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Martin T Brooks makes Settlement Players debut directing Richard Harris’s comedy Party Piece at Theatre@41, Monkgate

York Settlement Community Players cast members Heather Patterson, Adam Marsdin and Helen Wilson in rehearsal for Richard Harris’s Party Piece

AMERICAN stuntman, director, writer and producer Martin T Brooks is directing York Settlement Community Players for the first time in Richard Harris’s calamitous comedy Party Piece at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from October 28 to November 1.

“Last November, a friend of mine suggested I apply to direct a show for the York Settlement Community Players, but not having much notable experience directing theatre, I didn’t think I had much of a chance,” he says.

“Luckily for me, and many others, YSCP’s mission is to give aspiring directors the chance to direct. So, I did my research, got my ducks all in a row and made my pitch to the committee. Must have done something right because here I am. Directing Party Piece.”

Here Martin discusses his YSCP debut with CharlesHutchPress.

What happens in Party Piece?

“Michael and Roma are meticulously preparing for their fancy-dress housewarming party. Roma is treating the event like the coronation of the newest monarch, with Michael thinking he is planning the Normandy landing, as well as manning the barbeque with five-star determination and the personality of Gordon Ramsay.

“Mrs Hinson – who is not the biggest fan of her upper-class new neighbours – keeps a watchful and criticising eye on the attendees with the evening looking to be the social event of the neighbourhood.

“That is until a series of disasters strike, including an embarrassing lack of guests, a burning barbeque, a marauding Zimmer frame and a corpse showing up at the front door, turning the party into a hilarious misadventure.”

What attracted you to directing Party Piece? What are the play’s strengths, and why put it on in 2025?

“I selected Party Piece for several reasons. One being that with everything going on these days, I think we could all use a good laugh – and this show as them in abundance. I can remember, back in the day, my dad was playing a recording of an old radio broadcast of Steptoe And Son.

James Wood’s Michael Smethurst, left, Darron Barrott’s Toby Hancock and Catherine Edge’s Roma Smethurst rehearsing a scene from Party Piece

“Being only six or so, I didn’t really understand the jokes, but my dad sure thought they were funny. And dad didn’t laugh much. I guess this is when I first realised there was something special about old-time British comedies.

“Party Piece reminded me a lot of the classic British sitcoms I used to watch when I lived in the States, such as Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served, Chief (remember that one?) and my favourite, The Good Life – which Party Piece has a lot in common with.

“The show also includes special effects, such as a smoking barbecue and wig, exploding fairy lights and a collapsing chair. As a former professional stuntman, I always like to create such effects, especially for the theatre.”

What is the history of Party Piece? When and where was it first performed?

“According to Theatricalia.com, the play, written by award-winning British playwright Richard Harris, was first performed at the Thorndike Theatre on September 15 1987. Although its official publication date is 1992.”

Have you seen a previous production of Party Piece?

“I have not seen the production live and could only find a few photos of previous production by Am Dram groups.”

Have you brought new faces to the Settlement ranks or gone with settled Settlement faces?

“The auditions were open to anyone and brought in the usual suspects of veteran actors from the North Yorkshire area. We do have one newcomer in Heather Patterson, who will be making her stage debut with YSCP. I consider myself very lucky that I was able to find experienced actors who fit the characters they are portraying so perfectly.”

Darren Barrott, left, Catherine Edge and Adam Marsdin in rehearsal for Martin T Brooks’s production

What will be the set design for the show?

“I created the overall design and based it on the description in the script and what a typical English back garden would look like in the early 2000s. The set is being constructed by Richard Hampton.”

Will there be music for the party?

“One of the funniest running gags in the play is Michael’s many failed attempts to get the music planned for the party to play properly. I’ve selected a few appropriate party pieces of music like Whitney Huston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, which play well alongside the comic action taking place on stage.”

What makes a good party?

“The people, the food and the music.”

What makes a bad party?

“Music that is way too loud.”

Do you have your own party piece that you can reel out at a gathering?

“Like most blokes, after a few pints, I think I’m a pretty good stand-up comedian and can tell a few good ex-wife jokes and what it’s like being an American living in the UK.”

York Settlement Community Players in Party Piece, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 28 to November 1, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk

Martin T Brooks: back story

American director, writer, producer, historian and author Martin T Brooks

1974: Auditioned for his first community theatre production, Oliver!. “I was severely bitten by the theatre bug,” says Martin. “I’ve been involved in the theatre, TV and film industries since that time, and I can’t imagine a world without myself being involved in these creative art forms.”

1985 to 1987:  Writer/producer/director for local TV station (KABL-52 in Minnesota, USA), responsible for directing and broadcasting a variety of live and in studio productions. “During this time, I was recognised for my contributions to the local community and was awarded the Community Access Merit award,” says Martin.

1985 to 1995: In his ten years as a stuntman, Martin appeared (uncredited) in the film Drop Dead Fred, as well as a few pilot TV shows filmed in Phoenix, Arizona. “Most of my work was on live stunt shows like Thrill Show 2000, which you can find on my YouTube channel,” he says.

2007 to 2011:  Deputy Manager and lighting technician for Watersmeet Theatre in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. “This provided me with many opportunities to be part of the technical/production staff, as well as stage manage numerous professional and amateur productions,” says Martin.

