Be prepared to be amazed by time travel: Dave Hearn, left, and a shocked Michael Dylan and Amy Revelle in Original Theatre’s The Time Machine. Picture: Manuel Harlan
Original Theatre in The Time Machine, York Theatre Royal, today at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
SORRY, there isn’t much time left. Either for CharlesHutchPress to write this review after a truly madly deeply busy week spent in the darkness of theatres and gig venues. Or for you to read it or see The Time Machine before it leaves town forever.
Oh, for a time machine to have made time e x p a n d. Anyway, no time to delay. This is “father of science fiction” H G Wells’s The Time Machine. Or rather it is and it isn’t.
It is based loosely – clinging by its finger nails, more like – on Wells’s 1895 debut full-length sci-fi novel, the one where the Time Traveller invents a device for travelling through time on a journey to the year 802,701.
Herbert George Wells, by the way, used his time well, so well that he wrote more than 50 novels and dozens of short stories, while his non-fiction output took in works of social commentary, politics, history, science, satire, biography and autobiography.
Ah, but he didn’t write The Time Machine, A Comedy, instead the madcap work of Steven Canny, once associate director of Complicite, and John Nicholson, artistic director of Peepolykus, fellow specialists in absurdist, absurdly funny comedies.
In a compressed nutshell, three actors run a theatre company that’s trying to put on a production of The Time Machine, but with fairly limited success. “Limited” in the sense that Hearn, Amy Revelle and Michael Dylan keep veering wildly from Wells’s intention to travel to the end of the Earth’s life to reflect on our own.
A big event happens that causes the play to spiral out of control as Hearn’s character, also called Dave, discovers actual time travel. Spoiler alert.
Everything stops for tea but not for long for Amy Revelle and Dave Hearn in The Time Machine. Picture: Manuel Harlan
Like in Hearn’s exploits for Mischief Theatre for the past decade, comedy rules all in the desire to get to the end, no matter what mishaps, detours, distractions befall the performance, within the structure of a play within a play, where the actors’ own world permeates the text.
In this case, Hearn is playing Dave Wells, HG’s assertive, egotistical great-great grandson, who wants to tell HG’s sci-fi tale, and is in such a hurry to do so, he is wearing tracksuit trousers and trainers.
But then so too are Amy, the “sensible” one who just wants to sing Cher songs at every opportunity, and Irishman Michael, a lovable science geek who’s having something of a meltdown day. Science fiction meets science friction as they are always on the cusp of falling out.
A door (vital to all farces), a chaise longue, dapper Victorian costumes, a theatrical knife prop, sounds off stage and repetition, repetition, repetition, all add to the fun and games.
“This is a show that laughs in the face of despair and insists on shining light in gloomy times,” says director Orla O’Laughlin (who even has a ‘laugh’ in her surname).
It does do exactly that, while also finding room for audience participation (on and off stage), show tunes, a mischievous nod to Derren Brown, explorations of the fourth dimension, and the “science bit” as Hearn turns into a boffin lecturer. Heck, sometimes, even HG’s story strives to get back on track amid the madness and the mayhem, as all’s Wells that ends well.
This is ‘metatheatre’, to use a pretentious word, but it is often ‘megatheatre’ too, judging by the excited reaction of the matinee school party in the dress circle.
Time and space is running out. What are you waiting for? Why are you still reading this? There’s no time like the present to see The Time Machine. Now.
Rave on: Hannah Price, left, Harry Boyd, Christopher Weeks, Rhiannon Hopkins, Joshua Barton and Ben Pryer in a scene from Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story
THE return of Buddy, Stewart Lee and English Touring Opera, a dream of an exhibition and a vintage DJ night of song top Charles Hutchinson’s diary highlights for the week ahead.
Musical of the week: Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees
HOLLYLUJAH! Rock’n’roll musical Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story returns to York for the first time since 2017 with “The day the music died” tale of the bespectacled young man from Lubbock, Texas, whose meteoric rise from Southern rockabilly beginnings to international stardom ended in his death in a plane crash at only 22.
Christopher Weeks’s Buddy leads the cast of actor-musicians through two hours of music and drama, romance and tragedy, driven by all those hits, from That’ll Be The Day, Peggy Sue and Rave On to Big Bopper’s Chantilly Lace and Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba.Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle: Playing The Crescent on Sunday night
Folk gig of the week: Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker & John Doyle, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 8pm
THE Black Swan Folk Club and Please Please You present the powerhouse triumvirate of musical magpies McGoldrick, McCusker and Doyle in a Sunday session of traditional, contemporary and original jigs, reels and ballads, as heard on their two albums, 2018’s The Wishing Tree and 2020’s The Reed That Bends In The Storm.
Their paths first crossing as teenagers before they joined separate bands (Lunasa, The Battlefield Band and Solas respectively), they line up with Mancunian McGoldrick on flute, whistles, Uileann pipes, bodhran, clarinet and congas; Glaswegian McCusker on fiddle, whistles and harmonium; Dubliner Doyle on vocals, guitar, bouzouki and mandola.
“The whole thing’s great fun,” says McCusker. “We have no agenda other than having a nice time and playing music. That’s the way we tour as well – we throw ourselves in a little car, instruments on our laps, and off we go. And the records? Well, I hope it’s the sound of three old friends, having a great time, making music together.” Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Stewart Lee goes back to basic Lee at York Theatre Royal, but sold out, basically
Comedy at the treble: Stewart Lee: Basic Lee, York Theatre Royal, Monday to Wednesday, 7.30pm
AFTER recording last May’s brace of Snowflake and Tornado gigs at York Theatre Royal for broadcast on the BBC, Stewart Lee returns for three nights of his Basic Lee show.
