Yes: lining up to play Relayer and Yes classics at York Barbican next May
YES are to play York Barbican next spring, but no, not the ‘Yes’ that
performed there in June 29018 under the name Yes featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor
Rabin, Rick Wakeman, as they now have to call themselves.
No, this Yes is the one that officially tours as Yes, with Steve Howe
on guitars, Alan White on drums, Geoff Downes on keyboards, Billy Sherwood on bass
guitar and backing vocals, Jon Davison on vocals and Jay Schellen on additional
drums and percussion.
This Yes are booked into the Barbican for May 29 2020 as part of an
eight-date May and June itinerary for The Album Series 2020 Tour, when the
prog-rock veterans will perform 1974’s Relayer in its entirety, preceded by a set
of Yes classic cuts. Expect “full production and a high definition video wall”.
Released on Atlantic Records in late 1974, Yes’s seventh studio album
marked a slight change in direction as Patrick Moraz replaced Rick Wakeman on
keyboards, bringing “an edgier, avant-garde feel” to the recordings.
The opening Gates Of Delirium, almost 22 minutes in length, battle scene
et al, featured Moraz’s keyboard jousting with Howe’s guitar before the battle
gave way to the ballad Soon, a prayer for peace and hope.
Further
highlights on an album that reached number four in the British chart and number
five in the US Billboard chart were Sound Chaser, a prog rock/jazz fusion experiment heavily influenced by
Moraz’s style, and To Be Over, the calm and gentle closer, based on a Howe melody.
Yes’s poster for The Album Series Tour 2020
“We’re really looking forward to playing all of
the Relayer album,” says Howe. “Having premiered The Gates Of Delirium
this year, we continue by expanding our Album Series with all the tracks: The
Gates Of Delirium, Sound Chaser and To Be Over.”
Howe adds: “During the first half of the evening, we’ll be performing a
refined selection from Yes’s enormous 50-year repertoire. See you there.”
Drummer Alan White says: “I always enjoy coming home to England, so
I’m especially looking forward to Yes’s upcoming Album Series 2020 tour. Relayer,
I believe, is one of the most creative and interesting musical compilations in
the band’s repertoire.
“Challenging and extremely enjoyable to play, I’m happy to be bringing
this music back to live stages throughout Europe. I hope all who attend our
shows will enjoy these cuts as much as we like performing them for our
audiences.”
Tickets for Yes’s 8pm show are on sale on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Did you know?
ROGER Dean, designer of Yes’s iconic album artwork, will attend every
show of the 2020 British and European dates. An exhibition of his work will be
on show, and Dean will be available to chat with fans front of house, sign
merchandise and take part in VIP meet and greets.
Uplifting: The Yorkshire Schools Dance Festival in York
THE second weekend of the 2019 Yorkshire Schools Dance
Festival will be held at Central Hall, University of York, on Saturday and
Sunday from 3pm.
As many as 1,200 children aged four to 19, from 57 primary
schools, secondary schools, colleges and community dance groups, are taking
part in this annual non-competitive event.
Spread over two weekends, the festival celebrates the
region’s young creative talent and raises the profile of dance provision within
schools and the wider community, while showcasing a range of abilities and
dance styles. For the vast majority, this is the first time they will have
danced in public.
For the four days of dancing, groups are travelling from as
far afield as Ingleton, Hull, Thirsk and Barnsley to take part after developing
their performances through after-school clubs, during curriculum time and as
part of examination courses.
A festival theme is set each year, and for the past few
months schools and groups have been deciding how best to interpret this year’s theme,
Reflections. Performances vary from reinterpretations of the Snow White story,
through to a consideration of the physics of reflection, to support work within
science lessons.
Laura Brett, class teacher at Naburn CE Primary School,
York, says: “Our dance piece tells the story of a Grandma and Grandad
reflecting on their lives as children, watching as visions of their younger
selves relive some of the happier days in their lives.
“The children have had great fun choreographing this –
prompting some discussion about the lives we lead and the mark we want to make
on the world.”
Taking part from Keighley, Emma Pease, Class 3 teacher at
Cowling Primary School, says: “We thought about how social media affects us and
our mental health. The group then modelled how we could reflect this negativity
away from us, realising our strength together and becoming more resilient as a
result.”
