Steve Mason performing at The Crescent as part of Independent Venue Week. All pictures: Paul Rhodes
Independent Venue Week presents Steve Mason and Pictish Trail, The Crescent, York, January 30 2024
A LIGHT end to the darkest month. Steve Mason is a colourful and welcome visitor to The Crescent, a venue that he seems very comfortable in.
Mason was performing with his band, Calie Hough on drums and his long-serving keyboard maestro, Darren Morris, channelling everything else. The trio clearly means business, and the set has been well road tested.
Compared with his recent York concerts (December 2022 at the same venue and a December 2021 solo set at Stockton on the Forest Village Hall), there were few slower, sadder songs, resulting in a more dynamic set that also included a wholesome number of Beta Band favourites from his earlier days.
Steve Mason: “Conga playing was a towel-wearing nod to his inventive use of percussion in his work“
While young people will never study Mason’s words as English literature, he is a master at driving home a repeated message or a melody. No More being the most obvious, but Upon My Soul was an unexpected soaring highlight.
Throughout the 80-some minutes, Mason was in motion, all eyes fixed on him as he commanded the stage. His guitar playing reflected his energy, vigorous and strident, while his conga playing was a towel-wearing nod to his inventive use of percussion in his work. The trio more than did justice to the clever, adventurous settings from his Brothers And Sisters album, with seven numbers played.
Supporting Mason was his friend and fellow sonic adventurer, The Pictish Trail, the non de plume of Johnny Lynch. Hailing from the Scottish Isle of Eig, Lynch has a wonderful left-of-centre view of the world.
A natural performer, he was warm and funny between songs; even bringing some levity to the near-death car crash that inspired him to write In Heaven Tonight. Lynch’s set drew most from his most recent album, 2022’s Island Family, with the title track memorably conjuring a bonfire night on the island with the many dead souls also present.
Pictish Trail: “A wonderful left-of-centre view of the world”
His clever, animated use of beats and effects sometimes offset some pretty forgettable melodies. Lynch’s mistake-defying hand-eye coordination while wearing a large mask is an image few will forget, unlike the song he was performing.
Mason’s songs are all cut from a similar melodic cloth, but at his best, his tunes have stood the test of time. His feted work with The Beta Band was an early purple patch – tuneful but never towing any conventional line (Dry The Rain of course, mid-set this time, finding room for Squares, also excellent and the soulful Dog Got A Bone).
It was his wonderful King Biscuit Time song I Walk The Earth that brought the house down as the first encore; arguably his best tune to cap another fine Crescent night.
Review by Paul Rhodes
Pictish Trail’s “mistake-defying hand-eye coordination while wearing a large mask is an image few will forget”
“It’s such a touching story, especially for my family, where cancer has played such a part – and still is,” says Calendar Girls The Musical actress Maureen Nolan. Picture: Jack Merriman
CALENDAR Girls The Musical has a bucketload of poignancy for Maureen Nolan.
As ever, the collection buckets will be out, raising funds for Blood Cancer UK from tomorrow to Saturday when the Gary Barlow and Tim Firth musical plays the Grand Opera House, York.
“It’s such a touching story, especially for my family, where cancer has played such a part – and still is,” says Maureen, who will be playing Ruth in Jonathan O’Boyle’s touring production.
Sister Bernie, who appeared in the play version of Calendar Girls, died of breast cancer in 2013; eldest sister Anne, diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in April 2020, is in remission; younger sister Linda last year announced her cancer had spread to her brain.
“That didn’t make it more difficult for me to do the show,” says Maureen, who made her name as part of The Nolans, the Anglo-Irish family of singing sisters from Blackpool. “Calendar Girls is almost empowering, cathartic. People come up constantly afterwards with these very sad stories but they’re still smiling on the way out.”
Quick refresher course: Calendar Girls, the film, the play, now the musical, was inspired by the true story of Rylstone Women’s Institute members raising £5 million (and counting) for blood cancer research.
Maureen Nolan, as Mrs Johnstone, with Sean Jones as her son Mickey Johnstone, in Blood Brothers at the Grand Opera House, York in 2013
The story goes: Following the death to leukaemia of Annie’s much-loved husband, the ordinary women of a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute are prompted to do something extraordinary, whereupon they set about creating a nude calendar to raise money for charity.
However, upturning preconceptions is a dangerous business and none of the women are prepared for the emotional and personal ramifications they will face as the fabulous and funny calendar brings each woman unexpectedly into flower.
Explaining those audience smiles, Maureen says: “I think it’s because Annie, who loses her husband, does get over it, raising £5 million for this amazing charity. Life has to go on. People are weeping in the audience, but the reality is that cancer is a a massive part of life but is getting more curable. Like my sister Linda, who has had cancer since 2005 in different forms but is still enjoying life.”
Maureen, whose Grand Opera House appearances included Mrs Johnston in Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers in October 13, is joined on the 2024 leg of the Calendar Girls tour by stars of music, stage and television: Laurie Brett as Annie; Liz Carney as Marie; Helen Pearson as Celia; Samantha Seager as Chris; Lyn Paul as Jessie and Honeysuckle Weeks as Cora.
“I first got involved at the end of the summer last year, when they said, ‘would you have a chat with Tim [Firth] and the director, Jonathan [O’Boyle]?’. He’s a young man, 40 this year, who had to work with all these women, seven women of differing ages, menopausal and older, and I can’t imagine anyone handling it better. He never lost his cool,” she says of her rehearsal experience.
