Delta Saxophone Quartet: Martland, Soft Machine and new works on Saturday
WHO better than the Delta Saxophone Quartet to give York Late Music’s 2023-2024 concert season early momentum on Saturday?
A double celebration this weekend will mark not only 40 years of Late Music, but also the ruby anniversary of the Delta musicians, regular participants in the York series.
Saturday’s 7.30pm programme at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, will be “typically Delta-eclectic”, featuring the music of Steve Martland, The Soft Machine and some new works.
Stuart O’Hara: Season-opening concert of English songs
The new series will begin on Friday at 1.30pm when bass singer Stuart O’Hara and pianist Marianna Cortesi take a tour through some of the finest English songs from the past decade: works by La Monte Young, Richard Rodney Bennett and Jonathan Harvey, complemented by world premieres of York composers’ settings of words by local poets.
On Friday evening, Late Music will pose the intriguing question: would you attend a concert where all the music was played twice? Would it help you appreciate the music more? Late Music wants to discover the answers in Ruth Lee’s innovative concert of music for harp and electronics. This one is a free/pay-what-you-like event. You could even choose to pay twice!
If your knowledge of accordion is limited to scene-setting via Hollywood movie conceptions of Paris – as sent up by American filmmaker Woody Allen in Everyone Says I Love You – Saturday’s lunchtime concert will put you right.
Franko Bozac: Never underestimate the accordion
Virtuoso Franko Bozac will showcase the reasons why this instrument should not be underestimated in his 1pm programme, featuring a collaboration between composer James Williamson and visual artist Romey T Brough, presented in tandem with Blossom Street Gallery, York.
November 4’s lunchtime concert will be a tribute to Dylan Thomas to mark the 70th anniversary of his death. Tenor Christopher Gorman and pianist David Pipe will present new settings of the Welshman’s poetry by composers Philip Grange, Sadie Harrison, Hayley Jenkins, David Lancaster and Rhian Samuel at 1pm.
In the evening, Beethoven will feature via Franz Liszt piano transcriptions, played by another Late Music favourite, Ian Pace. His 7.30pm programme will include Michael Finnissy’s Gershwin song transcriptions and Late Music concert administrator Steve Crowther’s Piano Sonata No. 4. Box office: latemusic.org.
Ruth Lee: Innovative concert of music for harp and electronics
Making his point: Grayson Perry in A Show All About You at Harrogate Convention Centre
FROM Sir Grayson to Dame Joan, Rambert’s return to Hancock’s re-creation, Lawrence to James, Charles Hutchinson puts the names in the frame for upcoming artistic and cultural adventures.
A brush with an artist: Grayson Perry: A Show All About You, Harrogate Convention Centre, tomorrow, 7.30pm
ARTIST, iconoclast and television presenter Grayson Perry follows up A Show For Normal People with A Show All About You, wherein the new knight asks, “What makes you, you?”. Is there a part deep inside that no-one understands? Have you found your tribe or are you a unique human being? Or is it more complicated than that?
Perry, “white, male, heterosexual, able bodied, English, southerner, baby boomer and member of the establishment”, takes a mischievous look at the nature of identity, promising to make you laugh, shudder and reassess who you really are. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.
Steve Cassidy: Among friends at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
York legend of the week: Steve Cassidy Band and Friends, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
YORK’S Steve Cassidy Band play a varied range of rock, country and ballads and always love performing at his favourite venue, joined as ever by guests this weekend. A three-time winner of New Faces, Cassidy recorded with York composer John Barry and Sixties’ sonic innovator Joe Meek. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Padding up: Dame Joan Collins reveals all in Behind The Shoulder Pads
National treasure of the week: Dame Joan Collins, Behind The Shoulder Pads, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 7.30pm
TO coincide with the release of her memoir Behind The Shoulder Pads, Hollywood legend, author, producer, humanitarian and entrepreneur Dame Joan Collins, 90, is embarking on a 12-date autumn tour with husband Percy Gibson by her side.
