Cellist Cara Berridge: “Displayed beautifully rounded, resonant tone”
York Symphony Orchestra (YSO)/Venn; Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, December 8
YORK Symphony Orchestra’s newish conductor Edward Venn likes to take risks – and with the largest work on Sunday’s menu he was notably successful.
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony overtly moves from tragedy to triumph. Beneath the surface, it is heavily laced with irony: Stalin’s Great Purge threatened the composer himself. The performance reflected this.
The violins quickly recovered from a tentative opening and thereafter never looked back. The central march accelerated majestically and the change to the major key was nicely controlled, before a chilling close with celeste to the fore. The scherzo provided just the comic relief we needed, Claire Jowett’s solo violin leading the way.
With the brass side-lined, first the strings, then the woodwinds conjured a rapt, almost religious, intensity in the Largo, typified by the trio of harp and two flutes. The finale’s mounting crescendo, with brass back in the fray, kindled anger rather than triumph, despite the brief oasis of calm. It was a splendid achievement, owing much to Venn’s impressive familiarity with the score.
Earlier, as soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Cara Berridge displayed beautifully rounded, resonant tone. But in a work notorious for its stop-go pitfalls, she and Venn too rarely took the same view of the music. The result was tuneful but episodic, too many trees and not enough wood. The orchestra sustained a respectful diffidence. Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave had made a bold, brash curtain-raiser. But the Shostakovich was something else.
Kate Rusby in Holly Head mode for her fifth Christmas album. Picture: David Lindsay
BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby has released her fifth
album of South Yorkshire carols and original winter songs, Holly Head, so named
on account of her love of Christmas music.
As with her fellow festive collections on her Pure Records label, 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over and 2017’s Angels And Men, it is being promoted by a Kate Rusby At Christmas tour with Kate’s regular band and brass quintet.
Songs range from the Rusby original The Holly King, to a
cover of John Rox’s novelty Christmas number Hippo For Christmas, via the
carols Salute The Morn and Kate’s sixth version of While Shepherds Watched and
God’s Own Country variations, Yorkshire Three Ships and Bleak Midwinter
(Yorkshire).
Now part way through her 14-date concert series, Kate answers Charles Hutchinson’s questions ahead of Yorkshire Christmas shows at Leeds Town Hall on December 13 and York Barbican on December 18.
Five
Christmas albums, Kate. Five! That must surely be a record? What keeps drawing
you back to make another recording for the Yule season?
“I know, five albums, how on
Earth has that happened?! It’s also album number 18 of mine, which I can’t
believe either. Where have all those years gone? I still love making music and
touring, so that time has whizzed by in a flash.
“The Christmas side of things began for
me in the ‘pub sings’ around South Yorkshire. We were taken along as kids; our
parents would be in the main room singing away, while us kids were sat with the
other kids in the tap room, colouring and drinking pop, unaware that the carols
and Christmas songs were seeping into our brains!”
“I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a ‘Holly Head’,” says Kate. “You know, like car fanatics are petrol heads.” Picture: David Lindsay
What
happened next?
“It was only when I’d started touring around the country, I realised the ‘pub sings’ are quite specific to South Yorkshire and people were unaware of these amazing songs we have.
“They’re mostly songs thrown out of the churches by the Victorians as they were thought to be far too happy! Ha! Those who loved singing them took them to the pubs, where you could combine a good old sing with beer and a natter, and there the songs have remained and kept alive, being passed down the generations.
“I decided to start the Christmas tour
to take the songs out around the country to show them off and share them out
again. It’s just perfect when we go back to a town again and they’re singing
the songs back to us. It brings me such happiness. Like, ‘my work is done
here’!”
And the
Christmas albums keep coming too…
“There are so many songs still to go at, I’ve no idea how many I’ll end up doing. I am a Holly Head, after all!”
What’s the story behind Hippo For Christmas, the quirkiest song on Holly Head? One for the Rusby daughters, no doubt!
“Aw, it’s such a brilliant song! I came across it while I was researching for the album. I love how it’s the magic of Christmas through the child’s eyes, ‘cos why on Earth would Father Christmas not be able to bring a hippo? He’s magic, right?
“But, of course,, once it’s there, how do you look after it? The brass arrangement on that track is just a delight; you can’t help but smile as they play it. It’s a big tuba moment! They don’t get many moments, tubas, do they? Well, it does on this song!”