Following a decade of high-concept shows involving overarched, interlinked narratives, Lee enters the post-pandemic era in streamlined stand-up mode. One man, one microphone, and one microphone in the wings in case the one on stage breaks. Pure. Simple. Classic. Basic Lee – but sold out, alas.
Navigators Art collective explores the subconscious mind in Dream Time at City Screen Picturehouse
Exhibition launch of the week: Navigators Art, Dream Time, City Screen Picturehouse, York, on show until April 21
YORK collective Navigators Art’s Dream Time exhibition takes inspiration from dreams, visions, surrealism and the mysteries and fantasies of the subconscious mind. The official launch event will be held tomorrow (19/3/2023) in the café bar from 7.30pm to 9.30pm.
This mixed-media show features painting by Steve Beadle and Peter Roman; collage, prints and drawing by Richard Kitchen; photography and painting by Nick Walters and textiles by Katie Lewis.
The tour poster for Sounds Of The 60s with Tony Blackburn as host
Nostalgic show of the week: Tony Blackburn: Sound Of The 60s Live, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm
BBC Radio 2 disc jockey Tony Blackburn hosts an evening of 1960s’ classics, performed live by the Sound Of The 60s All Star Band and Singers.
Listen out for the hits of The Everly Brothers, Dusty Springfield, The Kinks, Elvis Presley, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Otis Redding, The Beatles, The Who and many more. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Paul Smith: Playing the Joker at York Barbican
Liverpool lip of the week: Paul Smith: Joker, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm
JOKER is Paul Smith’s biggest and funniest tour show to date, wherein the Scouse humorist mixes his trademark audience interaction with true stories from his everyday life.
Resident compere at Liverpool’s Hot Water Club, Smith has made his mark online as well as on the gig circuit with his affable nature and savvy wit. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Roddy Woomble: Songs old and new at Selby Town Hall
Indie gig of the week: Roddy Woomble, Selby Town Hall, Thursday, 8pm
RODDY Woomble, Scottish indie band Idlewild’s lead singer, is now a leading voice in the British contemporary indie folk scene. In Selby, he is joined by Idlewild band mate Andrew Wasylyk for a duo show of Idlewild favourites and solo works.
“This is a tour in between records, so a tour for exploring all the songs,” says Woomble. “Lo! Soul is going on two years old now, and although the songs still sound fresh to me when I play them, it’s time for something new – which there is. We’ll definitely be including some new material in the set.” Box office: selbytownhall.co.uk.
Paula Sides’s Lucrezia in English Touring Opera’s Lucrezia Borgia, on tour at York Theatre Royal
Two nights at the opera: English Touring Opera, York Theatre Royal, in Lucrezia Borgia, March 24, and Il Viaggio a Reims, March 25, both 7.30pm
LUCREZIA Borgia, Donizetti’s tragedy of a complex woman in a dangerous situation, is making its debut in the English Touring Opera repertoire in Eloise Lally’s ETO directorial debut production of this thrilling and moving meditation on power and motherhood.
Valentina Ceschi directs a cast of 27 in Il Viaggio a Reims, Rossini’s last Italian opera, in which intrigue, politics, romance and lost luggage all play their part as a group of entitled guests from all over Europe is stranded in a provincial hotel on the way to a great coronation. Period-instrument specialists The Old Street Band play for both operas. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Gig announcement of the week: Steve Earle, The Alone Again Tour, Grand Opera House, York, June 9
Steve Earle: Heading from New York to York in June for solo show
AS his tour title suggests, legendary Americana singer, songwriter, producer, actor, playwright, novelist, short story writer and radio presenter Steve Earle will be performing solo and acoustic in York: the only Yorkshire gig of a ten-date itinerary without his band The Dukes that will take in the other Barbican, in London, and Glastonbury.
Born in Fort Monroae National Monument, Hampton, Virginia, Earle grew up in Texas and began his songwriting career in Nashville, releasing his first EP in 1982 and debut album Guitar Town in 1986, since when he has branched out from country music into rock, bluegrass, folk music and blues.
His colourful life prompted Lauren St John’s 2003 biography Hardcore Troubadour: The Life And Near Death Of Steve Earle, written with the rebel rocker’s exclusive and unfettered cooperation. “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself,” he once said.
Earle, 68, has been married seven times (including twice to the same woman) and been through drug addiction and run-ins with the law, serving a month in prison in 1994 for heroin possession. “Going to jail is what saved my life,” he said, after he was sent to rehab.
A protege of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Earle is a masterful storytelling songwriter in his own right, with his songs being recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, The Proclaimers and The Pretenders, among others.
Since the Millennium, he has released such albums as the Grammy-awarded The Revolution Starts…Now (2004), Washington Square Serenade (2007) and Townes (2009).
Restlessly creative across artistic disciplines, Earle has published a collection of short stories, Doghouse Roses (2002) ; a novel, I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (2011), and a memoir, I Can’t Remember If We said Goodbye (2015).
He has produced albums for Joan Baez and Lucinda Williams, acted in films and on television, notably in David Simon’s The Wire, and hosts a radio show for Sirius XM.
