Jess Steel and Ian Stroughair (aka Velma Celli) will defy a flooded house to perform their streamed gig in York
NOT even a flooded house will stop York drag diva divine Velma Celli and sensational singing hairdresser Jess Steel from recording their latest streamed gig.
“Streamed”…what an ironic word that is right now, as Velma’s creator, musical actor and international cabaret star Ian Stroughair, and “work bubble” Jess survey the “carnage” in Ian’s riverside pad by the Ouse.
Exit Storm Christoph, re-enter the defiant duo, who will follow up last Friday’s double bill with the second instalment of An Evening With Velma & Jess, put back from today (22/1/2021) to tomorrow, with the recording having had to be delayed.
The show must go on for Velma Celli, even when the floodwater calls for wellies
Looking forward to still making a splash this weekend, Ian/Velma wades through Charles Hutchinson’s snappy questions.
How are you coping in the flood, Ian? What’s the latest state of play?
“It’s been a long, semi-sleepless couple of days. Fortunately, it hasn’t increased overnight but the kitchen is flooded and I cannot leave by either door. The back door is up to five feet in water and the front is inaccessible. It’s windows and wellies at the moment.”
Without giving the precise location, where is your riparian abode?
“I am right by Ouse Bridge. So, pretty much at the worse possible area but I have food and gin, so I’m gooooood!”
In which room will you now record the streamed gig?
“I think we may be OK to stick to the living room. If not, the four-poster master suite will be perfect!”
Will you adjust the setlist to take in songs about rain and flooding?
Have you ever had to cancel a gig (other than for killjoy Covid) and, if so, what was the best reason for a gig not going ahead?
“It’s never fun to cancel. I did once get stuck in Oz longer than expected and had to cancel a London date.”
Can you say anything at this stage of your plan to play gigs in York restaurants?
“Not too much yet! We are sorting the finer details. As soon as York goes into a tier where we can eat in restaurants, I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops.”
GLASTONBURY Festival is off for the second bummer of a non-summer as killjoy Covid strikes again, but closer to home, one event has been rescued.
The 20th anniversary celebrations of York Open Studios are moving from spring to the summertime.
“Due to Coronavirus, to keep everyone safe and make sure the show goes on, we are delaying York Open Studios from 17/18th and 24/25th April to 10th/11th and 17th/18th July,” say the organisers.
The vinyl front ‘ere: Kate Rusby shows off the cover and orange discs for Hand Me Down
BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby is to release her 2020 lockdown covers album, Hand Me Down, on vinyl tomorrow (22/1/2021) on her Pure Records label.
“Ooooooh it looks so beautiful,” says Kate on Instagram. “Gatefold, 180g double translucent orange discs. Very pretty! Sooo excited.”
That wistful ballad later featured on her 2019 studio album, Philosophers, Poets And Kings, and became a concert favourite, whereupon a return visit to Whiley’s studio elicited a mournful reading of The Cure’s Friday I’m In Love, now one of the stand-outs on Hand Me Down.
Kate and her guitar and banjo-playing producer-husband, Damien O’Kane, set about completing an album of covers in Lockdown 1, recorded in their Penistone home studio. “As a folk singer, it’s what I do: reinterpret existing songs,” says Rusby. “The only difference is that usually the songs are much older.”
Some were chosen from childhood or teenage memories (The Kinks’ Days, but from Kirsty MacColl’s sublime version; Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours), two much-covered songs you might have predicted, rather more than Maybe Tomorrow (The Littlest Hobo theme song) or The Show, from family friend Willy Russell’s musical Connie.
The artwork for Kate Rusby’s live Christmas album, Happy Holly Day
Covering a song is as much about what you uncover as you cover, prime examples here being Coldplay’s Everglow, Lyle Lovett’s If I Had A Boat and in particular “role model to her children” Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, newly revelling in O’Kane’s swing-time banjo.
Nothing evokes lockdown more than the opening Manic Monday, Prince’s song for Kate’s teen favourites The Bangles, slowed and turned to acoustic melancholia for not-so-manic days of longing at home, away from the city buzz. Add South Yorkshire vowels, and who can resist.
The album closes with a ray of perennial summer sunshine, Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds, as Hand Me Down becomes balm for fretful, fearful pandemic days. “I’ve always had overwhelming urges to cheer people up at times of sadness,” says Kate. “I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse, but it’s always been part of my genetic make-up.”
