Billie Marten: Releasing fifth album Dog Eared on July 18
RIPON folk singer-songwriter Billie Marten will showcase her fifth album in her support slot at Elbow’s sold-out Live At York Museum Gardens concert tomorrow evening.
Released on Fiction Records on July 18, Dog Eared has been trailed by five singles, Swing, Crown, Feeling, Leap Year and now Clover, a song built out of contradictions and oxymorons.
“Clover is a song about feeling small but needing to appear big,” says Billie, 26, who now lives in London. “It’s a note on power and inequality. Most of this record talks about age and experience and relevance, something that’s clogged my mind since I began music.
“I carry a lot of premature worry with me, and that’s something that comes from starting an adult life as a teenager I suppose. I gained the human affliction of inventing things before they happen. I’m a multitude of anxieties.”
The cover artwork for Billie Marten’s new album, Dog Eared
Billie released her debut album, Writing Of Blues And Yellows, at the age of 17 in 2016, since followed Feeding Seahorses By Hand in 2019, Flora Fauna in 2021 and Drop Cherries in 2023.
She headed to New York last summer to record with producer Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Laura Veirs) at his Sugar Mountain studio, alongside an all-star cast of musicians.
Catalan singer-songwriter/guitarist Núria Graham, bassist Josh Crumbly, virtuosic guitarist Mike Haldeman, multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, indie-rock musician Sam Evian, former Dirty Projectors vocalist/folk musician Maia Friedman, Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco, drummer/multi-instrumentalist Vishal Nayak, keys/synth player Michael Coleman and Vermont folk musician Sam Amidon all sprinkle their gold dust over Dog Eared.
Together they add up to a band with credits across records by Cassandra Jenkins, Kamasi Washington, Moses Sumney, Robert Glasper, Tune-Yards, Empress Of, Nick Hakim, David Byrne, Atoms For Peace, Feist, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and now Billie Marten.
Billie Marten’s Record Store Tour: Visiting Sheffield and Huddersfield
Since 2023’s Drop Cherries, Billie has spent her time largely on the road, honing her craft as a deeply instinctual artist and songwriter. Living and learning. Playing and writing. Collaborating with gifted strangers. Exploring questions of identity and self. All the while, sending demos and voice-notes across the Atlantic to Weinrobe and watching those embryonic songs come to life and flourish fully realised in the studio.
The resulting Dog Eared track listing comprises Feeling; Crown; Clover; No Sudden Changes; The Glass; Leap Year; Goodnight Noon; Planets; You And I Both and Swing.
Producer Weinrobe enthuses: “Dog Eared is a miracle. This record feels like what music is supposed to be: a creative dialogue between wide-open musicians, all pushing in the exact same direction. And that direction is clear – the controls are set for the heart of Billie’s incredible songs.
“Yes, the record was recorded live. Yes, Billie sang the lead vocals as it was going down. Yes, we were huddled up in a circle – no headphones, no walls, no playback, nothing separating each person from the next, and nothing separating the performers from their performances.
“I’ve discovered that I have a really particular long-term memory,” says Billie Marten
“But that’s not why this record is a monument. It’s a monument because Billie walked into the studio every morning and opened her mouth and sang these incredible melodies and gorgeous lyrics without any worries or fears or desires to control the art. She was the art. And everyone surrounded her, and lifted her up, and in turn she lifted the music to heights that we are all lucky to get to listen to, on repeat, forever.”
Billie highlights the opening track, Feeling. “I’ve discovered that I have a really particular long-term memory: I have specific sensory recollections from when I was two onwards, that I can recall easily now,” she says.
“One of these is marking out roads in my grandmother’s patterned carpet, for my Dad’s old 1950/60s’ toy cars to drive on. I used to trace patterns in everything: fabric seats at the dentist, carpets, wallpaper and walls, raindrops on car windows. Everything had a pattern to be noticed.”
Billie Marten’s Dog Eared Tour 2025 itinerary Billie adds: “Another strong memory is the feeling of big, warm hands when you’re a child and how comforting and safe that feels. The notion of age being so far away from you, but you know it’s a future inevitability, and that you’re on your way there. The inarticulateness of that ‘feeling’ you can’t describe yet, but you’re aware of a push in the world that you don’t yet understand.”
“Feeling is really set alight by Núria Graham’s guitar part, the one you hear from the outset. It sparks the album info life and really sets a benchmark in terms of rhythm. This is an album of rhythmic focus.”
Billie will be supporting Elbow tomorrow fresh from performing on the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury last Friday. She will play Yorkshire acoustic sets at Beartree, Sheffield (afternoon show), and Vinyl Tap, Huddersfield (evening show), on her solo Record Store Tour itinerary, followed by Leeds Irish Centre on November 14 on her eight-date Dog Eared headline tour, when Le Ren supports. Tickets are on sale at billiemarten.com.
Futuresound Group presents Elbow, Billie Marten and Eliza Carthy & The Restitution at Live At York Museum Gardens, York, tomorrow. Gates open at 5pm. SOLD OUT.
Jessica Steel: Soul and blues at A Night To Remember at York Barbican
TEN decades will sing together in an unforgettable night at York Barbican on November 12.
This year, Big Ian Donaghy’s big charity concert, A Night To Remember, will celebrate its 12th anniversary after selling out Leeds City Varieties Music Hall in 2013, York Theatre Royal in 2014 and Grand Opera House in 2015, en route to finding its home at York Barbican nine years ago.
“Over the years, these nights have taken community charity concerts to another level as every detail is focused on giving the York audience a night they truly deserve where no corner is cut for this unique event,” says Big Ian.
“The level of production surpasses most touring shows, from outstanding sound from Craig Rothery to thought-provoking films on vast video walls and a 30-piece band’s level of musicianship.”
Big Ian Donaghy working the crowd at A Night To Remember. Picture: Karen Boyes
Host Big Ian will seek to make the audience laugh, cry, sing, dance and part with money as he shows why he is so in demand as an event speaker and host, filling venues such as London Excel and Birmingham NEC regularly.
“No other show has musicians from ten decades on stage,” he says. “The format is unlike other shows too as everyone guests on everyone else’s songs with a wall of rich, lush harmonies.”
As ever, George Hall will lead the 30-piece house band, containing members of York party band Huge, to accompany contributions by Jessica Steel, Heather Findlay, Simon Snaize, Graham Hodge, The Y Street Band, Las Vegas Ken, Annie Donaghy, fiddle dynamo Kieran O’Malley and soprano Samantha Holden.
“After eight years of shows together, this unlikely bunch has now become more like family,” says Big Ian.
Heather Findlay performing at A Night To Remember. Picture: David Kessel
York Music Forum Big Band will be performing under conductor Ian Chalk, celebrating a year of success when these young York musicians were crowned Big Band of the Year at the Northern Jazz Awards, as well as winning numerous individual plaudits for solo musicianship.
