Frank Turner: bringing history and song-writing together at York Barbican next March
FRANK Turner will turn York Barbican into No Man’s Land on March 8 on the Hampshire folk-punk singer-songwriter’s 2020 tour.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am tomorrow morning on 0203 356 5441, at
yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Turner, 37, released his latest album, No Man’s Land, in August, touted
as his most original to date with its parade of fascinating characters, such as
the woman who invented rock’n’roll, a serial killer from the Deep South, who
plucked her victims from lonely hearts pages, and a Wild West vaudeville star
shot by a small-town outlaw.
“It’s bringing together my two main interests in life, which have always
been separate from each other: history and song writing,” says Turner, who
can be found seeking out long-forgotten historical sites on self-guided
psycho-geographical strolls when not touring.
No Man’s Land is dedicated to the women “whose incredible lives
have all too often been overlooked by dint of their gender”. “These
stories should have been told already,” says Turner of the album and
its accompanying podcast series. “And I suspect if they were men, they would be
better known.”
A couple of names here will be familiar, in the form of Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Sister Rosetta and the mysterious Mata Hari in Eye Of The Day, but other women who feature have long been ignored by the mainstream.
Turner was inundated with crowdsourcing suggestions when seeking more names.
“I know a lot of very smart people who sent me these huge lists of historically
interesting women,” he says, after he ended up researching hundreds, seriously
expanding the size of his home library in the process. “It felt a bit like
going back to school, but it was so much fun.”
The women featured on the album’s 13 tracks come from across wide
geographical and historical lines, whether Byzantine princess Kassiani in The
Hymn Of Kassiani; Egyptian feminist activist Huda Sha’arawi in The Lioness, or Resusci
Anne, an apocryphal drowned virgin whose face was used as the model for the
medicinal CPR mannequin across the world.
“You can’t resist writing a song about a woman who died never having
been kissed and then became the most kissed face in history,” reasons Turner.
No Man’s Land boast perhaps the most revelatory song of Turner’s
career. Written in tribute to his mother, Rosemary Jane honours her grit and
determination through the harder parts of his childhood. “It’s quite a raw
song,” he admits, adding that he felt compelled to ask permission from his
mother and sisters to include the track. “But it’s nice about her. It’s not
necessarily nice about my dad.”
Turner, by the way, will be making his York Barbican debut at next March’s
gig.
Not exactly dressed for winter! The Ebor Singers nevertheless will be in the mood for Christmas at the NCEM on December 15
LOOK forward to “a whole
new world of carols” when The Ebor Singers present the British premiere of American
Christmas choral works alongside Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols on
December 15.
The York choir’s ever-popular candlelit Christmas concert always features Britten’s festive favourite from 1942, this time complemented by modern compositions from the United States at the National Centre for Early Music, York, at 7.30pm.
“Benjamin Britten
was particularly drawn to Christmas,” says Paul Gameson, the choir’s
director, introducing Britten’s masterpiece, scored for three-part treble
chorus, solo voices and harp.
“Britten spent three
years in North America at the beginning of the Second World War, and he
composed A Ceremony of Carolsduring the long and dangerous transatlantic
crossing back to Britain in 1942.”
How apt, then, to present
Britten’s work alongside Christmas music from the USA. “We’ve had a lot of
enjoyment putting this together”, says Paul. “As well as pieces
now considered popular mainstays of the repertoire, by Lauridsen and Whitacre,
we’ve been exploring sacred pieces by Jake Runestad, Nico Muhly and Stephen
Paulus.
“Runestad’s
writing in Sleep Little Baby, Sleephas an American folk-song
quality, and Paulus’s exploration of the sonority of choir with
accompaniment of oboe and harp is every bit as imaginative as Britten.
“Muhly is one of
today’s most imaginative choral composers, and his Whispered And Revealed,a setting of Longfellow’s poem Snowflakes,is quite breath-taking, within three minutes magically conjuring up
images of snow covering a winter landscape.
“So, we’re delighted to be
giving some of this music its UK premiere. Then throw in some classic seasonal
jingles and some choral ‘mash-ups’ and you have a seasonal concert quite
unlike anything else you will have heard, guaranteed to bring you Christmas
cheer.”
Tickets for Britten, A Ceremony of Carols, By Candlelight cost £15, concessions £12, students £5, at eborsingers.org/currentevents or on the door.