While
Shepherds Watched is the Christmas carol that keeps giving! Another one has
popped up on the new album…
“Well, there’s over 30 different versions of While Shepherds Watched that get sung in the pubs here in South Yorkshire, so I’ve still got a lot to go at! This one is actually to the tune of a different song that I also love, but I wasn’t that keen on the words, then realised it went with the While Shepherds words, so yey, another has now been invented.”
Holly and the ivy: The album artwork for Kate Rusby’s new winter album
What is a
Holly Head exactly, Kate?!
“Ha ha!! Well, I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a ‘Holly Head’. You know, like car fanatics are petrol heads. I thought it was the perfect title for such people, and I’m a fully paid-up member of the Holly Head club! ”
What is
the most significant Christmas song on this album for you? One of your own
compositions?
“Oooh, am I allowed to choose one of my
own? Well, OK, I will, I’ll choose The Holly King. It celebrates the more
pagan side of Christmas. I wrote it after reading about the winter king, The
Holly King, and the summer king, The Ivy King.
“Legend has it that the two met twice a
year and had almighty battles. Going into winter, the Holly King would win and
reign for the winter months. Then the Ivy King would wake and overthrow the
Holly King and reign through the summer months, and on they went in a perfect
cycle.
“I just loved the images that it
conjured up and a song came flowing out. I gave him a wife, The Queen of Frost,
who creeps across the land to be with him for his time. In fact, I’m writing
her song at the moment, so she will appear on the next Christmas album, I’m
sure!”
How will you be adorning the stage for the 2019 Christmas shows? Maybe a new reindeer?
“Ooh yes, I can’t tell you too much or it won’t be a surprise. What I can confirm, though, is Ruby Reindeer will be taking her place on stage again; it’d be too strange without her now.
“We have a completely new set this
year…and there will definitely be sparkles.”
Who is in
your Christmas tour line-up this time?
“Ooh, this year we have me, hubby Damien
O’Kane on guitars and electric tenor guitars, Duncan Lyall, double bass and
Moog; Stevie Byrnes, bouzouki and guitar; Nick Cooke, diatonic accordion and
sleigh bells (ha!); Josh Clark, percussion, and our lovely, fabulous brass
boys, Rich Evans, Gary Wyatt, Robin Taylor, Mike Levis and Sam Pearce.
“So, 11 of us altogether on stage, and six crew, I think, and of course not forgetting Ruby Reindeer!”
What do
you most want for Christmas, Kate?
“A big lump of Cornish Kern cheese – it won best cheese in the world last year and is just gorgeous – and a bottle of Bread and Butter white wine to go along with it. It’s a big creamy white; just love it.”
Kate Rusby At Christmas, Leeds Town Hall, December 13 and York Barbican, December 18. Box office:Leeds, 0113 376 0318 or at leedstownhall.co.uk/whats-on/; York, 0203 356 5441, yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Golden moment: Kate Rusby received the Gold Badge from English Folk Dance & Song Society earlier this month. Picture: David Angel
On a separate note
ON
December 4, Kate Rusby received the English Folk Dance & Song Society Gold Badge,
in recognition of her 25-year contribution to folk music.
Among past winners were Cecil Sharp in 1923; Ralph Vaughan
Williams, 1943; Ewan MacCoIl, 1987; Peggy Seeger, 1987; Shirley Collins, 2003,
and Eliza Carthy, 2007.
Congratulations
on your Gold Badge, Kate. What does this award mean to you? Just look at the
names that have gone before!
“Aw, thank you. Goodness
me, I still can’t believe it. It’s just amazing to be considered for this award
as it’s recognition of my work from the massive organisation who work to
preserve and document folk music and dance.
“I’ve done various gigs at Cecil Sharp House over the years, the building where they’re based in London. One time, they let me use the library as a dressing room and, oh my word, I was like a child in a sweet shop with all the ballad books. In fact, I think I may have been late on stage due to reading the books.
“But, yes, a real honour to be added to
the list of Gold Badge winners. My love of the music has kept me entranced all
these years, so to be given this award is just incredible.
“It was presented to me at our gig at
in Sheffield City Hall, when it was also my [46th] birthday that
day; what an amazing birthday present.”
CARA Berridge will be the guest soloist for tonight’s performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor. the centrepiece of York Symphony Orchestra’s Winter Concert in York.
Conducted by Edward Venn, the 7.30pm programme at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, also features Tchaikovsky’s March Slave and and Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 in D Minor.