The cast had to work on a condensed version of Barlow and Firth’s original version of the musical, premiered at Leeds Grand Theatre in November-December 2015 under the title of The Girls (returning there on the 2023-2024 tour’s first leg last November) .
Maureen Nolan as Ruth, holding her “Russian friend”, in Calendar Girls The Musical. Picture: Jack Merriman
“They don’t have the children in the show now, with Tim wanting to concentrate on the women, not the back story, with new songs as well, so we were a little under-rehearsed when we opened after only three weeks,” says Maureen, who had seen only the film and an amateur production of the before taking on the role of Ruth.
“I had nothing to go on, having not seen the original musical, so I play Ruth like Mavis [Thelma Barlow’s Mavis Riley] from Coronation Street! Others think she’s a bit OCD-ish, but it turns out she’s had a mentally abusive relationship [with a philandering husband] and she’s hiding a drink problem.
“At first I didn’t think Ruth was in it much, but it’s about quality not quantity, and at my age [she will turn 70 on June 14] I get the chance to stand in the dressing room making tea – and Ruth has some great comedy lines.”
Maureen enthuses: “Along with Blood Brothers, it’s the best show I’ve ever done. We were laughing and crying throughout rehearsals: the writing is genius by Tim and Gary; like Willy Russell’s shows, you can’t go wrong.
“Between Tim’s words and Gary’s music, the songs are beautiful and uplifting, and the music really adds to the show. I’ve been in things that I wish I hadn’t been in, but I am so proud of this musical.”
Sunflower power: The principal cast for Calendar Girls The Musical, including Maureen Nolan, right. Picture: Jack Merriman
Not least because of Ruth’s song, the tragicomic My Russian Friend And I, that ‘friend’ being the vodka bottle. “It’s a funny scene but then tragic: what people like her go through and yet keep hidden.”
Ruth ostensibly quaffs a drink to quell her fears of undressing, until the darker truth is revealed, but how did Maureen come to terms with the need to strip for the calendar photoshoot each show? “It was really funny because for about two weeks of rehearsals we didn’t really talk about it, and it became the elephant in the room!” she recalls.
“Then the director said there would be a meeting to talk about the photography scene – taking clothes off on stage was something I couldn’t imagine at my age! – but we talked about how much we would show, what we could wear, and then it’s one of those moments where you think, ‘oh, just get them off!’.
“It was all done so beautifully by our director, where we were really treated with respect. Every night, the tech team has to leave stage left.”
Back on the road, with four new cast members, after a winter break when she found time to appear as the Wicked Queen Cruella in Snow White in Cannock for a week, Maureen says: “I love, love, love going to York. It’s so beautiful.”
Calendar Girls The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, tomorrow (February 6) to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Did you know? Maureen Nolan’s real name is Marie Antoinette Nolan; Mo for short
Neil Vincent, left, Clare Halliday, Chris Pomfrett, Victoria Delaney and Mick Liversidge in rehearsal for York Actors Collective’s Beyond Caring
A GLUT of York theatre companies, a nocturnal sky festival, a Yorkshire musical and a colourful installation light up the dark nights of February for culture guide Charles Hutchinson.
Social drama of the week: York Actors Collective in Beyond Caring, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday to Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 5.30pm
DEVISED by Alexander Zeldin and the original Yard Theatre cast in London, this 90-minute play highlighting the social damage inflicted by zero-hours contracts forms York Actors Collective’s second production, directed by founder Angie Millard.
Performed by Victoria Delaney, Clare Halliday, Mick Liversidge, Chris Pomfrett and Neil Vincent, Beyond Caring follows meat-packing factory cleaners Becky, Grace and Sam on the night shift as they confront the reality of low wage employment, never sure whether their ‘job’ will continue. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Robert Rice: Recital at Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate tonight
Late Music at the double: Steve Bingham, violin and electronics, 1pm today; Robert Rice, baritone, and William Vann, piano, 7.30pm tonight, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York
PET Shop Boys’ It’s A Sin chills with Bach’s Allemande in D minor, while a tango from Piazzolla is thrown in for good measure, as Steve Bingham explores four centuries of solo violin music this afternoon. World premieres of David Power’s Miniatures, Wayne Siegel’s Salamander (violin and electronics) and Rowan Alfred’s Cuckoo Phase will be performed too.
York composer David Power has curated Robert Rice and William Vann’s evening recital, featuring the first complete performance of Power’s Three Char Songs (1985 and 2016). Works by Gerald Finzi, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, Herbert Howells, Robert Walker, William Rhys Meek, Charlotte Marlow, Liz Dilnot Johnson, David Lancaster, Hannah Garton, Ruth Lee, Hayley Jenkins and Phillip Cooke. Power gives a pre-concert talk at 6.45pm with a complimentary glass of wine or juice. Tickets: latemusic.org or on the door.
Jonny Holbek as Sebastian in York Light Opera Company’s production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Nautical adventure of the week: York Light Opera Company in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, York Theatre Royal, February 7 to 17, except February 12
BASED on the classic 1989 Disney animated film, The Little Mermaid tells the enchanting story of Ariel, a mermaid who dreams of trading her tail for legs and exploring the human world. Aided by her mischievous sidekick, Flounder, and the cunning Ursula, Ariel strikes a bargain that will change her life forever.
