Glittering prize: Today is judgement day for Yorkshire’s Got Talent
WHO will win Yorkshire’s Got Talent, the contest organised by York teenage musical actor Hannah Wakelam in aid of the Joseph Rowntree Theatre’s £90,000 Raise The Roof appeal.
Today is the final of this online competition, and the choice lies between Fladam (the silly-song double act of Florence Poskitt and pianist Adam Sowter), Ed Atkin and Jordan Wright.
Hannah has created a poll for public votes that will be combined with the judges’ votes (each one classed as 25 votes) and guest panel votes (each worth 20 votes).
Judging the competition from the start have been Wicked star Laura Pick, cruise-ship vocal captain Nathan Lodge and vocal coach Amelia Urukalo
Voting closes today at 7pm and the winner will be announced at 8pm. To vote, go to: https://www.facebook.com/.groups/.687590815139642/.permalink/.755696498329073/.
“The inevitable has happened,” says Kate Rusby, after the Covid Grinch ruled out her Christmas 2020 tour
THIS winter’s Kate Rusby At Christmas show at York Barbican on December 20 must now do Covid-enforced cold turkey for a year
Barnsley folk nightingale Kate’s South Yorkshire carol concert is re-scheduled for Sunday, December 19 2021 and tickets already bought will transfer to the new date.
A note on the Barbican website, not dissimilar to one posted by Kate with festive emojis galore on Twitter, states: “Well, the inevitable has happened,we have had to postpone our December tour until 2021. Stupid Coronavirus!! I hope you can join us then.
“In the meantime, Don’t Worry as we’re going to stream a full-length gig on Saturday 19th December this year, complete with sparkles, Sweet Bells, brass lads, daftness, dressing up, Ruby Reindeer and even an actual interval and everything! I’m looking forward to it sooooo much. Hope you can join us. Onwards and upwards.”
In August, Kate released her 14th album, Hand Me Down, a set of covers such as Manic Monday, Friday I’m In Love and Shake It Off, completed at her home studio in lockdown with husband producer and musician Damien O’Kane.
Paloma Faith: Spent the enforced downtime of lockdown “just thinking about the world”
PALOMA Faith will release her fifth studio album, Infinite Things, on Friday the 13th of November, to be supported by a tour…but not until Autumn 2021.
Among the 26 dates will be October 3 at Harrogate Convention Centre, or “Conversion Centre” as you could call it temporarily, now that it forms part of the Harrogate Nightingale Hospital for the Covid-19 pandemic.
London singer, songwriter and actor Paloma, who announced her second pregnancy yesterday, wrote most of the songs for Infinite Things before Coronavirus stalked the world. Once sent into lockdown, however, she ripped them all up and started afresh.
The artwork for Paloma Faith’s November 13 album, Infinite Things. Notice her lack of Faith in it…
She spent her enforced downtime creating, learning to engineer her own music and “just thinking about the world”. Those fruitful months taught her she had been on “a sort of conveyor belt of music and promo”, like “a rat on a wheel”, but lockdown instead gave her “the space to take stock of her frenetic career and to decide what was meaningful to her”.
Paloma, 39, has re-emerged with a new sense of her priorities, leading her to re-connect with her roots, steeped in creativity, says the one-time art student.
For Infinite Things, she worked with a small group of long-time and new collaborators: producers Patrick Wimberly and Detonate; songwriters Ed Harcourt, Starsmith and Tre Jean Marie; producer and songwriter MNEK and friendJosef Salvat, an Australian singer-songwriter.
The poster for Paloma’s The Infinite Things Tour 2021
The resulting album on the RCA Records label offers a rumination on sickness and loss and addresses how to find your way back to romance within a long-term relationship.“It’s love songs for people who are there to stay,” Paloma says. “That enduring love. Warts and all. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a love song like that, actually.”
Last week, she released the video for first single Better Than This, wherein director David Wilson’s imagery places her against “a backdrop of vignettes of human error that historically continuously repeat”.
First single Better Than This: Accompanied by a video filmed in Hackney, Paloma’s home turf
Shot in Paloma’s home manor of Hackney in a single uncut take, Wilson’s video sees her shine a light on such prevalent concerns as the climate emergency, police brutality, race and class divide and the injustices of war.