Tickets cost £15, concessions £13, children and students £5, at yso.org.uk, from orchestra members or on the door.
Emma Osman’s Carol, left, Laurie Brett’s Anita and Gaynor Faye’s Rose in Kay Mellor’s Band Of Gold. All pictures: Anthony Robling
Kay Mellor’s Band Of Gold, Leeds Grand Theatre, until December 14. Box office: 0844 848 2700 or at leedsgrandtheatre.com
LEEDS writer and director Kay Mellor knew there was more
life “on the lane” in Bradford to be mined. The result is a Band Of Gold that’s
arguably worth even more on stage than her already precious, ground-breaking 1990s’
TV drama about northern sex workers.
For her new story of street life in Bradford’s red-light
district of Lumb Lane, Manningham, Mellor has revisited the plot and characters
of the first series and the score-writing heft of Dire Streets guitarist and
original composer Hal Lindes, while retaining and honing her own brilliant
skills of everyday detail made fresh, northern humour, dark truths, huge
emotional impact and suspenseful, thrilling storytelling. A big story, both funny
and sad, now condensed into two hours.
“They’ll get all the joy and the suspense they had from the
television version, but it’s live theatre so it has that excitement to it
because it’s unfolding in front of their very eyes” said Mellor beforehand.
Emma Osman in her “break-out role” as sex worker and single mum Carol…and what a break-out
Back then, she was an unknown writer, they were unknown
characters; they are both well-known now, but still capable of surprises,
shocks…and there is still a killer on the loose, but who killed Gina, the naïve,
novice sex worker – spoiler alert – is different. So everyone can play
detective along with The X Factor winner, Coronation Street star and Madame
Tussauds’ waxwork Shayne Ward’s Inspector Newall.
Mellor tells the story of four women, Carol, Rose, Anita and Gina, and the men that use and abuse them as they battle to survive while working in the lane. All life is here: the street pub; the homes; the dark lane; the councillor (ever reliable York actor Andrew Dunn’s Ian Barraclough); the dodgy cleaning contract businessman (Mark Sheals’s George); the chicken factory boss with a fetish (Steve Garti’s Curly); the abusive husband (Kieron Richardson’s Steve); the loan shark (Joe Mallalieu’s “Mister Moore and more) and Gina’s over-stretched mum (Olwen May’s Joyce).
“The Dunn deal”: Andrew Dunn as Councillor Ian Barraclough
Directing as well as writing Band Of Gold, Mellor has
unearthed another gem in Emma Osman, who was born in Leeds, but later brought
up in York, where she stood out as one to watch when playing Oda-Mae Brown in
Pick Me Up Theatre’s Ghost The Musical in 2014. Playing single mum Carol, she
is being billed as “newcomer Emma Osman”, and although she has appeared in
Doctors and Snatch, this is indeed her “break-out role” at 25. And what a
break-out.
Carol was “the Cathy Tyson role”, but Osman makes it her
own, bringing lip, no-nonsense nous, jagged humour, resilience and a strut to a
feisty woman who can handle a disinfectant bottle as well as she can deal with
men’s demands and the inherent dangers of her work, taking care of herself and daughter
Emma.
Carol takes Sacha Parkinson’s Gina under her wing when ends
don’t meet up paying off a loan shark by selling cosmetics door to door, having
jettisoned punchy, threatening husband Steve from their home. Parkinson is
terrific too, introverted by comparison with Osman’s flashy, gobby turn, but
deeply affecting.
Mellor’s casting is uniformly excellent, from Andrew Dunn’s
typically Dunn deal to Sheals’s repulsive George, while she writes superbly for
both the younger and older women. Laurie Brett’s Scottish Anita now sings
karaoke hits in the prostitutes’ hang-out pub, wishes her life could be more
pink and won’t call herself a call girl, although her sexual favours furnish
her home, while she also looks after the girls’ toiletry needs etc at a price. Heart
of gold, struggling for the readies, this is life on the edge, but in a
different way.
The Mellor’s tale: Writer-director Kay Mellor on the red carpet at Tuesday’s press night for Band Of Gold. Picture: Anthony Robling
Gaynor Faye’s far-from-sweet Rose runs the street, hard as
nail gloss, hooked on drugs, desperately missing the daughter she lost to the
social services. Mellor pulls off a heart-tug of a finale, and even somehow
infuses humour into the killer revelation, while all the while making serious
points about the exploitation of women.