Look out too for a bespoke choir created for the Barbican show by Easingwold singer and choir workshop leader Jessa Liversidge. “Featuring singers from ten decades, it will show the magic that happens when generations come together,” says Big Ian.
As always, A Night To Remember is priced affordably with all ticket money going to good causes in York as the community sings with one voice.
“The concert raises much-needed funds for St Leonard’s Hospice, Bereaved Children Support York and Accessible Arts and Media to get people with learning difficulties into performing,” says Big Ian.
Beth McCarthy on stage at A Night To Remember. Picture: Duncan Lomax, Ravage Productions
Beth McCarthy, the York singer now based in London with 481,000 Instagram followers, will be joining the show before her European tour takes her to theatres in Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Barcelona.
“We are so lucky to still have Beth as part of the team,” says Big Ian, her former school teacher at The Mount. “She’s come a long way since she played our first school concert when she was 12 and I was brought in as Jack Black for their summer School Of Rock-style festival Mountstock.
Beth, who competed on BBC One’s The Voice at the age of 16, has played the main stage at BBC Big Weekend and recorded live sets for BBC Radio 1 at Maida Vale Studio.
“Beth owned the stage the last time we did A Night To Remember,” says Big Ian. “Her level of performance has reached a whole new level. She’s a fully formed performer with so much talent and energy.”
Kieran O’Malley: On the fiddle at A Night To Remember at York Barbican. Picture: David Kessel
Looking forward to November 12’s set list of favourite anthems, Jo Cole, of Bereaved Children Support York, says: “A Night To Remember was our biggest contributor when we started out and has been invaluable in allowing us to provide one-to-one counselling for families. They have helped us for nine years.
“But it’s not just the money that’s raised at these nights, it’s how it raises the profile of the charities and brings everyone together.”
A Night To Remember has become the UK’s biggest concert to raise dementia awareness, drawing people from all over the country.
“The night also funds some bespoke dementia projects in the city, including art classes with Sue Clayton, singing, gardening groups and Xmas Presence to combat loneliness in our older community,” says Big Ian.
Graham Hodge: Regular participant in A Night To Remember. Picture: David Kessel
“This is a unique evening of York helping York. Already I’ve filmed some surprise films from very well-known names from TV to surprise the crowd.”
Fewer than 100 tickets are still available for the stalls. “Be quick,” advises Big Ian. “We also ask everyone to bring a raffle prize and some money for raffle tickets for York’s biggest raffle on the night.
“Who knows how much we can add to the £200,000 raised since we started A Night To Remember?”
Tickets cost £20 from yorkbarbican.co.uk. “Don’t just save the date. Get a group of friends out and book your tickets for Wednesday, November 12 2025 to avoid disappointment,” says Big Ian.
Paul Birch: Leading scripted comedy workshop for York Settlement Community Players on Sunday
FRIARGATE Theatre artistic director, comedy writer and improv supremo Paul Birch is to hold a workshop for York Settlement Community Players on scripted comedy on Sunday (6/7/2025) at Room 1, Southlands Methodist Church, York.
“This Funny Business workshop is a great way to find your funny and explore ways in which to play comedic texts without worrying about getting laughs,” says Paul. “Using a range of scripts and some helpful games and exercises, this session will equip actors and directors to love, rather than fear, the comedic text.”
The charge for Sunday’s 2pm to 4.30pm session is £10 or “a bit more if you can manage it”. “Paul is doing the workshop at no charge to YSCP to help us out of our current financial difficulties because he is a thoroughly decent bloke,” says organiser Maurice Crichton.
Richard Hawley: Playing Coles Corner with strings attached at Futuresound Group’s Live At York Museum Gardens concert on Saturday. Picture: Dean Chalkley
AS the outdoor concert season awakens, a festival goes to heaven and hell and Jane Austen has unfinished business in Charles Hutchinson’s list for the upcoming week.
Open-air concerts of the week: Futuresound Group presents Live At York Museum Gardens, Elbow, tomorrow; Nile Rodgers & CHIC, Friday; Richard Hawley, Saturday; gates open at 5pm
LEEDS promoters Futuresound Group’s second summer of outdoor concerts in York begins with Bury band Elbow’s sold-out show tomorrow, when Ripon singer-songwriter Billie Marten and Robin Hood’s Bay folk luminary Eliza Carthy & The Restitution support.
New York guitarist, songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers and CHIC revel in Good Times, Le Freak, Everybody Dance and I Want Your Love on Friday, supported by Maryland soul singer Jalen Ngonda and Durand Bernarr. Sheffield guitarist and crooner Richard Hawley revisits his 1995 album Coles Corner with a string section on its 20th anniversary on Saturday, preceded by Leeds band English Teacher and Manchester-based American songwriter BC Camplight, introducing his new album, A Sober Conversation. Box office: seetickets.com.
Bridget Christie: Late replacement for Maisie Adam at York Comedy Festival on Sunday. Picture: Natasha Pszenicki
Comedy bill of the week: Futuresound Group presents Live At York Museum Gardens, York Comedy Festival, Sunday, 2.30pm to 7.30pm
HARROGATE comedian Maisie Adam will not be playing the inaugural York Comedy Festival this weekend after all. The reason: “Unforeseen circumstances”. Into her slot steps trailblazing Bridget Christie, Gloucester-born subversive stand-up, Taskmaster participant and writer and star of Channel 4 comedy-drama The Change.
More than 90 per cent of tickets have sold for the Sunday fun-day bill topped by Dara Ó Briain and Katherine Ryan. Angelos Epithemiou, Joel Dommett, Vittorio Angelone, Clinton Baptiste and Scott Bennett feature too, hosted by “the fabulous” Stephen Bailey. Tickets are on sale at york-comedy-festival.com.
The Sixteen: Performing Angel Of Peace programme at York Minster on July 7 at York Early Music Festival
Festival of the week: York Early Music Festival, Heaven & Hell, Friday to July 11
EIGHT days of classical music add up to 19 concerts featuring international artists such as The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars, Academy of Ancient Music, viol consort Fretwork & Helen Charlston and the York debut of Le Consort, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons “but not quite as you know it”.
Directed by Delma Tomlin, the festival weaves together three main strands: the 400th anniversary of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, the Baroque music of Vivaldi and Bach and reflections on Man’s fall from grace, from Heaven to Hell. Full programme and tickets at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Box office: 01904 658338.
Belle Voix Trio: Nostalgic night of Motown and Northern Soul at Kirk Theatre, Pickering, on Friday
Tribute show of the week: Belle Voix Trio, A Night Of Motown & Northern Soul, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm
BELLE Voix Trio bring 30 Motown and Northern Soul hits to the Pickering dancefloor, from Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) to Tainted Love, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough to The Night. Sandy Smith, Sophie Mairi and Briony Gunn’s singing credits include London’s West End, cruise liners and luxury hotels. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.
