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REVIEW: York Musical Society, Bach’s Mass in B minor, York Minster, March 15

Baritone soloist David John Pike

FOLLOWING a call to prayer, the concert opened with a gravitas-laden Kyrie. It took a moment or two to get into the groove, but despite the ever-generous Minster acoustic, I could hear the choral fugue weaving its way through to a pleasing cadence.

The Christe soprano duet— Zoë Brookshaw and Philippa Boyle — with obbligato violins was in the altogether sunnier key of D major. The singers’ clear, confident deliveries and crisp string articulation brought a welcome relief and respite.

But then back to a second Kyrie fugue. This worked much better; maybe the choir were more at ease with the vocal demands, but I think the greater clarity and confidence benefited from Bach’s doubling of instruments and voices.

Assured string and clear trumpet playing added much to the celebratory opening of the – D major again – Gloria. I did lose a bit of choral detail, but this is a given in this acoustic. Nicola Rainger was on fine form with a disciplined, technically challenging violin obbligato accompaniment to Philippa Boyle’s captivating Laudamus Te.

Despite the impressive, soaring trumpet contribution, the Gratias Agimus Tibi seemed to have that ‘morning after’ quality. The balance between soprano (Zoë Brookshaw), tenor (Nicholas Watts) and flute obbligato (Della Blood) with muted strings was nigh-on perfect.

Indeed, David Pipe’s judgement was an impressive feature throughout the concert. The Qui Sedes Ad Dexteram Patris was sung by countertenor Tom Lilburn, and very well indeed. The clarity, almost purity of tone, worked really well with Jane Wright’s oboe d’amore obbligato accompaniment.

Baritone David John Pike fared less well in the following Quoniam Tu Solus Sanctus. I lost detail in the lower register, but as the aria is scored for the bass voice, this really wasn’t surprising. Janus Wadsworth was excellent on horn, but again I found it tricky to hear the bassoon playing with any real clarity.

The closing Cum Sancto Spiritu proved to be an enjoyable fugal first-half signing-off. The tempo was suitably energetic, and the strings in good nick with fine, crisp articulation.

This brought us to a welcome 15-minute break where the audience seemed to bypass chat about the performance in favour of how cold it was.

The Credo is in itself an altogether satisfying movement, probably on account of its clearly defined symmetrical structure. There was an impressive account of Et In Unum Dominum Jesus Christum from Zoë Brookshaw (soprano) and Tom Lilburn (countertenor) with sympathetic string commentary.

The aria Et In Spiritum Sanctum was more suited to the baritone range and gave David John Pike the chance to showcase what a very fine singer he really is. The oboe d’amore obbligati support was really well judged too. However, I could have sworn they were placed stage left. But not so. Of the three central choral sections, the opening five-part chorus Et Incarnatus Est De Spiritu Sancto fared best. In a quiet setting, the performance shone brightly.

By the time we reached the end of the Sanctus, it was clear that, to use a footballing metaphor, there were a lot of tired legs out there. The demands on the chorus are massive and unrelenting.

Yet, following a poignant Agnus Dei performed by Tom Lilburn with yearning string commentary, they rallied to deliver a splendid Dona Nobis Pacem to bring this enormous spiritual journey to a satisfying conclusion.

Finally, we should mention the consistent quality support from organist Shaun Turnbull and the authoritative direction of conductor David Pipe. But I am going to leave the last word with tenor Nicholas Watts. His performance of the Benedictus aria— with lovely flute accompaniment (Louise Evans, I think) — was, for me, the highlight of the concert.

Review by Steve Crowther

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REVIEW: Rowntree Players in Glorious!, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 2.30pm and 7.30pm today ***

Neil Foster’s Cosme McMoon Jackie Cox’s Florence Foster Jenkins and Mike Hickman’s St Clair Bayfield in the Rowntree Players poster for Glorious!, mirroring the composition of the poster for Stephen Frears’ film, by the way

GLORIOUS! is the true story of 1940s’ New York socialite heiress Florence Foster Jenkins, “the worst singer in the world”, yet cherished by Cole Porter and Tallulah Bankhead, no less.

You may recall Meryl Streep’s Oscar-nominated tour de force in Stephen Frears’ 2016 film or Hull actress Maureen Lipman in the West End premiere of Peter Quilter’s 2005 play with music. Now is the turn of Jackie Cox in Martyn Junter’s elegant production for Rowntree Players.

Meanwhile, as chance would have it, across the Pennines, Wendi Peters is playing Florence in a revised version of Quilter’s joyous drama at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester until March 30.

In her day, bemused audiences would great the screeching warbling of the deluded Florence with mocking laughter, but in Glorious! the laughter is reserved for Quilter’s script, whose wit is even sharper than Florence’s ever-enthusiastic but far-from-pitch-perfect singing.

We first encounter Cox’s flamboyant Florence in her grand hotel suite abode, where her constantly supportive manager and long-time companion, failed British Shakespearean actor St Clair Bayfield (Mike Hickman), has arranged for dapper Cosme McMoon  (Neil Foster) to be her new piano accompanist.

Apparently, St Clair has been cut from the streamlined Manchester production, but Hickman makes you wonder why as he continues his run of impressive performances with this arch, dry-humoured fixer.

Foster’s McMoon takes his place behind assorted grand pianos through the show, his face a picture of alrm when he first encounters the shocking noise of “the First Lady of the sliding scale”.

It becomes a running joke how McMoon’s eloquence allows him to seemingly flatter Florence by leaving out the exact word that would insult her and yet impart that meaning to the audience. Here Quilter’s delicious, mischievous writing is at its best, along with the moment he plays a delightful trick on the audience in a funeral scene, turning sombre repose to chuckles.

Florence loves to sing, loves to dress up, loves to entertain, loves to raise money for charity, loves music, but she does not take kindly to criticism, vetting her potential audiences by restricting entry to invitation only to her notorious balls.

She is shielded from the truth by kindly/sycophantic friends, such as Dorothy (Jeanette Hunter in a double act with a stuffed dog), but in Cox’s hands you cannot but warm to her passion for performing, even if you cover your ears when another high note falls off the cliff edge.