Katharina Klug at work on the wheel at her Cambridge studio. All pictures: Zuza Grubeska
THE Space In Between is filling Lotte Inch Gallery, in Bootham, York, with a sophisticated exhibition of monochrome porcelain vessels by Cambridge ceramicist Katharina Klug until Christmas Eve.
“This show plays
with juxtaposing shapes, form and line and places these individual parts within
the context of a larger installation work,” says Lotte. “It’s a show too that
sees the boundaries between craftsmanship and artistic expression grow hazy.”
Known for her manipulation of graphic
lines painstakingly hand drawn on to the surfaces of her fine porcelain
vessels, Katharina’s body of work explores the spaces that lie between lines
and objects as she moves her artistic practice towards something almost more
sculptural, omitting certain elements to create new ones.
“The identifiably Katharina colour pallet
and beautifully realised vessels remain simultaneously of themselves, and of
something bigger, more powerful,” suggests Lotte.
Katharina Klug with one of her porcelain vessel groupings
Discussing
The Space In Between, Katharina says: “This show, for me, is a further step into more
installation-based work. I enjoy the challenge of a narrative-driven context.”
She asked herself: “What lies in
between? What can you see only because you can’t see another? Can leaving
things out, draw others? All these questions started me off on to this body of
work. I’m delighted to have the chance to show it in its entirety at Lotte Inch
Gallery in York.”
Katharina
continues: “In the
last few years, my work has become more about vessel groupings and ideas that
involve more than the one individual pot. It’s almost like creating a larger
canvas that’s split into several vessels.
“The monochrome works are an
accumulation of vessels which together build up installations that let the
viewer see them together as one piece.
“There are so many examples of
collectives in the natural world that morph into new manifestations. The idea
of many forming one keeps feeding my interest in making these pieces.”
Katharina Klug working out “the space in between” her ceramic pieces
Katharina
particularly enjoys how “the placing of
the individual vessel creates a new composition with new views”. “Depending on
the space, the pieces can be arranged to suit the environment but also to create
a new dialogue in between,” she explains.
“I’m hoping the pieces get played and
experimented with, to find new things beyond what I had imagined.”
Katharina lives and works in Cambridge
after moving to Britain from her native Austria in 2009. All her pots are made
by hand on the wheel with pastels used to draw naïve, spontaneous patterns on to
their surface: “the perfect canvas to explore space,” she says.
Her work has been shown in galleries
around the country and beyond and is held in many private collections, and collaborations
have involved her working with Heal’s, the British
furniture and furnishing store chain.
Recognition has come with the silver award in 2013
and 2015 in Craft and Design Magazine’s ceramics category; a shortlisting for
the International Nasser Sparkasse Ceramics Prize in Westerwald, Germany, and
an honourable mention for two entries in the International Ceramic Festival in
Japan in 2017. She has been a selected
member of the Craft Potters Association since 2016 too.
Lotte Inch Gallery, on the first floor at 14, Bootham, York, is open on Thursdays to Saturdays, 10am to 5pm; otherwise by appointment on 01904 848660.
Florence Poskitt: Making her York Stage Musicals debut as Gabriel, the angel who covets the role of Mary in The Flint Street Nativity. Picture: Kirkpatrick Photography
YORK Stage Musicals will bring an alternative
festive offering to York this Christmas for the first time, staging The Flint
Street Nativity at the John Cooper Studio @41Monkgate from December
12 to 22.
Tim Firth’s story was first performed as a television drama on ITV in
1999 with a cast featuring York actor Mark Addy, Frank Skinner, Neil Morrissey
and Jane Horrocks.
Firth, the Frodsham-born writer of Neville’s Island, All Quiet On The
Preston Front, Calendar Girls and the Madness musical Our House, then re-worked
it for the Liverpool Playhouse stage premiere in 2006.
Firth’s show follows “Mizzis Horrocks’s” class of seven year olds as they
prepare to perform their Nativity play at Flint Street Junior School for the
proud mums and dads – and the occasional social worker.
Squabbles arise when Angel Gabriel wants to play Mary; the Star grumbles
he isn’t a proper star like they have at NASA; Herod won’t stop waving to his parents
and the subversive Innkeeper is determined to liven up the traditional script.
Then the class stick insect escapes.