The Script: Making third appearance at Scarborough Open Air Theatre on Saturday
Coastal gig of the week: The Script and Tom Walker, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Saturday; gates open at 6pm
THE Script head to the Yorkshire coast this weekend as part of the Irish rock-pop act’s Satellites UK tour, completing their hat-trick of Scarborough Open Air Theatre visits after appearances in 2018 and 2022.
Danny O’Donoghue (vocals), Glen Power (drums), Ben Sargeant (bass) and Ben Weaver (guitar) have six number one albums to their name. Special guest Tom Walker, the Scottish singer-songwriter, performs songs from 2019 chart topper What A Time To Be Alive and 2024’s I Am. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Dianne Buswell and Vito Coppola: Red Hot and Ready to dance at York Barbican with the Burn The Floor dancers
Dance show of the week: Burn The Floor presents Dianne & Vito, Red Hot & Ready!, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm
STRICTLY Come Dancing’s stellar professional dancers, 2024 winner Dianne Buswell and 2024 runner-up Vito Coppola are Red Hot and Ready to perform a dance show with a difference, choreographed by BAFTA award winner Jason Gilkison.
The dream team will be joined by a cast of multi-disciplined Burn The Floor dancers from around the world. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Ione Harrison: Mounting Season Songs exhibition at Helmsley Arts Centre
Exhibition launch of the week: Ione Harrison, Season Songs, Helmsley Arts Centre, July 8 to September 5; private view,July 6, 2pm to 4pm
WELBURN landscape painter and watercolour workshop leader Ione Harrison’s Season Songs exhibition depicts the rhythm of the year in serene, dynamic and joyful paintings that explore seasonal changes in mood, colour and light in the natural world.
Ione, whose teaching career has taken her to France, the Middle East, Turkey and Nepal, creates vibrant, atmospheric paintings, working primarily in watercolour and ink. She is influenced in particular by the heat-soaked colours of Asia and the Middle East.
Vicki Mason’s Margaret Watson, Beaj Johnson’s Tom Musgrave and Becca Magson’s Emma Watson in 1812 Theatre Company’s production of The Watsons
Play of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in The Watsons, Helmsley Arts Centre, July 9 to 12, 7.30pm
WHAT happens when the writer loses the plot? Emma Watson is 19 and new in town. She has been cut off by her rich aunt and dumped back in the family home. Emma and her sisters must marry, fast.
If not, they face poverty, spinsterhood, or worse: an eternity with their boorish brother and his awful wife. Luckily there are plenty of potential suitors, from flirtatious Tom Musgrave to castle-owning, awkward Lord Osborne.
One problem: Jane Austen did not finish the story. Who will write Emma’s happy ending now? Step forward Laura Wade, who takes her incomplete novel to fashion a sparklingly witty play that looks under the bonnet of Jane Austen to ask: what can characters do when their author abandons them? Pauline Noakes directs resident company 1812 Theatre Company’s production. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Tommy Carmichael: “Audience favourite” will play Jangles in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal
YORKSHIREMAN Tommy Carmichael will head back to York Theatre Royal for this winter’s pantomime season, following up his 2024-25 comic role as Charlie in Aladdin by playing Jangles in Sleeping Beauty.
The “audience favourite” joins the already confirmed CBeebies star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam and dame returnee Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie in creative director Juliet Forster’s cast.
“Tommy was such a hit with audiences last year in Aladdin and we are delighted to have him back with us for Sleeping Beauty,” she says. “We have lots of fun and hilarity planned, so don’t miss your chance to see the show this winter.”
Tommy Carmichael: From Charlie to Jangles at York Theatre Royal
Doncaster-born Carmichael’s theatre credits include Timternet in Big Strong Man (national tour); Silly Willy in Robin Hood and Buttons in Cinderella (both at The Maltings, Ely); Chief Weasel in The Wind In The Willows (national tour); Himself in Big Strong Man (CAST, Doncaster); Queen of Hearts in Alice In Wonderland (national tour) and Bagheera in The Jungle Book (national tour).
Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal’s sixth pantomime collaboration with perennial award winners Evolution Productions, will be written once more by Evolution director Paul Hendy, who previously penned The Travelling Panto, Cinderella, All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, Jack And The Beanstalk and Aladdin.
Forster’s production will run from December 2 to January 4 2026. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Family tickets are available for all performances with savings of up to £64.50 on bookings of four tickets.
Tommy Carmichael’s cheerful Charliein Aladdin at York Theatre Royal
Nicholas Carter: Leaving his post as Micklegate Singers’ musical director after November’s concert
LONG-STANDING York conductor Nicholas Carter is to hang up his baton after 25 years as musical director of the Micklegate Singers.
Applications for the post are welcomed until Friday, July 18, with full details available at www.micklegatesingers.co.uk. Interviews and auditions will be held on September 25 and/or October 2.
The choir began in 1964, becoming a key part of the York music scene. Since 2000, its characteristic programming of exciting new choral music, alongside masterpieces from the 16th century, has been curated carefully by Mr Carter.
On reaching his silver jubilee with the choir, however, he has decided to bow out after November’s winter concert, hence the search for a new director to start in January 2026.
Applications are encouraged from enthusiastic musicians of all backgrounds with experience of directing adult choirs.
Nicholas Carter, centre, with the Micklegate Singers choir members
The Micklegate Singers are an auditioned, mixed-voice chamber choir, whose 30 to 36 members rehearse weekly on Thursday evenings during school terms and perform three or four times per year in York.
The choir sings an ambitious repertoire of mostly 16th century and 20th/21st century works, usually unaccompanied, ranging from Tallis, Byrd and Guerrero, via Stanford and Parry, to Eric Whitacre, Cecilia McDowell, Paweł Łukaszewski and Laura Mvula, complemented by works commissioned from new composers.
“We’ve been so lucky to have a musician of Nick’s calibre leading us for such a long time,” says Micklegate Singers’ chair, Sarah Sketchley. “He will be a hard act to follow, but we are excited to see who might come along and take us on the next part of our journey.
“We are a friendly bunch, and we love getting our teeth into really rewarding choral repertoire, so this is a great opportunity for the right person.”
The choir has been in the public eye with a set of commissions by young composers from the University of York, leading to a performance and panel discussion chaired by Nicola LeFanu at the 2024 York Festival of Ideas.
The poster artwork for Micklegate Singers’ July 5 concert, The Eye Of The Beholder, at All Saints’ Church, North Street, York
Mr Carter, formerly director of music at Queen Mary’s School, Topcliffe, near Thirsk, has cherished his time with the choir: “I am always impressed by the sheer variety of music that I can face the choir with and the standard that they reach in performance despite being amateurs,” he says.
“The composer William Byrd was a keen advocate of the health benefits of singing, and I always find that I leave the rehearsal feeling younger than I did at the beginning!”
