SLUG and Caterpillar are starving and the only leaf left in the garden is just out of reach.
So begins Slime, Sam Caseley’s squelchy, squishy, surreal, slimy play for two to five-year-old children at the De Grey Ballroom, York Theatre Royal, on April 15 at 10.30am, 1pm and 3.30pm.
Directed by Ruby Thompson, The Herd Theatre’s show is a playful interactive adventure where young theatregoers and their families can expect to “get stuck in with slime” as they help Slug and Caterpillar to work together to form an unlikely friendship, despite their differences.
Just out of reach: the only leaf left in the garden for Slug and Caterpillar
Slug thinks they should work together,
but Caterpillar has other ideas, saying slugs are gross, covered in gooey slime
and have terrible taste in music.
The Hull company’s fully immersive and accessible experience will transform the De Grey Ballroom into a “Slime-tastic undergrowth for all”, with British Sign Language integrated throughout.
“This isn’t a traditional play performed in a
traditional theatre,” says Ruby, the director. “We’re delighted to host a
unique theatrical experience for the very young. During the show, children and
their grown-ups can be as loud as they want: giggle, dance, wriggle and talk.
We can’t wait to welcome York audiences into the undergrowth, created by designer
Rūta Irbīte.”
“Slugs are gross, covered in gooey slime and have terrible taste in music,” says Caterpillar in The Herd Theatre’s Slime
Playwright and composer Sam adds: “Slugs are amazing and their slime is like no other material on Earth, but they get such a bad rep. So, we’ve made a show that confronts this prejudice, and in doing so explores how we judge others before we know them. And you get to invade the stage and play with Slime at the end.”
Defining their brand of theatre, The HerdTheatre say they “make innovative shows about the world young people live in today”. At the heart of everything is collaboration as they play, chat, imagine, share, and create with groups of children.
Slime has only has 12 words in the show, and every word is spoken and signed by the characters in British Sign Language. Furthermore, every performance of Slime is relaxed. “The audience area is well lit. It’s OK to come, go and make noise if you need to,” say The Herd, whose 45-minute play is followed at each performance by 15 minutes of Slime play.
Tickets for the three performances with British Sign Language and Relaxed Performance access cost £8 on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
PICK Me Up Theatre will celebrate Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday in a night of song on March 22, the very day the New York composer and lyricist enters his tenth decade.
Already
the York company has produced four of his musicals, Into The Woods, Assassins,
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street and Follies.
“So, on
the evening of the great man’s 90th, we’ll be presenting an evening
of his finest music in his honour with a cast of 21, performing under musical
director Tim Selman on piano,” says artistic director Robert Readman, who will
be among those 21 voices at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York.
“This will be one performance only of songs from every show, movie and TV special Sondheim has written the words and music to, from 1955 through to 2013.”
Group numbers will include Children Will Listen; Our Time; Not Getting Married Today; Bring Me My Bride and Sunday, alongside music from A Little Night Music; Dick Tracey; Sweeney Todd; Company; Roadshow; Follies; Into The Woods, Anyone Can Whistle and Sunday In The Park With George.
Performing with Readman at 7.30pm will be Andrew Isherwood; Alan Park; Jennie Wogan; Darren Lumby; Emma Louise Dickinson; David Radford; Susannah Baines; Andrew Roberts; Ed Atkin; Frankie Bounds; Natalie Walker; Adam Price; Mark Hird; Sam Hird; Catherine Foster; Alex Mather; Maya Tether; Flo Poskitt; Juliet Waters and Ryan Smith.
Tickets for Sondheim 90, A Birthday Concert, cost £15,
concessions £13, on 01904 523568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or pickmeuptheatre.com
or in person from York Gin, in Pavement, or the York Theatre Royal box office.
The full programme for Sondheim 90, A Birthday Concert:
INTRODUCTION – The Frogs – ANDREW ISHERWOOD & ALAN PARK
THE TWO OF YOU – Kukla, Fran & Ollie – JENNIE WOGAN
TAKE ME TO THE WORLD – Evening Primrose – DARREN LUMBY & EMMA
LOUISE DICKINSON
THEY ASK ME WHY I BELIEVE IN YOU – I Believe In You – DAVID RADFORD
EVERYBODY SAYS DON’T – Anyone Can Whistle – SUSANNAH BAINES
SATURDAY NIGHT – Saturday Night – ANDREW ROBERTS, ED ATKIN,
FRANKIE BOUNDS, ANDREW ISHERWOOD & COMPANY
SO MANY PEOPLE – Saturday Night – NATALIE WALKER & ADAM PRICE
THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED – Road Show – SAM HIRD & ADAM
PRICE
LOVE I HEAR – A Funny Thing Happened On To The Way To The Forum –
FRANKIE BOUNDS
BRING ME MY BRIDE – A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
– MARK HIRD
RAIN ON THE ROOF – Follies – ANDREW ROBERTS & CATHERINE FOSTER
YOU COULD DRIVE A PERSON CRAZY – Company – ALEX MATHER, EMMA
LOUISE DICKINSON & MAYA TETHER
GETTING MARRIED TODAY – Company – FLO POSKITT
AGONY – Into The Woods – DARREN LUMBY & SAM HIRD
MOVE ON – Sunday In The Park With George – EMMA LOUISE DICKINSON
& ADAM PRICE
THE LADIES WHO LUNCH – Company – JULIET WATERS