Returning to the Grand Opera House, where they presented Unscripted in February 2019, they will field audience questions and tell seldom-told tales and enchanting anecdotes, accompanied by rare footage from Dame Joan’s seven decades in showbusiness. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Jarred Christmas: Presents a comedy bill in A Night At The Theatre at York Theatre Royal
Comedy gig of the week: Fingers & Fringe in A Night At The Theatre, York Theatre Royal, Thursday, 7.30pm
JARRED Christmas hosts a Thursday bill of Clinton Baptiste, Huge Davies, Jake Lambert, Laura Lexx, Michael Akadiri, Abi Clarke and Jack Gleadow. Eight acts, one night of comedy at the theatre. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
John Hewer, third from left, leads the cast as Tony Hancock in Hancock’s Half Hour at Grand Opera House, York
Nostalgia of the week: Apollo Theatre Company in Galton & Simpson’s Hancock’s Half Hour, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday,7.30pm
FROM the producers of the Round The Horne and The Goon Show tours comes another radio comedy classic live on stage. Written by young up-and-comers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, pre-Steptoe And Son, Hancock’s Half Hour introduced sitcom to the BBC’s Light Programme in 1954.
Tony Hancock played a less successful version of himself, surrounded by Sid James, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams. Now, Apollo Theatre Company takes a trip back to 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam, to join “the lad himself” and his motley crew for three “lost” episodes, whose original recordings no longer exist but were re-created for BBC Radio 4 as The Missing Hancocks. John Hewer (Just Like That: The Tommy Cooper Show) plays Hancock with Ben Craze and Colin Elmer as James and Williams respectively. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Kieran Hodgson: Not big in this towering highland picture but Big In Scotland at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York and Selby Town Hall
Big in York, for one night only: Kieran Hodgson: Big In Scotland, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday, 7.30pm
IN 2020, the world changed forever as Kieran Hodgson – Gordon from the BBC’s Two Doors Down – moved to Scotland. Now he is travelling around the still-just-about United Kingdom to reveal how it is working out. For him and for the Scots. Tickets update: Sold out; for returns only, tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Also playing Selby Town Hall, Friday, 8pm; box office, 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.
Lawrence of Felt, Denim, Go-Kart Mozart and now Mozart Estate at The Crescent, York
Cult gig of the week: Mozart Estate, The Crescent, York, October 7, 7.30pm
MOZART Estate is the new name for Go-Kart Mozart in the further adventures of Birmingham native Lawrence, cult leader of Eighties’ indie guitar band Felt and subject of the re-released 2011 documentary Lawrence Of Belgravia.
Lawrence – Hayward is his neglected surname – later led the pseudo-novelty band Denim, whose biting social commentary was coated in a bubblegum strain of Seventies’ glam rock. After four Go-Kart Mozart albums, he switched to Mozart Estate for January 2023’s Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern Shopping. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
James: New album and tour in 2024
Looking ahead: James with special guests Razorlight, Leeds First Direct Arena, June 8 2024
JAMES will follow up the April 2024 release of their as-yet-untitled 17th studio album with an eight-date arena tour, taking in Leeds as the only Yorkshire venue. Tickets go on sale on October 6 at 9.30am at wearejames.com, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk.
Mixing the album this week, Clifford-raised frontman Tim Booth, 63, says: “The new songs sound belting and will fit this arena tour. Really looking forward to celebrating with you. Expect a mixture of the expected and unexpected – just like life. Nothing but love.”
Rambert’s Death Trap: Ballet theatre of bereavement and loss in Ben Duke’s Goat and Cerberus at York Theatre Royal
In Focus: Dance show of the week: Rambert’s Death Trap, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday and Wednesday, 7.30pm
RAMBERT first toured to York Theatre Royal in 1951 and for almost 40 years were regular visitors to the city, performing there 17 times. Their last visit was in February 1990, and they return 33 years later with Death Trap, a “meta dance comedy, full of the turbulence of life and death” with themes of bereavement and loss, partial nudity, strong language and strobe and haze effects.
Rambert’s last show, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption Of Thomas Shelby, drew audiences in excess of 100,000, Now comes Death Trap, devised by Ben Duke, of Lost Dog, in a darkly humorous programme of stylish, inspiring, story-telling, character-driven dance theatre that combines two short, savage, absir, funny works: 2017’s Goat and 2022’s Cerberus.
Inspired by the music and spirit of Nina Simone, Goat is danced to a band on stage performing such iconic songs as Feelings, Feeling Good and Ain’t Got No/ I Got Life. Cerberus enters a world where dance is a matter of life or death in a bittersweet musing on myth and mortality, complete with funeral couture. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Cycling and recycling: Sustainable theatre at York Theatre Royal in A Play For The Living In A Time Of Extinction, starring Stephanie Hutchinson, centre. All pictures: James Drury
THE opening of this “bold experiment in eco theatre-making” coincided with the publication of the State Of Nature 2023 report into the UK’s biodiversity.
