Kaminari UK Taiko Drummers: Playing the Galtres Centre, Easingwold, on Saturday
KAMINARI UK Taiko Drummers return to the Galtres Centre, Easingwold, on October 25 to perform Roku at 7.30pm.
In Saturday’s show, York’s Taiko drumming group promises a rhythmic musical journey through Japan, bringing this rich musical heritage to life in a fusion of sound, movement and spirit.
Roku blends the powerful, immersive energy of Taiko drumming with the evocative sounds of traditional instruments, including the koto and shamisen, played by special guest Michael Graham.
Michael Graham: Playing the koto, pictured, here, and shamisen at Saturday’s performance
The show features traditional and regional styles of Taiko drumming, some reinvented for the stage, others original pieces created by Kaminari.
Kaminari UK Taiko Drummers rehearse in Shipton-by Beningbrough. Since the group’s inception in 2009, they have performed at festivals, charity events and private functions across Yorkshire and beyond.
Tickets cost £15 from the Galtres Centre website, galtrescentre.org.uk, or in person from the box office in Market Place, Easingwold.
The poster for Kaminari UK Taiko Drummers’ Roku concert on Saturday
Six members of Paul Toy’s cast of 17 rehearsing a scene from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. Picture: John Saunders
THOMAS Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy is “the Elizabethan play that outsold Shakespeare”, but then was lost to the professional stage for 300 years and is now performed only rarely.
One such performance will be at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from Wednesday to Saturday when Paul Toy directs York Shakespeare Project for the fourth time (and first since Troilus And Cressida in 2011).
YSP chair Tony Froud said of his appointment in June: “Paul emerged from a very strong field of applicants with an exciting vision for this remarkable play. The Spanish Tragedy was the most popular play of the Elizabethan era, outselling Shakespeare. Kyd’s play set out the blueprint for a whole dramatic genre, ‘Revenge Tragedy’. Without it, there may have been no Hamlet, no The Duchess Of Malfi.”
The chance to present such a landmark drama in tandem with all of Shakespeare’s plays was exactly why York Shakespeare Project launched its second 25-year cycle of productions in April 2023, with a view to performing the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson…and Thomas Kyd.
“This is one of the plays that I would have been on the lookout to see had I not been directing it,” says Paul, who had directed The Taming Of The Shrew in 2003 and Titus Andronicus in 2004, as well as Troilus And Cressida, “in the first canter through all Shakespeare’s canto”.
“You would need to go a little below the headlines, though not be a connoisseur or scholar, to know his work. Jonson still crops up, so does Marlowe, but not Kyd, who’s unlucky in that this is his only play that has survived, apart from a translation of a French play and may be an “Ur-version” [the original or earliest version] of Hamlet from around 1589 that preceded Shakespeare’s play, but really The Spanish Tragedy is the only one of significance”
Kyd would die at the age of 36 in 1594, only two years after The Spanish Tragedy was premiered, “He shared a writing room with Marlowe in London, but because Marlowe was under the eyes of the authorities, on account of his atheism and his homosexuality, Kyd was tortured, simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but was released without charge.
The Spanish Tragedy director Paul Toy
“Marlowe died in a tavern brawl in Deptford in May 1593, not long before Kyd, who didn’t survive as long as Jonson and Shakespeare but was under a cloud through no fault of his own.”
Nevertheless, The Spanish Tragedy was groundbreaking. “If you say you haven’t ever seen it, if I talked to you afterwards, I bet you would recognise all the tropes that it set down for ‘Revenge Tragedy’, like the ghost coming back to demand revenge; a hero deliberating over whether to seek revenge; madness and a play within a play,” says Paul.
Scholarly speculation has it that Will the Quill may even have penned passages of Kyd’s play. “You will see the precursor to Shakespeare’s Hamlet there, but Kyd doesn’t have the depth that late Shakespeare plays had. What you see is what you get in Kyd, and what you get is laid down pretty clearly,” says Paul.
In a nutshell, a play suffused with treachery, deceit and disguise that now carries the warning: “Contains depictions of self-injury, murder and suicide”. All delivered by Toy with masks, music and dance.
“I would say it’s plot driven, rather than character driven, and poor old Kyd, we all now know the tropes, the tricks of the trade, of revenge plays, but no-one did it before him. But the problem with being the pioneer is that it doesn’t have what others then built on,” says Paul.
His production has “a Spanish look rather than being full-on Spain”. “It’s suggestive of things like the Day of the Dead and other processions, the Counter-Reformation, but it’s also rather obsessive in its tone,” says Paul.
“It involves both the human and the supernatural, and if you’ve seen the York Mystery Plays, you’ll see where aspects of his work will have come from. It’s almost the definition of a play on the San Andreas Fault, pitched between the medieval and the early modern. If you know The Last Judgement from the Mystery Plays, there’s quite a lot that’s familiar.
Harry Summers and Emma Scott in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s The Spanish Tragedy
“Our production acknowledges it’s not modern, it’s recognisably ‘period’, but culturally it still goes through to modern times.”
Paul describes Kyd’s text as a “very rhetorically minded play, full of people arguing the case for themselves or maybe for someone else, so it’s like a collection of closing statements that barristers give to the judge”.
“With some of the past plays I’ve directed, I’ve enjoyed the visual elements, the modernisation elements or the physical elements, but because the text of this play isn’t familiar, I thought it was important to concentrate on the text, doing it as a ‘language play’.
“But we also have the advantage of it being an old play that we can treat like a new, modern play because it’s not well known, whereas it’s very difficult to do that with Shakespeare because you’re so bombarded by his plays.”