The choir’s next concert, The Eye Of The Beholder, takes place at All Saints’ Church, North Street, York, on Saturday, when the 7.30pm programme comprises works by Britten, Roth, Shaw, Whitacre, Dove, Maw, Ravel and the world premiere of David McGregor’s Clown In The Moon. Admission is £7.50 on the door; free for those in full-time education or children.
Former Micklegate Singers members are invited to join Mr Carter’s silver anniversary celebrations after the choir’s winter concert on November 29.
JUSTIN Panks tops Saturday’s Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club bill at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, Coney Street, York.
Tony Vino and Liam Bolton will be performing too, introduced by promoter and regular master of ceremonies Damion Larkin from 8pm.
Comedian and podcaster Justin Panks combines a skewed observational eye with the ability to approach seemingly ordinary subjects from extraordinary angles, striking a balance between the relatable and the outrageous.
His tales of relationships, parenthood and life in general are raw, honest and above all humorous, as heard on his weekly podcasts, The Pranks & Firth Show and 3 Speech Podcast.
He prides himself on his ability to adapt to any room, be it rowdy and crowded, a large theatre or an intimate comedy club setting such as The Basement, and he tours internationally, in demand in New York, Valencia, Ibiza, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Menorca, Sweden and Denmark.
Tony Vino bills himself as “the only half-Spanish, half-Scottish hybrid working comic in the world”. Born in Malaga, he was subsequently raised in the Costa Del Preston, Lancashire. When he was only a toddler, his father looked around, saw the sea, the sand and the sunshine of the Andalucian coast and thought “we need to be nearer Wigan Pier”.
Comedian and compere Vino has been touring the UK and international comedy circuit since early 2005, mixing observational humour with audience interaction and quick-witted responses.
He hosts festivals and corporate events, called on to entertain for charities such as Christian Aid, Oxfam, Fairtrade Foundation and TearFund, as well as once being the warm-up comedian for BBC One’s Songs Of Praise – a low point in his career, he says.
Experimental comedian Liam Bolton favours a bewildering, train-of-thought approach to unpredictable stand-up comedy.
He co-wrote and featured in the comedy webseries Danger Precinct, starring alongside big names from the UK comedy circuit, such as Mick Ferry and, against his better judgement, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club’s big cheese, Damion Larkin (“semi-famous in Stoke only”). The show was considered an “underground success”, drawing praise from none other than Jonny Vegas.
Doors open at 7:30 pm. Box office: lolcomedyclubs.co.uk or on the door.
Illyria in Oliver Grey’s adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In The Willows at Ripon Racecourse on July 5 at 5.30pm
RIPON Theatre Festival returns from July 1 to 6 with a line-up of shows, stories and community spirit that promises to light up the North Yorkshire city.
Drama, storytelling, puppetry, street theatre, circus and dance feature in more than 100 performances of 60 different events, backed by the festival’s first Arts Council funding, with a developing outreach programme too.
Festival director Katie Scott says: “Ripon Theatre Festival continues to grow, and we’re so excited to bring our biggest and boldest programme yet to the city. With the support of Arts Council funding, we can reach even more people and create a festival full of joy, creativity and unforgettable performances.
“Whether you’re a theatre enthusiast, a family looking for free entertainment, or someone who loves great stories, there’s something for everyone. We can’t wait to welcome audiences old and new to experience the magic of live theatre in Ripon.”
The best of British touring theatre Performances from top-quality touring companies, such as festival favourites Illyria bringing The Wind In The Willows to life in the leafy setting of Ripon Racecourse on July 5 at 5.30pm.
Unforgettable outdoor theatre experiences From Breadcrumbs, Hansel & Gretel with a difference from Leeds company Wrongsemble, on the Family Day on July 6 (10am to 4pm), to open-air Shakespeare in Three Inch Fools’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Old Deanery gardens on July 6 at 7pm, Ripon becomes the stage for magical performances under the summer sky.
Buzzing city vibe Ripon will be alive with street performers from across the UK, pop-up stages and 25 local groups showcasing their talents. The festival creates a vibrant, welcoming atmosphere across the city, using the streets and historic buildings as a unique backdrop.
Opportunities to be involved From storytelling workshops and community art installations to the chance to try out Flamenco or join in circus skills, there are plenty of ways for all ages to participate.
Something for everyone From classic theatre and cutting-edge new writing to comedy, and family-friendly fun, the packed programme is for all ages and tastes.
World-class storytelling International storyteller-in-residence Peter Chand will bring tales of love, loss and separation inspired by his British Punjabi heritage to the atmospheric Leper Chapel, St Mary Magdalen’s, in Mangoes On The Beach, on July 2 at 3pm.
Free family entertainment Two days packed with free performances and activities make Ripon a destination for families looking for affordable fun. The Spa Gardens are turned into a Family Theatre zone for Festival Sunday with a rolling programme of theatre, puppetry, music, dance and walkabout acts.
City-wide offers for festival-goers Ripon’s independent businesses will be participating too. The city’s cafés, restaurants, and shops are joining the celebration with offers for ticket holders.
Bringing theatre to every corner The festival’s outreach programme ensures that care homes and community spaces are part of the action, spreading the joy of theatre across the city.
Spoilt for choice on opening night The festival kicks off on Tuesday (1/7/2025) with two very different shows. Audiences can choose from stand-up with rising comedy favourite Larry Dean and Lou Conran in the Hilarity Bites Festival Special at Ripon Arts Hub at 8pm or visit Ripon Cathedral for the gripping one-man theatre of Murray Watts’s The Beloved Son at 7.30pm.
Look out for: Third Class: A Titanic Story, Ripon Arts Hub, July 2, 8pm
Russell Lucas in Third Class, his one-man show about Titanic survivor Edward Dorking. Picture: Steve Ullathorne
THIRD Class – A Titanic Story is the latest project by writer, director and performer Russell Lucas, who specialises in staging new works.
Past projects include creating his one-man show The Bobby Kennedy Experience and Sarah Louise Young’s hit cabaret An Evening Without Kate Bush.
Now he presents Third Class, a well-known story, but one with an unknown hero, Titanic survivor Edward Dorking: one of the estimated 172 of the roughly 709 passengers who travelled in Steerage on the stricken luxury liner lucky enough to emerge unscathed. To do so, he swam for 30 minutes towards an already full collapsible lifeboat.
“Edward was gay. Openly gay, and on Wednesday April 10th, 1912, he set sail on a ticket bought for him by his parents in the hope his American family could put him ‘right’,” says Russell.
Using music, projection and movement, interwoven with historical fact, Third Class charts Edward’s journey of survival and how, on arriving in New York, he toured the vaudeville circuit, re-creating the stories for a fact-hungry public.
“Edward Dorking was a poverty-stricken gay man, travelling to the US to be ‘fixed’, who became a vaudeville curiosity and an angry campaigner against the injustices of the shipping disaster,” says Russell, who promises a “thrilling new perspective on what feels a familiar tale”.
