their works cover pressing themes, from the climate crisis and colonial histories to racist bias and new technologies,” says Cherie.

“The pieces draw on both personal and universal narratives, unearthing the intricate layers of what it means to be alive today. These works are immediate, compelling and highly relevant works reflecting on a new zeitgeist.”

Among the featured artists, Kitoko Diva’s The Black Man In The Cosmos is a poetic and experimental art film created as a part of a video installation, mixing new forms of Afrofuturism, cyberspace imagery and poetry, that addresses the contemporary identity crisis issue among European Afro-descendants.

Winning work: Dutchman Arthur Kleinjan’s Above Us Only Sky

Henny Burnett’s 365 Days Of Plastic takes a critical look at plastic consumption, moulding a year’s worth of packaging into sculptures that comprise a four by three-metre wall. “The scale of food packaging, recycling and waste disposal is there to be seen in plain view,” says Cherie.

Andrew Leventis’s Freezer Box (Vanitas) and Refrigerator (Vanitas) tap into the material realities of the Covid-19 pandemic. His paintings transform Dutch vanitas into 21st century works that consider the experience of mass panic and how the idea of “stocking up” on items became crucial, almost primal, in a notion to survive.

Monica Alcazar-Duarte’s photography series, Second Nature, looks at how algorithms are used, through search engine technology, to support and maintain biased thinking. “These images are an amalgamation of re-staged moments from stories of discrimination gathered from algorithmic search results on the internet,” says Cherie.

In Gabriel Hensche’s Almost Heaven, the artist performs and dances to a song he does not like, Take Me Home, Country Roads. “The result is unnerving and unsettling; the piece demonstrates a perpetual layer of disconnect that we experience through the lens and daily on the internet,” says Cherie.

Reflecting on running such a prestigious prize, the director says: “I’m honoured to have the opportunity to engage with, and support, so much talent. Every day, I am inspired by these artists. I can only thank them for giving me the opportunity to experience such captivating work.

“Curating this year’s exhibition was infinitely rewarding. The process is rigorous because there are so many talented artists that apply.”

Cherie told the awards-ceremony online audience she ‘could not tell you’ how happy she was that the show would be opening in “real life”. “I’m talking tears of joy,” she said. “It’s just so wonderful to be able to put these works on display at York Art Gallery for the world to see.

“Life was about finding a new balance. It was strange and odd, but I’ve learned so much,” says Aesthetica director Cherie Federico of her lockdown experiences

“Art is the mechanism by which we can begin to make sense of the world. If there has ever been a time that we need art in our lives, it is now. The world has been permanently changed by the pandemic. We are living history.

“This is the moment that will alter the way we live, communicate, work, play, socialise, travel, experience the joys of culture, forever.”

In many ways, the pandemic has opened up a new set of possibilities, suggested Cherie: “I lament the loss of some things, while other changes, I welcome. It’s the permanent sense of the real and virtual, the ease and unease, presence and absence. I feel so emotional when I see footage of life in 2019; I well up and my brain starts to access the enormity of the situation.

“I work through all the details. The fears, anxiety and worry. These are feelings that are going to take a long time to understand.”

On the one hand, Cherie had to slow down in the three lockdowns; on the other, ironically, she found she had to “speed right up”. “Life was about finding a new balance. It was strange and odd, but I’ve learned so much,” she said.

“Art is the thing that holds everything together for me. It’s what helps me to work through the sense, anxiety and worry. Art reminds me of our humanity, encourages me to take risks and bold steps forward.

“I see this as a chance to improve, to take this experience and do something with it: rebuild a better, greener and equal society. These are noble aspirations, I know, but the opportunity is here and waiting for all of us to act upon.”

Prize winner Arthur Kleinjan

Nothing happens without action, asserted Cherie, pointing to the exhibition being a rallying call. “So much of it focuses on the very fabric of our lives and the possibilities that are there for the future,” she said.

“The thing about this pandemic is that it has affected every single person on planet Earth. Just think about that for a moment. We have had this enormous shared experience – and there is something very special about that. In many ways, it means you are not alone, and with that comes great comfort.”