As for The Spanish Tragedy’s violent reputation, come the end, spoiler alert, there are “as many people horizontal as there are in Hamlet”, says Paul. “But partly because of the laundry bill, I’ve gone for only one big ‘bloody’ death. The rest are by other means, hopefully more unexpected, and if it takes you by surprise, all the better!”
York Shakespeare Project in The Spanish Tragedy, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 22 to 25, 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
York Shakespeare Project’s cast for The Spanish Tragedy
Ghost of Andrea – David Lee Revenge – Vivian Wilson King of Spain – Tony Froud Cypriana, Duchess of Castile – Emily Hansen Lorenzo – Tom Jennings Bel-imperia – Emma Scott General – Alan Sharp Viceroy of Portugal – Nick Jones Balthazar – P J Gregan Alexandro – Ben Reeves Rowley Villuppo – Tim Holman Ambassador – Cassi Roberts Hieronimo – Harry Summers Isabella – Sally Mitcham Horatio – Yousef Ismail Pedringano – Isabel Azar Serberine – Martina Meyer Christophil – Phil Massey Watchmen 1, 2, 3 – Alan Sharp, Nick Jones, Tim Holman Messenger – Cassi Roberts Deputy – Martina Meyer Hangman – Alan Sharp Maid – Martina Meyer Servant 1 and 2 – Martina Meyer, Ben Reeves Rowley Old Man – Tim Holman Nobles 1 and 2 – Martina Meyer, Ben Reeves Rowley Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanth – PJ Gregan, Nick Jones, Tim Holman
Alan Sharp, proprietor of White Rose York Tour, comedian and The Chase winner, will be playing a trio of roles in The Spanish Tragedy. Picture: John Saunders
David Essex: Playing York Barbican on September 24 next year
YORK Barbican has announced a couple of stellar concerts for 2026: David Essex OBE on September 24 and Alfie Boe OBE on April 28. Tickets for both go on sale on Friday at 10am.
Plaistow singer, composer and actor Essex, 78, will play York and further Yorkshire shows that week at Victoria Theatre, Halifax, on September 21, Sheffield City Hall, September 23, and Hull Connexin Live, September 25, on his 21-date Thanks For The Memories tour to “celebrate his monumental career”
Shooting to fame when chosen for the role of Jesus in the London production of Godspell, Essex received major awards that then saw him lead the cast at the Roundhouse and in the West End for two years.
David Essex’s itinerary for next September’s Thanks For The Memories tour
Since then he has written and produced albums that have sold millions of copies worldwide, as well as notching 16 Top 30 singles in Britain alone, led off by the Grammy-nominated Rock On, followed by the likes of Lamplight, the chart-topping Gonna Make You A Star and Hold Me Close, Rolling Stone, Oh What A Circus, Silver Dream Machine, A Winter’s Tale and Tahiti. He last released a studio album, Reflections, in October 2013.
His acting credits include Silver Dream Racer, That’ll Be The Day, Stardust, Traveller, The Guvnors and BBC One’s EastEnders, as the head of the Moon family. In the West End, he has starred in Evita, Footloose, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects Of Love, She Stoops To Conquer and Childe Byron, plus his own musicals Mutiny! and All The Fun Of The Fair. His past two UK tours sold more than 65,000 tickets across 39 dates.
Alfie Boe: York Barbican concert on April 28 2026. Picture: Ray Burmiston
TENOR Alfie Boe will play 35 dates on his UK tour, where he will combine his most iconic hits and fan-favourite classics with powerful material from his upcoming album Facing Myself.
Born Alfred Giovanni Roncalli Boe on September 29 1973 in Blackpool, the Lancashire singer and actor will play further Yorkshire concerts at Hull City Hall on April 24; Royal Hall, Harrogate, April 29, and Sheffield City Hall, May 1, as well as York Barbican on April 28.
“I’m thrilled to be hitting the road again for my tour across the UK next spring,” says Alfie, 52. “I can’t wait to sing the songs you love, share some fantastic new surprises and celebrate with you in venues up and down the country.”
Alfie Boe’s tour itinerary for April and May 2026, when Jessica Sweetman will be his special guest
Boe’s career has spanned stage, recording and television. He has released more than a dozen studio albums, several of them topping the UK charts en route to multi-platinum sales. His collaborations with Michael Ball, including the record-breaking Together, Together Again and Back Together, have been complemented by sold-out arena tours.
The Tony Award winner has conquered the world’s greatest opera stages and arenas and led the cast of Les Misérables in his defining role as Jean Valjean, also starring in the concert tour of Les Misérables in Australia and the Arena Spectacular tour across the UK.
He has appeared at Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Royal Albert Hall too and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2019, in recognition of his outstanding services to music and charity.
Shed Seven in concert at Scarborough Open Air Theatre in June 2025. The Piece Hall, Halifax, awaits next summer. Picture: Andy Little
SHED Seven will be mark the 30th anniversary of landmark 1996 album A Maximum High with a special one-off gig at The Piece Hall, Halifax, on June 6 2026.
In the York band’s only headline show of Summer 2026, they will perform their most hit-laden album in full, followed by a second set packed with the Britpop alumni’s greatest hits. Special guests that night will be Seb Lowe and The Guest List.
Singer Rick Witter says: “We are looking forward to giving A Maximum High the birthday party it deserves. We’re especially excited to be revisiting some of the songs we haven’t played for decades. We hope that fans will come from far and wide to join us at this ‘one- night-only’ huge celebratory event.”