A second winter release from Pure Records is Happy Holly Day, a live CD recording of Kate’s online Christmas concert of South Yorkshire pub carols and winter songs, streamed from Cast, Doncaster, on December 12.
That night, Kate’s folk band assembled for the first time since the March lockdown, joined by her “Brass Boys”, spread across a socially distanced stage shared with the Ruby, the fairy-lit reindeer.
As always with Kate Rusby At Christmas concerts, the two sets were followed by an encore in fancy dress, Kate in a halo and angel wings, recovered from her attic from the 2017 album cover photo-shoot for Angels And Men, as she sang Sweet Bells and Yorkshire Merry Christmas alongside Damien in Virgin Mary mode.
Tommy Emmanuel: Fingerstyle guitarist with Certified Guitar Player status
AUSTRALIAN guitarist Tommy Emmanuel will play the Grand Opera House, York, on March 6 2022.
This will be the only Yorkshire show of next year’s 12-date tour from February 25 to March 13 with special guest Jerry Douglas, the Ohio dobro master.
Emmanuel, 65, who last played British shows on the Transatlantic Sessions Tour, has performed in public from the age of six, when he first toured regional Australia with his family band.
By 30, he was a rock’n’roll lead guitarist, playing European stadiums. At 44, he became one of only five musicians to be named a Certified Guitar Player by his idol, Chet Atkins. His concerts take him from Nashville to Sydney, London to York next February.
Twice nominated for a GrammyAward, Emmanuel has received two ARIA Awards from the Australian Recording Industry Association and repeated honours in the Guitar Player magazine readers’ poll. In 2017, he was the cover story for the August edition.
Emmanuel is a fingerstyle guitarist, frequently threading three different parts simultaneously into his material as he operates as a one-man band who handles melody, supporting chords and bass all at once.
He never plays the same show twice, improvising big chunks of every gig. In doing so, he “leaves himself open to technical imperfections, although they provide some of the humanity to an other-worldly talent”.
Tickets are on sale at atgtickets.com/venues/grand-opera-house-york/
Between Rock And A Hard Place, mixed media, by Lesley Birch
EMILY Stubbs and Lesley Birch are teaming up for Muted Worlds, a lockdown exhibition launched tomorrow by Pyramid Gallery, York.
Pots & Paintings will begin as a digital show from the York artists’ studios before moving to the Stonegate gallery once Lockdown 3 strictures are eased.
“We’re delighted to have been invited by Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett once again to create another Pots & Paintings show for 2021,” say exhibition curators Emily and Lesley.
A pot by Emily Stubbs for Muted Worlds, her joint exhibition with Lesley Birch
“This time we shall be online and it’s a more muted edge – winter is here and with it, Covid, and another lockdown – so we feel the need for simplicity. We have collaborated to produce monochrome pieces inspired by the winter season.”
Terry says: “Expect exciting expressive mark-making, beautiful soft greys, earths, charcoals and sage greens with occasional pops of colour in winter landscape and abstract pieces with the forms and lines of the natural world.”
Emily works from Pica Studios, in Grape Lane, where she creates contemporary ceramic vessels that explore the relationship between colour, form and texture.
Lesley Birch at work in her York studio
Fascinated by the juxtaposition of contrasting elements in her work, Emily makes conversations between vessels by placing them together or in groups.
Constantly sketching, drawing and collaging to experiment with line, colour, texture and mark making, Emily translates this process into clay, building up layers of ceramic slips, glazes and stains.
“Stepping away from my usual brightly coloured glazes, Muted Worlds has allowed me to really focus and concentrate on creating rich layers of mark making,” she says.
Flood, mixed media monotype, by Lesley Birch
“Bold brush strokes, blocks of monochrome and areas of scraffito, inspired by the wintery walks around York through lockdown, feature in a new collection of vessels created alongside and inspired by Lesley’s paintings.”
Scottish-born painter and printmaker Lesley interprets feelings and emotions connected to time and place in her works. Calligraphic scribbles and expressive, sweeping brush marks flow on paper and canvas, straddling the boundary between abstraction and figuration.
“The fact that certain combinations of colours, certain marks and movements can convey an atmosphere, that is the joy of painting for me: that exciting moment when materiality and emotion meet,” she says.
“Muted Worlds has allowed me to really focus and concentrate on creating rich layers of mark making,” says Emily Stubbs
The Pots & Paintings go on sale from tomorrow and purchases will be delivered by courier or by the artist if the buyer is in York. Anyone needing further information can contact Terry on 07805 029254.
