York artist Sue Clayton with odd socks for World Down Syndrome Day’s event at Pocklington Arts Centre
YORK artist Sue Clayton will mark World Down Syndrome Day at Pocklington Arts Centre on March 21 as her Downright Marvellous At Large exhibition draws to a close that day.
Sue’s portraits of adults with Down
Syndrome and a giant pair of hand-knitted socks will provide the backdrop for
the 11am to 1pm event featuring children’s craft activities, music, cake and a
pop-up exhibition.
That show, This Is Me, will be running in
the arts centre studio during the final week of Downright Marvellous At Large
from March 14 to 21. On show will be self-portraits by members of Wold Haven
Day Centre, Pocklington, and Applefields Special School, York, created at workshops
led by Sue.
Sue put her exhibition together in honour
of her son, James, who has Down Syndrome and turns 18 this year. “Downright
Marvellous At Large is a true celebration of adults with Down’s at work and play,
and I hope it has made a real impression on visitors,” she says.
“I can’t wait to bring what has been a
really busy, successful exhibition to a suitable close in spectacular style with
a celebration to mark World Down Syndrome Day.
“Everyone is invited to come along,
enjoy some children’s crafts, a pop-up exhibition and a free piece of cake, as
well as a few surprises along the way”
Sue’s portraits, presenting the
“unrepresented and significant” social presence of adults with Down Syndrome, is
complemented by a giant pair of odd socks created using hand-knitted squares
donated by members of the public.
Many
people wear odd socks on World Down Syndrome Day, a global event that aims to
raise awareness and promote independence,
self-advocacy and freedom of choice for people with the congenital
condition.
Socks are used because their shape replicates the extra 21st chromosome
that people with Down Syndrome have.
Benedict Turvill’s troubled playwright Konstantin and The Seagull of the title in York Settlement Community Players’ production. All pictures: John Saunders
REVIEW: The Seagull, York Settlement Community Players, York Theatre Royal Studio, until March 7, 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
IT didn’t end well for the goat in Edward
Albee’s The Goat at Theatre @41 Monkgate last week. It doesn’t end well for the
seagull – borrowed from the National Theatre, no less – in Anton Chekhov’s The
Seagull at the Theatre Royal Studio, but there is awkward comedy aplenty in
both plays.
Absurd comedy in Albee’s jaw-dropping 2002 piece; tragicomedy in Chekhov’s 1895 dysfunctional family drama, as Helen Wilson completes her ten-year project to direct all four of the Russian playwright’s major works for Settlement Players in the York company’s centenary year.
As with Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard
and Three Sisters, the adaptation is by Michael Frayn, who has praised
Settlement, and by implication Wilson, for not tampering with period,
location, genders and politics to “make them more relevant” for modern
audiences.
Livy Potter’s Nina performs Konstantin’s radical but mannered new play in The Seagull
“People
in York are evidently made of sterner stuff,” Frayn said. “Just occasionally,
perhaps, it’s worth trying to catch the sense and feel of what Chekhov actually
intended.”
Wilson
has pursued the same directorial policy once more, placing her trust in Frayn’s
dialogue, replete with dramatic and comic irony, complemented by an uncluttered
set design by Graham Sanderson, with a plain backdrop, chairs and a mini-stage,
bedecked with flowers, for Konstantin’s play within a play.
Frayn
knows that territory from his own 1982 backstage comedy
Noises Off, a classic English unruly farce, but like Frayn’s appraisal of York audiences,
The Seagull is made of sterner stuff.
Forlorn love: Lucy May Orange in black, playing Masha, destined to be forever ignored by Konstantin (Benedict Turvill)
“They’re all vulnerable, every one of them,” says Wilson of
Chekhov’s characters, and she has made a spot-on judgement call in wanting vulnerability
and warmth in equal measure in her staging. Enter Lucy May Orange’s Masha,
dressed in black to match her forlorn conviction that her love for troubled young
playwright Konstantin (Benedict Turvill) will be forever unrequited.