In 2009, Earle made his off-Broadway theatre debut in the play Samara, contributing the score too. In 2010, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Music and Lyrics in the drama series Treme.
In 2020, he wrote music for and appeared in Coal Country, a docu-play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen that shines a light on the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine explosion, the most deadly mining disaster in United States history. A nomination for a Drama Desk Award came his way.
In 2020 too, Earle released the album Ghosts Of West Virginia and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. His 21st studio album, J.T. in January 2021, was an homage to his late son, singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle, who had died from an accidental drug overdose in August 2020. In May 2022 came Jerry Jeff, Earle’s tribute to cowboy troubadour Jerry Jeff Walker.
Tickets go on sale on Thursday morning (23/3/2023) at atgtickets.com/york.
The artwork for J.T., Steve Earle’s 2021 album of covers of songs by his late son, Justin Townes Earle
Adjusting to new circumstances: Victoria Delaney’s Kath in York Actors Collective’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
York Actors Collective in Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk
YORK Actors Collective is a new group of like-minded actors whose aim is to produce entertaining and thought-provoking theatre.
Launched by director Angie Millard, with actors Chris Pomfrett and Victoria Delaney in tandem, YAC is looking to fill a gap by staging plays that might otherwise sit gathering dust.
One such is Joe Orton’s 1964 farce Entertaining Mr Sloane, controversial in its West End day and still as discomfiting as a punch in the gut.
Coming to an arrangement:Ben Weir’s Mr Sloane and Chris Pomfrett’s Ed in York Actors Collective’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
It is not a farce to call it a farce – trousers are removed, and yes, there’s sex, please, despite being British – but this is not farce of the cosy, comfy Brian Rix variety. Orton is an iconoclast, a rule breaker, an agent provocateur, an even angrier young man than those Angry Young Men that seethed before him: Osborne, Amis, Braine, Sillitoe, Wain, Braine and co. This is farce as jet-black comedy and psychological drama, all normality refracted through a writer’s absurdist lens.
Orton’s play has a psychopath, physical abuse and sibling squabbling; homosexuality, still illegal in 1964, hovers beneath the surface as the love that dare not speak its name (not least to beat the censor’s scowl). Its humour is savage, cruel, awkward, the kind that in 2023 has you thinking, “is that funny?”. Just as Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, likewise premiered in 1964, had the same effect when revived on tour at York Theatre Royal last May.
Orton’s play is not quite as shocking in impact as Ben Weir’s hair – dyed three times on Millard’s instruction to make it look so obviously bleached (and disturbingly reminiscent of angels in a Renaissance religious painting) – but it does shock, especially in its brutality to Mick Liversidge’s Dada Kemp, the old man who knows too much, and its treatment of the vulnerable, needy, highly sexualised Kath (Delaney).
Weir is an exciting young talent from York St John University and here he makes his mark in very good, experienced York company: Liversidge, Delaney and Pomfrett. A tall, lean north easterner, he has an unnerving presence beneath his burning bright hair, his cocksure, amoral lodger Sloane being the house guest yet the cuckoo’s egg in the nest. The Sloane danger.
Chris Pomfrett’s Ed, left, Victoria Delaney’s Kath, Mick Liversidge’s Dada Kemp and Ben Weir’s Mr Sloane at the finale to Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
Liversidge’s Dada shuffles around pitiably, caught in the crossfire as Weir’s Sloane plays Delaney’s desperate-to-please seductress, Kath, off against her brother, Pomfrett’s Ed, his self-aggrandising new employer, as they pursue his affections.
The humour tends to stick in the throat rather than be “laugh out loud” funny, but Millard’s cast is all the better for playing it straight, even confrontational, to emphasise how selfish and shameless everyone is.
As Millard says, Orton winds his characters up like toys and then watches what happens. Pomfrett, Liversidge, Weir and Delaney are happy to do exactly the same, their characters beyond control like dodgem cars.
“Our challenge is to attract an audience but shake up their expectations a little,” says Millard in her programme notes. Job done in this disturbing debut.
“Turn off your brains and yell,” advised a Suede T-shirt at their first York Barbican gig in more than 25 years. Picture: Dean Chalkley
TO last in the music business, you need more than talent and looks. What differentiates those still touring into their third, fourth or even sixth decade is hunger. Based on Wednesday’s as-near-as-damn-it sold-out show at the Barbican, Suede still look lean and hungry, 34 years in.
After an excellent short opening spot from Aircooled, the stage was set for a great night. From the moment Brett Anderson strode on stage, the intent was obvious.
Posting on Twitter today (March 16), bassist Mat Osman sheds light on Suede’s state of mind before the final show of their late-winter tour; “on a wet Wednesday. All-seated venue. I had the lowest of expectations but the crowd at the Barbican made it a stormer.”
The crowd had little choice! From the off, Anderson was onto them, terrier-like to “get up, get up!” It felt like he grabbed everyone by the neck and gave us a good shake. Anderson was relentless in creating the atmosphere the band needed and he succeeded, as the lower tiers left their warm seats and entered the hot house at the front.
They couldn’t have had a better view – from the start to the end of the 20th song 85 minutes later, Anderson never stopped. At 55, his skills as a frontman were second to none, and while the voice isn’t what it once was (and it was never all that!), all eyes were on him.
“That man on the stage” was in the crowd, on his back, all over and most often up on the monitors at the front, a talisman whipping up the atmosphere in another huge chorus.
