John O’Connor as Mr Charles Dickens, presenting A Christmas Carol at the De Grey Rooms Ballroom
IN 1858, Charles Dickens came to Yorkshire to give public readings of A Christmas Carol, including in York on September 10 that year.
From next Tuesday to Saturday, in the De Grey Rooms Ballroom, next to York Theatre Royal, John O’Connor invites you to “experience what it must have been like to have been in the audience” as he transforms himself into Mr Dickens to present a heart-warming evening with the author himself, in the spirit of Christmas past, present and future.
“It’s one of the richest stories in English literature,” says John, whose one-man show will be staged by the European Arts Company at 7.45pm nightly. “Like all great works of art, it’s infinitely adaptable and has never fallen out of fashion.
“Its themes of loneliness, compassion, forgiveness, social inequality, money, family and redemption are as relevant today as in 1843 when it was written. As soon as the story was published, several stage versions appeared on the London stage and this tradition has continued to the present day. From Doctor Who to The Muppets, the story is constantly being reinterpreted for new audiences in interesting ways.”
What makes O’Connor’s performance distinctive amid the annual glut of A Christmas Carol shows? “Charles Dickens came to York and gave a public performance of A Christmas Carol on September 10 1858. What must it have been like to have been in the audience 161 years ago? By all accounts, Dickens completely captivated everyone lucky enough to see him. In this show, we try and recreate that experience for the audience,” says John.
“Our production takes place in the De Grey Rooms, a beautiful Georgian ballroom that provides the perfect backdrop. Many adaptations tend to overplay the sentimental side of A Christmas Carol, but it’s also a very dark story written as a cry of anger against the Poor Laws, which unjustly punished the dispossessed of society, especially children, through the workhouse system.
“It’s fascinating to hear Dickens balance the sentimental with the fantastical and the political to create an incredibly powerful piece of theatre.”
Although we tend to think of poverty as being a 19th-century problem, the charity Barnardo’s estimates that more than three million children live in poverty in Britain today.
“This is why we’re raising money for the Great Ormond Street Hospital charity to help transform the lives of modern-day Tiny Tims this Christmas.,” says John. “Our show is an authentic glimpse into the heart of the story, in a gorgeous atmospheric setting, and in aid of a good cause.”
By O’Connor taking on the guise of Charles Dickens, his audience receives the story directly from the author himself. “At its best, the show is like a conversation with the author,” he says. “We use Dickens’s original public-reading script, so it’s fascinating to see what he highlights in the telling of it and how he takes us on Scrooge’s redemptive journey.”
Unlike Dickens, however, Euroepan Arts Company’s production has the benefit of modern theatre techniques, such as lighting, sound effects and video projections, to take the audience on a transformative trip.
“It’s a very emotional journey and the audience laughs and cries along with the author himself,” says John, who will be dressed in Dickens mode and plays all the characters.
“I’ve researched and studied the way Dickens performed it and use some of these techniques in the show,” he says. “However, there are also some authentic parts of Dickens’s performance that I’ve chosen to leave out.
“For example, how he prepared for a reading: two tablespoons of rum mixed with cream for breakfast, a pint of champagne for tea and, half an hour before he went on stage, a glass of sherry with a raw egg beaten into it!”
European Arts Company presents John O’Connor in A Christmas Carol, De Grey Rooms Ballroom, York Theatre Royal, York, December 17 to 21, 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Mark Little at the press day to launch Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: David Harrison
MARK Little has to decide on the colour for his pantomime goatee beard when playing the evil Lord Chamberlain in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at the Grand Opera House, York.
“It was purple two years ago, green last Christmas, maybe black and white this time,” says the ex-pat Australian actor, comedian, writer, television presenter and 2019 Dancing On Ice contestant, who will be appearing in his 15th panto from tomorrow (December 12) to January 4.