What’s more, like comedian Les Dawson’s deliberately maladroit piano playing, it takes skill to sing always tantalisingly either side of the right note. Director Hunter encouraged Cox to worsen her singing in rehearsal, advice that pays off in Cox’s indestructible performance.

Her Madame is neither an operatic diva, nor a circus freak show, more a singing equivalent to Olympian ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards in still giving pleasure for all the faults in her technique. Quilter brings so much heart her character and to his storytelling, summed up in a poignant finale where we are invited to think how Florence, by now in angel wings for her triumphant Carnegie Hall farewell, thought she sounded when she sang.

That angelic frock is but one of many striking costume choices by Julie Fisher and Cox herself, matched by the set design with yellow walls and green doors for Florence’s hotel apartment.  Abundant flowers adorn the stage, courtesy of Robert Readman and cast members, and if Cox’s singing puts teeth on edge, the soothing recorded piano arrangements by Sam Johnson are of the highest order.

Martyn Hunter pops up in dapper dinner jacket to play a CBS news reporter, Graham Smith has a cameo as the Undertaker, and Quilter’s skill at crafting humorous characters is further affirmed by Moira Tait’s Maria, Florence’s Mexican maid, who sticks stoically to speaking Spanish  – aside from “sandwiches” – but understands every English utterance in another running gag.

Chris Higgins draws boos for her performance as Mrs Verrinder-Gedge, not for the quality of her acting, be assured, but for her music snob’s rude, mean-spirited interruption of Madame’s concert.

Not boos, but cheers, even tears, accompany Florence’s swan song – fitting for Rowntree Players’ polished, amusing, ultimately poignant show. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond when the XXX factor hits the gallery walls. Hutch’s List No. 11 from The York Press

York Pop artist Harland Miller with his new work York from his XXX exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Olivia Hemingway

FROM Harland Miller’s Pop Art to Emma Rice’s theatrical world premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, these are exciting times for arts exploits, Charles Hutchinson reports.

XXXhibition launch of the week: Harland Miller: XXX, York Art Gallery, until August 31, open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm

YORK-RAISED artist and writer Harland Miller has returned to York Art Gallery to launch XXX, showcasing paintings and works on paper from his Letter Paintings series, including the unveiling of several new paintings, not least ‘York’, a floral nod to Yorkshire’s white rose and York’s daffodils.   

Inspired by his upbringing in 1970s’ Yorkshire and an itinerant lifestyle in New York, New Orleans, Berlin and Paris during the 1980s and 1990s, Miller creates colourful and graphically vernacular works that convey his love of popular language and attest to his enduring engagement with its narrative, aural and typographical possibilities. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk.

David John Pike: Baritone soloist at York Musical Society’s concert

Classical concert of the week: York Musical Society, Bach Mass in B minor, York Minster, tonight, 7.30pm

DAVID Pipe conducts York Musical Society’s singers and orchestra in Bach’s epic choral work, replete with magnificent choruses, resplendent fugues, moving arias and soloists Zoe Brookshaw and Philippa Boyle (both soprano), Tom Lilburn (countertenor), Nicholas Watts (tenor) and Canadian/British/Luxembourger David John Pike (baritone), who returned to music after initially training and working as a chartered accountant. Tickets: available from York Minster or on the door.

Tayla Kenyon: Exploring memories and the choices we make in Fluff at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Fringe play of the week: Teepee Productions and Joe Brown present Fluff, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

NOW is the time for Fluff to do the ultimate puzzle: her life. As she navigates her way through her most treasured and darkest memories, she desperately needs to piece together her life, story by story, person by person.

Tayla Kenyon performs solo in her darkly comedic 75-minutre play, co written with James Piercy, as she explores memories and the choices we make, using a non-linear plot line to enable the audience to feel, first hand, the devastating effects of dementia. Box office:  tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Ewan Wardrop in rehearsal for his role as reluctant hero Roger Thornhill in Wise Children’s production of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, premiering at York Theatre Royal from March 18

World premiere of the week in York: Wise Children in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, York Theatre Royal, March 18 to April 5, 7.30pm plus 2pm, March 26 and April 3; 2.30pm, March 29 and April 5

IT would be strange if, in a city of seven million people, one man were never mistaken for another…and that is exactly what happens to Roger Thornhill, reluctant hero of North By Northwest, when a mistimed phone call to his mother lands him smack bang in the middle of a Cold War conspiracy. Now he is on the run, dodging spies, airplanes and a femme fatale who might not be all she seems.

Wise Children writer-director Emma Rice turns film legend Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller on its head in her riotously humorous reworking. Replete with six shape-shifting performers, a fabulous 1950s’ soundtrack and a heap of hats, this dazzling co-production with York Theatre Royal, HOME Manchester and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse plays with heart, mind and soul in a topsy-turvy drama full of glamour, romance, jeopardy and a liberal sprinkling of tender truths. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Nina Wadia’s Gemma and Sam Bailey’s April in NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith

Musical of the week: NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, Grand Opera House, York, March 18 to 22, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees, Wednesday and Saturday

DIRECTED by Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, comedian Pippa Evans’s hit-laden musical is set in Birmingham in 1989 and 2009. Back in the day, school friends Gemma Warner and April Devonshire are planning their lives based on Number One magazine quizzes and dreaming of snogging Rick Astley. Twenty years later, Gemma (Nina Wadia) and April (The X Factor winner Sam Bailey) face  the most dreaded event of their adult lives: the school reunion.

Drama, old flames and receding hairlines come together as friends reunite and everything from the past starts to slot into place. Sinitta, Eighties’s pop star of So Macho and Toy Boy fame, will be the guest star all week in a show featuring Gold, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Tainted Love, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves et al. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

In the Strummer time: Stiff Little Fingers’ Ali McMordie, left, Steve Grantley, Jake Burns and Ian McCallum pay tribute to The Clash punk hero at York Barbican. Picture: Will Byington

Punk gig of the week: Stiff Little Fingers, Flame In Our Hearts Tour, York Barbican, March 18, doors 7pm

NORTHERN Irish punk legends Stiff Little Fingers’ tour title is a nod their 2003 track Summerville, recorded to mark the untimely passing of Joe Strummer of The Clash.