“Edward didn’t want fame; he wanted revenge. When everyone was talking about the deaths of millionaires and society figures, few were discussing the people who took the lion’s share of the losses that night: the third class. Edward was coming for the upper classes.”
Wednesday’s 70-minute performance will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Russell. Third Class also plays Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, on July 12 at 3pm (box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk).
Further Ripon Theatre Festival theatre highlights
Louise Geller in Almost Austen at Ripon Arts Hub on July 5
ANDREW Harrison, stalwart of York’s Riding Lights Theatre Company, performs fellow Riding Lights luminary Murray Watts’s The Beloved Son at Ripon Cathedral on July 1 at 7.30pm.
Dutch Catholic priest and psychologist Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) abandoned academia for a new calling, caring for people with intellectual disabilities in a challenge to church and society. Hope and longing, family dynamics, sexual and emotional crisis and the profound insights of a spiritual writer inform Harrison’s solo performance, peppered with multiple characters played with dizzying speed.
LIZ Grand, who portrayed crime writer Agatha Christie at the 2023 Ripon Theatre Festival, returns with Mrs Churchill – My Life With Winston at Ripon Arts Hub on July 3 at 7.30pm.
Churchill once said: “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” Here Grand offers a sensitive, informative portrayal of Clementine, Winston’s wife for 56 years.
IN Norwich Theatre and Albert Cabbage’s Edinburgh Fringe hit Spy Movie: The Play!, at Ripon Arts Hub on July 4 at 8pm, Agent Blonde has 24 hours to save the world. The only thing standing in her way are dastardly villains, an outrageous plot and a lack of funding.
When Hollywood rejects her script, a frustrated screenwriter invites you, an audience of producers, to a one-night-only presentation of The Greatest Spy Movie (n)Ever Made, in an homage to Bond films and Fringe theatre from the stars of The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong.
SINGER Louise Geller brings her delightful musical theatre show Almost Austen to Ripon Arts Hub on July 5 at 8pm with its 60-minute story of Catherine, a modern girl in love with Jane Austen’s world who cannot believe her luck when she meets her very own Mr Tilney.
Through passages from Northanger Abbey, songs from musicals and operatic classics, Geller relates Catherine’s romantic ups and downs as real life and fantasy collide in a meeting of Bridget Jones and Northanger Abbey.
Olly Murs: Returning to familiar turf at York Racecourse’s first Summer Music Saturday meeting this afternoon
AS the outdoor concert season awakens, a festival goes to heaven and hell and a koala tries something new in Charles Hutchinson’s list for the upcoming week.
Back on track: Olly Murs, York Racecourse, Summer Music Saturday, today, first race at 1.55pm; last race, 5.25pm, followed by concert
ESSEX singer, songwriter, actor and television personality from Olly Murs completes his hat-trick of appearances at York Racecourse this weekend, having played the Knavesmire track in 2010 and 2017.
Performing after today’s race card, his set list will draw on his seven albums and 25 singles, including the number ones Please Don’t Let Me Go, Heart Skips A Beat, Dance With Me Tonight and Troublemaker. Race day tickets: yorkracecourse.co.uk.
Marcelo Nisinman: Argentinean bandoneon player, performing Martin Palmeri’s Misatango at York Guildhall today
Reverence and rhythm of the week: Prima Choral Artists presents Scared Rhythms: From Chant To Tango, York Guildhall, The Courtyard, Coney Street, York, tonight, 7.30pm
ARGENTINEAN bandoneon maestro and composer Marcelo Nisinman performs Martin Palmeri’s Misatango as the finale to director Eve Lorian’s Sacred Rhythms – From Chant To Tango concert.
He joins the 60-strong Prima Choral Artists choir, pianist Greg Birch, Yorkshire mezzo-soprano soloist Lucy Jubb and the New World String Quintet for tonight’s journey through sacred and spiritual choral music. Box office: primachoral.com.
Justin Moorhouse: Giving two of the greatest performances of his life at Pocklington Arts Centre this weekend
Comedy gigs of the week: Justin Moorhouse, The Greatest Performance Of My Life, Pocklington Arts Centre, today, 3pm and 8pm
ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE comedian, radio presenter and actor Justin Moorhouse covers subjects ranging from pantomimes to dreams, how to behave in hospitals, small talk, realising his mum is a northern version of Columbo, and how being a smart-mouthed child saved him from a life of continually being beaten up. Funny, interesting, perhaps it will warm the soul too. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Bluebird Bakery: Makers’ Summer Fair on Sunday in Acomb
Arts and crafts of the week: Makers’ Summer Fair, Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, Sunday, 10am to 3pm; The Fox Summer Craft Market, The Fox Inn, Holgate Road, York, Sunday, 1pm to 5pm
ARTISAN baker and cafe Bluebird Bakery plays host to York artists and makers’ craft, jewellery, print, ceramic, plant, candle and woodwork stalls under one roof. Meanwhile, The Fox Inn holds its second annual Summer Craft Market, featuring live music, handmade gifts, craft stalls and street food vendors.
Swift service: Xenna pays homage to Taylor in Miss Americana at York Barbican
Tribute gig of the week: Miss Americana: The Eras Experience, A Tribute To Taylor Swift, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm
STEP into Step into world ofTaylor Swift and her Eras experience in Xenna’s homage to the Pennsylvania pop sensation’s music, style and stage presence, from her country roots to such hits as Love Story, Blank Space and Shake It Off. Cue replica costume changes, storytelling and dancers too. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Dawn Landes: Amplifying the voices of women who fought for equality at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb
Country gig of the week: Dawn Landes, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, July 2, 8pm
AMERICAN country roots singer-songwriter Dawn Landes showcases The Liberated Woman’s Songbook, her March 2024 album that re-imagines music from the women’s liberation movement.
Inspired by a 1971 songbook of the same name, Landes breathes new life into powerful songs spanning 1830 to 1970, amplifying the voices of women who fought for equality throughout history. Box office: seetickets.com/event/dawn-landes/rise-bluebird/.
James Sheldon’s Mr Darcy and Rosa Hesmondhalgh’s Lizzy Bennet in Pride And Prejudice at the SJT, Scarborough
Introducing America’s most performed living playwright to North Yorkshire: Pride And Prejudice, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, July 3 to 26, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
LOTTE Wakeham directs American writer Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s story of love, misunderstandings and second chances, staged with music, dancing, humour aplenty and a cast led by Rosa Hesmondhalgh’s Lizzy Bennet (CORRECT) and James Sheldon’s Mr Darcy in a whirl of Regency parties and courtship as hearts race, tongues wag and passions swirl around the English countryside. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
The Koala Who Could: Up a tree at York Theatre Royal for three days next week. Picture: Pamela Raith
Children’s show of the week: The Koala Who Could, York Theatre Royal, July 3, 1.30pm; July 4, 10.30am and 4.30pm; July 5, 11am and 2pm
JOIN Kevin the koala, Kangaroo and Wombat as they learn that “life can be great when you try something new” in this adaptation of Rachel Bright and Jim Field’s picture book, directed by Emma Earle, with music and lyrics by Eamonn O’Dwyer.