One of the London band’s T-shirt slogans summed it up: “Turn off your brains and yell,” it read. Sing or yell we did, pretty much throughout. Anderson made his point emphatically: rock gigs are about coming together and getting into it.
Suede are enjoying a lengthy second spell of success. Their latest album, 2022’s Autofiction, is a direct and no-nonsense punk rock record; perfect for playing live. That album got a nod or two, but this was essentially a greatest hits set, played as if it were the first or last time they would get the chance.
What of the music? With the original rhythm section of Osman and Brett Gilbert firmly in control, guitarist Richard Oakes has matured from the stripling 17-year-old asked to fill Bernard Butler’s big shoes into this riff powerhouse, his low-slung guitar providing the crunch to most of the songs.
Suede’s music is all about riffs, rhythm and playing as a unit. There’s barely a solo and nothing that isn’t absolutely vital for the song (except perhaps for Neil Codling on guitar and keyboards, who mostly alternated between looking glamorous and bored).
It was ten songs in before the intensity abated, and then only slightly and not for long. Of the two acoustic numbers, The Wild Ones was by far the best – a reminder that even louche rock bands have feelings.
The encore of Beautiful Ones, still their finest 3 minutes 50 seconds, put the cap on the night, almost tearing the roof off. Newcomers take note, if you want to own the stage, you have to mean it – so watch and learn from these masters.
YORK writer, actress, performance poet, slam champion, theatre maker, workshop leader and university lecturer Hannah Davies will launch her debut poetry collection, Dolls, at York Literature Festival on Saturday night (18/3/2023).
The event will be presented in collaboration with her high-energy York spoken-word compadres Say Owt at The Crescent community event, when Hannah’s readings will be complemented by poetry from team Say Owt, Sylvia Marie and Sally Jenkinson, coming all the way from Brighton, plus live music from Pascallion (Jack Woods) and Hull singer-songwriter Ysabelle Wombwell.
Say Owt artistic director Henry Raby says: “Hannah is Say Owt’s associate artist, running open mic nights and workshops and supporting poets across York. We’re delighted to launch Hannah’s first poetry book. Dolls is a fierce and tender collection about womanhood, motherhood, feminism and survival. Hannah is a spellbinding storyteller and her writing is warm, lyrical and bold.”
Hannah enthuses: “I’m thrilled to be launching my poetry collection as part of York Literature Festival. There are poems in here that I’ve been performing for years, and some that haven’t seen the light of day at all.”
Why is the collection entitled Dolls, Hannah? “Dolls was the first poem I ever performed in a slam: the Say Owt slam,” she says. “That poem talks about how a woman is made up of all the dolls she owned in her childhood.
“Each chapter has a different doll as its title. Baby Doll, Russian Doll, Barbie Doll. It’s a good time for me to take stock, creatively, and having all these pieces in one book feels like the end of an era in a way. I’m in a very different place to when I first dared myself to get on a stage and share my poems seven years ago. Who knows what creative writing adventures await next!”
Grand slam: Hannah Davies, slam champ, with Say Owt cohort Stu Freestone
Hannah has edited her “back catalogue” of poems from poetry evenings and slam nights into themes, rather than compiling “just a scattergun collection”.
“The poems are thematically arranged under each doll title,” she says. “There’s a real split between performance poetry and poetry on the page, and all these poems in the collection were written to be performed, with my background in performing and writing for the theatre.
“Part of the editing process has been about making sure they work on the page, seeing how they unfurl in print, and I feel they work in both senses now, for performance and for reading in a book.
“Probably the book will be bought mostly at gigs when people have heard me perform, though I hope to shift a few copies online as well.”
Most of the poems were written between 2015 and 2022, complemented by a couple of newer pieces and two more that have not been performed but “felt right to fit in”.
“Because of my health, I’ve not been writing much poetry recently, but it was a good time to compile the book. It can be quite difficult to unify them under themes when you’re cutting your teeth with your first poems, spread over time, whereas later collections can be more tightly focused, when you can concentrate on a specific theme, such as ‘skin’,” she says in a reference to her skin condition, as charted in social media posts over the past year and more.
Oxford illustrator Katie Gabriel Allen’s cover artwork for Hannah Davies’s debut poetry collection, Dolls, featuring Hannah’s pink-haired childhood rag doll Polly Dolly. “I still have her, of course,” says Hannah
“There will always be that pressure for all artists to come up with something new, but it’s something I’ve learned in recent years, being ill, that you will have fallow periods where you have to take care of yourself or life takes over.
“I’ve never been a writer who writes every day but I do have periods of doing that. If you sit doing nothing or you say, ‘right, I’m going to write for six hours now’, it’s not going to happen. But if you sit down and write for ten minutes, maybe something will emerge.”
Why write poems, Hannah? “I like how they are short. That’s what drew me to them, having written plays [for Common Ground Theatre] and maybe being frustrated by how long it takes to write a play, whereas you can write a poem and perform it immediately.”
Being a mother (to Max) feeds into her work too. “Motherhood runs throughout the book. Being a mother, having a mother, not having a mother,” says Hannah, whose mother died in a car crash when she was 12. “It all absolutely informs my work.”
As she looks forward to tomorrow’s launch, Hannah admits: “I’m excited, if a little terrified too, but I’ve always wanted a book with my name on it since I was six.”
Say Owt and York Literature Festival present Hannah Davies: Dolls Book Launch, at The Crescent, York, on March 18. Doors open at 7pm for 7.30pm start. Tickets: £10 in advance at thecrescent.com; £15 on the door.