At this point we laugh in recognition, not least because she
is saying this to smitten teacher Medvedenko (Samithi Sok), seemingly oblivious
to her indifference towards him, and soon we shall find Turvill’s over-sensitive
Konstantin in torment at putative girlfriend Nina (Livy Potter), his muse and
actress for his “ground-breaking” play, not worshipping him the same way her
worships her.
Turvill’s radical theatre-maker Konstantin has an even more troubled relationship with his mother, faded actress Arkadina (Stephanie Hesp), than Hamlet had with Gertrude, merciless in her dismissal of his writing talent, so insensitive in stealing attention away from Nina’s performance of his bold but admittedly dreadful play at Sorin’s increasingly anguished house party one lakeside summer evening.
Clinging on: Stephanie Hesp’s Arkadina losing the attention and affections of her lover, Ben Sawyer’s Trigorin
Sorin (Glyn Morrow), Arkadina’s ageing brother, wants the
next generation to thrive, to blossom; so too does Maurice Crichton’s
Scottish-accented doctor, Dorn. Paul Joe Osborne’s retired lieutenant, Shamrayev,
now Sorin’s steward, loves a story, and Osborne has a splendid night in his
mimicry and comic timing; wife Polina (Elizabeth Elsworth) is his best audience.
The Seagull is a play with a generation gap that grows wider the more the drama unfolds, It goes from what Wilson calls the “comic souffle” of the playful Act One, when we can “laugh at these slightly inept, sometimes pretentious characters thinking they’re something they’re not”, to the painful, poignant consequences of such ineptitude and self-deception, when youthful dreams are dashed and unfulfilled ambitions turn bitter amid the fractious artistic egos.
Chekhov “likes to lob a bomb into the room in Act Three” in
his plays, as Wilson puts it, and here the incendiary device is Arkadina’s
lover, vainglorious novelist Trigorin (Ben Sawyer, suitably smug), under whose
spell the impressionable Nina falls.
Twinkle in the wry: Maurice Crichton as Dorn, the doctor
In a naturalistic play with theatre and writing and creativity at its heart, but ennui and
abject despair eating away at the tumultuous edges, Wilson’s company extract
the ironic, perverse comedy to the full, then bring out all the damaging
familiar failings of those prone to so much sterile philosophising.
Frayn would be delighted with the
performances of Settlement’s experienced hands, while both Turvill and Potter
(by day York Theatre Royal’s marketing and press assistant)
impress in their first principal roles for Wilson in the intimacy of the Studio
space.
Yes, the seagull dies, but not before The Seagull flies high,
full of art and too much hurt heart.
Penguins at Scarborough? Anything is possible in a tourism poster
VINTAGE posters from a golden age of travel and
tourism will go on display at Woodend, The Crescent, Scarborough, on Saturday.
Dating from the 1910s to the 1960s, the posters
in Scarborough: A Day At The Seaside were issued by the-then
Scarborough Corporation’s tourism department and by rail companies operating in
the area.
Just the tonic: taking a holiday at Scarborough
On show from the coming weekend to April 26, they will
include such nostalgic images as a family of penguins seeking shade under a
parasol on Scarborough’s South Bay beach, alongside other bright and
idyllic scenes from a bygone era.
The prints are all taken from the 200-plus original
posters held in the Scarborough Collections, under the care of Scarborough
Museums Trust.
Scarborough Open Air Theatre…as it was in 1938
Andrew Clay, the trust’s chief executive, says: “This
will be a vibrant and colourful exhibition recalling an age when travelling by
train for a holiday at the seaside was the height of sophistication.”
Limited-edition prints of the posters on display will be available to
buy, all at the actual size.
Scarborough: the essence of coastal sophistication for courting couples in 1932
Woodend is open Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 5pm, and Saturdays and
Sundays, 10am to 4pm. Entry is free.
JONNY
Hannah’s Songs For Darktown Lovers is the Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields
Forever of exhibitions.
His
music-inspired Double A-sides show is split between two independent York
businesses: Lotte Inch Gallery, at 14 Bootham, and gallery curator Lotte’s
friends Dan Kentley and Dom White’s FortyFive Vinyl Café in Micklegate.