The festival is produced by York arts education specialists Creative Learning Partnerships, whose director, Colin Jackson, says: “Dance is an art form that is central to our heritage and culture. It’s celebrated increasingly on our TV screens through shows like Strictly Come Dancing and Britain’s Got Talent.
Let’s dance: Dancers enjoying the schools festival in York
“The sad state of affairs in schools, however, is that it is
quickly disappearing from the curriculum, despite the overwhelming evidence of
its positive impact on physical, emotional and social wellbeing.
“Dance is a collaborative process that develops teamwork,
resilience, communication skills, creativity and a sense of pride. Why
shouldn’t our children be afforded these opportunities?”
Across the two weekends, the 1,200 dancers will be performing
to 2,000 people, who will see how schools have interpreted the theme in
different ways.
In an extension to the 2019 festival, through funding from
Arts Council England, Engage & Inspire will be giving participating children
the chance to work with professional artists from Yorkshire and the North.
Northern Rascals and Hawk Dance Theatre are presenting
specially commissioned performances, Casson & Friends and TenFoot Dance are
hosting interactive workshops while Brink & Howl Creative are delivering an
innovative digital dance installation combining music, dance and digital
projections. Two hundred children will have the opportunity to achieve an Arts
Award to reward their efforts.
Jon Beney, associate artist at Hull Truck Theatre and co-artistic
director at TenFoot Dance, says: “The Yorkshire Schools Dance Festival is a
great opportunity for the young dancers of Yorkshire to come together and
celebrate everything dance.
As a kid, I was inspired by many people that shaped my
journey and it feels nice to have stories and skills to help inspire others.”
Tickets are available at yorkshireschoolsdancefestival.co.uk,
priced at £7 for adults, £6 for children, plus a booking fee.
Blair Plant, centre, with Giles Cooper and Katy Federman in Nigel Slater’s Toast. Picture: Piers Foley
ACTOR Blair
Plant is touring for the first time in 20 years in Nigel Slater’s Toast. By a happy coincidence, the show brings him back to a theatre he
knows very well, York Theatre Royal, from tomorrow.
He first worked
on the stage crew 34 years ago while studying at York St John College (as the
university was called then).
“I’ve done regional theatre but only in one specific theatre, not
touring,” says Blair. “Over the last six or seven years I’ve done a lot of work
in the West End.
“Now I’ve
changed agents for the first time in 15 years and my new agent said I’ve got to
put myself about a bit more and perhaps take less comfortable jobs than the
West End work I’ve been doing. Basically, to get out and get back on the road
and be seen by more people.”
Toast has been adapted for the stage from food writer Nigel
Slater’s book recounting his childhood and cooking ambitions. Blair knew
“nothing at all” about the show and Slater’s life before the job came along,
although they do have one thing in common: both come from Wolverhampton.
He plays Nigel Slater’s father, so when Slater watches the play,
that understandably adds to Blair’s nervousness. “He had a complicated
relationship with his father,” he says. “His father makes the children laugh
and is a nice dad sometimes but then just flips and switches. You never know
when that’s going to happen. He’s not a violent man but is unpredictable, short
tempered”
Slater attended rehearsals. “He’s lovely. He baked a cake and
brought it in for us,” recalls Blair.
Blair Plant, left, with Stefan Edwards, Giles Cooper, Samantha Hopkins and Katy Federman in Nigel Slater’s Toast, at York Theatre Royal from tomorrow. Picture: Piers Foley
Talking of things to eat, the actor is required to demonstrate how
to eat a Walnut Whip at every performance, but don’t ask why! When you see the
play, you will understand.
After eating so
many in rehearsal, Blair “went off” Walnut Whips. A similar thing happened
during his student days in York when he was an ice cream seller: he swiftly stopped wanting to eat ice cream.
The York St John course that young Blair took was billed as
“dance, drama, movement, film and television”. His ambition was to act, but his
parents, who were funding him through university, preferred him to take an
academic degree.
However, he saw
working on the Theatre Royal stage crew during his student days as a means of
gaining entry into theatre.