Hannah Davies joins Say Owt’s Henry Raby and North Yorkshire cross-country runner, coffee barista and poet Olivia Mulligan for a Poetry Evening at The Courthouse, Thirsk, presented by Rural Arts on May 26 at 7.30pm. Box office: ruralarts.org.
Hannah Davies
Hannah Davies: The back story
SAY Owt associate artist Hannah is a spoken-word slam winner at Great Northern Slam (2016) and Axis Slam (2017) and Word War 4 Champion, plus a finalist at BBC EdFringe Slam and the Hammer & Tongue Nationals.
She has performed at poetry nights across the country (Find The Right Words, Sonnet Youth, Tongue Fu, Evidently, Inua Ellams Rap Party, She Grrrowls and Women Of Words).
She is an experienced theatre-maker and facilitator (Royal Court, York Theatre Royal, Trestle Theatre Company, Guild Of Misrule, Company Of Angels, Pilot Theatre and Arcade).
She lectures in playwriting at the University of York in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies.
In York International Women’s Week 2023 , she gave a writing workshop at York Explore Library on March 12.
She runs the young women’s creative collective for Arcade, the Scarborough and Bridlington community producing company, working in Bridlington with women making their own performance projects. Last July they took part in Arcade and the Collaborative Touring Network’s project with Zimbabwean musician, actor and artist John Pfumojena at St John’s Burlington Methodist Church, Bridlington.
Oh Boy! Christopher Weeks as Buddy Holly in Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, on tour at Grand Opera House, York
CHRISTOPHER Weeks will be in York all week, playing the lead role as Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story returns to its regular nesting place of the Grand Opera House from Tuesday for the first time since 2017.
After the 30th anniversary travels were stalled by Covid, writer-producer Alan Janes’s musical is back on the road at last, adding to the record-breaking 4,668 performances over 580 weeks on tour in Britain and Ireland (alongside 5,822 performances over 728 weeks in London’s West End since 1989).
Buddy tells the “day the music died” story of how bespectacled Buddy Holly, from Lubbock, Texas, rose from southern rockabilly beginnings to international stardom in only 18 months before his untimely death in a snow-shrouded plane crash at the age of only 22 after playing the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.
Christopher, a 33-year-old southerner with northern connections, has been a Buddy fan since childhood days. “The show has been around for more than 30 years, and I first saw it in High Wycombe when I was seven or eight,” he recalls.
“I grew up with the show soundtrack, before I knew Buddy Holly’s own versions, and it’s always been on the list of shows I wanted to do, but I never thought I’d get to play Buddy as it’s top of the tree, a pipe dream, the biggest show of its kind around.”
Nevertheless, Christopher knew members of the previous Buddy cast of actor-musicians, having worked with Josh Haberfield, his “go-to drummer”, who played The Crickets’ Jerry Allison in the show, and Joe Butcher, Buddy’s double bassist Joe B Maudlin.
That affiliation provided his inroad. “I was in a group called The Runaround Kids, a four-piece with a flexible line-up [including Haberfield and Butcher, sharing drumming duties], and we played Buddy Holly and other rock’n’roll songs.
“I played piano and fronted the band on cruise ships and we did it all over the world, playing with headline acts like Chesney Hawkes and Gareth Gates. We once shared a cab back with Chesney!”
Haberfield and Butcher mentioned Weeks’s enthusiasm to play Buddy to director Matt Salisbury. “I then went through an audition process that was very vigorous,” says Christopher.
“That was in 2019, when they were casting for the 30th anniversary tour in 2019/2020. I got the part, and everything was rolling along nicely, six months or so into the tour, when we had the dreaded ‘We’ll keep you posted’ meeting and the pandemic lockdown soon followed.
“They were great with us, very upfront, and gave us some financial support, but it’s such a big show that the tour has only been back up and running for three weeks.
“You couldn’t have done it for the previous two years, as it just wasn’t possible, and then the venues had to play catch-up with all the shows that had been booked in.”
Rave on: Hannah Price, left, Harry Boyd, Christopher Weeks, Rhiannon Hopkins, Joshua Barton and Ben Pryer in a scene from Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story
Has resuming the tour after such a long hiatus been akin to climbing back on to a bicycle? “Well, I did as much work on it as I could at home. The songs never leave you, and because we’ve played them with all those different groups, The Crickets came together a few days before rehearsals resumed to refresh ourselves,” says Christopher.
“Once you get back in the rehearsal room, you start finding yourself instinctively back in the same positions on stage. It felt like a shadow was there from what I’d done before.”
Driven by the truncated arc of Holly’s story – the candle snuffed out so soon – as much as by such songs as That’ll Be The Day, Peggy Sue, Oh Boy, Everyday, Rave On, The Big Bopper’s Chantilly Lace and Ritchie Valens’s La Bamba, Buddy adds up to much more than the raft of jukebox musicals it inspired.
“In terms of drama, it’s a tragedy,” says Christopher. “Jukebox musicals have their place, but this is different. It’s a play with songs and it’s not rose-tinted, showing a lovely guy who nevertheless wanted to get things done his way and didn’t have time for any nonsense.
“There’s so much drama, and it’s a true telling of how the songs came about, rather than just singing because that’s what the emotion demands. They’re playing music because they’re musicians.