“Songs
For Darktown Lovers roots itself in all things music, and of course, love,”
says Lotte. “With Sinatra’s Songs For Swinging Lovers playing in the
background, this exhibition is an alternative Valentine for the creatively
minded.
“It’s
also a love letter to ‘Darktown’, a fictional place that Jonny refers to when
modern life becomes too much, a place with countless retreats, all revealed in
his book Greetings From Darktown, published by Merrell Publishers in 2014.”
One-of-a-kind
Scottish artist, designer, illustrator, lecturer and all-round creative spark
Hannah has exhibited previously at Lotte’s gallery, and she contacted him last
spring with a view to him doing a show for FortyFive.
“She
told me about this vinyl café because I like to go to charity shops and buy old
vinyl albums that I know will be awful but have striking covers, and then I
create my own newly reinterpreted vinyl sleeves from that,” says
culture-vulture Jonny, who attended the exhibition openings at FortyFive, where
he span vintage discs and played an acoustic guitar set with fellow artist Jonathan Gibbs, and at Lotte’s gallery amid the
aroma of morning-after coffee the next day.
Dance Stance Shoe, by Jonny Hannah
“What’s
been nice with this show is having the chance to do the more informal works for
the café and the formal pieces, such as hand-painted wooden cut-outs, for the
gallery.”
Happenstance
led to the Darktown Lovers theme. “Originally, I was going to do the show
before Christmas but time ran out, and then I thought Valentine’s Day would be
a good setting,” says Jonny.
“So, the
work is inspired by love songs and songs I love – as they’re not all love
songs. Country rock; a bit of classical; some French chanson; rockabilly. The
café exhibition has become this imagined playlist of vinyl that never will be,
but I’ve made it as the perfect playlist in my head.”
Growing
up in Dunfermline, before studying at Cowdenbeath College of Knowledge, Liverpool School of Art and the
Royal College of Art in London, Jonny recalls how he would pick out album
covers such as Meat Loaf’s Bat Out Of Hell.
“Everyone had that album in Dunfermline! Then, as I became older, and I
like to think more sophisticated, I was drawn to those wonderful Blue Note jazz
covers. I loved the 12-inch format; going to the record shop on Saturdays with
your pocket money was so exciting,” he says.
“Then it became CDs, and now downloads, but it’s great that vinyl has
made a comeback. My sons play music, but I’ve no idea what, because it’s all on
headphones. In fact, they complain I play my music too loud, which is surely
the wrong way round! But music should be a social thing, bringing you together
to see a band or enjoy a DJ set.
“Music that matters to you is as important as buying clothes or a pair
of shoes or the first time you saw a film like Kes. You remember the mood you
were in when you first heard it.”
Harmonium, by Jonny Hannah
Since
graduating in 1998, Jonny has worked both as a commercial designer and an
illustrator and printmaker. He lives by the sea in Southampton, where he
lectures in illustration at Southampton Solent University.
He boasts an impressive list of
exhibitions, advertising projects and clients, such as Royal Mail, the New York
Times, the Guardian and Conde Nast, and he has published a series of
“undeniably Hannah-esque” books with Merrell Publishers, Mainstone Press and
Design For Today.
You may recall his Darktown Turbo
Taxi solo exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, in 2018,
and Darktown lies at the heart of his latest works too, but what is Darktown,
Jonny?
“It started off as my idea that it
was on the edge of any city that had a collection of odd characters, that had
places they frequented, maybe shops too,” he says.
“The inspiration came from Fats
Waller, the jazz singer, singing Darktown Strutter’s Ball, and C W Stoneking
replying Don’t Go Dancin’ Down The Darktown Strutter’s Ball. So, Fats is saying
‘go’; Stoneking is saying ‘don’t go’, and you think, ‘oh god, what should I
do?’!
“I decided I should go down there and
it’s become my alternative reality to my reality, as opposed to one of my great
hates: Star Wars fantasy.”
Defining that alternative reality,
Jonny says: “It has to be urban, ever since I left home in Dunfermline; it has
to have a lot of concrete, like there is in Southampton, my home now.