After starting out playing the “silly billy” daft lad, he has since settled into the baddie’s role. “You get to an age in pantomime where you become a bit old for the fool, which needs a lot of energy,” says Mark. “I reached a point where I thought, ‘where do I fit in’? Ah, the baddie.”
Now 60, Snow White will be his eighth panto since switching to the dark side. “My villains tend to be crazed rather than evil. Unhinged. More Maggie on acid, than Boris! Unnerving,” he says.
“I don’t make my baddies creepy. I call the children ‘stinkers’, and the more I insult them, the more angry they get with me, and they know the more they show dissent, the more I react, but they know that good has to triumph over evil, so I love to hear them booing.
“There’s a lot going on right now to make us want to boo, but theatre is a safe environment to do it. That’s one of the reasons theatre is there for, especially panto, to mock things we don’t agree with, celebrate things we love and reflect on where we’re going.
“So I like to ‘place’ my baddie in that present time. Like Trump not being acceptable, and we have a licence to openly mock that.”
After making his name as Joe Mangel in the Australian soap Neighbours from 1988 to 1991, Mark has lived in Britain for 25 years, 20 of them in Brighton before moving to Wood Green, London, to be close to his grandchildren.
The great cape: A swirling Mark Little in evil Lord Chamberlain mode for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Picture: David Harrison.
He has presented The Big Breakfast, appeared regularly on The Wright Stuff and Big Brother’s Bit On The Side and toured his one-man show Defending The Caveman, playing the Grand Opera House in 2007 and York Theatre Royal in 2010. Pantomime has become a fixture on his calendar in Britain, but back in Australia, it is a different story.
“There’s no such thing. Australia doesn’t have theatre in its DNA. Sport, yes, but culture’s put to one side. It’s all sport. You have to have a number on your back! But here in the UK, Brits are going to the theatre from the age of six and playing football. You do both.
“As I was growing up, all our television came over from Britain. It’s not a mystery that I ended up living here because we were brought up on all that culture.”
Gradually Australia sought its identity through film, whereas “even Neighbours took a while for Australia to connect with,” says Mark. “It wasn’t heralded the same way it was over here. It was ‘the show with the sets that wobbled’. But it was celebrated here.”
Neighbours went from being “the soap that no-one noticed in Australia” to,” whoosh, a show that really took off”. Mark arrived in Britain to perform his own comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe just as the first series began to be aired over here, two years behind Australia.
“I wasn’t ready for what happened next. Joe Mangel took over!” he says. “That’s a phenomenon I’ll never recover from. If the Brits get into something they love, they hold on hard and strong. Joe Mangel will live with me forever.
“I ended up presenting The Big Breakfast, having done that type of TV in Australia on Zoo TV, and they thought I could do the same thing here. My style of comedy is fairly crazy, anarchic, plenty of mayhem. People trusted Joe Mangel, so I was ‘Johnny Foreigner taking the mick and mocking British culture’, which they don’t like usually here, but they’d taken to Joe Mangel, so they loved it.
“My comedy suited that Tiswas style, and it’s the kind of show that TV looks like it’s crying out for now.”
Mark Little, left, with his Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs co-stars, Steve Wickenden, Martin Daniels, Louise Henry, Jonny Muir, and Vicki Michelle. Picture: David Harrison
At the time of this interview, Mark was sporting a full beard from a three-week shoot filming the low-budget independent film Passing Through in the South of France. “David Hall, a playwright and theatre director, wrote the part for me,” he says.
“It’s his first feature film, and I play an Australian teacher who’s been in Britain for 25 years and decides to go to the South of France with his new wife, on her new anti-depressants, to try to forge a new life amid the gypsies,” he says.
“But along comes his estranged son to remind him of his old life. All their problems come up and we see if they can be rectified or not.
“It’s not a car-chase film! It’s not chick.lit! It’s a bit old-fashioned in style with an international flavour. It’s taking a cathartic look at a modern relationship, a modern family, in an anti-depressant world, where they’re trying to deal with the past and the present by creating a new future when he has his redundancy money.”
