YORK drag
queen supreme Velma Cella is to appear in thousands of living rooms across the
country – and around the world – in an uplifting live concert, streamed
tomorrow evening.
Velma’s
Drag Party will be on screen at 6.30pm as
part of the Leave A Light On concert series promoted by Lambert Jackson and The
Theatre Café, St Martin’s Lane, London, to provide financial support for the
performers involved and entertainment for people in self-isolation.
“This
is a tough time for many people, particularly those who regularly attend live
concerts, shows and gigs who are missing the unedited nature of live
performance,” says Ian Stroughair, the West End actor and singer behind Velma
Celli’s spectacular make-up and even more spectacular singing.
“I’m incredibly proud to be taking part,” says Ian Stroughair, alias Velma Celli
“So, it’s
fantastic that Lambert Jackson and The Theatre Café have produced such a superb
series of concerts that can be watched live at home from some of the finest
West End performers. I’m incredibly proud to be taking part.”
Velma Celli’s monthly show at The Basement, City Screen, York, is in abeyance during the Coronavirus lock-down, but devotees and first-timers alike tuning in tomorrow evening can expect “some belted classics and plenty of laughs along the way as we leave reality behind for an hour of camp fun”.
Leave The Light On pays homage to the theatre tradition of leaving a single light burning on the stage of an empty theatre, supposedly to appease the ghosts who reside there.
Tickets
for the live stream cost £7.50 and can be bought up to an hour before the
broadcast. Viewers will be sent a link via email that enables them to
watch the performance live. To buy, go to thetheatrecafe.co.uk/event/leave-a-light-on-velma-celli-live
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has had to be cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, with
doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles.
Each day, in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home. Addresses will not be included at this time.
Helen Whitehead at work in her studio
Helen Whitehead, glass
HELEN’S glass jewellery
and sculpture is inspired by her deep connection with wild plants, herbs, the
moon and the planets. In her intuitive work, glass is layered with
precious metals, paint and images, then fired to produce colourful abstract
compositions.
Helen loves
experimenting with alchemic reactions in her glass kiln and layering different
mediums within small pieces. “My pieces are little worlds, reflecting the inner
and outer world,” she says.
As well as working in her York studio, Helen provides fun and friendly fused-glass workshops in the community. Follow her at facebook.com/HelenWhiteheadGlassArtist.
Printmaker Sally Clarke
Sally Clarke, printmaking
SALLY specialises in collagraph
printmaking, using the human figure and composition to express atmospheric
imagery.
Sally studied for a Fine
Arts degree at Gloucestershire College of Arts as a mature student. She worked in
various media before discovering printmaking more than 20 years ago, finding herself
attracted particularly to its limitless opportunities for experimentation.
Sally is a founder
member of York Printmakers, has exhibited in many Yorkshire venues and is a
regular exhibitor in York Open Studios. Contact her via sallyclarkeprintmaker@yahoo.co.uk.
Adrienne French: interpreting colour and texture in her landscape paintings
Adrienne French, painting
IN her evocative
paintings, collographs and monoprints, Adrienne interprets colour and texture
of both local and foreign landscapes.
She pursued her love of art by completing an art and design degree at Leeds University in 2000 while continuing her work as a nurse. Until 2015, she was artist in residence at a hospice, alongside continuing to develop her own artwork, a process that is ongoing.
She has shown her work
in northern galleries and takes part regularly in many annual arts events in Yorkshire.
All roads lead to Adrienne at adifrench@gmail.com.
Caroline Lord: recycling pottery, wood and metal in mosaics and sculptures
Caroline Lord, mixed media
CAROLINE combines found
items of pottery, wood and metal, recycling them into mosaics and quirky
ceramic sculptures.
She studied stained glass
and tapestry weaving in the 1960s at Edinburgh College of Art, where she was
awarded a scholarship for a further year’s study, specialising in tapestry weaving.
One of Caroline Lord’s quirky sculptures
Ten years ago, after
completing a mosaics workshop led by Emma Biggs, Caroline changed artistic
direction, starting to work with re-cycled ceramics.