Paloma’s September 16 to October 25 tour next year will take in Yorkshire gigs at Sheffield City Hall, September 28, Harrogate Convention Centre, October 3, and Hull Bonus Arena, October 7.
Tickets go on general sale on Friday, October 2 at 10am at gigsandtours.com, ticketmaster.co.uk and palomafaith.com. Josef Salvat will be her special guest.
In the red corner: York Central MP Rachael Maskell (or should that be Mask-ell?) with gallery owner and photographer Duncan Lomax at today’s official opening of Holgate Galle
“IT’S a strange and challenging time to be opening a business,” admits York commercial photographer Duncan Lomax after turning his front room into Holgate Gallery.
The address is 53, Holgate Road, a Grade 2 listed building that previously housed Bridge Pianos before Duncan and his wife Tracy moved in, turning the frontage from white to a deeply satisfying blue.
The red-trimmed York Labour Party office is a very near neighbour, and who should perform the official opening ceremony today but York Central MP Rachael Maskell.
“As you walk into Holgate Gallery, you can just see the creativity that’s been put into this space, and I’d really encourage people to come along and have a look,” she said. “York’s retail economy is struggling in many ways, but we’ve got some great opportunities as well, and the independent sector is unique and we want to encourage York to invest in York.”
Rachael Maskell at today’s opening of Holgate Gallery
Rachael’s words are music to Duncan’s ears in the converted piano shop. “Opening a gallery is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time alongside my commercial work,” he reasons. “This not only gives me an outlet for my own creative work, but also provides a hub for other artists to exhibit who might not otherwise have the space.”
Holgate Gallery is only the second contemporary photographic art-space to be set up in York since the much-missed, pioneering Impressions Gallery deserted Castlegate for Bradford’s Centenary Square in 2007.
Since July 2013, fellow commercial photographer Chris Ceaser has run Chris Ceaser Photography in early 15th century, Grade 2-listed, timber-framed premises at 89 Micklegate, focusing on his own landscape photographs of York, Yorkshire and beyond.
By comparison, Duncan will complement his commercial and more abstract photographs and humorous faux Penguin Book cover prints with a regularly changing stock of work by other artists. Mostly they will be local but, in the first instance, Cold War Steve, the alias of Birmingham political collage artist and satirist Christopher Spencer, with his predilection for incorporating EastEnders’ Steve “Phil Mitchell” McFadden alongside the Westminster double act of Johnson and Cummings at every opportunity.
Rachael Maskell MP and Duncan Lomax outside Holgate Gallery, the new home to photography and more
Running his company Ravage Productions, Duncan has been the official photographer for York Minster for several years, notably as the exclusive documentarian of the 2016 York Mystery Plays, and has shot portraits, marketing images and PR material for all manner of businesses in the city and at large.
He has taught photography to degree level and his pictures have appeared many times in the local and national press, from The Press and YorkMix to the Yorkshire Post, the BBC and The Times.
Now Duncan, former guitarist in early Nineties’ Widnes “baggy wannabes” and two-time John Peel Session band 35 Summers, is adding another string to his bow as the owner, curator and principal photographer at Holgate Gallery.
The gallery will be open 11am to 4pm, tomorrow and Sunday, and further opening times will vary but will be updated regularly at www.holgategallery.co.uk
I KNOW times are tough for freelance arts journalists with 37 years’ of experience in these Covid-stymied times, but Totaljobs’ Instant Job Match this afternoon for yours truly really is rubbish.
It reads:
Hi Charles,
A job has just been posted on totaljobs that we think you might be interested in, based on other jobs you have viewed or applied for on the site.
LGV 2 Driver (Road Sweeper Driver)
Location: Bow, East London (E3)
Wages: Unspecified
Company: Global Logistics Staff Ltd
Contract
What is the thinking here? From journalism in York to road-sweeper driving in East London…from the gutter press to the gutter…obviously.
Rachel Croft: “Imagery of long, chilled summer evening drives and warm, dusty coastal paths” on new single Deep Water
YORK folk and jazz chanteuse, guitarist and illustrator Rachel Croft releases her new single, Deep Water, today as the third pick from her February 2019 debut album, Hours Awake.