Janet Bird’s set design of blackened sliding doors, painted thickly
with street building imagery, adds to the suspense, the sense of danger, especially
when allied to Jason Taylor’s lighting and Mic Pool’s sound design, while Yvonne
Milnes deserves a medal for her spot-on costume design, especially for Carol.
Kay Mellor’s 2017 stage conversion of Fat Friends into a musical at Leeds Grand was frank and funny, the wonderful Jodie Prenger and the novelty of Freddie Flintoff singing et al, but the fearless Band Of Gold is weightier, more significant, more empowering, more revealing. The gold standard, in fact.
The “softer side” of Steve Wickenden’s dame, Nurse Brexit, in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: David Harrison.
STEVE Wickenden suddenly had to divide himself into two in last winter’s Cinderella And The Golden Slipper.
This time he is playing a dame with a most divisive name,
Nurse Brexit, in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs as the cheeky southerner returns
north for his fourth successive Grand Opera House pantomime in York.
“I’m always one for a challenge. I love a challenge, and that’s what happened last year when we lost Ken [fellow Ugly Sister Ken Morley] from the show when he was taken ill at the first Friday matinee,” recalls Steve.
“I love Ken, he’s a dear friend, and it was sad he couldn’t
continue, but then there had to be that element of ‘Come on, let’s make
something of this’.
“By Saturday morning we were re-blocking the show on stage
after I re-worked the songs on the Friday, with me now doing both Ugly Sisters’
lines.”
Ken Morley: Steve Wickenden’s fellow Ugly Sister in Cinderella And The Golden Slipper last year before illness struck the former Coronation Street soap star. Picture: David Harrison
Steve Wickenden’s rival sibling double act as Ugly Sisters
Calpol and Covonia pretty much stole the show, but he says: “When you’re working
with people you trust and that trust you, like Martin Daniels and John Collins,
they’ll have your back. It was the younger ones in the cast who were more
nervous at first, but the thing about panto is you just have to get on with it,
as the rehearsal process is so quick you just have to crack on.”
Was Steve paid double for his impromptu one-man double act? “I’m
still waiting. Funny that!” he says.
Certainly, audiences more than had their money’s worth from
Wickenden’s extra-quick wit. “That was the thing. The audiences were really
sympathetic and just went with it, once it had been explained why there was
only me when they were expecting two Ugly Sisters. Our audiences here are very
understanding and supportive and that’s why they keep coming back.”
Last winter’s show turned into a learning curve for Steve. “The
main thing I learnt is that normally, playing the dame, if I have a spot, a
gag, a routine, I can do whatever I want. It just affects me, but what happened
last time made me think about partnerships, and they’re about the other person
and that relationship,” he says.
“It’s taught me to be more mindful of other people I’m
working with in the rehearsal room, where it’s all so quick you tend to only think
of yourself.”
Steve Wickenden’s Nurse Brexit with fellow Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs cast members Louise Henry, Jonny Muir, Vicki Michelle, Martin Daniels and Mark Little on the Grand Opera House stage. Picture: David Harrison
Playing Ugly Sister was harsh and mean spirited by comparison
with his latest dame, Nurse Brexit. “I’m looking forward to being someone
softer this time, after the nasty wicked Ugly Sisters. She’s more gentle, and I’ve
been working with Martin, who’s playing Muddles this year, to maximise our
comic relationship, to create comedy vignettes for us.”
There ain’t nothing like the dame in panto, reckons Steve. “This
is THE part to play. When I first came into panto, I always wanted to play dame.
I’d done bits and pieces of comic roles and straight roles, but I always felt
most comfortable doing this role,” he says.
“I started quite young at 27; they took a punt with me at the
Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, when I played Hyacinth Horseradish in Rapunzel. It’s
not a panto that’s done very often, but what was great was that it was a very
Mother Goose-type role in a very dame-driven show, so it really gave me the
full first experience.
“I remember they said I was ‘very good but far too pretty’ as
this beautiful young thing as I didn’t do make-up like I do it now.”
Steve had been the youngest auditionee in the room, but he took
everything in his stride. “My agent had fixed it up for me because I’d kept
saying ‘I really want to play dame’ when people had said, ‘you’re really good
but come back in two years’.
“The main thing I took from that was ‘be ugly’, and I can’t believe
how lucky I was to be given that first chance, but the even luckier thing was then
to come here, to the Grand Opera House, and develop my character and ‘find’ my
dame,” he says.