Frontman Jake Burns says: “The opening line to the song is ‘You lit a flame in my heart’ and still stands strong today as it did when I wrote it. Joe was a legend and a huge influence on myself and the band. Calling the tour Flame In The Heart keeps Joe in everyone’s memory.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk. Meanwhile, Monday’s double bill of The Darkness and special guests Ash has sold out.

Nearly here: Paddy McGuinness brings his Nearly There tour to York Barbican next Thursday

Comedy gig of the week: Paddy McGuinness, Nearly There, York Barbican, March 20, 7.45pm

FARNWORTH comedian, television and radio presenter and game show host Paddy McGuinness plays York on his first stand-up itinerary since 2016. Launching the 40 dates last year, he said: “It’s been eight years since my last tour and there’s lots of things to laugh about! I’m looking forward to getting back in front of a live audience, along with running the gauntlet of cancel culture, click bait and fake news.” Tickets update: only a handful of single seats still available at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Dr Rangan Chatterjee: Health and happiness tips at York Barbican

Meet “the architect of health and happiness”: Dr Rangan Chatterjee, The Thrive Tour 2025, York Barbican, March 21, 7.30pm

JOIN Dr Rangan Chatterjee, inspirational host of Europe’s biggest health podcast, Feel Better, Live More, author and star of BBC One’s Doctor In The House, for two transformative hours of learning the skill of happiness, discovering the secrets to optimal health, breaking free from habits that hold you back and discovering how to make changes that last. “Be empowered, be inspired and learn how to thrive,” he says. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Next Door But One in Hospital Doors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

Christie Peto’s Jo , left, Evie Jones’s Sam and Ian Weichardt’s Andi in Next Door But One’s Hospital Doors at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Picture: James Drury

YORK community arts collective Next Door But One co-created Hospital Doors over 18 months in workshops with community groups of LGBTQ+ young people and adults, unpaid carers and disabled people.

Artistic director Matt Harper-Hardcastle’s resulting 75-minute play filters that research into a fractious family drama built on intersecting conversations on disability, sexuality, illness, care and death.

When their father falls ill, estranged siblings Jo (Christie Peto), Andi (Ian Weichardt) and Sam (Evie Jones) find themselves thrown together for the first time in years. Assumptions are shattered, revelation by revelation, as they grow to know each other anew.

Writer-director Matt Harper-Hardcastle in the rehearsal room for Next Door But One’s Hospital Doors

Harper-Hardcastle structures his contemporary drama as a three-hander that explores the sibling relationship from their contrasting perspectives, building the full, three-dimensional picture out of all the chaos of their childhood and adult years.

Peto’s Jo is the disgruntled elder sister, who at 16 took over looking after her disabled sister Sam (Jones) when their mother died. She is filled with resentment towards gay brother Andi (Weichardt), who has been absent for six years, not there to help with caring for their ailing father, having left the home and a stifling environment where school bullies had called him ‘poofter’ and his homophobic father ridiculed him as “Andi Pansy”.

In turn, Jones’s Sam has had to cope with disability, walking with a stick after an accident, and sensing her father’s shame at having a disabled daughter, like when he took away her stick for photos for the family album. She has had to live with people always looking at Jo, rather than her, when matters are being discussed. Now she is embroiled in the labyrinthine bureaucracy of PIP (Personal Independence Payment) negotiations too.

Christie Peto’s Jo taking centre stage in Next Door But One’s premiere of Hospital Doors. Picture: James Drury

Harper-Hardcastle writes with candour, humour and insight, great understanding too, reminiscent of both Mike Leigh and Ken Loach in documenting modern-day family dynamics within the impact of the wider society framework, with its prejudices, its moral minefields, its bigotry and belligerence.  

This story of home truths and days, even years, away from home, is full of pain, grief, anger, but also, in Harper-Hardcastle’s own words, “the joy that can be found in the mundane efforts we all make to understand those we love”. Therein lies the hope in an ending that asks the last of the play’s big questions.

The theatrical style is intimate, chamber sized, with only three red chair, symbolic of its small scale but with a big impact, like in John Godber’s early kinetic comedies. The focus is on the to and fro of the dialogue, the performing style being equally frank and no-nonsense.

Playing games: Evie Jones’s Sam presents the family Monopoly set to Ian Weichardt ‘s Andi as Christie Peto’s Jo looks miffed in Hospital Doors. Picture: James Drury

Props are minimal but deeply significant, never more so than when each sibling brings a game or toy from childhood days with sustained symbolism, such as Andi being the missing piece from his jigsaw. (Sam chooses Monopoly; Jo, Buckaroo.)

Stella Blackman’s set design of see-through string curtains and doorways evokes what Harper calls “fleeting, transient places” for conversations in hospital corridors, over garden walls and on the phone. Lara Jones’s sound design, Jessie Addinall’s lighting design and Amelia Hawkes’s video projections bring modernity to the Sixties’ kitchen-sink drama conventions of the subject matter, peaking with a fevered mash-up of sound and vision to match the splintered emotions.

Next Door But One prides itself on being an inclusive company, typified here by the use of Hawkes’s creative captioning, displayed above the set design. You might find yourself comparing the printed wording with the more flexible interpretation by the cast, but for your reviewer it reinforces the punching power of Harper-Hardcastle’s text.

Next Door But One presents Hospital Doors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow at 2pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Next Door But One’s poster for Hospital Doors

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Now that’s what I call a debut musical role for Nina Wadia at Grand Opera House

Nina Wadia’s Gemma Warner, left, and Sam Bailey’s April Devonshire in NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York, next week. Picture: Pamela Raith

NINA Wadia grew up listening to the NOW tapes. “For me, being part of this musical is like going home,” she says, as NOW That’s What I Call A Musical heads to the Grand Opera House, York, next week.

