Joanne Theaker as M’Lynn in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias. All pictures: Kirkpatrick Photography
REVIEW: Steel Magnolias, York Stage, John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorkstagemusicals.com
NOTE the shedding of “Musicals” from the York Stage name for this Nik Briggs production, although music from the Eighties still blares out from the radio at Truvy’s Beauty Spot, whenever it is tapped.
Girls Just Want To Have Fun, sings Cyndi Lauper, and the girls on stage want to have fun too, but the cycle of life has a habit of getting in the way.
Indeed just such a spanner in the works led to Louisiana playwright Robert Harling writing Steel Magnolias in 1987 as therapy after losing his sister to diabetes.
Louise Henry as Shelby in Steel Magnolias
Once billed as “the funniest play ever to make you cry”, it takes the form of a bittersweet but sentimental comedy drama, delivered by an all-female cast.
Briggs assembles a fine array of York talent, all of whom have excelled in musicals previously and are now showing off their acting chops to the max, without recourse to the heightened dramatics of song.
Briggs and set builder Geoff Theaker have gone for a traverse stage design, a configuration that is under-utilised in theatre, but makes you aware of the audience reactions on the opposite side, and also has a way of intensifying drama in a story of triumph and tragedy, dyeing and dying.
Steel Magnolias’ setting is a bustling Louisiana hair salon, run by the ever-comforting Truvy (Kathryn Addison) in a converted garage, home to her little rural Southern town’s most successful shop for 15 years.
Julie Ann Smith as Ouiser in Steel Magnolias
Pictures of the Eighties’ American hairstyles du jour are omnipresent, raising a smile of familiarity that is repeated with the assortment of hair-dos favoured by the women we meet. Bunting criss-crosses the salon, while magnolias tumble down the walls.
Significantly, men are never seen – and there were only four among the first-night full house – but they are often disparaged in conversation, one of the sources of humour in Harling’s script. What’s more, they are represented by the loud, intrusive blasts of a bird-scaring gun and the barking of big dogs. Enough said!
If the men are but a nuisance, the women seek comfort in each other, and where better to do that than in the haven of a salon as nails are painted and hair teased into pleasing shape.
At the epicentre is Addison’s perennially perky Truvy, whose mantra of “There’s no such thing as natural beauty” is passed on straightaway to quirky new asssistant Annelle (Carly Morton), whose God-fearing demeanour is coupled with mystery over her past.
Carly Morton’s Annelle and Louise Henry’s Shelby in Steel Magnolias
One effervescent, the other quiet, together they must orchestrate the ever-hastening wedding-day preparations of plucky, resolute but physically fragile Shelby (Louise Henry), whose love of fashion and pink in profusion are emblems of her not giving in to diabetes.
She and her mother, the cautious but forceful matriarch M’Lynn (Joanne Theaker), do not have the easiest of relationships but their love is nevertheless unconditional.
The salon’s endless circle of gossip is joined regularly by the wise, good-humoured, football club-owning widow Clairee (a phlegmatic Sandy Nicholson) and the grouchy, erratic loose cannon Ouiser (Julie Ann Smith, with just the right dash of eccentricity).
Briggs’s direction is both well choreographed and well paced, with plenty of movement to counter all that sitting down in salons, as Harling’s tissue-box drama of marriage and motherhood, love and loss unfolds.
The never-easy Southern drawl is mastered by one and all in Briggs’s excellent cast, who are equally strong as an ensemble and in the solo spotlight. Theaker is particularly good, especially when M’Lynn is in the grip of grief, while Henry, last seen as Snow White in her professional debut in the Grand Opera House pantomime, is fast becoming one to watch with an admirable range already at 22.
Carly Morton’s Annelle, left, Sandy Nicholson’s Clairee, Kathryn Addison’s Truvy and Louise Henry’s Shelby in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias
TORRID TIMES: Benedict Turvill as Konstantin and Livy Potter as Nina in The Seagull. Picture: John Saunders
TUMULTUOUS passions and artistic egos collide in York Settlement Community Players’ production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull at York Theatre Royal Studio.
The February 26 to March 7 run completes director Helen Wilson’s ten-year project to stage all four of the Russian playwright’s major works in York, after Three Sisters in 2010, The Cherry Orchard in 2015 and Uncle Vanya in 2018.
Chekhov’s 1895 tragicomedy follows
famous Russian actress Arkadina (played by Stephanie Hesp) as she brings her
novelist lover Trigorin (Ben Sawyer) to spend the summer at her brother’s
lakeside estate.
Arkadina’s son Konstantin (Benedict Turvill) is preparing for the premiere of his bold new play starring his girlfriend Nina (Livy Potter). For the assembled audience of family and friends, the play’s first and only performance sets off a series of events that will alter the course of all their lives, forever.
Wilson’s multi-generational cast also features Maurice Crichton as Dr Dorn; Glyn Morrow, Sorin; Paul Joe Osbourne, Shamrayev; Elizabeth Elsworth, Polina; Lucy May Orange, Masha, and Sami Sok, Medvedenko.
Helen says: “Chekhov always wrote for an ensemble cast with wonderful parts for women. The Seagull is no exception. Actors love Chekhov and it’s my mission to bring the public round to him too.
“He is so often misunderstood. The
Seagull is a comedy, as Chekhov describes it, and laughter and tears often
spill over into each other.”
