Scouting for gigs: Scouting For Girls have lined up their longest-ever tour for 2021, taking in York Barbican next autumn
SCOUTING For Girls will play York Barbican on October 10 on their 42-date 2021 tour, showcasing next spring’s Easy Cover album alongside all the hits.
Tickets will go on sale at 9am on December 4 at yorkbarbican.co.uk for the London indie-pop trio’s first appearance in York since the York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend in July 2015.
Roy Stride, piano and lead guitar, Greg Churchouse, bass guitar, and Dr Peter Ellard, percussion, first performed at the Knavesmire course in July 2011 and had been booked by promoters Cuffe and Taylor for the inaugural York Festival, at York Sports Club, Clifton Park, on June 20 this summer until Covid changed everything.
Scouting For Girls initially responded to this strangest of years by “surrounding themselves with sources of comfort and escapism, things from what felt like a simpler time”.
Going back to the 1980s’ music of their childhood days, the trio regrouped during what should have been a summer of festival appearances, and the result is a joyous album of cover versions and new compositions, buoyed by an optimism that “2021 can be everything that 2020 was not”.
For Easy Cover, Scouting For Girls revisited Eighties’ pop masterpieces and indie alt. band favourites alike, taking in Cyndi Lauper, Whitney Houston, Phil Collins (presumably Easy Lover?), Tears For Fears, The Waterboys and more besides.
Scouting For Girls’ artwork for their 2021 tour
Not only covers motivated the band to write original material inspired by the decade for next year’s March 26 album. So did their abiding love of those halcyon days, leading Stride to write I Wish It Was 1989 and festive new single Xmas In The 80s.
Looking forward to the Londoners’ longest tour of their 15-year career, Stride says: “Touring is our very favourite aspect of being in this band and to go out longer and harder than ever is a dream come true.
“We’re going to put 2020 behind us and put two years of pent-up energy into every night of this tour. We can’t wait to give people the most fun night out of 2021”
Since forming in 2005, Scouting For Girls have chalked up two million album sales and a similar figure for their singles, such as Top Ten hits She’s So Lovely, Elvis Ain’t Dead and Heartbeat and 2009 chart topper This Ain’t A Love Song.
BRIT Award and Ivor Novello nominations have come their way, as have sold-out concerts at Wembley Arena, the London Palladium and the Royal Albert Hall.
Oh, and apparently Scouting For Girls are the most played band on Spotify in York.
Red Ladder Theatre Company’s artwork for My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored
GONNA tier your playhouse down. Again.
West and South Yorkshire’s impending impediment of Tier 3 status from next Wednesday has put paid to Red Ladder Theatre Company’s December tour.
The Government’s latest Covid-19 restrictions have enforced the postponement – “with great sadness” – of performances of Nana-Kofi Kufuor’s debut play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored at CAST in Doncaster, Cluntergate Centre in Horbury and The Holbeck social club in Leeds.
Already, earlier tour dates had been postponed at Leeds Playhouse, The Dukes, Lancaster, Grove Hall, South Kirkby, and Oldham Coliseum, having fallen foul of the second national lockdown stretch in November.
Red Ladder artistic director Rod Dixon says: “While this is the news that none of us wanted, we are incredibly proud of our cast and creative team, company and freelance staff who have worked incredibly hard to create this new play.
Rehearsing in Covid times: Red Ladder actors Misha Duncan-Barry and Jelani D’Aguilar
“Whether adapting to making this work in a Covid-secure rehearsal room or working remotely, everyone has put an incredible amount of time, passion, dedication and hard work into bringing Nana Kofi-Kufuor’s powerful debut play to life.”
Reflecting on the curse of Covid-19 2020 but looking ahead too, Dixon adds: “More than anything, we wish that circumstances were different and that we were welcoming our audiences on tour of our new production.
“We press on with hope and optimism to bring our show to the stage in 2021 – and Red Ladder stands in solidarity with all our fellow theatre-makers in these difficult times.”
Directed by Leeds actor, director, filmmaker, dramaturg, lecturer and teacher Dermot Daly, My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored would have played CAST, Doncaster, on December 4; Cluntergate Centre, Horbury (Red Ladder Local), December 6, and The Holbeck, Leeds, December 11 with a cast of Jelani D’Aguilar and Misha Duncan-Barry.