“I remember they said I was ‘very good but far too pretty’ as this beautiful young thing as I didn’t do make-up like I do it now,” says Steve Wickenden, recalling his first pantomime dame at the age of 27.
“I really play on my ‘inner southerner’, taken from my
grandmother and great grandmother, and that southern turn of phrase works
really well in a northern theatre, where it’s a bit alien, and the dame is a
bit alien anyway, and doing it in a northern theatre makes it stranger still!”
He can’t wait for opening show on Thursday (December 12) when
he starts to “get Nurse Brexit done”, right on cue on General Election night. “One
of the things I said about my first year here was the warmth coming off the
audience towards me, which, to an extent, I’ve not been able to have since then
because of the characters I’ve played: Mirabelle in Beauty And The Beast and
the Ugly Sisters,” says Steve.
“I’m looking forward to having that warmth again, rather than
last year’s boos, but it’s always exciting because it’s dame again but in a new
setting. I just love coming back here and I think it’s become my second home
now.”
In the year since he was last in York, Steve has been busy
directing a children’s theatre show, the musical Annie, doing plenty of
teaching, and performing with his Fifties’ rock’n’roll band The Bandits, even headlining
The Vintage Rock’n’Roll Festival in the South West, “just beyond Stonehenge”.
“I’d love to do a rock’n’roll number in the panto. Why not?
Maybe Tutti Frutti!” he says. “I always say that one of the wonderful things about
here is that there’s absolutely no expectation that the dame will sing well. You
can screech!”
Steve Wickenden plays Nurse Brexit in Snow
White And The Seven Dwarfs, Grand Opera House, York, December 12 to January 4
2020. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york
Frank Turner: bringing history and song-writing together at York Barbican next March
FRANK Turner will turn York Barbican into No Man’s Land on March 8 on the Hampshire folk-punk singer-songwriter’s 2020 tour.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am tomorrow morning on 0203 356 5441, at
yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Turner, 37, released his latest album, No Man’s Land, in August, touted
as his most original to date with its parade of fascinating characters, such as
the woman who invented rock’n’roll, a serial killer from the Deep South, who
plucked her victims from lonely hearts pages, and a Wild West vaudeville star
shot by a small-town outlaw.
“It’s bringing together my two main interests in life, which have always
been separate from each other: history and song writing,” says Turner, who
can be found seeking out long-forgotten historical sites on self-guided
psycho-geographical strolls when not touring.
No Man’s Land is dedicated to the women “whose incredible lives
have all too often been overlooked by dint of their gender”. “These
stories should have been told already,” says Turner of the album and
its accompanying podcast series. “And I suspect if they were men, they would be
better known.”
A couple of names here will be familiar, in the form of Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Sister Rosetta and the mysterious Mata Hari in Eye Of The Day, but other women who feature have long been ignored by the mainstream.
Turner was inundated with crowdsourcing suggestions when seeking more names.
“I know a lot of very smart people who sent me these huge lists of historically
interesting women,” he says, after he ended up researching hundreds, seriously
expanding the size of his home library in the process. “It felt a bit like
going back to school, but it was so much fun.”
The women featured on the album’s 13 tracks come from across wide
geographical and historical lines, whether Byzantine princess Kassiani in The
Hymn Of Kassiani; Egyptian feminist activist Huda Sha’arawi in The Lioness, or Resusci
Anne, an apocryphal drowned virgin whose face was used as the model for the
medicinal CPR mannequin across the world.
“You can’t resist writing a song about a woman who died never having
been kissed and then became the most kissed face in history,” reasons Turner.
No Man’s Land boast perhaps the most revelatory song of Turner’s
career. Written in tribute to his mother, Rosemary Jane honours her grit and
determination through the harder parts of his childhood. “It’s quite a raw
song,” he admits, adding that he felt compelled to ask permission from his
mother and sisters to include the track. “But it’s nice about her. It’s not
necessarily nice about my dad.”
Turner, by the way, will be making his York Barbican debut at next March’s
gig.
Not exactly dressed for winter! The Ebor Singers nevertheless will be in the mood for Christmas at the NCEM on December 15
LOOK forward to “a whole
new world of carols” when The Ebor Singers present the British premiere of American
Christmas choral works alongside Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols on
December 15.
The York choir’s ever-popular candlelit Christmas concert always features Britten’s festive favourite from 1942, this time complemented by modern compositions from the United States at the National Centre for Early Music, York, at 7.30pm.