Taking principal roles for Helen for the first time will be Benedict Turvill, 22, last seen in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s A Nativity For York at the Spurriergate Centre in December, and Livy Potter, 26, whose last role was “being blokey” in York Shakespeare Project’s Antony And Cleopatra at Theatre @41 Monkgate last autumn.
Benedict Turvill and Livy Potter: performing for Settlement Players director Helen Wilson for the first time in The Seagull
“Playing Konstantin and his girlfriend Nina, they have such emotional journeys to go on,” says Helen. “They must go from being so in love in Act One to being in abject despair in Act Four. For young actors, The Seagull has everything in it for them.”
Livy says: “The ‘realness’ of the language can sometimes take your breath away. You read it for the first time and then read it again later, after you’ve experienced something, and the humanness of those words is so affecting.”
Benedict says: “When I’ve read Chekhov
in the past, I’ve always thought it was a rather rigid attempt at being
natural, but once it comes off the page, as you rehearse it, it really works.”
“When you get to that point, you can really open your performance to it,” says Livy, who will be performing at the theatre where she works as the marketing and press assistant.
“I’m really looking forward to doing
that, because I’ve seen a lot of plays in that Studio space and I know what
works and what doesn’t and that makes it an exciting prospect to be on that
stage. It’s an awareness of how to use that space that is the key.”
Adapting to that space, Helen says: “I’ve
learnt from the past productions not to have so much on stage, like having a
piano and chaise longue previously. There’ll be a soundscape and lighting, but
what really matters is that the play will be absorbing to watch in such an
intimate space.”
Amid such intimacy, Chekhov’s comedy
will blossom. “There’s such humour in the pretentious characters,” says
Benedict. “Playing a funny character who’s not consciously funny, the audience
will laugh at you, not with you.”
Roll on Wednesday, when The Seagull takes flight until March 7. Tickets for the 7.45pm evening performances and 2pm matinee on February 29 are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Emma Whitelock’s Epiphany, now featuring in the poster for York Settlement Community Players’ production of The Seagull
Did you know?
YORK artist Emma Whitelock has provided
the promotional artwork for the Settlement Players’ production of The Seagull.
Describing her painting Epiphany, Emma
says: “Its lone figure on the shore echoes perfectly Chekhov’s mood of longing
in The Seagull. The piece was inspired by a misty winter sunrise on the
Yorkshire coast and aims to capture a poignant moment; the outer world
reflecting the inner.”
Emma’s artwork explores land, sea and solitude,
her inspiration coming from the
dramatic Yorkshire moors and coast, together with the exceptional light and
vibrancy of Cornish summers.
Artist Emma Whitelock in her studio
Using acrylic with mixed media, she builds
layers that evolve intuitively to create textured, semi-abstract works, marked
by big skies, atmospheric colours and an expressive style. “I aim to transport
the viewer to wild places, resonant with memories or possibilities,” she says.
The next chance to see Emma’s paintings will be
at York Open
Studios 2020 at Venue 43, 11
Trentholme Drive, The Mount, York, on April 18, 19, 25 and 26 from 10am to 5pm,
preceded by a preview evening on April 17.
Denis Conway and Charlotte Emmerson as Otto and Anna Quangel and Joseph Marcell as Inspector Escherich in Alone In Berlin. Picture: Geraint Lewis
JOSEPH Marcell will be in York from March 3, appearing as a Gestapo inspector in the British premiere stage adaptation of Alone In Berlin at the Theatre Royal.
“As a non-white actor, I don’t get to play Nazis, so it’s a terrific boon to be playing Inspector Escherich,” he says, now settled into the second week of performances at the Royal & Derngate, Northampton, York Theatre Royal’s co-producers of Alistair Beaton’s adaptation, directed by James Dacre.
Best known for his six seasons as the dry, sardonic butler in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air from 1990 to 1996, the St Lucia-born, Peckham-raised Marcell has played Othello in 1984 and King Lear in 2014 in a career that has taken him to the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, the West End and Broadway.
Now, as Inspector Escherich, he must track his quarry through ever-narrowing circles of totalitarian hell in Fallada’s story set in Nazi-era Berlin in 1940, where factory foreman Otto Quangel (played by Denis Conway) and his wife Anna (Charlotte Emmerson) join the German Resistance after their son’s death.
Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich with Clive Mendus as Enno Kluge and Jessica Walker as Golden Elsie in a scene from Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan
Based on true events, Alone In Berlin becomes a vividly theatrical study of how paranoia can warp a society gripped by the fear of the night-time knock on the door, as the quietly courageous dissident couple stand up to the brutal reality of the Nazi regime, defying Hitler’s rule with the smallest of acts. Such actions prompt Marcell’s meticulous, methodical Escherich to seek to catch them.
“I hadn’t been aware of the novel beforehand, though I’ve since read it after I landed the role,” says Joseph, 71. “It’s really difficult to get a German perspective on wartime life in a German city in the Second World War, but Fallada presents the story of the working ‘stiff’ who has to survive in Berlin.
“This is a story that’s not told: the story of an ordinary German in the war, when we usually hear of heroes and villains.”
Joseph continues: “People seeing the play so far have been a little surprised that it’s full of domestic drama rather than jackboot marching, but it’s the story of an ordinary man [Otto Quangel] who gets to breaking point, and regardless of what might happen, he has to take a stand.”