2011:  “While working for St Michael’s Catholic High School in Garston, Hertfordshire, I was asked to direct the Year 9 & 10 production of Romeo And Juliet, as well as other shows put on by the senior performing arts students.

2017:  Wrote and directed a series of “living history” plays based on real-life characters researched by Martin  while writing the book Acts Of Caring And Other Heroics, Stories from the Leavesden Asylum/Hospital (1870 to1995).

“These plays were performed on an open-air stage during various history/Heritage Day events sponsored by the local district council, or in many primary schools as part of their local history/heritage studies,” he says.

2022 to 2024: Appeared in leading roles in 11 student/independent films and received Best Actor award from 2023 Alternative Film Festival, Toronto, Canada for portrayal of Charles in the short film The Beggers Story, produced by students at University of York’s TV/film programme.

2024:  Wrote, produced and directed a short film, again based on real-life characters researched while writing Acts Of Caring And Other Stories. His film Going Home can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/986560818.

2025: Directing York Settlement Community Players for the first time in Richard Harris’s Party Piece.

Who’s in the Settlement Players’ cast for Party Piece?

JAMES Wood as Michael Smethurst; Catherine Edge as Roma Smethurst; Helen Wilson as Mrs Hinson; Adam Marsdin as David Hinson; Heather Patterson as Jennifer Hinson; Xandra Logan as Sandy Lloyd-Meredeth, and Darren Barrott as Toby Hancock.

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REVIEW: York Shakespeare Project in The Spanish Tragedy, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday ****

Harry Summers’ Hieronimo: “The Hamlet of the piece” in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. All pictures: John Saunders

BACK in the Elizabethan day, Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy outsold Hamlet.

Truth be told, he was pretty much a one-hit wonder, (even “the one and only” Chesney Hawkes had a minor second hit, I’m A Man Not A Boy in 1991), and Kyd has been long dead and buried, like most of his players in what is now viewed as the groundbreaking template for revenge tragedies.

York Shakespeare Project’s decision to expand the focus beyond the Bard in its 25-year second cycle of the First Folio facilitates the revival of rival works of Ben Jonson, the ill-fated Christopher “Kit” Marlowe and, yes, one Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), the tragic trailblazer.

After the Pop Art explosion and drag and cancel culture of director-designer Tom Straszewski’s take on Marlowe’s Edward II in October 2023, Paul Toy returns to the YSP director’s chair after a 14-year hiatus to steer his fourth YSP production.

Toy had first read The Spanish Tragedy as part of his university Renaissance Theatre course, playing the insouciant wrong’un Pedringano to boot. He was struck by how so many of its ideas – “a ghost seeking revenge, feigned or real madness, a play within a play” – would be echoed in Hamlet by Shakespeare, the alchemist of playwrights. Better lines, better characters, better gags.

The Spanish Tragedy, however, turns out to have been well worth digging up out of its neglected grave. Yes, it is no match for Hamlet, but this is a meaty work, full of myriad theatre styles, as Toy notes, from dumb shows to execution as street theatre, tragedy as classical as Greek dramas, and not least a Last Judgement scene redolent of the York Mystery Plays. And, boy, does Kyd enjoy piling up the bodies till the last man standing.

The price of love: Emma Scott’s Bel-imperia and Yousef Ismail’s Horatio in York Shakespeare Project’s The Spanish Tragedy

Working in tandem with set designer and choreographer Viv Wilson and mask maker Tempest Wisdom, plus a rotating team of trainee make-up artists from York College (Grace Gilboy, Beth Shearstone, Keira Hosker, Abigail Horton and Ethan Thorpe), Toy gives The Spanish Tragedy the look of the Day of the Dead, with a nod in Wednesday’s make-up to Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.

Relocated to York from Seattle, Wilson is a sound engineer at Theatre@41, has contributed YSP sets for The Taming Of The Shrew  and Two Gentlemen Of Verona, and once toured the world in a dance group and performed burlesque acts on three continents.

From that portfolio, you see how all life is here in YSP, as it should be in a long-running project, and now Wilson makes her debut in “legitimate theatre” as Revenge, resplendent in red and black, her face skeletal and ghostly white, her voice like a 60-fags-a-day midnight hag. Her mood is intemperate, her mission on a par with the Grim Reaper, but with better putdowns.

Wilson’s Revenge takes her seat to one side of the mezzanine level, reached by a staircase with a platform  above for executions and such like. To the other is the “ghost seeking revenge”, YSP debutant David Lee’s Ghost of Andrea, drained of all colour by way of contrast with Wilson’s crimson Revenge. They will watch on, like the Chorus in Greek dramas, but with an impact more akin to Macbeth’s witches.

At the heart of The Spanish Tragedy is Harry Summers’ Hieronimo, Marshal of Spain, the vengeful Hamlet of the piece, with almost as many lines, but older, enervated. Summers already had his winter of discontent as Richard III and more woe as Coriolanus, and his ninth YSP role is best yet, delivering on “the power of rhetoric” that struck Toy above all else.

The theme of the failure of justice resonates with the rotting modern world, as Toy turns his audience into judge and jury, for Summers’ Hieronimo and Emma Scott’s equally impressive Bel-imperia in particular to make their case. Not for the first time in YSP colours, Scott’s diction is a delight; likewise her emotional range.