Metaphysical in tone, Passing Through is set at a time “when it’s hard to be happy, and what is happiness anyway?”, says Mark. “It doesn’t come up with schmaltzy answers. My character just thinks we better have some fun making a future.”
By comparison, pantomime is a world of certainty where good will defeat evil, and Mark Little’s grandchildren will enjoy every chance to “boo Pop”.
Mark Little stars in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Grand Opera House, York, from December 12 to January 4 2020.Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york
“I found it to be a good place for seeing the forest through the trees,” says Gill Landry, who wrote Skeleton At The Banquet while staying in a French village
GILL Landry, the two-time Grammy-winning American singer, songwriter and
guitarist, is booked into The Crescent in York for February 12 2020 on his
ten-date British tour.
The Old Crow Medicine Show alumnus and founder
member of The Kitchen Syncopators will be promoting his fifth solo album, Skeleton
At The Banquet.
Released on Loose Music on January 24 2020, Landry’s follow-up to 2017’s Love Rides A Dark Horse was preceded by his November single, I Love You Too.
Recorded and produced in Los Angeles by Landry and Seth Ford-Young, who has worked previously with Tom Waits and Edward Sharpe, Skeleton At The Banquet features Landry on vocals, guitars, pedal steel, keys and harmonica, Ford-Young on bass, Josh Collazo on drums, Stewart Cole on trumpet and Odessa Jorgensen on violin.
The album artwork for Gill Landry’s new album, Skeleton At The Banquet, to be released next month
“This album is a series of reflections and thoughts on the collective
hallucination that is America, with a love song or two thrown in for good
measure,” says Landry. who also uses the stage name of Frank Lemon, by the way.
“I wrote it from within the refuge of a small flat in a small village in
western France, where I spent last summer. I found it to be a good place for
seeing the forest through the trees, so to speak.”
Landry, originally from Lake Charles, Louisiana, will open his British
dates at the Americana Music Association UK’s festival in London on January 28.
Tickets for February 12 are on sale at £12 at Earworm Records, Powells Yard, Goodramgate, York, from The Crescent or online via the crescentyork.com.
Landry will play a further Yorkshire gig at The Lantern, Halifax, on February 16. Box office: 01422 341003 or thelanternhalifax.co.uk.
Rainbow chasers: Shed Seven on the road again for December
Shed Seven, Shedcember Tour 2019, Leeds First Direct Arena, December 7
SHED Seven, December 7, and they must be in heaven. Sixteen
years after York’s only ever Top Ten band split – a case of Britpop crackle,
then snap – they are at a maximum high, playing to their biggest ever indoor
crowd down the A64 in Leeds, where Manchester’s Happy Mondays had to settle for
the smaller Leeds O2 Academy. You’re twisting their lemon, man.
First re-forming in 2007, going for concert gold again, the
Sheds have since made their Shedcember winter tours a regular fixture, this
year playing their record run of 23 shows between November 21 and December 21,
with Leeds Arena at the epicentre.
This has been the year when “Britpop’s meat and potatoes band”
had their Going For Gold compilation dipped in molten gold for a 20th
anniversary deluxe vinyl reissue, and frontman Rick Witter enjoyed a November
natter and a tipple-tasting session on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. Overdue
respect of sorts, first from their former major label, Polydor, who had jettisoned
them while the hits were still flowing, High Hopes dashed, and then a
long-running chat-and-chomp show.
However, the Shed renaissance is built on their raucous, beer-swilling,
body-still-willing, terrace-chant live shows, peaking across the Pennines in
Summer 2018 when 8,000 gathered at Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl one June
night.
By now, their set lists have been bolstered by 2017’s
“comeback” album, Instant Pleasures, their first since 2001’s Artful work,
Truth Be Told (a record entirely absent from Saturday’s 19-song setlist).