Danny Hendrix (Wombat/Storyteller 1), Sarah Palmer (Cossowary/Storyteller 2) and Christopher Finn (Kevin/Storyteller 3) perform this empowering story of embracing change – whether we like it or not. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Richard Hawley: Playing Coles Corner with strings attached at Live At York Museum Gardens on July 5. Picture: Dean Chalkley
Open-air concerts of the week: Futuresounds presents Live At York Museum Gardens, Elbow, July 3; Nile Rodgers & CHIC, July4; Richard Hawley, July 5; gates open at 5pm
LEEDS promoters Futuresound Group’s second summer of outdoor concerts in York begins with Bury band Elbow’s sold-out show next Thursday, when Ripon singer-songwriter Billie Marten and Robin Hood’s Bay folk luminary Eliza Carthy & The Restitution support.
New York guitarist, songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers and CHIC revel in Good Times, Le Freak, Everybody Dance and I Want Your Love next Friday, supported by Maryland soul singer Jalen Ngonda. Sheffield guitarist and crooner Richard Hawley revisits his 1995 album Coles Corner with a string section on its 20th anniversary next Saturday, preceded by Leeds band English Teacher and Manchester-based American songwriter BC Camplight. Box office: seetickets.com.
Le Consort: French orchestral ensemble, making York debut with Vivaldi concert at National Centre for Early Music on July 6
Festival of the week: York Early Music Festival, Heaven & Hell, July 4 to 11
EIGHT days of classical music adds up to 19 concerts featuring international artists such as The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars, Academy of Ancient Music, viol consort Fretwork & Helen Charlston and the York debut of Le Consort, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons “but not quite as you know it”.
Directed by Delma Tomlin, the festival weaves together three main strands: the 400th anniversary of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, the Baroque music of Vivaldi and Bach and reflections on Man’s fall from grace, from Heaven to Hell. Full programme and tickets at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Box office: 01904 658338.
In Focus: Harry Baker, Wonderful 2.0, The Crescent, York, Sunday (29/6/2025)
Poet, mathematician and world slam champ Harry Baker
YOUNGEST ever World Poetry Slam champion Harry Baker’s two Wonderful 2.0 shows at The Crescent , York, tomorrow have sold out. Wonderful news for Harry; not so wonderful if you were yet to book for either bite of the poetic cherry, the 3.30pm all-ages matinee or 7pm evening event.
Enough negativity. Let this preview be suffused with positivity. “One thing that I know that I will always find amazing is what a thing it is to live a life,” posits Maths graduate Harry, who always looks for plus signs. “P.S. Let’s also do this loads before we die.” Good, because that means Baker will be back and next time you can be quicker off the mark.
Baker, the 34-year-old poet, mathematician, writer and comedy turn from Ealing, London, first spread his Wonderful wings from April to August 2024, visiting The Crescent on May 20 with poems about wellies, postcodes and his favourite German wheat beer Schöfferhofer on his sold-out 40-date itinerary.
At the time, the “Maths-loving, TED-talking, German-speaking, battle-rapping, happy-crying, self-bio-writing unashamed human” said: “After the mental health struggles I shared in my last show, this time around the plan was to have a fun time touring a fun show full of fun poems to celebrate coming out of the other side. But it hasn’t quite worked out like that.
“For the first time ever I have been to more funerals than weddings in the last year. I have hit the age where everyone around me is either having babies or talking about having babies or definitely not having babies, and found out first-hand how complicated and painful that can be. And yet I am more fascinated and amazed by the world around me than ever before.”
Harry added: “From the transformational power of documenting moments of everyday joy to the undeniable raw energy of performing a garage song about Greta Thunberg, I am learning more than ever that life can indeed be incredibly hard sometimes, but that doesn’t make it any less incredible.
“If anything, it is the darkness that helps us to appreciate the light, just as it is the puddles that help us to appreciate the wellies. And what could be more wonderful than sharing all of this with the glorious folk who come along after reading about it here.”
Now he returns with a new message to accompany his poems about “all the important stuff, like hope, dinosaurs and German falafel-spoons”. “May one thing match the gravity of all you’ve ever done. This wonderful reality: The best is yet to come,” Harry pronounces.
“More full of wonder than ever”, he will celebrate wellies and postcodes once more, funerals and fertility journeys too, in his trademark amalgam of the playful, the vulnerable and the hopeful.
How would he sum up Wonderful 2.0? “I like ‘Wonderfuller’. It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but I like the connotation,” he says.
“Wonderful 2.0 hopes to make you cry with laughter, laugh through tears, or, dream scenario: both. The show will contain old faves as well as brand new work, celebrating what a thing it is to live a life.”
“What I ended up doing was I started writing a poem a day for the first 100 days of my son’s life, though ‘poems’ would be a generous description of the first ones,” says Harry
For all his popularity on TikTok and Instagram, Baker’s favourite place to be is still on stage in front of an audience, sharing his words in person. “By its very nature, I don’t think it makes sense for poetry to go viral,” he says.
“It is all about taking the time out of your day-to-day to stop and pay attention to the world and the wonder it contains, which it feels like so many of us are too busy to be able to carve out time to do. And yet I think it is precisely this reason why people have been able to connect with my work so much.
“From the vulnerability of sharing my own personal struggles with trying to conceive a baby, to the power of making list of requests in advance of what I would like to happen when I die (an obnoxious amount of sunflowers and negronis all round, please), or even just a stupid (yet subversive?) poem about how great my knees are, there is a playfulness and poignancy that has changed the way others look at the world too.”
Harry continues: “I have been performing for 15 years now and last year’s tour was my favourite by far, because of the openness audiences were willing to bring and share in, so that we could all have a cry and a laugh and go away feeling slightly more connected to one another and the world, and I am so excited for a chance to do this all over again.”
Assessing where he fits in as a performer, Harry decides: “I think I fall somewhere in between a band (where you hope they will do your favourite songs) and a stand-up (where you expect new material!). So, as well as keeping in the classics, I have updated the show with new poems about everything that has happened in the meantime, including (finally and joyfully) having a baby.”
Wonderful 2.0 picks up where Wonderful left off, knowing his “whole life was about to change but not knowing how he would feel”. It turns out that becoming a father, and experiencing a deep love for his child, has heightened his connection with the world around him, rather than numbed it.
“What I ended up doing was I started writing a poem a day for the first 100 days of my son’s life, though ‘poems’ would be a generous description of the first ones!