Plotters and rotters: PJ Gregan’s Balthazar, left, and Thomas Jennings’s Lorenzo in The Spanish Tragedy

Courtly roles go to YSP stalwarts, Tony Froud’s King of Spain, Emily Hansen’s Duchess of Castile and Nick Jones’s Viceroy of Portugal , while Tim Holman’s makes his first YSP appearance since 2004’s Titus Andronicus in a brace of roles.

On the dark side are Yousef Ismail’s Horatio, YSP newcomer P J Gregan’s Balthazar and Thomas Jennings’ malevolent Lorenzo, breaking the fourth wall with scene-pinching elan, on trademark crop-haired hitman duty again.

Isabel Azar, Cassi Roberts, Martina Meyer and Ben Reeves Rowley fit the the plot-thickening brief to good effect and Sally Mitcham is the play’s moral conscience as Hieronimo’s troubled wife.

Toy directs as playfully as his name would suggest, even using exquisite choral music by the wife-and-her-lover-murdering Gesualdo pre-show and in the interval. When a hanging takes place, darkness descends on the moment of Alan Sharp’s deadpan Hangman administers the drop, whereupon a scroll of The Hanged Man falls into place. Intricate sword-dancing adds to the spectacle, as do all manner of masks.

By the live nature of theatre, anything can happen. What were the odds of a letter dropped from above by Scott’s Bel-imperia landing in the curtain, out of Summers’ Hieronimo’s sight, no matter where he looked. To the rescue rode the director, in the back row. “Top of the curtain,” he bellowed, bringing the house down. Just one of many good decisions he made in this fruitful resurrection of Kyd’s play of men – and women – behaving very badly.

York Shakespeare Project in The Spanish Tragedy, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

The cold touch: PJ Gregan’s Balthazar and Emma Scott’s Bel-imperia in York Shakespeare Project’s The Spanish Tragedy

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Meet the New Generation as Riverdance marks 30th anniversary at York Barbican

Principal dancers Fergus Fitzpatrick and Anna Mai Fitzpatrick with the New Generation dancers in Riverdance’s 30th anniversary show, on tour at York Barbican from tomorrow to Sunday

RIVERDANCE is celebrating its 30th anniversary with its New Generation of pounding Irish dancers, on the beat at York Barbican from tomorrow (24/10/2025) to Sunday.

Not one of them was born when Irish composer Bill Whelan originated Riverdance as an interval act at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, featuring Irish dancing champions Michael Flatley and Jean Butler and the vocal ensemble Anúna.

Husband-and-wife production team John McColgan and Moya Doherty soon converted it into a stage show that opened in Dublin on February 9 1995.

Whelan, McColgan and Doherty remain at the helm for Riverdance: The New Generation as composer, director and producer respectively on the 30-venue UK tour – one for each year – that runs from August 12 to December 14.

The New Generation production of this Grammy award-winning show rejuvenates the format with innovative choreography and costumes and state-of-the art lighting, projection and motion graphics.

Riverdance principal dancer Anna Mai Fitzpatrick: Dancing since the age of four

Director John McColgan says: “It is both a privilege and a delight to celebrate 30 years of Riverdance and the unique journey it has taken us on. In those 30 years, the show has transformed from a spectacle into a global cultural phenomenon, continuously evolving yet remaining true to its Irish roots.

“On this tour we welcoming ‘the New Generation’ of artists while paying tribute to the talented performers, creators, dedicated crew, and the millions of fans who have made Riverdance a worldwide celebration of music and dance.”

Among the principal dancers in a show that blends the traditional and the contemporary in a showcase of dancers, singers and musicians will be brother-and-sister dance captains Fergus Fitzpatrick and Anna Mai Fitzpatrick.

“Fergus and I both joined the company about eight years ago,” says Anna Mai. “So we saw Riverdance through its 25th anniversary, just before Covid, when the score had been recomposed by Bill Whelan.”

“We started Irish dancing at a young age, at eight in my case, and Anna Mai was four,” says Fergus. “We started by going to after-school dance classes at the local primary school, at Navan in County Meath, and I first saw the Riverdance show a couple of years later  on TV.

Fergus Fitzpatrick: World champion-turned-Riverdance principal dancer

“It looked like they were having so much fun with their friends on stage, and after that show, I remember trying to do the moves around the coffee table in the living toom!”

Anna Mai rejoins: “Yeah, it looked like they were having the best time of their lives on stage, and even at that age, I was up on my feet trying to replicate it.”

Both becoming dance champions, they caught the Riverdance bug and love being part of the New Generation show. “We train our whole life to be on stage, and we wouldn’t know what to do if we weren’t performers,” says Anna Mai. “Like anything, you have to put everything into it, all your willpower.”

Fergus says: “Once we’re on tour, we’re together for almost 24 hours a day: eating together, dancing together, staying together in the hotel – and there are plenty of siblings in the show, so it’s good to have that camaraderie off stage as well as on.”

Everyone is pulling in the same direction: the production team, the dancers, the singers, the musicians. “Absolutely,” says Fergus. “The team that you see are very like-minded, and the audience can feel it: they see the beautiful harmony between us and the team behind the scenes, making us look good. It’s a really talented team with a shared vision.