Pepe Le Moko by Jonny Hannah
“You’re cherry picking from what you
do and don’t want to experience, including shops, characters, streets.”
One street, in particular: Shirley
High Street, where Jonny lives in Southampton. “I take some of the characters
from there and mix them in my head with historical characters,” he says. “But
it all has to have that dollop of reality; if you go too far off on fantastical
bent, it isn’t Darktown.”
How did Jonny develop his distinctive
style? “You have to be patient, to make things work, for your style to appear.
I’d start from other artists and do my own versions, and after a decade, maybe
a couple of decades, I’ve found my own style with life’s experience feeding
into it: who you are, where you live. Whereas if you force it, that’s when it
becomes disingenuous.
“The more you do it, the more those
things inside you, what’s internal, becomes external and is expressed in your
art. That’s when you overtake your influences and your voice becomes the
significant voice, not the ones that inspired you.”
Jonny Hannah’s pricing policy is
admirable. “The idea of my work being available potentially to almost anyone is
exciting, so I’ve sold it for as little as £5. I price it for what I think it’s
worth; even if people say I undervalue it, I don’t think I do,” he says.
“I love the idea that my art is
distributed rather than being stuck in my lock-up, so the possibility of it
being someone’s home, office, or place of work, is important to me.
“I also like to think of myself as
being like a medium holding a séance, where my art is telling you about Fats
Waller and Jacques Brel, if you don’t know who Jacques Brel is; I’m contacting
their spirit, so I’m doing my job as a conveyor of popular culture that you can
connect with.”
Cakes & Ale Shoe, by Jonny Hannah
Jonny acknowledges the significance
of art that provokes and can change opinions in the world, “but I don’t need to
be one of those people”, he says. “I like the idea that art is entertaining.
I’ve always opted for entertainment, for enjoyment, for making people happy
with what I create. I have fun making them, and that notion of enjoyment is so
important to me.”
Jonny’s palette of colours exudes that element of enjoyment and fun too. “I don’t say that it’s specifically down to my colour blindness – I’m colour blind for green and blue – but I did start by using primary colours, then varying their brightness,” he says.
“You can try out endless variations and for me now it’s always blue, red, yellow, black and white and variations on that,” he says. “I’ve tried to be subtle with colour but it just doesn’t work for me!”
His Darktown Turbo Taxi, first exhibited
in his Yorkshire Sculpture Park show, and now acquired by Southampton Solent
University for permanent display there, is a case in point. “It was my agent’s
idea that I should buy this Saab 9-3 Turbo off Gumtree and paint it. Afterwards,
someone said ‘you can’t miss it in a car park’, and he was right! That notion
of not being able to miss it is part of my painting philosophy.”
That said, Jonny reveals: “I don’t
think too much. I say to my students thinking can be a bad thing. If you face a
blank canvas, then start creating, you come up with something better. Drawing
is a form of thinking in itself; you start drawing, you are thinking.
A Confederacy Of Dunces, by Jonny Hannah
“You find that certain things keep
coming back in your work, and what I know I can be guilty of is laziness, when
I need to find new inspiration or find new ways of expressing things. It’s
always that thing of challenging yourself creatively. There’s nothing worse
than repetition.”
After releasing his latest book, A
Confederacy Of Dunces, for The Folio Society, Jonny is now working on a commission
for Museums Northumberland on Northumberland folklore that will run from May to
September at Woodhorn Museum, Ashington, Hexham Old Gaol, Morpeth Chantry
Bagpipe Museum and Berwick Museum and Art Gallery.
He is also creating a set of woodcuts
for The Skids’ frontman Richard Jobson’s book of short stories set in an
imaginary bar in Berlin called The Alabama Song. “Richard lives in Berlin for
half the year now, and the woodcuts will go on show in an exhibition at events where
he’ll sing and I’ll play guitar,” says Jonny.
Also bubbling up is a book on the history
of pop culture, as his prodigious productivity continues unabated, with a
mischievous spirit at play. “When you’re young, you get told to tidy up, but as
you get older, mess is a creative thing,” reckons Jonny.