On tour since last September, comedian-writer Pippa Evans’s fun-filled show, bursting with Whitney Houston, Wham!,  Blondie, Tears For Fears, Spandau Ballet hits and many more besides, offers the chance to relive the playlist of your lives in celebration of 40 years of the NOW That’s What I Call Music compilation brand.

“When I read the script, I immediately fell in love with the characters and Pippa’s story,” says Nina who “couldn’t wait to get started on my first ever musical”.

Profiling herself on social media as “Mother, Actress, Producer and Presenter”, Nina has embraced everything, from radio drama company regular to soap opera, in a career that has taken in the  BBC Asian sketch comedy in Goodness Gracious; TV roles as Aunty Noor in Citizen Khan, Mrs Hussein in Still Open All Hours and Zainab Masood in EastEnders; being a video game voiceover artist and narrator for the animated series Tweedy And Fluff on Channel 5’s Milkshake and taking her terpsichorean turn as a Strictly Come Dancing contestant in 2021. She is a charity campaigner too, honoured with an OBE.

NOW That’s What I Call A Musical director-choreographer Craig Revel Horwood and writer Pippa Evans

Now she is starring alongside Sam Bailey, 2013 winner of The X Factor, and Eighties’ pop star Sinitta, of So Macho and Toy Boy fame, in Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood’s touring production of NOW That’s What I Call A Musical.

“I did a workshop for it in October 2023 and thought nothing of it at first because we do a lot of workshops; sometimes things happen; sometimes they don’t, but this one has worked out,” says Nina. “It’s a really fun piece, right up my street, comedy and drama mixed together, but I was a bit confused because music was not my thing.

“But I did sing in the York Theatre Royal panto that winter [playing the kooky Fairy Sugarsnap in Jack And The Beanstalk], and the next thing I knew, they offered me the show, and I thought ‘I’ll take the chance’. It’s been such fun, getting my singing voice up to speed and working with this incredible cast: 21 of us, a huge cast!”

Pippa Evans’s show heads back to 1989 in Birmingham, where school friends Gemma Warner and April Devonshire are busy with planning their lives based on Number One Magazine quizzes and dreaming of snogging Rick Astley.

Nina Wadia with NOW That’s What I Call A Musical co-star Sinitta. Picture: Oliver Rosser

Cut to Birmingham 2009, for the most dreaded event of their adult lives: the school reunion. Drama, old flames and receding hairlines come together as friends reunite and everything from the past starts to slot into place for Nina Wadia’s Gemma and Sam Bailey’s April.

“It’s like a play within a musical and people come away very, very surprised, not expecting what they see,” says Nina. “Then everyone is up on their feet at the end for the medley.”

Nina and Sam are joined by a rotating roster of star turns on the tour run, whether Sinitta, Sonia, T’Pau’s Carol Decker, Jay Osmond or, for one week only in Edinburgh, Toyah Willcox.

“They each do a special fantasy sequence, coming on to do a big number and the megamix at the end,” says Nina. “It’ll be Sinitta doing it in York and she’s so much fun. All our guest stars bring their own style to it, and Sinitta has a real diva style, sending herself up.”

Nina Wadia: Mother, actress, producer, presenter, voiceover artist and charity campaigner

The magic roundabout of guests brings it challenges. “It’s on a wing and a prayer and that’s genuinely half the fun of it, because audiences find it hilarious,” says Nina. “We’ve had maybe two four-hour sessions before they each perform with us.”

She is full of praise for Pippa Evans’s script. “Pippa said she really wanted me to be in the show and wrote the part of Gemma for me, which is a real compliment. She has a wonderful ability to come up with a line where I can make people laugh and also feel empathy and she really understands friendships and how they work,” says Nina.

“My best friends are from when I was 18/19, when you have big dreams, and in this story they’re two friends who’ve not seen each other for 20 years. You see their younger selves with all their dreams and then the second half really flies as you see what’s happened to them.

“It’s funny for 80 per cent of it but you also get invested in it really quickly, going from belly laughing to not being sure what to think, from laughter to crying to dancing at the end.”

Nina Wadia’s Fairy Sugarsnap in Jack And The Beanstalk, York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions’ pantomime in 2023-2024

Nina is looking forward to her return to York. “I was really quite ill at the start of the panto, which was so upsetting as it was my first time in York, and what’s lovely is that I now get to do what I wanted t do while I was in the panto, which is to train my voice and use it properly,” she says.

“I’m not a musical theatre actor, so the best advice I was given was that if you sing in character, as Gemma, the voice just comes. That advice came from Georgia, our musical director, who said ‘don’t be nervous’and gave me so many different vocal exercises to do. If I felt nervous in September, by October I felt really invested in it and now I love it.”

ROYO, Universal Music UK, Sony Music Entertainment and Mighty Village present  NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, Grand Opera House, York, March 18 to 22, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york

Copyright of The Press, York.

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Ewan Wardrop dances with delight at playing Roger Thornhill in Emma Rice’s take on Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest

Ewan Wardrop in rehearsal at The Lucky Chance, Frome, for his role as Roger Thornhill in Wise Children’s production of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, premiering at York Theatre Royal from March 18 to April 5. Picture: Steve Tanner

EWAN Wardrop returns to the Wise Children ranks for the world premiere of Emma Rice’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest at York Theatre Royal from March 18.

After appearing in artistic director Rice’s productions of Bagdad Café (Old Vic Theatre, London) and The Buddha Of Suburbia (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London), he will take the lead role of Roger Thornhill in the Somerset company’s co-production with York Theatre Royal, HOME Manchester and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse.

Mistaken for another man, Thornhill finds himself smack bang in the middle of a Cold War conspiracy after a mistimed phone call to his mother. Now the reluctant hero is on the run, dodging spies, airplanes and a femme fatale who might not be all she seems.

“Emma told me about her production plans getting on for two years ago,” says Ewan. “We did two sets of workshop at The Lucky Chance [Rice’s creation space and venue in the refurbished and repurposed Portway Methodist Church in Frome], where we just threw ideas around because it’s such a filmic Hitchcock film with the setpieces and the plane scene and you’re thinking ‘how do you do that on stage?’.