She has exhibited in
York Open Studios, at the Zillah Bell Gallery, Thirsk, with the York Art
Workers Association and in the Great North Art Show. Contact her at
carolinelord42@hotmail.com.
Peter Park: textile designer turned painter
Peter Park, painting
PETER would have been making
his York Open Studios debut with his expressive and gestural abstract paintings
of the Yorkshire landscape and coast in acrylic paint on canvas.
After a foundation course at York School of Art, he studied printed textile design in Manchester (BA) and Birmingham (MA), then worked as a textile designer and lecturer in design in Manchester.
One of Peter Park’s abstract paintings of a Yorkshire landscape
Returning to York in 2013, he began painting, predominantly landscapes that he has exhibited at fellow York Open Studios exhibitor Kay Dower’s Corner Gallery and with Little Van Gogh in London. Seek him out via peter.park500@virginmedia.com.
Tomorrow: Dee Thwaite; Anna Vialle; Rosie Bramley; Tabitha Grove and Peter Heaton.
Washed up: a giant squad on Scarborough’s North Bay beach on January 14 1933, pictured in a magic lantern slide. Picture: Scarborough Museums Trust
HISTORIC magic lantern slides from the Scarborough
Collections are an online hit in these dark days.
As part of Scarborough Museums Trust’s response to the Coronavirus shutdown, collections manager Jim Middleton is posting regular images from the stock of slides and glass-plate negatives on Twitter, using the hashtag #lockdownlanternslides.
The North Bay Pier, after the storm damage in 1905
The response has been “remarkable”, he says: “We’re getting comments and
queries from other museums, historians and the public nationwide. This includes
an interaction the other day with the Natural History Museum in London, who
contacted us during a series of posts themed around cephalopods, the family of
marine animals that includes octopus and squid.”
Middleton had posted an image of a 5.3m-long giant squid that had been
washed up on the North Bay beach on January 14 1933, pictured surrounded by
curious Scarborough locals.
Pier-less: The North Bay Pier destroyed by the 1905 storm
“We’d always known that they had the beak of the squid, but they got in
touch to say they had the whole animal preserved in their archive,” says
Middleton. “We’ll be hoping to get a better look at it when we can.”
Among other themes being explored are historic local buildings, some of them
no longer in existence, such as the North Bay pleasure pier, destroyed in a
storm in 1905, and vintage seaside scenes of children rock pooling and bathing-beauty
contests.
The North Bay Pier, pictured from the other side, in one of the magic lantern slides
Magic lanterns were early image projectors that applied a light source
to magnify and project images on glass and they were used for both education
and entertainment, particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Scarborough Collections – the name given to all the museum objects
owned by the Borough of Scarborough – contains more than 7,000 slides and glass
plates, in the care of Scarborough Museums Trust.
Storm damage: the collapsed North Bay Pier in Scarborough in 1905
The images posted daily by Middleton can be seen by following @SMT_Collections on Twitter. To view existing posts, search #lockdownlanternslides.
The Rotunda Museum, Scarborough Art Gallery and Woodend, all run by Scarborugh
Museums Trust, are closed until further notice.
COUNTRY duo The Shires are moving their 25-date 2020 tour to the autumn,
in response to the Coronavirus pandemic shutdown.
Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes have switched their York Barbican show from May 20 to November 1, when they will be joined by Texan country singer and songwriter Eric Paslay.
Tickets remain valid for the revised date – The Shires’ only Yorkshire
gig on the itinerary – but those seeking a refund should contact their point of
purchase.
The first Brits to win Best International Act in the American Country
Music Association awards, Earle and Rhodes released their fourth album, Good
Years, in this anything but good year on March 13, reaching number three in the
charts.
As with their past albums, 2015’s Brave, 2016’s My Universe and 2018’s
Accidentally On Purpose, the recording sessions took place in Nashville,
Tennessee.