GOODBYE FOR NOW – Reds – DARREN LUMBY
LIVE ALONE AND LIKE IT – Dick Tracy – DAVID RADFORD
MORE – Dick Tracy – MAYA TETHER
NOT A DAY GOES BY – Merrily We Roll Along – ALEX MATHER
FEAR NO MORE – The Frogs – SAM HIRD
CHILDREN WILL LISTEN – Into The Woods – SUSANNAH BAINES &
COMPANY
OUR TIME – Merrily We Roll Along – FULL COMPANY
Second half:
PRETTY LADY – Pacific Overtures – DAVID RADFORD, ED ATKIN &
ANDREW ROBERTS
KISS ME/LADIES IN THEIR SENSITIVITIES – Sweeney Todd – ALEX
MATHER, SAM HIRD, MARK HIRD & RYAN SMITH
JOHANNA – Sweeney Todd – ED ATKIN
NOT WHILE I’M AROUND – Sweeney Todd – JENNIE WOGAN
A LITTLE PRIEST – Sweeney Todd – RYAN SMITH & SUSANNAH BAINES
GIANTS IN THE SKY – Into The Woods – FRANKIE BOUNDS
THE MILLER’S SONG – A Little Night Music – EMMA LOUISE DICKINSON
BROADWAY BABY – Follies – FLO POSKITT
LOVE WILL SEE US THROUGH/YOU’RE GONNA LOVE TOMORROW – Follies –
SAM HIRD, ADAM PRICE, EMMA LOUISE DICKINSON & NATALIE WALKER
THE BALLAD OF GUITEAU – Assassins – SAM HIRD & MARK HIRD
FRANKLIN SHEPARD INC. – Merrily We Roll Along – ALAN PARK
EVERYBODY OUGHT TO HAVE A MAID – A Funny Thing Happened On The Way
To The Forum – SAM HIRD, MARK HIRD, ROBERT READMAN & ANDREW ROBERTS
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE – Anyone Can Whistle – ALEX MATHER
NO ONE HAS EVER LOVED ME – Passion – ADAM PRICE
LOVING YOU – Passion – SUSANNAH BAINES
UNWORTHY OF YOUR LOVE – Assassins – ALAN PARK & CATHERINE
FOSTER
LOSING MY MIND – Follies – MAYA TETHER
WHAT CAN YOU LOSE – Dick Tracy – DARREN LUMBY
BEING ALIVE – Company – DAVID RADFORD
SEND IN THE CLOWNS – A Little Night Music – JULIET WATERS
BIRTHDAY CAKE SCENE – Company
SUNDAY – Sunday In The Park With George – FULL COMPANY.
Ellen Kent’s production of La Boheme: lighting up the Grand Opera House, York, on March 20
OPERA producer and
director Ellen Kent returns to the Grand Opera House, York, with a brace of Puccini
productions next week.
Under the Opera
International umbrella, she presents La Bohème on March 20 and Madama Butterfly
the following night, with sopranos Elena Dee, from Korea, and Alyona Kistenyova,
from Odessa National Opera, billed for the 7.30pm performances, subject to cast
changes.
Ukrainian tenor and former military pilot Vitalii
Liskovetskyi, from the Kiev National Opera, will be reprising his role as
Rodolfo in La Bohème; Spanish tenor Giorgio Meladze, who sang with José
Carreras in 2014, plays Pinkerton in Madama
Butterfly; Moldovan baritone Iurie Gisca will be singing Marcello in La
Bohème.
Soprano Marina Tonina takes the role of
Musetta in La Bohème and both productions will feature a full chorus, orchestra
and sumptuous sets and be sung in Italian with English surtitles.
Set in the
backstreets and attics of bohemian Paris, La Bohème tells the tragic tale of
the doomed romance of consumptive seamstress Mimi and penniless Rodolfo.
Madama Butterfly’s heat-breaking story of the beautiful young Japanese girl who falls in love with an American naval lieutenant, with entirely predictable consequences in the world of opera, will be staged with a Japanese garden and antique wedding kiminos.
Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Look out for the dog in Ellen Kent’s La Boheme next week
Here, Ellen Kent answers questions on her 2020 production of Puccini’s opera of love and loss, La Bohème, a touring show inspired by Ellen reading George Orwell’s Down And Out In Paris.
What can the Grand Opera House audience expect from your production,
Ellen?
“I like to provide shows at a very high level and I like large productions, so the feel is very much of a big show.
“I try to put everything into it, from the sets to the artists on the stage, and I like to add things. For example, with La Bohème, I have these fabulous visuals. I’m a very visual director and producer, so I give audiences the whole package.
“The overall experience is of something that is very beautiful, with gorgeous and spectacular sets. The curtain goes up and, depending on the opera of course, I want the audience to feel the ‘Wow’ factor. The sets have got to be beautiful and I like to wrap something visually stunning around the plot.”
How are you staging La Bohème?
“It’s set in the French Impressionist period, so my sets reflect that. For instance, I’ve gone for a beautiful Chagall and Renoir feel and it’s quite stunning. You get this beautiful French Impressionist flavour and everything is done to serve that, so when you look at it, it’s a bit like an Impressionist painting.
“I like to dress my sets, so in LaBohème, for instance, Act One is set in an attic and it’s got all these wonderful rooftops, as if they’ve been painted by one of the great French artists.
“Then I like to add something more realistic, so you have this sort of Impressionist painting but we’ve also got windows lit up and we have smoke coming out of a few of the chimneys.
“I’ve got a human skeleton – though not a real one of course –
which I’ve dressed with a hat and a scarf. We also have a dog on stage; a brass
band; snow machines; a carnival effect; the cafe with waiters running around, a
market stall.
“I want the audience to feel the ‘Wow’ factor ,” says opera producer and director Ellen Kent
“The whole thing is a visual feast and I always like to draw on the
period an opera is set in. I do have an Eiffel Tower, which of course was built
later, but that’s a bit of poetic licence.”