Leading the ensemble company as the ambitious Angel Gabriel will be
blossoming York actress and comedienne Florence Poskitt, making her York Stage
debut alongside Fiona Baistow in the coveted role of Mary. Look out too
for YSM debutant Conor Wilkinson, playing both Herod and Joseph.
The York Stage Musicals’ show poster for The Flint Street Nativity
Here, Charles Hutchinson asks York Stage Musicals artistic
director Nik Briggs to come forth on Firth by answering a Christmas sack-load
of questions.
What made you choose this Tim Firth
piece as your debut Christmas production?
“York is the ultimate Christmas
destination, and many people ask us each year what we’re staging
at Christmas but it hasn’t been something we’ve ventured into before. But then
Jim Welsman [chairman at the time] asked us if we’d be interested in bringing
a Christmas offering to 41 Monkgate, so I jumped at the chance and knew
what show would be the perfect choice.
“I was looking for one that really
would provide the city with an alternative theatrical offering. It needed to be
a show that suited York Stage and the 41Monkgate venue. Flint Street was
the perfect choice. It’s not saccharine; it’s fun, energetic and a
tad off the wall.
“So, come join us as we alter your perspective on not only the art and
politics of the humble Nativity, but the John Cooper Studio as a whole!”
What makes The Flint Street Nativity so humorous?
“This festive play really is one of the funniest observations I’ve come
across based on the Christmas holidays. Everyone knows the traditions
surrounding the institution of the school Nativity, tea towels tied to the
head and tinsel-clad Angels everywhere, but Tim Firth has created
a brilliant script, set in the build-up to the much-anticipated show
filled with laughs and pathos in an oversized classroom where adults play
the children in Mrs Horrocks’s class.”
What do you most enjoy about Tim
Firth’s writing?
“The detail
in the observation of the people he writes about is just brilliant; it really
is all on the page. Like in Calendar Girls, you can relate to and recognise the
characters. The seven year olds just come to life through the writing.
“I work with children of this age
quite regularly and, as I read the script, I could see the
children he was talking about and describing. It seems far-fetched to some, but
it really isn’t! Then, the twist in the final scenes and his ability to
inject just the right amount of pathos into a riotous comedy is what
clinches it for me.”
What are the particular challenges of
this piece for director and cast?
“The key to
the whole show, for me, comes in getting the final part of the show just right,
when – spoiler alert! – the actors who’ve been playing the
children throughout then turn to play the respective parents and we
see what’s made the children the way they are.
“It’s been fairly easy to work on the
scenes with the brilliant actors where they’re playing around and having
lots of fun playing the seven year olds, but actually getting that to tie in
with the adults is where the magic is, so we started the rehearsals with the
adult scenes and got to know them before we then worked on creating
their children, as it’s the adults who nurture.”
What is Tim Firth’s Christmas
message?
“The final
line in the play is ‘I’m in a Nativity. Yeah, it’s great…really brings it
home’, and I think that sums it up. In the fast-paced world we live in,
the simplest, purest things can really make you slow down and take stock.”
Assistant director Jonny Holbek with Florence Poskitt’s despondent Angel Gabriel
What are your recollections of
Nativity plays when you were nobbut a lad?
“Absolute terror!
Every year, I’d come in from school and tell my mother that I’d been cast
as a lead role in the show. Every year, she’d then have to go in and tell
that year’s teacher that they should be prepared that come the day of the show, I’d
just cry and refuse to go on as I suffered from crippling stage
fright!
“They would assure her I’d been
fine in class rehearsing and that I was doing brilliantly with
it. Then every year she’d turn up and sit in the hall expectantly, to be
hauled out by the teacher and informed I was having a meltdown. This
happened every year until I was ten!”
Why are Nativity plays still
important?
“Purity! It’s
plain and simple to see in any Nativity the purity in the children and the
performances they give. Sadly, it’s not a quality we always see in society and
on stage nowadays. so let’s cling on to it in Nativity plays!
What have been your highlights of the
York Stage Musicals year in 2019?
“2019 really has
been a dream. We had the opportunity to produce a classic musical in
The Sound Of Music; have worked on new writing with Twilight Robbery; created magic
with our acclaimed youth production of Disney’s Aladdin, but I think the
cherry on the top has to be Shrek The Musical at the Grand Opera House
in September.