The album artwork for The Shires’ new album
“We are so excited to be releasing Good Years,” say Earle and Rhodes. “Honesty and storytelling have always been such an important part of our song-writing. We’ve poured some of the incredible experiences and life we’ve lived into these songs.
“We can’t wait to play these live across the country. The songs mean so much to us personally, but there really is nothing like looking out at our fans in the crowd and seeing how much of an impact they can have in someone else’s life. It’s truly a very special thing”.
The Shires last played York Barbican in May 2018 and performed a headline set at Pocklington’s Platform Festival at The Old Station last summer.
Only a smattering of seats remains on sale for their Barbican return on 0203 356 5441 or at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
York Explore Library and Archive, the York hub of Explore York in Museum Street, York
THIS is the time to explore Explore York online, providing the Libraries
from Home service during the Coronavirus lockdown.
“If you are confused or overwhelmed by the huge amount of information on offer, Explore can help,” says executive assistant Gillian Holmes, encouraging visits to the website, exploreyork.org.uk, “where it is simple to find what you need”.
This encouragement comes after all Explore York library buildings, reading cafes and the City Archives were closed to the public from 12 noonon March 21, in response to Government strictures.
“We are making it easy for people to find information and advice, as
well as inspiration, as we all deal with the Coronavirus crisis.”
The Explore website has assorted useful links to help people cope during
the coming weeks. “Some sites have always been part of our online offer and
some are brand new,” says Gillian.
“We are also working with City of York Council and our many partners in
York, so that our communities can join together and we continue to support
their initiatives, just as we will when our buildings open again.
“Organisations across
the country are developing their online services in this challenging time. We
are using our expertise to gather together the best offers and add them to the
lists of sites we recommend.”
Explore
York will be developing online activities of its own, such as a Virtual Book Group. “We
will be updating the website regularly as these new things come on stream and
sharing on social media using #LibrariesFromHome,” says Gillian.
The York Explore building: Quiet in the library but still seeking to be busy online
The chance to visit the new York Images site to explore the history of
the city through photographs, illustrations, maps and archival documents at exploreyork.org.uk/digital/york-images/
Dapper Fox, by York Open Studios 2020 debutante Joanna Lisowiec
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April weekends,
has had to be cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, with doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event, CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and makers, who would have been showcasing ceramic, collage, digital, illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture and textile skills.
Each day, in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages because so much art and craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home. Addresses will not be included at this time.
One of Quercki Design’s cork fabric designs
Quercki Design, mixed media
MARGARET Bradley, who would have been a new participant in York Open Studios, specialises in eco-friendly and carbon-neutral cork fabric designs, drawn on a computer, cut on a laser, backed with colours, glued and sewn to make pictures, notebooks and sketchbooks.
A language degree first took Margaret to Lisbon as a university assistant where she acquired a deep affection for Portugal. This was followed by 30 years of work in educational aid to developing countries, where different cultures, art and music were a constant source of interest and delight.
On retirement, a return visit to Portugal brought her into contact with cork fabric, a perfect material for making things inspired by her travels, she says.
More
details can be found at quercki.com, although Quercki Design is taking a short
break, with the artist in self-isolation.
Wood carver Dave Atkin
Dave Atkin, wood
USING traditional techniques, Dave carves locally sourced green wood. Influenced by the natural world, folklore and history, he experiments with form and design to create functional and individual pieces.
A professional model maker by trade, he took up wood carving as a hobby, now making spoons, kuksas and bowls, often inspired by the Green Man myth.
He now offers spoon carving courses and demonstrates at events and fairs. For more details, go to woodwyrm.co.uk.
Taking shape: Catherine Boyne-Whitelegg making one of her earthenware pieces
Catherine Boyne-Whitelegg, ceramics
CATHERINE has been working as a potter for 16 years, both throwing and hand-building, creating colourful slipware pottery to be used and enjoyed, as well as raku and smoke-fired clay animals, ranging from foxes and pigs to horses and unicorns. Her work often reflects her wry humour.