“Benjamin Britten
was particularly drawn to Christmas,” says Paul Gameson, the choir’s
director, introducing Britten’s masterpiece, scored for three-part treble
chorus, solo voices and harp.
“Britten spent three
years in North America at the beginning of the Second World War, and he
composed A Ceremony of Carolsduring the long and dangerous transatlantic
crossing back to Britain in 1942.”
How apt, then, to present
Britten’s work alongside Christmas music from the USA. “We’ve had a lot of
enjoyment putting this together”, says Paul. “As well as pieces
now considered popular mainstays of the repertoire, by Lauridsen and Whitacre,
we’ve been exploring sacred pieces by Jake Runestad, Nico Muhly and Stephen
Paulus.
“Runestad’s
writing in Sleep Little Baby, Sleephas an American folk-song
quality, and Paulus’s exploration of the sonority of choir with
accompaniment of oboe and harp is every bit as imaginative as Britten.
“Muhly is one of
today’s most imaginative choral composers, and his Whispered And Revealed,a setting of Longfellow’s poem Snowflakes,is quite breath-taking, within three minutes magically conjuring up
images of snow covering a winter landscape.
“So, we’re delighted to be
giving some of this music its UK premiere. Then throw in some classic seasonal
jingles and some choral ‘mash-ups’ and you have a seasonal concert quite
unlike anything else you will have heard, guaranteed to bring you Christmas
cheer.”
Tickets for Britten, A Ceremony of Carols, By Candlelight cost £15, concessions £12, students £5, at eborsingers.org/currentevents or on the door.
Katharina Klug at work on the wheel at her Cambridge studio. All pictures: Zuza Grubeska
THE Space In Between is filling Lotte Inch Gallery, in Bootham, York, with a sophisticated exhibition of monochrome porcelain vessels by Cambridge ceramicist Katharina Klug until Christmas Eve.
“This show plays
with juxtaposing shapes, form and line and places these individual parts within
the context of a larger installation work,” says Lotte. “It’s a show too that
sees the boundaries between craftsmanship and artistic expression grow hazy.”
Known for her manipulation of graphic
lines painstakingly hand drawn on to the surfaces of her fine porcelain
vessels, Katharina’s body of work explores the spaces that lie between lines
and objects as she moves her artistic practice towards something almost more
sculptural, omitting certain elements to create new ones.
“The identifiably Katharina colour pallet
and beautifully realised vessels remain simultaneously of themselves, and of
something bigger, more powerful,” suggests Lotte.
Katharina Klug with one of her porcelain vessel groupings
Discussing
The Space In Between, Katharina says: “This show, for me, is a further step into more
installation-based work. I enjoy the challenge of a narrative-driven context.”
She asked herself: “What lies in
between? What can you see only because you can’t see another? Can leaving
things out, draw others? All these questions started me off on to this body of
work. I’m delighted to have the chance to show it in its entirety at Lotte Inch
Gallery in York.”
Katharina
continues: “In the
last few years, my work has become more about vessel groupings and ideas that
involve more than the one individual pot. It’s almost like creating a larger
canvas that’s split into several vessels.
“The monochrome works are an
accumulation of vessels which together build up installations that let the
viewer see them together as one piece.
“There are so many examples of
collectives in the natural world that morph into new manifestations. The idea
of many forming one keeps feeding my interest in making these pieces.”
Katharina Klug working out “the space in between” her ceramic pieces
Katharina
particularly enjoys how “the placing of
the individual vessel creates a new composition with new views”. “Depending on
the space, the pieces can be arranged to suit the environment but also to create
a new dialogue in between,” she explains.
“I’m hoping the pieces get played and
experimented with, to find new things beyond what I had imagined.”
Katharina lives and works in Cambridge
after moving to Britain from her native Austria in 2009. All her pots are made
by hand on the wheel with pastels used to draw naïve, spontaneous patterns on to
their surface: “the perfect canvas to explore space,” she says.
Her work has been shown in galleries
around the country and beyond and is held in many private collections, and collaborations
have involved her working with Heal’s, the British
furniture and furnishing store chain.
Recognition has come with the silver award in 2013
and 2015 in Craft and Design Magazine’s ceramics category; a shortlisting for
the International Nasser Sparkasse Ceramics Prize in Westerwald, Germany, and
an honourable mention for two entries in the International Ceramic Festival in
Japan in 2017. She has been a selected
member of the Craft Potters Association since 2016 too.