“It’s the rawness and simplicity of those songs that still appeal to people. Music has gone through so many turns and changes, like my father growing up listening to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. He’d probably look back at rock’n’roll as simplistic, whereas I see it as simple but vibrant and thrilling.”
Christopher admires Holly for his “creativity, passion and drive, and unimaginable talent”. “He was in the business for only 18 months, and I do wonder if he somehow knew what was coming. He was always on the clock, always in the studio, always up at night writing, and his wife [Maria Elena] had that dream of what might happen,” he says.
Naming Raining In My Heart, Early In The Morning and True Love Ways – the song that accompanied his walk down the aisle on his wedding day – as his Holly favourites, Christopher will be on tour until October.
Next week he will tread the Grand Opera House boards for the first time since playing The Big Three bassist Johnny Gustafson in Cilla, The Musical in January 2018, as he heads north once more.
Should you be wondering about his northern connections: “My mother’s side of the family is from Ilkley. Do you know my uncle?” he enquires. Who? “Mike Laycock!”
Mike Laycock, soon-to-retire chief reporter of The Press, no less.
Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, runs at Grand Opera House, York, March 21 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
Detail of textile art by Katie Lewis, from Navigators Art’s Dream Time exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse
YORK collective Navigators Art’s Dream Time exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse, York, takes inspiration from dreams, visions, surrealism and the mysteries and fantasies of the subconscious mind.
Part One is on show in the upstairs gallery from this week, joined by Part Two from March 19 in the café bar, where the official opening event with drinks will be held from 7.30pm to 9.30pm that night.
Dream Time’s mixed-media show features painting by Steve Beadle and Peter Roman; collage, prints and drawing by Richard Kitchen; photography and painting by Nick Walters and textiles by Katie Lewis.
Navigators Art co-founder Richard Kitchen says: “We’re pleased to return to City Screen after our Moving Pictures show there this time last year.
“Since then, the group has quadrupled in number to cover our three-month residency at the StreetLife Hub, in Coney Street, and now includes musicians and other performers.”
Richard adds: “Not all of us are involved in this show as we have several other events to look forward to this year. A couple of us have individual exhibitions coming up too. There’s a limit to how much work anyone can make!
“All the artists taking part have interpreted the Dream Time theme in different ways and through different media.”
A selection of Navigators Art artworks on display at City Screen, York
Navigators Art & Performance is a 16-piece collective of York artists, writers, musicians and performers with a wide range of age, experience and practice. Founded in 2019, the collective’s mission is to work with community groups and projects, to enhance and creatively interpret their activities for as wide an audience as possible.
In 2022, Navigators Art curated the art for York Theatre Royal’s Takeover Festival, then took over the basement of the government-funded StreetLife Hub project for the Coney Street Jam exhibition from October 2022 to January 2023.
“We’ve just finished exhibiting our Moving Pictures 2 show at Helmsley Arts Centre, and we’ll be part of York Festival of Ideas in June, presenting art and performance events at York Explore Library and other venues,” says Richard.
“We’re always seeking interesting venues in which to show and sell work by our members to the public. Our shows feature drawing, painting, collage, projection, sculpture, 3D constructions, photography, prints, textiles and sound installations, as well as words by our writers and music by our resident composer, Dylan Thompson.
“Our artists have had work featured in exhibitions and publications both online and actual, and several have been selected for York Open Studios.”
Navigators Art has mentored several emerging young artists too. “We encourage enquiries from potential collaborators, particularly those who are less established or underrepresented, and who have no regular platform for displaying work,” says Richard, who can be contacted via richkitch99@hotmail.com.
Navigators Art presents Dream Time at City Screen Picturehouse, St Martin’s Courtyard, Coney Street, York, until April 21. The exhibition is open daily from approximately 11am until the end of the day’s last film screening.
The poster for Navigators Art’s Dream Time show and launch night event
H Hawkline: “Idiosyncratic, tuneful and highly poetic songs”
WELSH songwriter H Hawkline is probably best known as a key part of Aldous Harding and Cate Le Bon’s touring bands.
As a solo artist (real name Huw Evans), his idiosyncratic, tuneful and highly poetic songs have not achieved the same level of recognition. Until now perhaps. His sixth album, Milk For Flowers, is by far his most realised, coherent statement yet.
On his last long player, six years ago, he sang about “getting all his kicks from sympathy”, and with this album he delivers. Milk For Flowers is already being talked about as a contender for those end-of-year best of lists.
Hawkline and his beautiful band were playing the new record from end to end. While critics love albums about breakups and grief, what about concert audiences?
The crowd were already in good spirits thanks to the tuneful efforts of dynamic openers Captain Starlet, then the intermittently brilliant and sonically startling Dilettante. The latter set the bar high with some audacious art rock songs.
Playing as a trio rather than their normal four-piece, centre stage was Francesca Pidgeon, who, like Harkline, is best known for her part in another band, BC Camplight’s. Big Fish and Teeth marked them out as contenders in their own right.
“The master of combining sad or unusual lyrics to upbeat arrangements”: H Hawkline performing at the Brudenell Social Club on Tuesday night
Milk For Flowers may have been inspired by the loss of his mother, but Hawkline was good company and fully committed to putting his album across, showing none of his former detachment.
With a band, he was able to recreate the album (minus some pedal steel guitar and, oddly, one piano-based number). Give the album a few spins and its slow charms seem to multiply. It’s the sort of record that music lovers would have once pored over, trying to work out the lyrics – are the nuns picking noses, or is it roses? (From the title track, it’s the later).