Summing up the exhibition, Cherie posits: “The shortlisted artists speak to each other about what it means to be here, in this moment. The dialogue is robust, urgent and necessary. Race and identity are key themes.”

The Aesthetica Art Prize exhibition runs at York Art Gallery until September 5. Tickets are free but booking is essential at yorkartgallery.org.uk.

The 2021 Aesthetica Art Prize anthology, Future Now: 125 Contemporary Artists, is available to order for £12.95 at shop.aestheticamagazine.com/collections/future-now-collection/products/future-now-2021

Entries are open already for the 2022 prize at aestheticamagazine.com/artprize/submit.

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‘If you know anyone with REALLY big walls,’ Corrina Rothwell’s cacophonous abstract paintings await upstairs at Pyramid Gallery

Subterranea Nostalgia: “Really big walls” will be needed by whoever buys Corrina Rothwell’s large abstract painting at Pyramid Gallery, York

CORRINA Rothwell’s abstract work Subterranea Nostalgia is the largest ever painting to be exhibited at Pyramid Gallery in curator Terry Brett’s near-30 years in York.

“It measures 1600mm by 1600mm. That was fun, getting it upstairs!” says Terry, whose gallery is housed in a National Trust-owned 15th century building in Stonegate. “The painting has a real impact. If you know anyone with REALLY big walls, it would be perfect for them!”

Nottingham artist Corrina favours mixed media and acrylic on canvas for the abstract paintings assembled under the title of The Cacophony Of Ages, both on the first floor and stairs at Pyramid and online until July 1.

Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett stands by Corrina Rothwell’s painting Subterranea Nostalgia. In the foreground is Eoghan Bridge‘s sculpture Selby – The Art Of Balance

In her words, Corrina’s works are “expressive, evocative abstract landscape paintings with a sense of yearning, balancing chaos with order, light with dark, the hidden with the visible, history with modernity and beauty with decay”.

“Corrina has been practising art for more than 25 years,” says Terry. “Brought up by artist parents, she worked in digital illustration and design and before that she was a textile artist, selling machine-embroidered artworks.

“That explains the dress patterns that appear in her artwork, juxtaposed with industrial and derelict buildings from her childhood growing up in Lancashire and then Nottingham.

Undertow, by Corrina Rothwell

“These dramatic, bold paintings with handwriting, dress patterns, urban photos and the occasional splash of gold leaf would be perfect for any space.”

Corrina has been an artist for most of her adult life. “An aborted attempt at academia saw me leaving my European Studies degree in my second year at Hull University in 1989, and I never did get round to doing an art qualification,” she says.

“However, I was raised by artist parents, so art was pretty much instilled in me from a very early age. Until recently, I was working as a digital illustrator, designing and publishing my own successful greeting cards range. Before this, I practised for 14 years as a textile artist, exhibiting and selling machine-embroidered artworks nationally and internationally.”

Drama And Doggerel, by Corrina Rothwell

Corrina has always loved using paint. “I’ve dipped and out of it over the years, but never pursued it with any consistency, but I believe now that painting is my true calling,” she says.

“I feel more at home and more myself creatively than I have done for a long time. Ultimately, I’m a ‘hands on’ kind of artist, and while I enjoyed digital illustration, the desire to get my hands dirty was too great to ignore in the end.”

Over the past few years, her work has evolved rapidly as she figured out what she wanted to say as a painter. “Initially I was essentially painting illustrations, which didn’t work,” she says. “I moved away from figurative work and began focusing on abstract shape and colour, which felt quite uncomfortable and alien to me, having always worked with a narrative.

“I’m particularly drawn to old factories and urban industrial landscapes,” says abstract artist Corrina Rothwell

“Still, I continued to trust my intuition and gradually became more at ease with producing artwork without a story. Ultimately, however, that lack of narrative has proved itself to be something – subconsciously – I couldn’t ignore.”

So much so, without intent, buildings have started to appear in Corrina’s work. “I say without intent because I didn’t plan to use them. I just answered an urge to put them there,” she explains.