Lotte Inch Gallery, on the first floor at 14, Bootham, York, is open on Thursdays to Saturdays, 10am to 5pm; otherwise by appointment on 01904 848660.
Florence Poskitt: Making her York Stage Musicals debut as Gabriel, the angel who covets the role of Mary in The Flint Street Nativity. Picture: Kirkpatrick Photography
YORK Stage Musicals will bring an alternative
festive offering to York this Christmas for the first time, staging The Flint
Street Nativity at the John Cooper Studio @41Monkgate from December
12 to 22.
Tim Firth’s story was first performed as a television drama on ITV in
1999 with a cast featuring York actor Mark Addy, Frank Skinner, Neil Morrissey
and Jane Horrocks.
Firth, the Frodsham-born writer of Neville’s Island, All Quiet On The
Preston Front, Calendar Girls and the Madness musical Our House, then re-worked
it for the Liverpool Playhouse stage premiere in 2006.
Firth’s show follows “Mizzis Horrocks’s” class of seven year olds as they
prepare to perform their Nativity play at Flint Street Junior School for the
proud mums and dads – and the occasional social worker.
Squabbles arise when Angel Gabriel wants to play Mary; the Star grumbles
he isn’t a proper star like they have at NASA; Herod won’t stop waving to his parents
and the subversive Innkeeper is determined to liven up the traditional script.
Then the class stick insect escapes.
Leading the ensemble company as the ambitious Angel Gabriel will be
blossoming York actress and comedienne Florence Poskitt, making her York Stage
debut alongside Fiona Baistow in the coveted role of Mary. Look out too
for YSM debutant Conor Wilkinson, playing both Herod and Joseph.
The York Stage Musicals’ show poster for The Flint Street Nativity
Here, Charles Hutchinson asks York Stage Musicals artistic
director Nik Briggs to come forth on Firth by answering a Christmas sack-load
of questions.
What made you choose this Tim Firth
piece as your debut Christmas production?
“York is the ultimate Christmas
destination, and many people ask us each year what we’re staging
at Christmas but it hasn’t been something we’ve ventured into before. But then
Jim Welsman [chairman at the time] asked us if we’d be interested in bringing
a Christmas offering to 41 Monkgate, so I jumped at the chance and knew
what show would be the perfect choice.
“I was looking for one that really
would provide the city with an alternative theatrical offering. It needed to be
a show that suited York Stage and the 41Monkgate venue. Flint Street was
the perfect choice. It’s not saccharine; it’s fun, energetic and a
tad off the wall.
“So, come join us as we alter your perspective on not only the art and
politics of the humble Nativity, but the John Cooper Studio as a whole!”
What makes The Flint Street Nativity so humorous?
“This festive play really is one of the funniest observations I’ve come
across based on the Christmas holidays. Everyone knows the traditions
surrounding the institution of the school Nativity, tea towels tied to the
head and tinsel-clad Angels everywhere, but Tim Firth has created
a brilliant script, set in the build-up to the much-anticipated show
filled with laughs and pathos in an oversized classroom where adults play
the children in Mrs Horrocks’s class.”
What do you most enjoy about Tim
Firth’s writing?
“The detail
in the observation of the people he writes about is just brilliant; it really
is all on the page. Like in Calendar Girls, you can relate to and recognise the
characters. The seven year olds just come to life through the writing.
“I work with children of this age
quite regularly and, as I read the script, I could see the
children he was talking about and describing. It seems far-fetched to some, but
it really isn’t! Then, the twist in the final scenes and his ability to
inject just the right amount of pathos into a riotous comedy is what
clinches it for me.”
What are the particular challenges of
this piece for director and cast?
“The key to
the whole show, for me, comes in getting the final part of the show just right,
when – spoiler alert! – the actors who’ve been playing the
children throughout then turn to play the respective parents and we
see what’s made the children the way they are.
“It’s been fairly easy to work on the
scenes with the brilliant actors where they’re playing around and having
lots of fun playing the seven year olds, but actually getting that to tie in
with the adults is where the magic is, so we started the rehearsals with the
adult scenes and got to know them before we then worked on creating
their children, as it’s the adults who nurture.”
What is Tim Firth’s Christmas
message?