“If you’re creative, there’s an
immaturity to you that never goes away. You don’t have to tidy up until it really
does become too much!”
Jonny Hannah’s Songs For Darktown Lovers runs until March 7. Lotte
Inch Gallery is open Thursday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, or by appointment
on 01904 848660. FortyFive Vinyl Café’s opening hours are Monday to
Friday, 9am to 6pm; Saturday, 10am to 6pm; Sunday, 10am to 5pm.
Rosamund Pike as pioneering Polish scientist Marie Curie in Radioactive
CITY Screen, York, will mark International Women’s Day on
March 8 with an exclusive Picturehouse preview of Radioactive, the biopic of pioneering
Polish scientist Marie Curie starring Rosamund Pike.
Marie discovered the radioactive elements radium and
polonium. Working with her husband, Pierre Curie (played by Sam Riley), she was
the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and would become the only person to
receive two.
Throughout her life, Marie showed a steely reserve in the
face of xenophobia and institutional hostility, but her discoveries and legacy
came at a price, not only for the woman herself but also for the world.
Next Sunday’s 1.30pm preview will be followed by a Q&A
with Rosamund Pike and director Marjane Satrapi, broadcast live from the Curzon
Mayfair, London.
On general release from March 20, Radioactive (12A) is based
on Lauren Redniss’s book Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale Of Love And
Fallout and is director Satrapi’s first film to be sourced from a graphic novel
not written by herself.
The Iranian-born director is best known for Persepolis, her 2008 film about her life in pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Iran and then in Europe. Based on her graphic novel of the same title, it traces Satrapi’s growth from child to rebellious, punk-loving teenager.
Tickets are available in person from the City Screen box office, in Coney Street, on 0871 902 5747 or at picturehouses.com/cinema/city-screen-picturehouse. Please note, the film screening will start promptly at 1.45pm.
Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever is just around the corner. All pictures: Dan Tsantilis
PEPPA Pig is celebrating ten years of live shows with a new adventure,
Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!, visiting the Grand Opera House, York, on March
4 and 5.
Performances start at 1pm and 4pm on the first day; 10am and 1pm on the
second, and courtesy of the Cumberland Street theatre, CharlesHutchPress has
one family ticket (four seats) to be won for the 4pm Wednesday performance.
Based on the Entertainment One animated television series, this is Peppa
Pig’s sixth touring production, rooted as ever in songs, games and laughter as
Peppa and friends make a big splash when they jump in puddles.
Peppa Pig Live has been enjoyed by more than 1.5 million
people in Britain, playing eight consecutive West End seasons, as well as
touring the United States and Australia.
In the wake of directing and adapting the stage shows Peppa Pig’s
Adventure, Peppa Pig’s Party, Peppa Pig’s Treasure Hunt, Peppa Pig’s Big
Splash and Peppa Pig’s Surprise, Richard Lewis is doing likewise
for Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever, working with BAFTA award-winning composer Mani
Svavarsson.
Family travels in Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!
Produced by children’s theatre team Fierylight, in tandem with eOne,
the new adventure finds Peppa Pig excited to be going on a special
day out with George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig.
Peppa’s best day ever will involve a road‐trip full of fun
adventures. From castles to caves, dragons to dinosaurs and ice‐creams to the muddy puddles, there will be something for all Peppa’s family and their
friends Mr Bull, Suzy Sheep, Gerald Giraffe and very busy newcomer Miss
Rabbit to enjoy.
Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Competition question:
Who has written the music for Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!?
Send your answer with your name, address and daytime phone number, to charles.hutchinson104@gmail.com, marked
Peppa Pig Competition, by 1pm on Monday, March 2.
Let’s go.! Time to head out on Peppa Pig’s best day ever
Quickfire questions for Peppa Pig to answer as York beckons.
Are you excited about your road trip with your family and friends?
“Yes. Oink! Oink! Hee! Hee! Hee! I’m very excited to visit loads of
new places and I hope to make some more nice friends. I think it’s going to be
the best ever!”
What makes your best day
ever?
“Lots of adventure! I like it when we get to drive around in our
camper van and eat lots of ice cream and explore castles. And jump in muddy
puddles of course.”