The first play by 29-year-old Ghanaian-English writer Nana-Kofi Kufuor is an urgent interrogation of black identity, wherein a question is posed: if you see something you do not agree with, do you intervene?
The cast and creative crew for Red Ladder’s My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored, left to right: artistic director Rod Dixon;, Jelani D’Aguilar (Reece, front row), director Dermot Daly (back row); Misha Duncan-Barry (Gillian) and writer Nana-Kofi Kufuor. Picture: Anthony Robling
What happens if you are a teacher, and the issue is with your student? What happens if you are outside of work and you see them being stopped and searched and manhandled by the police? Do you run over and stop the act, or do you watch, waiting to find out all the facts?
This is the case for Gillian Akwasi, a black twenty-something teacher who witnesses her student, Reece Ofori, 15, being accosted by the police outside M&S but does not question or intervene in the disturbing scene that plays out. The next day, Reece confronts her, locking them both in her classroom at the end of the school day.
For his writing, Kufuor draws influence from his experiences when growing up in Stockport with Ghanaian parents and then working in education with young people from a range of backgrounds.
Revealing the real-life situation that inspired his hard-hitting drama, Kufuor explains: “Working at a Pupil Referral Unit, I once had a student try to take a knife to stab another student. Once I’d calmed him down, we sat in the canteen and he explained to me he wasn’t going to go quietly.
“The police were outside and they took him. I saw him a few weeks later, and he asked why I didn’t help him? That rush of guilt changed to anger and quickly to sympathy as he saw me as his protector.
Red Ladder cast members Misha-Duncan Barry and Jelani D’Aguilar in rehearsal. Picture: Anthony Robling
“But I knew I couldn’t do anything. The crux of this play is how two people react to the same situation: they go on a journey; a journey a lot of people of colour go on – a realisation that where you are now isn’t necessarily where you come from.”
My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored was developed as part of a year-long writing commission for Box Of Tricks and staged as a rehearsed reading at HOME, Manchester, in January 2020, where it was seen by Red Ladder’s Rod Dixon.
For five decades, Red Ladder has produced new writing by voices whose work often is unheard on our stages, and the Leeds touring theatre company has been thrilled to develop Kufuor’s play for its first tour.
Ahead of the now-postponed tour, Dixon said: “We’re very excited to be working with Nana-Kofi Kufuor. This important play addresses key issues about race and identity at a time when society needs to heal division and strife.
“We’ve brought together a fantastic creative team, including director Dermot Daly, and look forward to taking this new work on tour and welcoming back audiences in theatres and community venues in a safe way.”
Roll on that day.
Playwright Nana-Kofi Kufuor. Picture: Emma Bailey
Who is Nana-Kofi Kufuor?
NANA-KOFI Kufuor – or Kofi Kufuor, as he goes by to friends and family – is a 29-year-old Ghanaian-English writer from Stockport, North West England.
He attended the University of Cumbria, attaining a BA Hons in film and television production in 2014 and a master’s degree in screenwriting in film, television and radio in 2018.
Kofi won a BBC 1xtra monologue prize in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Theatre Uncut political playwriting prize in 2019.
He was attached to Box Of Tricks’ year-long writers’ commission, PlayBox Takeover, in 2019 that culminated in a reading of his play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored at HOME, Manchester in January 2020.
Kofi is now working on a television project and focusing on writing two other plays before the year is out. Over this summer, he worked with Northern Broadsides on a lockdown project that was filmed and shown on the Halifax company’s as part of a collection of short plays. Kofi is a supported artist at Oldham Coliseum.
Gold winners: The Stephen Joseph Theatre has taken home the Arts and Culture prize in the White Rose Awards. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
THE Stephen Joseph Theatre has won gold in Welcome To Yorkshire’s White Rose Awards.
The Scarborough theatre topped the Arts and Culture category, seeing off stiff competition from a shortlist of silver recipients Harewood House; bronze-placed Selby District Council (Selby 950); Hull’s Freedom Festival Arts Trust; Huddersfield Literature Festival; Hull Libraries (The Big Malarkey Festival), Bradford intercultural arts hub Kala Sangam and Yorkshire Sculpture International.