Martyn Knight’s production for York Light features stunning projection, dazzling costumes, unforgettable musical numbers, such as Under The Sea and Kiss The Girl, and choreography by Rachael Whitehead. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The poster for Colour & Light, soon to illuminate the facade of York Art Gallery
Installation launch of the week: Colour & Light, York Art Gallery, February 7 to 25
YORK BID is linking up with York Museums Trust for the return of Colour & Light: an innovative project that will transform the facade of York Art Gallery to counter the cold winter with a vibrant light installation.
This “high impact and large-scale visual arts project” uses 3D projection mapping to bring York’s iconic buildings to life, first York Minster last year, now York Art Gallery, where the projection will play every ten minutes from 6pm to 9pm daily in a non-ticketed free event.
Watching the detective: Steven Jobson’s Lieutenant Frank Cioffi in Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Curtains. Picture: Jennifer Jones
It’s Curtains for…Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
WHEN the leading lady of a new musical mysteriously dies on stage, a plucky local detective must solve this 1959 case at Boston’s Colonial Theatre, where the entire cast and crew are suspects in Kander & Ebb’s musical with a book by Rupert Holmes.
Cue delightful characters, a witty and charming script and glorious tunes in the Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s staging of Curtains. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Sunflower power: The Calendar Girls cast on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, from Tuesday to Saturday
Touring musical of the week: Calendar Girls The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
YOU know the story, the one where a husband’s death to leukaemia prompts a group of ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute to do an extraordinary thing, whereupon they set about creating a nude calendarto raise money for charity.
Premiered at Leeds Grand Theatre in 2015, Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s musical is now touring with a cast of music, stage and television stars. Baring all will be Laurie Brettas Annie;Liz Carneyas Marie; Helen Pearson as Celia; Samantha Seager as Chris; Maureen Nolan as Ruth; Lyn Paul as Jessie and Honeysuckle Weeks as Cora. Once more the tour supports Blood Cancer UK. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Nicola Holliday (as Jean Tanner) and James Lee (as Charles Stratton) in rehearsal for Settlement Players’ Separate Tables. Picture: John Saunders
English manners of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Separate Tables, York Theatre Royal Studio, February 8 to 17, 7.45pm except Sunday and Monday, plus 2pm Saturday matinees
AFTER directing four Russian plays by Chekhov, Helen Wilson turns her attention to Separate Tables, two very English Terence Rattigan tales of love and loss, set in a shabby Bournemouth hotel in the 1950s.
Guests, both permanent and transient, sit on separate tables, a formality that underlines the loneliness of these characters in a play about class, secrets and repressed emotions. Chris Meadley, Paul French, Molly Kay, Jess Murray, Marie-Louise Feeley, Caroline Greenwood and Linda Fletcher are among the Settlement cast. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Festival of the month: North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales Dark Skies Festival, February 9 to 25
TEAMING up for the ninth time since 2016, the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales National Park authorities celebrate the jewels of God’s Own Country’s night sky this month.
Discover nocturnal activities to heighten the senses such as the Dark Skies Experience (February 9 to 25) night navigation (February 16); trail run and yoga (February 17, sold out); canoeing; planet trail and constellation trail at Aysgarth Falls (February 9 to 25); astrophotography workshops at Castle Howard (February 22), stargazing safaris, children’s daytime trails, art workshops and mindful experiences. More details: darkskiesnationalparks.org.uk; yorkshiredales.org.uk/things-to-do/whats-on/shows/dark-skies-festival/.
Richard Ashcroft: Heading to the woods for Forest Live at Dalby Forest in June. Picture: Dean Chalkley
Outdoor gig announcement of the week: Richard Ashcroft, Forest Live, Dalby Forest, near Pickering, June 23
FORESTRY England completes its Forest Live return to Dalby Forest for the first time since 2019 with Richard Ashcroft, the two-time Ivor Novello Award-winning Wigan singer, songwriter and frontman of The Verve.
Canadian rocker Bryan Adams and disco icons Nile Rodgers & CHIC were confirmed already for June 21 and 22 respectively. New addition Ashcroft’s set list will draw on his five solo albums, along with The Verve’s anthems Bittersweet Symphony, The Drugs Don’t Work, Lucky Man and Sonnet. Leeds band Apollo Junction will be supporting. Box office: forestlive.com.
In Focus: York Ice Trail, City of Dreams, York city centre, today and tomorrow, from 10am
York Ice Trail: City of Dreams this weekend
THE theme for York Ice Trail 2024 transforms York into the City of Dreams, inviting visitors to dream big.
The last York Ice Trail, in February 2023, drew 40,000 visitors to York to view 36 sculptures. Organised by Make It York, the 2024 event again sees the “coolest” sculptures line the streets of York, each conceived and sponsored by businesses and designed and created by ice specialist Icebox.
Sarah Loftus, Make It York managing director, says: “York Ice Trail is one of the most-loved events in the city for residents and visitors alike, and we’re excited to be bringing it back for another year in 2024.
“It’s a huge celebration of our city and businesses, and the concept will inspire everyone’s inner child, encouraging people to let their imagination run wild.”
Icebox managing director Greg Pittard says: “Returning to York for the 2024 Ice Trail is a true honour for us. The York Ice Trail holds a special place in our hearts, and we are thrilled to bring this year’s theme to life.
“Our talented team of ice carvers pour their passion into crafting magnificent ice sculptures that will transport visitors to a world of wonder and delight.”