Looking ahead, Emily will be taking part in the 2021 York Open Studios, showing her ceramics at 51 Balmoral Terrace, York, on April 17, 18, 24 and 25, from 10am to 5pm.
Exhibiting there too will be textiles artist Amy Stubbs, making her Open Studios debut after relocating to York.
How the Great Yorkshire Pantomime tented palace will look on Knavesmire, when Aladdin is staged in December
THE Great Yorkshire Easter Pantomime is off, but York’s first ever “tentomime” in a Knavesmire big top will go ahead in the Christmas season instead.
Producer James Cundall and writer-director Chris Moreno made the decision to call off Aladdin’s March 19 to April 11 run at a meeting to “discuss our options” this morning.
Afterwards, Moreno said: “Sadly, we are going to have to postpone the show until Christmas. The way the Government is, with the pandemic lockdown, and the way things are looking for the next few months, I just don’t think we can get there in time to go ahead. We can’t take it close to the wire and then be forced to cancel it at the last minute.”
Moreno would have needed a return to Tier 2 regulations in York for socially distanced rehearsals to be able to take place in March, followed by the performance run.
“If there were any certainty, it would be different, but that’s not the case, and so I’ve also had to cancel Sleeping Beauty And The Socially Distanced Witch, which I was writing and directing for the Grimsby Auditorium for an April run.”
Billed as “a dream come true”, Aladdin would have played in a luxurious heated tented palace to an audience capacity of 976 in tiered, cushioned seating.
The 36 performances of Cundall and Moreno’s “tentomime” would have been socially distanced and compliant with Covid-19 guidance, presented by a cast of 21, including nine principals, and a band on a 50-metre stage with a Far East palace façade, projected scenery and magical special effects.
Moreno has confirmed the Great Yorkshire Pantomime production this winter will still be Aladdin at the same York Racecourse location, with the promise of “a beautiful love story, a high-flying magic carpet, a wish-granting nutty genie, the very evil Abanazar and a magic lamp full of spectacular family entertainment”.
“It will run for at least five weeks,” he said. “Dates have been discussed and are now booked in and will be confirmed this week, and we’ll have tickets back on sale within the next two weeks.
“Hopefully, there’ll be an even bigger cast and it’ll be an even bigger venture at Christmas when it’s a much bigger competing world for pantomime shows, so that’s why we’re looking at doing an even bigger show.”
Steve Wickenden: Popular dame in four Three Bears Productions’ pantos at the Grand Opera House, York, from 2016. Will he be in Great Yorkshire Pantomime’s “starry cast” for Aladdin? Wait and see! Picture: David Harrison
Casting will be announced later. “But it will definitely be a starry cast,” asserted Moreno. Likewise, the capacity may increase, subject to Government Covid strictures in place at the time. “We’ll be reviewing that as the year progresses, but the vaccination roll-out appears to be going well, and if we’re in a position to increase the capacity, we would look to do that,” he said.
Moreno has form for such a “tenterprise”. “I did a pantomime at, would you believe, the O2 at Greenwich, with Lily Savage as Widow Twankey in Aladdin, A Wish Come True,” he recalled. “That was in 2012 in a purpose-built tent in the grounds, when we had 1,900 in there, in the days when you didn’t have to socially distance.
“It was the same sort of tent that we’re planning to use in York: a ‘pavilion palace’ that’s totally different from a circus tent.”
Hence the capacity may yet rise above 1,000. What is certain, however: “It’ll be a big stage to fill, as it’s 50 metres wide, and we’re thinking that instead of a single flying carpet, we should have two for a battle between Aladdin on one and Abanazar on the other,” said Moreno.
Both producer and director are vastly experienced in staging theatre and musical theatre productions. Cundall was the Welburn impresario behind the award-winning but ultimately ill-fated, loss-making Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, mounted in a pop-up Elizabethan theatre on the Castle car park in York in 2018 and 2019 (as well as at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, in the second summer).
He was awarded an MBE for services to the entertainment industry in the 2019 New Year Honours list, but by October that year, his principal company, Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, went into administration after the smaller-than-expected audiences for the second season of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre shows, especially at Blenheim Palace.
Moreno has produced, directed and written more than 120 pantomimes. He once owned and ran the Grand Opera House, in York, where later Three Bears Productions, the production company he co-produces with Stuart Wade and Russ Spencer, presented four pantomimes from 2016.