The judges said: “From their innovative approach to accessibility and inclusivity, the rave reviews and so much more, this business truly impressed the judges.
“The great online and social media presence, international profile and a real commitment to engaging the local community is what, for us, makes the Stephen Joseph Theatre such a worthy winner.'”
Caroline Routh, the SJT’s executive director Caroline Routh, says: “This has been a tough year for just about everyone, and it’s so nice to have something to celebrate for once.
“We were thrilled to win the White Rose Arts and Culture Award, and particularly to be shortlisted in such fantastic company. We’re now looking forward to bringing our Christmas show, The Snow Queen, to Scarborough, live on stage throughout December, as well as an online treat: an audio recording of Alan Ayckbourn’s Haunting Julia, performed by the writer himself.”
Held online on Monday evening, the annual White Rose Awards – Britain’s largest tourism awards ceremony – showcase the best and brightest Yorkshire has to offer.
“You’ll learn about what happens when your mouth seals shut,” says Sarah Millican, who will have to do exactly the opposite in her Bobby Dazzler show in 2021 and 2022
NORTH Eastern comedian Sarah Millican will pop down to York Barbican for the first time since November 2018 for two nights of her 2021/2022 Bobby Dazzler tour next autumn.
Millican, 45, will play York on November 12 and 13 on her sixth international tour where “you’ll learn about what happens when your mouth seals shut, how to throw poo over a wall, trying to lose weight but only losing the tip of your finger, a surprisingly funny smear test, and how truly awful a floatation tank can be”.
Sarah says she has spent the past year writing jokes and growing her backside. “She can’t wait to get back on the road and make you laugh in her first return to York Barbican since her previous sell-out tour, Control Enthusiast,” her tour patter proclaims.
Last year, the South Shields comic began hosting the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show Elephant In The Room, featuring panellists sharing their life experiences and testing who is closest and farthest from the national average.
Tickets for Sarah Millican: Bobby Dazzler go on sale tomorrow (27/11/2020) at 10am online only at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Sarah Millican’s tour poster for Bobby Dazzler, booked into York Barbican for a brace of November 2021 gigs
Grayson Perry, dressed as his transvestite alter ego, Claire, announces A Show For Normal People, his 2021 tour
AFTER an anything but normal year, otherwise known as the year of the new normal – alas destined to stretch into 2021 – here comes outré artist, potter and social commentator Grayson Perry’s York-bound live show.
In his own words: Despite being an award-winning artist, Bafta-winning TV presenter, Reith lecturer and best-selling author, Grayson Perry is a normal person – and just like other normal people, he is “marginally aware that we’re all going to die”.
Cue Grayson Perry: A Show For Normal People, booked into York Barbican for September 6 on night number five of next year’s 23-date tour. Sheffield City Hall awaits on September 10; Harrogate Convention Centre on November 27.
What will be on the 2003 Turner Prize winner’s mind? “Let Grayson take you through an enlightening and eye-watering evening in which this kind of existentialism descends from worthiness to silliness. You’ll leave safe and warm in the knowledge that nothing really matters anyway,” his show patter promises.
“Join Grayson as he asks, and possibly answers, these big questions in an evening sure to distract you from the very meaninglessness of life in the way only a man in a dress can.”
Grayson Perry’s tour poster for next autumn’s travels
Born in Chelmsford, Essex, in 1960, Perry has had an artistic career spanning 40 years, revealing a diverse expertise in “making lemonade out of the mundanity of life”.
Such as? In 2015, he designed A House For Essex, a permanent building constructed in the North Essex countryside. In the early weeks of Lockdown 1 2020, his Channel 4 show, Grayson’s Art Club, brought the nation together through art as he exhorted and celebrated the making of new works, vowing to “battle the boredom of isolation” with a weekly theme from his London studio.
This autumn, Grayson Perry’s Big American Road Trip, his three-part documentary travelogue on Channel 4, explored the meaning of the American Dream in today’s disunited USA.
Tickets for Grayson Perry: A Show For Normal People go on sale tomorrow morning (27/11/2020) at 10am online only at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
This will not be the only Grayson Perry show in York in 2021. His Covid-crocked 2020 exhibition of “lost pots” at York Art Gallery will now run from May 28 to September 5 next year.