Why is La Bohème so beloved?
“With [Jonathan Larson’s
American musical] Rent basing itself
on La Bohème, for example, people use Puccini’s operas as
benchmarks to build modern musicals on, which shows how strong the stories and
themes in his operas are.
“The music is beloved because it’s so great and La Bohème is my personal favourite because you have this poignant story wrapped around this fabulous music. There’s something rather special about Puccini’s scores and the stories that go with them are very well constructed. Some of what the characters sing is heart-rending, and people love tragedy.
“La Bohème is a very sad little story and it’s got Puccini’s wonderful music and moments of great poignancy. There’s something about the violins that brings up those goosebumps and goes straight to your soul.
“It also has a lot of comedy, which I like to bring out. Opera should be giving you the whole deal – wonderful music, gripping storylines – and these two really deliver.”
How does La Bohème fit into
the timeline of Puccini’s work?
“Like Verdi, he started off with these great Biblical-style operas, such as Turandot, for instance. They’re big storylines, not necessarily personal dramas. Then everything changed around the 1830s, when realism and domestic storylines became fashionable.
“Puccini jumped on to the bandwagon. La Bohème is about a domestic tragedy and it is complete realism. It’s about very poor people living in the deprived parts of Paris: these artisans and poets starving in garrets and living in mindless poverty.”
Has Rent opened up La Bohème to new audiences?
“Yes. I tend to take a musical theatre approach to operas, with lavish visuals, and I get a lot of people coming to the shows who haven’t been to an opera before but they’ve seen big musicals like Miss Saigon or Rent. I firmly believe in opening up opera to the masses.”
Your production will be sung
in Italian with surtitles, rather than in English. Does that reflect the purist
in you?
“I can’t stand operas in English! I am a purist in that regard; you start putting them into English and the whole sound changes. Puccini wrote with Italian vowels, and when you’re singing, you need that Italian in the voice, instead of clipped British intonations. “And, of course, surtitles open opera up to the masses and they’re much better than just having a synopsis in the programme.
“We do that too, but the actual words used are poetic and moving.
The librettos are extremely good pieces of writing and you get all this emotion
coming out of the words, matched by the emotion coming out of the music. You
put those two together and the audience gets a much better experience.”
” I can’t stand operas in English!” says Ellen Kent. “I am a purist in that regard; you start putting them into English and the whole sound changes “
What first sparked your love
of opera?
“I was born in India to a colonial father and my mother was known
as the queen of amateur operatics in Bombay. My mother loved producing and
putting on shows – and they were really good, actually.
“She managed to put me into every single opera from about the age
of four. I’d be dressed in these wonderful costumes and I loved it. Then we
moved to Spain and we’d go see all the – rather bad – travelling operas.
“That said, from the age of six, I declared I wanted to be a film
star. Eventually, after my father had retired, I enrolled at Durham University
to do a degree in Classics to appease him because he insisted ‘You’ve got to
have some academic education’.
“I don’t regret doing that degree now because it’s given me a wonderful background for all the operas I’m doing. After I finished my degree, I went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, trained as an actress, singer and dancer, because although I got a place at the Royal Academy of Music to go be an opera singer, I decided it was too narrow a field.”
What happened after you left
theatre school?
“I went on to acting and musicals and was putting on European
children’s theatre when Rochester City Council, who were among the people
funding me, asked me to put on a children’s show in Rochester Castle gardens.
“I don’t know where these notions come from, but I found myself
saying, ‘I don’t think that’s really suitable but opera might work’. So, that’s
how it all started, with an outdoor production of Nabuccoin 1992 to 7,000 people.
“I remember the sun sinking over the River Medway with all these
people having picnics. We had champagne tents, candelabras, the whole works,
and I thought, ‘this is what I want to do. It’s fantastic. I’m going to do
opera’. Since then, it’s been a series of wonderful adventures.”
Why is it important to take
opera to regional theatres?
“I’m quite an instinctive person so, although I never really thought it through, I just knew audiences in the regions would be hungry for opera. And why go to London when you have these wonderful sites – these outdoor arenas and lovely big theatres – all around the country?
“I felt that half the population didn’t know how wonderful these
works were and I’ve never changed my concept of it. The regions are where these
shows need to be.”
Tom Tom club: the two Toms in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Tom’s Midnight Garden, Jimmy Dalgleish, left, and Jack Hambleton, with Olivia Caley’s Hatty. All pictures: Matthew Kitchen
SPRING is on its way, gardens are perking up, good timing for Pick Me Up
Theatre to stage Tom’s Midnight Garden from tomorrow at Theatre @41
Monkgate, York.
Who better to direct David Wood’s adaptation of Philippa Pearce’s beloved book than the York company’s artistic director Robert Readman, a garden and gardening enthusiast, as a visit to his Bubwith abode would affirm.
In Pearce’s 1950s’ story, Tom is sent away sent to stay with his Aunt
Gwen and Uncle Alan in their upstairs flat in a big Victorian house after his
brother Peter catches the measles and is now quarantined.
Lonely and bored, Tom has little to do until one night he hears the
hallway grandfather clock strike 13. Creeping downstairs to investigate, he
throws open the back door to…no longer a small yard but a large and beautiful
garden instead.
Something strange is happening: every time the clock strikes 13, Tom is
transported back in time to the secret garden. There he befriends an unhappy
Victorian orphan, Hatty, and a series of adventures ensues, but what is behind
the magical midnight garden?
