Curtain up on art deco Joseph Rowntree Theatre’s upgrade after £10,000 award

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.

Led Zep’s Robert Plant to headline Pock’s best Platform Festival with Saving Grace

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.

Alison and Robert Gammon to perform Dementia Friendly Tea Concert at St Chad’s

Pianist Robert Gammon

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.”

Are some lives worth more than others, ask Out Of Character in new play Less Than Human at York Theatre Royal Studio

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.

The strife of Brian as Clough clashes with Dirty Leeds again in The Damned United

Making his point: Luke Dickson’s Brian Clough clashes with David Chafer’s Peter Taylor in Red Ladder Theatre Company’s The Damned United

DOWN the stairs, along the corridor, round the corner, into the dressing room. His dressing room. Hateful, hateful place. Spiteful, spiteful place. Dirty, dirty Leeds.

Here comes The Damned United, the story of Brian Clough’s ill-fated, fetid 44 days as reigning champions Leeds United’s manager in the summer of 1974.

Adapted for the stage from West Yorkshire author David Peace’s book The Damned Utd, Anders Lustgarten’s play is presented by Leeds’s Red Ladder Theatre Company at York Theatre Royal on April 17 at the familiar kick-off time of 7.30pm.

The strife of Brian: The poster for Red Ladder Theatre Company’s The Damned United

The Damned United invites you to enter the obsessed head of Brian Clough, already the enfant terrible of English football management after his exit from Derby County, who arrives at Elland Road in 1974, seeking to redeem his reputation by winning the European Cup with his new club, Division One champions Leeds United.

This is the team he has despised for years, the team he hates and that hates him no less. Don Revie’s Leeds, the greatest but most grating team of its era.

Let playwright and political activist Lustgarten’s abrasive play take you inside the tortured, drink-befuddled mind of a north-eastern genius slamming up against his limits, as The Damned United “brings to life the beauty and brutality of football, the working man’s ballet”. 

Falling out with the chairman: Luke Dickson’s Brian Clough has another fractious encounter in The Damned United

Directed by Red Ladder artistic director Rod Dixon and originally co-produced with West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2015, this latter-day Greek tragedy adapts Peace’s fictionalised, first-person account to focus more on the flawed Clough’s fractious relationship down the years with Peter Taylor, his sage and stoical regular right-hand man, who did not accompany him to Elland Road.

This bullish character study of bravado, loyalty and strained friendship is performed by Luke Dickson as Clough, David Chafer as Taylor and Jamie Smelt as everyone else, while Dixon is joined in the production team dug-out by set and projection designer Nina Dunn, lighting designer Tim Skelly and sound designer Ed Heaton.

Tickets are on sale at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk, on 01904 623568 or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.

Good Times ahoy as Nile Rodgers and Chic head for Scarborough Open Air Theatre

Nile Rodgers & Chic: on their way back to Scarborough Open Air Theatre in August. Picture: Jill Furmanovsky

EVERYBODY dance, Nile Rodgers & Chic are to return to Scarborough Open Air Theatre this summer two years after their debut there.

Looking forward to the August 21 show, Rodgers says: “As most people know, the UK is my home from home. Myself and Chic had a brilliant time when we played Scarborough OAT in 2018 and we cannot wait to come back again this summer. It’s going to be another amazing night, so bring your dancing shoes!”

Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday (March 13) at scarboroughopenairtheatre.com, on 01723 818111 or 01723 383636 or in person from the Scarborough OAT box office, in Burniston Road, or the Discover Yorkshire Coast Tourism Bureau, at Scarborough Town Hall, St Nicholas Street.

Nile Rodgers is a multiple Grammy Award-winning composer, producer, arranger and guitarist with more than 200 production credits to his name. He is constantly traversing new musical terrain and successfully expanding the boundaries of popular music.

As the co-founder of Chic with Bernard Edwards, Rodgers pioneered a dancefloor language that generated such hits as Le Freak, Good Times and Everybody Dance, while also sparking the advent of hip-hop.

His Chic catalogue and work with David Bowie, Diana Ross, Sister Sledge and Madonna have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million singles.

“It’s going to be another amazing night, so bring your dancing shoes,” advises Nile Rodgers. Picture: Jill Furmanovsky

His subsequent innovative, trendsetting collaborations with Daft Punk, Avicii, Sigala, Disclosure and Sam Smith continue to place Rodgers, now 67, at the vanguard of contemporary soul, disco mand pop music.