The band were able to bring out these strengths straight from the off. Hawkline has long been the master of combining sad or unusual lyrics to upbeat arrangements, and Suppression Street or Plastic Man showed that side of him – both slinky and thought provoking.
So far, so good, but better was to come. The slower, more personal songs were perhaps the strongest. Sitting down, Hawkline showed his lyrical deftness and also the range of his voice, wrapping everything in those delicious Welsh vowels.
Empty Room has had the pundits swooning, and rightly so. It’s such a shame that George Jones or Gene Clark (who got a namecheck earlier in the set) are no longer with us to take this song to more ears, but this slow, stunning ballad of loss will have an afterlife. The crowd loved it.
Hawkline’s hourlong set was just right, not too short, and certainly not too long. Ending with three songs from 2017’s I Romanticize, Hawkline stepped from band leader to act out the front man. It also showed Hawkline’s tendency to run a good idea or melody into the ground.
Engineers was present and correct and Last Thing On My Mind was the ideal closer. “I’m loved,” he teased ,and so it would seem.
Victoria Delaney’s Kath in York Actors Collective’s production of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
YORK actress Victoria Delaney will be appearing in two plays in quick succession, all on top of her daytime job and being a mum.
From tonight until Saturday, she plays Kath in York Actors Collective’s debut production of Joe Orton’s savage 1964 farce Entertaining Mr Sloane at Theatre@41, Monkgate.
From April 5 to 15, this will be followed by her turn as in York Settlement Community Players’ staging of Tom Stoppard’s 1982 exploration of love and infidelity, The Real Thing, at York Theatre Royal Studio.
Entertaining Mr Sloane launches director and tutor Angie Millard’s new company. “After Angie directed Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind for Settlement Players last February, we were mulling over a few ideas about starting up a company, and what to do, and we settled on Entertaining Mr Sloane,” says Victoria, who had played the lead, housewife Susan, in Ayckbourn’s dark comedy.
“It’s a highly pressurised play for the cast, especially for the young actor playing Sloane. Angie has chosen Ben Weir, from York St John University, who appeared in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love last April.”
In Orton’s fractious farce, Delaney’s Kath, who lives with her father Dada Kemp, brings home a lodger, the amoral and psychopathic Mr Sloane, a face familiar to the father from his past.
When her brother Ed arrives, complications crank up when the siblings become embroiled in a tense sexual struggle for Sloane as he plays one off against the other while Dada Kemp is caught in the crossfire.
“I think it’s still a radical play as it’s such a dark comedy, but people need to remember that they’re permitted to laugh because it is really funny. People are drawn to looking at the scene of a car crash and that’s a bit like what watching really dark comedy is like,” says Victoria.
She is delighted to be appearing in a cast featuring Chris Pomfrett as Ed and Mick Liversidge as Dada Kemp alongside Weir’s Sloane. “I’m really lucky to be working with Chris, who played the doctor in Woman In Mind, and Mick, who was Vanya in Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike, the last play Settlement did last year. It’s great to be back with them as there’s a lot of trust there.”
Victoria Delaney in rehearsal for her role as actress Charlotte in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing
That trust is essential when performing a play of extreme behaviour. “It’s misogynistic, there are racist comments in there, and Kath’s character is vulnerable and highly sexualised. Feminists will be up in arms,” says Victoria.
“But isn’t theatre supposed to be thought-provoking and aren’t we supposed to learn from the mistakes of the past, like how we now look at Dada Kemp’s racist comments?
“Also, some of the terminology shows how different society was at that time, like Kath’s illegitimate baby, when she was young, was ‘born on the wrong side of the blanket’. It’s good to dip your toe into different times to show how it was.”
Victoria has a preference for Entertaining Mr Sloane over Orton’s most performed work, What The Butler Saw. “Maybe it’s more gritty, and I like that,” she says. “If I had to choose a modern-day drama to perform, I would pick something gritty and British that has wit as well, and Entertaining Mr Sloane does.
“If you have a powerful plot, then you really have the chance to up your acting game and show your skills. At times, it’s also important to remember it’s a comedy, but there are some scenes that however you approach them, they’re not going to be funny, but what you do next has to be funny to lift the mood.”
Coming next will be her first experience of performing a play by Pocklington School alumnus Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing. “It’s my first Stoppard and my first time of working with director Jacob ward, who I met when we did The Coppergate Woman last year at York Theatre Royal, where he played one of the gods,” says Victoria. “He came to see me in Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike, liked what I did, and that helped with the audition.”
In Stoppard’s typically witty and adroit play within a play, Henry is married to Charlotte, Victoria’s character. Max is married to Annie. Henry – possibly the sharpest playwright of his generation – has written a play about a couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. Charlotte and Max, his leading couple, are soon to find out that sometimes life imitates art, as Stoppard has everyone questioning, “What is the real thing?”
“Charlotte’s husband has written a play for her to star in, but she hates him and the play as he’s written a really weak woman character, which is something that Stoppard was accused of doing in the past. So this is Stoppard taking the mick out of himself,” says Victoria.