“For Escherich, it’s not just about survival but the quality of survival ,” says Joseph Marcell. Picture: Geraint Lewis
Escherich is fighting for his own survival as a policeman who has been made a member of the Gestapo. “Now he’s no longer a policeman, but paramilitary, and you find him almost succumbing to the violence of the Gestapo,” says Joseph of his flawed character.
“He’s the opposite of Otto, who has to stand up for what he believes in, whereas for Escherich it’s not just about survival but the quality of survival.”
Analysing Escherich’s character further, and in particular once he has to work for the Gestapo, Joseph says: “He’s in it, but he’s not of it,” he says. “He’s a survivor, who has integrity, and though he works for the Nazis, he doesn’t realise he’s a Nazi.”
As part of his research for the role of Escherich, Joseph met up with a friend who was a “bigwig” at the Imperial War Museum in London. “He explained to me that detectives who worked for the Gestapo were seen as [the equivalent of] rock stars,” he says.
Joseph Marcell in rehearsal for Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan
“But they saw themselves as detectives first, who dealt with facts, and handling facts was something they had been trained to use all their lives, rather than rounding up six chaps and beating them up for information.”
While a sense of impending doom hangs over Alone In Berlin from the first beat, says Joseph, “what makes the story special is that it’s not about kings and queens and admirals, but an ordinary man struggling for survival.
“It makes you ask yourself, ‘would I resist or simply survive?’. ‘What would I have done in that situation?’.”
Who is “alone in Berlin”, Joseph? “They are all alone. In the end, it’s Otto and Anna who are alone, but the inspector is alone too. He has no interaction with ordinary people, except in trying to solve a ‘crime’. They must each take their individual journey,” he says.
Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich interrogating Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel in Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan
Joseph, who was raised in Peckham, South London, from the age of nine, and trained initially to be an electrical engineer, has played a multitude of roles in a distinguished career. One so distinguished that he has been made a cultural ambassador of St Lucia, his Caribbean homeland, and he sits on the American board for Shakespeare’s Globe.
“All the roles you play have to be distinctive, whether Inspector Escherich or Lear [in King Lear for Shakespeare’s Globe in 2014],” he says. “The wonderful thing about Lear is that it’s the story of king who degenerates into a state of hopelessness but then re-emerges, essaying on the nature of kingship.
“After two years of playing Lear, I was exhausted, but with age and exhaustion comes the knowledge that though you seek perfection, there’s no chance of it. Each role requires an honesty, a dedication, whether it’s Hamlet, Othello or Lear.”
Recalling his six years starring with a young Will Smith in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air in the 1990s, Joseph says: “The most important thing at that time was being a highly successful television star. I couldn’t go to an event without NBC having a word about what I could say, what I should wear, so it’s a completely different process.
Joseph Marcell in the role of Geoffrey Butler, the butler, in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
“I was employed to play a role and people say I played it successfully – and nothing succeeds like success in America.
“I didn’t go to ‘butler school’, but I did speak to someone in Britain and two in Los Angeles about what being a butler entailed. The role was written by satirists from the New Yorker magazine and it was up to me to make it truthful.”
Truthfulness in a role is always important to Joseph, as is the never-ending pursuit of perfection. “After a hit role like Geoffrey Butler, in many cases actors might retire and live on their hard-earned gains, but I am an actor and I want to act and I want to do it perfectly, and that’s what I want to continue to do,” he says.
“That TV role has afforded me choice and I have to say I do what I want to do and I’ve been lucky enough that people think I can do it. That’s why I get to make three films and do four stage roles each year.”
” All the roles you play have to be distinctive, whether Inspector Escherich or Lear ,” says Joseph Marcell. Picture: Manuel Harlan
On Monday this week, Joseph was taken to lunch at Claridge’s, in Mayfair, to discuss an upcoming movie role. “I’m going to be in my first Western, Trees In Texas, a film with a lot of African-American history in it,” he reveals.
“I’ve finished a film made in Mexico, an Hispanic production called The Exorcism Of God, directed by Alejandro Hidalgo, and there’s a BBC piece I might be doing, playing an exorcist.”
As for the stage, he has one Shakespearean role he would still love to play: Prospero, the protagonist with magical powers in The Tempest. That will surely come his way.
York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate, Northampton, present Alone In Berlin, York Theatre Royal, March 3 to 21. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London
BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan
Agnew presents his solo show, An Evening With Aggers, at York Theatre Royal on April
16.
The voice of summer on Test Match
Special, Agnew, 59, is a key figure in the world of cricket, both as a former
Leicestershire and England fast bowler and as a commentator on the game.
Last summer, he commentated
on England’s World Cup victory in the most breath-taking 50-plus-one overs
match of all time, followed by one of the most dramatic Test Match victories
ever witnessed, at Headingley, Leeds, when Ben Stokes took on the Australians.
Now broadcaster Aggers will be regaling
audiences with some of his special memories and amusing
anecdotes.
Agnew learnt his craft under the tutelage of Brian Johnston,
emerging from the notoriety of the gloriously funny “leg over” incident
(yes, you will hear that on the night) to become BBC Radio’s voice of
cricket .
Agnew’s solo show takes the audience on
a trip down memory lane, waxing lyrical about his extensive and entertaining
career on the cricket pitch, as well as his many years on TV screens
and radio stations around the world.