“Fergus and I are very lucky to have each other there on tour, and we can always reach out to each other,” says sister Anna Mai

“The New Generation brings a great energy to this version of the show. We’ve only known life in Riverdance, and we feel the responsibility of the legacy.”

Anna Mai is full of admiration for the work of Whelan and McColgan. “They always do such an incredible job of taking care of the show for now and for future generations as ambassadors for the culture of Ireland,” she says. “We are always so grateful to them for keeping the magic that we all know and love.”

Injuries are part and parcel of a dancer’s life, but Anna Mai says: “A lot of it goes back to preparation. The risk of injury goes with any sport or physical activity, but in those activities, there also can be ‘mental injury’, where you’re not in a good place.”

She, however, is very much in a good place. To keep in top condition, “we work with physiotherapists and massage therapists who travel with us on tour,” she says.

“As much as it’s a dream to be doing Riverdance, it’s also a job, and it’s up to us to be able to prepare to do our job. Fergus and I are very lucky to have each other there on tour, and we can always reach out to each other.”

“We approach a set of live dates in a scientific way now,” says Fergus

Fergus adds: “We approach a set of live dates in a scientific way now. We think about how many shows there will be, what we will need in the way of recovery, how we will sustain being at the top of our game for so many shows.

“And of course the team helps us; Riverdance knows that we need a masseur on the road with us, a company physio, that kind of thing, to keep our bodies conditioned”.

Anna Mai comments: “Because we and the show have been to many of these places and cities before, we have connections that we can tap into. And we love to use our time off and get to know an area even better, do some touristy things, catch up with old friends.

“With Riverdance, many things are constantly changing; you will never be on the road with exactly the same people, on exactly the same tour routing. There is always a new energy, a new buzz, and that’s really fun to feed off. We’re making memories together.”

Fergus is looking forward to this week’s performances at York Barbican. “We’ve performed in York before and we absolutely loved it. It’s such a beautiful city and the audiences are incredible,” he says.

Anna Mai Fitzpatrick dancing in Riverdance Perform at Jubilee Stage, Expo 2020 Dubai in November 2021. Picture: Steve Holland/Expo 2020 Dubai

“It was late 2021 when we last came, when the venues opened up again, and we can’t wait to get back there. There’s definitely an energy there. That magic. A feeling you get, that energy, that crescendo, the moments of emotion, when the audience jump to their feet. That’s a great feeling.”

Traditional Irish dancing may be done with “arms down by your side”, but Riverdance’s combination of the traditional and the contemporary, the Irish and the international, means that “in our professional dancing, we do use the arms more,” says Anna Mai.

“It’s really good fun to get to explore that in the shows. If you look back to the synchronicity of the dancing at the Eurovision show, it was all arms by the side, but we will hold hands at times in our show and support the lead dancer with our hands, and that’s an exciting development.”

Summing up the abiding popularity of Riverdance, Anna Mai concludes: “There is always something new in the way the show resonates. I have seen the show many times and it always hits me differently, on a certain night, one particular number might really affect you; there is so much to experience, the phenomenal music as well as the dancers, all the different styles.

“It is never the same. It’s hard to describe the magic of Riverdance to someone who hasn’t seen it. It’s the human emotion that keeps the fans coming back. They come for the feeling that they leave the show with.”

Riverdance, 30th Anniversary Tour, The New Generation, York Barbican, October 24 to 26, 7.30pm, Friday to Sunday, plus 2.30pm Saturday and Sunday matinees. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Sibling synchronicity: Anna Mai Fitzpatrick and Fergus Fitzpatrick are principal dancers and dance captains in Riverdance’s 30th anniversary show

Fergus Fitzpatrick and Anna Mai Fitzpatrick: back story

FERGUS, from County Meath, Ireland, discovered his passion for dance at the age of eight. With his sister Anna Mai, he grew up competing internationally in Irish dancing competitions.

Under the tutelage of Holly and Kavanagh Academy of Irish Dance, Fergus achieved his dream of becoming a world champion in 2017.

Joined Riverdance, performing in Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. As principal dancer, he has performed in prestigious venues such as Radio City Music Hall, New York, and Hammersmith Apollo, London.

Other productions include Heartbeat Of Home at Piccadilly Theatre, London, and London Palladium.

“Only the best dancers will make it to Riverdance,” says Fergus. “It takes a lot of hard work for a lot of years, a lot of drive. In the back of our minds when we started dancing, the end goal was always Riverdance.

“However, before you get there, there is a whole competition scene. Now though, as principal dancer I also feel that I need to outwork the younger guys who are coming through! They are so good, and of course they want my job, so I need to work hard and work smart.”

“As principal dancer I feel that I need to outwork the younger guys who are coming through!” says Fergus

ANNA Mai began her dance journey at the age of four and danced competitively for 16 years alongside brother Fergus. From a young age, Irish Dance was her passion.

Won many major championships includingAll-Ireland Championships, Great Britain Championships and British Nationals.

Joined Riverdance in 2017, touring China with Fergus, then performed with Riverdance at Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, for two summer seasons.

Moved into principal role in 2020, touring with the show on UK national tour, at Expo Dubai in North American, Europe, and China, Australia and Japan tour.

Toured with Heartbeat O Home, making debut as principal dancer at Piccadilly Theatre in London’s West End.