No wonder the American guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer, arranger and composer has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, whose chairmanship post he now holds.

What’s more, Rodgers was appointed as the inaugural chief creative advisor for the Abbey Road Studios, home to The Beatles’ iconic recording sessions, in London.

Peter Taylor, of Scarborough OAT concert promoters Cuffe and Taylor, says: “Nile Rodgers & Chic are global superstars and we’re delighted to be bringing them back to Scarborough OAT.

“The show in 2018 was brilliant, Nile and Chic never fail to get an entire arena on their feet dancing. This is going to be one of the highlights of the summer and I would strongly advise people to get their tickets now because you will not want to miss this!”

Keep on running….all the way to Scarborough Open Air Theatre for Supergrass gig on June 20

Scarborough Open Air Theatre’s 2020 line-up

Tuesday, June 9: Lionel Richie

Wednesday, June 17: Westlife

Saturday, June 20: Supergrass

Saturday, June 27: Alfie Boe

Saturday, July 4: Snow Patrol 

Friday, July 10:  Mixtape, starring Marc Almond, Heaven 17 and Living In A Box featuring Kenny Thomas

Friday, July 17: Keane

Tuesday, July 21: Little Mix

Friday, August 14: McFly

Saturday, August 15: Louis Tomlinson

Friday, August 21: Nile Rodgers & Chic

More dates are to be added. Watch this space.

Move over floods and storms, Full Sunlight spotted in Piers Browne’s Pyramid show

Dales Lambs, by Askrigg artist Piers Browne, at Pyramid Gallery, York

WENSLEYDALE artist Piers Browne bathes his travel-inspired exhibition of paintings and etchings in Full Sunlight at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York.

Piers has put together a show that celebrates the bright light of Morocco, the South of France and the Italian Lakes, alongside landscapes in the Yorkshire Dales, where his home studio overlooks Askrigg.

“This rather special exhibition of small spontaneous acrylics and watercolour crayon works is  the result of happy, more frivolous days abroad in sunshine,” says gallery owner Terry Brett. “The flow of inspiration to paper is easy and the results are fresh and uncomplicated.

Peaceful Moment In The Sun, by Helen Martino

“Piers had great success with the show Call Of Celtic Seas in Highgate, North London, this January and regularly shows at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. He now finds the painting of large canvasses to meet his high expectations more effort than ever before. In contrast, creating the Full Sunlight collection has been a pleasure for him.”

Piers, who has exhibited at Pyramid Gallery for 25 years, is joined in the Full Sunlight show by Holtby potter Hannah Arnup, Cambridge figurative sculptress Helen Martino and Stroud glassmaker Fiaz Elson.

Hannah Arnup has been making a new collection of sgrafitto decorated bowls and tripod vessels at her studio in Ballimorris, County Clare, southern Ireland, and at the late Mick and Sally Arnup’s former studio at Holtby, near York.

One of Hannah Arnup’s studio ceramics in her latest collection of tripod vessels and plates depicting the Yorkshire Wolds and gothic windows at Pyramid Gallery

Inherited by Hannah, the Holtby studio has been re-opened to provide studio space for a group of artists.

Terry Brett views Full Sunlight as a “new start” to the gallery year after several challenges to trading in York. 

“Although we had our best Christmas season in 38 years, there have been several challenges to the first two months of the year,” he says.

Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett holds one of Piers Browne’s Full Sunlight works as he stands on the newly repaved Stonegate

“I think shoppers took a break between New Year and Brexit [January 31], and then we had Stonegate being completely repaved, along with severe storms, floods and the effects of Coronavirus, which has affected tourism.

“Thankfully City of York engineers and the contractors really worked hard and finished repaving our end of the street four weeks ahead of schedule. I’m very grateful for their efforts and very pleased with the result. Stonegate looks amazing now and the slabs will be less likely to crack under the weight of delivery vehicles.”

Full Sunlight runs until April 26, open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, and 11am to 4.30pm on Sundays, including over Easter. More images of the work on display can be found at pyramidgallery.com.

Pilot Theatre to revive Noughts & Crosses at York Theatre Royal and on autumn tour

Heather Agyepong as Sephy in Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses at York Theatre Royal last April . Picture: Robert Day

YORK company Pilot Theatre will revive their award-winning 2019 production of Noughts & Crosses for an autumn tour.

This announcement comes amid the blaze of publicity for BBC One’s six-part adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel, filmed in South Africa, that began earlier this week.