He also recalls encounters on his A
View From The Boundary feature on Test Match Special, forwhich
he has interviewed many a star of stage, screen and elsewhere,
including two prime ministers, several rock stars, film
legends, writers, comedians and a boy wizard.
Producer Simon Fielder says: “An Evening With Aggers will appeal to
cricket fans and non-lovers of the game alike. You don’t have to be
into the sport to enjoy the stories and humour. Aggers’s shows are
always funny, charming and moving. They capture the essence of TMS,
which has been a national institution for the past 60 years.”
As Aggers says: “It‘s not just cricket commentary, but friendly company
for people at home, in the car, on the beach and even tucked up in
bed.”
Audience members will have an opportunity to tweet Agnew on the
night with questions and maybe even meet his beloved dog Tino.
The 7.30pm show will raise money for the Professional Cricketers’
Trust (PCT) and York Theatre Royal’s work in the community. Tickets cost £20 on 01904 623568
or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
James, fronted by Tim Booth, centre, will play Deer Shed Festival this summer
JAMES will be the Saturday night headliners at July’s Deer Shed
Festival at Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, near Thirsk.
The Manchester band, led by Boston Spa singer Tim Booth, will top the July 25 bill, following in the footsteps of Johnny Marr, Goldfrapp, John Grant and Richard Hawley.
Deer Shed Festival’s delighted director, Oliver Jones, says: “There’s no doubt James are one of the biggest bands we’ve ever booked for Deer Shed.
“Their back catalogue is astonishing, with track after track of excellent guitar anthems, and their most recent album [August 2018’s Living In Extraordinary Times] confirmed that they’re still at the absolute top of their game. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a band that can pack out Leeds First Direct Arena before.
“Curating a line-up of artists that we personally love every year
is always a source of much pride for our team, and James now sit on top of what
we think is both the best and most star-studded music bill we’ve ever put
together.”
Formed in 1982, James have charted with such singles as Sit Down, Destiny
Calling, Laid, Sound, Born Of Frustration, Sometimes, Come Home, Tomorrow, She’s
A Star, Just Like Fred Astaire and Getting Away With It (All Messed Up), as
well as releasing 15 studio albums.
James, who headlined Scarborough Open Air Theatre in 2015 and 2018, join Stereolab, on July 24, and Baxter Dury, on July 26, to complete Deer Shed 11’s trio of main-stage headliners.
Meanwhile, the family-friendly festival’s latest additions, announced today, are The Soft Cavalry, the new project from Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell and her husband, Steve Clarke, on the Lodge Stage on July 25, before DIY supergroup Shopping take up the late-night party slot on the same stage.
French-Caribbean act Dowdelin, indie-rock band Marthagunn and Hullensian post-punk outfit Low Hummer all join Deer Shed’s In The Dock stage bill. Elsewhere, David Thomas Broughton and Andrew Cushin strengthen the festival’s north eastern contingent, alongside Marsicans, Life and Ruthie.
Manchester club night DJs Across The Tracks and Leeds DJ and
production duo Baba&Ganoush join Happy Mondays’ Bez on the late-night
silent disco line-up.
Deer Shed’s tenth anniversary event last summer sold out with record audience numbers. Tickets for Deer Shed 11 are on sale at deershedfestival.com, where further festival information can be found too.
Kate Tempest: playing Deer Shed 11 on July 26
Deer Shed Festival 11’s confirmed acts:
James; Stereolab; Baxter Dury; Ghostpoet; Cate Le Bon; Kate Tempest (Telling Poems); Tim Burgess; The Twilight Sad; Warmduscher; Boy Azooga; Sinkane; Dream Wife; Roddy Woomble; Jesca Hoop; The Soft Cavalry; Snapped Ankles; Melt Yourself Down.
Liz Lawrence; LIFE; Marsicans; Erland Cooper; Dry Cleaning;
Admiral Fallow; W.H. Lung; Ren Harvieu; Shopping; International Teachers of
Pop; Avalanche Party; I See Rivers; Kitt Philippa; Rachael Dadd; Native Harrow;
Kate Davis; Big Joanie; Do Nothing; Egyptian Blue; Rina Mushonga; Dowdelin;
Friedberg; Heidi Talbot & Boo Hewerdine; Ruthie.
Serious Sam Barrett; Eve Owen; Low Hummer; Irish Mythen; Rajasthan
Heritage Brass Band; Tom Joshua; Brigid Mae Power; David Thomas Broughton;
Conchur White; Gary Stewart; Beccy Owen; Morrissey & Marshall present
Dublin Calling; Steo Wall; The Magpies; Padraig Jack; Andrew Cushin; Bez (DJ);
Rory Hoy (DJ); Meg Ward (DJ); Across The Tracks (DJ); Baba&Ganoush (DJ).
YORK Theatre Royal’s Community Drive
scheme is back on the road.
Under the scheme, older people – a group
that can be at risk of isolation – can enjoy a trip to the theatre, and as many
as 100 people will receive tickets and transport to matinee performances of
Northern Broadsides’ play Quality Street in June.
Maisie Pearson, the Theatre Royal’s development
and communications assistant, said: “A meaningful activity like attending a
show can help people overcome isolation and reconnect with their community,
something which is particularly important for our older audiences.”