Go, figure! Seaside Belle, by Catherine Boyne-Whitelegg
She is a potter, teacher and community artist who set up her own pottery workshop at her home near York after graduating from Sunderland University with a BA (Hons) in ceramics.
Catherine’s work can be found in a number of galleries, complementing her regular exhibitions, and wedding or special occasion pieces can be commissioned. More details at boyne-whiteleggpottery.co.uk.
Mo Burrows at work in her studio
Mo Burrows, jewellery
MO’S contemporary jewellery
embraces the elaborate and the colourful, the dainty and the quiet, in her necklaces,
earrings and brooches.
Predominately favouring copper,
braiding and beadwork, she draws inspiration from the colour, form and texture
of the materials she uses. Frustrated by
an inability to draw, she produces designs straight from a head full of ideas. Find
Mo at facebook.com/MoBurrowsJewellery.
Falling in love with quaint English countryside: Polish-born printmaker and illustrator Joanna Lisowiec
Joanna Lisowiec, printmaking
NEW to York Open Studios this year, Joanna’s prints and illustrations look to nature and folklore for inspiration, as she focuses on birds and animals in her bold, clean and distinctive work.
Originally from Poland
and brought up in the United States and Switzerland, she first came to Britain
to study illustration at Edinburgh College of Art, falling in love with the
wild Highlands and later with the “quaint English countryside” when she moved
to Yorkshire for her MA in advertising and design from the University of Leeds.
“I would love to illustrate
a classic novel one day,” she says at joanna-draws.com, where you can find free
printable worksheets to “keep your children or indeed yourself entertained during
the Coronavirus pandemic”.
Tomorrow: Helen Whitehead; Sally Clarke; Adrienne French; Caroline Lord and Peter Park.
Hand-washing for our times: Amanda Dales as Lady Macbeth in York Shakespeare Project’s now postponed Macbeth. Picture: Amanda Dales
YORK Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth
should have opened this evening, but the curse of “the Scottish play” has
struck again.
Although Macbeth is play number 29 in
Shakespeare’s chronology of 38 plays, YSP had held back the Bard’s tragedy big
hitter until production number 36 of 37 as part of a grand finale to the
20-year project in 2020, with The Tempest as the final curtain this autumn.
Now, however, theatre’s harbinger of
bad luck and its Weird Sisters have delivered double, double toil and trouble to
YSP, whose March 30 to April 4 run at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41
Monkgate, is mothballed until further notice under the Coronavirus shutdown.
Amanda Dales, left, as Lady Macbeth, and Emma Scott, as Macbeth, in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth. Picture: John Saunders
“We were six rehearsals short of the
finishing line,” says YSP’s Tony Froud, who was to have played Ross in
Shakespeare’s dark tale of ambition, murder and supernatural forces.
“The ideal solution would be to pick it
up again with the same company of actors later in the year, but there could yet
be complications.”
Come what may, Tony envisages the
project still finishing with The Tempest, originally planned for this October, rather
than Macbeth going on hold to form the closing chapter.
Emma Scott as Macbeth in Leo Doulton’s futuristic cyberpunk production of Macbeth. Picture: Amanda Dales
“I would be very surprised if we didn’t want to retain The Tempest as the finale. It being Shakespeare’s final play [that he wrote alone], it is entirely appropriate to round things off with The Tempest, inviting as many people as possible who have been involved over the 20 years to join us for the celebrations.”
The final production is likely to be
accompanied by an exhibition charting YSP from 2001 formation to 2021
conclusion. “The York Explore library is expressing an interest in presenting
it, ideally to coincide with The Tempest’s run.”
Where The Tempest may be staged is yet
to be decided after the initial plan to work in tandem with York Theatre Royal this
autumn fell by the wayside. “It’s now the case that we’re looking into the
possibility of doing a touring production as our final show, culminating in a
York run,” says Tony.