“I’m particularly drawn to old factories and urban industrial landscapes and, given that I grew up in the cotton-mill county of Lancashire, it doesn’t take a genius to work out where this attraction comes from.

Blueprint For The Future, by Corrina Rothwell

“I’m becoming more involved in this concept of history and narrative, which has emerged out of my subconscious and into my artwork, and it’s leading to paintings which I feel good about in my soul, which satisfy me on a deep level. It’s a rich seam to mine, and the exciting thing is that I’ve only just begun!”

Don’t forget, Corrina’s “contemporary, nostalgic and thought provoking” paintings in The Cacophony Of Ages can be viewed online too at pyramidgallery.com .

“This exciting collection flows beautifully both online and at the gallery,” says Terry. “It’s such a formidable show.” 

Pyramid Gallery is open Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm; Saturdays, 10am to 5.30pm; Sundays, 12.30m to 4.30pm, but first text Tery Brett on 07805 029 254 to check a specific Sunday opening.

Built On Soil And Stories, by Corrina Rothwell
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York Theatre Royal goes global for Summer Of Love on playing fields and back indoors UPDATED 4/6/2021

Juliet Forster: York Theatre Royal creative director will be going around York in rather fewer than 80 days with Around The World In Days In 80 Days

MOVE over 1967. Here comes the new Summer Of Love at York Theatre Royal.

What’s more, after the success of last winter’s Travelling Pantomime tour to 16 York locations, the Theatre Royal will be on the move again, going global for a fresh adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days.

A soon-to-be confirmed further outdoor location for August 10 to 12 is to be added to the playing fields of Carr Junior School, August 6 to 8; Archbishop Holgate’s School, August 14 to 16, and Joseph Rowntree School, August 18 to 21, before a main-stage indoors finale back at base from August 25 to 28.

The adaptation is by the Theatre Royal’s creative director, Juliet Forster, director of both the Travelling Pantomime and Love Bites, the love letter to live performance that launched The Love Season after Covid restrictions eased on May 17. 

“As one of the characters in the play says: ‘If you can’t travel to exciting parts of the globe this summer, don’t despair – we are here to bring the world to you!’That’s the spirit of this production really,” says Juliet, who will be working with Sara Perks, the designer of Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes and Brideshead Revisited at the Theatre Royal.

“Many of us are feeling disappointed that there are still a lot of restrictions around travelling this summer, so this show is the perfect opportunity for some armchair tourism – or, rather, picnic blanket tourism.

“Jules Verne’s story is a lot of fun as the characters race against time to complete a full circuit of the Earth, and in this version, fact and fiction also go head to head as real-life investigative journalist Nellie Bly, puts in an appearance. It’s going to be a joyful, very energetic, very silly and highly acrobatic re-telling of the story, delivering the kind of experience that live theatre does best.”

Delighted by the ticket sales and audience response to the socially-distanced, Covid-secure Love Season so far, Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird has a similar policy in place for post-June 21, given the rising uncertainty surrounding “Freedom Day’s” removal of all strictures.

“We’re moving through the gears, one step at a time, one mini-season at a time,” says York Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird

“We’re moving through the gears, one step at a time, one mini-season at a time,” he says. “We knew we couldn’t do a Covid-safe community play this summer, though we’d really like to do one soon.

“But we got the bug for moving shows out and about around York with the Travelling Pantomime, and when it looked like there was a possibility of theatres still not reopening fully, we looked at doing an outdoor show and chose one with a wonderful sense of adventure and the spectacular, Around The World In 80 Days, where it will feel like a circus has parked in your nearby field.”

Juliet’s adaptation, co-created in rehearsal through July with a five-strong cast of circus performers and actors, will add a new layer to Verne’s story. “She got really interested in this amazing woman, Nellie Bly, who went around the world in only 72 days at the end of the 19th century,” says Tom.

“Juliet has interwoven Nellie Bly’s story with Phileas Fogg’s story to present one tale they may well not know inside one they probably do. It really hurtles along and is a very dynamic piece, where the framing device involves the circus performers deciding they want to tell Nellie’s story.

“Juliet is a really talented dramaturg, and that’s a skill it’s good for us to make use of, bringing a new voice to a classic novel.”