“The buzz around the production, from
auditions through to the closing night, were just electric. The reviews and
comments were just sensational. It really did raise our bar yet again and will
really be a cherished production for us for a very long time.”
What’s coming next for York Stage
Musicals?
“We have a
bit of a bumper year planned already actually. An Eighties’ classic, a York
premiere, a birthday celebration and what is set to be possibly the biggest and
messiest youth show the city has ever seen!
“We start in February with Robert
Haring’s Steel Magnolias at 41 Monkgate. We then head across town to the Grand
Opera House with a brand-new production of Bugsy Malone in April.
Chris Knight’s perennially enthusiastic Donkey in York Stage Musicals’ “monster hit”, Shrek The Musical, at the Grand Opera House, York, in September
“Then it’s a return to Monkgate in
May to present the York premiere of Sondheim On Sondheim to mark Stephen
Sondheim’s 90th birthday [on March 22 2020].
“We’re still firming up plans for our
big autumn show, but things are looking exciting, and we’ll again end the year
back at 41 Monkgate with another Christmas alternative!”
And finally, Nik, what would be your Christmas
Day message to the nation?
“People of
the United Kingdom, it seems that the country truly is in the… No, in all
seriousness, we are in a transition, whether we want to be or not.
“In times of transition and change,
we have to really look out for each other as not everyone will move at the same
pace or be able to keep up. Stay genuine and be kind to those around us
and trust that love will always win.
“Sadly
nowadays, there are too many people in the world who like to over-promise and
oversell themselves for personal gain. This can only lead
to disappointment as we can see everywhere. “Know yourself, know your
limits, don’t compare yourself to others and work hard to run your
own race. Celebrate successes briefly, remain humble and learn from your
mistakes.”
York Stage Musicals present The Flint
Street Nativity, John Cooper Studio @41 Monkgate, York, December 12 to 22,
7.30pm except Sundays at 6pm. Box office: 01904 623568, at
yorkstagemusicals.com or in person from the York Theatre Royal box office.
What a Wallop!: Rob Beckett makes a speedy return to York Barbican
THE comedy year on York Barbican’s main stage will end with another dollop of Wallop! and a welcome dose of honesty.
After walloping the Barbican on October 24, comedian Rob Beckett returns on December 12 with his Wallop! show. The “Mouth of the South” cheeky chappie, 33, hosts BBC One’s All Together Now; does team captain duties on Channel 4’s 8 Out Of 10 Cats; co-presents The Magic Sponge podcast and has joined Romesh Ranganathan for Sky’s Rob And Romesh Vs.
Ed Byrne: Playing York Barbican next week. Honestly, he is.
In his confessional If I’m Honest show on December 13, , ever observational 47-year-old Dubliner Ed Byrne takes a “long hard look at himself and tries to decide if he has any traits that are worth passing on to his children”.
Byrne last played York on his Spoiler Alert! tour at the Grand Opera House in March 2018. Fact.
Tickets for both 8pm gigs are on sale on 0203 356 5441 , at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Putting the Royal into York Theatre Royal: Martin Barrass as Queen Ariadne in Sleeping Beauty. Picture: Anthony Robling
HE ain’t nothing like a dame. Instead, Martin Barrass, perennial pantomime soft lad, comic stooge and sidekick punchbag, will not so much step into Berwick Kaler’s big boots at York Theatre Royal as reinvent himself in regal mode for Sleeping Beauty.
All rise for Barrass’s Queen Ariadne as the Hull-born actor adds to his repertoire in his 33rd panto, performing once more alongside David Leonard’s villainous Evil Diva, Suzy Cooper’s Princess Beauty and AJ Powell’s Darth Diva.
Dame Berwick may have left the stage after 40 years of pantomayhem, but he has not left the building, writing the script once more and directing the morning rehearsal sessions, as he works in tandem with new co-director Matt Aston for the first time.
Kaler has not been available for interviews, concentrating his energies elsewhere at 73 and leaving the spotlight to Barrass and others, although the betting odds are shorter than for Frankel at York Racecourse in 2012 that the departed dame will make an appearance on screen.
He’s still with stupid! “There’s still a bit there that’s my familiar character, so it has shades of the idiot,” says Martin Barrass. Picture: Anthony Robling
“My Queen will be like a duck,” says 63-year-old Barrass. “Looking serene on the surface but paddling away frantically beneath the water.