Released on April 1 1996, A Maximum High was a defining moment for the Sheds, reaching number eight, selling more than 250,000 copies and spawning five Top 40 singles, 1995 hit Where Have You Been Tonight?, Getting Better, Going For Gold, Bully Boy and On Standby.
The band achieved chart history when Chasing Rainbows, released later in 1996, made them the only British band to notch five Top 40 singles in the UK charts that year.
The last two years have been nothing short of extraordinary for the Sheds. They achieved two number one albums in 2024 with January’s A Matter Of Time and September’s Liquid Gold – a feat only 19 other acts have managed in the UK charts – and in September 2025 they were crowned Best Live Performer at the AIM Independent Music Awards, an accolade made even more special as it was voted for by the public.
The poster for Shed Seven’s one-night-only A Maximum High 30th anniversary gig
This year too, the Sheds played to 28,000 when supporting Paul Heaton, at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, in May; made their long-overdue debut at Scarborough Open Air Theatre in June, and played Sounds Of The City 2025, at Castlefield Bowl, Manchester, and Leeds Millennium Square in July.
In a summer of 14 festival and open-air shows, they returned to Glastonbury on June 27 for the first time in 30 years, revelling in a late-afternoon set on the Woodsies tented stage.“It appears we have become big-time Charlies,” Witter told the crowd, as the Sheds performed with five backing singers, three horn players and Elvis-fronted Nirvana tribute act Elvana’s frontman Paul Kell (aka Kellvis), who joined Rick on vocals for Suspicious Minds.
Next June’s celebration concert will be a welcome return to The Piece Hall for York’s indie stalwarts after a sold-out headline show in the open-air courtyard in 2021.
Shed Seven join Embrace, Ethel Cain, Billy Ocean, The K’s, Opeth and David Gray among the first headliners to be announced forTK Maxx presents Live at The Piece Hall 2026.
Nicky Chance-Thompson, chief executive officer of The Piece Hall Charitable Trust, says: “These announcements just keep ‘getter better’! It’s going to be quite the party when these Yorkshire heroes head back to our beautiful courtyard.
“Shed Seven played here back in 2021, and marking the 30th anniversary of their iconic 1996 album seemed to perfect time to invite them back. Hearing A Maximum High in full, plus all their greatest hits on top, will make this an unmissable gig for their legions of fans.”
Today’s announcement follows a record-breaking year at The Piece Hall when 36 headline shows drew 185,000 ticket sales: a new box-office record for the historic West Yorkshire venue. Plans are well underway for 30-plus shows next year.
Cate Le Bon: “Her striking looks suggested both Joan of Arc and David Bowie in his Thin White Duke phase”. All pictures: Paul Rhodes
SO MUCH more than just a concert. To spend time in the company of Cate Le Bon is to enter into her world. The whole performance brooks no objection. Small talk is left at the dinner table.
Le Bon inhabits her music fully, supported by the ablest of bands. As a tight six-piece they were able to bring out the depths and ensure nothing was sacrificed to the road.
This Cardiff mothership also contains Stephen Black (aka Sweet Baboo – a wonderful headliner in his own right at this venue in 2023) and H Hawkline, who should now be the Crescent’s most wanted man after his stellar opening set.
Le Bon is the undoubted matriarch. Her iconic, striking looks suggested both Joan of Arc and David Bowie in his Thin White Duke phase.
Sweet Baboo (Stephen Black) performing in Cate Le Bon’s band at The Crescent
The set was a well-judged mix of old and leaning more on the new. Le Bon is the critics’ darling for her undaunted creativity.
Her new album was written in the aftermath of a significant break-up. Just because an album is about heartbreak shouldn’t automatically make it a classic however. Like its creator, Michelangelo Dying remains elusive. Diaphanous and beautiful for sure, as an album it’s rather unknowable.
The middle part of the 90-minute set dragged with French Boys particularly disappointing. The elegant, Roxy-like Heaven Is No Feeling brought it back and set us on track to the excellent finale. Le Bon doesn’t really have bangers in the traditional sense, but Mothers Of Riches and Harbour were slinky slices of better-than-pop.
H Hawkline: “As good an opening set as you are likely to hear”
H Hawkline was accompanied, as is his wont, by a reel-to-reel tape recorder. His was as good an opening set as you are likely to hear.
After the loss of his mother, he poured himself into Milk For Flowers (the best album of 2023). His guitar playing, certainly helped by those long fingers was so sure, and his singing so able, that he swept us all up.
The riff on Suppression Street was compelling. Empty Room, the Cold Cold Heart of the record, reduced the crowd to awed silence and more than a few to tears.
Cate Le Bon’s drummer Stella Mozgawa
Hawkline appears to be at a different point on the arc to Le Bon. His two new songs suggest he’s in a happier place. Song 3 bodes well for his new record, showing his mastery for creating a sound that draws on the best of the past filtered through his very leftfield view. It even featured Ringo Starr, beamed in via AI.
While it’s a shame we got no glimpses behind the veil from either Hawkline or Le Bon, what we missed in terms of extra connection to them as performers, we gained in intensity and the vitality they brought to their performances.
Review by Paul Rhodes
Cate Le Bon’s band members: Euan Hinshelwood, saxophone and guitar; Stella Mozgawa, drums; Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo), keyboards, guitars, percussion and saxophone; Paul Jones, keyboards and occasional saxophone, and Toko Yasuda, bass.