The 2024 ice sculptures:
Our City Of Dreams, provided by Make It York, Parliament Street.
A Field Of Dreams, Murton Park, Parliament Street.
A Journey In ice, Grand Central, Parliament Street.
City Of Trees, Dalby Forest, Parliament Street.
Chasing Rainbows, in celebration of York band Shed Seven topping the UK official album chart in January, York Mix Radio, Parliament Street.
I’m Late, I’m Late! For A Very Important Date!, Ate O’Clock, High Ousegate.
Sewing Like A Dream, Gillies Fabrics, Peter Lane.
Mythical Beasts: The Yeti, York BID, Walmgate.
Hop On Your Bike, Spark:York, Piccadilly (Spark:York will be open from 12 noon).
Belle Of The Ball, York Castle Museum, Eye of York.
James Willstrop as Doctor Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein
IN the words of lead actor James Willstrop, Mel Brooks’s bawdy, boisterous musical conversion of Young Frankenstein is “not subtle”. “It’s lovely to be doing something silly, full of innuendos and jokes that some people might hate but are just daft,” he says.
Willstrop carries that spirit – and all the lanky physicality that goes into being a 6ft 4inch former world squash number one-turned actor – into playing esteemed New York brain surgeon and professor Doctor Frederick Frankenstein. Pronounced “Fronk-en-steen,” the mop-haired doctor insists.
Billed as a “wickedly inspired re-imagining” of a teenage Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein, Brooks’s comedy horror musical receives its northern premiere in Andrew Isherwood’s delightfully cheeky production.
Pick Me Up Theatre producer and designer Robert Readman had cast the show for its postponed run at the Grand Opera House last autumn: a delightful gift to Isherwood, whose own skills as a comedic actor find him bringing out the best in all those around him as Young Frankenstein is sparked into new life for this week’s run at the JoRo.
He even pops up in a doleful cameo as the blind Hermit, the Gene Hackman role from Brooks’s 1974 film, lamenting his loneliness in Please Bring Me Someone and bringing down the house in the slapstick nonsense of a farcical scene with Craig Kirby’s grunting Monster.
“It’s only one scene,” the woolly-haired Isherwood adlibs to the boisterous Pick Me Up supporters’ club in the stalls, breaking down theatre’s fourth wall as the anarchic Brooks would no doubt love.
In a nod to Young Frankenstein’s roots, the show opens with black-and-white screen credits, accompanied by thunder and lightning. One by one, we meet the colourful characters of Brooks’s horror-movie parody, a process that emphasises the individual strengths of Pick Me Up’s cast, each being given an introductory song to make their mark.
Willstrop had performed the opening The Brain as his audition piece and he immediately establishes the gawky boffin in Dr Frankenstein, always assertive but transmutable too, vowing not to follow in the deranged genius footsteps of his grandfather, Victor Von Frankenstein, on inheriting his Transylvanian castle and laboratory, only to later be enticed into matching his experiments in reanimating a corpse.
Fiancée Elizaeth will be left behind but not before Jennie Wogan-Wells has encapsulated her combination of spoilt ingenue naivety and needy, nasal New York attention-seeking in Please Don’t Touch Me.
Jack Hooper’s Igor, with his panda eyes, wraparound cloak and ever-moving hump, is the hunchbacked gothic sidekick to the manner born, definitely weird, even creepy, but a constant source of daft Transylvanian amusement too.
Who better to play eager-to-please, Scandinavian novice lab assistant Inga than Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson. Fabulous, flirtatious, funny, no wonder the Doctor falls for her as soon as she invites him to Roll In The Hay.
The caricature European accents keep coming, none better than Helen “Bells” Spencer’s Frau Blucher, the mysterious housekeeper, whose every entry is interrupted by the neigh of a horse. Sternly seductive, severe of face, still infatuated by the late Victor Frankenstein, Spencer’s Frau delivers the show’s supreme vocal performance in He Vas My Boyfriend, with its echoes of Weimar Berlin cabaret nights, singing atop a chair.
Tom Riddolls’s Inspector Kemp is keeping his eye on Frankenstein’s activities, all the more so after Craig Kirby’s newly sparked Monster breaks free from the laboratory. An innocent abroad, Kirby’s baritone-voiced creature learns on the hoof, an outlet for typically broad humour from Brooks and co-writer Thomas Meehan as Wogan-Wells’s Elizabeth “connects” most enthusiastically with the Monster (in the manner of Bella Baxter’s “furious jumping” in Poor Things, but only heard, not seen).
Likewise, Irving Berlin’s borrowed dancefloor gem Puttin’ On The Ritz is transformed from Strictly Come Dancing-style showpiece to the Monster’s introduction to social niceties. This initiation is at once touching yet deliriously humorous too, a rare balancing act for Brooks that makes it all the better, even more so in the ever-excellent Kirby’s hands and feet as he gradually turns into Fred Astaire in Blue Skies.
This review has emphasised the gilded individual turns, but under Isherwood’s direction, the performances gel gleefully, the humour bursting out of the interactions, both physical and verbal.
The teamwork of Sam Steel’s Bertram Batram, Matthew Warry’s Felix and Kelly Stocker, Pearl Mollison, Ruby Salter, Freddie Heath and Ilana Weets, in the guise of students, horses, werewolves and angry villagers, adds to the comedic impact too.