He began as a follow-spot operator and LX technician before
joining the stage crew. His break came when the touring company run by actors
Kate O’Mara and Peter Woodward opened a show in York and the Theatre Royal
stage crew built the set.
“I persuaded
them to take me on tour with them as their touring carpenter. I did that for 13
weeks and touring all over the country was a wonderful experience,” he says.
He was back at York when the same company asked if he would like to return as an acting assistant stage manager, an opportunity that enabled him to gain the all-important Equity union card. He toured with the company for four years, each time bringing a production to York, where he lived for 15 years after falling in love with the city during his student days.
Blair Plant, centre, with Giles Cooper and Samantha Hopkins. Picture: Pierce Foley
He can also claim some responsibility for Damian Cruden becoming
artistic director at York Theatre Royal. Blair had been directed by the
Scotsman in John Godber’s Bouncers at Hull Truck Theatre and suggested him to
theatre bosses. The rest, as they say, is history. Damian was artistic
director for 22 years until he left earlier this year.
Blair worked with him several more times, including in The Railway
Children at both Waterloo and King’s Cross venues over a four-year period.
“Damian sent me the script before it went on at the Railway Museum in York. I’m
terrible at lifting a story off the page and didn’t get it at all and said it
wasn’t for me. I didn’t realise how immense the show was going to be,” he
recalls.
When the award-winning production, which featured a real steam
train, transferred to London, Blair wanted to be part of it. He spent four
years playing first the dissident Russian intellectual, Mr
Szczepansky, then
the Father in York playwright Mike Kenny’s adaptation of E. Nesbit’s book. “I
really, really loved it. It was a really lovely job,” says Blair.
He names his most challenging role at York – and of his career –
as Lenny in Alan Bleasdale’s comedy Having A Ball, where he had to strip on
stage and perform a six-minute monologue totally naked. “That was difficult to
do in the rehearsal room, but by the time we got on stage, I’d got over being
naked and so had the other actors. It was the audience who had to get over it.”
The most fun he has had was in Bouncers. “The buzz from that gig –
you couldn’t sleep until three in the morning because as an actor you are so
high and very fit,” he says.
Now Blair is
popping up in Toast on his latest return to York.
Nigel Slater’s Toast, York Theatre Royal, November 19 to 23,
7.30pm, plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or
at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
“We love the work Forestry England does, so we’re glad to be back again ,” says Will Young of next summer’s co-headliner with James Morrison at Dalby Forest
WILL Young and James Morrison will co-headline a Forest Live concert at
Dalby Forest, near Pickering, on June 27 as one of six fund-raising concerts
for Forestry England next summer.
Tickets for the two BRIT award winners go on sale at £49.50 plus booking
fee at 9am on Friday, November 22 on 03000 680400 or at forestryengland.uk/music.
Young, 40, won the inaugural series of Pop
Idol in 2002, since when he has notched up seven top five albums, four reaching
number one, as well as four chart-topping singles, his debut, Anything Is
Possible/Evergreen, Light My Fire, The Long And Winding Road with Pop Idol
rival Gareth Gates and Leave Right Now.
Jealousy was his last top five single
success in 2011 and he released his latest album, Lexicon, in June after a
four-year hiatus.
Young branched out into film and
musicals, starring on screen alongside Dame Judi Dench in Mrs Henderson
Presents in 2005 and appearing as Emcee in Cabaret at Leeds Grand Theatre in
October 2017.
Morrison, 35, first made his mark with
his million-selling, chart-topping debut album, Undiscovered, in 2006 and has
had top ten hits with You Give Me Something, Wonderful World, You Make It Real,
Broken Strings with Nelly Furtado and I Won’t Let You Go, like Young, his last top
five entry in 2011.
” I think our sets will complement each other in a special way,” says James Morrison
This year’s album, You’re Stronger Than
You Know, was preceded by Higher Than Here in 2015, the number one success The
Awakening in 2011 and Songs For You, Truths For Me in 2008.
Young, who performed at York Barbican
last month, played previously at Dalby Forest in 2012; Morrison likewise in
2007. Next summer, they will present individual sets, but who will “co-headline”
first? Wait and see in sets that will combine greatest hits with selections
from this year’s albums.