What are you most looking
forward to on your road trip?
“Jumping in muddy puddles. Hee! Hee!”
Who is your favourite person
to travel with?
“My little brother, George. Oink! Oink! But he has to bring Mr Dinosaur
everywhere with him!”
Who else will join you at
the theatre?
“Mummy, Daddy, Mr Bull, Suzy Sheep, Gerald Giraffe and some of our
other friends. Even Miss Rabbit is coming. She is always so busy with all her
jobs, so it’s extra special she can come with us.”
Annie Donaghy, Big Ian Donaghy, Beth McCarthy, Heather Findlay and Jess Steel at A Night To Remember in 2019 at York Barbican. Picture: Karen Boyes
A NIGHT To Remember, tomorrow’s charity concert at York Barbican,
has sold out but any returned or cancelled tickets will go on sale this morning
from 10am.
Now in its eighth year, this annual fundraising event helps good
causes in the city to make a difference, as organiser and host Big Ian Donaghy
brings together “the finest musicians and singers for a gang show like no
other”.
Tomorrow
night, all the singers will perform as an ensemble exceeding its constituent
parts. “When you have a dream team on the stage, it seems a shame to not use
them, so everybody sings on everybody else’s songs,” reasons Big Ian.
Jess Steel: taking on “near-impossibly demanding songs” at York Barbican
A Night To Remember lets singers take on their favourite songs.
“Soulful Jess Steel will take on a Dusty Springfield classic, as well as other
near-impossibly demanding songs that she’ll deliver in the manner she’s now
well known for.
“Heather Findlay will bring her class into the mix, performing
two of her favourite songs,” says Big Ian.
Beth McCarthy, who made her debut at the Mount School when Big
Ian ran a School of Rock concert there, will be stepping out of her comfort
zone to rock the Barbican foundations.
Beth McCarthy: “Stepping out of her comfort zone to rock the Barbican foundations”
Annie Donaghy will put her spin on a George Michael classic on a
night when the set list will feature covers of Dusty Springfield, Shania Twain,
Simple Minds, Paul Simon, Michael Buble, Guns N’ Roses, Barbra Streisand, Peter
Gabriel, Elton John and Marvin Gaye classics, as well as a few surprises.
York singer Jessa Liversidge will lead her fully inclusive
Singing For All choir, a group with members aged up to 98, who will sing The
New Seekers’ I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing.
Among the men, Graham Hodge will “venture into very different
areas” as he celebrates his 70th birthday; gravel-voiced
Boss Caine, alias Dan Lucas, will tackle a country favourite that nobody would
ever guess; Hope & Social’s Gary Stewart will play the congas, as well as
singing a Paul Simon rouser.
Jessa Liversidge: bringing her Singing For All choir to York Barbican
The gig’s house band will be led by York music stalwart George
Hall, joined by powerhouse duo Rob Wilson and Simon Snaize on guitar duty.
“This year, the show has a bigger, brassier feel with a 12-piece
brass section, made up of Kempy, Pete, Stu and Chalky from my band Huge, being
joined by funk horns and brass players from York Music Forum, ranging in age
from 13 to 18, led by Ian Chalk,” says Big Ian.
He also
promises “ground-breaking, heart-warming and heart-breaking films” to raise
dementia awareness. “Watch out for surprise appearances, as previous years have
included messages from Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, The Hairy Bikers, Rick
Astley, Nick Knowles, Anton du Beke and Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson,” he says.
Oh, what A Night To Remember as singers and musicians gather at the finale of last year’s fund-raising concert at York Barbican. Picture: Ravage
“But the
real reason these musicians come together is to help St Leonard’s Hospice,
Dementia Projects in York, Bereaved Children Support York and Accessible Arts
& Media.”
Any
returned or cancelled tickets for tomorrow’s 7.30pm concert will be on sale on
0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or
in person from the Barbican box office.
Delta Saxophone Quartet: Friday night is Late Music night at the Unitarian Chapel
YORK Late Music’s 2020 season opens with
a trio of concerts next week, one on March 6, two on March 7, at the Unitarian
Chapel, St Saviourgate, York.