“It’s as near as I will ever get to meeting myself as a young man, an angrier, priapic me with huge energy but a much smaller wardrobe,” says Grayson Perry of his Pre-Therapy Years exhibition, re-scheduled for 2021 in York
This major new display of Perry’s earliest works, Grayson Perry: The Pre-Therapy Years, will be showcased in the Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA).
Developed by the Holburne Museum in Bath, the touring exhibition is the first to celebrate Perry’s earliest forays into the art world, reintroducing the “explosive and creative works” he made between 1982 and 1994.
The 70 works have been crowd-sourced through a national public appeal, resulting in these “lost pots” being assembled for display together for the first time since they were made.
“This show has been such a joy to put together,” said Perry, when the show was first announced. “I’m really looking forward to seeing these early works again, many of which I have not seen since the Eighties.
“It’s as near as I will ever get to meeting myself as a young man, an angrier, priapic me with huge energy but a much smaller wardrobe.”
Cocktail Party, 1989, one of Grayson Perry’ s “lost pots” from The Pre-Therapy Years show
The Pre-Therapy Years show should have been the centre of attention at CoCA from June 12 to September 20 this year, but the Coronavirus pandemic intervened.
Now, Perry devotees can look to the horizon, awaiting the arrival of his pots in York next May.The exhibition will shine a light on Perry’s experimentation and exploration of the potential of pottery to address radical issues and human stories.
The 70 works will provide an opportunity to enjoy his clever, playful and politically engaged perspective on the world as these often challenging and explicit pieces reveal his early steps towards becoming a compelling commentator on contemporary society.
From his first plate, Kinky Sex (1983), to his early vases made in the mid-80s, Perry riffed on British vernacular traditions to create a language of his own. The themes of his later work – fetishism, gender, class, his home county of Essex and the vagaries of the art world – appear in these early works, marked by their urgent energy.
CoCA first exhibited a Grayson Perry ceramic, Melanie, in July 2015 as its centrepiece talking point after York Art Gallery’s £8 million transformation. Melanie later featured in York Art Gallery’s re-opening exhibition, Your Art Gallery – Paintings Chosen By You, this summer into autumn.
Owt and about again: Say Owt artistic director Henry Raby, left, and co-founder and cheese trader Stu Freestone spark up the spoken word anew on December 11
SAY Owt, York’s loveable gang of performance poets, are back in live action for the first time since the summer for a night of socially distanced spoken word at The Crescent on December 11.
In start-stop-restart-stop again 2020, these loquacious hosts of high-energy bursts of words and verse have hosted live-streams in lockdowns, most recently Lovely Lockdown Lyricism last Friday, and pop-up poetry on York Theatre Royal’s patio in August.
Stepping up to the mic on December 11 will be Say Owt’s A-team of Henry Raby, Hannah Davies, Stu Freestone and Dave Jarman, joined by special guest poets Katie Greenbrown and Ruth Awolola. In a nutshell, here comes a slam-winning sextet of soulful poets with modern, relevant and upbeat verse.
Hannah Davies: Slam champ and word weaver
“The night will feature a set of banging poems, full of wit and humour to warm your soul this December,” says artistic director Henry. “Expect some brand-new pieces, improv poetry and a few silly surprises hiding up our spoken-word sleeves!
“Last Friday’s online gig was good: it’s just nice to keep connecting with our audience. Now Say Owt and The Crescent want to give you a night of energy and warmth after a tough year.”
The Crescent, in The Crescent, off Blossom Street, York, will have a Covid-secure, socially distanced seated capacity of 60. “The performers and the venue are following all regulations and guidelines to keep the audience as safe as possible,” says Henry.
Peake performance: Astronaut Tim Peake will re-live his journey into space at York Barbican next November
BRITISH astronaut Tim Peake’s debut tour show, My Journey To Space, will touch down at York Barbican on November 2 2021. Ticket sales will be launched on Friday at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
In December 2015, the European Space Agency spaceman became the first Brit to visit the International Space Station to conduct a spacewalk – and run a marathon! – while orbiting Planet Earth almost 3,000 times.
Major Peake, 48, will be “your personal guide through life in space, with unprecedented access, breath-taking photographs, and never-before-seen incredible footage”, as the former barman re-lives his epic and thrilling journey to the International Space Station.