Readman’s set design, with its science laboratory backdrop, and flamboyant costumes are as high quality as ever. Ilana Weets’s choreography is playful, sometimes character-driven, always exuberant; Sam Johnson’s nine-piece band relishes songs painted in bold, brazen colours.
Devotees of The Rocky Horror Show and Mel Brooks alike will savour “the sweet mystery of life” and the Transylvania Mania of Young Frankenstein.
Remaining performances: 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Clare Halliday, left, Chris Pomfrett, Victoria Delaney and Mick Liversidge in rehearsal for York Actors Collective’s Beyond Caring
YORK Actors Collective is following up March 2023’s debut production of Joe Orton’s risqué Sixties’ farce Entertaining Mr Sloanewith Beyond Caring, a topical exposé of the social damage inflicted by zero hours contracts.
Running at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from February 6 to 9, this “modern-day tragedy” was devised by Alexander Zeldin and the original Yard Theatre cast in East London in 2014, later transferring to the National Theatre.
Its story of agency cleaners at a meat-packing factory is being directed in York by former teacher Angie Millard, working with a cast of Victoria Delaney, Clare Halliday, Mick Liversidge, Chris Pomfrett and Neil Vincent.
Over 90 unbroken minutes, Beyond Caring follows two women, Becky and Grace, and one man, Sam (replacing Sarah from past productions in a directorial decision), as they confront the reality of minimum wage, zero-hour contract employment, never sure of how many hours they have to work, when they will be paid and whether their ‘job’ will continue.
“This play is remarkable in its structure and power,” says Angie. “It totally represents 2024 where many workers are on the breadline, trapped in employment with no guarantee of further work and no way to improve their position.
“What drew me to the play, however, is the message it conveys about people surviving and keeping a sense of humour. I loved the intensity of the piece with its silences, its disappointments and its determination to determination to get pleasure out of the smallest things. It gave me hope.”
Beyond Caring was brought to Angie’s attention by fellow company co-founder Chris Pomfrett, who had played the self-aggrandising Ed in Entertaining Mr Sloane. “Following that debut show, our brief was to find something that would appeal to audiences as entertaining but also have an edge to it,” he says.
“I had a look at a lot of play synopses around particular subject matters, came across this one, bought a copy and was completely blown away by it. When it was first done in London, then at the National, it was described as ‘comically devastating’ and that’s absolutely right.”
Beyond Caring forms part of a series of Alexander Zeldin plays entitled The Inequality Triptych, addressing the theme of the impact of austerity. “This one deals with a group of people meeting for the first time to work the night shift cleaning a meat factory on zero-hours contracts, all employed through a temp agency with different arrangements for pay for each of them,” says Chris, who plays scarred, taciturn worker Phil.
“So they’re all strangers, and as happens when strangers meet, there are silences and awkward pauses, like in Harold Pinter’s plays, but they’re all full of meaning.
“Gradually, you see glimpses of their lives and their insecurities, and how that affects them and those around them, mostly adversely.”
Clare Halliday’s factory cleaner Becky and Neil Vincent’s manager Ian in a scene from the darkly humorous Beyond Caring
Chris continues: “I think it’s important for us to do plays that deal with these issues, as they’re still occurring. One of the things that has struck me, after Mr Bates vs. The Post Office is how a TV drama can have a massive impact on the Government’s actions, and that’s because people are confronted with real characters, and there’s an emotional response that you don’t get with news bulletins.
“The same goes for a play like this, and the great thing about all the characters is that in some ways you can see yourself in them.”
In Chris’s case, he can draw on his own experiences working in the community for the NHS (National Health Service) as part of the combined therapy multi-disciplinary team. “You can see the effects of the care system being shot to pieces,” he says.
Clare Halliday will be making her York Actors Collective debut after more than a decade of involvement in York community productions, such as the 2012 York Mystery Plays, when she first met Angie.
“I learned that Angie had created York Actors Collective and went to see Entertaining Mr Sloane, then heard they were doing Beyond Caring and auditioned for the role of Becky [one of the cleaners] after reading about the play and watching extracts from when it was at the National,” she says.
“Becky is a very resilient character, very tough on the exterior. I see her as a born survivor with ways and means of surviving, using her sexuality to get what she wants, in the only way she knows how. We assume she’s had very little education, and we know she’s a single mum, whose daughter is not living with her – she’s probably in care – but she’s trying to see her.
“I can relate to that, as I’ve had work insecurity and been on benefits, so at some points in my life I’ve walked similar steps.”
Clare now runs the Clare’s Kitchen mobile cookery school in York, being involved with schools since 2015. “Before that, I was living in France, training as a chef, and I wanted to work with children, having been involved in cooking in the kitchen with my mum since the age of two or three,” she says.
“I work with Year One to Six children at Knavesmire Primary, Ralph Butterfield Primary, Haxby, Rufforth, Dringhouses and Lord Deramore’s. I’ve just taken on another lady to help as I’m so busy.”
York Actors Collective in Beyond Caring, Theatre@41, Monkgte, York, February 6 to 9, 7.30pm; February 10, 2.30pm and 5.30pm.Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Alex Schofield directing a rehearsal for Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Curtains. Picture: Mike Darley
IT’S curtain up for Curtains, the Kander & Ebb musical comedy whodunnit to be staged by the Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in York from February 7 to 10.