These Shedcember shows are bigger, brighter in their
lighting, filmed up close on the video screens, and bolstered in Leeds by
boisterous support slots from Birmingham’s The Twang and Sheffield’s Reverend
And The Makers.
Shout-out: Shed Seven had a message for Mrs Craig Lilley at Saturday’s gig
Striding on to The Magnificent Seven theme tune, it was T-shirts
for Witter and guitarist Paul Banks, Breton-striped top for guitarist and
keyboards player Joe Johnson, shirts for bassist Tom Gladwin and high-rise
drummer Alan Leach. There is still nothing flash about the Sheds, save for the
lightning bolt on Banks’s T and the glistening sheen of the regularly employed
brass trio.
They started with the swaggering Room In My House, the
instant pleasure from Instant Pleasures, later represented by Enemies &
Friends (the night’s one lull), Better Days, an even better It’s Not Easy and knock-out
first encore Invincible.
The Shedlist was dominated by fan favourites, from debut
single Mark, through exhilarating versions of She Left Me On Friday, Dolphin
and Bully Boy, before the one surprise as Going For Gold segued into its distant
third cousin, U2’s Angel Of Harlem, on a suitably cold and wet December day, where
by now no-one’s feet were touching the ground in the standing zone.
Parallel Lines, a cautionary tale as viewed today from the
distance of fatherhood and “day jobs” in the Sheds’ latter forties, assumed its
rightful place as the set’s extended closer. The night ended, as it always must,
with the riotous Disco Down and all-our-yesterdays Chasing Rainbows, matching
the multi-colour lighting chosen to cloak the Arena’s chameleon reptile skin.
Oh, and Mrs Craig Lilley, should you by a miracle be reading
this, you were roundly booed after Witter revealed you had made your husband stay
in, despite his ticket in his pocket. Rather than the room in your house, here’s
where you should have been tonight, both of you.
Double bill: The tour poster for Go West and Paul Young’s 2020 show at York Barbican
EIGHTIES chart heavyweights Go West and Paul Young will hit the road
next year as a double bill that will visit York Barbican on September 13.
Formed in 1982 by Peter Cox and
Richard Drummie, Go West scored such hits as We Close Our Eyes, Call Me and Don’t
Look Down and were voted Best Newcomer at the 1986 BRIT Awards. In 1990, their
song King Of Wishful Thinking featured on the soundtrack for Pretty
Woman, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere’s romantic hit.
After fronting Streetband and Q-Tips, Paul Young
went solo, his career taking off with the 1983 album No Parlez and such singles
as the chart-topping Wherever I Lay My Hat, Love Of The Common People, Everytime
You Go Away and Everything Must Change. He won a BRIT Award for Best Male
Vocalist and sung the opening lines on the original 1984 Band Aid single, Do
They Know It’s Christmas? (Feed The World), also performing at Live Aid at
Wembley Stadium in July 1985.
Young, 63, is a keen chef, biker and fan of all
things Mexicana, not least touring with his Tex Mex/Americana band Los
Pacaminos.
Tickets for Go West and Paul Young’s co-headline gig are on sale on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Gourmet Graham: Rowntree Players’ dame, Graham Smith, in one of myriad guises in Sinbad
Sinbad, Rowntree Players, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk
HOWARD Ella and Andy Welch are at the helm of their sixth Rowntree Players pantomime, Sinbad.
If they are all at sea, it is only in a
good way, because this writing team is so skilled and quick witted now that their
sea-faring adventure/misadventure is plain sailing to a big success. Tickets
are at a premium, so don’t delay. In fact, book now, then resume reading this
review…
…Director Ella and his co-writer and
Old Man of the Sea, Welch, have delved into The Arabian Nights: Tales Of One
Thousand And One Nights and then decided to give it a blast of bracing Yorkshire
sea air: Whitby and Scarborough Harborough, as it seemed to be called at one
point at Sunday’s raucous matinee.