He will give an insight into an astronaut’s pathway to space and back: from training to launch, spacewalk to re-entry as he reveals the secrets, the science and the everyday wonders of how and why humans journey into space.
Sharing his passion for aviation, exploration and adventure, he will recall the sights, the smells, the fear, the exhilaration, of his six-month mission, together with the deep and abiding wonderment of the view from space of the place we call home. “It’s impossible to look down on Earth from space and not be mesmerised by the fragile beauty of our planet,” he says.
Major Peake had been booked to bring his show Limitless to York Theatre Royal on October 11 until the Coronavirus pandemic intervened. That night he would have reflected on the surprising journey that made him the first Briton in space for nearly 20 years and the first ever to complete a spacewalk, when he repaired the space station’s power supply with NASA astronaut Tim Kopra.
Make space in your diary for Major Tim Peake’s York Barbican show on his debut tour
Those tales would have covered his time training in the British Army and as an Apache helicopter pilot and flight instructor deployed to Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.
Major Peake was to have discussed how it felt to be selected for the European Space Agency from more than 8,000 candidates and the six years of training that followed; learning Russian on the icy plains of Siberia, and coping with darkness and claustrophobia in the caves of Sardinia and under the oceans of the United States.
The Limitless: In Conversation with Astronaut Tim Peake event took its title from his autobiography, Limitless, whose publication by Century still went ahead on October 15.
Every ticket for this Penguin Live show – one of only five on the autumn tour – was to have included a signed copy of his £20 memoir.
Major Peake attended the UK Schools Space Conference at the University of York’s department of physics in November 2016 and gave a public lecture there on the highs and lows of life aboard the International Space Station in September 2017.
The Soyuz TMA-19M descent module, the capsule that transported Major Peake safely back to Earth, went on display at the National Railway Museum, York, in January 2018, complemented by a space-age virtual reality experience narrated by the astronaut himself.
Paintings by Anita Klein and ceramic vessels by Barry Stedman in the Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery
THE Christmas Collection exhibition is under way at Pyramid Gallery, York, initially online but with plans for the gallery to reopen on December 3, subject to this week’s upcoming tier-ful Government guidance.
The main feature of the festive show is a collection of linocut prints and acrylic paintings by Australian-born Anita Klein, complemented by ceramic sculpture by Blandine Anderson, glass by David Reekie, Cara Wassenberg and Layne Rowe, bronze elephants by German sculptor Eckhard Wahning and a Lockdown Dragon fest by Morag Reekie.
Look out too for collagraphs by York artist Sally Clarke, screenprints by Mychael Barratt, abstract collages by Danny Barbour, a ceramic elephant parade by Ann-Marie Fieber and ceramic vessels by Barry Stedman, plus new jewellery by 50 British designer makers.
The Christmas Collection show will continue until January 20 and everything will be available online at http://www.pyramidgallery.com.
A second show, The Glass Collection, will be opening on December 7, presenting work by Dreya Bennett; Fiaz Elson; Hannah Gibson; Jon Lewis; Yoshiko Okada; David Reekie; Morag Reekie; Layne Rowe; Will Shakspeare; Helen Slater; Cara Wassenberg and Darren Weed.
Again running until January 20, it also will feature art glass for sale in the permanent Pyramid Collection by Colin Reid, Bruno Romanelli, Peter Layton, Anthony Scala, Bruce Marks and Joseph Harrington.
During Lockdown 2, Terry has placed a table outside the shop with copies of his cartoon memorials book, Good Rabbits Gone, on display to raise money for St Leonard’s Hospice with a target of £3,000 from donations to justgiving.com/fundraising/terry-brett5 or in the cans on the table.
Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett with a selection of “Free Stuff” on the table outside his shop in Stonegate, York, during Lockdown 2
In addition, he is giving away “Free Stuff”. “Some people are intrigued as to why I’m doing this,” says Terry. “I decided I needed a ‘Feel Good’ project and a way to interact with people during Lockdown.
“Sitting in a shop all day that is closed is not very stimulating, but this has been a very positive and uplifting experience for me. It has cost me nothing as everything I’m giving away has been paid for a long time ago – some items over 20 years ago – and it’s felt very cleansing. The stock-room shelves are looking tidier!