The headline news? One sixth of our species is under threat of extinction. Meanwhile, in the latest state of the nation report, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is turning the blue tide against green change: more oil fields, no 2030 deadline ojettisoning diesl and petrol cars. So much for leading the way at Cop26.
To top it all, a 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage in connection with the felling of the 300-year-old Sycamore Gap tree – the landmark one from Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves – at Hadrian’s Wall.
What a week to be staging the closing chapter of the groundbreaking zero-travel tour of American playwright Miranda Rose Hall’s “darkly humorous, life-affirming one-woman show” that confronts the world’s urgent ecological disaster.
It is billed as a “fiercely feminist off-grid production that is part ritual, part battle cry, in a moving exploration of what it means to be human in an era of man-made extinction”.
That tells only half the story because the concept behind the tour, mounted by Headlong and partners York Theatre Royal and the London Barbican, turns out to be more impactful than Hall’s 80-minute diatribe.
Since opening at the Barbican, the play has travelled with an original creative template by director Katie Mitchell and black-and-white design palette by Moi Tran, but neither materials, nor people have been sent to Coventry, Plymouth, Newcastle, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Prescot.
Stephanie Hutchinson: Playing a dramaturg forced into performing on stage in the absence of her company’s actors, then putting all her research into a plea for saving animals and humans from extinction
Instead, each venue has provided its own director and performer, in York’s case, Theatre Royal resident artist Mingyu Lin and Leeds actress Stephanie Hutchinson.
Stephanie delivers a monologue, but she is not alone on the boards. A sound engineer and lighting technician sit to either side and eight cyclists fill the stage, the whir of their steady, rhythmical, kinetic pedal power being turned into electricity for the sound and lighting by a mechanism to delight any scientists in the audience.
Recycling is as important as the cycling: only existing theatre stock – props and the microphone – can be used, along with clothing from charity shops; the bicycles being lent by Recycle York.
A typical main-house production uses 60,000 watts per performance for lighting, 10,000 for sound. A Play For The Living’s cyclists generated the necessary amount here; far, far less wattage in total.
All this is uplifting, and food for thought, a potential blueprint for eco-theatre touring, in the vein of Coldplay making their Music Of The Spheres world tour “as sustainable and low carbon as possible”.
All power to the sustainable concept, but Hall’s play is under-powered by comparison: bleak and apocalyptic, as to be expected in this age of the Sixth Extinction, but the “dark humour” is strained, with unnecessary swearing, and the doomsday scenario runs contrary to the claim of being life-affirming.
Apparently, the best we can seek is a “good death”, in a messianic finale that would not have been out of place delivered from a church pulpit, topped off by the York Theatre Royal Choir’s hymnal finale, delivered in funereal black, re-emphasising that message. Brecht & Weill would have loved it.
Saddling up to spark electricty: the cyclists from the cycling city of York doing their bit for “eco-theatre making”
Stephanie had talked in advance of being determined not to be preachy, but Hall’s tone ended up being exactly that. Rather than delivering a TED talk, “in a story like this, we need to care,” said Ming in her interview.
True, but we need to do more than care, amid so much dead talk. We need to act. Faced by footage of animal after animal facing extinction, it had the depressing, deadening air of futility. Not the intention surely, but where was the battle cry, the rallying call, rather than that hallelujah chorus of an incoming “good death”?
Lists can have an emotional impact – listen to Steve Earle’s mining disaster memorial It’s About Blood for proof – but the emotional elements of A Play For The Living are botched. The explanation of why Stephanie’s character, Zero Emissions Theatre Company dramaturg Naomi, is forced into being on stage for one night in an impromptu performance, after her fellow company founders are called away to a tragic emergency, is too around-the-houses.
We are here to care about extinction all around us, not a human accident. Likewise, we are not here to judge Naomi’s acting skills – or Stephanie being an actor playing someone who is not a natural actor, although she does just fine in that elaborately structured transition.
Later, Naomi talks of her dog disappearing, but again it is not the same as a creature’s extinction, so why include it here?
You will often hear that a play should not be expected to come up with answers, but what is the purpose of this one? To encourage more responsible behaviour through its sustainable touring model, definitely, but where was the positivity that mankind can and will work together to save the planet and its endangered inhabitants, from the Little Brown Bat to the Kingfisher? Its absence spoke volumes. Maybe we really are all doomed as Private Frazer forecast in Dad’s Army.
The end.
Performances: 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow (30/9/2023). Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The artwork for Michele Stodart’s first solo album in seven years, Invitation
THE Magic Numbers’ Michele Stodart is touring this autumn in support of her first solo album in seven years, Invitation.