“It’s about the delicate part earlier on in a relationship where you’re on the cusp of trusting someone and you know it could be serious,” says Rachel, 26, who has instilled fresh indie and contemporary production choices into the recording.
“The whole song comes together to effortlessly sit under imagery of long, chilled summer evening drives and warm, dusty coastal paths.”
Released on her Black Ink label, Deep Water signifies a lighter turn away from such Croft landmarks as 2017’s Only Dreams and We Are earlier this year.
Rachel Croft’s watercolour artwork for Deep Water
“Generally acoustic in its feel, lacings of torn Telecaster riffs nod towards influences of Phoebe Bridgers,” says Rachel, who made Hours Awake with co-producer and fellow York musician Dan Webster at his Paper Plane Records studio from early 2018 onwards.
There she worked with such musicians as drummer Neil Scott, bass and double bass player Emlyn Vaughan, cellist Rachel Brown, keyboard player Karl Mullen, violinist Emily Lawler and Chinese synths player Dian Yu.
Rachel is instrumental in all parts of her music, from production to media, both social and old-school, everything down to the cover art, calling on her skills as a self-taught illustrator. “I painted it myself with watercolour, using paint gifted to me from the person the song is about,” she reveals.
Nottingham-born Rachel, who gained a first in environmental geography at the University of York, has built up a strong online presence, whether chalking up 148,000 views for some of her YouTube videos, attaining 5,000 followers on Facebook or building up a fast-growing subscription on YouTube.
“As a result, I’ve been able to almost entirely crowd-fund each of my releases, documenting my progress through vlogs for donators,” she says.
“I’m now working on my song-writing and rebuilding plans for 2021,” says Rachel
As an emerging artist on the folk festival circuit, Rachel has played Moseley Folk Festival, Costa Del Folk Portugal and Meadowfest. Until Covid-19 intervened, she was set to play Cambridge, Lindisfarne, Moonbeams and Wickham festivals, among others, after acquiring Apex International as her agent in late 2019.
Making her mark abroad too, Rachel has embarked on five solo tours of the Netherlands since November 2018, appeared on the Noardewyn Live TV show to boot. In July 2019, she debuted in Germany, playing in Cologne and further afield.
Looking ahead in the face of the pandemic’s stultifying impact on her 2020 diary, she says: “I’m now working on my song-writing and rebuilding plans for 2021. I hope to release at least a further two singles in 2021 and continue my European tours and UK festival appearances on their promising trajectory.”
To keep up with Rachel’s progress, visit: rachelcroftmusic.com. To chill out to Deep Water, go to: https://soundcloud.com/rachelcroft/deep-water/s-NzizC2CLQw7.
Stephen Lee Hodgkins: Self-styled “chronic doodler” and community printmaker
OCTOBER 1 is National Poetry Day and the word is: Explore York Libraries and Archives will mark it “in a very special way”.
Explore is launching a project to help everyone to make sense of this very strange year by asking you to send in poems and drawings that will create “a lasting record of what has happened in our lives”.
The project, World Turned Upside Down 2020 #haiflu edition, takes inspiration from spoken-word artist Liv Torc’s pandemic poetry initiative, Project Haiflu, and community artist Stephen Lee Hodgkins’ interest in York’s printing heritage.
Explore is asking you to send two haiku or #haiflu poems on the topic of No News and Strange News but with a flavour of lockdown. If you prefer to portray your thoughts and feelings visually, you can send in a doodle or cartoon instead.
Throughout October and November, Explore will be hosting free online haiku workshops with poets Janet Dean and Penny Boxall and doodle workshops with Stephen Lee Hodgkins.
The first two workshops will be on National Poetry Day itself. At the beginning of November, Project Haiflu originator Liv Torc will present an exclusive online talk and poetry show, Haiflu Ever After.
After the November 30 deadline for submissions, 20 pairs of #haiflu and 20 doodles that reflect York’s Coronavirus experience will be chosen for inclusion in a book. Hodgkins will create a 20-page limited-edition chapbook printed in the traditional way on handmade paper.