York Actors Collective in Entertaining Mr Sloane, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (15/3/2023) to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
York Settlement Community Players in The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal Studio, April 5 and 6, 7.30pm; April 11 to 15, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. No performances from April 7 to 10. Question-and-answer session after the April 12 peformance. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Jacob Ward: Directing York Settlement Community Players in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing this spring
Jacob Ward to direct York Settlement Community Players in Tom Stoppard’s deceptive comedy The Real Thing
YORK thespian Jacob Ward is directing York Settlement Community Players for the first time in Tom Stoppard’s play within a play, The Real Thing, at York Theatre Royal Studio from April 5 to 15.
First performed in 1982, this award-winning beguiling play of surprise and wit follows Henry, possibly the sharpest playwright of his generation, who is married to Charlotte, an actress. Max is married to Annie.
Henry has written a play about a couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. Charlotte and Max, his leading couple, are soon to learn that sometimes life imitates art in Stoppard’s study of love and infidelity that ponders: “What is the real thing…?”
Settlement Players’ last production was New Jersey playwright Christopher Durang’s relationship comedy Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike at Theatre@41 in November 2022.
The Real Thing marks their return to the Theatre Royal Studio after presenting Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind last February.
Alan Park’s Henry and Alice Melton’s Annie rehearsing a scene from The Real Thing
Director Jacob Ward says: “I’m very excited for an audience to interact with our modern-day version of Stoppard’s play. Its subject seems simple but, as we see through the eyes of various characters, we realise its complexity, and enjoy having our views on love and relationships broadened.
“The writing is nothing short of genius – it really is. Even after 20-plus times of reading, I’m still finding impossible connections and meaning. It’s a joy to direct and will be a thrill to watch: hilarious, heart-warming and thought-provoking all in one.
“We have a brilliant cast to take you on the journey and a truly dedicated production team to bring the play to life. I can’t wait to add the audience.”
Alan Park, chair of Theatre@41, takes on the role of Henry. Alice Melton, last seen in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s 2022 production of A Nativity Of York last December, plays Annie. They are joined by Settlement regulars and newcomers: Victoria Delaney as Charlotte; Mike Hickman as Max; Rebecca Harrison as Billy; Hannah Waring as Debbie and Alexandra Logan as Brodie.
David Ford: Songs and stories at The Crescent, York
EASTBOURNE troubadour David Ford might play solo stomps with loop machines and effects pedals or backed by a swish jazz trio or with a string quartet attached. Not this time in his intimate Songs 2023 gig at The Crescent, York, tomorrow night.
After 2022’s albums May You Live In Interesting Times and Love And Death, for 2023 Ford has “taken the rare decision to keep it simple, leave most of the crazy machines at home, play some of his favourite songs and share stories about where they came from”. Oh, and he’ll be bringing his new DIY toy, a drum robot. Beat that.
In the support slot will be Nashville singer, songwriter, guitarist, pedal steel player, virtuoso session musician and producer J P Ruggieri.
“It keeps things a little bit dangerous and exciting as a performer,”says David Ford
Here David Ford has a word with CharlesHutchPress about gigs, robots, books, happiness and irritations
What form will the show take, David?
“Well, it was originally intended to be me playing my songs alone on stage but since I have JP Ruggieri – who is quite the finest player of a guitar I have ever had the good fortune to witness – along as support act, I’ve insisted that he join me for a few.
“And with the addition of Perry the plywood automaton drummer I spent the first frozen months of 2023 building, the show has evolved into one of the less orthodox three-piece band performances.”
What do you like about this form of performance, by comparison with playing with a jazz trio, string quartet or loop machines?
“I always like to change the way I present my songs live. It’s a great part of the challenge and the enjoyment for me. It keeps things a little bit dangerous and exciting as a performer and hopefully some of that energy is transferred to the audience.”
What instruments will feature?
“I’m playing guitars and keyboards; JP is caressing sweet sounds from a lovely old hollow-bodied guitar…and a stack of plywood and wires will be turning a series of wooden discs with strategically inserted screws to trigger tiny motors to hit drums in a rhythmical manner. That’s Perry.”
David Ford in March 2023: “Feeling helpless as as the forces of democracy and capitalism go all Cain and Abel on each other”
At 44, might you fancy writing a second book to chart what’s happened since the first, the cautionary autobiographical tales of 2011’s I Choose This – How To Nearly Make It In The Music Industry? (The one where David said, “there was a time when people swore I’d be the next big thing. It took ten years of hard work and dedication, but I finally proved them all wrong.”)
“Yes. It’s on my list. I think I’ve been waiting for an ending. Some kind of grand finale. But since I still don’t appear to be getting close to retirement, I need to think of the next book as less of a sequel and more as book two of a trilogy… and maybe one of those trilogies in 12 parts.”
Any touring or recording plans for later in the year?
“I’m planning some shows with my friend Abe Partridge [American folk singer-songwriter from Mobile, Alabama] in the early summer around the UK and Europe. And I have some songs taking shape inside my head.”
What’s making you happy at the moment?
“Playing music that feels organic, different every night. Connecting with audiences. I’m also delighted at the number of little lambs I see in fields as I drive around Britain.”
What’s annoying you right now?
“Oh, the usual! My feeling of helplessness as the forces of democracy and capitalism go all Cain and Abel on each other. The continual grasping among the well-meaning for simple explanations to complex problems as the mega-tanker of the age drifts slowly toward the iceberg of history.
“And I keep losing my hat.”
Footnote: David Ford has been known to acquire new hats in York.
David Ford & J P Ruggieri…oh and Perry too, Songs 2023, The Crescent, York, Thursday (16/3/2023), 7.30pm. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