Euan Hinshelwood on saxophone in Cate le Bon’s set at The Crescent
Martha Tilston: Playing The Basement tonight at City Screen Picturehouse
CRIMINAL investigations and a brace of plays with murder at the core, Charles Hutchinson detects a theme to his latest recommendations.
Singer-songwriter of the week: Martha Tilston, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm
BORN in Bristol and now living in Cornwall, singer, songwriter and filmmaker Martha Tilston writes songs from the heart as a balm for the modern age.
Tilston, who has worked Zero 7, Damien Rice, Nick Harper, Kae Tempest and Aztec Camera’s Roddy Frame, combines raw vocals and sparkling melodies with thought-provoking lyrics and filmic movements, inviting her audience to “connect with longed-for parts of ourselves”. Box office: marthatilston.co.uk.
Jennifer Rees: Exploring stories of serial killers in forensic detail at the Grand Opera House, York
Criminal investigations of the week: Strange But True Crimes with Jennifer Rees, Grand Opera House, York, October 21, 7.30pm
FORMER forensics lecturer and Psychology Of Serial Killers presenter Jennifer Rees explores stories such as the serial killer who gained work in law enforcement while on the run – and ended up hunting himself.
Watch out too for the female, balloon-carrying killer clown, serial killers on game shows – how their appearances led to their identification – and many more stories. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Jason Durr’s Jonny ‘The Cyclops’, right, accosting the nervous burglar in Torben Betts’s comedy thriller Murder At Midnight. Picture: Pamela Raith
Deliciously twisted crime caper of the week: Original Theatre in Murder At Midnight, York Theatre Royal, October 21 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
ON New Year’s Eve, in a quiet corner of Kent, a killer is in the house in Torben Betts’s comedy thriller Murder At Midnight, part two of a crime trilogy for Original Theatre that began last year with Murder In The Dark, this time starring Jason Durr, Susie Blake, Max Howden and Katie McGlynn.
Meet Jonny ‘The Cyclops’, his glamorous wife, his trigger-happy sidekick, his mum – who sees things – and her very jittery carer, plus a vicar, apparently hiding something, and a nervous burglar dressed as a clown. Throw in a suitcase full of cash, a stash of deadly weapons and one infamous unsolved murder…what could possibly go wrong? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon: Showcasing new album Rainy Sunday Afternoon at York Barbican. Picture: Kevin Westerberg
Recommended but sold out already: The Divine Comedy, York Barbican, October 21, doors 7pm
IN the wake of composing all the original songs for the 2023 global blockbuster Wonka, North Irishman Neil Hannon has returned to his Divine Comedy guise for September 19’s Rainy Sunday Afternoon: album number 13 and his first studio set since 2019’s Office Politics.
Recorded at Abbey Road, London, the album was written, arranged and produced by Hannon, who covers his usual range of emotions: sad, funny, angry and everything in between. Hear Hannon songs new and old next Tuesday, when Studio Electrophonique will be the special guest. Box office, for returns only: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Katie Melia’s Show White in Steve Coates Music Productions’ Disenchanted, turning fairy tales on their head at the JoRo
Cheeky twist on fairy tales of the week: Steve Coates Music Productions in Disenchanted, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 22 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
KATIE Melia directs and leads the cast as Snow White in Steve Coates Music Productions’ production of Disenchanted, the musical with the feminist twist that turns fairy tales upside down, from the Little Mermaid hitting the bottle to Belle ending up in a straitjacket for chatting with the cutlery.
Forget the damsels in distress, Snow White, Cinderella and their royal crew want to set the record straight. Equipped with sass, wit, and powerhouse vocals, these not-so-princessy princesses flip the script, spill the tea and reclaim their stories as they challenge outdated happily-ever-afters. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Making an impression: Dead Ringers on 25th anniversary tour
Comedy nights of the week: Dead Ringers, October 22, 3pm and 7.30pm, and Nick Mohammed Is Mr Swallow: Show Pony, October 26, 8pm, both at Grand Opera, House, York
TO mark its 25th anniversary, BBC Radio 4’s topical satire show Dead Ringers takes to the road with a full UK tour for the first time as long-standing cast members Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod and Duncan Wisbey take a trip through classic sketches and unrivalled impressions, peppered with topical humour.
Celebrity Traitors competitor, Taskmaster contestant and Ted Lasso actor Nick Mohammed returns to York as his alter-ego Mr Swallow. Expect magic, music and new mistakes. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Harry Summers, left, and Emma Scott in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s The Spanish Tragedy. Picture: John Saunders
Revenge drama of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Spanish Tragedy, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 22 to 25, 7.30pm
PAUL Toy directs York Shakespeare Project for the fourth time – and the first since Troilus And Cressida in 2011– in “the most popular play of the Elizabethan era, outselling Shakespeare”: Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, the circa 1592 blueprint for the Revenge Tragedy genre.
No Kyd, maybe no Hamlet or The Duchess Of Malfi, as treachery, deceit and disguise are wrapped inside a torrid tale of vengeance-seeking ghosts, madness, a play-within-a-play and a Machiavellian villain, delivered by Toy with masks, music and dance. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Alexandra Mather’s Polly Peachum in York Opera’s The Beggar’s Opera. Picture: John Saunders
Opera of the week: York Opera in The Beggar’s Opera, The Citadel, York City Church, Gillygate, York, October 23 to 25, 7.30pm
YORK Opera stage John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch’s 1728 satirical ballad opera The Beggar’s Opera in an immersive production under the musical direction of John Atkin and stage direction of Chris Charlton-Matthews, with choreography by Jane Woolgar.