It starts in olden storytelling mode,
but Ella and Welch quickly establish they will be putting the naughty into
nautical. That means Irreverent, rather than saucy, although Graham Smith’s
dame, Tilly Tinbad, will sail pretty close to the wind, without ever being as
blue as the Scarbadian sea.
More of Graham later. First, there are a
couple of Brexit jokes from narrator Welch that both Leave and Remain camps can
enjoy (but maybe not after Thursday’s General Election result). Even climate
change pops up.
Sinfully good: Laura White’s outstanding Abadun in Sinbad
Laura White’s villainous, spiteful
Abadun is out to spoil everyone’s party, turning Geoff Walker’s King Olaf into the
Monkey King (cue plenty of funny monkey business and cartwheels from Josh Roe).
Can the two Hannahs, Hannah King’s resolute
Sinbad and Hannah Temple’s plucky Princess Talida, find the Old Man of The Sea
to revoke the spell and defeat vainglorious Abadun and dogged dogsbody
Neckbeard (Sian Walshaw)?
Who else could be on hand to help/hinder
them but the redoubtable mother-and-son comedy double act of Hapless Smith and
McDonald, Graham and Gemma’s very silly Tilly and Gilly Tinbad.
You surely remember Madonna’s iconic cone bra? Smith makes the dame’s entrance wearing squashed ice cream cones, an amusing Scarborough variation with another cone for a hat. This is but one of many fab-u-lous costumes assembled by Leni Ella, Pam Davies, Jackie Holmes and Heather King to complement Howard Ella, Paul Mantle and Lee Smith’s delightful sets, ship decks, ultraviolet submarine and psychedelic rocks.
Hannah King’s Sinbad, front left, Hannah Temple’s Princess Talida, centre, and Laura White’s Abadun in the climactic sword fight on deck
Smith’s ever-so-slightly tetchy brand
of Les Dawson dame and McDonald’s cartoon-esque sidekick in a shrunk Annie wig,
daft voice and all, are comedy gold, rich with quickfire interchanges, whether reeling
off every fish name under the sea or a series of words that rhyme with “sailor”.
Here’s one: “he retired from the panto but didn’t leave…Berwick Kaler!”
The marriage of Ella and Welch’s waspish
wit and Smith and McDonald’s irrepressible playfulness grows ever more
fulfilling by the year. As promised by Welch too, the duo’s slosh scene below
deck is their best yet, so well timed in its physical clowning.
Smith’s running gag of playing a heap of
helpful aunts – with terrible accents, as McDonald teases him – is another joy,
but please don’t think this is merely their show.
Far from it. King, Temple and Walshaw
thrive in action and song; Welch has his moment in Old Man beard, wig and cape,
leading the ever-responsive ensemble like Wizzard’s Roy Wood in one of the show’s
best set-piece numbers, Light At The End Of Tunnel.
Better still is White’s Abadun, to the
villainous manner born, with a dash of panache in song and dance, an eye for
humour and a singing voice that keeps hitting new peaks in The Smell Of
Rebellion.
Musical director Jessica Douglas is on
top form with her band, and when they combine with Ami Carter’s choreography
for the likes of Pretty Little Gangplank (as in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and
Blondie’s One Or Way, in the climactic fight scene, the results are both spectacular
and fun.
If you still haven’t bought a ticket, despite
the earlier advice, do so NOW for this ridiculous, but ridiculously good
Rowntree riot of a pantomime.
Wainwright times three: Loudon Wainwright III with Suzzy Roche and their daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche, playing Pockington next autumn
LOUDON Wainwright III, the North Carolina songwriter, folk musician,
humorist and actor, will play Pocklington Arts Centre on October 3 next year.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am on Wednesday (December 11), as indeed they
will for Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of authors turned musicians, making their
Pock debut on May 30.