“A love for the dancing and the show is crucial,” says Anna Mai. “That’s the dream I suppose, for any job, and we do wholeheartedly love what we do. That is what pushes me to be that one per cent better every day, keep the fire burning.

“The show takes a lot of work. When the audience sees the cast on stage, they see the glamorous end to what has been the work of an entire team helping each other to get to that point. We love the entire process.”

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York party band HUGE to host Halloween Bash at Huntington WMC on Oct 31. Fancy dress encouraged; prizes for best dressed

Big Ian Donaghy leading HUGE in Halloween action. Picture: David Harrison

HUGE news! Here comes York party band HUGE’s fancy-dress spooktacular at Huntington WMC, North Moor Road, Huntington, York on October 31.

Looking forward to next Friday’s event, frontman Big Ian Donaghy says: “Halloween has come a long way since the days of carving out turnips and sticking a candle in it. Now pumpkin sales are through the roof as everyone buys into the fancy-dress festival each October.

“So, to get all generations out having fun together in a safe environment without needing babysitters will be a welcome change as HUGE put on our family-friendly Halloween Bash. Fancy dress is optional but will be the popular choice of many”

What a blast: HUGE trombonist Stu Wilkinson. Picture: David Harrison

Among those in the HUGE line-up as ever will be Rob Wilson on guitar, Stu Wilkinson on trombone, Ian Chalk on trumpet and Dave Kemp on saxophone.

“This will be nine-piece Huge’s last live outing before hitting the stage our big charity show, A Night To Remember at York Barbican on Wednesday, November 12 for a night of York helping York,” says Big Ian.

“We’ll be joined by 12-year-old Lacey Hart, who won the chance to perform at the sold-out Barbican. Lacey has performed at three events at Stamford Bridge, Sandburn Hall and Harrogate Candlelighters Ball in the lead-up to the Barbican show and has been exceptional. What a talent she is. Completely fearless.”

Pumpkin up the volume: HUGE Halloween Bash poster for October 31

There also will be prizes for adults and children for best costume as well as a dance off and on the spot Halloween themed tricks and treats.

Adult tickets for the Halloween Bash cost £16 from Huntington WMC or from https://events.liveit.io/white-house-creative/huge-halloween-bash/.  Children can attend for free with an accompanying adult but no unaccompanied under-16s will be admitted. Doors open at 7pm; the event finishes at 11pm.

Adult and children’s prizes will be given for best costume; further attractions will be a dance-off and on-the-spot Halloween-themed tricks and treats.

Big Ian’s A Night To Remember will be celebrating its 12th anniversary with a huge production on November 12. “The event started back in 2013 and sold out Leeds City Varieties, York Theatre Royal and the Grand Opera House before finding its home nine years ago at York Barbican,” says master of ceremonies Big Ian.

Halloween beckons for HUGE saxophonist Dave Kemp. Picture: David Harrison

Taking part will be a 30-piece house band, led by George Hall, featuring  event regulars Huge, Jess Steel, Heather Findlay, Beth McCarthy, Simon Snaize, Graham Hodge, The Y Street Band, Las Vegas Ken, Annie Donaghy, fiddle dynamo Kieran O’Malley and soprano Samantha Holden.

“Our concert raises much-needed funds for St Leonard’s Hospice, Bereaved Children Support York and Accessible Arts and Media to get people with learning difficulties into performing,” says Big Ian. To check late ticket availability, keep an eye on yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Did you know?

IAN Donaghy, affectionately known as Big Ian, took the top honour at The York Press Community Pride Awards in September, scooping the Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of his work over many years to make York and the wider community a kinder place.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 46, from Gazette & Herald

Susie Blake’s Shirley and Jason Durr’s Johnny ‘The Cyclops’ in Torben Betts’s Murder At Midnight at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith

A NEW crime caper and a ghost story, a clash of the blues and a Tommy Cooper tribute make their mark in Charles Hutchinson’s diary.

Deliciously twisted crime caper of the week: Original Theatre in Murder At Midnight, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 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.

Alexandra Mather’s Polly Peachum in York Opera’s The Beggar’s Opera at The Citadel in York. Picture: John Saunders

Opera of the week: York Opera in The Beggar’s Opera, The Citadel, York City Church, Gillygate, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 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.

Natasha Jones, left, and Florrie Stockbridge in Clap Trap Theatre’s Blindfold at Helmsley Arts Centre

Ghost story of the week: Clap Trap Theatre in Blindfold, Helmsley Arts Centre, tomorrow, 7.30pm

RYEDALE company Clap Trap Theatre’s cast of Natasha Jones, Florrie Stockbridge and Cal Stockbridge presents Blindfold, a ghost story by BAFTA-nominated North Yorkshire playwright and scriptwriter Tom Needham.

In 1914, two boyhood friends went to fight for their country but only one came back. After the war, the surviving soldier and his sister encounter an old friend who was being haunted by the ghost of a young man in a blindfold. Now, 100 years later, the discovery of letters re-awakens the ghost. Who is he and what does he want? Piece by piece, the lives of the long dead are brought to life and heartbreaking truths begin to emerge. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Heidi Talbot: Introducing new album Grace Untold at NCEM

Folk gig of the week: Heidi Talbot, Grace Untold UK Tour, National Centre for Early Music, York, tomorrow, 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.