Simon Oskarsson’s Valerian, left, Ewan Wardrop’s Roger Thornhill, Katy Owen’s Professor and Mirabelle Gremaud’s Anna rehearsing a scene for Emma Rice’s production of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By North West. Picture: Steve Tanner

“The producers had sought Emma to do this production as she’s the best at doing this kind of adaptation.”

For the rehearsal process, “Emma writes the script with her ideas for stage directions, but it’s moveable, thinking ‘oh, this will work better visually’, where she’ll come in with a better idea overnight,” says Ewan. “Or Etta [choreographer and movement director Etta Murfitt] might come up with a new movement sequence.

“You learn your lines, you do the lines, cuts are made, and Emma is very good at thinking on her feet, making changes right up to the eve of the show, always looking for the best way to portray something.”

The resulting production will become as much Emma Rice’s 2025 North By Northwest as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 North By Northwest in this fifth collaboration between Wise Children and York Theatre Royal after productions of Angela Carter’s Wise Children, Malory Towers, Wuthering Heights and Blue Beard.

Wise Children writer-director Emma Rice

As the Theatre Royal brochure promises: “Emma Rice takes on film legend Alfred Hitchcock in this riotously funny reworking that turns the original thriller on its head. With just six shape-shifting performers, a fabulous ’50s soundtrack and a lot of hats, this dazzling production plays with the heart, mind and soul. Join us for a night of glamour, romance, jeopardy and a liberal sprinkling of tender truths.”

“With this sort of show, it’s about striking the right balance,” says Ewan. “Audiences want to see scenes from the film they recognise, and it would be difficult not to have a nod to those, like the plane swooping down. We’re not re-creating the film but people will be happy to see scenes they love.

“It’s a question of scale how you transfer it to the stage, so for some things you have to rely on the audience’s imagination, which is the most powerful tool theatre has – and I prefer to use the imagination rather than see something where I don’t quite buy it.

“The film is a box of tricks but its emotional heart is maybe quite slight, so Emma has looked into how we present the ‘baddies’, looking deeper into that to make them more three-dimensional.

“Emma is bringing more depth to Roger’s relationship with Eve Kendall,” says Ewan Wardrop, pictured in rehearsal with Patrycja Kujawska. Picture: Steve Tanner

“She’s also bringing more depth to Roger’s relationship with Eve Kendall. In essence, he’s quite a shallow character, but he’s been through the war – like the actors in the film had – so Emma has written new sections to explore that.

“She’s been pretty faithful to the film, to the characters and the dialogue, but she’s added to the dialogue without changing the storyline.”

Ewan is an Alfred Hitchcock devotee. “I’ve always loved his films. They’re visually compelling, and I was a dancer before I was an actor, so I’ve always responded to his visual flair. With Hitchcock, there are so many memorable scenes that go by without dialogue that are beautifully framed,” he says.

Ewan worked previously with choreographer Etta Murfitt in Matthew Bourne’s company and loves the movement element to Wise Children’s shows. “Emma (CORRECT) uses more and more dance in her productions, so she casts actors who aren’t necessarily great dancers but who move well, which can be more interesting than actual dancers.

Leaping into action: Ewan Wardrop, left, and Simon Oskarsson in the Wise Children rehearsal room. Picture: Steve Tanner

“Emma casts really well as she knows people so well and she’s very instinctive to make you do things that I wouldn’t come up with or go as far as that, and you think, ‘how does she know that?’. 

“She will use your great strengths and that’s one of her great assets: her emotional intelligence and empathy, as well as her theatricality.”

North By Northwest marks Ewan’s return to York. “I’ve been coming here for years,” he says. “I did my one-man George Formby show, Formby, in the Theatre Royal Studio and I play the baritone ukulele with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, performing at the Theatre Royal,” he recalls.

Wise Children in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, York Theatre Royal, March 18 to April 5, then on tour. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

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Graham Fellows marks 40 years of genial John Shuttleworth on Raise The Oof tour and with a new book and album too

Punching the air: John Shuttleworth marks 40 years of bonhomie, bon mots and persistently, perkily mundane yet quirkily profound songs at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, Sheffield City Hall, King’s Hall, Ilkley, Hull Truck Theatre, The Forum, Northallerton and Scarborough Spa. Picture: Tony Briggs

ACTOR, writer and musician Graham Fellows created his comic alter ego John Shuttleworth, good-natured Sheffield sage and perky Yamaha organ purveyor of charmingly mundane songs, when he was 26.

“John was 46. Very specifically I made him 20 years older than me,” recalls Graham, as Shuttleworth’s 40th anniversary tour, Raise The Off, arrives at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall tonight  to herald a run of Yorkshire performances.

After four decades, how old is John now? “Listening to an old radio show from 1999 on Sunday, I was surprised when he said ‘let a man in his late-fifties’, because I still think of him as being in his late-fifties. He has aged slower and slower. Maybe he’s about 62 now – and I don’t really want  John to have grandchildren.”

You don’t need to be a mathematician to work out that Graham’s own age has outstripped Shuttleworth’s age: he will turn 66 on May 22.

Ironically, John Shuttleworth, with his leather jacket, slacks, slick side parting, glasses and love of mints, always seemed older than he was. “I think that’s true,” says Graham. “I guess that’s partly because he started as a 46-year-old perceived by a 26-year-old without the knowledge of what it’s like to be 46.

“It’s an interesting subject but extremely difficult to analyse, but  I do think he’s still a bit old for his age. He’s still fixated on bands like Sister Sledge and The Pointer Sisters, with lots of references to the Eighties.”

Graham’s Shuttleworth act “hasn’t really changed”, but the audience profile has. “”A lot of them are the same people  that have always come to the shows, but some are bringing their sons and daughters and even their grandchildren,” he says.