Young says: “Both James and I have fond
memories of appearing as part of Forest Live as solo artists in the past. We
love the work Forestry England does, so we’re glad to be back again in what
promises to be a fantastic double-header of a show.”
Morrison adds: “For the last 20 years,
Will has been at the forefront of British popular culture. That’s a massive
achievement. I think our sets will complement each other in a special way and
I’m really looking forward to our shows together. It’ll be a great night out.”
Forest Live’s series of concerts is
held each summer by Forestry England at Dalby Forest; Westonbirt Arboretum, Tetbury,
Gloucestershire; Bedgebury Pinetum, Tunbridge Wells, Kent; Thetford Forest, Brandon,
Suffolk; Cannock Chase Forest, Rugeley, Staffordshire, and Sherwood Pines
Forest, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
Among past performers at Dalby Forest
are Paul Weller four times; Blondie; Bryan Ferry; Simple Minds; Pulp; Status
Quo twice; UB40; Simply Red; McFly; George Ezra; Tom Odell; Elbow; Paul Heaton
& Jacqui Abbott twice; Madness; M People; Paloma Faith twice; Guy Garvey; Kaiser
Chiefs; Embrace; Keane; Erasure; James Blunt; Rick Astley; John Newman; Plan B;
Travis and The Zutons.
Funds raised from ticket sales go to forest
sustainability for people to enjoy, wildlife to flourish and trees to grow.
KATIE Melua will play York Barbican on November 7 next year on her
45-date winter tour.
Tickets for the Georgian-born singer-songwriter go on sale on Friday, November 22 at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Katie last performed at the Barbican last December, where she was joined
by the Gori Women’s Choir.
The tour announcement coincides with news of a Live In Concert double
album, featuring the Gori Women’s Choir, recorded at the Central Hall,
Westminster, London, last December.
This limited-edition collection is presented as an 84-page hardback book,
containing never-before-seen photographs of moments on stage and
behind-the-scenes, captured by photographer Karni Arieli.
The book also contains illustrations created by the show’s creative directors,
Karni & Saul, and opens with a foreword by Melua.
Born in the Georgian city of Kutaisi, Katie and her family moved to Belfast when she was nine years old. Now 35, she has released seven studio albums, the most recent being In Winter, the 2016 silver-certified set recorded with the Gori Women’s Choir in Georgia.
The new Live In Concert double album opens at Katie’s birthplace in Georgia
with her solo rendition of the folk song Tu Asa Turpa Ikavi. Plane
Song, performed with her brother Zurab Melua, speaks of their childhood in the
city of Kutaisi, and is followed by Belfast, tracing the
family’s emigration to the United Kingdom. Here, Katie’s journey towards
becoming a professional recording artist began, leading to her debut album,
Call Off The Search, released in 2003 at the age of 19.
The show recording continues with songs from all Katie’s albums, works
by writers that have inspired her, crowd favourites and tales from her past.
Through the blustery autumn, the still English winter, and eventually to
the spring with the world in full bloom, the artists on stage finally bring the
show to a hopeful, joyous and optimistic close with a rendition of Louis
Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World.
“I still remain cautiously optimistic about being at the edge of light,” says Steve Hackett
FOR the
first time, former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett is on the road performing
his old band’s 1973 album, Selling England By The Pound, in its entirety.
Now 69, Hackett will be performing the venerated likes of Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, Firth Of Fifth, Cinema Show and I Know What I Like (In My Wardrobe) at a sold-out York Barbican on Tuesday (November 19).
This will
be complemented by further Genesis numbers, selections from Hackett’s Spectral
Mornings album to mark its 40th anniversary and highlights from this
year’s At The Edge Of Light release.
“The idea
to do the whole of Selling England By The Pound came from recalling that, at
the time, John Lennon said it was one of the albums he was listening to that
year,” says Steve.
“By the
time Sgt. Pepper came along, there were surprises around every corner in The
Beatles’ music, so the challenge for me was always there, and I was rather
hoping that Genesis would expand to an orchestra, but in fact they did the
opposite and got smaller and smaller!”