Watch out! You may find yourself next to a cast member, whether Mark Simmonds’ Macheath, Adrian Cook’s Peachum, Anthony Gardner’s Lockit, Alexandra Mather’s Polly Peachum, Sophie Horrocks’ Lucy Lockit, Cathy Atkin’s Mrs Peachum, Ian Thomson-Smith’s Beggar or Jake Mansfield’s Player. Box office: tickets.yorkopera.co.uk/events/yorkopera/1793200.
Heidi Talbot: Introducing November 21 album Grace Untold at NCEM on October 23
Folk gig of the week: Heidi Talbot, Grace Untold UK Tour, National Centre for Early Music, York, October 23, 7.30pm
IRISH folk singer Heidi Talbot returns to the NCEM stage to preview her November 21 album Grace Untold, a collection of songs based around Irish goddesses and inspirational women.
This is an album rooted in personal experience and collective lore as Heidi pays tribute to female strength, focusing on legendary figures and the unsung heroines within her own family. Box office: 01904 658338 or necem.co.uk.
Riverdance: The New Generation performs the Irish dancers’ 30th anniversary show at York Barbican
Dance show of the week: Riverdance, 30th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, October 24 to 26, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday and Sunday matinees
VISITING 30 UK venues – one for each year of its history – from August to December 2025, the Irish dance extravaganza Riverdance rejuvenates the much-loved original show with new innovative choreography and costumes, plus state-of-the-art lighting, projection and motion graphics, in this 30th anniversary celebration.
For the first time, John McColgan directs “the New Generation” of Riverdance performers, none of them born when the show began. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Martha Tilston: Singer, songwriter and film-maker making her York debut tomorrow
A CURSORY click on Martha Tilston’s name online will reveal she is 50 and was born in Brighton in 1975.
Not so, says Martha in conversation. She is in fact 49 and her birthplace was Bristol in 1976, although ironically this phone interview was conducted as Martha walked on Brighton beach, having played Komedia there the previous night.
Singer, songwriter and film-maker Martha now lives in Cornwall. “We spent a lot of our childhood down near St Ives, spending long summers in the same house on a farm,” she says.
“I think for part of me, the first place where you connect with nature, you connect with forever, it resonates forever.” Hence the move to Cornwall in adult years.
“That connection has always got to mean something [when writing songs]. When I teach songwriting, I talk about how the ‘comet’ comes in, and how you then transmute or alchemise it, so you’re like a forge,” she says.
“When a feeling pokes an emotion, I feel alive in that moment or sad. It’s not like a feeling that ‘I’m going to turn this into a song’, but a feeling of ‘I need to do something with it’. That’s what’s great about creativity. It’s beautiful to share it, but more than anything it calibrates experience.”
Martha will be playing York for the first time. “I’ve never played there, though my family are around Hebden Bridge, and my mother’s mother’s from Yorkshire,” she says. “I think the booking came through my new booking agent, James Nicholls. He’s good at marrying me up with venues, and York has been on my radar for a while. Now things are aligned.
“I’ve played Leeds, Hebden Bridge and a lovely festival in Settle, and now York. Playing a place for the first time, generally it’s nice, like meeting an edge, a coastline, dipping your toes in again, because you don’t know how it’s going to go.
“You step on [stage], you read the room, and there’s less expectation – though I like playing familiar places too, where it feels like home – but this feels new and this is what ‘humanness’ is.
“We like things that are new; we crave things that are new. We can get scared of adrenaline but we need to be pushed into it.”
Reflecting on that Komedia gig, Martha says. “It’s always a bit of a conversation. It can be like a family gathering, where there could be a curveball, or things that aren’t being said, but last night was really beautiful because everyone enjoyed it so loudly from the first song. It felt like we were creating the night together.
“But also people come with stuff, especially with what’s happening right now, such a lot of heavy stuff, so there’s a lot of love and people are really energetically open to hope.
“I think humans are not feeling great about themselves, so like a child, we play up more, but a gig is a space where it can remind us that humans are lovely.”
The cover artwork for Martha Tilston’s album Luminous
Martha, who has worked Zero 7,Damien Rice, Nick Harper, Kae Tempest and Aztec Camera’s Roddy Frame, as well as making her own records, writes songs from the heart as a balm for the modern age, inviting her audiences to “connect with longed-for parts of ourselves”.
She does so not only through song but also through storytelling, taking part in songwriting retreats at a “Secret Clifftop House near Penzance” and storytelling and creativity camps on Dartmoor.
“It’s so magical,” she says. “The thing is, we are storytellers, and stories are so important, hearing stories and not just ones we know, but hearing new stories, and not about how we mess things up, but we have to get to stories about being harmonious with each other; stories that take you off somewhere else and touch your humanity.”
If “songs are mini-films”, as Martha describes them, then how apt that she has branched out into film-making too for 2021’s The Tape, a “gripping and surprising” feature film for which Martha has credits as director, writer, singer, star. “It’s a story that’s not Armageddon; it’s quite hopeful! A folk musical of hope and connection set in Cornwall,” she says. “You can find it on Amazon Prime.”
It may have escaped your attention that Martha released her latest album in 2023, as she said in this interview, or February 2024 for its “full release”, as her website states. “It slipped out. No press,” she says of Luminous. “It wasn’t even on Spotify at first. I just wanted to put it out on Bandcamp, as a small release, but it’s one that people have really connected with – and it is now on Spotify!”
Luminous is described on her website as “a collection of songs that soothe, heal, and open our hearts – it feels like now is a time when we might need a little musical balm! So sit back and let the songs hold you”.