Sabrina Mahfouz’s stage version of a modern-day Romeo & Juliet tale of first love in a dangerous fictional dystopia will be directed once more by Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson, whose co-production of Crongton Knights played York Theatre Royal from February 25 to 29 on Pilot’s latest tour.

“We’re delighted that this show, which was nominated for best show for children and young people at UK Theatre Awards, is returning later this year,” says Esther. “It’s wonderful that even more young people can experience this production and that Pilot will be able to tour to areas of England that we haven’t visited, thanks to the support of Arts Council England.”

Class act: more than school friends Sephy (Heather Agyepong) and Callum (Billy Harris) in Noughts And Crosses last year.

Noughts & Crosses will open at the York theatre in a September 11 to 19 run before embarking on a national tour until late-November.   

Told from the perspectives of two teenagers, Sephy and Callum, Blackman’s love story set in a volatile, racially segregated society, where black (the Crosses) rules over white (the Noughts), as she explores the powerful themes of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world. 

Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation for teenagers is based on Blackman’s first book in the Noughts & Crosses series for young adults, winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award and the Fantastic Fiction Award, among other accolades. 

Noughts & Crosses was produced by Pilot Theatre, York Theatre Royal, Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, and the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, as the first show in a new partnership to develop theatre for younger audiences. This is the consortium behind the aforementioned tour of  Emteaz Hussain’s adaptation of Alex Wheatle’s Crongton Knights.

Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson

Last year, Noughts & Crosses won the Excellence in Touring award at the UK Theatre Awards, when also nominated for Best Show for Children and Young People. 

As with Crongton Knights, schools workshops and outreach projects, along with free digital learning resources, will be available alongside the autumn production of Noughts & Crosses

Casting will be announced in the coming months. Tickets for the York run are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.

Here is a precis of Charles Hutchinson’s review of Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses at York Theatre Royal, printed in The Press, York, in April 2019.

“ESTHER Richardson proposed Noughts & Crosses when pitching for Pilot’s artistic directorship after Marcus Romer headed south, and her passion for Malorie Blackman’s twist on a Romeo & Juliet story is writ large in her telling of Sabrina Mahfouz’s electrifying adaptation.

Heather Agyepong’s Sephy in Noughts & Crosses last year

“In Blackman’s Britain, Noughts are the white underlings; no orange juice; milk only on Fridays; no mobile phones; second-rate secondary education. Crosses are the black ruling class; apartheid divisions turned on their head.

“Never the twain shall meet on equal terms, except that Nought Callum (Billy Harris), 15, and Cross Sephy (Heather Agyepong), 14, have been friends throughout childhood, meeting secretly on her family’s private beach.

Sephy’s father, Kamal Hadley (Chris Jack), is the Home Secretary; Callum’s mum, Meggie (Lisa Howard), is the Hadley family’s housekeeper. When Callum is one of three Nought teens granted a place at Sephy’s Crosses-only school, how will it affect their relationship?

“Blackman depicts a fractious, tinderbox world: Sephy’s mum Jasmine (Doreene Blackstock) is an alcoholic, neglected by her preoccupied husband; Callum’s dad Ryan (Daniel Copeland) and brother Jude (Jack Condon) are Liberation Militia freedom fighters. Callum’s sister, so damaged in an assault, has curled up in a ball ever since.

Pilot Theatre cast members in a scene in Noughts & Crosses

“As with Pilot’s first hit, Lord Of The Flies, our ability to destroy rather than create bonds, to repeatedly take the wrong turn, lies at the heart of Blackman’s damning, bleak vision that haunts us still more in intolerant Brexit Britain.

“Sephy and Callum express a wish for a better world, one where we rub along with each other, but this is a rotten Britain of death sentences, an intransigent Home Secretary, thwarted love across the divide.

“Given the bold imagination of Blackman’s novel for young adults with its heroine figure of a bright black teenage girl, you might wish she had come up with a similarly bold answer to so many ultimately familiar woes.

“Alas not, but this is nevertheless a superb production with good performances all round, plenty of punch in the direction, and high-quality set, lighting, sound, music and video design.”

Lionel Richie says Hello to Macy Gray and Lighthouse Family for York Festival bill

Lionel Richie: headlining York Festival’s Sunday line-up

MACY Gray and Lighthouse Family are big-name new additions to the bill for Lionel Richie’s closing night at this summer’s inaugural York Festival.

Grammy Award winner Gray, from Canton, Ohio, and Newcastle pop-soul duo Tunde Baiyewu and Paul Tucker will perform at the three-day event at York Sports Club, Clifton Park, Shipton Road, on June 21.