Just like him: Daniel Taylor in the guise of Tommy Cooper at Milton Rooms, Malton

Tribute show of the week: Daniel Taylor Productions presents The Very Best Of Tommy Cooper (Just Like That), Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 7.30pm

PRODUCED and performed by award-winning West End and Unbreakable star Daniel Taylor, this 90-minute tribute show has the blessing of the Tommy Cooper Estate.

Recapturing the mayhem and misfiring magic of one of Britain’s best-loved entertainers, Taylor gives you a glimpse into the life of the comedy giant, celebrating his best one-liners, dazzling wordplay and celebrated tricks, including Glass/Bottle, Dappy Duck, Spot the Dog and Jar/Spoon. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Riverdance: The New Generation celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Irish dance phenomenon at York Barbican

Dance show of the week: Riverdance, 30th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, Friday to Sunday, 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.

The poster for Them Heavy Souls’ blues revue at Kirk Theatre, Pickering

Blues gig of the week: Them Heavy Souls, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Saturday, 7.30pm

MARK Christian Hawkins, top session guitarist for 30 years, is a gun for hire stepping out of the shadows with his British blues rock revue show, featuring stage and screen actress Lucy Crawford on vocals (last spotted playing Miss Prism in York company’s Pop Your Clogs Theatre’s The Importance Of Being Earnest).

Playing music from the golden era of 1966 to 1975, Them Heavy Souls capture the power and magic of  Led Zeppelin/Jimmy Page, Cream/Eric Clapton, Yardbirds/Jeff Beck, Humble Pie/Peter Frampton and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, delivered with vintage guitars, amplification and a nod to improvisation. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.

Alex Hamilton: Leading his blues trio at Helmsley Arts Centre

The other blues gig of the week, on the very same night: The Alex Hamilton Band, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 8pm

GUITARIST Alex Hamilton is joined in his blues/rock/Americana trio by father Nick Hamilton on bass and Martin Bell on drums. He combines melodic rock vocals, hard-hitting lyrics and a heart-felt guitar technique, as heard on his albums Ghost Train, Shipwrecked and On The Radio, as well as in concert venues around the world. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.

Gunn in for you: Steve Gunn promotes his two 2025 albums at The Band Room this weekend. Picture: Paul Rhodes

Moorland gig of the week: Steve Gunn, The Band Room, Low Mill, Farndale, North York Moors, Saturday, 7.30pm

STEVE Gunn, the ambient psychedelic American singer-songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York, made his name as a guitarist in Kurt Vile’s backing band, The Violators. His myriad magical influences include Michael Chapman, Michael Hurley and John Fahey.

This weekend he will be showcasing his second album of 2025, Daylight Daylight, out on November 7 on No Quarter, as well as his first fully instrumental album, August’s Music For Writers. Box office: 01751 432900 or thebandroom.co.uk.

On being Normal: Henry Normal discusses himself at Helmsley Arts Centre

Normal service resumed: Henry Normal, The Slideshow, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 8pm

THE Slideshow, as poet, film and TV producer/writer Henry Normal explains, is a multi-MEdia spectacular with the emphasis on the “me” in his celebration of his “meteoric rise to z celebrity status”, together with his joyous and inevitable slide into physical and mental decline.

Expect poetry, photos, jokes, music, dance, song, circus skills, costume changes, props and stories, exploring where Normal  went wrong in life, plus lessons you can learn from his mistakes, in his live performed memoir with cautionary verse. For tickets for this adventure into understanding the human condition from the inside, go to: helmsleyarts.co.uk.

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Heidi Talbot celebrates strong women, both goddesses and mothers, in Grace Untold concert at National Centre for Early Music

Heidi Talbot: Returning to National Centre for Early Music tomorrow to showcase November album Grace Untold

IRISH folk singer Heidi Talbot previews her November 21 album Grace Untold, a timeless celebration of women’s voices, at the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tomorrow (23/10/2025).

Her ninth studio recording unfolds like a tapestry of feminine power, myth and memory in a luminous song cycle that “honours Ireland’s grand heritage of goddesses and the indelible women who have shaped our histories and hearts”.

Born 45 years ago in the rural Irish village of Kill, County Kildare, Heidi  began singing in the church choir run by her mother, Rosaline, and enrolled at 16 at Dublin’s Bel Canto singing school. A career in music was set in motion, making her mark in the Irish American folk band Cherish The Ladies as well as solo.

Now comes Grace Untold, a record of stories – whispered and sung, remembered and re-imagined – that forms a woman’s tribute to all women who have inspired, protected and passed the song forward.

This is an album rooted in personal experience and collective lore as Heidi pays tribute to female strength and draws inspiration both from legendary figures and the unsung heroines within her own family.

The warrior queen Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Mhaol), the Celtic goddess Brigid of Co. Kildare and Anna Parnell, leader of the Ladies’ Land League, appear alongside Heidi’s grandmother Kathleen, whose recorded voice opens the closing track. Throughout, themes of resilience, love, ancestry and grace echo across time.

Grace Untold’s songs also reflect on intimacy, family and memory. Like You Were Never Here is a prayer written in grief on a rainy day in Fife; In Shame, Love, In Shame, sung with daughter Molly Mae, reclaims dignity from a story of injustice, and I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen entwines three generations of voices, carrying forward the thread of song.