Could he envisage ever putting Shuttleworth out to grass? “I can’t kill him off, but maybe I’ll make him retire or be inundated with so much DIY work that he can’t tour any more,” says Graham. “But my biggest problem is I’ve always had a bad memory and as an actor I struggled with that. A couple of years ago I had to turn down a big part as I had sleepless nights about remembering the lines.

The book cover artwork for John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit!

“Now, I have a banana on stage for the Raise The Oof shows, and [if he goes awry] I’ll take a bite and do a joke about Andy Murray and bananas, and by then I usually remember what I was talking about, though obviously I can’t do that too much in one show.”

The ageing process is kicking in. “My mind is wearing out! My body is wearing out! My memory is wearing out! Now my keyboards are wearing out! I’ve had some bad luck with them,” says Graham. “Even my leather jacket is wearing out.”

Through the years, Shuttleworth has worked his way through more sweaters than slacks and maybe four jackets. That clothes list triggers Graham’s memory of one particular night at Clapham Grand. “It was only when I arrived that I realised my jacket had been left behind in Newcastle-under-Lyme,” he says. “Incredibly, someone in the audience was wearing a very similar jacket and he was encouraged to swap it for my sweater for the night.”

In another sign of the passage of time, “I used to carry a make-up box to apply grey to my hai; now I have grey hair. I used to apply crow’s feet around  my eyes, now I  don’t have to. In the way that Tintin always looks the same, I always thought John would look the same…though he did wear a cagoule in 500 Bus Stops [John’s 1997 mini TV series].”

Graham has developed further comic characters, such as failed rock historian Brian Appleton and Goole concreter Dave Tordoff, but he acknowledges that John Shuttleworth has “outshone them, out-performed them”. “You go where the money he is,” he says. “But the thing about Shuttleworth is that he has the songs and he has depth and range.”

Putting together Shuttleworth’s 40th anniversary show, with its combination of nostalgia, new stories and a new song, The Ballad Of Dangly Man, Graham says: “I think I know what works, but as you get older, your enthusiasm to do the work and the sheer effort to come up with new stuff, when your energy levels have gone down a bit…

…I look back at the inventiveness of the radio show with four of five characters all being played me and Martin Willis providing me with extra material until he passed away.”

There is no evidence of decreasing energy, however: not only is John Shuttleworth on tour from January 29 to May 16 with tales of his early days with neighbour Ken Worthington, the humorous realities of married life with miserable wife Mary, and his relentless mission to make it big in music, but here come a book and CD, both out now.

The sleeve artwork for John Shuttleworth’s new album, The Pumice Stone & Other Rock Songs

On March 6, Omnibus Press published John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit!, A Crumbly Selection of Songs and Stories, full of tales and homespun advice from his life in and around Sheffield, brought to life with cartoons by Graham’s’ long-time friend and collaborator, Kevin Baldwin.

What did Graham learn about Shuttleworth from writing the book? “I learnt that John is a bottomless well and I certainly learnt about myself – that I’m a lazy sod who kept putting it off,” he says. “It was a bit of a struggle to come up with new stories but I’ve also used old stories and Kevin’s wonderful cartoons.

“I felt some of my songs leant themselves to pictures and my girlfriend suggested doing them like a graphic novel, so Kevin, who animated Henry’s Cat, did these graphic novel designs.

“The way he’s depicted Mary and Ken, I’m not sure he’s got them quite right – [making Mary fat and giving Ken ginger hair], but he got John and Joan Chitty just right.”

Look out too for The Pumice Stone & Other Rock Songs album, available at shuttleworths.co.uk and at gigs.

John Shuttleworth: Raise The Oof, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, tonight (last few tickets) and tomorrow (sold out), 7.30pm. Also playing: Sheffield City Hall, March 26, 8pm; King’s Hall, Ilkley, April 1, 7.30pm; Hull Truck Theatre, April 2, 7.30pm; The Forum, Northallerton, April 10,7.30pm, and Scarborough Spa, April 11, 7.30pm.

Box office: Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com; Sheffield, ticketmaster.co.uk; Ilkley, bradford-theatres.co.uk; Hull, 01 482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk; Scarborough, ticketmaster.co.uk.

The poster for John Shuttleworth’s Raise The Oof! tour

John Shuttleworth on his 40th anniversary tour, Raise The Oof!

“ACTUALLY, I feel rather calm, although after 40 years and still no chart success, perhaps I should be slightly anxious,” muses John. “My wife Mary says I should get a proper job, but there’s not time – I’m about to retire!

“Besides, Comet – where I used to demonstrate audio equipment – no longer exists. As for the sweet factory in the Rotherham area where I worked as a security guard in the 1980s, that’s now an Axe Throwing Centre. Oof!

“But I’m still posting off my songs (on cassette tape with Dolby, so it’s not too hissy) to cutting-edge pop acts like Chris Rea and the Lighthouse Family, plus I’m still being booked for nostalgic singalongs at the local hospice (for petrol money only), so we have every reason to celebrate my long and illustrious career.

“Do come along and join me in punching the air, and helping – in an orderly and controlled fashion – to RAISE THE OOF!”

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The Wedding Present’s musical, Reception, to be unwrapped at Slung Low HQ The Warehouse in Holbeck, Leeds, this summer

David Gedge: Songwriter and frontman of The Wedding Present and Cinerama

YORK writer-director Matt Aston’s new musical inspired by David Gedge’s songs for The Wedding Present and Cinerama, will premiere at Slung Low’s theatre space, The Warehouse, in Holbeck, Leeds, from August 22 to September 6.

Reception’s story of love, loss, break-ups and breakdowns – everything you would expect from a Wedding Present song – is built around a group of Leeds University friends that keeps in touch over five years of trials, tribulations and life events, from a graduation ceremony and a stage & hen do to a funeral, wedding and, of course, the accompanying reception.

Set in and around Leeds in the late-1980s, Reception will be presented to a mixture of cabaret-style seating – with  ‘wedding guests’ enjoying a glass of fizz on arrival and a three-course meal – as well  as more traditional raked seating.