Moreno was the director and writer for Aladdin in 2016-2017, Beauty And The Beast in 2017-2018, Cinderella in 2018-2019 and Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs in 2019-2020.
The confirmation of Aladdin’s winter run means York will have three professional pantomimes going head to head: the Great Yorkshire Pantomime at Knavesmire; Qdos Pantomimes presenting Dame Berwick Kaler’s comeback in Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House, from December 11 to January 9 2022, and York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions staging Cinderella from December 3 to January 2 2022.
Josh Benson: Ready to entertain you online all day on Sunday
JOSH Benson, “Just Joshing” comic star of York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime, is bored in Lockdown 3.
“Anyone up for Josh Day?” asks the York magician, actor, children’s entertainer, music hall act and Corntroller of Entertainment at York Maze, on his Facebook feed.
The online day in question is “Funday Sunday”, January 24. “Several different lil’ shows/workshops/general front room daftness, throughout the day and into the evening on Facebook Live,” he promises. “Various content/times TBC. I’m open to suggestions…!”
To make those suggestions for his full day of virtual live shows, contact Josh via facebook.com/JoshBensonEntertainer
Joshing around: Josh Benson in the comic’s role in York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime in December. Picture: Ant Robling
“It is especially exciting to delve back in time and revitalise two standout albums from my career,” says Midge Ure, ahead of next year’s Voices & Visions tour
MIDGE Ure & Band Electronica will open next year’s Voice & Visions Tour at the Grand Opera House, York, on February 22.
Scotsman Ure, 67, will be marking 40 years since the release of Ultravox’s Rage In Eden and Quartet albums in September 1981 and October 1982 respectively.
Ure & Band Electronica last played the Opera House on October 20 2019 on The 1980 Tour, when Ultravox’s 1980 album, Vienna, was performed in its entirety for the first time in four decades, complemented by highlights from Visage’s debut album, as Ure recalled the year when he co-wrote, recorded and produced the two future-sounding records.
Such was the “overwhelming response” to that retro excursion, Ure will reprise the nostalgia trip for 2022’s Voice & Visions Tour.
In the wake of the global success of Vienna, Ultravox headed back into the studio to record their second album with Ure as frontman, Rage In Eden, a top five entry in Autumn 1981, replete with the singles The Thin Wall and The Voice.
Midge Ure: Three Yorkshire dates on his Voice & Visions tour in 2022
Quartet, their third studio set with Ure, arrived in quick succession with production by The Beatles’ producer, George Martin, no less. It became their third top ten album, boosted by four top 20 singles, Reap The Wild Wind, Hymn, Visions In Blue and We Came To Dance.
Voice & Visions will recall the era of Eighties’ electronics, experimentation and synthesisers in a show that will combine both albums’ highlights with landmark songs from Ure’s back catalogue.
Looking forward to his 2022 travels, Ure says: “I can’t begin to tell you how great it will feel to be back out touring and it is especially exciting to delve back in time and revitalise two standout albums from my career, Rage In Eden and Quartet. This is the logical and emotional follow-up to The 1980 Tour.”
Next year’s tour itinerary also will take in Hull Bonus Arena on February 24 and Sheffield City Hall on March 22. Tickets will go on general sale on Friday (22/1/2021): York, at atgtickets.com/york; Hull, bonusarenahull.com; Sheffield, sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
Ure & Band Electronica will be completing a hattrick of gigs at the Opera House after first appearing there in November 2017, headlining a 1980s’ triple bill with The Christians and Altered Images.
How the Great Yorkshire Pantomime tented palace would look on Knavesmire, York
GREAT Yorkshire Pantomime producer James Cundall and director Chris Moreno will meet tomorrow morning to “discuss our options” for the Easter holiday run, in light of the ongoing Lockdown 3 restrictions.
Billed as “a dream come true”, Aladdin is booked into a luxurious heated tented palace – a giant big top on Knavesmire – from March 19 to April 11 with an audience capacity of 976 in tiered, cushioned seating, divided into pods of three, four, five or six seats, with a minimum purchase of two tickets.
The 36 performances of Cundall and Moreno’s “tentomime” will be socially distanced and compliant with Covid-19 guidance, presented by a cast of 21, including nine principals, and a band on a 50-metre stage with a Far East palace façade, projected scenery and magical special effects.
