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Why Steve Wickenden will be “getting Nurse Brexit done” from Thursday as Snow White’s dame

The “softer side” of Steve Wickenden’s dame, Nurse Brexit, in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: David Harrison.

STEVE Wickenden suddenly had to divide himself into two in last winter’s Cinderella And The Golden Slipper.

This time he is playing a dame with a most divisive name, Nurse Brexit, in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs as the cheeky southerner returns north for his fourth successive Grand Opera House pantomime in York.

“I’m always one for a challenge. I love a challenge, and that’s what happened last year when we lost Ken [fellow Ugly Sister Ken Morley] from the show when he was taken ill at the first Friday matinee,” recalls Steve.

“I love Ken, he’s a dear friend, and it was sad he couldn’t continue, but then there had to be that element of ‘Come on, let’s make something of this’.

“By Saturday morning we were re-blocking the show on stage after I re-worked the songs on the Friday, with me now doing both Ugly Sisters’ lines.”

Ken Morley: Steve Wickenden’s fellow Ugly Sister in Cinderella And The Golden Slipper last year before illness struck the former Coronation Street soap star. Picture: David Harrison

Steve Wickenden’s rival sibling double act as Ugly Sisters Calpol and Covonia pretty much stole the show, but he says: “When you’re working with people you trust and that trust you, like Martin Daniels and John Collins, they’ll have your back. It was the younger ones in the cast who were more nervous at first, but the thing about panto is you just have to get on with it, as the rehearsal process is so quick you just have to crack on.”

Was Steve paid double for his impromptu one-man double act? “I’m still waiting. Funny that!” he says.

Certainly, audiences more than had their money’s worth from Wickenden’s extra-quick wit. “That was the thing. The audiences were really sympathetic and just went with it, once it had been explained why there was only me when they were expecting two Ugly Sisters. Our audiences here are very understanding and supportive and that’s why they keep coming back.”

Last winter’s show turned into a learning curve for Steve. “The main thing I learnt is that normally, playing the dame, if I have a spot, a gag, a routine, I can do whatever I want. It just affects me, but what happened last time made me think about partnerships, and they’re about the other person and that relationship,” he says.

“It’s taught me to be more mindful of other people I’m working with in the rehearsal room, where it’s all so quick you tend to only think of yourself.”

Steve Wickenden’s Nurse Brexit with fellow Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs cast members Louise Henry, Jonny Muir, Vicki Michelle, Martin Daniels and Mark Little on the Grand Opera House stage. Picture: David Harrison

Playing Ugly Sister was harsh and mean spirited by comparison with his latest dame, Nurse Brexit. “I’m looking forward to being someone softer this time, after the nasty wicked Ugly Sisters. She’s more gentle, and I’ve been working with Martin, who’s playing Muddles this year, to maximise our comic relationship, to create comedy vignettes for us.”

There ain’t nothing like the dame in panto, reckons Steve. “This is THE part to play. When I first came into panto, I always wanted to play dame. I’d done bits and pieces of comic roles and straight roles, but I always felt most comfortable doing this role,” he says.

“I started quite young at 27; they took a punt with me at the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, when I played Hyacinth Horseradish in Rapunzel. It’s not a panto that’s done very often, but what was great was that it was a very Mother Goose-type role in a very dame-driven show, so it really gave me the full first experience.

“I remember they said I was ‘very good but far too pretty’ as this beautiful young thing as I didn’t do make-up like I do it now.”

Steve had been the youngest auditionee in the room, but he took everything in his stride. “My agent had fixed it up for me because I’d kept saying ‘I really want to play dame’ when people had said, ‘you’re really good but come back in two years’.

“The main thing I took from that was ‘be ugly’, and I can’t believe how lucky I was to be given that first chance, but the even luckier thing was then to come here, to the Grand Opera House, and develop my character and ‘find’ my dame,” he says.

“I remember they said I was ‘very good but far too pretty’ as this beautiful young thing as I didn’t do make-up like I do it now,” says Steve Wickenden, recalling his first pantomime dame at the age of 27.

“I really play on my ‘inner southerner’, taken from my grandmother and great grandmother, and that southern turn of phrase works really well in a northern theatre, where it’s a bit alien, and the dame is a bit alien anyway, and doing it in a northern theatre makes it stranger still!”