The first Community Drive during Driving
Miss Daisy last June brought 51 older people from York to the Theatre Royal. Otherwise
unable to visit the theatre, they had a memorable afternoon, talking to staff
about past visits to the St Leonard’s Place theatre, enjoying the show and
taking away a programme as a memento of their visit.
The Theatre Royal worked with a taxi
company to transport Community Drive participants to and from the theatre and
also partnered with Age UK York to bring a group from their Thursday Club. For
some, this was the first time in years they had returned to the theatre.
Maurey Richards and Paula Wilcox in Driving Miss Daisy at York Theatre Royal last June. Picture: Sam Taylor
A Thursday Club member said: “It’s
a really lovely thing to be able to come to the theatre and feel part of
something… the community of the theatre. It’s so kind to have something done
for older people – to be remembered.”
For Quality Street, the Theatre Royal
is working with charities that support older people to offer tickets and
transport to see Laurie Sansom’s production of J M Barrie’s play at 1.30pm on
June 11 or 2.30pm on June 13.
Tickets and transport can be requested
as part of a community group, such as a charity, care provider or day centre.
To book tickets and discuss any transportation needs, charity/group organisers or
individuals should call Maisie Pearson on 01904 550148 or email maisie.pearson@yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
“We’d like to thank everyone who has
supported us by donating to York Theatre Royal,” said Maisie. “Thank you for
enabling us to offer invaluable opportunities like the Community Drive.”
Family portrait: Bryan Bounds as Martin Gray, Will Fealy as his son Billy and Susannah Baines as his wife Stevie in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre are staging next week’s northern UK premiere of Edward Albee’s emotional, if controversial, rollercoaster of an American play, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?.
New York architect Martin Gray has it all as he turns 50: fame, fortune, a happy marriage to Stevie, and a wonderful, gay teenage son, Billy, but he is hiding a BIG secret. Everything changes when he admits to his best friend, Ross, that he is having an affair with…a goat.
The Goat caused a stir but nevertheless was a hit with audiences when it opened on Broadway in 2002, winning the Tony Award for Best Play 40 years after Albee took home the same prize for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Playing at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41Monkgate, York, from February 25 to 29, The Goatswitches between comedy and full-blown tragedy as Stevie, Billy and Ross struggle to deal with Martin’s revelation.
“The play is about love and loss, the limits of our tolerance and who, indeed, we really are,” explained Virginia-born playwright Albee, who died in September 2016. “All I ask of an audience is that they leave their prejudices in the cloakroom … and later — at home — imagine themselves as being in the predicament the play examines and coming up with useful, if not necessarily comfortable, responses.”
Bryan Bounds, left, Mick Liversidge and Will Fealy in rehearsal for The Goat
Directed by Mark Hird and produced and designed by Robert Readman, Pick Me Up’s production casts American actor and tutor Bryan Bounds as Martin; Susannah Baines as Stevie; Mick Liversidge as Ross and Will Fealy, a student at CAPA College, the creative and performing arts college in Wakefield, as Billy.
Bryan Bounds, who runs the American School of Acting at Westcliffe Hall, off Cold Bath Road, in Harrogate, suggested The Goat to Mark, having first met him when his son Frankie played Pugsley in Pick Me Up’s production of The Addams Family at the Grand Opera House, York, in October 2015.
“I saw the original Broadway production in 2003 at The Booth Theatre with Sally Field and Bill Irwin leading the cast,” he recalls. “Like a lot of people, I was stunned, and afterwards I sat cogitating with an old chap, and we both said, ‘yes, it’s entirely possible that you could fall in love with goats’, but actually this play is nothing to do with goats.
“Albee’s work is all about using theatre to elevate the consciousness of the audience. He says, ‘never leave the audience the same way you found them’. This play really stays with you and you start to think more about intolerance. But the less the audience know before going, the better for having an impact on them.”
Bryan had been sitting on suggesting The Goat to Pick Me Up, “but
then I saw Susannah [Baines] in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies and thought she’d be
perfect for Stevie because you need a very strong actor for that role,” he says.
“It will make you change how you think about everything, all in 90 minutes,” says Bryan Bounds, left, of Edward Albee’s play
“I asked Mark if he would like to direct it, and once he said ‘yes’, he suggested Mick Liversidge to play Ross, and I suggested Will Fealy for Billy. Will lives in Ossett and has been one of my students; he’s very talented and he’s just been offered an unconditional place at ArtsEd in London after he finishes at CAPA College.”
It was not a straightforward decision that Mark would direct The Goat. “When Bryan asked me, initially I sent a holding message saying I’d just agreed to direct Monster Makers, though I’m a reluctant director as acting is my passion,” he recalls.
“But then I read Albee’s play and thought, ‘oh my god, I have to do this’. I could see what Bryan could see in it.”
Playing Martin’s wife Stevie will be a “totally different direction” for Susannah. “I’m usually a bit more jazz hands; I rarely do straight plays; The Pitmen Painters in 2015 was the last one,” she says.
“Then I read the play without reading anything about it, and the
impact of its fallout is quite extraordinary and scary for all four of them.
You start with this happy, rich successful family who seem to have it all, but
one bombshell changes it all.”
Mick Liversidge, back left, Bryan Bounds, Susannah Baines and Will Fealy: Mark Hird’s cast for The Goat
Susannah adds: “I wouldn’t have done this play if Mark wasn’t directing
it, because he does everything with such care, such detailed research, and then
works so collaboratively in the rehearsal room.”