He looks back
fondly on Selling England By The Pound. “It was my favourite Genesis album that
gave us our first hit,” he says.
“Then
something special happened with Spectral Mornings, with my first touring band,
and now I feel this year’s album, At The Edge Of Light, is special too, doing
something political that I knew would be uncommercial, doing something that I
wanted to do at a certain point, like when Queen and Led Zeppelin did creative
things in an earlier era.”
As the
title would suggest, At The Edge Of Light is a place still shrouded in
darkness. “Much of the album does centre on that: the populist world view
evinced by politicians, that dark times are ahead. It’s very worrying,” says
Hackett.
“Look at
the situation in so much of America. The man who was ‘going to make America
great again’ has put 800,000 people out of work. That’s haunting.
“We don’t
mention names, but much of the album is symbolic lyrically, but there are other
things on there beyond politics: love songs and travelogues, so I don’t think
it’s a one-horse-race album.”
Songs for
this fully orchestrated album partly came out of conversations with his wife,
Jo, suggesting lyrics, then Hackett coming up with melodies. In addition, he drew
inspiration from the music of his youth. “I was born in 1950, and by the time
the Sixties were in full cry, you had Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie,
doing wonderful versions of Dylan songs, with music carrying a deeper meaning
without being didactic…though there’s nothing wrong with boy-meets-girl songs,
but music changed for the better.”
Hackett
urges people to make friends across the world, rather than for Britain to
become insular in these toxic Brexit days. “The idea that we can just exist on
our own, sailing off into the Atlantic…if that happens, I think there’ll be a
rude awakening, once people realise what they have voted for. Be careful what
you wish for. Look at what’s happening in America, with people queueing up for
food in Washington. I don’t know what to say about that, but I hope people come
to their senses.”
Nevertheless,
the choice of the word ‘light’ in the album title indicates Hackett’s view is
not all doom and gloom. “I still remain cautiously optimistic about being at
the edge of light, rather than the edge of an abyss,” he says.
At The Edge
Of Light is an album where Hackett “pulled no punches, gave it everything, but
not in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink way”, and he had a “great time doing
it as I thought ‘let’s give it the full monty’.”
He brought
such a scale to his Autumn 2018 tour too, performing Genesis and Hackett
material with a 42-piece orchestra, including an October show at London’s Royal
Festival Hall recorded for the newly released Steve Hackett – Genesis Revisited
Band & Orchestra: Live double album and Blu-Ray digipak.
Now he
re-visits Genesis again, this time Dancing With The Moonlit Knight at York
Barbican.
Steve Hackett, Selling England By The Pound, York Barbican, Tuesday 19 November, 7.30pm.
One-off collaborative tour: Catrin Finch, Seckou Keita and Vishtèn to play Pocklington next June
BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Winners Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita and special guests Vishtèn will bring their one-off collaborative tour to Pocklington Arts Centre next summer.
Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Sengalese Kora maestro Seckou Keita, will perform with Canadian multi-instrumentalist powerhouse trio Vishtèn on Saturday, June 13.
Finch and Seckou, who played the National Centre for Early Music in York on October 20, were named Best Duo/Group in the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, while Seckou also received the award for Musicianof the Year.
Since forming their partnership in 2013, they have released two albums, Clychau Dibon that year and Soar in 2018.
Arts centre manager James Duffy says: “I saw Catrin, Seckou and Vishtèn’s first ever public performance together in Canada, as part of a Music PEI Showcase in October. The response that night was truly wonderful and deservedly received a standing ovation.
“It’s a fantastic collaboration that blends folk/roots and world music between these two highly regarded artists. Thanks must go to Focus Wales, Music PEI and Theatr Mwldan for bringing this show to Pocklington in 2020.”
In September, Finch and Keita travelled to Prince Edward Island on the east coast of Canada to meet and collaborate with Vishtèn, who are flag-bearers for the Acadian musical tradition globally.
Now, this collaboration will be heading to British shores in a one-off tour that will combine sets by both artists with a special set featuring new material by Finch, Keita and Vishtèn together.