“It’s such a magical story, all to do with time,” says Robert. “I love
how it jumps between a young boy’s dull life in the 1950s, and his adventures
with Hatty in the 1880s.”
“The lighting and sound will be vital to the transformation between the
two times; the characters dress according to the era they’re from, and there’ll
also be a lot of mime in the show, so it’ll be a mixture of the real and the
unreal, with the cast doing roles from the two eras.”
Ed Atkin as Peter, left, Jimmy Dalgleish as Tom, Olivia Caley as Hatty, Jack Hambleton as Tom and Beryl Nairn as Aunt Grace in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Tom’s Midnight Garden
To convey the two
contrasting worlds with his black-box design, director-designer Readman has
constructed two platforms, one at either end, one for Peter’s bedroom, one for
Tom’s, with a doorway to each one and the hallway clock at Tom’s end.
“It’s nothing like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden,
which was written in Victorian times, whereas Tom’s Midnight Garden is
a tale of children stuck in the drabness of the 1950s creating an exciting
world by travelling back to Victorian days, and that’s what we’re conveying in
both the design and the performances.”
Reading the book as a child and now re-reading it in preparation for the
Pick Me Up production, Robert says: “What struck me is that it’s all to do with
children’s imaginations. It’s a piece about how children can conjure up
adventures with make-believe.
“It’s a beautiful book that can be read by adults just as much as by
children; it treats children as being intelligent in their own right, and I
love how it takes you on a journey where there’s both sweetness and sadness, so
everything is doubled.”
Company regular Jack Hambleton and Pick Me Up newcomer Jimmy Dalgleish
will share the role of Tom; Olivia Caley will play Hatty, and Ed Atkin, Peter.
“At the beginning, it’s quite hard to like Tom because he complains
quite a lot and seems ungrateful, but then you can see that he was just feeling
lonely and was missing his brother,” says Jack.
“His friendship with Hatty shows how caring and thoughtful he is, and he
also shows his curiosity and intelligence when approaching the puzzle of how
his time travel is possible.”
“All Hatty wants to do is have adventures and not grow up,” says Olivia Caley, pictured with Jimmy Dalgleish, left, and Jack Hambleton, who will share the role of Tom
Jimmy, similar in stature to Jack but differing in his interpretation of
the role according to Readman, says: “Stuck inside at his aunt and uncle’s
house, Tom is lonely and ‘longs for someone to play with’.
“Tom is very playful and somewhat cheeky! He’s intelligent, adventurous
and loyal to his new friend Hatty. He’s very inquisitive and a logical thinker
as he tries to work out that he’s somehow able to go back in time!”
Summing up Victorian Hatty’s character, Olivia says: “She’s a curious
and playful young girl with a great imagination, despite her sad upbringing.
All Hatty wants to do is have adventures and not grow up!”
Ed plays not only Peter, but Hubert and “Voice” too. “But I spend most
of my time as Peter, who’s got measles, so he has to spend all his time in bed.
The letters written by Tom are his only entertainment, which means he’s
fascinated by the stories that are sent to him.”
Given that time travel is so central to Tom’s Midnight Garden, if they
each could go back in time to one era to live in, what would it be and
why? “Probably Ancient Egypt as I’m fascinated by how they lived and how much
they achieved,” says Jack. “I would love to know how they really built the
pyramids and how much influence the gods had on their lives.”
“The Tudor era because I would love to live among the people of the
court of Henry VIII and experience the grandeur the scandal and politics
of his life,” reckons Jimmy.
“I actually experienced what it was like to be a young girl in the
Regency era in a short film called Mr Malcolm’s List,” reveals Olivia. “So, I’d
probably want to travel back to that era. The dresses were beautiful, and I
loved getting to wear them! Not so much the corsets!”
Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for this month’s production of Tom’s Midnight Garden
Ed picks the 1960s. “This was such an exciting time in the development
of the music industry,” he reasons. “I just think it would have been so
fascinating to learn about music at a time when it was constantly changing and
being upgraded.”
While on the subject of music, Ed has written a beautiful score for
violin, cello and piano for musical director Tim Selman’s forces. “It
definitely draws on the theme of ‘time no longer’,” he says.
“I took inspiration from the likes of Vaughan Williams and Benjamin
Britten, who wrote music that was modern at the time but also harked back to
the Victorian Romantic styles.
“Additionally, I tried to incorporate the idea of childhood and
playfulness into what I wrote, so lots of the music is fun and slightly quirky.
However, it’s all shrouded in a sense of mystery.”
Not only director
Readman has a love of gardens, so do his cast principals. “Some gardens are very magical,”
says Jack. “I particularly like gardens with hidden corners and
an air of mystery, such as Castle Howard and Beningbrough Hall.”
Jimmy concurs: “A garden is
a place where anything can happen,” he says. “A garden inspires imagination and
can subsequently transport you to a whole new world of your own creation
away from the stresses and strains of ordinary life, and that in itself is
magical!”
Olivia enthuses: “I absolutely think gardens are magical!
There’s so much scope for the imagination. When I was little, I was always
playing in my garden, so I can really relate to Hatty on that.”
Gardens can be magical, especially for a child, suggests Ed. “There’s a
moment in the play where Tom and Hatty go through a ‘secret passage’. This
feeling of exploring a new world is one I remember well from playing in such a garden when
I was younger,” he says.
Let the clock strike 13. A garden awaits.
Pick Me Up Theatre in Tom’s Midnight Garden, John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, tomorrow (March 13) until March 21. Box office: 01904 623568; at pickmeuptheatre.com or in person from York Gin, 12, Pavement, and the York Theatre Royal box office.