“I wanted to write an album that was a balm for our times, for me and my friends, founded on love being the answer as we’ve tried everything else,” says Martha.
“I didn’t want to talk to journalists, to talk it up, before I knew how it landed. I wanted to see how it speaks to people without shouting about it.
“I also though the folk press wouldn’t ‘get’ it because it’s not particularly folky, but I didn’t want to fit in with a crowd that maybe it didn’t fit in with anyway.”
Luminous was a memorable recording experience for Martha. “I sang with the Murmuration Choir from Bristol and the One Voice Community Choir from Cornwall (Penryn], and we recorded the album in my friend’s barn, where we had to stop each time the tractor went by!” she says.
Tomorrow’s audience can look forward to a new Martha composition, River. “It’s about how sometimes, when life can throw us challenges, or as my friend said, ‘life can get lifey’, there’s always a place for us to be at peace, but it’s hard to access. A river under a bedrock that can help you when you’re anxious,” she says.
“So I wrote this song to remind me that there is that place. Sometimes it’s comforting to know that, at times when we go through challenges or are in a moment of suffering.”
Hurricane Promotions presentsMartha Tilston at The Basement, City Screen, York, October 18, 7.30pm. Also St Mary’s, Todmorden, October 19, with special guest Molly Tilston, 7.30pm. Box office: marthatilston.co.uk.” We hope you can join us as we travel round, for a little song, heart and connection,” says Martha.
Trumpet player Byron Wallen: Performing Black Flag at the NCEM next Friday
JAZZ trumpet player, composer, traveller and tutor Byron Wallen returns to the National Centre for Early Music, York, on October 24 with a very personal project, Black Flag, to mark Black History Month.
Joined by pianist and keyboard player Nick Ramm, Londoner Byron will share his exploration of childhood memories and the emotional strains between a mother and her son, separated by the chasm of an ocean.
Byron, 56, was born in London, on July 17 1969 – while the Apollo 11 crew were on the way to the Moon – to parents from Belize and was brought up in a musical family, one of his three siblings being composer Errollyn Wallen (now Keeper of the King’s Music, a post once held by Edward Elgar).
But that barely scratches the surface of his back story. “The reality of the situation is that I didn’t grow up with my mum, so that’s the whole idea behind Black Flag, with us being divided by the Atlantic Ocean” says Byron. “She left me when I was six months old when she went back to the States. She was working as a nurse and felt she could do better in the States, with relatives in New York.
“I was conceived in America, then she came over here to have me, so I could be with my much older sisters, who were raised over here for part of their lives. I was brought up by my aunt, my dad’s brother’s wife, so she wasn’t even a blood relative.
“I was brought up in Tottenham, North London, and the interesting thing is that my aunt is white and was raising me in Tottenham, which was a quite a black area of London. So I had my aunt as my ‘mum, growing up – she and my uncle split up when I was 11 – and when I went out, people would ask me ‘who’s this’ and I’d always have to explain my situation.”
Byron felt comfortable at his school, but because his sisters were eight, ten and 12 years older than him, he grew up feeling “like an only child”.
“So it was about learning as a child what’s important as a child, when you want to fit in, not to stand out and not have to think about things,” he says. “But I did have to think about things. It was that thing of having to deal with understanding the situation, and so began a life-long search for what was going on and why my mum did that.”
Byron had participated in the Jerwood Foundation’s “Dangerous Duets” project at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, composing an improvised work in response to Annabel Elgar’s photographs. “As I was writing, they triggered me into going back to my childhood because Annabel’s photos were about negotiating the boundaries between the comfort of familiar things juxtaposed with things that were challenging.”
Byron recalled childhood days of being spoilt but also bullied, and wrote Black Flag in response to images of his mother, his sisters, his aunt and uncle that will accompany next week’s performance. “I have these pictures of when my mum came back to visit after a year, two years and I really don’t know who she is, whereas she’s looking, ‘this is my son’.
“Even though I had a lovely ‘mum’, there was always a feeling of abandonment, thinking ‘why was I not with my real mum’. Using a film of photographs in Black Flag, from my childhood, my family pictures, I thought it would be good for people to see those pictures to bring them into that world.”
Byron and his mother did meet over the years. “But she has passed now, a good 12 years ago,” he says. “I don’t think you could ever really resolve it, but there were times when things came to a head, especially before I became an adult.
“I’d go out to America every two or three years for my summer holiday, and for few days she would be happy to see me, but then after a few days it would be too much. My mum and my aunt did get on really well, but there were tensions in my relationship with my mum, but I did get to know her better as an adult.”
Byron introduces Black Flag as a sonic exploration of the African Diaspora’s enduring psychological landscape. “This project charts the psychological and emotional frontiers of contact between a mother and her son separated by the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s a deep dive into the multi-layered toxic waste caused by global imperialism and colonialism, giving voice to the creation of lost souls and generations living in socio-economic poverty, confined within a mental bubble of paralysis.
“At its heart, this is a journey into family dynamics. It acknowledges that every child has their own lived experience within the family unit, and that the same historical events can have profoundly different effects and consequences on each individual, even among those who share the same roots.”
Explaining how he transfers those sentiments into musical form, Byron says: “Through immersive music composition, we explore these shifting balances of power—between the urban and the rural, the collective and the personal, the past and the present—searching for a glimpse of light before the Sun.