Bryan has enjoyed the rehearsal process with Mark. “The first
time we met up, he sat us down and we spent an hour just talking about the
characters; who they are; what do they each want? That’s the luxury of how he
works. Detail,” he says.
“I just believe we’re there to tell Albee’s story, and with Mark’s
huge amount of research, we will tell this huge emotive story, not just do a
play. I love the idea that it’s not all set in stone, so it will be different
every night because the audience’s responses will change every night.”
Mark says: “The audience don’t need to see the research. It’s the result that counts. At first, audiences would swear they’re watching a situation comedy that’s very funny, but as the play goes on, what they’re watching is a situation tragedy.
“Albee gave the printed edition of the play a subtitle: Notes
Towards A Definition Of Tragedy, but there’s not just a flow from comedy to
tragedy with the consequences of a tragic flaw leading to a fall from a great
height.
“Instead, there’ll be one line that has you in fits of laughter
and then suddenly you choke on that laugh because of the line that comes next.
It’s so well constructed and that’s what Albee is so good at.”
Mick Liversidge’s Ross confronts Bryan Bounds’ Martin in rehearsal for The Goat
Mark adds: “When you’re faced with moral ambiguities in a play, as with Greek tragedies, it makes you think about yourself and about society around you, and that’s what makes Albee’s play a modern version of a Greek tragedy.”
Bryan rejoins: “Albee wrote the play because he wanted audiences
to conceive the inconceivable. Originally it was going to be about a man
falling in love with another man, but then he thought, ‘No, I need to polarise
people’s response to it’.
“I have the feeling it will be the most disturbing play people will ever have seen at 41 Monkgate.”
Albee once said, “if you think this play is about bestiality, you’re either an idiot or a Republican”. Mark says: “He also said, it’s no more about bestiality than it’s about flower arranging’ and both are in the play!”
Why should you see The Goat? “It’s a play that will make you laugh, shock you, and maybe even make you cry,” says Susannah. “It’s the most outrageously funny tragedy you could ever see, and above all it will make you think.”
Bryan concludes: “It will make you change how you think about everything,
all in 90 minutes.”
Mark has the last word. “It will make you think about your
relationships; how you treat your family, as Albee portrays relationships in a
way that has a real impact on audiences.
“If you like theatre that’s entertaining and sends you home
changed and thinking about some big themes, this is one of those nights for
you.”
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, runs at the John Cooper Studio,
Theatre @41Monkgate, York, from February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly. Box office:
01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com. Please note: this play contains adult
themes and strong language; suggested minimum age of 15.
Sister Agnes and Sister Julian enjoy a tour of the Dove Tree Art Gallery and working studio with Harrogate artist Anita Bowerman
EVER since Harrogate artist Anita Bowerman held an
art class for nuns at a Yorkshire monastery, the Sisters have been vowing to
pay a visit to her Dove Tree studio.
The Sisters come from
a closed order of Benedictine nuns at Stanbrook Abbey in Wass, near The White
Horse at Kilburn.
Rules mean they do not
venture out from the monastery in the North York Moors National Park, unless an
urgent errand calls, and they are allowed only one day’s holiday a year.
The Sisters spend
their time praying and carrying out other religious and household duties within
the monastery.
While visiting one of
the Sisters at a care home in Harrogate, the nuns decided to fulfil their promise
and call in to Anita’s Dove Tree Art Gallery and studio in Back Granville Road, behind the Cardamom Black restaurant.
Sister Julian beside the “Eiffel Tower” white piano at Anita Bowerman’s Harrogate gallery and studio
Anita was delighted
to welcome the excited visitors and show them around. “It’s not every day you
get a visit from two nuns. I was delighted to see Sister Julian and Sister
Agnes and they loved my artwork.
“Sister Julian played
my white mini grand piano, which was said to have been used during the official
opening of the Eiffel Tower.”
Anita, artist-in-residence
at RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Harrogate, has visited Stanbrook Abbey three times
in the past few years. The nuns invited her to teach them how to make paper-cut
artworks, so they could revive this ancient art in their spare time.
She is especially
close to Sister Julian, who loves art, and the two have been painting together
just outside the monastery.
“I love visiting
Stanbrook Abbey; it’s so peaceful and fills you with tranquillity and
inspiration,” says Anita. “Sister Julian is working on some amazing gold-leaf
art illustrations and I’ve been able to gather together some art materials for
her.”
Anita Bowerman showing Sister Julian and and Sister Agnes around her Dove Tree gallery and studio
Sister Julian and Sister Agnes were in raptures
over this part of their day out beyond the monastery walls. Sister Julian says:
“It was a rare opportunity for us to do this and it had to coincide with a
visit to one of our Sisters in a care home nearby.
“As soon as we stepped through the door, large and
small paintings and marvellously intricate cut-out work adorned the walls and a
profusion of colour and variety of scene were a delight to see. Anita welcomed
us warmly and told us about her work as artist-in-residence at the RHS Garden
Harlow Carr.
“Anita’s love of nature and gardens was evident in
the paintings she had of scenes throughout the year, painted ‘en plein air’
using anything she can find, such as twigs, feathers, pebbles, leaves and grass.