In the Vishtèn line-up are twin sisters Emmanuelle and Pastelle LeBlanc, from Prince Edward Island, and Pascal Miousse, a direct descendant of the first colonial families to inhabit Quebec’s remote Magdalene Islands.
Pocklington’s audience can expect tight harmonies, layered foot percussion and a trademark blend of fiddle, guitar, accordion, whistles, piano, bodhrán and jaw harp.
Tickets for this 7.30pm concert cost £22 on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
James Coldrick, left, Louise Henry, Adam Sowter, Stan Gaskell, Sally Mitcham, Beryl Nairn, Mick Liversidge, Maggie Smales and Florence Poskitt in Rigmarole Theatre Company’s When The Rain Stops Falling. Picture: Michael J Oakes,
When The Rain Stops Falling, Rigmarole Theatre Company, John Cooper Studio, 41 Monkgate, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
WHEN will the rain stop falling, you may well be asking amid
Yorkshire’s November floods, burst banks and Army assistance in Fishlake.
Bad news. The answer, in Andrew Bovell’s apocalyptic play,
is 2039, and by then much water will have passed under the bridge in the two hours’
traffic of 41 Monkgate’s stage.
This week’s Yorkshire premiere of When The Rain Stops
Falling marks the debut of Rigmarole Theatre Company, a new York venture led by
artistic director and designer Maggie Smales, who directed York Shakespeare Project’s
award-winning all-female production of Henry V, set at a “Canary Girls” munitions
factory in the First World War.
In other words, she has pedigree for interesting directorial
choices, and Smales shows astute judgement again in picking Bovell’s multi-layered
mystery, spread across 80 years and four generations of one family in England
and Australia, premiered in Adelaide 11 years ago.
Once described as a “poetic pretzel of a play”, it takes the
form of an unbroken, non-linear staging of 22 scenes, in this case within the
John Cooper Studio’s black-box design, with a back-wall montage of umbrellas, a
drape of Aboriginal wall art, window frames and doorways painted white, ceiling
lamps in different shades and a prominent fish mobile.
Within this framework, the cast of nine moves furniture on
and off and occupants of rooms overlap as the years from 1969 to 2019 move backwards
and forwards.
No money, no food, no shoes: Mick Liversidge as Gabriel York in When The Rain Stops Falling. Picture: Michael J Oakes
To help you work out who’s who, the one-sheet “programme”
provides a pictorial family tree to distinguish between Gabriel and Gabriel and
even a Gabrielle.
The play opens to the inevitable sound of falling rain…in
the desert region of Alice Springs, Australia, in 2039, with Smales’s company standing
in lines beneath umbrellas on the stage periphery and criss-crossing the floor
in silent repetitive movements with soup bowls before making way for the first
monologue by Mick Liversidge’s Gabriel York.
This drifting, eccentric wanderer is waiting for his long-estranged
son, Andrew (Stan Gaskell), with no money, no socks and no food. As chance
would have it, a fish suddenly falls out of the sky…manna from heaven in a play
with downpours of biblical proportions.
Not till the end shall we see these two again, but as a
lattice builds, fish, or more precisely, fish soup, will keep making an appearance,
along with dining tables and references to rain in Bangladesh. This adds splashes
of dark humour to the otherwise claustrophobically black, stormy days of
betrayal, abandonment and destruction that unfold against a backdrop of climate
change.
Bovell first heads back to a London flat in 1969, where we
meet Gabriel York’s grandparents, James Coldrick’s Henry Law and Florence
Poskitt’s Elizabeth, in younger days, their relationship problems heightened by
the arrival of son Gabriel. Elizabeth is encountered again in 1988, still in
the same flat, even more buttoned up, Gabriel (Adam Sowter) frustrated at her
still declining to reveal why his father suddenly disappeared when he was only
seven.
Sally Mitcham. left, and Louise Henry in When The Rain Stops Falling. Picture: Michael J Oakes
Sowter’s Gabriel duly heads to Australia to put the missing
pieces together, whereupon he encounters a troubled roadhouse waitress in
Coorong, Gabrielle York (Louise Henry, soon to play Snow White in Snow White
And The Seven Dwarfs at the Grand Opera House).