Grammy Award-winning Wainwright, 73, will be joined by Suzzy Roche and their daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche at next autumn’s gig, the smallest venue of his 2020 British tour.
They will perform their own songs, complemented by a
selection by songwriters they admire, such as Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty,
Stevie Nicks and Baker Knight.
Over the course of 23 albums of acerbic, wry writing, Wainwright’s
songs have been covered by Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Earl Scruggs, Mose Allison,
Big Star, Freakwater, Norma Waterson, [late former wife] Kate and Anna
McGarrigle and son Rufus Wainwright.
Arts centre director Janet Farmer says: “Our auditorium is no stranger to welcoming music legends to the stage and Loudon Wainwright III is certainly no exception. We’ve previously welcomed his daughter Martha to Pocklington in August 2013, so we’re delighted to be featuring in Loudon’s forthcoming tour.
“This will be a very rare opportunity to see such a big name from the music world perform within the intimate surroundings of our auditorium.
“But with only a handful of UK dates lined up and Pocklington
Arts Centre being the smallest venue, this is likely to sell out fast, so I
would recommend you get your tickets as early as possible.”
Three Wainwright albums have been nominated for Grammy awards: 1985’s I’m Alright, 1986’s More Love Songs and 2009’s High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, winner of the Best Traditional Folk Album prize in January 2010. Wainwright also has appeared in such films as The Aviator, Big Fish, Elizabethtown, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, for which he composed the score with Joe Henry.
Read the riot act: Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers could murder a good tune at Pocklington Arts Centre next May
Meanwhile, prepare for a different form of murder on the
dancefloor next spring, committed by fiction supergroup Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers.
Harrogate Theakston Old
Peculier Crime Writing Festival stalwarts Mark Billingham and Val McDermid, together
with Chris Brookmyre, Luca
Veste, Doug Johnstone and Stuart Neville, will put down their pens and pick up guitars to “happily murder”
much-loved songs by The Clash, Elvis Costello, Hank Williams, The Beatles,
Talking Heads, The Jam, Johnny Cash
and many others “considering legal action”, apparently.
Between them, the writers have
sold more than 20 million books worldwide and won every major crime-writing
award. Now they swap page for stage to discover if the sword/axe is
mightier than the pen after all.
So far, their set list of
killer tunes has survived in tact at Glastonbury Festival, Cornbury
Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. Now
they must rock in Pock.
“The very concept of crime
writers putting their own killer spin on well-known songs is simply brilliant,
so we can’t wait to bring them to Pocklington for what promises to be a
thrilling night of live music literally like no other,” says Janet Farmer.
Last month, the arts
centre played host to a sold-out evening of poetry readings, questions and
answers and book signings by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, when Pocklington School
students were among the audience.
Tickets cost £44 for Wainwright, £23 for The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Cellist Cara Berridge: “Displayed beautifully rounded, resonant tone”
York Symphony Orchestra (YSO)/Venn; Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, December 8
YORK Symphony Orchestra’s newish conductor Edward Venn likes to take risks – and with the largest work on Sunday’s menu he was notably successful.
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony overtly moves from tragedy to triumph. Beneath the surface, it is heavily laced with irony: Stalin’s Great Purge threatened the composer himself. The performance reflected this.
The violins quickly recovered from a tentative opening and thereafter never looked back. The central march accelerated majestically and the change to the major key was nicely controlled, before a chilling close with celeste to the fore. The scherzo provided just the comic relief we needed, Claire Jowett’s solo violin leading the way.
With the brass side-lined, first the strings, then the woodwinds conjured a rapt, almost religious, intensity in the Largo, typified by the trio of harp and two flutes. The finale’s mounting crescendo, with brass back in the fray, kindled anger rather than triumph, despite the brief oasis of calm. It was a splendid achievement, owing much to Venn’s impressive familiarity with the score.