“The final
line in the play is ‘I’m in a Nativity. Yeah, it’s great…really brings it
home’, and I think that sums it up. In the fast-paced world we live in,
the simplest, purest things can really make you slow down and take stock.”
Assistant director Jonny Holbek with Florence Poskitt’s despondent Angel Gabriel
What are your recollections of
Nativity plays when you were nobbut a lad?
“Absolute terror!
Every year, I’d come in from school and tell my mother that I’d been cast
as a lead role in the show. Every year, she’d then have to go in and tell
that year’s teacher that they should be prepared that come the day of the show, I’d
just cry and refuse to go on as I suffered from crippling stage
fright!
“They would assure her I’d been
fine in class rehearsing and that I was doing brilliantly with
it. Then every year she’d turn up and sit in the hall expectantly, to be
hauled out by the teacher and informed I was having a meltdown. This
happened every year until I was ten!”
Why are Nativity plays still
important?
“Purity! It’s
plain and simple to see in any Nativity the purity in the children and the
performances they give. Sadly, it’s not a quality we always see in society and
on stage nowadays. so let’s cling on to it in Nativity plays!
What have been your highlights of the
York Stage Musicals year in 2019?
“2019 really has
been a dream. We had the opportunity to produce a classic musical in
The Sound Of Music; have worked on new writing with Twilight Robbery; created magic
with our acclaimed youth production of Disney’s Aladdin, but I think the
cherry on the top has to be Shrek The Musical at the Grand Opera House
in September.
“The buzz around the production, from
auditions through to the closing night, were just electric. The reviews and
comments were just sensational. It really did raise our bar yet again and will
really be a cherished production for us for a very long time.”
What’s coming next for York Stage
Musicals?
“We have a
bit of a bumper year planned already actually. An Eighties’ classic, a York
premiere, a birthday celebration and what is set to be possibly the biggest and
messiest youth show the city has ever seen!
“We start in February with Robert
Haring’s Steel Magnolias at 41 Monkgate. We then head across town to the Grand
Opera House with a brand-new production of Bugsy Malone in April.
Chris Knight’s perennially enthusiastic Donkey in York Stage Musicals’ “monster hit”, Shrek The Musical, at the Grand Opera House, York, in September
“Then it’s a return to Monkgate in
May to present the York premiere of Sondheim On Sondheim to mark Stephen
Sondheim’s 90th birthday [on March 22 2020].
“We’re still firming up plans for our
big autumn show, but things are looking exciting, and we’ll again end the year
back at 41 Monkgate with another Christmas alternative!”
And finally, Nik, what would be your Christmas
Day message to the nation?
“People of
the United Kingdom, it seems that the country truly is in the… No, in all
seriousness, we are in a transition, whether we want to be or not.
“In times of transition and change,
we have to really look out for each other as not everyone will move at the same
pace or be able to keep up. Stay genuine and be kind to those around us
and trust that love will always win.
“Sadly
nowadays, there are too many people in the world who like to over-promise and
oversell themselves for personal gain. This can only lead
to disappointment as we can see everywhere. “Know yourself, know your
limits, don’t compare yourself to others and work hard to run your
own race. Celebrate successes briefly, remain humble and learn from your
mistakes.”
York Stage Musicals present The Flint
Street Nativity, John Cooper Studio @41 Monkgate, York, December 12 to 22,
7.30pm except Sundays at 6pm. Box office: 01904 623568, at
yorkstagemusicals.com or in person from the York Theatre Royal box office.
What a Wallop!: Rob Beckett makes a speedy return to York Barbican
THE comedy year on York Barbican’s main stage will end with another dollop of Wallop! and a welcome dose of honesty.
After walloping the Barbican on October 24, comedian Rob Beckett returns on December 12 with his Wallop! show. The “Mouth of the South” cheeky chappie, 33, hosts BBC One’s All Together Now; does team captain duties on Channel 4’s 8 Out Of 10 Cats; co-presents The Magic Sponge podcast and has joined Romesh Ranganathan for Sky’s Rob And Romesh Vs.
Ed Byrne: Playing York Barbican next week. Honestly, he is.
In his confessional If I’m Honest show on December 13, , ever observational 47-year-old Dubliner Ed Byrne takes a “long hard look at himself and tries to decide if he has any traits that are worth passing on to his children”.
Byrne last played York on his Spoiler Alert! tour at the Grand Opera House in March 2018. Fact.
Tickets for both 8pm gigs are on sale on 0203 356 5441 , at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