On her first self-produced album, Heidi also pays homage to early influences such as fellow Irish singer Mary Black, while embracing the quiet companionship of Nanci Griffith’s songwriting, and collaborates once again with long-time creative partner Boo Hewerdine, who will be joining her on stage on the second stage of her autumn travels.

“Walking by the sea has inspired me to write songs,” says Heidi

Here Heidi discusses goddesses, heroines, family and a broken ankle with CharlesHutchPress.

“I WAS supposed to be bringing the album out in October, but I broke my left ankle on a night out in Newcastle, in a bar, where a very drunk man fell on me very heavily. A really random moment. Just band luck,” says Heidi.

“I’ve had surgery; I had pins and metal plates put in there and they have to stay in. When my sister got married, I had to go through the airport scanner and all that metal set it off!”

Heidi has been spending time in both Edinburgh and Fife, where she moved last year after marrying Scottish lawyer Ronnie Simpson in May 2024. “We’re in both places at the moment. We moved to Fife a year ago, but then I broke my ankle, and as I still have my place in Edinburgh, on one floor there, we came back for my rehab,” she says.

 “The ankle has nearly recovered. I’ve been signed off by the orthopaedic surgeon. I’m just in physio now. I have days where I look like a pirate, limping along, and then other days when I feel a lot better.”

On stage this autumn, “I’m going to see how it goes, but I’m hoping to be able to sing standing up,” she says. “It’s not so much the standing, but the walking about, at the moment.”

She recorded Grace Untold in May, June and July at GloWorm Recording Studio in Glasgow. “When I damaged my leg, I still had some backing vocals to do, which we did at my house in Edinburgh in the end, with daughter Molly Mae singing and younger daughter Jessica doing a little bit too.

“Molly Mae, who’s nearly 16, wants to do musical theatre. Her dream is to go on the West End stage.”

The artwork for Heidi Talbot’s single, Brigid, the polymath of Celtic goddesses. “She was a bit of an all rounder,” says Heidi, as depicted in the multitude of floating symbols

In doing so, she would be keeping music-making in the family, just as Heidi’s mother passed on her love of music to her daughter.

“It was when I was thinking about writing about inspirational women that I thought about my own mother and my grandmother and the struggles they had in raising a family. How being a woman in this day and age echoes with their day, being a mother, trying to work and keep it all together.

“My mum had nine children and I was number five. They got married at 18, had their first child at 19, but that’s how it was in Irish Catholic families. It was usual to have a lot of children. My grandmother had nine children too. These women were so strong and resilient, and they had to be; there was no choice.”

Heidi continues: “Then you think of all the social aspects, buying a house, having a career, when for my mum that just wasn’t possible. Now a lot of people separate from their partners, and have to try to rebuild their life, and like it or not, the children’s emotional heft falls on the mother, trying to provide everything for everyone.

“I look at my mum and my grandmother and think what would they say? Would they say, ‘it’s crazy trying to do what you have to do’?”

Folklore is at the heart of Grace Untold too. “The first song I recorded, over a year ago, is about Brigid of County Kildare. In my childhood, around February 1, we sang Brigid’s Day at school and we would make St Brigid’s crosses out of rushes or paper.

“We’d hang a piece of cloth outside the house the night before for St Brigid to bless us for the year ahead. The next morning the cloth was brought in and used for blessing the home and healing.

“In the song she has two entities: as a nun and a saint and as a goddess too, of music and poetry, healing arts and prophecy, agriculture and fire – and children and blacksmiths too. She was a bit of an all-rounder.”

The cover artwork for Heidi Talbot’s November 21 album Grace Untold

The song about warrior queen Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Mhaol) emerged from Heidi’s move to Fife, by the sea. “There’s such powerful energy around the sea,” she says. “That’s how I’ll work, taking a good walk, and then I’ll write after that, having cleared my head of worries, quietening all the noise.  Walking by the sea has inspired me to write songs.

“Grace O’Malley was a real person who’s had a lot of her history erased because she was a woman. She was a pirate queen, defending her part of Ireland, and there’s a film about to be made about her too. It’s lovely for me to shine a light on women who are inspirational to me, like Grace O’Malley and Anna Parnell, the leader of the Ladies’ Land League.

“Anna has been erased from history, whereas her brother, [Irish nationalist politician] Charles Stewart Parnell has not. She was fighting for people who had been evicted, setting up temporary homes for them.

“She came from a landlord family; she was gentry, but she helped all manner of women. She was a great woman, very strong, and not afraid of men.”

Heidi delved deep into her research. “I did that with Grace O’Malley, because I truly wanted to honour this woman, and it was the same with Anna Parnell, and the more I looked into it, I thought, ‘wow, how is this not taught to children, especially in Ireland?’,” she says.

“I wanted to be authentic in these songs. The metaphysical, ‘witchy’ side of me wants to think they’re standing beside me on stage when I sing.”

The musicians doing that at the NCEM tomorrow will be Innes White, mainly on mandolin and guitar, and fellow instrumentalist Toby Shaer on fiddle, cittern, guitar and flute.

Heidi Talbot, Grace Untold, National Centre for Early Music, York, October 23, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk. Grace Untold will be released on Heidi Talbot Records on November 21.