Earlier, as soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Cara Berridge displayed beautifully rounded, resonant tone. But in a work notorious for its stop-go pitfalls, she and Venn too rarely took the same view of the music. The result was tuneful but episodic, too many trees and not enough wood. The orchestra sustained a respectful diffidence. Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave had made a bold, brash curtain-raiser. But the Shostakovich was something else.
Kate Rusby in Holly Head mode for her fifth Christmas album. Picture: David Lindsay
BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby has released her fifth
album of South Yorkshire carols and original winter songs, Holly Head, so named
on account of her love of Christmas music.
As with her fellow festive collections on her Pure Records label, 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over and 2017’s Angels And Men, it is being promoted by a Kate Rusby At Christmas tour with Kate’s regular band and brass quintet.
Songs range from the Rusby original The Holly King, to a
cover of John Rox’s novelty Christmas number Hippo For Christmas, via the
carols Salute The Morn and Kate’s sixth version of While Shepherds Watched and
God’s Own Country variations, Yorkshire Three Ships and Bleak Midwinter
(Yorkshire).
Now part way through her 14-date concert series, Kate answers Charles Hutchinson’s questions ahead of Yorkshire Christmas shows at Leeds Town Hall on December 13 and York Barbican on December 18.
Five
Christmas albums, Kate. Five! That must surely be a record? What keeps drawing
you back to make another recording for the Yule season?
“I know, five albums, how on
Earth has that happened?! It’s also album number 18 of mine, which I can’t
believe either. Where have all those years gone? I still love making music and
touring, so that time has whizzed by in a flash.
“The Christmas side of things began for
me in the ‘pub sings’ around South Yorkshire. We were taken along as kids; our
parents would be in the main room singing away, while us kids were sat with the
other kids in the tap room, colouring and drinking pop, unaware that the carols
and Christmas songs were seeping into our brains!”
“I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a ‘Holly Head’,” says Kate. “You know, like car fanatics are petrol heads.” Picture: David Lindsay
What
happened next?
“It was only when I’d started touring around the country, I realised the ‘pub sings’ are quite specific to South Yorkshire and people were unaware of these amazing songs we have.
“They’re mostly songs thrown out of the churches by the Victorians as they were thought to be far too happy! Ha! Those who loved singing them took them to the pubs, where you could combine a good old sing with beer and a natter, and there the songs have remained and kept alive, being passed down the generations.
“I decided to start the Christmas tour
to take the songs out around the country to show them off and share them out
again. It’s just perfect when we go back to a town again and they’re singing
the songs back to us. It brings me such happiness. Like, ‘my work is done
here’!”
And the
Christmas albums keep coming too…
“There are so many songs still to go at, I’ve no idea how many I’ll end up doing. I am a Holly Head, after all!”
What’s the story behind Hippo For Christmas, the quirkiest song on Holly Head? One for the Rusby daughters, no doubt!
“Aw, it’s such a brilliant song! I came across it while I was researching for the album. I love how it’s the magic of Christmas through the child’s eyes, ‘cos why on Earth would Father Christmas not be able to bring a hippo? He’s magic, right?
“But, of course,, once it’s there, how do you look after it? The brass arrangement on that track is just a delight; you can’t help but smile as they play it. It’s a big tuba moment! They don’t get many moments, tubas, do they? Well, it does on this song!”
While
Shepherds Watched is the Christmas carol that keeps giving! Another one has
popped up on the new album…
“Well, there’s over 30 different versions of While Shepherds Watched that get sung in the pubs here in South Yorkshire, so I’ve still got a lot to go at! This one is actually to the tune of a different song that I also love, but I wasn’t that keen on the words, then realised it went with the While Shepherds words, so yey, another has now been invented.”
Holly and the ivy: The album artwork for Kate Rusby’s new winter album
What is a
Holly Head exactly, Kate?!
“Ha ha!! Well, I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a ‘Holly Head’. You know, like car fanatics are petrol heads. I thought it was the perfect title for such people, and I’m a fully paid-up member of the Holly Head club! ”
What is
the most significant Christmas song on this album for you? One of your own
compositions?