“We were six rehearsals short of the finishing line,” says Tony Froud, who was to have played Ross in this week’s run of York Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth
Should Macbeth have gone ahead tonight, Leo Doulton’s production would have been set in a dystopian “cyberpunk” future and performed in a promenade style, with the action taking place on the move, around the audience, led by Emma Scott’s Macbeth. Two performances on Wednesday would expressly have been for schools’ audiences studying the play.
“Macbeth is a magnificent tragedy
about the earthly struggle between the forces of order and chaos, and how the
world becomes corrupted by Macbeth’s strange bargains,” says Doulton, who made
his YSP directorial debut at the helm of last October’s stripped-back Antony
And Cleopatra.
“Cyberpunk is an exciting genre for
exploring, highlighting, and visualising those ideas for a modern audience. We
no longer fear witches, but we are still scared of our society being shaped by
powers with no concern for those below them.”
Leo Doulton: director of York Shakespeare Project’s production of Macbeth. Picture: Amanda Dales
Whenever we more than three shall meet again, let us look forward to Doulton’s show “capturing all the original’s epic drama in its poetry and production” with Emma Scott in the title role. In the meantime, now is the time to follow Lady Macbeth’s latter-day practice: constant hand washing, over and over again.
York Shakespeare
Project’s cast for Macbeth
Macbeth: Emma Scott
Lady Macbeth: Amanda
Dales
Banquo, Siward: Clive
Lyons
Fleance, Donalbain,
Son, Young Siward: Rhiannon Griffiths
Macduff: Harry
Summers
Duncan, Lady Macduff,
Menteith: Jim Paterson
Malcolm: Eleanor
Frampton
Lennox: Nick Jones
Ross: Tony Froud
Angus: Sarah-Jane
Strong
First Witch, First
Murderer, Doctor: Joy Warner
Second Witch, Second
Murderer, Gentlewoman: Alexandra Logan
Third Witch, Third
Murderer, Caithness, Seyton: Chloe Payne.
The York Shakespeare Project cast in rehearsal for Macbeth. Picture: John Saunders
Crew
Director:
Leo Doulton
Set designer: Charley Ipsen
Lighting designer: Neil Wood
Costume designer: Scarlett Wood
Sound designer: Jim Paterson.
Did you know?
WILLIAM Shakespeare’s
play Macbeth is said to be cursed, so actors avoid
saying its name when in the theatre. The euphemism “the Scottish
Play” is used instead.
Should an
actor utter the name “Macbeth” in a theatre before a performance, however, they
are required to perform a ritual to remove the curse.
When the
Grand Opera House reopened after a £4 million refurbishment on September 26 1989,
the York theatre tempted fate by presenting Macbeth (in a Balinese version) as
the first show, 33 years since the last professional stage performance there. Only
two years later, the theatre closed again, staff arriving to find the doors
locked.
Adam Martyn: partially sighted actor playing the blind scientist Nicholas Saunderson in No Horizon, pictured in rehearsal
RIGHT Hand Theatre’s No Horizon, a musical celebrating a blind Yorkshire
science and maths genius, is no longer on the horizon at York Theatre Royal. Exit
stage left the April 9 and 11 performances under the Coronavirus shutdown.
However, the No Horizon team say: “Sadly, though we
will be pausing our adventure for now, our No Horizon journey is
far from over. When we are back – and we truly mean when, not if
– we will be bigger and better than ever.
“This has been an amazing rehearsal process and although this [situation] is a hurdle, we will overcome
this. Here’s to the
future of the show and we are sure that the best is yet to come.”
No Horizon’s 2020 tour was to have opened at The Civic, Barnsley, on
March 20. Now, the progress towards a new horizon can be followed at nohorizonthemusical.com
and on social media.
The musical tells the life story of Nicholas Saunderson, a blind
scientist and mathematician from Thurlstone, West Riding, who overcame
impossible odds to become a Cambridge professor and friend of royalty.
Often
described as an 18th century Stephen
Hawking, Saunderson was born on January 20 1682, losing his sight through
smallpox when around a year old. This did not prevent him, however, from
acquiring a knowledge of Latin and Greek and studying mathematics.