“This year, it sounds very much like I’ll be in a transitional place, where the dame would have been. My Queen will be ‘alpha and unputdownable’, but there’s still a bit there that’s my familiar character, so it still has shades of the idiot.”
Rather than anyone filling the black hole of pandemonium left by Kaler, the Panto Four will share the challenge, although the most intriguing progression is Barrass’s switch. “I’m aware it’s an enormous undertaking because people stop you in the street to ask, ‘So, Martin, are you the dame this year?’, and I have to say, ‘No, I’m the Queen of all her subjects’.
“I know I’m following in the footsteps of a master, the greatest ad-libber ever, and what you have to be in this role is slightly above it, aware of what’s going on around you, being prepared for any audience heckles.
Re-united: The Panto Four, now minus retired Dame Berwick Kaler,, in familiar pose, Suzy Cooper, David Leonard, Martin Barrass and A J Powell
“Comedy like this always has to be flexible, always switched on for the unexpected, the chance to be anarchistic.
”It will be a case of calming myself down for what lies ahead, but I’m lucky to have watched a genius in operation at close hand.”
You can sense that far from being intimidated by the task, Barrass is rising to it, just as he did when playing the deformed Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man or Stan Laurel in Laurel And Hardy at the Theatre Royal; station porter Albert Perks in E Nesbit’s The Railway Children at the National Railway Museum; or the 87-year-old waiter in Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors for the National Theatre at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Or, earlier this year, excelling as band conductor Danny Ormondroyd, “the Peter Postlethwaite role”, in Brassed Off at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Bounce back: Martin Barrass in rehearsal for Sleeping Beauty. Picture: Anthony Robling
“I loved playing Perks, blowing the whistle, controlling the engines, just as I loved playing Danny, conducting a band of 36. I don’t know how we crammed them all in!” says Martin. “Being tone deaf, I had to learn everything about conducting. Playing Danny, he’s the king of his fiefdom, his colliery brass band, and he’s to be feared in some way, when you really make people listen to you.
“So now, playing Queen Ariadne, she won’t be afraid to throw her weight around, but in a nice way, as I’m only eight and a half stone.”
Over his 33 years as the stooge, Barrass has played all manner of animals, a giant carrot, a goofy archbishop and a twist on his hapless One Man, Two Guvnors character, the venerable, if physically vulnerable Chinese philosopher Wisehopper. The Queen will be different again. “Don’t expect to see a scrap of make-up because it’s in the tradition of Old Mother and Berwick’s dame: you know it’s played by a bloke,” he says.
“But how you play it is a tonal thing: you can have a lot of fun with the ‘bunchness’ of the voice, for example. Berwick always said, ‘I don’t want to offend the men in the room’, so I won’t be veering into the realms of drag and camp. I’ll leave that to David Leonard!”
Exit the dame: An emotional Martin Barrass, for so long his comic stooge, embraces Berwick Kaler at the close of the veteran dame’s last performance in The Grand Old Dame Of York on February 2.. Pictures: Anthony Robling
Placing his Queen, as opposed to a dame, Martin says: “Normally the role is someone like a washer woman of lower status, but you don’t get any bigger than the Queen! I’ll be playing her as a cross between Eric Morecambe and Fanny Craddock.
“As Berwick would be the first to say, you should do whatever suits you, whatever you’re at ease with, though there’ll still be traces of Hull in my Queen.
“So this Queen will be as common as muck, and that’s how you have fun with it, along with assuming Berwick’s role of always having the last say.”
He’s just had it!
Martin Barrass stars in Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, December 7 to January 25. Box office: 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.
Angels in town: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust cast members for A Nativity for York stand outside the Spurriergate Centre, York. Picture: John Saunders
A NATIVITY for
York is in its final week of rehearsals before premiering from December 12 to
15 at the Spurriergate Centre, Spurriergate, York.
Directed by Philip
Parr and produced by York Mystery Plays
Supporters Trust (YMPST), this hour-long production with live music is based on
the surviving manuscript of the medieval York Mystery
Plays in the British Library, while being infused with a contemporary resonance
to “remind us that this story is not so very far from our own modern-day
experience”.