After playing grouchy feed-store proprietor Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly! last year and assistant-directing The Producers in 2018, Kiss Me Kate in 2019, Made In Dagenham in 2020 and Kipps (The Half A Sixpence Musical) in 2022, Alex Schofield steps up to direct a JRTC show for the first time.
“By the time I did Hello, Dolly!,I’d already pitched to direct Curtains, after we secured the rights in spring 2022,” says Alex, who works in human resources at York Minster. “Initially, we’d looked at doing it last September but that couldn’t happen, and it’s one of those situations where it still won’t feel real until the opening night as I’ve been planning it for so long.
“I became aware of the show just before the pandemic when Jason Manford was leading the touring company in 2019 and then transferred into the West End. It came more into my provenance when it was one of those productions that could be streamed during lockdown with donations to arts funding, and that’s when I first saw it.”
Whodunit? All the cast members are suspects in Kander & Ebb’s musical Curtains. Picture: Jennifer Jones
This 2007 American musical, with glorious songs by Kander & Ebb and a witty and charming book by Rupert Holmes, is set in 1959 at Boston’s Colonial Theatre, where the entire cast and crew are suspects in a plucky local detective’s investigation into why the leading lady of a new musical mysteriously dropped dead on stage.
“It’s a really funny show, sending up murder mysteries and theatre groups, so that’s all three of my boxes ticked: I love comedy, I love musical theatre and I love whodunits!” says Alex, who first directed a show, The Pirates Of Penzance, for the now-defunct Jorvik Gilbert & Sullivan Company seven years ago.
“I think people should be attracted to Curtains by Kander & Ebb’s involvement. It’ll have the appeal of a classic musical; it’s very fast paced and very funny, but it has loads of tension as well, with all these characters who have different motives for murder.”
Steven Jobson as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi in Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Curtains. Picture: Jennifer Jones
Scripted by Rupert Holmes, who was brought in after Peter Stone, the writer of the original concept and book, died in 2003, Curtains features a play within a play. A Western, cowboy accents and all, by the name of Robbin’ Hood.
“You think, ‘how extreme can I make it from real life?’, with the auditions needing to see if people could do both a generic American accent and Southwestern [American frontier] accent so that the audience can distinguish between characters in the play and characters in the play within the play,” says Alex.
Comedy is a key element in Curtains. “It doesn’t take itself seriously and in some ways it speaks more to the English sense of humour, in how it sends itself up, but what separates it from English humour is that what they say is much more direct, whereas in England, it’s all about what’s not being said!” says Alex.
Curtain call for a “show about theatre”
“Mind you, the director of the play within the play [Christopher Belling] is English and he’s very flamboyant, never holding back with his criticisms. I don’t think that if I took his approach there would be many people left in the company! I take a more compromising position.
“The director will be played by Ben Huntley, who’s been in our shows since Kiss Me Kate in smaller roles, so to give him this opportunity and see him shine in this principal role has been fantastic.”
Set up to raise funds for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, JRTC has raised £23,000 from its productions so far, and once more proceeds will go the Haxby Road community theatre. “One of the advantages of this show, especially when we’re fundraising for the Rowntree Theatre, is that it’s a show about theatre, so we’ve made the theatre itself the set, with pretty minimal staging required for the play within the play,” says Alex.
Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in Curtains, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 7 to 10, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in rehearsal for Curtains. Picture: Mike Darley
Jack Savoretti: First York appearance since 2017. Picture: Supplied
JACK Savoretti is to headline July 18’s triple bill at York Museum Gardens with support from special guests Foy Vance and York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich.
London-born acoustic singer-songwriter Savoretti, 40, has released seven studio albums and one compilation, Songs From Different Times, since 2007.
Savoretti, whose exotic full name is Giovanni Edgar Charles Galletto-Savoretti, previously played York in an intimate gig at Fibbers on July 16 2017, when promoter Mr H, alias legendary York club boss Tim Hornsby, enthused: “He’s a class act, a modern-day troubadour, a thrilling performer, a giant.
“Our hero may have started as a lonely acoustic troubadour, relying on not much more than his songs and that careworn growl, but we’re now witnessing a gorgeous widescreen sweep, drawing on a rich Italian heritage, with Morricone-like flourishes and battlefield last stands.”
Storytelling Bangor bluesman Foy Vance
Such sentiments still stand, rubber-stamped by the chart accolade of Savoretti hitting number one with his past two studio albums, March 2019’s Singing To Strangers, recorded at Ennio Morricone’s studio in Rome, and June 2021’s Europiana, conceived in lockdowns at Jack’s Oxfordshire home. A deluxe edition, Europiana Encore, followed in 2022.
In an Instagram post last November, Savoretti revealed he was “in the studio, where we are putting the final touches to the new album”.
The title and release date details are yet to be announced but CharlesHutchPress’s early request for an interview elicited this response from Chelsea Bakewell, marketing manager for concert promoters Futuresound: “Jack’s team mentioned they are pausing on interview until the album is out so this isn’t something which can be facilitated at this moment in time I’m afraid.” Watch this space!
Northern Irish storytelling bluesman, survivor, rocker and folk hero Foy Vance, 49, will be returning to York for the first time since headlining York Barbican on his Signs Of Life tour in August 2022.
Now living in Tottenham, London, York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich, 34, will release his fifth studio album, Some Things Break, next Friday on Dirty Hit Records, his regular home since becoming the label’s first signing at the age of 21 in 2011.