Each contributor to the final piece will receive a copy; every library in York will be given one too, and a copy will be lodged in the Explore York archive, alongside the original World Turned Upside Down Chapbook from 1820.
You can find full details and more information on how to take part in the project on Explore’s website, www.exploreyork.org.uk, and book the workshops on their Eventbrite page.
In addition, Explore has made a short film about the project, to be posted on their YouTube channel at 11am on National Poetry Day.
Spoken-word artist and slam champ Liv Torc
What is Project Haiflu?
AT the beginning of lockdown in March, spoken-word artist Liv Torc posted on Facebook to ask how her friends were feeling when life-as-they-knew-it stopped.
She wanted them to tell her what they had noticed, either in haiku form – a three-line poem with five, seven and five syllables and no rhyming – or by posting a photograph.
She brought words, pictures and music together in a weekly film and Project Haiflu came into being. Liv made 12 weekly films, one overall 45-minute project film and an extra film based on contributions for public libraries.
The films contain more than 600 contributions from 250 people. Around 30,000 people have watched them so far; you can do likewise and discover more about the project on Liv’s website: https://www.livtorc.co.uk/.
What is The World Turned Upside Down, or No News, and Strange News?
DURING lockdown, community artist Stephen Lee Hodgkins was experimenting with an old Adana 8×5 tabletop letterpress printing machine. When searching for old instruction manuals, he came across the work of York printer James Kendrew, of 23 Colliergate, who had produced a series of chapbooks in the 1800s.
These chapbooks, or “cheapbooks”, were small, roughly printed booklets adorned with intricate woodcut illustrations. Chapbooks kept alive folklore, nursery rhymes, fairy tales and school lessons and were sold by travelling merchants across town and country.
The World Turned Upside Down, or No News, and Strange News is an example of nonsense rhymes and riddles produced in 1820 that gives an insight, through a quirky lens, to life 200 years ago. Copies can be found in the archives at York Explore.
The Artists:
Liv Torc
SPOKEN-WORD artist, published poet and producer who “plunges the vast caverns and dormant volcanoes of the human and planetary condition”.
This former Bard of Exeter and now co-host of the Hip Yak Poetry Shack runs the spoken-word stage at the WOMAD festival, Project Haiflu and the Hip Yak Poetry School.
In 2019, her poem about climate change in the face of motherhood, The Human Emergency, went viral, being seen by 80,000 people. She performed at Glastonbury Festival on the Poetry and Words stage and represented Somerset for the BBC’s National Poetry Day celebrations.
In 2020, she was chosen as one of four Siren Poets by Cape Farewell for a commission on climate change in the time of Covid-19 and wrote and filmed a poem for the BBC’s Make A Difference campaign.
Penny Boxall: Poet and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of York
Penny Boxall
HER debut poetry collection, Ship Of The Line, won the 2016 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Second collection Who Goes There? was published in 2018.
Penny has won a Northern Writers’ Award and the Mslexia/PBS Poetry Competition. She is a Hawthornden Fellow and has held residencies at Gladstone’s Library and the Chateau de Lavigny.
She has taught poetry on the MA course at Oxford Brookes University and in 2019 was Visiting Research Fellow in the Creative Arts at Merton College, Oxford. She is Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of York.
Janet Dean
HER poetry has been shortlisted in the Bridport Prize, commended in the Stanza Poetry Competition and featured in the Northern Poetry Library’s 50th anniversary Poem of the North.
Her work appears in anthologies and magazines published by Valley Press, Paper Swans, Templar and Strix. As Janet Dean Knight, her first novel The Peacemaker was published in 2019 and her second novel in progress was shortlisted for the New Writing North Sid Chaplin Award.
Stephen Lee Hodgkins
THIS “chronic doodler” and community printmaker has an interest in people’s voices, texts and their experiences of places and spaces.
He is a self-taught community artist and visual thinker with a positive attitude, people and research skills, creative energy and a commitment to inclusion and human rights. He has experience aplenty of working with community organisations, applying an arts-based approach.