Tragedy has struck her not once, but thrice, but you should see
the play to find out how and why, as we learn still more from older Gabrielle
(Sally Mitcham) and stoical husband Joe Ryan (Maggie Smales).
Smales chose Bovell’s poetic allegory - full of Australian
culture, Greek myth, English awkwardness, French philosophy and meteorological
turmoil – because it addresses “the most important
question of our times”: Are we prepared to pass on the damage from the past to
our children or can we change to save ourselves?
Ultimately, in a prophetic play heavy with the weight of
legacy and inheritance, Bovell calls on us to change before it is too late. Smales’s
excellent cast, so skilled at storytelling and largely at Aussie accents too,
certainly makes the case for him.
In the words of the director, “If you like a powerful story that
has something to say about who we are and where we are going, this is the one
to see.”
You are also assured of a warmer welcome than Boris Johnson
in sodden South Yorkshire this week. Among the drinks that the convivial bar is
serving is…water, naturally.
A detail from Elena Skoreykp Wagner’s new winter window installation at Owl & Monkey, York
OWL & Monkey, the
homeware and lifestyle store in Heslington Road, York, is unveiling its annual
artist’s window installation for the festive season today.
The festivities will
launch from today until Sunday as York illustrator Elena Skoreyko Wagner
becomes the third artist chosen to celebrate the wonder and magic of a
childhood winter.
As well as revealing
Elena’s papercut installation, Helen and Matt Harris’s shop will be hosting
events to herald the season, including fountain pen-making and a Letters To Santa
opportunity, plus the chance to meet Elena and watch her papercutting in action
on Sunday.
“Come down on Sunday between12 noon and 4 pm and ask Elena to create a mini paper version of you, your friends or family to take away on the day,” suggests Helen. “You can watch Elena make her cut-and-create decorations to purchase for £10. So, come prepared with some photos for your desired creation.”
“The theme of a childhood Christmas really appealed to me, capturing that wonder and magic,” says Elena. Picture: Alice Lodge
As the installation
goes on show, Helen says: “We’re excited to be hosting Elena’s beautiful
creations and are delighted to welcome her installation and work to the shop.
“It exudes a sense of
joy and hopefulness, celebrating the everyday elements of life through her
collages, illustrations and zines. So, when we discovered her creations, we knew
they were just what we were seeking.”
Matt adds: ‘We love
the joyful nature of Elena’s work and how it captures the magic of the everyday.
It matches so well with what we hope the shop offers; a happy place to
celebrate the everyday.”
Canadian-born Illustrator Elena, who gained a BFA in studio art from York University in Toronto in 2006, specialises in colourful hand-cut paper collages, pieced together from paper snippets, along with zines. Her work is often narrative, depicting women and children, to touch gently on health and social issues, find magic and uncover meaning in the mundane.
Elena Skoreyko Wagner at work on a papercut. Picture: Kayti Pechke
“The theme of a
childhood Christmas really appealed to me, capturing that wonder and magic,” she
says of her new installation. “I have also been working with some local
designers and makers to bring my designs to some exciting new products, so I’m
really looking forward to bringing them to Owl & Monkey.”
An added element of
the window from today is the re-use of vintage Japanese papers found by the Owl
and Monkey duo. “A lot of my work uses up-cycled papers, so when Helen and Matt
gave me some old, damaged Japanese papers, I was super-excited to see how they
could gain a new story as part of the window,” says Elena. “Watch out for them
in the very many garlands I’ve been busy sewing together these past few weeks.”
The Owl & Monkey homeware and lifestyle range “celebrates the simple pleasures of home and life with a carefully chosen selection of sustainably and ethically sourced goods to enhance the everyday”.
Helen and Matt Harris’s Owl & Monkey store in Heslington Road, York
“From studio pottery
to an ever-growing range of stationery, all the products are selected with good
ethics, function and joy in mind,” says Helen.
“We also focus on the
power of sharing the skills and passions of the people behind the goods, so an important
part of our ethos is collaboration with local designers, makers and artists.”
You can discover more
about Elena’s work at elenastreehouse.com, on Instagram, @elenaskoreyko, and Facebook,
@elenastreehouse.