Composed over the past two years at locations across the globe, from London to Nashville, Washington to Stockholm, Some Things Break was produced by Grammy Award-winning Jimmy Hogarth and features collaborations with fellow songwriters Mikky Ekko, Jamie Squire and Jon Green.
Benjamin Francis Leftwich: New album to be released on February 9. Picture: Harry Pearson
The track listing will be: I’m Always Saying Sorry; Moon Landing Hoax; Break In The Weather; New York; Some Things Break; Spokane, Washington; God’s Best; A Love Like That; Only You and Don’t Give Up on The Light.
“Learning to hold onto certain things and let go of others, with as much grace as possible, I feel like I’m hiding less on this record,” says Leftwich. “Ultimately, I think it’s a record about a kind of slow acceptance that some things break and, for me, sometimes that’s necessary for healing.”
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Leftwich will open his eight-date spring tour at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on April 4, where he will be accompanied by The 1975’s Jamie Squire on piano. For tickets, head to: www.benjaminfrancisleftwich.com
Leftwich has played myriad concerts in York over the past 15 years, none more contrasting than an exclusive, intimate album launch gig for Gratitude at the 50-capacity FortyFive Vinyl Café, Micklegate, on March 15 2019, followed only a fortnight later by York Minster, the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe.
Savoretti’s concert will be part of a four-night run of Futuresound promotions at York Museum Gardens. York’s revitalised Britpop survivors, Shed Seven, will ride in on a crest of a wave for sold-out 30th anniversary gigs on July 19 and 20, with The Libertines’ Peter Doherty in support, after topping the album charts for the first time with A Matter Of Time on January 12.
The fourth concert will be announced soon.
The poster for Jack Savoretti’s July 18 concert at York Museum Gardens
The Calendar Girls The Musical cast, appearing at the Grand Opera House, York, from next Tuesday to Saturday. Picture: Jack Merriman
LOOK out for York and North Yorkshire East Women’s Institute Federation members at February 6 to 10’s performances of Calendar Girls The Musical at the Grand Opera House, York.
Celebrating the storyline of a cancer charity fund-raising group of ordinary women from a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute, they will have leaflets and information on hand in the public areas of the Cumberland Street theatre, giving audience members the chance to ask about the groups.
Janice Whiteford, WI advisor for the North Yorkshire East Federation, says: “I think it’s marvellous that we’re able to highlight all the groups available in the area during the week at the Grand Opera House. There are lots of WI groups in the York and North Yorkshire East areas and we’d love to chat about the fun we have and encourage new people to join.”
Inspired by the true North Yorkshire story of the Calendar Girls at Rylstone Women’s Institute, who raised £5 million (and counting) for blood cancer research, the musical features songs by Take That’s Gary Barlow and a reimagined book by playwright Tim Firth.
What happens? Following the death to leukaemia of a much-loved husband, a group of ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute are prompted to do an extraordinary thing, whereupon they set about creating a nude calendar to raise money for charity.
However, upturning preconceptions is a dangerous business and none of thewomen are prepared for the emotional and personal ramifications they will face as the fabulous and funny calendar brings each woman unexpectedly into flower.
Who’s in the cast? Find out below. Picture: Jack Merriman
Calendar Girls The Musical brings together a touring cast of music, stage and television stars. Baring all in 2024 are Laurie Brett (EastEnders) as Annie; Liz Carney(The Full Monty, The Mousetrap) as Marie; Helen Pearson(Hollyoaks) as Celia; Samantha Seager (Coronation Street) as Chris; Maureen Nolan (The Nolans, Blood Brothers) as Ruth; Lyn Paul (The New Seekers, Blood Brothers) as Jessie and Honeysuckle Weeks (Foyle’s War) as Cora.
They are joined by Colin R Campbell as John, Andrew Tutonas Rod, alongsideJayne Ashley, Lucas August and Victoria Hayin the ensemble.
The tour is supporting Blood Cancer UK, the charity dedicated to funding research into all blood cancers, including leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma, as well as offering information and support to blood cancer patients.
Every performance continues to add to the millions already raised for Blood Cancer UK and prove that there is no such thing as an ordinary woman. During next week’s run, collections will take place at the Grand Opera House to increase awareness and raise additional funds.
Calendar Girls The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 6 to 10, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Calendar Girls: the (front and) back story
THE real-life Calendar Girls launched a global phenomenon: a million copycat calendars, a record-breaking film, a stage play and Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s musical, premiered at Leeds Grand Theatre in November-December 2015 under the original title of The Girls. The show coined the term “craughing”: the act of crying and laughing at the same time.
As intuitive as a double act: Mark Hawkins, as The Actor, front, and Malcolm James, as Arthur Kipps, in The Woman In Black. Picture: Mark Douet
THE chill night air. Water, water, everywhere. York, the city with even more ghosts than hotel rooms, was putting on its own show for the umpteenth yet ever-welcome return of The Woman In Black, the ghost story by Susan Hill from up the road in Scarborough.
The Grand Opera House has its resident ghost, said to greet new members of staff by name on first acquaintance in the auditorium, but once more there was a rival in town: one Jennet Humphrey, the “Woman” in the title of Stephen Mallatratt’s meta-theatrical adaptation, first staged at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in December 1987 in winter ghost-story season tradition.