“Yet, Black Flag is not solely a narrative of loss. It’s a profound act of testimony and reclamation. By giving sound to this pain and its varied impacts, we begin the process of cleansing and healing. The work is a testament to the unwavering resilience and defiant hope that defines the Diaspora.
“Our mission is to use the power of music not just to tell this story, but to forge a deeper understanding of how history shapes our present emotions, relationships, and family bonds, and to illuminate the path toward reclaiming our narrative power.”
Why did Byron choose Black Flag as the title for this project? “It’s the idea that if you raise a black flag, there are specific things it means. It’s the pirate flag, when you have no allegiance to anyone.
“Then there’s this amazing tree in Oxleas Wood, near where I live in South East London. A large area of ancient woodland in Eltham, where I found this tree that looked like a flag, so I used it for the album cover and in the film.”
The significance of Black Flag is best understood not within the confines of a single month [Black History Month], but within the continuous, living context of the African Diaspora’s history and its present-day realities, says Byron.
“The project directly engages with themes that are foundational to understanding this ongoing story, Firstly: Pride in Our Roots versus The Rupture, exploring the profound chasm created by the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism—the forced separation of families and the severing of ties to ancestral homelands.
“Secondly, Truth to Power. Composition is an act of speaking truth. It confronts the uncomfortable, often silenced narratives of intergenerational trauma, socio-economic paralysis, and the psychological toll of imperialism. It uses art not for comfort, but for confrontation and testimony, giving sound to a pain that history books often sanitise.”
Thirdly, says Byron, Family Dynamics as Historical Microcosm. “By focusing on the different lived experiences within a single family, Black Flag makes this vast history intensely personal. It shows how systemic forces fracture into unique, individual realities. The same historical events – separation, migration, poverty – land differently on a mother and her son, illustrating that there is no single ‘Diaspora experience’,but a constellation of related yet distinct wounds and strengths
Lastly, says Byron, Creativity, Courage and Change. “Ultimately, the act of creating Black Flag is itself a powerful statement. It represents the ‘glimpse of light’ – the use of creativity to break through the ‘mental bubble of paralysis’.
“It takes courage to articulate this journey, and in doing so, the work contributes to a broader cultural shift, changing how we understand and discuss legacy, memory and resilience.”
Byron Wallen, trumpet & flugelhorn, and Nick Ramm, piano & keyboards, perform Black Flag, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, on October 24, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Did you know?
BYRON Wallen is studying for a PhD in musical composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, in Greenwich, London. He also teaches there and at a music conservatoire in Switzerland.
Did you know too?
DURING his visit to York, Byron will work with young jazz players from York Music Forum and compositional students from across York earlier in the day, exploring the universal themes of identity and heritage.
Cathy Atkin’s Mrs Peachum, left, Alexandra Mather’s Polly Peachum and Adrian Cook’s Peachum in York Opera’s The Beggar’s Opera. All pictures: John Saunders
YORK Opera will stage John Gay’s 18th-century satirical ballad opera The Beggar’s Opera at The Citadel, York City Church, Gillygate, York, from October 23 to 25.
After June’s successful staging of Offenbach’s The Tales Of Hoffmann at York Theatre Royal, the autumn production of librettist and lyricist Gay and composer Johann Christoph Pepusch’s three-act 1728 opera is presented under the musical direction of John Atkin and stage direction of Chris Charlton-Matthews, with choreography by Jane Woolgar.
The Beggar has written an opera! Well, not exactly “written”. He has borrowed all the tunes from folk ditties or well-known melodies – and his plot is not exactly the usual operatic fare – although he says he has followed all the conventions: a hero, a doomed love affair, prisoners in chains.
However, the hero is a highwayman and completely faithless to his many wives, while every lady’s virtue is for sale and marriage is the way to become a rich widow. All the characters are villains, from gang leader Peachum, who sells his own gang members to be hanged in order to claim the reward, to crooked gaoler Lockit, who runs a line in comfortable manacles, and the utterly psychotic Matt o’the Mint, murderer and arsonist. Could the Beggar be sending up the politicians of his day – but surely they are not crooks, are they?
Cathy Atkin’s Mrs Peachum and Adrian Cook’s Peachum
York Opera will stage an immersive production of this classic satire, where you may find yourself seated next to a cast member, so be careful where you sit! That demure lady to your side might just be a pickpocket after your snuffbox!
To be fully in the mood, join Polly and her evil father Mr Peachum at his speakeasy for a gin tasting sponsored by York Gin before each show. Please note that entry to this tasting does not include entry to the show and vice versa. Here is the link: https://tickets.yorkopera.co.uk/events/yorkopera/1819083.
Principal roles will be taken by a combination of established and new soloists: Mark Simmonds as Macheath, Adrian Cook as Peachum, Anthony Gardner as Lockit, Alexandra Mather as Polly Peachum, Sophie Horrocks as Lucy Lockit, Cathy Atkin as Mrs Peachum, Ian Thomson-Smith as The Beggar and Jake Mansfield as The Player.
Alexandra Mather’s Polly Peachum
After The Beggar’s Opera, the company will continue rehearsals for November 8’s concert in conjunction with the York R.I. Brass Band to celebrate the life and musical talents of Clive Marshall, a leading member of both organisations, who died on March 11.
Featuring principals, players and chorus, Opera Meets Brass: A Musical Tribute to Clive Marshall will be held at The Citadel to raise funds for St Leonard’s Hospice in its 40th anniversary year. Tickets (£15, students and under 16s £10) are available at https://tickets.yorkopera.co.uk/events/yorkopera.