“Oooh, am I allowed to choose one of my
own? Well, OK, I will, I’ll choose The Holly King. It celebrates the more
pagan side of Christmas. I wrote it after reading about the winter king, The
Holly King, and the summer king, The Ivy King.
“Legend has it that the two met twice a
year and had almighty battles. Going into winter, the Holly King would win and
reign for the winter months. Then the Ivy King would wake and overthrow the
Holly King and reign through the summer months, and on they went in a perfect
cycle.
“I just loved the images that it
conjured up and a song came flowing out. I gave him a wife, The Queen of Frost,
who creeps across the land to be with him for his time. In fact, I’m writing
her song at the moment, so she will appear on the next Christmas album, I’m
sure!”
How will you be adorning the stage for the 2019 Christmas shows? Maybe a new reindeer?
“Ooh yes, I can’t tell you too much or it won’t be a surprise. What I can confirm, though, is Ruby Reindeer will be taking her place on stage again; it’d be too strange without her now.
“We have a completely new set this
year…and there will definitely be sparkles.”
Who is in
your Christmas tour line-up this time?
“Ooh, this year we have me, hubby Damien
O’Kane on guitars and electric tenor guitars, Duncan Lyall, double bass and
Moog; Stevie Byrnes, bouzouki and guitar; Nick Cooke, diatonic accordion and
sleigh bells (ha!); Josh Clark, percussion, and our lovely, fabulous brass
boys, Rich Evans, Gary Wyatt, Robin Taylor, Mike Levis and Sam Pearce.
“So, 11 of us altogether on stage, and six crew, I think, and of course not forgetting Ruby Reindeer!”
What do
you most want for Christmas, Kate?
“A big lump of Cornish Kern cheese – it won best cheese in the world last year and is just gorgeous – and a bottle of Bread and Butter white wine to go along with it. It’s a big creamy white; just love it.”
Kate Rusby At Christmas, Leeds Town Hall, December 13 and York Barbican, December 18. Box office:Leeds, 0113 376 0318 or at leedstownhall.co.uk/whats-on/; York, 0203 356 5441, yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Golden moment: Kate Rusby received the Gold Badge from English Folk Dance & Song Society earlier this month. Picture: David Angel
On a separate note
ON
December 4, Kate Rusby received the English Folk Dance & Song Society Gold Badge,
in recognition of her 25-year contribution to folk music.
Among past winners were Cecil Sharp in 1923; Ralph Vaughan
Williams, 1943; Ewan MacCoIl, 1987; Peggy Seeger, 1987; Shirley Collins, 2003,
and Eliza Carthy, 2007.
Congratulations
on your Gold Badge, Kate. What does this award mean to you? Just look at the
names that have gone before!
“Aw, thank you. Goodness
me, I still can’t believe it. It’s just amazing to be considered for this award
as it’s recognition of my work from the massive organisation who work to
preserve and document folk music and dance.
“I’ve done various gigs at Cecil Sharp House over the years, the building where they’re based in London. One time, they let me use the library as a dressing room and, oh my word, I was like a child in a sweet shop with all the ballad books. In fact, I think I may have been late on stage due to reading the books.
“But, yes, a real honour to be added to
the list of Gold Badge winners. My love of the music has kept me entranced all
these years, so to be given this award is just incredible.
“It was presented to me at our gig at
in Sheffield City Hall, when it was also my [46th] birthday that
day; what an amazing birthday present.”
CARA Berridge will be the guest soloist for tonight’s performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor. the centrepiece of York Symphony Orchestra’s Winter Concert in York.
Conducted by Edward Venn, the 7.30pm programme at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, also features Tchaikovsky’s March Slave and and Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 in D Minor.
Tickets cost £15, concessions £13, children and students £5, at yso.org.uk, from orchestra members or on the door.