From the 14th to
16th centuries, episodes from the Bible were presented on wagons pulled through
the streets of York by the City Guilds of Craftsmen,
celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi in early summer. Next week’s show draws
text from eight of the 48 short plays, presented in a modernised version of a
northern dialect of Middle English, so audiences can follow the
action while retaining the all-important sounds of the language.
Ged Murray and Jenna Drury in rehearsal for A Nativity for York. Picture: Nick Ansell
Telling the
biblical story from the creation of the world, through the life of Jesus Christ,
to the Day of Judgement, and grounded in human experience, the Mystery Plays
were “made by the people for the people”. In next week’s new Nativity for York,
the celebration of the birth of Jesus – the Christmas miracle – is juxtaposed
with the story of an ordinary couple caught up in events beyond their control
that will change their lives forever.
“The Nativity is
probably a story that much of our audience will know, but we wanted to give it
a fresh, new and contemporary perspective,” says Parr. “Joseph, Mary and their
baby are really no different from any other refugees: fleeing their country,
persecution and the threat of death.
“To tell the story
within this setting, and to ask questions of what happens now, we hope will
engage audiences to take that question away with them.”
Parr’s production – his first as artistic director for YMPST – draws
on the long Mystery Plays tradition of community performance and storytelling,
utilising York actors, singers and musicians.
In elevated company: The Angels ascend to the heights in a York shop as they promote A Nativity for York. Picture: John Saunders
YMPST chair Linda Terry says: “Our community cast bring a wealth
of experiences, commitment and talent to the work, which has made creating this
production incredibly powerful.
“As we move into
the Spurriergate Centre, we’re looking forward to presenting our first Nativity for York to residents
and visitors. It’s moving, thought provoking and full of beautiful music.”
Director
Philip Parr is a widely experienced director of theatre, opera and festivals
who has worked both in Britain and internationally, establishing a reputation for
directing large-scale community productions, chiefly working as artistic
director of Parrabbola, collaborating with communities across Europe.
His theatre work has ranged from main-house
productions to small-scale rural touring shows, including working at
Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Bayerisches Staatsoper and the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden, as well as being founder and artistic director of
Spitalfields Opera.
A Nativity for York cast members gather at a rehearsal at Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York. Picture: John Saunders
A founding member of the European
Shakespeare Festivals network, he has directed the Swaledale Festival and Bath
Shakespeare Festival and is director of the York International
Shakespeare Festival.
Directing YMPST’s first solo
production, Parr says: “Creating a new Nativity cycle
for York is both a wonderful artistic challenge
and an enormous responsibility. I’m excited to have been given that
responsibility.”
Performances start at 6.30pm on December 12 and 13; 12 noon, 2pm and 6.30pm, December 14, and 12 noon and 2pm, December 15. Tickets cost £10, under 16s £6, on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.
Danny Mellor and Anastasia Benham in Badapple Theatre’s Christmas show, The Snow Dancer. All pictures: Karl Andre
BADAPPLE Theatre Company set out on the road tomorrow with
their Christmas show, The Snow Dancer, a tale to perk the interest of teenage environmental
activist Greta Thunberg.
Written and directed by the Green Hammerton company’s
artistic director, Kate Bramley, the setting is The Great Wood, where something
is awry. The animals are desperate for sleep, but with the onset of global
warming and climate change, the weather is just too warm.
The show’s intrepid heroes, played by Anastasia Benham and Danny Mellor, decide they must seek out the mysterious Snow Dancer if there is any chance of ever making it snow for Christmas.
Ahead of tomorrow’s preview show at Hunsingore Village Hall, Charles Hutchinson puts director Kate Bramley in the hot seat.
Danny Mellor and Anastasia Benham with one of the puppets in The Snow Dancer
What prompted you
to write The Snow Dancer, Kate?
“I started work on this show in 2017 with composer
Jez Lowe. There are many stories of indigenous peoples around the globe who had
the tradition of dancing to bring on the snow for the season, but as far as we
know there are no surviving stories of actual Snow Dancers!”
Were you inspired
by any existing Christmas stories?
“I’ve worked on a lot of Christmas stories in the
past, so even though this one is completely original and doesn’t follow an
existing story, there are still recognisable elements.
“We have Ida the March Hare, who is a meddling
villain, for example. But, if anything, it’s a classic ‘quest’ story, where the
children head off through the woods to save the world and encounter a few
setbacks on the way.”