He left school with no qualifications and later received the labels of dyslexia, dyspraxia and attention deficit. Reflecting on these tags now, his preference is for the term “neurodiverse”, and he has learnt to embrace and harness his diverse language use and organisational approach to the world.
Returning to university as a mature student, in 2008 he completed a PhD in Social Psychology. An abridged version of his thesis was published as a chapter in an international text in 2009, Disabilities: Insights From Across Fields and Around The World.
Joanna Whittle’s Sorrowing Cloth, winner of the New Light Prize Exhibition main award
A TINY oil-on-copper painting of a tent has won the New Light Prize Exhibition main prize, open to artists across the North.
Measuring only 10cm by 15cm, Joanna Whittle’s Sorrowing Cloth received the £10,000 Valeria Sykes Award on the exhibition’s opening night at Scarborough Art Gallery.
Sorrowing Cloth is part of a series of paintings of tents by Sheffield artist Whittle, who says: “My tent paintings represent fragile and temporary structures constructed within notions of the ruin and time passing.
New Light Art Prize winning artist Joanna Whittle
“Canvas sits in water; ropes are pegged into fluid land. Time sits still and moments brush against each other. Canvas rots and weeds scramble over surfaces, but some lights remain on or have just been lit.
“They hold their own histories, ideas of vanished circuses or fairgrounds – events once frenetic now silenced and ominous in dusk or rain.”
Forlorn, by Victor Harris, winner of the Patron’s Choice Award
The £2,500 Patron’s Choice Award, picked from all the exhibited works, went to Victor Harris, from Waterfoot, Rossendale, in Lancashire, for his oil painting on linen, Forlorn.
Linnet Rubaya, from Leeds, was awarded the Emerging Artists Prize for her acrylic on canvas, Seen. The sponsors, the Saul Hay Gallery, in Manchester, will offer mentoring, professional advice and exhibition opportunities, including a solo show.
Emerging Artists Prize winner Linnet Rubaya
Leeds artist Ian Brooks won the Printmakers’ Prize, open to all forms of original printmaking, for his etching Across Borge Bay. The winner will hold an exhibition at the Zillah Bell Gallery, in Thirsk, the prize sponsors, where some of the best British printmakers exhibit.
Harrogate artist Christian Alexander Bailey received the New Light Purchase Prize for his pen-and-ink drawing Tree Sparrow. His winning work has been acquired by the charity to add to its collection.
Across Borge Bay, by Ian Brooks, winner of the Printmakers’ Prize
A final award, the Visitors’ Choice, will be made at the end of the Scarborough exhibition run and announced at the touring show’s next location, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle. This public award recognises the work that strikes a chord with visitors, who are asked to vote for their favourite artwork.
The judges, who shortlisted the artists by using an anonymous online selection process and concluded the judging together in the gallery, were printmaker and artist Anne Desmet; RA Magazine editor Sam Phillips; Huddersfield Art Gallery curator Grant Scanlan; Catherine and Ian Hay, from the Saul Hay Gallery; John Bell, from the Zillah Bell Gallery; New Light patron Valeria Sykes and New Light chair Annette Petchey.
Artist Christian Alexander Bailey with his New Light Purchase Prize winner, Tree Sparrow
Annette says: “The high standard of entries has once again astounded the judges, with familiar and new artists showcasing the huge talent in the north of England. “Themes that reflect all of the emotions we have felt as a nation during the 2020 pandemic are captured and reflected across the exhibition: everything from sadness and loneliness to clear optimism and joy in a broad range of media.
“New Light continues to go from strength to strength and it is a delight to work collaboratively with the team at Scarborough Museums Trust.”
The New Light Prize Exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Simon Hedges, the trust’s head of curation, collections and exhibitions, says: “I’m delighted with the judges’ choices and I would like to thank both the New Light and the SMT teams for delivering such an amazing show in these most difficult of times.”
After the Scarborough run ends on January 17 2021, the exhibition will move to Tullie House, Carlisle, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle, and finally The Bankside Gallery, London.
Patron’s Choice Award winner Victor Harris
Established in 2010, New Light celebrates and promotes well-known and emerging artists by offering awards and opportunities in its biennial open exhibition. It also runs New Light Art For All, an education programme that includes talks, workshops and school projects, and the New Light Collection, launched in the spring with the aim of making the best in Northern visual arts available to more people by loaning pieces free of charge to public bodies and charities.