Ghost Stories from the past: lecturer Professor Goodman making a point (when Simon Lipkin played the role in London in this picture)
REVIEW: Ghost Stories, presented by Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, scaring all and sundry at Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york
IT is not every play day that the writers send out a polite
request to reviewers, and normally it would be a red rag to that most bullish
of breeds: the hacked-off hack.
However, the seriously bearded duo of Andy Nyman and Leeds-born
Jeremy Dyson, he of the deeply, madly, darkly twisted League of Gentlemen, do
have a point.
Ghost Stories has been around for a decade now, going global
and being transformed into a film too, but all the while “it has meant so much
to us that critics the world over have kept [secret] the plot and secrets of
our show when writing about it,” they say.
“We appreciate it makes life a little trickier for you by not
divulging [the] plot, but because of your help, Ghost Stories remains a rare thing: a modern experience you have to
see ‘spoiler-free’.”
Spoiler alert: there will be no spoiler alerts in this review
to blow the cover of their audacious spooky conceit. What your reviewer can
reveal, however, dear reader, is that he first saw this immersive fright-fest
at the Ambassadors Theatre – a typically compressed, crowded, everyone-close-to-the-stage,
venerable West End locale – only last autumn, and frankly it was just as joyously,
seat-of-the-pants, phew, glad-to-have-got-through-that scary, second time
around at the Grand Opera House on Tuesday night.
Not-so-secret request: writer-directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson
Even when knowing what was coming next. Much like returning
to a favourite fairground ghost train or high-speed ride. In fact, that even added
to the experience, and apparently others share that view, gleefully inviting
the uninitiated to join them to break their Ghost Stories virginity. Just do as
Andy and Jeremy say: tell them nothing, except maybe pass on this message: “We
hope you have a great night and maybe even scream a bit.”
A bit? In reality, there is as much laughter as screaming in
response to the brilliantly executed storytelling, stocked with its 15-rated “moments
of extreme shock and tension”. “We strongly advise those of a nervous
disposition to think very seriously before attending,” says the programme cover,
which is a tad late for a warning and amounts to more of a dare.
Do note this, however. Anyone who leaves once the ghosts have
started their work for the night is not allowed back in, and nor is there an
interval. So, the strongest advice is to think very seriously of heading to the
loo beforehand, should that fear of a discomfort break be more likely to make
you nervous.
Unlike Stephen Mallatratt’s The Woman In Black, Ghost Stories
is not one ghost story but three ghost stories, wrapped inside an over-arching,
far darker psycho-drama that begins with Joshua Higgott’s Professor Phillip Goodman,
a parapsychologist in obligatory brown corduroy, delivering a lecture, glass of
water and dry wit at hand.
In a theatre with its own ghost, opposite the York Dungeon tourist attraction with its love of gory history, and in “Europe’s most haunted city” with a ghost tour around every corner, even a ghost bus ride and a York Ghost Merchants shop to counter the spread of Pottervirus in Shambles, Goodman should be feeling very much at home as he guides us through the history of our fascination with ghosts and expert ghost analysis of the past. So far, so para-normal.
All of this is a way to trap us into a false sense of
security/strap us in for the very bumpy ghost rides ahead, each more alarming
than the last, as lecture and lecturer seep in and out of each suspenseful story.
The night-watchman on his guard in Ghost Stories (again pictured in the 2019 London production)
Without giving anything away, these involve a seen-it-all-before night-watchman in a depository (Paul Hawkyard); a novice motorist in a car at night in a murky wood (Gus Gordon) and a flashy father-to-be in a nursery (Richard Sutton, still as outstanding as he was in the London run). What happens next? Relax, Andy, relax Jeremy, my bitten lips are now sealed.
Except to say, writer-directors Nyman and Dyson and fellow director Sean Holmes work their ghostly magic deliciously devilishly in tandem with Jon Bauser, a sleight-of-hand magician of a designer, far outwitting Hammer Horror.
James Farncombe’s lighting adds heart-stopping menace to the juddering frights, hand-held torches and all; Nick Manning’s disturbing, disorientating, jagged, sometimes deafening sound design assaults you from all sides, and Scott Penrose’s climactic special effects are terrifically terrifying.
Do keep what happens secret, but don’t keep the show secret. It
deserves big houses, being all the better, the more who share the experience, even
amid the worrisome shadow of Coronavirus.
”Sweet dreams, Andy and Jeremy,” say the ghost-story weavers
as they sign off their letter to the fourth estate, politely teasing to the
last.
Sweet dreams? Lovers of gripping theatre, devotees of the paranormal world, your nightmare would be to miss Ghost Stories, especially on Friday the 13th. You won’t rest until tickets are safe and secure in your hand.
Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel and Jay Taylor’s SS Officer Prall in Alone In Berlin
Review: Alone In Berlin, York Theatre Royal/Royal & Derngate Northampton, at York Theatre Royal, until March 21. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
IT is rare to have a perspective on the
Second World War from within Germany itself, presented on stage or screen.
What’s more, Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret
was a Broadway musical rooted in Anglo-American Christopher Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical 1945 novel The Berlin Stories, set in Weimar
Republic Berlin in 1931 with the Nazi Party on the rise. There could be no more
cynical voice than that of the nightclub Emcee; entertainment at any price.
This year, New Zealander Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, a
satirical account of the last year of World War Two, as seen through the eyes
of a ten-year-old Hitler Youth enthusiast in a German town, garlanded
nominations aplenty in the Hollywood awards season but opprobrium in equal
measure. How did it end? With the boy and a newly free Jewish girl dancing to
David Bowie’s Heroes, sung in Deutsche.
Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich, Clive Mendus’s Benno Kluge and Jessica Walker’s Golden Elsie in Alone In Berlin
Alone In Berlin is a different beast altogether, still with
songs (more of which later), but far removed from the powder and paint, mirage and
murk of Weimar cabaret or a small-town boy’s loss of innocence. The source
novel, based on a true story, was written by a German, the maverick Hans
Fallada, responsible for Little Man, What Now? too.
Also known aptly as Every Man Dies Alone, it was published in
1947 – the year Fallada died of a morphine overdose – but not in English until
2009.
Since then, there has been Vincent Perez’s 2016 film with
Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson and now this York Theatre Royal and Royal
& Derngate Northampton co-production, translated and adapted by playwright
and political satirist Alistair Beaton and directed by James Dacre, the
Northampton theatre’s artistic director.
We watch it through the 2020 filter of grim, vulnerable
times, in a year of floods, storms, immigration intolerance, Brexit’s cold
shoulder, myopic political leaders, and now the creeping spread of Coronavirus.
“This is war,” an exhausted Italian doctor said yesterday.
Resistance movement: Charlotte Emmerson’s Anna and Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel in Alone In Berlin
On the one hand, there is heightened awareness of the need
for collective responsibility, but, on the other, a fear that other factors may
over-power it, and where does that leave individual action as we wash our hands
ever more feverishly? We are indeed, as everyone is in Fallada’s book, very
much alone, and seemingly not in control of our destiny.
Such a feeling prevails in Alone In Berlin, where the central
question is whether an individual can make a difference through courageous acts
of protest when standing up against the drowning tide of Nazism.
Hard-working carpenter Otto Quangel (Denis Conway) and worn
housewife spouse Anna (Charlotte Emmerson) have just learnt that their only son,
Marcus, has died in action, honourably serving the fatherland, the letter says,
but they see no honour in it. Nor does his fiancée Trudi (Abiola Ogunbiyi), who
joins the Resistance movement, although the subsequent arc of her story shows how
ultimately alone everyone is under duress.
Yes, they had voted for Hitler – more precisely Otto told Anna
which way to vote, she says – with Hitler’s promise of jobs to end the
Depression, but they had since grown disillusioned. Their boorish, bragging bully
of a neighbour Borkhausen (Julius D’Silva), feels empowered to persecute the
Jewish woman next door; he and petty criminal Benno Kluge (Clive Mendus) are
exploiting the vulture opportunities of Nazism’s tyrannical grip.
Jessica Walker’s Golden Elsie, centre, with Charlotte Emmerson’s Anna and Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel in the shadows
What would you do in such testing circumstances? Keep your
head down? Keep making coffins as carpenter Otto now is? Or start a campaign of
civil disobedience, as Otto decides he must, no matter how small the defiant act,
prompting him and then Anna to write to write messages on postcards he stealthily
distributes across Berlin, calling on fellow Germans to resist?
Most fall into the hands of the authorities, represented in
Fallada’s suffocating story by Gestapo officer Inspector Escherich (Joseph
Marcell), a veteran policeman, adapting to do what he must do to survive, and his
superior, SS Officer Prall (Jay Taylor), ambitious, merciless, the embodiment
of all the very worst Nazi stereotypes.
Once the trail leads to Otto – spoiler alert – the most
telling scene has Otto confronting Escherich’s expediency. “You don’t believe
in anything,” he scolds him. That shocks Escherich to the core, and in turn it
challenges us too, to cling to our beliefs, to cling to hope for the better path,
to defy, to resist, if necessary, and to go it alone as the starting point, but
with conviction that others will follow.
Dacre’s meticulous, methodical production is one of very high production values, and devastating performances by Conway, Emmerson and Marcell in particular, but it is not wholly successful.
Omnipresent angelic statue: Jessica Walker’s Golden Elsie
Beaton’s script sometimes sails close to the prosaic, and Jessica Walker’s omnipresent angelic statue Golden Elsie, matching the black and white of Jonathan Fensom’s stark set and Nina Dunn’s video designs, will be a divisive figure for audiences.
Essentially a one-woman Greek chorus, she is more reporter than commentator, and while she may echo Weimar cabaret in style, Orlando Gough has given her dissonant, flatlining operatic songs, always eluding a tune and relentless as toothache. This is probably deliberate, but the sheer number of songs is a drag on the play’s momentum.
Jason Lutes’s illustrations from his graphic novel Berlin are used brilliantly, Charles Balfour’s lighting is in turn dazzling, oppressively dark and intimidating; Donato Wharton’s sound design is exemplary.
Ultimately, Alone In Berlin, will have an impact beyond those
fault lines in its telling. It will make you think, reflect, whether alone, or
better still, together in the bar afterwards. Hopefully, too, it will make you want
to make a difference, to push back against the crush, to be the first flutter of
the butterfly’s wing.
Joseph Rowntree Theatre charity chairman Dan Shrimpton, centre, receives the £10,000 award from the J&C Joel workforce at the York theatre
THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, has won £10,000 in a nationwide competition run by the Theatres Trust and international stage equipment company J & C Joel.
The Sowerby Bridge company has replaced all the stage curtains and upgraded the scenery-moving equipment to facilitate “even bigger and better” shows at the Art Deco community theatre in Haxby Road.
Graham
Mitchell, the JoRo theatre’s company secretary, fundraising and events director
and charity trustee says: “We’re very grateful to everyone at J & C Joel
and at the Theatres Trust for the work done. The award’s timing could not be
better, as we’re expanding the range and number of shows we host. Coming just
after being voted York’s Best Entertainment Venue in Minster FM’s Listener
Choice awards, this is an immense boost.”