First up, at 7.30pm on the Friday, Delta
Saxophone Quartet celebrate the music of iconic composer Steve Martland alongside
new works by David Power and Steve Crowther in the first half.
The second half has four pieces from Project Flicks: silent film with live music featuring Frank Milward’s Brian And Banksy and David Lancaster’s Rendezvous.
Murphy McCaleb: tackling climate change in his Instruments Of Change concert
On the Saturday, York St John University senior lecturer in music Murphy McCaleb and his ensemble present Instruments Of Change, addressing the issue of climate change at 1pm.
Dr McCaleb is a bass trombonist and pianist who can turn his hands to classical, jazz, rock, pop, electronic and experimental music.
Later that day, singer Merit Ariane Stephanos’s 7.30pm concert tells the love story of the sun and the moon. Destined never to meet, their enigmatic relationship affects our lives deeply, rules our daily rhythms and fires up our imagination.
Merit Ariane Stephanos: singing songs to the sun and the moon
“The cycles of light and dark in which
they are intertwined create breath-taking displays,” says Merit, who will be
performing with Jon Banks on accordion, qanun and santur, Antonio Romero on percussion
and Baha Yetkin on oud.
“Punctuated with Shakespeare and anonymous quotes
and rhymes, our songs journey through musical styles, eras and languages,
illuminating each other in an ever-changing light.
Tickets on the door cost £5 for the lunchtime recital; £10, £8 concessions, for the evening concerts.
Awkward moment for Martin (Bryan Bounds) and son Billy (Will Fealy) in The Goat. Pictures: Matthew Kitchen
REVIEW: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Pick Me Up Theatre, John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, dropping jaws until Saturday, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com.
WELL, you won’t see a play like this every day, but I dare you still
to see it in Pick Me Up Theatre’s northern UK premiere.
Playwright Edward Albee, born in Virginia, but long associated
with New York after moving to Greenwich Village at 18, is best known for Who’s
Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?. The 1962 one, turned into a 1966 Mike Nichols film with
the almighty verbal scrap between Elizabeth Taylor’s Martha and Richard Burton’s
George.
Susannah Baines’s Stevie wonders what’s going on in The Goat
Albee wrote another play with a question mark in its title in
2002: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? The American agent provocateur of theatre of
the absurd could pour 50 years of the even more absurd into it, but essentially
it is a further study of the marital complexities of a middle-aged
couple, in this case Martin and Stevie Gray.
Except that Albee’s Broadway premiere came with
a plea from the writer: “Imagine what you can’t imagine… imagine being in love
with something you can’t conceive of. The play is about love, loss, the limits
of our tolerance and who, indeed, we really are.”
And there was more: “All I ask of an audience
is that they leave their prejudices in the cloakroom and view the play objectively
and later – at home – imagine themselves as being in the predicament the play
examines and coming up with useful, if not necessarily comfortable, responses.”
Will Fealy as Billy: announcing a talent to watch as drama school beckons
Who could sense at the start what lies in store, how famous New York architect Martin Gray’s world would soon turn to rubble as the American Dream crumbles? Played by suave American actor Bryan Bounds, who recommended the play to director Mark Hird, Gray has just turned 50, won his latest prize and been given the ultimate commission to design the World City on Kansas’s wheat fields.
Hair immaculate, life immaculate, house
immaculate in its monochrome trendiness (in Robert Readman’s design), he says
he could not be more happily in love with wife Stevie (Susannah Baines). Son
Billy (Will Fealy) is blossoming at 17, brightly questing and gay (like Albee,
who knew it at 12 and a half).
Yet Martin seems distracted, playing at forgetfulness
in banter with Stevie, and what’s that smell, she asks. When he is even more
distracted while talking with best friend Ross (Mick Liversidge), fouling up a
TV interview recording, the truth will out. Martin has fallen in love with Sylvia,
a goat (hence the smell), and the feeling is mutual, and yes, without being
graphic, the relationship is full on.