That said, The Woman In Black could be staged anywhere, any season, as the latest touring partnership of Malcolm James and Mark Hawkins can testify. They first teamed up as tormented lawyer Arthur Kipps and the whippersnapper-keen Actor for 11 performances in the 40-degree heat of Dubai, modern Madinat Theatre auditorium et al, in 2017.
James has his long service medal already, having appeared in the play’s 2014-2015 tour, visiting York Theatre Royal on that itinerary, and undertaking a subsequent London stretch at The Fortune in 2016.
Hawkins has played The Fortune too, and bringing that combined experience to Mallatratt’s adroit storytelling they make for a terrific partnership, as intuitive as a double act and admirably unfazed when the smog engulfing the stage sets off the smoke alarm.
Sitting next to the 13 to 16-year-olds from Stokesley, North Yorkshire, attending the opening night as part of their theatre studies, was a chance for a veteran reviewer to encounter The Woman In Black as if for the first time. Their changing reactions, as the early humour made way for the gravest, ghostly, ghastly deeds, added to the joys of this masterpiece of theatre’s unrivalled powers of imagination and invention.
As ever, Robin Herford is still directing the fright night’s scares, with Antony Eden, The Actor in the previous tour to York en route to more than 1,000 performances, as his associate director. As ever too, as billed in the programme, “the action takes place in this theatre in the early 1950s”.
Harder to imagine in Dubai, maybe, but the Grand Opera House is the perfect grand setting for the play within the play in a disused theatre within a theatre, where Michael Holt’s design, with its clever use of gauze, takes delight in gradually revealing a shadowy stairwell, dark passages, a mysteriously locked door and, spoiler alert, a children’s bedroom with toys untouched from 50 years ago.
Rod Mead’s sound design, administered on tour by Sebastian Fost, has a way of utilising all the theatre to surprise and jolt, while Kevin Sleep’s light design, now “re-lit” on tour by Alexander Hannah, is, pardon the pun, a highlight of the show, adding to the tension, constantly showing the stage in a different light that has you wondering where the Woman In Black might next appear. Not so much Sleep as sleepless, such is the disturbing presence.
As for the storytelling, James and Hawkins, as much as Mallatratt and Herford, excel in the more-is less-approach as James’s haunted, stultified Kipps seeks to exorcise the fear that has burdened his soul for so long, to end the curse on his family.
“For my health, for reason”, his story must be told, he says, and with the help of Hawkins’s Actor, on the wings of imagination, his rambling book of notes will become a play so powerful, it no longer feels like a play, but an all-consuming reality destined to play out forever.
The Actor becomes Kipps, the young solicitor sent to attend to the murky, isolated, wretched English marshland estate of the newly dead Alice Drablow, while James’s Kipps, once he sheds his stage novice reserve, takes on all manner of roles, from narrator, hotel host and taciturn pony and trap driver, to an even more haunted old solicitor and wary landowner.
All the while, Kipps is ever more traumatised by his fears rising anew, and likewise Mallatratt applies the sleight of hand of a magician as the drama within takes over from the act of making it, while simultaneously glorying in theatre, acting skills and the British love of a ghost story.
No need for high-tech special effects, The Woman In Black is old-fashioned, storytelling theatre-making, in which the terrifying theatrical re-enactment is applied with only two chairs, a stool, a trunk of papers, a hanging rail of costume props, dust sheets over the stage apron and a frayed theatre curtain.
Smoke, shrieks, horse’s hooves and the Woman In Black’s spectral face play their part too, James and Hawkins handling the reins as deftly as an Olympic equestrian yet in thrall to a story beyond their control. Theatre at its best. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Jools Holland: Returning to York Barbican in December
BOOGIE WOOGIE pianist Jools Holland will make his annual trip to York Barbican with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra on his autumn/winter 2024 tour.
Joining Jools on December 11 will be two special guests: Soft Cell and Marc & The Mambas singer Marc Almond and blues guitar prodigy Toby Lee.
Starting on October 31, the tour will take in 30 shows, including further Yorkshire gigs at Sheffield City Hall on November 23 and Leeds First Direct Arena on December 20. Tickets will go on sale on Friday (2/2/2024) at 10am at ticketmaster.co.uk.
Marc Almond: Special guest. Picture: Mike Owen
Holland last appeared at York Barbican on December 20 2023; Almond previously joined him on that stage in November 2018.
Guitarist Lee, described by Joe Bonamassa as a “future superstar of the blues”, first came to public attention aged ten when he posted a Get Well Soon jam for BB King that went viral with five million views in one week.
Since then, Lee has performed in West End productions, winning Olivier and UK Blues Awards and showcasing his skills in television and live performances around the world.
Blues guitarist Toby Lee
Once more, Holland’s autumn and winter shows will feature vocal solo spots for blues queen Ruby Turner, Louise Marshall and Sumudu Jayatilaka.
More immediately, Holland’s collaboration with Rod Stewart, Swing Fever, will be released on East West Records on February 23. Recorded with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra at Jools’s Greenwich studio, this new partnership in swing revels in a 13-track salute to songs of the big band era.
The track listing will be: Lullaby Of Broadway; Oh Marie; Sentimental Journey; Pennies From Heaven; Night Train; Love Is The Sweetest Thing; Them There Eyes; Good Rockin’ Tonight; Ain’t Misbehavin’; Frankie And Johnny; Walkin’ My Baby Back Home; Almost Like Being In Love and Tennessee Waltz.
The cover artwork for Swing Fever, the February 23 album by Rod Stewart with Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