“The common thread through everything New Light does is a deep belief that the visual arts matter and the North of England deserves to be celebrated,” says Annette.
Fields And Lanes creative couple Mick and Jessa Liversidge head to the Easingwold Community Library willow tree for an open-air hour of poetry and song on Sunday
BORIS Johnson put on his serious face and hands act on Tuesday night to address the nation on the ins and outs of his Government’s latest Covid-clampdown measures: a stitch in time saves nine, Rules of Six, 10pm curfews and any number of other numbers that invariably add up to confusion.
However, Covid-secure, socially distanced theatre shows, exhibitions, cinema, comedy and concerts can continue, as well as home entertainment, of course.
Here, Charles Hutchinson tracks and traces signs of artistic life…with immediate results
The Easingwold Community Library willow tree: Sunday’s setting for Fields And Lanes poetry and songs
Joint project of the week: Fields And Lanes Under A Willow Tree, Timeless Songs and Poems by Jessa and Mick Liversidge, outside Easingwold Community Library, Sunday, 2pm
INSPIRED by the “wonderful reaction” to the online streaming of their outdoor poetry and song performances in lockdown, creative Easingwold couple Jessa and Mick Liversidge present an hour of uplifting words and music in the open air this weekend.
The show will be Covid-safe and socially distanced; tickets are free, with a pay-as- you-feel collection afterwards, but must be acquired in advance on 07526 107448 or by emailing ecl.generalenquiries@gmail.com.
Giles Shenton…will go to any lengths to promote his one-man show Three Men In A Boat
Three is a magic number: Three Men In A Boat, Kick In The Head Productions, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 2.30pm
GILES Shenton takes the helm for 95 minutes in Kick In The Head’s one-man/Three Men show, a “rip-roaring barrel of fun” wherein he plays writer Jerome K Jerome and everyone besides in a delightfully ridiculous tale of men behaving badly while messing about on boats.
Shenton invites you to “join Jerome as he recounts the hilarious story of his boating holiday along the magnificent River Thames with his two companions, George and Harris, and Montmorency the dog”.
Justin Moorhouse will stay in his house to perform his Your Place Comedy set from the living room on Sunday. Shappi Khorsandi will surely not be needing armour to do likewise from her place
Living room laughs: Your Place Comedy: Justin Moorhouse and Shappi Khorsandi, Sunday, online at 8pm
IN the fifth of six Your Place Comedy shows live-streamed from their living rooms into yours since lockdown, Justin Moorhouse and Shappi Khorsandi form the digital double bill introduced remotely by compere Tim FitzHigham.
The virtual comedy project has been organised by Selby Town Hall manager Chris Jones in liaison with nine other independent North and East Yorkshire arts centres and theatres, with donations welcome after each free screening to be divided between the still-closed venues. You can watch on YouTube and Twitch with more details at yourplacecomedy.co.uk.
Top Of The Hill, acrylic on canvas, by Debbie Lush
Exhibition launch of the week: Debbie Lush, Featured Artist, Blue Tree Gallery, Bootham, York, and online at bluetreegallery.co.uk, Saturday to November 7
TEN new works by Devon landscape artist Debbie Lush go on show at Blue Tree Gallery from this weekend.
The former freelance illustrator, who ran a Somerset country inn for 13 years, draws inspiration for her vividly coloured coastal and rural landscapes from her walks with her dog along weather-beaten coastal paths, across muddy footpaths, through gateways and over fields and farmland.
“I love the act of brushing blobs of paints of varying thickness in bright colours on a surface, one over another, to assemble landscapes,” she says.
Uninvited Guests invite guests to Love Letters Straight From Your Heart at the SJT and on Zoom. Picture: Jonathan Bewley
Antidote to isolation: Uninvited Guests’ Love Letters Straight From Your Heart, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and on Zoom on October 1, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
THEATRE company Uninvited Guests will construct a “completely digital, wholly personal and wonderfully live experience” at the SJT and on Zoom in “very different” afternoon and evening shows.