The idea of a musical spun around Gedge’s songs had been brewing for writer and director Matt Aston over several years and serendipitously comes to fruition on the 40th anniversary of the Weddoes’ debut single Go Out And Get ’Em Boy – on the Reception Records label that prompted the show’s title.

Matt met Tony Ereira, director of Leeds record labels Come Play With Me and Clue Records, inevitably at a Wedding Present gig, in Leeds in early 2019, when the seeds of the play were duly sown.

“I started talking about it with David [Gedge] five years ago, just before the Covid lockdown,” recalls Matt. “We raised money through crowdfunding, I wrote the draft script and did some R&D (research and development), and got the show pencilled in for a couple of venues, but they fell through in the Covid backlog.

“But then, in 2024, I met Alan Lane at Slung Low, where I went to see their new space in Holbeck. He was really up for it and we set it in motion before Alan left to become artistic director for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Alan is still Slung Low’s vice-chair, and venue manager Matt Angrove has taken over the arrangements for the show.

“They’ve been great in finding dates for us and in liaising with The Wedding Present to fit in with the 40th anniversary.”

Reception will wrap its story around songs from four decades of The Wedding Present, Cinerama’s back catalogue and a new Gedge composition.song.

The Wedding Present & Cinerama: the back story

THE Wedding Present were formed in 1985 by David Gedge, who had graduated from the University of Leeds in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics in 1981, and continue to tour and release new music today with vocalist and guitarist Gedge as the only constant member.

Their songwriting has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of The Fall, Buzzcocks and fellow Leeds band Gang Of Four to more varied forms. They have bothered the UK Singles Chart’s Top 40 on 18 occasions, including a history-making run of 12 singles – one for each month – in 1992, matching Elvis Presley’s achievement for a single year.

Cinerama were formed by Gedge in 1998, subsequently released a series of singles and albums significantly different in musical style to The Wedding  Present, rooted in French-influenced cinematic/soundtrack-style arrangements. 

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 10, from Gazette & Herald

The poster for Brain Play, to be staged by 1812 Youth Theatre as part of National Theatre Connections at Helmsley Arts Centre and York Theatre Royal

LIKE Tom Stade’s comedy show, tipping winners is a Risky Business, but Charles Hutchinson is confident his recommendations will be triumphant.

Ryedale play of the week: 1812 Youth Theatre & National Theatre Connections, Brain Play, Helmsley Arts Centre, today to Friday, 7.30pm

UNDER the National Theatre Connections banner, Helmsley company 1812 Youth Theatre presents Chloe Lawrence-Taylor and Paul Sirett’s Brain Play, first in Helmsley and later at York Theatre Royal on March 21 at 7.30pm.

When Mia’s dad suffers a traumatic brain injury and struggles to leave the house, she makes it her mission to find the cure for his symptoms. Delving deeper and deeper into the world of neuroscience, Mia is desperate to make him better, but first she must contend with her own brain. Box office: Helmsley, 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

John Shuttleworth: 40 years of bonhomie, bon mots and persistently, perkily mundane yet profound songs at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall and Hull Truck Theatre. Picture: Tony Briggs

Comedy positivity of the week: John Shuttleworth, Raise The Oof, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Hull Truck Theatre, April 2,7.30pm

JOHN Shuttleworth, the good-natured Sheffield sage and perky Yamaha organ purveyor of charmingly mundane songs fashioned by actor Graham Fellows, celebrates his 40th anniversary on his Raise The Oof tour, full of nostalgia and new stories.

Here come tales of his early days with neighbour Ken Worthington, the humorous realities of married life with miserable wife Mary, and John’s hopes for a late-career breakthrough. Box office: Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com; Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk.

Becca Drake: Guest poet at York Literature Festival’s Howl Owt night at The Blue Boar

York Literature Festival gig of the week: Howl Owt, The Blue Boar, Castlegate, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm

JOIN Chloe Hanks and Stephanie Roberts from Howlers Open Mic and Henry Raby from Say Owt for an evening of performances by York poets and writers, bolstered by a special guest.

This time, their roles will be reversed with the Say Owt crew taking over the open mic and the Howlers welcoming the guest, Becca Drake, York poet, Little Hirundine printmaker and researcher. Performers can sign up for three-minute open-mic spots on arrival. Admission is free.  

Neil Foster’s Cosme McMoon, left, Jackie Cox’s Florence Foster Jenkins and Mike Hickman’s St Clair in Rowntree Players’ Glorious!

York play of the week: Rowntree Players in Glorious!, The True Story Of Florence Foster Jenkins, The Worst Singer In The World, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

COVER your ears! Here comes Glorious! The True Story Of Florence Foster Jenkins, The Worst Singer In The World, as told by Peter Quilter in his joyous and heart-warming comedy with music, based on the life of an eccentric 1940s’ New York socialite with a passion for singing but a voice for disaster.

Enthusiastic but tonally erratic soprano Florence (played by Jackie Cox) gave private recitals, sang at extravagant balls, made bizarre recordings and revelled in a triumphant sold-out final performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall at 76. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Mike + The Mechanics: Mike Rutherford, centre, re-living 40 years at York Barbican with Andrew Roachford, left, and Tim Howar

40th anniversary celebration of the week: Mike + The Mechanics, Looking Back – The Living Years, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm

AFTER opening their Refueled! tour at York Barbican in April 2023, Mike + The Mechanics return next Friday on their Looking Back – Living The Years 40th anniversary travels. Expect the set list to combine Over My Shoulder, The Living Years and All I Need Is A Miracle with selections from their nine albums and a “drift into some of Genesis’s much loved classic tracks”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

David John Pike: Baritone soloist for York Musical Society’s concert at York Minster

Classical concert of the week: York Musical Society, Bach Mass in B minor, York Minster, Saturday, 7.30pm

DAVID Pipe conducts York Musical Society’s singers and orchestra in Bach’s epic choral work, replete with magnificent choruses, resplendent fugues, moving arias and soloists Zoe Brookshaw and Philippa Boyle (both soprano), Tom Lilburn (countertenor), Nicholas Watts (tenor) and Canadian/British/Luxembourger David John Pike (baritone), who returned to music after initially training and working as a chartered accountant. Tickets: available from York Minster or on the door.