Owl & Monkey, 16a Heslington Road, York, is open Wednesdays, 11am to 5pm; Thursdays and Fridays, 11am to 6pm; Saturdays 10am to 5.30pm, plus Sundays, 12 noon to 4pm, November 17 to December 22, and Tuesdays, 11am to 5pm, November 19 to December 17.
“You just think, ‘Come on, make a decision’,” says Al Murray as Brexit lumbers on and on and on
COMEDIANS had been strangely reluctant to discuss Brexit, seemingly for fear of alienating half an audience. Three years in, however, and no nearer to finding a fixit, they are joining the rest of a divided nation in frustration at Mission Implausible.
If one comedian were guaranteed to lose his rag over Brexit Britain, it would be the garrulous Guvnor, bellicose pub landlord Al Murray.
His July show at Pocklington’s Platform Festival had been billed as the “last hurrah” for his Landlord Of Hope And Glory tour, but Brexit is the wanted/unwanted gift that keeps giving.
So, here we all are, post-October 31 impasse, rain sodden and shivering as we go to the polls in darkest December, Boris and Jezza fighting to be the next Guvnor, and Murray’s bilious bulldog still barking his take on Brexit on his autumn travels that stop off at the Grand Opera House, York on November 18.
A comedian seeks to be side-splittingly funny; now Murray is having to deal with split sides. “That’s the interesting thing: they really are split, and you can’t predict how people will be on each night,” says Al, who conducts his interviews as the real Al Murray, satirical comedian, TV presenter, author and military history documentary maker.
” What you have to do is burrow down into ‘Who are we?’; ‘What does this say about us?’, and that’s the thing you then mine for comedy,” says Al Murray, defining the comic craft.
“There are people who still care about it, with everything that’s going on in parliament, but the rest are fed up. Who could imagine people being frustrated with politicians promising things that couldn’t be delivered?!”
Given the Little Englander persona of Murray’s larger and louder-than-life caricature, you might expect him to line up with Boris/Farage/No Deal/Brexit Means Brexit, but Murray thinks as much as the Guvnor drinks, and so Landlord Of Hope And Glory does not take the path of least resistance.
“You write the kernel of a show a couple of months before going out on the road, so that was back in March and April, when it looked like we might go No Deal, and you just think, ‘Come on, make a decision’.
“But whatever way you voted, you have no say in what’s been happening, and as a comic, you’re thinking, ‘How can I find a fresh angle on this?’.
“You don’t want to sound like anyone else, so the conclusion to the show came to me pretty early on, but for the show to merge together perfectly, it took 20 gigs to get to that point.”
Social and political satire requires exaggeration to lampoon its targets, and yet the Westminster and Brussels playgrounds keep surpassing such comic imagination.
“People talk about that a lot: that there’s this problem for comics being outflanked by the behaviour of our politicians, so what you have to do is burrow down into ‘Who are we?’; ‘What does this say about us?’, and that’s the thing you then mine for comedy,” says Al.
Preparing for a dressing down: Satirist Al Murray in the dressing room with The Pub Landlord’s garb
“Get Brexit Done/Not Done” may exasperate many, but Murray is revelling in picking at its bones. “The idea that this thing was going to go on forever didn’t have bite in April, but it does now. It routs us – and I’m rather pleased about that.
“Brexit is now being paraded full bore at the centre of our national debate, yet people were telling me a decade ago that the Pub Landlord’s anti-European stance was outdated!”
Murray is not predicting an end to Brexit deliberations any time soon. “I think we’re going to go back out with this show next spring, when it still won’t be over.
“The reality is, you will never find anything to satisfy everyone, so you just have to balance it,” he suggests. “Is there a way out of this mess? The Pub Landlord thinks so: the whole of Europe goes on the pound and the EU changes its name to Great Britain!”
Is Brexit a step backwards or forwards for Britain, Mr Murray? “The thing is, I haven’t heard yet how it’s a step forward. I’m open to whatever ‘Brexit’ is, but you get the feeling a lot of people don’t know what it is, or that people won’t like it, whatever it is.”
AlMurray: Landlord Of Hope And Glory, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, November 18, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/York