Dan Shrimpton,
the JoRo charity’s chairman, believes the award will make a huge difference to operating
the theatre. “Our audiences will be able to see ever more imaginative settings
for plays and musicals, and, of course, the annual Rowntree Players pantomime,”
he says.
“The
theatre was built in 1935 by Rowntrees for the benefit of their employees and
the citizens of York, so that everyone could experience a wide variety of
affordable entertainment, either by taking part or by just coming to watch
shows, concerts and films.
“We
have big plans to improve our facilities over the next few years to make the
theatre a truly vibrant asset for York, as originally intended by Seebohm and
Joseph Rowntree. It really is a community asset run for the people of
York, by the people of York”.
J&C Joel employees assessing the task in hand at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York
James
Wheelwright, J & C Joel’s chief executive, says: “We celebrated our 40th anniversary
last year and we wanted to mark it in a special way. We worked with the
Theatres Trust, the national organisation protecting and advising theatres, to
create the competition.
“The
Joseph Rowntree Theatre won from a very wide field of theatres from up and down
the country because we loved what they are doing as a community run theatre,
providing affordable entertainment to the people of York and beyond – and who
also have big plans for the theatre’s future.”
Tom Stickland, theatres
adviser at the Theatres Trust, says: “The Joseph Rowntree Theatre is a great
example of the transformational effect that committed community groups can have
on theatres. The Theatres Trust is pleased to be in a position to link up
generous industry specialists like J & C Joel with community theatres, so
that they can offer this vital support.”
Run entirely by
volunteers, the JoRo welcomed 50 hirers last year, who staged 135 performances.
The theatre is used by more than 35 York groups, as well as several professional
touring companies and performers.
This week,
the JoRo is playing host to the York Community Choir Festival until Saturday.
Jessa Liversidge: performing her Songbirds show at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre on April 5
York St John University Musical Production Society will present Guys
& Dolls, March 19 to 21; Bev Jones Music Company, Calamity Jane, March 25
to 28; Flying Ducks Youth Theatre, Crush The Musical, April 2 to 4; Jessa
Liversidge, Songbirds, a celebration of female singing icons, April 5.
For tickets
and more details of upcoming shows, go to josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.Box office: 01904 501935.
Did you
know?
J&C Joel was established in 1978 in Sowerby Bridge, near
Halifax, founded by John Wheelwright whose family had been involved in the
textile industry for more than 150 years.
The business exports to more than 80 countries worldwide,
providing products such as front-of-house theatre curtains, stage backdrops,
cycloramas, gauzes, acoustic drapes, projection screens and stage engineering
solutions. J&C Joel has offices in the UK, Europe, Africa, the Middle East,
Asia and Australasia.
The Theatres Trust is the national advisory public body for theatres, championing the future of live performance by protecting and supporting theatre buildings that meet the needs of their communities.
The trust provides advice on the design, planning, development and sustainability of theatres, campaigning on behalf of theatres old and new and offering financial assistance through grants.
Robert Plant and Suzi Dian, fronting Saving Grace, the Platform Festival’s prize capture
ROBERT Plant will headline this summer’s Platform Festival as the crescendo of Pocklington Arts Centre’s 20th anniversary celebrations.
The former Led Zeppelin frontman
and lyricist, now 71, will lead Saving Grace, his folk-blues collaboration with
fellow vocalist Suzi Dian, at Pocklington’s Old Station on July 10.
Tea time…then Omid Djalili plays the Platform Festival
“Hopefully we’ve pulled something
rather special out of the bag for our 20th anniversary!” says delighted
director Janet Farmer. “Bringing Robert Plant to Pocklington is a major coup
for us.”
Shed Seven’s Rick Witter and Paul
Banks, folk-rock icon Richard Thompson, comedian Omid Djalili, The BBC Big Band
and country-pop twin sisters Ward Thomas are among the other acts signed up for
the fifth Platform Festival, running from July 9 to 15.
Richard Thompson: closing show at Platform Festival on July 15
“The Platform Festival programme
reflects this very special year for us,” says Janet. “Robert Plant is a
legendary name in the music scene and it’s so exciting that he and the other
highly accomplished musicians in Saving Grace will be joining us for such a
significant event.
“There’s no doubt Robert and
Saving Grace are the biggest band we’ve ever booked for Platform. Curating a
line-up of artists that we personally love every year is always a source of
much pride for our team and we strongly believe this year’s line-up is both the
best and most star-studded music bill we’ve ever put together.”
“There’s no doubt Robert Plant and Saving Grace are the biggest band we’ve ever booked for Platform,” says festival director Janet Farmer
Plant and Dian are joined in his blues and folk-inspired acoustic co-operative by Oli Jefferson on percussion, Tony Kelsey on mandolin, baritone and acoustic guitars, and Matt Worley on banjo, acoustic and baritone guitars and cuatro. Their support act will be delta blues singer, songwriter and bottleneck slide guitarist Catfish Keith.
The 2020 Platform Festival comprises four stand-alone shows plus a day-long event on three stages. First up, British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili will perform on July 9, followed by Saving Grace’s July 10 concert. The 18-piece BBC Big Band will play on July 14, conducted by Barry Forgie, with Jeff Hooper on vocals; guitarist, singer, songwriter and Fairport Convention founding member Richard Thompson will close the festival on July 15.
Saturday headliners: Shed Seven’s Paul Banks and Rick Witter
The
festival’s Saturday bill, on July 11, will be headlined by Rick Witter and Paul
Banks’s Shed Seven Acoustic show, wherein the York Britpop alumni’s frontman
and lead guitarist will perform such Sheds anthems as Going For Gold, Chasing
Rainbows, She Left Me On Friday and Getting Better, complemented by cherry-pickings
from 2017’s Instant Pleasures, their first studio album in 16 years.