“People say ‘it’s the best thing in the world’ or that ‘you’re going to lose everything you’ve enjoyed’, so I thought to be able to have all these snapshots in the poems means you can have days where you were in the moment, thinking how fragile and precious life is, but also have days where it doesn’t feel like that, especially in those early days, when if feels like ‘this is it, it will never change’.
“But having written these things, less than a year later, I look back and feel like ‘I think you’re being a bit dramatic’…but that’s fine because some of it felt amazing, sometimes it felt raw and spiky.
“Hopefully these poems will feel precious to me and my wife, and by sharing them, anyone who has recently has a baby will connect with them, or, like my parents, they can relate with them, and those who haven’t had a kid can connect with these basic emotions.”
Harry’s aim was to “capture the newness, the helplessness and the tenderness, not to create a parenting manual”. To detach from the practice of finding punchlines to jokes felt important in his writing. “I wanted to lean into the emotional side of it and that’s something that changes from day to day,” he says.
“This is the point in between where you can say ‘life can be difficult but also amazing, and if anything, one heightens the other’,” says Harry
Harry had written candidly about how long it took the couple to become pregnant. “To be so honest about that painful experience gave permission to connect with that, and now these new poems feel like an evolution,” he says.
“People have thanked me for ‘saying things they couldn’t’. I’ve been trying to open up in a way that is safe for me and safe for others, and having honed those skills, or muscles, I was ready to apply it to the new poems.
“It’s also trying to acknowledge that just because I have this child and this joyful outcome, it doesn’t negate the experience I’ve been through.”
The sequel to his Wonderful poetry collection will be published by Canongate next March. “This is the point in between where you can say ‘life can be difficult but also amazing, and if anything, one heightens the other’. If you can share the hard times with people, just as you share the joyous times, they’re more bearable for that.”
Poems have an intensity that suits the combative nature of slams. “When I started out, I was entering these poetry slams where you have to say everything in three minutes, win over the audience, be funny, get them on board, deliver a message, wrap it up and send it off into the sunset,” says Harry.
“That was such a good training ground because you have to convey things in such a short space of time. That’s why these Wonderful shows are such a joy to do, particularly when the poems can feel vulnerable and heartfelt, and it’s up to you where you take it next.”
Next year’s poetry collection, Tender, will reflect that. “Why ‘Tender’? I think it was that thing of wanting to lean into the feeling of vulnerability, but as well as the connotation of being tender where you feel bruised, there’s the ripeness and readiness too.”
Did you know?
HARRY Baker’s honest, heartfelt and hopeful poems have reached more than ten million people on TikTok and Instagram.
Raised in a Christian community, Baker is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2’s Pause For Thought.
He tours the UK in comedy-rap-jazz duo Harry and Chris Baker, also appearing on The Russell Howard Hour.
Baker released his third poetry collection, Wonderful, in May 2024, featuring fan favourites Wellies, Sunflowers and Sticky Toffee Pudding. Published by Burning Eye, copies are available at gigs, all good bookshops and www.harrybaker.co.
REVIEW: Through It All Together, Leeds Playhouse, until July 19 *****
Reece Dinsdale’s Howard and Shobna Gulati’s Sue in Through It All Together. Picture: Charlie Swinbourne
THROUGH It All Together is the third play about Leeds United after Anders Lustgarten’s ubiquitous, damnable The Damned United and Anthony Clavane and Nick Stimson’s lesser-spotted Promised Land, A Northern Love Story, staged in a community production with Red Ladder at Leeds Carriageworks Theatre in Summer 2012.
“About Leeds United” tells only half the story. The Damned United, adapted from David Peace’s literary psycho-drama, was rather more about Brian Clough, the Richard III of Leeds managers, and his 44-day impact on Revie’s champions versus their corrosive, longer-rooted impact on “Old Big ‘ead”.
A Promised Land, adapted from Clavane’s non-fiction book, interwove the repeat pattern of the rise and fall of Leeds United and the industries of Leeds with the story of the city’s Jewish community, who provided the club’s most successful chairmen, Manny Cussins and Leslie Silver.
Now Leeds United is only half the story once more in Chris O’Connor’s Through It All Together, a title taken from the club anthem Marching On Together (originally entitled Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! as the B-side to the official 1972 FA Cup Final song, Top Ten hit Leeds United, as the Courtyard theatre audience would all know!).
Forever Leeds fan O’Connor – known as “Leeds” at his London school – “could write one strand in his sleep”, and so the Leeds United story, a love letter to sainted Argentine maverick Marcelo Bielsa and his 2020 Championship champions, is indeed penned with all the self-deprecating humour, in-jokes, reverence and irreverence of a battle-hardened yet defiantly optimistic Peacocks supporter.
The other strand, drawn from the impact of dementia on the grandmother who helped to raise him, again is written from the inside track. “One aspect we really wanted to get right was making sure the show is dementia friendly and accurate to what people go through,” he told Graham Smyth [the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Leeds United reporter since 2019] in his interview for the Playhouse premiere’s excellent programme.
Your reviewer writes with investment too: both as a long-suffering Leeds United addict since 1969 and having experienced his father’s seven-year decline with dementia – it is never a battle – that ended in relief and release in January 2016.
O’Connor said he could be “incredibly confident and happy” with the Leeds United angle. He has taken every care – like the remarkable staff at dementia care homes – to bring similar authenticity to the dementia thread, backed by the work of Playhouse theatre and dementia research consultant Dr Nicky Taylor and the Courtyard corridor exhibition that rewards early arrival for perusal.
Director Gitika Buttoo says O’Connor’s play is “for the people of Leeds, showing how football ripples through all the corners of life…but that story, while rooted in Leeds, is universal”. She’s right. You could transplant the structure to any football club’s origin story, such is the ubiquity of a supporter’s jam-side-down relationship with fate, while dementia is becoming pervasive.
In this story, Reece Dinsdale’s life-long Leeds United fan Howard Wright is in the early throes of dementia, his life-changing diagnosis coinciding with director of football Victor Orta’s left-field pursuit and recruit of Marcelo Bielsa to end LUFC’s wilderness years amid the Championship tundra.
The volcanic Orta is represented physically by one of two Paul Madeleys in Buttoo’s cast, the multi-role-playing Dean Smith (regular “Championship will Championship” contributor to The Square Ball podcast, by the way).
He teams up with Everal A Walsh in three partnerships, representing the club management (Orta and a calmer presence alongside); the fans, a diehard Elland Road attendee and a disaffected deserter newly magnetised by Bielsa’s beautiful game; and the media, podcasting and match dissecting much in the healthily cynical/sceptical/supportive style of The Square Ball, quirky adverts et al.
Unlike the omnipresent Clough in The Damned United, Bielsa is not portrayed physically (save for a delightful fantasy sequence where he dances the Argentine Tango with Shobna Gulati’s Sue in Newell’s Old Boys kit in his 1970s’ defender days). Nor is he symbolised by Bielsa’s Bucket (on which he would surely perch if the club were ever to bestow him a statue).