This is more good news for festival promoters Cuffe and Taylor after the City of York Council thumbs-up for a licence, albeit with the proviso that the volume must be turned down.

York Festival will run from June 19 to 21, with Camden Town nutty boys Madness headlining on the first night and Irish matured boy band Westlife on the Saturday, before American soul legend Lionel Richie says Hello on the Sunday.

Macy Gray: Sunday new addition

Macy Gray made her breakthrough in 1999 with the single I Try and the seven million-selling debut album On How Life Is, her American R&B and soul song-writing inspired principally by Billie Holiday.

Over the next two decades, Gray released ten studio albums, the latest being 2018’s Ruby, as well as featuring on songs with Dolly Parton and Ariana Grande and appearing in films and on TV shows.

Lighthouse Family singer Baiyewu and keyboardist Tucker released their first single, Lifted, in 1995, en route to selling ten million albums and charting with the singles High and Ocean Drive.

Six-times platinum debut album Ocean Drive was followed by Top Ten albums Postcards From Heaven and Whatever Gets You Through The Day. After an 18-year hiatus, the duo reunited last year to record Blue Sky In Your Head, their fourth studio set.

Lighthouse Family: reunited

York Festival director Peter Taylor says: “We’re delighted to add both Macy Gray and Lighthouse Family to our debut line-up. Together with the global icon that is Lionel Richie, this is going to be an amazing and unforgettable night.”

Opening-night headliners Madness will be joined by Ian Broudie’s Lightning Seeds, Craig Charles, for a Funk and Soul Club DJ set, Leeds indie rockers Apollo Junction and York band Violet Contours.

Westlife’s Saturday line-up features All Saints, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Scouting For Girls and Take That’s Howard Donald for a DJ set.

For more information and tickets, go to york-festival.com.

Courtney Marie Andrews to showcase Old Flowers break-up album at Pocklington

Courtney Marie Andrews: Pocklington return in the summer. Picture: Sam Stenson

PHOENIX singer-songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews will showcase her new album at Pocklington Arts Centre on June 17 on her six-date tour.

Old Flowers will be released on June 5 on Loose/Fat Possum Records as her follow-up to 2018’s May Your Kindness Remain.

Created in the ashes of a long-term relationship, Andrews’ ten new songs amount to her most vulnerable writing to date as she chronicles her journey through heartbreak, loneliness and finding herself again.

“Old Flowers is about heartbreak,” says Courtney Marie, 29. “There are a million records and songs about that, but I did not lie when writing these songs. This album is about loving and caring for the person you know you can’t be with.

“It’s about being afraid to be vulnerable after you’ve been hurt. It’s about a woman who is alone, but OK with that, if it means truth. This was my truth this year: my nine-year relationship ended and I’m a woman alone in the world, but happy to know herself.” 

Produced by Andrew Sarlo, who has worked with Bon Iver and Big Thief, Old Flowers was recorded at Sound Space Studio and features only three musicians: Andrews, on vocals, acoustic guitar and piano; Twain’s Matthew Davidson, on bass, celeste, mellotron, pedal steel, piano, pump organ, Wurlitzer and background vocals, and Big Thief’s James Krivchenia on drums and percussion.

“This album is about loving and caring for the person you know you can’t be with,” says Courtney Marie Andrews

Defining their intentions, Sarlo says: “Before we got to the studio, we agreed to prioritise making this record as cathartic and minimal as possible, focusing on Courtney’s voice and her intention behind the songs.

“Because of this, the record is all about performance. I believe a great recording is the chemistry between everything during basics and the ability to feel something happening, instead of obsessing over the perfect take. Courtney embraced this approach and we ended up with a raw, natural and human record.”

The resulting track listing comprises Burlap String; Guilty; If I Told; Together Or Alone; Carnival Dream; Old Flowers; Break The Spell; It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault; How You Get Hurt and Ships In The Night.

Courtney Marie last played Pocklington in December 2018, at the end of a week when she was felled by a viral infection the morning after her London gig and had to call off her Birmingham, Bristol and Oxford gigs.

Rested and recuperated, she was still nursing a cough, but found the energy for a solo set of songs and stories, introducing Ships In The Night and It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault, two new compositions that would end up on Old Flowers.

This time Courtney Marie will play with a full band in the lead-up to her series of summer festival engagements. Tickets for June 17’s 8pm gig cost £20 on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.