Ida, the March Hare: the meddling villain in The Snow Dancer
Does writing a
Christmas story make different demands of you as a writer, given certain
audience expectations?
“I suppose over the years we have created a
Badapple style of storytelling that is open to audiences of all ages, so for
the family Christmas shows I just have to make sure that the structure is
suitable for younger viewers, with lots of things going on.
“We have some beautiful – and very cheeky –
woodland puppets in this one, so hopefully that will help keep the kids
entertained!
“I think there’s a Pixar animation and commercial pantomime
expectation nowadays that tells Christmas stories on a grand scale, which we
can’t necessarily do! But I work for a number of months with our designer,
Catherine Dawn, to create little ‘magic moments’ of theatre that run throughout
the story. There may be some surprises for audiences!”
Hedgehog incoming: Danny Mellor with another of Badapple’s puppets for The Snow Dancer
Global warming is
the political issue of our day, even if Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s place
was taken by a dripping block of ice on the Leaders’ debate on Channel 4. What
impact can a play make at this time?
“I’m not sure that any one play can make an impact.
But it’s about contributing to a conversation, I think. As a company, we often
re-use sets and costume; rarely buy anything new and have our power from
renewable sources; actively recycle and try to avoid wastage.
“But we’re realising that we just do all that
quietly and don’t particularly discuss the issues with our audiences.
“What has changed over the past couple of years
since I started work on this project is that it is young people globally who
are at the forefront of the campaign for change. And it feels like we should
all take them seriously. And that’s why the heroes in our story, Sol and
Aurora, are 17…and they save the world! Simple!”
Anastasia Benham: playing an intrepid hero in Badapple Theatre Company’s Christmas show, The Snow Dancer
As a company that
travels by road, from village to village, to provide “theatre on your doorstep”,
how do you go eco?
“As part of our ambition for this project, I asked
Catherine and John [Badapple stage and lighting designer
John Bramley] to create an eco-set that was made
from re-claimed materials, using partners like the Community Furniture Store
and Community RePaint among others.
“But, more than that, Catherine has created a
forest setting out of ‘human junk’! It’s an incredibly beautiful and
atmospheric design with donated ladders as trees, broken umbrella canopies and
much more. So not only is it a recycled set but it also makes a statement about
re-cycling or up-cycling. She’s very clever!
“The final piece of our funding for this project
was for our team to assess our sustainability as an organisation and create a
report as to what we might do in the future to further decrease our carbon
footprint.”
What did that report involve?
“We collected some data last year that showed the
percentages of audiences that came to our shows on foot, from under a mile
radius, and it’s a pretty high number. So, the next part of our process is to
look at our touring (driving) footprint as well as the audiences (lower)
footprint and see how much further we can go.
“John has already started to explore electric
vehicles but there isn’t currently a vehicle that would fit our needs and run
on electric. So, we could run two electric vehicles but, of course, there is a
carbon cost in the production of those vehicles.
“Anyway, it’s an ongoing debate, but we’re
delighted that we’re having the chance to discuss these elements in detail and
hopefully by next summer we’ll have an even more effective strategy! It’s a
work in progress for everyone, I think.”
Let it snow: Anastasia Benham and Danny Mellor in Badapple’s The Snow Dancer
How do you balance
humour and a more serious message in the play?
“For anyone who knows my writing, they’ve probably
cottoned on to the fact that I’m usually delivering social politics by stealth!
It’s humour first and then perhaps at the end of the show the audiences will
think over the story and maybe ask some questions of themselves at a later
stage.”
Who is the Snow
Dancer and why is the Snow Dancer mysterious, or had that better remain a
mystery?!
“The Snow Dancer is one of four spirit dancers
that, back before the dawn of time, was responsible for dancing to bring in the
winter season. Over the centuries the other dancers have retired, and only the
Snow Dancer remains.
“But with the weather so unseasonably warm in the
Great Wood, we can only conclude he’s gone on strike! But he’s hiding somewhere
and our heroes must find him and persuade him to dance to get the weather back
to normal, so that all the animals can get some sleep. That’s an old Badapple
legend, by the way!”
Will Anastasia Benham’s intrepid hero be outfoxed? Find out in The Snow Dancer
What would be your
Christmas Day message to the nation in 2019?