Looking further ahead, audiences can travel to Africa too in the Summer Of Love when Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad & Me has its delayed world premiere from September 9 to 18. Theatre Royal artistic associate John R Wilkinson’s production was scheduled to debut in May 2020 but postponed under the Covid pandemic restrictions.

Presented by York Theatre Royal and English Touring Theatre, writer-performer Munyevu’s play charts the rise and fall of controversial Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe through the personal story of Tonderai’s family and his relationship with his father.

“We are so proud of this play, doing the world premiere, co-produced with English Touring Theatre,” says Tom. “It’s one for the lovers of politics and how it’s never quite as clear cut as you think it is: the way Mugabe moved from hero to villain and how that played out in millions of Zimbabweans’ lives.

Mugabe, My Dad & Me: World premiere at York Theatre Royal

“It’s such an interesting piece in the way that it looks at how one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter: the way that Mugabe broke the old system of rule but then ended up founding a new form of tyranny.  As well as that, the play is about being part of that new [Zimbabwean] diaspora.”

Tom is delighted to be linking up with Tonderai Munyevu once more. “I worked with him at Shakespeare’s Globe on the 2012 Cultural Olympiad Festival,” he recalls. “He did a wonderful two-man version of The Two Gentlemen Of Verona and then he was in Black Men Walking when it toured the Theatre Royal in September 2019.

“Now, Mugabe, My Dad & Me will be rehearsed in York, made here, and will open here before going on the road, and it’s been made into an audio book so it will have a digital life too.”

Tom praises director John R Wilkinson too. “He’s a massive talent, now directing for the Young Vic as well as for the Theatre Royal, and it’s great to have him back after his production of Athol Fugard’s Hello And Goodbye in the Studio in November 2019.”

Broadening his thoughts, Tom says: “There was no good way to make the job cuts that we had to make last year [after the pandemic restrictions cast the theatre into the dark], but I’m pleased with the way we decided we’d cut a bit from each department, rather than closing a department.

“This way allowed us to continue to produce plays. I’ve always been passionate about that; despite all the pressures of, first, austerity and, then, the pandemic, it feels important to still do that.

“It gives us that agility, allowing us to make work that suits the venue, the city, the times, whereas if you cut it, it’s incredibly difficult to get it back because regional-producing theatre is very difficult to do under Arts Council funding.”

Tom continues: “To have two of our three Summer Of Love shows home produced is something we’re incredibly proud of, and it also allows us to use artists from York, like we did for the Love Bites shows when we reopened in May. If we can’t provide that opportunity, then we’re not doing our job right.

“I’ve worked in repertory theatre in Russia and Eastern Europe and there’s a lot to be said for it. You keep gazing at it longingly, but then you think, ‘how did they do that?’.”

Bookish and boozy: Stephen Tompkinson as university tutor Frank in Educating Rita

In between the two in-house productions will be David Pugh’s Theatre by the Lake touring production of Willy Russell’s Educating Rita, starring Stephen Tompkinson and Jessica Johnson, from August 31 to September 4.

Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980 and later made into an award-winning film with Julie Walters and Michael Caine, Russell’s heart-felt comedy drama follows married Liverpool hairdresser Rita and her encounters with heavy-boozing university tutor Frank while studying on an Open University course.

Max Roberts, emeritus artistic director at Newcastle’s Live Theatre, directs a production that bedded in at the cliff-edge Minack Theatre, Cornwall, last summer. “As it was outdoors, David Pugh was able to put on a long run there after the first lockdown ended,” says Tom.

“It’s great that Max is directing it because he’s directed lots of Lee Hall’s pieces, like The Pitmen Painters, and having Stephen Tompkinson in the cast keeps up our wish to bring big-name actors to York after Ralph Fiennes in T S Eliot’s Four Quartets in July.”

Education, education, education, plus humour, politics and life’s fateful twists make for a winning combination in Educating Rita.  “It’s entered folklore,” says Tom. “What’s interesting is we thought people would come because of Stephen’s popularity, but lots of people are saying they’re booking because they just love the story.”

Tickets for the Summer Of Love are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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