As a child,
he learnt to read by tracing the engravings on tombstones around St John the
Baptist Church in Penistone, near Barnsley, with his fingers.
No Horizon
premiered at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe, going on to draw an enthusiastic
response from BBC Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans, who called it a “Yorkshire Les
Mis”.
Next month’s
York Theatre Royal shows would have been part of a now stalled northern tour of
a 2020 adaptation “with a fresh look” by Right Hand Theatre, a company
passionate about diversity and inclusivity within theatre.
Consequently, the 2020 cast has a 50/50 male/female balance, with
the credo of delivering the show in a gender-blind way with a female Isaac
Newton, for example. Both the director and lead actor are visually impaired.
Leading the
company in rehearsals, in the role of Saunderson, has been the partially
sighted Adam Martyn, from Doncaster, who trained at Liverpool Institute of
Performing Arts (LIPA).
Alongside him have been Yorkshire born-and-bred, Rose Bruford
College-trained Larissa Teale in the female lead role of Abigail; Tom Vercnocke
as Joshua Dunn; Louise Willoughby as Anne Saunderson; Matthew Bugg as John
Saunderson; Ruarí Kelsey as Reverend Fox; Katie Donoghue and Olivia Smith as
Company.
In the production team are director Andrew Loretto; vocal coach
Sally Egan; movement directors Lucy Cullingford and Maria Clarke; costume
designer Lydia Denno; costume maker Sophie Roberts; lighting designer David
Phillips and tour musical director David Osmond.
No
Horizon’s 2020 northern tour has been co-commissioned by Cast, Doncaster and
The Civic, Barnsley and supported by Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind,
with funding from Arts Council England and Foyle Foundation.
York Theatre Royal box office will contact ticket holders for
refunds.
Matthew Kelly as York-born poet W H Auden when Alan Bennett’s The Habit Of Art was rehearsed and staged at York Theatre Royal in August and September 2018. Picture: James Findlay
YORK Theatre Royal’s 2018 co-production
of Alan Bennett’s The Habit Of Art has been made available to stream by
OriginalTheatre Online.
Directed by Philip Franks,
a second British tour was due to start this month with Matthew Kelly and David
Yelland reprising their roles of poet W H Auden and composer Benjamin Britten.
However, both the tour and
a trip to New York for the Brits Off Broadway have been scrapped after the
Coronavirus pandemic lockdown.
In turn, this has prompted
The Original Theatre Company, the Theatre Royal’s co-producers, to release the
production online.
Matthew Kelly as W H Auden and David Yelland as Benjamin Britten in The Habit Of Art, now available to stream through Original Theatre Online
Leeds playwright Bennett’s
The Habit Of Art imagines a 1972 meeting between friends and collaborators Auden
and Britten – their first in 30 years – where they mull over life, art, sexuality and death.
What drew Matthew Kelly to
playing York-born Auden? “He has a razor-sharp wit and we have a very similar
outlook about work which is the habit of art. I am the same,” he says.
“I have to keep working – I’m nearly 70 [his birthday falls on May 9] – not because I need the money, but because the theory comes into play that the longer you hang on, the longer you will hang on. Otherwise you fall off the perch.”
The Habit Of Art requires Kelly
to play an actor playing an actor playing a real-life person. If this sounds
confusing, “No, it actually clarifies things,” says Kelly, clarifying things.
Philip Franks, director of The Habit Of Art, who also directed Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in The Tempest in York last summer
“It’s a very clever device
because it means you can be funny about what you do, you can comment on it and
you can explain stuff. You can come out of the play Caliban’s Day, which the
actors are rehearsing, and then it’s a play about the fictional meeting of
Auden and Britten.
“What’s wonderful about
Bennett’s play is, not only have you got the finest composer of our time and
the finest poet of our time, but you also, in my opinion, have the greatest
playwright of our time.”
Kelly
continues: “So, you’ve got all those words being sewn together by our greatest
playwright, who’s kind, accessible, very erudite and talks about sex in a very
earthy way.