Performed by Jessica Hoffman and Richard Dufty, Love Letters Straight From Your Heart invites the audience’s words, song dedications and stories – sent in earlier – to the stage where they are given a new shape, look you straight in the eye and offer to dance with everyone in the room.
Only 45 tickets will be sold for each show to maintain intimacy, but any number of audience members can sit at screens to watch what unfolds in 60 to 75 minutes.
Giant story: Riding Lights Theatre Company go online for Christmas
Latest Christmas show to be confirmed: Riding Lights Theatre Company in The Selfish Giant, storytelling theatre on film online, for primary schools
YORK company Riding Lights say, “We can’t come to you, but we can still bring exciting entertainment into every classroom with our online version of The Selfish Giant.
“The Giant is angry. He’s been away for a long time and returns to find children playing in his beautiful garden!
Every day after school, they come and run about, laughing and playing games under the blossom on his peach trees, listening to the delightful songs of the birds. So, he puts up a big wall and an even bigger Keep Out notice to put a stop to all that. Then winter seizes the garden in its icy fingers.”
Riding Lights ask primary school to book the online show via: https://ridinglights.org/the-selfish-giant-no/costs-and-booking/.
No traditional queue at York Barbican when Daniel O’Donnell tickets go on sale tomorrow. Booking is online only
Looking ahead to Irish gigs at the double: Clannad, York Barbican, March 10 2021 and Daniel O’Donnell, York Barbican, October 21 2021
CLANNAD are booked in to play York Barbican on March 10 on their Farewell Tour, but let’s see where Boris Johnson’s new Rule of Six Months’ More Misery leaves that show. Fingers crossed, we can wave goodbye to social distancing by then to enable bidding adieu to the ethereal purveyors of traditional Irish music, contemporary folk, new age and rock, led by Moya Brennan.
Meanwhile, tickets go on sale at 9am tomorrow (Friday) at yorkbarbican.co.uk for Kincasslagh crooner Daniel O’Donnell’s return to the Barbican on October 21.
And what about…?
A visit to Duncan Lomax’s new photographic exhibition space, Holgate Gallery, opening officially from tomorrow in Holgate Road, York, to show work by the 2016 York Mystery Plays official photographer and political satirist Cold War Steve.
The York Printmakers Virtual Print Fair, running until October 4, with daily updates at https://www.facebook.com/YorkPrintmakers/
David Gedge: Writing new material for Reception, a musical built around his songs of love and loss, break-ups and breakdowns for The Wedding Present and Cinerama
THE Crowdfunder appeal to kick-start work on The Wedding Present musical, Reception, has hit the initial £10,000 target with more than a day to spare.
You can still visit @crowdfunderuk where the @ReceptionSoon page welcomes further contributions today and tomorrow to aid York writer-director Matt Aston start crafting a story of “love, loss, break-ups and breakdowns – everything you’d expect really from a musical based on the songs of David Gedge”.
The Crowdfunder Gedge pledge will facilitate work on the first draft, artwork and branding of a show that will combine Gedge’s songs for his Leeds band The Wedding Present and Cinerama with new material by the 60-year-old songwriter, who now lives in Brighton.
Reception writer-director Matt Aston in his Wedding Present T-shirt when rehearsing Park Bench Theatre’s summer production of Samuel Beckett’s First Love with actor Chris Hannon. Picture: Northedge Photography
Aston and production partner Tony Ereira anticipate beginning research and development in early 2021 to road test their ideas – Covid-19 Government guidance permitting – with a group of actor-musicians, incorporating Gedge’s new songs. The premiere is pencilled in for Leeds in 2022, to be followed by a small tour that would take in Brighton.
Full details on Reception can be found in an earlier CharlesHutchPress article, filed on September 15.
“The crowdfunding campaign is a chance for fans to get involved from the beginning with a bunch of rewards that are all exclusive to this production, including specially commissioned artwork from Lee Thacker, illustrator of David’s autobiography, Tales From The Wedding Present,” says Matt, artistic director of Engine House Theatre, who staged the Park Bench Theatre season in the Friends Garden, Rowntree, Park, York, this summer.
To support the project, go to: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/reception-the-musical