Instead, as mystical as Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name turning up out of nowhere, and more in keeping with Irek “Tankpetrol” Jasutowicz’s Bielsa mural at Hyde Park Corner, St Marcelo appears in a stained glass window, beatific, aura aglow, high above his Peacock flock, within set designer Amanda Stoodley’s open-plan framework of a church. How fitting!
Church structure meets the kitchen-sink drama of the Wright household’s kitchen and sitting room, home to Dinsdale’s Howard and fellow Leeds devotee Sue (Gulati), joined regularly by daughter and putative chef Hazel (Natalie Davies).
They will, in the words of the club anthem, go through it all together, both Howard’s descent into dementia and Leeds United’s typically flattering-to-deceive yet, hardly a spoiler alert, ultimately sublime rise to the Premiership’s golden gates that coincided with Covid’s lockdowns.
Two forms of distancing then play out: the fans consigned to listening to Adam Pope on BBC Radio Leeds, and Howard’s losing his sentient powers to dementia’s corrosion and erosion.
O’Connor writes brilliantly and so movingly of this struggle: the “forgetfulness”, the sudden moments of lucid clarity (such as naming Don Revie’s champion team); Howard’s wish to not be a burden to his family by listing preparations to move to a care home while he still has the mental minerals to make that decision.
More and more sticker messages are placed around the house to help Howard navigate his way through each day’s routines; daughter Hazel starts to question whether the measures they take are worth it; Sue is consigned to hospital with Covid, at which point Dinsdale’s performance hits new heights.
All the while, he and Sue will sing Marching On Together as the couple’s love song, “We love you, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds” replaced by “I love you Sue, Sue, Sue”.
We know how it ended for LUFC, with promotion, only to be followed inevitably by Leeds falling apart again (as Walsh’s fan laments to the biggest knowing laughs).
We know how it will end for Howard, so we don’t need to see it. They will go through it all together, like Leeds United’s motto, side before self.
Dinsdale, a Playhouse luminary since 1990’s debut production of Wild Oats after the Quarry Hill relocation, is terrific in his King Lear for the football masses, all the more so for putting his Huddersfield Town allegiances to one side to embrace Leeds United.
The ever supportive Gulati, always a hit with Leeds audiences, the doughty Davies and the Smith-Walsh double act at the treble are tremendous too under Buttoo’s direction that makes the play work for fan and theatre lover alike.
You will laugh, you will cry, you will cheer and groan, you will sing the songs, just like at Elland Road; you will miss Marcelo and you will know someone like Howard. At some we shall all have to go through it together, as we have our ups and downs.
Chris O’Connor has told a story of the everyman (Howard) and the extraordinary (Bielsa) with dignity, distinction and devotion.
Through It All Together, Leeds Playhouse, at least until the world stops going round, or more precisely July 19. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
Katie Cole’s fawning courtesan Giuletta in York Opera’s The Tales Of Hoffmann. Picture: David Kessel
YORK Opera is alive and kicking. Not content to fall back on one of its favourites, it is breaking new ground with Offenbach’s opéra fantastique. But in another sense it is building on the legacy of one man who gave well over half a century to this company as singer, set designer and director: Clive Marshall, who died in March at the age of 88.
A protegée of Clive’s, Liz Watson now takes the reins in this lively production, assisted by John Soper. Clive would have been equally pleased that the chorus includes a dozen new members, a sure sign that he left the company in good health.
In largely modern dress, it uses an older edition than is nowadays usual, in an English translation by Edward Agate, omitting most of the spoken dialogue and almost all of the recitatives inserted after the composer’s death.
Ian Thomson-Smith’s evil genius in York Opera’s The Tales Of Hoffmann: “His first-class diction and forthright baritone carried continuing menace”. Picture: David Kessel
This sensibly cuts the show down to a reasonable two and a half hours. Alasdair Jamieson’s orchestra is reduced to two dozen, in Tony Burke’s version, which is more than adequate for this theatre, given the expertise of the players involved, led by Claire Jowett.
Hamish Brown fashioned a steady Hoffmann, sympathetically unveiling the character’s ups and downs with the opposite sex if without much change in vocal tone. He was at his best in the Legend of Kleinzach. He certainly curried sympathy for his unfortunate predicaments along the way. His alternate (for June 26 and 28) is the equally experienced Karl Reiff.
Watson reminded us of Nicklausse’s origins as Hoffmann’s muse with a subtle change from dress to suit in the prologue. Alexandra Mather’s stage presence offered ample reassurance of Nicklausse’s value as friend to Hoffmann, with an admirable mezzo to boot.
Stephanie Wong: “Brought delightful coloratura to the mechanical Olympia, carrying off her aria with wit and charm” in York Opera’s The Tales Of Hoffmann
Understandably, three different sopranos covered Hoffmann’s would-be conquests. Stephanie Wong brought delightful coloratura to the mechanical Olympia, carrying off her aria with wit and charm, not least when she had to be rewound.
Ione Cumming’s strong tone as Antonia ensured this was the most dramatic of Hoffmann’s affairs, singing herself to death persuasively. As the fawning courtesan Giuletta, Katie Cole made the most of the famous Barcarole, duping Hoffmann in their duet before sugaring off with a gondolier.
Hamish Brown’s Hoffmann in York Opera’s The Tales Of Hoffmann: “Curried sympathy for his unfortunate predicaments along the way”
The evil genius behind all three of these deceptions – variously Coppélius, Dr Miracle and Captain Dapertutto – was excellently embodied by Ian Thomson-Smith, in a variety of pseudo-mystical costumes. His first-class diction and forthright baritone carried continuing menace.
Several smaller roles were well characterised. Mark Simmonds as Hoffmann’s perpetual opposition Lindorf, Leon Waksberg as the inventor Spalazani, Molly Raine as his assistant, and Rebecca Smith as the ghost of Antonia’s mother, all caught the eye.
Alexandra Mather: “Her stage presence offered ample reassurance of Nicklausse’s value as friend to Hoffmann, with an admirable mezzo to boot”. Picture: David Kessel
With John Soper’s perpetual set covering the full width of the stage, it was a smart idea to limit the chorus choreography to only ten singers, whose movements largely echoed the trials of the three principal ladies. The chorus, clearly well drilled, threw itself wholeheartedly into the fray when required without too much action off the ball.
It almost goes without saying that Alasdair Jamieson sustained a firm grip on all his forces. The orchestra responded with particular enthusiasm, to the point of occasionally overpowering a couple of soloists. But these were brief misdemeanours and the overall spirit of the evening was unaffected. A tricky opera smoothly negotiated and another feather in York Opera’s cap.
York Opera in The Tales Of Hoffmann, York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7.15pm; tomorrow, 4pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Ione Cummings’ Antonia and Karl Reiff’s Hoffmann in York Opera’s The Tales Of Hoffmann. Picture: David Kessel