The Great Yorkshire Pantomime production of Aladdin promises “a beautiful love story, a high-flying magic carpet, a wish-granting nutty genie, the very evil Abanazar and a magic lamp full of spectacular family entertainment”.
The imposition of the open-ended Lockdown 3, however, leaves question marks over whether Aladdin can go ahead, given that no date has been set by the Government for the easing of strictures, with only speculation that it could be “some time in March”.
It would need a return to Tier 2 regulations in York for socially distanced rehearsals to be able to take place, followed by the performance run. Hence tomorrow’s exploratory meeting for Cundall and Moreno to consider where the panto-land lies.
Both producer and director are vastly experienced in staging theatre and musical theatre productions. Cundall was the Welburn impresario behind the award-winning but ultimately ill-fated, loss-making Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, mounted in a pop-up Elizabethan theatre on the Castle car park in York in 2018 and 2019 (as well as at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, in the second summer).
He was awarded an MBE for services to the entertainment industry in the 2019 New Year Honours list, but by October that year, his principal company, Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, went into administration after the smaller-than-expected audiences for the second season of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre shows, especially at Blenheim Palace.
Creditors, among them the Royal National Theatre, claimed unpaid debts of more than £5 million pounds from companies run by Cundall globally, including in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, where he produced such shows as Cats, The Phantom Of The Opera, Matilda and War Horse.
Moreno has produced, directed and written more than 120 pantomimes. He once owned and ran the Grand Opera House, in York, where later Three Bears Productions, the production company he co-produces with Stuart Wade and Russ Spencer, presented four pantomimes from 2016.
Moreno was the director and writer for Aladdin in 2016-2017, Beauty And The Beast in 2017-2018, Cinderella in 2018-2019 and Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs in 2019-2020.
There had first been talk around York last autumn of a “tentomime” show to be staged at Knavesmire in December, but the Great Yorkshire Pantomime then settled on Easter, with the “stellar cast” yet to be announced .
Moreno has form for such an enterprise. “I did a pantomime at, would you believe, the O2 at Greenwich, with Lily Savage as Widow Twankey in Aladdin, A Wish Come True,” he recalls. “That was in 2012 in a purpose-built tent in the grounds, when we had 1,900 in there, in the days when you didn’t have to socially distance.
“It was the same sort of tent that we’re planning to use in York: a ‘pavilion palace’ that’s totally different from a circus tent. It’s going to very exciting with the capacity of 976!”
Speaking to CharlesHutchPress on December 11, before York’s change of Tier status and subsequently the third lockdown, Moreno was in buoyant mood. “We can’t go on for the rest of our lives waiting for things to happen,” he said at the time, when he was also working on Sleeping Beauty And The Socially Distanced Witch, a show on a much smaller scale written and directed by Chris for the Grimsby Auditorium for a run from April 6 to 14.
“Aladdin is going to be different from anything I’ve done before, because, we’ll have to adhere to Covid-safety rules with all the safeguards in place, but it will be as near to a 100 per cent typical pantomime as possible,” Moreno revealed.
“Even with 21 performers on stage, it’ll be a big stage to fill, as it’s 50 metres wide, and we’re thinking that instead of a single flying carpet, we should have two for a battle between Aladdin on one and Abanazar on the other.”
Whether such magic can take to the tent air this spring, watch this space for an update tomorrow.
Noble nobbled: Pandemic has forced Ross Noble to rearrange his Humournoid show at the Grand Opera House, York, for a second time
SURREALIST comedian Ross Noble is moving his January 21 2021 gig at the Grand Opera House, York, to January 29 2022.
In his Humournoid show, Noble, 44, asks: “What happens when pure comedy takes human form? What happens when a creature is created and bred to do stand-up?”
“Nobody knows because that isn’t a thing,” says the off-the-cuff Newcastle humorist. What is a thing, he argues, is Ross Noble doing a show. “You can come and see it. This is it,” he urges.
Later this year, Noble’s Humournoid tour is booked into Leeds Town Hall for October 26, rearranged from May 31 2020. Tickets for his 8pm York gig are on sale at atgtickets.com/venues/grand-opera-house-york/; for Leeds, at leedstownhall.co.uk.
Noble, who last visited the Grand Opera House on his El Hablador travels in October 2018, first announced Humournoid, his 17th nationwide tour, would play York on April 30 2020. Here’s hoping for third time lucky.