MIck Liversidge’s Ross: asking the searching questions in The Goat
Greek tragedies dive deep into the extremes of
the human condition, as do plenty of Shakespeare’s plays, and, especially,
Jacobean tragedies. The Goat puts the ‘eek’ into a modern Greek tragedy,
although it is more of a tragicomedy. Yes, you read that right. There is a liquorice-dark
humour to Albee’s brilliantly written confessions and confrontations, as well
as moments that are excruciatingly uncomfortable, as The Goat turns from domestic
situation comedy to Domestos-powerful situation tragedy.
What’s more, Hird’s thrust-stage setting, with
the audience so close up on three sides, adds to that discomfort, and not because
Baines’s Stevie starts smashing all the living-room pottery (courtesy of Fangfoss
Pottery’s Gerry Grant). No, it is the fierce heat, the candour, of what is
being said. Hird’s cast avoids histrionics; instead the rise and fall and rise
again of anger, hurt, confusion, love, is far more skilfully played by one and
all, pulling the audience this way and that.
Bounds urged Hird to cast Baines, and he was spot-on:
his Martin is infuriatingly phlegmatic, unflustered; her Stevie is an ever-tightening
coil in response, whose actions will speak louder than his words.
The Gray family: all smiles before the Sylvia storm
Son Billy is caught in the middle, and Will
Fealy, such a burgeoning talent that he has just been offered an unconditional
place at Arts.Ed in London, conveys all the confusions of illusions being shattered,
certainties derailed, while dealing with his own sexual awakening.
Mick Liversidge’s bewildered, shocked Ross sort
of represents the audience in his reactions, or does he, because the moral
ambiguities are complex, and as Albee once said, “if you think this play
is about bestiality, you’re either an idiot or a Republican”. Trump that!
Albee also said: “Never leave the audience the same way you found them”, and 90 unbroken minutes of The Goat – apart from the smashed bowls and vases – will leave you pondering relationships, family, love. As for goats, I’ll stick to loving goats’ cheese.
Please
note: this play contains adult themes and strong language; suggested minimum
age of 15.
YORK artist Lesley Birch will exhibit at Glyndebourne, the Sussex opera house home to the Glyndebourne Festival, from May to December.
“I’m very proud to have been invited,” she says. “It’s a huge privilege
and rather daunting too. I’m working on pieces now.”
Lesley has been chosen for the Forces Of Nature exhibition of paintings,
prints and ceramics in Gallery 94, located by the stalls entrance to the auditorium at the country
house in Lewes, East Sussex.
Curated by Nerissa Taysom,
the exhibition was inspired by the
strong women on stage in this year’s upcoming six festival operas, so all ten
artists will be women.
Exhibiting alongside Lesley will be Michele Fletcher, Tanya Gomez, Rachel Gracey, Kathryn Johnson, Rosie Lascelles, Kathryn Maple, Tania Rutland, Katie Sollohub and Hannah Tounsend.
The Old Town, by Lesley Birch, part of her Marks & Moments exhibition at Partisan, York
Forces
Of Nature will explore how artists represent their feelings or memories of
natural phenomena, its forms and sounds, while questioning how we confront
nature in an age of climate change.
Lesley
works out of PICA Studios, the artist collective in Grape Lane, York, and in this
typically busy year, her new Marks & Moments paintings can be savoured at Partisan, the boho
restaurant, café and arts space in Micklegate, York, in a feast of colour and
imagination until March 31.
Filling two floors, more than 50 paintings are on view, ranging from
Lesley’s Musical Abstract Collection – large canvases expressing music and
movement in nature – to little gouache gems created en plein air in the remote
village of Farindola in Abruzzo, Italy.
“Partisan is a sort of emporium full of collectable stuff, such as vintage lamps and the like, and it’s so exciting to see my paintings in this bohemian setting, reflected off the old French mirrors and hung high and low,” says Lesley, whose works are divided into colour and spring moods upstairs and dramatic landscapes downstairs. All paintings are for sale.
Forces Of Nature at Glyndebourne: Artist open houses, Sunday, May 17, 10am to 1pm, open to the public; May 21 to December 13, festival and tour ticket holders only.