“This gives an unusual quality to her work, not
seen elsewhere, and makes her work down to earth and original. It’s a small
gallery but bursting with life and I would recommend a visit if at all
possible.”
Richard Durrant: cycling from concert to concert en route from Orkney to Sussex. York awaits on June 14
THE National Centre for Early Music’s 20th
anniversary spring season in York opens not with the raising of a glass of
champagne, but with a Cuppa & A Chorus.
Led by community musician Chris Bartram, the 2pm to 4pm
session on February 24 is an opportunity to sing in a relaxed environment and
enjoy a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a friendly chat.
Up to 50 singers attend each monthly gathering to sing “songs you know and love and explore new ones from around the world”, and further sessions of “Connecting Through Singing” will follow on March 30, April 20, May 18 and June 22. The charge is £3.50 each time; booking is recommended and more details can be found at ncem.co.uk/cuppachorus.
Helen Charlston: taking part in the University of York Song Day on February 29. Picture: Ben McKee
2020’s concert programme opens with the University of York
Song Day, an afternoon and evening of three concerts under the title The Year
of Song on Leap Year Saturday, February 29. The focus falls on romantic lieder
in the 19th century company of Robert Schumann at 12.30pm; Robert
and Clare Schumann at 3pm and their protégé Johannes Brahms, along with Robert,
at 7pm.
Soprano Bethany Seympour, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston,
tenor Gwilym Bowen and fortepiano player Peter Seymour perform the first and
last concerts; soprano Emily Tindall, bass Jonty Ward and fortepiano player
Nicky Losseff, the middle one.
Silent Films At The NCEM return with Franz Osten’s 1928 epic
Shiraz: A Romance Of India (cert U) on March 8 at 7.30pm, telling the story
behind the creation of the Taj Mahal, screened in a BFI restoration with a
score by Anoushka Shankar.
Acoustic Triangle: blurring the boundaries between classical, jazz music and the avant-garde on June 23
As part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, running from May 5 to 17 with live music in village halls, theatres, cinemas and the NCEM, a double bill of Funny Business (U) at 4pm and The Woman One Longs For (PG) at 7pm will be shown on May 10.
Jonny Best’s piano accompanies Laurel & Hardy and comedy’s greatest female clown, Mabel Normand, in Funny Business; Best is joined by violinist Irine Rosnes for Curtis Bernhardt’s 1929’s German film, The Woman One Longs For, wherein Marlene Dietrich shines in her first starring role as a mysterious femme fatale in a steamy tale of erotic obsession.
Folk At The NCEM has two concerts to be presented in association with York’s Black Swan Folk Club: Urban Folk Quartet, supported by Stan Graham, on March 9 and Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman’s On Reflection show on April 22.
Jazz drummer Jeff Williams: in Bloom at the NCEM. Picture: Bob Hewson
Urban Folk Quartet’s high-energy, multi-instrumental
virtuosos Joe Broughton, Paloma Trigas, Tom Chapman and Dan Walsh combine
Celtic tunes and traditional song with Afrobeat, Indian classical, funk and
rock.
2020 marks 25 years of husband-and-wife duo Kathryn Roberts
and Sean Lakeman making music together. To celebrate this anniversary, they
take a whistle-stop tour through their past, revisiting and reinterpreting
songs from the early days of folk supergroup Equation to latest album Personae,
via a nod or two to their extra-curricular musical adventures.
Scottish traditional folk duo Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham,
who have toured together since 1986, play on March 29 and folk guitarist,
composer and ukulele player Richard Durrant returns to the NCEM on June 14 as
part of his Music For Midsummer tour that will take him 860 miles by bicycle
from Orkney to Sussex.
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman: whistle-stop tour through 25 years of making folk music
On his fourth and longest Cycling Music adventure, travelling with his guitar and ukulele, he will be showcasing his new album Weald Barrows. “I’ll be cycling down from Orkney alone this year and this will, for me at least, introduce a magic and a concentration to the music,” says Durrant, whose 7.30pm concert will be featured in the York Festival of Ideas.
On May 25, the NCEM plays host to Youth Sampler Day from 11am to 4pm, a chance for 12 to 18-year-old musicians to play by ear, develop their creativity and discover more about the National Youth Folk Ensemble.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for young musicians to
learn from inspiring professional musicians, with no experience of folk music
necessary, and there’ll be opportunities to take part in a short audition for
the ensemble too,” says NCEM director Delma Tomlin.
Antonio Forcione: return visit to the National Centre for Early Music
Jazz At The NCEM presents the returning Italian guitarist Antonio Forcione on April 26; legendary London and New York drummer Jeff Williams’ Bloom trio, featuring pianist Carmen Staaf and bass guitarist Michael Formanek, on May 17, and University of York Jazz Orchestra, directed by James Mainwaring, with composer John Low on piano, in a May 29 programme spanning quasi-classical textures to full-on big band sounds.
The jazz line-up continues with innovative trumpet player and composer Byron Wallen’s Four Corners, with Rob Luft, on guitar, Paul Michael on bass and Rod Young on drums, on June 10, when they will be taking part in the York Music Forum Showcase too.
In a concert embraced by the York Festival of Ideas, Wallen
will be putting his new album Portrait in the spotlight, conceived when sitting
in the central square in Woolwich and being struck by the community around him
with its mixture of ages and nationalities. Wallen last played at the NCEM last
October as a member of Cleveland Watkiss’s band.