Heidi Talbot: Playing York, Whitby and Sheffield this autumn

Heidi Talbot: back story

BORN in Kill, County Kildare, Ireland, the fifth of nine children. Sang in church choir run by her mother, Rosaline. Enrolled at 16 at Dublin’s Bel Canto singing school.

Past member of Irish American folk group Cherish The Ladies, from 2002 to 2007, after moving to New York aged 18 to work in bars and clubs for two years. Recorded On Christmas Night, 2004, and Woman Of The House, 2005.

Released nine solo recordings: Heidi Talbot, 2002; Distant Future, 2004; In Love and Light, 2008; The Last Star, 2010; My Sister The Moon EP,  2012; Angels Without Wings, 2013; Here We Go 1, 2, 3, 2016; Sing It For A Lifetime, 2022; Grace Untold, November 21 2025.

Recorded Love Is The Bridge Between Two Hearts EP with John McCusker, 2018; Face The Fall with Arcade (Adam Holmes), 2019, and A Light In The Dark with Roger Tallroth, Sophia Stinnerbom and Magnus Stinnerbom, 2019.

Shared stages and studios with Mark Knopfler, Graham Coxon (Blur), Eddi Reader, Jerry Douglas, King Creosote, Tim O’Brien, Idlewild, Kris Drever, John McCusker, Roddy Woomble and Michael McGoldrick.

Nominated for Folk Singer of the Year, BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards; Best Traditional Song and Best Live Act at Scottish Traditional Music Awards; Best Female Vocalist, Irish Music Awards. Named Composer of the Year at 2023 Scots Trad Music Awards.

On tour from October 10 to November 30. Further Yorkshire gigs will be at Whitby Music Port Festival, October 25, and Firth Hall, Sheffield (with Boo Hewerdine), November 20.

Heidi Talbot’s tour itinerary for Grace Untold

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Bradford blues guitarist Chantel McGregor to play solo acoustic gig at Fulford Arms

Chantel McGregor: Solo acoustic gig at Fulford Arms

BRADFORD virtuoso blues rock guitarist Chantel McGregor will play a solo acoustic gig at  the Fulford Arms, Fulford Road, York, on December 8.

This multiple British Blues Award winner, 39, will be showcasing her third studio album, May 2025’s The Healing.

At 14, Chantel was told by major labels that she had a “great voice, but girls don’t play guitar like that”. Wisely ignoring such comments, she enrolled at Leeds College of Music (now Leeds Conservatoire), becoming the first student there to achieve a 100 per cent pass mark, with 18 distinctions to boot.

She left with a First Class degree in Popular Music and a coveted prize, the college’s musician of the year award.

Early in her career, she was invited to perform with Joe Bonamassa on two of his British tours. In 2011, she released her debut album, Like No Other; in 2015 came her second, Like Control, again produced by Livingstone Brown, this time full of gothic imagery. In December 2018, she launched her podcast.

Over the past 15 years, guitarist, singer and songwriter Chantel has been a reliable presence on the British gig circuit, traversing the length and breadth of the country and appearing at major festivals.

It would be easy to presume that we know what makes her tick, but The Healing has blown such preconceptions clean out of the water, revealing a new side to her in both a musical and emotional sense. 

“This is definitely a rock album, not a blues album,” emphasises Chantel. “It’s heavy and dark and it introduces elements of prog-rock, which is a form of music I absolutely love.”

First single Broken Heartless Liar, for example, is a raw, defiant rock anthem about finally seeing the truth and taking back your power. “It captures the moment you realise the person you loved never really valued you, just took what they could while giving nothing in return,” she says.

“The song moves from heartbreak to clarity, shifting from the pain of betrayal to the strength of walking away. It’s about breaking free from the lies and emotional wreckage and choosing empowerment over staying trapped in something toxic.”

Equipped with a driving riff, a blistering guitar solo and a chorus that sticks in the mind, Broken Heartless Liar “will connect with anyone who has ever had to fight their way out of a bad relationship and come out stronger on the other side”. Watch the video at https://youtu.be/eqnJQ3sXxuY.

Alongside McGregor, The Healing features regular band-mates Colin Sutton on bass and Thom Gardner on drums, a pair of players with whom she has developed a form of musical telekinesis.

Where things depart from the norm is the presence of two newcomers, guitarist Oli Brown as co-producer and his fellow member of The Dead Collective, Wayne Proctor, who handled production mixing and mastering.

 “I’ve known Oli for donkey’s years, but when I heard the work he was doing with his band The Dead Collective, I really wanted to see if we could do something together,” says Chantel.

In another break with McGregor tradition, Brown and Proctor were involved heavily in the songwriting process too.

Tickets for December 8’s show are on sale at ents24.com/york-events/the-fulford-arms/chantel-mcgregor/7337879. Doors open at 7.30pm. The Healing is available on CD and black vinyl at chantelmcgregor.com.

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York group Kaminari UK Taiko Drummers to perform Roku at Galtres Centre, Easingwold

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

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Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy once outsold the Bard. Find out why in York Shakespeare Project’s production

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

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David Essex and Alfie Boe to play York Barbican and more Yorkshire shows in 2026. When do tickets go on sale?

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.

Tickets will be on sale at www.gigsandtours.com.

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.
 
Tickets go will be available from www.gigsandtours.com and www.ticketmaster.co.uk; VIP Packages from  www.sjm-vip.com.