“He also gives a voice to
the unregarded, who don’t usually have a voice. Generally, the great people,
the stars of our time, get the final word and the people who look after them,
what are commonly called ‘the little people’, really don’t get any say at all.
They are the forgotten heroes who nurtured these stars.”
“He’s terribly kind and encouraging, which I love,” says Matthew Kelly of The Habit Of Art playwright Alan Bennett
Former Stars In Their Eyes presenter Kelly completed a hattrick of Bennett roles with The Habit Of Art, having appeared as unconventional teacher Hector in The History Boys in 2013 and Czech author Franz Kafka in Kafka’s Dick, opposite his son Matthew Rixon, as a younger Kafka, at York Theatre Royal in March 2001.
“We were hoping Alan
Bennett would come to York because he lives in Leeds and it’s only a hop and a
skip away, but he didn’t come,” recalls Kelly.
“A couple of years later, I met him at Heathrow and he came up to me and apologised for not coming to the York production. He was terribly kind about it. “Years later, I did The History Boys in Sheffield, then Kafka’s Dick again in Bath. On both those shows he sent champagne and a Good Luck postcard.
“He always knows what’s
going on and he’s terribly kind and encouraging, which I love. The great thing
about Alan is he’s very supportive of all productions, although he doesn’t go
and see them.”
Original Theatre Online is
streaming a second touring production too: Ali Milles’s The Croft, starring
Gwen Taylor and again directed by Franks. Both that show and The Habit Of Art can
be streamed any time until June.
“We are thrilled to be able to share these brilliant shows digitally: our own theatre without walls,” says The Original Theatre Company director Alastair Whatley.
Alastair Whatley, artistic director of The Original Theatre Company, says: “We know how disappointing it has been to our audiences, cast, creatives and Original Theatre to have to close our shows. We are thrilled to be able to share these brilliant shows digitally: our own theatre without walls.
“However,
the Original Theatre Company operates with no Arts Council support and relies
almost solely on the box-office takings. With our two productions of The Habit Of
Art and The Croft both out on national tours, the immediate cancellations are
financially devastating for us.
“But we are determined,
wherever possible, to meet our financial commitments made to our actors, stage
managers and suppliers, who are all dependent on us to survive the coming
months.
“Every
penny we make through this online release will go to the people who helped make
this show, who now find themselves in a hugely precarious financial position.”
Both
plays are free to watch although The Original Theatre suggests a minimum
donation of £2.50.
For
full streaming details, visit originaltheatreonline.com.
“The show I do is pretty much all of Elvis’s eras,” says The King Is Back tribute act Ben Portsmouth
ELVIS is making another comeback…in 2021.
The King Is Back, Ben Portsmouth’s tribute show, will be back at York
Barbican on April 9 next year.
Berkshire singer Portsmouth was last in the building with his Elvis Presley act on December 20 2019. Tickets for his return are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk or on 0203 356 5441.
Portsmouth and his band Taking Care Of Elvis have been taking care of
Elvis tribute business for a dozen years in a show built around “a little less
conversation, a lot more action, please”.
“The show I do is pretty much all of Elvis’s eras,” he says. “So, from
the Sun Studio to his movie years. Then I’ll do the 1968 comeback with the
leather outfit.
Portsmouth to York: Ben Portsmouth confirms York Barbican concert next spring
“The first half is more like a story of Elvis’s
life and what he was doing in his career at the time. The second half is
just like an Elvis Seventies’ concert.”
In pursuit of authenticity to the maximum, all of Portsmouth’s
Elvis outfits are flown over from the United States, with the peacock jumpsuit
being his favourite.
In August 2012, Portsmouth made Elvis history when he became
the first act from outside the United States to win the annual Elvis Presley
Enterprises “Worldwide Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist”, held in Memphis,
Tennessee.
Portsmouth loves the Elvis voice, the look, the stage charisma, his
humour, but more than that. “He was just a people person,” he says. “He was just a simple country boy who liked his cars, his food and all
the rest of it.”