Trumpet player Byron Wallen: leading Four Corners at the NCEM. Picture: Urszula Tarasiewicz
Acoustic Triangle blur the boundaries between classical, jazz music and the avant-garde on their return to the NCEM on June 23 with their adventurous repertoire of compositions by band members Tim Garland (saxophone, bass clarinet) and Gwilym Simcock (piano), plus Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Bill Evans, Olivier Messiaen and Maurice Ravel. Double bassist Malcolm Creese completes their line-up.
World Sound At The NCEM welcomes more returnees, Scottish
combo Moishe’s Bagel, on March 27 with their cutting-edge, intoxicating,
life-affirming Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk and klezmer music.
Everything stops for tea at 7.30pm on June 9 in the second
World Sound event, Manasamitra’s Tea Houses: Camellia Sinensis, a show that
tells the story of tea as new live music mixes with lighting and soundscapes,
participatory tea rituals and ambisonic technology that captures the audience’s
emotional responses in the performance space.
Teatime at the NCEM in Manasamitra’s Tea Houses: Camellia Sinensis
Creator Supriya Nagarajan uses her experience of synaesthesia to explore the interplay between sight, sound, taste and smell in a multi-media show that directly engages the 7.30pm audience in a musical interpretation of a tea ceremony that now forms part of the York Festival of Ideas.
Early Music At The NCEM has two highlights: the Early Music Day on March 21 and the University of York Baroque Day on May 2.
Three concerts in one day make up the Early Music Day, featuring harpsichordist playing JS Bach’s 48 Preludes & Fugues Part 1 at 1pm at the NCEM; recorder ensemble Palisander, with the NCEM’s Minster Minstrels, presenting Double, Double Toil And Trouble at 3.30pm at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, and The Brabant Ensemble’s Cloistered Voices at 6pm at the NCEM. Previously known as the European Day of Music, the Early Music Day will be streamed across Europe.
Trumpet player Crispian Steele Perkins: performing at the University of York Baroque Day
The University of York Baroque Day is likewise divided into three concerts, taking the theme of Airs and Graces: A Musical Miscellany. At 12.30pm, trumpeter Crispian Steele Perkins joins Yorkshire Baroque Soloists for theatre music by Purcell and a flamboyant arrangement of Vivaldi’s La Follia; at 3pm, harpsichordist Masumi Yamamoto plays works by Handel, Scarlatti and Aime; the University Baroque Ensemble rounds off the day at 7pm with Scottish airs arranged by James Oswald and Geminiani.
Families At The NCEM brings Leeds company Opera North to York for 11.30am and 2pm performances of Dr Seuss’s Green Ham And Eggs in an introduction to opera for four to seven-year-old children and their families.
Two opera singers and a nine-piece orchestra begin their short
performance with an interactive workshop introducing families to the music,
instruments and themes within the piece, before they bring to musical life Dr
Seuss’s tale of the persistent Sam-I-Am’s mission to persuade a grumpy grouch
to try a delicious plate of green eggs and ham.
Sam Sweeney: playing the NCEM in the autumn
Looking ahead to the autumn, concerts in the NCEM diary already are folk trio Faustus (Benji Kirkpatrick, Saul Rose, Paul Sartin) on October 13; Chiaroscuro Quartet’s Mozart String Quartets, November 18; Unearth Repeat, with Sam Sweeney, Jack Rutter, Louis Campbell and Ben Nicholls, November 23, and Lady Maisery: Awake Arise, A Christmas Show For Our Times, with Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith, December 18.
In this 20th anniversary year, “this spring we
are undertaking an essential refurbishment programme, in part to upgrade some
of the facilities that are showing the strain of so much usage,” says Delma, as
new loos and a kitchen take shape.
“We’ll be celebrating the anniversary fully in the autumn, especially
with a commission that will engage Early music with digital technology and field
recordings from Askham Bog. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust will be involved, as will
gamba player Liam Byrne this autumn.”
Tickets for the NCEM spring season are on sale on 01904 658338 and at ncem.co.uk.
George Thorogood: Good To Be Bad tour date at York Barbican
GEORGE Thorogood & The Destroyers will play York Barbican on July 22 on their Good To Be Bad: 45 Years Of Rock tour, their first in more than seven years.
“Ever since our first shows there in 1978, the UK has been one of our
favourite places to play,” says boogie-blues guitarist Thorogood, from
Wilmington, Delaware, who will turn 70 on February 24.
“We’re talking great venues, great energy and truly great audiences, and
we’re looking forward to coming back for it all. Expect our best, because
that’s what you’re gonna get.”
Since 1975, Thorogood & The Destroyers have sold more than 15
million albums and played more than 8,000 ferocious live shows, built around Who
Do You Love, I Drink Alone, One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, Move It On Over
and his definitive badass anthem, Bad To The Bone.
“To hear George Thorogood flail his slide
up and down his guitar,” wrote Greil Marcus in Rolling Stone magazine, “you
might have thought he was Ben Franklin – that he’d discovered not the blues,
but electricity.”
In the Destroyers’ line-up alongside Thorogood will
be Jeff Simon on percussion, Bill Blough on bass, Jim Suhler on guitar and
Buddy Leach on saxophone.”
Tickets can be booked from Friday (February 21) at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