“There are over 60 magnetic bracelets that have been sitting in boxes on shelves ever since we decided not to sell them anymore about six years ago. These are leather bracelets made by Antonio Chimol in Barcelona. Nicely made. I sold hundreds of them in 2008 to 2014 and they served the business well at a time when it had been affected by the financial crash.
“I still wear these bracelets…but they were a nuisance. Some customers would spend up to an hour with bracelets all over the counter, trying to choose one. Sometimes they would be purchased as a gift and then returned for a different size. So, we simply put them away in the stock room.”
Terry has a further £2,000 to raise yet. “Please come and say hello if you are in York, pick up a book and put a few coins in the cans. The table will be outside the gallery from about 11am every day, except Sunday, until December2.”
Should Pyramid Gallery reopen on December 3, the shop will accommodate two groups at a time, with a maximum of six people.
The book cover for Good Rabbits Gone, Terry Brett’s compendium of cartoon farewells, “scribbled” under the name of Bertt deBaldock and now published to raise funds for St Leonard’s Hospice, York
“We will have an extended-hours booking system on the front page of our website at pyramidgallery.com. Private viewings for one or two groups of two may be booked early on each day.” says Terry.
“Or, after normal hours between 10am and 5pm, customers will be able to enter the shop with a maximum of two groups or a total of six people in at any one time. You will be able to book a half-hour slot, so that you can browse at leisure in the gallery.”
In the meantime, Terry is offering a Click and Collect service, “Or you can just collect if you don’t like to click,” he says. “For this,please phone on 01904 641187 or 07805 029254, to let me know what you are interested in, andI will gather items together to show you at the door. We can manage a selection and purchase without you needing to actually come in!”
Reflecting on a running a gallery in a year in the grip of the Coronavirus pandemic, Terry says: “Pyramid reopened to the public at the end of June. During June, the website worked well for us and July and August were reasonably good with sales over the counter, but about 20 per cent below normal.
“I took half the staff out of furlough in September and October and this meant that we really needed to be back to normal sales level. We achieved that in October and sales have continued to meet normal targets since.
“Even with the new lockdown, the gallery closed and all staff back in furlough, I seem to be getting enough online sales to keep afloat.”
However, Terry paints a grim portrait of the impact of Covid lockdowns. “I think that York will see a lot of businesses close due to this current lockdown. Nevertheless, because I’m able to work the business completely on my own, I can reduce overheads to a minimum and still survive. The only real problem is that I’m working 12 hours a day!
“I look forward to having my staff back on December 3, but if lockdown measures were to be extended beyond December 2, then I’m not sure if any city-centre shops could survive. We normally have sales in the three weeks up to Christmas that are equivalent to June, July and August sales combined.”
Thankfully, the Government is on the brink of announcing when “”non-essential” shops can re-open.
NEWSFLASH
Pyramid Gallery WILL reopen on December 3 at 10am.
Emily Taylor, left, and Danielle Mullan demonstrate the bricks at the John Cooper Studio Theatre at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York. They will be performing there from December 11 to January 3 in York Stage’s pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk
THEATRE @41 Monkgate is selling personalised bricks to create a new display at York’s black-box studio theatre.
Sales of the inscribed slates will help to make up some of the revenue shortfall created by the Coronavirus pandemic. Theatre @41’s new chairman, Alan Park, hopes theatre participants and supporters alike will show their fundraising backing by digging deep.
“Anyone who has been to Theatre @41 knows what a special place it is,” he says. “We have obviously lost revenue while having to close and we need to make sure we can keep going. Every donation we receive helps us continue to provide an accessible and affordable theatre space to the York community.
“These bricks are a great way for anyone who uses our space, or has been to a show they love, to help us achieve this. They will be able to see their words and messages every time they visit and know they have played a part in the heritage of Theatre @41.”
To buy a brick for £40 or two for £70, visit: 41monkgate.co.uk/bricks. Alternatively, email: info@41monkgate.co.uk.
On message: Guy Wilson shows off a fundraising brick for Theatre @41 Monkgate. Guy has attended shows there regularly, takes LAMDA exams and performs for resident companies York Stage and Pick Me Up Theatre