Shed
Seven launched Instant Pleasures with a special show at Pocklington Arts Centre
in November that year, by the way.
Country-pop twin sisters Ward Thomas: Platform Festival return
Joining
the Sheds in the July 11 line-up will be bagpipe band TheRed Hot
Chilli Pipers, with their ground-breaking fusion of traditional Scottish music
and rock and pop anthems. “Think men in kilts, bagpipes with attitude, drums
with a Scottish accent and a show that carries its own health warning,” says
Janet.
Ward
Thomas will follow up their April 30 gig at Leeds City Varieties and arena tour
supporting James Blunt with a return to the Platform Festival, where Hampshire
twins Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas previously appeared in 2017.
Big show: The BBC Big Band
Acoustic
folk singer Lucy Spraggan, once of The X Factor, will make her Platform debut a
year later than first planned; festival favourites The Grand Old Uke Of York will
be back with their upbeat rock, pop, ska and anything in-between ukulele covers,
and New York Brass Band will play the Platform Saturday for the first time,
fresh from pumping up the party atmosphere with their smokin’ New Orleans Mardi
Gras jazz at Pocklington Arts Centre’s 20th anniversary party night
on March 6.
Festival
newcomer Twinnie, alias York-born Twinnie-Lee Moore, 32-year-old star of West
End musicals, The Voice contestant, model, film actress and Hollyoaks soap
queen, is now a Nashville-hearted singer-songwriter. After wowing the C2C country
gathering at London’s O2, Platform will be her Yorkshire homecoming.
Twinnie: country roads lead York-born singer-songwriter to Pocklington on July 11
Heading
Pockwards too that Saturday will be husband-and-wife duo Truckstop Honeymoon, hollering
their blasts of bluegrass, punk rock and soul to a five-string banjo and doghouse
bass, and Buffalo Skinners, returning to the festival for the first time in
four years with their Sixties’ folk and modern-day Americana.
York
blues singer-songwriter Jess Gardham and Plumhall are on the bill too, and as
ever the third Saturday stage will be spotlighting the region’s emerging talent,
curated by the tireless, peerless Charlie Daykin and Access Creative College.
Tickets
are on sale at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk, platformfestival.com and
seetickets.com or on 01759 301547.
HUSBAND and wife Robert and Alison Gammon will perform the next Dementia
Friendly Tea Concert at St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, on March 19.
The afternoon entertainment will take the usual format of a 45-minute programme of classical music at 2.30pm, followed by tea, coffee and homemade cakes.
Alison, on clarinet, and Robert, on piano, will play Camille
Saint-Saens’ Clarinet Sonata alongside Niels Gade’s Fantasy Pieces.
“Gade was a 19th century Danish composer who taught Edvard Grieg and was
a friend of both Felix Mendelsohnn and Robert Schumann,” says Alison. “In fact,
the Fantasy Pieces are rather like Schumann at times. Robert will play
some Debussy and Chabrier for solo piano too.”
Looking ahead, Alison says: “We’re well advanced with the planning for
the rest of the year, with only May’s concert to confirm. I hope to have a list
of dates and musicians to hand out at the next concert on April 16 when we’ll
be welcoming The Clementhorpe Piano Trio.”
No charge applies for these tea concerts, but donations are always welcome.
“Any money left over from heating the church and tuning the piano is sent to
the Alzheimer’s Society,” says Alison.
“Everyone is welcome at these relaxed events and the concerts provide an
opportunity for people who may not be able to attend a formal classical recital
to experience live music.
“Please note, there is a small car park at St Chad’s and some roadside
parking nearby, but we recommend that you come early. I shall bring some hand
sanitiser for use before eating if anyone is worried about viruses.”
Juliet Forster, left, directing rehearsals for Out Of Character’s Less Than Human
SOMETHING strange is happening,
something disturbing, say York company Out Of Character in Less Than Human,
this week’s production at the York Theatre Royal Studio.
After their sold-out November 2017 show about Victorian freak shows and mad doctors, Objects Of Terror, they are collaborating once more with the Theatre Royal, whose associate director, Juliet Forster, again directs the new piece.
Out Of Character’s publicity artwork for Less Than Human
Less Than
Human plays out against the backdrop of Planet Earth having less to give but
its inhabitants
taking more. In this struggling world of diminishing resources, humanity is
forced to wrestle with the true cost of survival. What does it mean to be
truly human? Are some lives worth more than others? Who decides who lives and
dies? A question that suddenly has a new urgency and prescience amid the
rise of Coronavirus.
As evolving technologies offer new
forms of “human being”, is there still hope for a bright future…or do some
people have to pay the price, the play asks.
Out Of Character in rehearsal for Less Than Human
Out Of Character’s company of artists and
performers brings together people who use or have used mental health services.
Their bold, creative and darkly comedic approach to making theatre aims to stir
both the mind and the heart.
The company won the Excellence in
Equality and Cultural Diversity Prize at the 2018 York Culture Awards. Audiences
on social media have described their work as compelling, deeply affecting,
intense, beautiful, clever, articulate, challenging, powerful, poignant and
thought-provoking.
Out Of Character cast members in a tug-of-war scene in Less Than Human
Out Of Character’s previous shows included Tales From Kafka in July 2010, Henry IV in May 2012 and More Tales From Kafka in November 2014.
Less Than Human runs from Thursday to Saturday (March 12 to 14) at 7.45pm nightly. Tickets cost £10, concessions £8, on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