Then it will be full steam ahead to Christmas for York Opera’s Carols At Christmas concerts at Acomb on December 11, 7.30pm, Haxby, December 12, 7.30pm, and York, December 13, 4.30pm.
York Opera in The Beggar’s Opera, The Citadel, Gillygate, York, October 23 to 25, 7.30pm. Box office: https://tickets.yorkopera.co.uk/events/yorkopera/1793200.
John Bramwell: Playing solo at Pocklington Arts Centre tomorrow night
HYDE singer, song-spinner and sage John Bramwell has been on a never-ending rolling adventure since working away from his cherished Mancunian band I Am Kloot. Next stop, Pocklington Arts Centre, tomorrow.
Leading light of those Mercury Prize nominees from 1999 to 2014 and screen goddess Cate Blachett’s “favourite songwriter of all time”, Bramwell will be spotlighting songs old and new, as well as his sophomore solo album, February 2024’s The Light Fantastic, in his Pock one-man show.
“I’ve been touring with my full band, then touring as a trio, and now some solo dates,” says John. “A different set of songs, of course. With this set there’s more Kloot in there and more from the new album, not The Light Fantastic , but the next one, out next March, on Townsend Music again. Three songs from that…
“…and stories from my past. Just funny stuff that happened with John Peel. Getting to tour with John Cooper Clarke and how he’d try out his gags on me on his way to gigs. Remembering my late friend Bryan Glancy [who played with Bramwell in The Mouth before he formed I Am Kloot].
“I’ve written a song about him, When The Light Goes Out. I literally just had this dream about him and it was almost like the song was there.”
What happened with John Peel [the legendary late-night BBC Radio One presenter]? “I made this single, Black And White, as Johnny Dangerously, a name I got when I walked on stage, tripped up, went over the edge. The place went crazy. I got a massive cheer,” he recalls.
Pooling redundancy money from being relieved of his position in the Tesco wine and spirits department with a sum from his dad, John printed up vinyl copies of Black And Blue. “It was at the point when Peel said he couldn’t receive cassettes any more, so I went down to London on the train and waited for Peel to come out of his studio. ‘You’re John Peel,’ I said. He looked at his stomach and said, ‘it would appear I am’!”
Vinyl handed over, it turned out the trip was worthwhile. “Peel played it the following night. Among a lot of German industrial rock, and lots of bands with dyed black hair, of course, in the middle of all that, I’d released a ballad – but he played it!”
When playing Kloot songs, John will tell stories of what happened when making recordings. “Like not wanting to have the opening to Northern Skies, which to me is like Suspicious Minds, but Garvey [producer Guy Garvey, of Elbow], said no-one would notice – and he was right.”
Provisionally, he is toying with calling next year’s album Still Got The Magic. “I played a new song at one gig and it got an amazing reaction. I don’t write as much as I did: the quantity isn’t there but there’s still the quality,” says John.
“This new album will be purely a solo record. Just me, because my finger-style playing is really coming on, so I’m actually recording at home, a place near Monmouth, rather than on the boat that I rent by the River Wye at Symonds Yat.”
Pressing John on I Am Kloot’s legacy, he says: “As I find now, what people say to me, is that there’s a spirituality to it, the lyrics and the form, that I didn’t realise, being at the centre of it. It’s very emotional without being sentimental.
John Bramwell, centre, in I Am Kloot days with Andy Humphries and Peter Jobson
“So The Light Fantastic really is the breakaway, but I think this new album, with me and the guitar, is more of a culmination of Kloot.
“Looking back, Moulin Rouge [released in April 2008] is my favourite Kloot album – and the least successful. I love the feel of it. It reminds me of how, when playing with Andy [drummer Andy Humphries] and Peter [bassist Peter Jobson], we were really mashed together on those songs.”
Looking ahead, John’s next album after “Still Got The Magic” (TBC) will be a band record. “That’s the key for me: rather than being purely solo, I look forward to working with the band again, and after that, it’s great to bounce off new ideas.
“I’ve sprung this idea of doing an album every 18 months, and as the label has pointed out, that would mean I’d be touring all the time. If the health holds, I’ll be doing 90 gigs a year. I’ve got my stories, I’ve got my two guitars It’s what I’m meant to be doing. “
At this point, I praised on John for changing the word “trip” to “skip” in his opening lyric to The Light Fantastic: “As I skip the light fantastic/And I live my life of ease/I’ve put my heart out on elastic/And my soul upon the breeze”. “I thought it was ‘skip’! I always thought that! Maybe in different parts of the country it’s different,” he says. “My girlfriend is Scottish and they have different meanings for some words.
“If I’d known it was ‘trip the light fantastic’, I wouldn’t have used it, as I don’t like the psychedelic stuff like LSD!”
It was time to mention John’s prodigiously long hair in the latest publicity photograph. “I’ve had it cut, though it’s still long. I went to get it cut to shoulder length, but the barber refused to cut it that far, saying it was magnificent and he’d cut it for free. So, it’s still long, not crazy, crazy long.”
John Bramwell, Pocklington Arts Centre, Friday, October 17, 8pm. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
“Cate Blanchett’s favourite songwriter of all time”? She chose the John Bramwell-penned Proof, from I Am Kloot’s Sky At Night, as her Desert Island Disc on BBC Radio 4 in December 2022.
John Bramwell on writing songs for 2024’s The Light Fantastic
“AFTER both my mum and dad died, I started writing these songs to cheer myself up. “The themes are taken from my dreams at the time. Wake up and take whatever impression I had from what I could remember of my dream and write that.”