He can’t wait for opening show on Thursday (December 12) when he starts to “get Nurse Brexit done”, right on cue on General Election night. “One of the things I said about my first year here was the warmth coming off the audience towards me, which, to an extent, I’ve not been able to have since then because of the characters I’ve played: Mirabelle in Beauty And The Beast and the Ugly Sisters,” says Steve.

“I’m looking forward to having that warmth again, rather than last year’s boos, but it’s always exciting because it’s dame again but in a new setting. I just love coming back here and I think it’s become my second home now.”

In the year since he was last in York, Steve has been busy directing a children’s theatre show, the musical Annie, doing plenty of teaching, and performing with his Fifties’ rock’n’roll band The Bandits, even headlining The Vintage Rock’n’Roll Festival in the South West, “just beyond Stonehenge”.

“I’d love to do a rock’n’roll number in the panto. Why not? Maybe Tutti Frutti!” he says. “I always say that one of the wonderful things about here is that there’s absolutely no expectation that the dame will sing well. You can screech!”

Steve Wickenden plays Nurse Brexit in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Grand Opera House, York, December 12 to January 4 2020. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york

Charles Hutchinson

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Frank Turner finds himself in No Man’s Land as York Barbican bow beckons

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.

Charles Hutchinson

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Britten and America unite for The Ebor Singers’ transatlantic Christmas concert

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.

Charles Hutchinson

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Katharina Klug sends her ceramic vessels into space at Lotte Inch Gallery

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.

Charles Hutchinson

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The funniest Nativity play in York this Christmas? Head to Flint Street

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.

Creative Team

Director and designer: Nik Briggs 

Assistant director: Jonny Holbek 

Musical director: Jessica Douglas

Cast 

Mary: Fiona Baistow 

Wise Gold: Verity Carr

Star: Matthew Clarke

Wise Frankincense: Jack Hooper 

Angel: Louise Leaf 

Innkeeper: Paul Mason 

Angel Gabriel: Florence Poskitt

Narrator: Andrew Roberts 

Shepherd: Chloe Shipley

Herod/Joseph: Conor Wilkinson 

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Rob Beckett and Ed Byrne are having a laugh at York Barbican

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.

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All rise for Martin Barrass, new queen of York Theatre Royal’s pantomime

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.

By Charles Hutchinson

Copyright of The Press, York

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Philip Parr gives fresh refugee perspective to Nativity for York at Spurriergate Centre

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.

Charles Hutchinson

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Badapple tackle global warming in Christmas show The Snow Dancer

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.

7, Bempton & Buckton Community Hall, YO15 1HS; 0844 500 5121/07849 639650

8, Sand Hutton & Claxton Village Hall YO41 1LL; 01904 468525 / 468001

10, Danby Wiske Village Hall, DL7 0LY; 01609 771117.

11, Skipsea Village Hall, YO25 8TJ; 01262 469714.

12, Dalton le Dale Parish Hall, SR7 8QP; 0191 581 3726.

13, Biddulph Moor Village Hall, ST8 7HP; 01782 523573.

14, Fairfield Village Hall, B61 9LZ; 07762 749943.

15, Bubbenhall Village Hall, CV8 3BD; 02476 305931.

17, Appletreewick Village Hall, BD23 6DD; 01423 339168.

18, Stillingfleet Village Institute, YO19 6SJ; 01423 339168.

19, Portholme Church, Selby, YO8 4QH; 01423 339168 or tickets@portholmechurch.org.uk.

20, Green Hammerton Village Hall, YO26 8AB; 01423 339168.

21, Bingley Arts Centre, BD16 2LZ; 01274 567983 or bingleyartscentre.co.uk.

22, Campsall Village Hall, to be confirmed.

27, Markington War Memorial Institute, HG3 3NR; 01423 771748 or 01423 339168.

28, St Alban’s Church, Hull, HU6 8SA; 07401 179 927.

29, Yarm Fellowship Hall, TS15 9BT; 01642 888786.

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Santa’s in love and Aladdin’s wishing for magic at Pocklington Arts Centre

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.