“Choose love. Try to scale down the wastage on the un-necessary a bit and focus on supporting your loved ones and those in need in the community. Our Christmas charities this year are Safe Passage where we are founder members and also The Woodland Trust. Maybe some of our audiences might choose to support them as well.”
What are your New
Year wishes for Badapple?
“I want to congratulate my team really. We’ve worked through a difficult couple of years financially with some great shows under our belts and everyone is still smiling! We’re 21 in 2020 so we’re officially a grown-up company now! Hopefully we’ll keep entertaining and inspiring the communities who so kindly invite us into their midst.”
Badapple Theatre Company present The Snow Dancer
from December 5 to 29.
Campaign badges: Anastasia Benham in Badapple’s climate change cautionary tale, The Snow Dancer
Tour dates for December 2019:
December 5, Hunsingore Village Hall, LS22 5HY, preview show; box office, 01423 339168.
6, Harpham &
Lowthorpe Village Hall. YO25 4QZ; 07867 692616.
Talegate Theatre’s Widow Twankey in Aladdin at Pocklington Arts Centre
POCKLINGTON Arts Centre is staging two
Christmas shows with the emphasis on “fantastic festive family fun”.
First up, The People’s Theatre Company present
Steven Lee’s Santa In Love on Saturday afternoon, promising to unveil magical
secrets for audiences aged four and over at 2.30pm.
If you have ever wanted to know from where
the fairy on top of the Christmas tree comes, why you never see a Christmas
elf, or maybe the answer to the greatest secret of them all – the one about
Santa Claus and the thing he secretly loves best – then this is the show for
you.
Santa will be available to meet little
ones after the show and each child will receive a gift.
Next, Talegate Theatre’s Aladdin on
December 14 brings you “the pantomime you have always wished for”.
Follow the heroic Aladdin and his
troublesome mum, Widow Twankey, to see if they can beat the evil Abanazar to
the magic lamp in time for Aladdin to win the hand of Princess Jasmine.
Talegate
Theatre’s 2.30pm show will be packed with songs, slapstick, silliness and fairy-tale magic.
Pocklington
Arts Centre director Janet Farmer says: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when our
auditorium is filled with audiences of all ages enjoying some fantastic festive
family fun.
“Our Christmas stage shows enhance our
year-round family theatre offering and really mark the start of the build-up to
Christmas and the New Year, but they always prove hugely popular, so I would
recommend buying tickets in advance to avoid disappointment.”
Tickets for Santa In Love cost £9 each or £34 for a family ticket; Aladdin, £10, under 21s £8, family £33, on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
KENTMERE House Gallery, in Scarcroft Hill, York, will be open every weekend
until December 22, complemented by late-night openings on Thursdays.
“Those who have everything may be the bane of your life, but you can be
absolutely certain that they don’t have any of the paintings available
from this gallery because all are originals,” says owner and curator Ann
Petherick.
“We have the usual Christmas Aladdin’s cave to rummage around in, with a
price range from £50 to £2,500, plus books from £10.
Bertie, watercolour, by Frances Brock
“There’s a slight emphasis on cats in this year’s collection – anticipating the imminent arrival of the film musical, perhaps?! – including Susan Bower’s Can They Be Mine?, a watercolour by York artist Frances Brock and a delightful linocut by Norfolk artist Hannah Hann, discovered in a small gallery in Norfolk.”
On display too is new work by Kentmere House favourites such as John
Thornton, Rosie Dean and David Greenwood, along with work from nationally known
printmakers Valerie Thornton, John Brunsdon and Richard
Bawden.
“And if it’s all too difficult, there’s the gallery’s gift voucher
service, allowing the recipients themselves to make the choice and with the
gallery adding five per cent to the value of any voucher,” says Ann.
Two Cats On A Rug, linocut, by Hannah Hann
“Alternatively, if you buy a painting as a gift and the recipient would
prefer another, return it by the end of January and a full credit will be given
against another painting.”
Kentmere House Gallery can be visited each Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 5pm, plus Thursdays from 6pm to 9pm. “You are also welcome at any other timeswith a telephone call in advance to check on 01904 656507 or 07801 810825 – or just ring the bell.”
The gallery will re-open after the Christmas break on Saturday, January
4.
York Minster From Dean’s Park, pastel, by David Greenwood