Tom Stade: Risk-taking comedy at Helmsley Arts Centre

Comedy minefield of the week: Tom Stade: Risky Business, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 8pm

TOM Stade’s sense of ‘funny’ and today’s ‘funny’ do not always see eye to eye, bur that’s cool; it’s not his way to follow the herd, he says. The Vancouver-born, Scottish-based humorist much prefers to take the path less travelled, a path that brings this independent spirit and irrepressible force of nature to Helmsley to airdrop his unflinching comedy into an ever-changing minefield. Navigating the tightrope of today’s divisive times may be a risky business but Stade reasons that without risk there can be no reward. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Nicola Mills: Songs and stories at Milton Rooms, Malton

Taking the “posh” out of opera: Nicola Mills, Opera For The People, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 7.30pm

VICTORIA Woods meets Pavarotti in Nicola Mills’s funny and inspiring show, wherein she combines her down-to- earth Northern roots with operatic singing and telling tales of working-class life, from performing in some of Europe’s finest opera houses to taking opera to the streets.

Expect not only opera on a night when the audience will choose songs from Mills’s Song Menu, spanning Mozart to musicals to Elvis Presley. Box office:  01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Tayla Kenyon in her solo play Fluff at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York on Sunday. Picture: Patrick Murray

Fringe play of the week: Teepee Productions and Joe Brown present Fluff, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

NOW is the time for Fluff to do the ultimate puzzle: her life. Fluff hates puzzles, however, especially word searches. She can never find the words, nor understand why there is a half-eaten birthday cake and a woman who keeps visiting her room. As she navigates her way through her most treasured and darkest memories, Fluff desperately needs to piece together her life, story by story, person by person.

Tayla Kenyon performs solo in her darkly comedic 75-minutre play, co written with James Piercy, as she explores memories and the choices we make, using a non-linear plot line to enable the audience to feel, first hand, the devastating effects of dementia. Box office:  tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Wharfemede Productions in Little Women – The Broadway Musical, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Feb 18-22 ****

Rachel Higgs’s Beth, left, Connie Howcroft’s Jo, Tess Ellis’s Amy and Catherine Foster’s Meg March in Wharfemede Productions’ Little Women – The Broadway Musical

WHARFEMEDE Productions emerged in butterfly form for the first time with Little Women after their chrysalis co-production of Browne’s The Last Five Years in tandem with fellow York company Black Sheep Theatre Productions last October.

Formed by chief artistic director Helen “Bells” Spencer and chief operating officer Nick Sephton, cornerstones of the York musical theatre scene, the company brought together similarly experienced leading players for a production bursting with impressive singing power.

Louisa May Alcott’s Alcott’s coming-of-age tale of the March sisters growing up in well-to-do New England during the American Civil War had never been staged in York on your reviewer’s four-decade theatre watch, until Juliet Forster’s free-flowing staging of screenwriter, novelist and playwright Anne-Marie Casey’s adaptation for the Theatre Royal last October.

You know the saying: like buses, you wait for ages for one, and then along come two in quick succession. On this occasion, the same story burst forth from Louisa May Alcott’s 1868–1869 two-volume novel, but now wrapped in all the Broadway trimmings the title proclaimed.

Helen Spencer’s Marmee reads a letter to the March daughters, Meg (Catherine Foster, left), Jo (Connie Howcroft), Beth (Rachel Higgs) and Amy (Tess Ellis)

Allan Knee, Mindi Dickstein and Jason Howland’s show shares Casey’s central focus on headstrong emerging writer Jo (Connie Howcroft) while not putting her fellow sisters, traditional Meg (Catherine Foster), timid, piano-playing Beth (Rachel Higgs) and romantic, impatient Amy (Tess Ellis), in the corner.

Spencer took on the role of the family drama’s emotional ballast as their beloved mother Marmee, holding everything together at home in Concord, Massachusetts, amid the discord of the American Civil War that has taken away their father to serve as a Union Army chaplain. Spencer has a way of making the world stop when she sings, and she did so twice here in songs that expressed feelings she could not reveal to her family.

The daughters, in turn, need to shed their fledgling feathers, travelling hither and thither in different directions, save for Beth, who is blighted by health problems. Songs served as a means to crystalising their feelings, their thoughts, their hopes, in heartfelt solos: always a strong suit in a character-driven musical.

Howcroft’s Jo had the pick of those songs, Astonishing, albeit that the majority were impactful in the moment under Matthew Clare’s musical direction, rather than memorable beyond the final curtain.  

Connie Howcroft’s Jo and Rachel Higgs’s Beth in Wharfemede Productions’ Little Women – The Broadway Musical

Around those songs, the show took the form of a series of vignettes, chapters if you like, intercut with short stories from the wild imaginings of Jo in her attic studio, performed in humorously melodramatic fashion on the John Cooper Studio’s mezzanine level in a directorial flourish from Spencer that paid off to the max.

Howcroft’s fiery and fervent Jo encapsulated the show’s ability to both tug at the heart strings and locate the funny bone; Foster’s Meg was suitably unflappable; Higgs’s quiet Beth had a stillness to her, contrasting with the restless energy of Ellis’s Amy, so desperate to grow up too soon.

Rosy Rowley revelled in the disapproving air of starchy Aunt March, with a nod to those thespian dames, Maggie Smith and Edith Evans, while Spencer’s many hours devoted to character development with her cast paid off in the contrasting men in the Little Women’s lives: Nick Sephton’s slow-blossoming Professor Bhaer;  Andrew Roberts’s good egg Mr Brooke, Chris Gibson’s sturdy Mr Lawrence and Steven Jobson, the pick of a very good bunch as eager Laurie.

The set design of house interiors had one particularly striking motif, whereby the individual clothing palette of each March daughter was matched by a drape from the balcony. When Beth died, spoiler alert, her drape fell to the floor. On such attention to detail did Spencer’s production make its mark.

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