The 19-date itinerary takes in Yorkshire dates at Pocklington Arts Centre on November 2, in a double bill with Hannah White, and Café #9, Sheffield, on November 23.
Born in Trinidad and long based in London, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Michele spent her early years surrounded by Caribbean music and culture, until she and her family fled a military coup attempt, leading them to Queens, New York, where she spent a large part of her childhood.
She is best known as bassist, vocalist and co-songwriter of the Mercury-nominated, double platinum-selling Magic Numbers, who have released five studio albums, played multiple headline tours and supported Neil Young, Radiohead, Brian Wilson, U2, Flaming Lips and Bright Eyes. She continues to play with the band, touring worldwide.
Alongside this, Michele has pursued her own writing and nurtured a love for folk/Americana artists such as Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch.
She started writing songs in her early teens as a way to process and tell stories from her experiences. She would hide away to write songs, rarely playing them in public.
After Michele gave birth to her daughter, older brother, Romeo (frontman of The Magic Numbers), encouraged her to record and release an album of her own songs. This resulted in her first solo outing, 2012’s Wide-Eyed Crossing, a Southern-drenched journey into Americana country blues.
“I never thought I’d release a solo album, but I needed closure from those songs, so recording them was the only way to truly move on”, she said at the time.
From this point, Michele began playing solo shows and tours. She soon became known for her intimate, passionate and heart-wrenching live performances, helping to establish her as a singer-songwriter in her own right.
Signed by One Little Independent, Michele’s second solo set, Pieces, emerged in 2016: a confessional, melodic country/roots album with an orchestral, cinematic feel.
Over recent years, she has divided her time between her work with The Magic Numbers and her solo projects. In between recording and touring, she has been building a name for herself as a musical director, collaborator and producer too.
She has been invited to curate stages at festivals and events, as well as promoting regular nights at Camden’s legendary Green Note. She continues to champion women in music and gender equality within the industry and combines curating, directing and performing in an annual series of multi-artist shows celebrating International Women’s Day.
Hannah White: Sharing a double bill with Michele Stodart at Pocklington Arts Centre
Her skills as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist have led to collaborative projects on stage and in the studio with Kathryn Williams, Billy Bragg, David Ford, Bernard Butler, Natalie Imbruglia, Ren Harvieu, Julian Taylor, Charlie Dore, David Kitt, Hannah White, Rachel Sermanni, Emily Barker, Diana Jones and O’Hooley & Tidow, among others.
In 2019, Michele graced the silver screen in the Danny Boyle/Richard Curtis film Yesterday, chosen to appear on account of her melodic bass playing and electric, enigmatic stage presence.
Working alongside Boyle, Curtis and musical composer Daniel Pemberton, Michele’s bass and vocals are featured on the Abbey Road Studios movie soundtrack, reinterpreting The Beatles’ most beloved hits.
In 2022, she was awarded the UK Americana Awards’ Instrumentalist of the Year Award. In January 2023, she was invited back as musical director at the awards, where she led the all-female house band and played with The Waterboys’ Mike Scott, Allison Russell and Lifetime Achievement Award winner Judy Collins, who took a moment on stage to compliment Michele on her “incredible” talent.
Invitation, her third studio album, arrived on September 15 on the Keepsake Recordings label, written, arranged and produced by Michele, with additional production from long-standing collaborator Dave Izumi Lynch.
The album was recorded at Echo Zoo Studios and features Michele on vocals, guitars, bass and percussion, as well as contributions from brother Romeo on piano, Andy Bruce on piano, Alice Phelps on harp, Will Harvey on violin and viola, CJ Jones on drums, Nick Pini on double bass, Joe Harvey-Whyte on pedal steel and Izumi Lynch on synths.
“Invitation is an intimate, personal record, with songs that touch on themes of motherhood, relationships, mental health, transformation, endings and new beginnings,” says Michele.
“It comes from a place of inviting in the darkness, the hard times, the sadness, anger, loss, love and grief… all of the unknown feelings that get woken up inside you. To practise staying with them, no matter how uncomfortable. To understand that they are there to guide you.
“I believe that it’s in the learning and listening that we can transform, grow, stay conscious and wholeheartedly true, open, honest with ourselves and others. Words are a powerful resource and we can choose to use them to connect deeply with one another. Songwriting has always been my way of trying to do just that, and I hope this album ‘invites’ us to reach out together.”
The album artwork and illustrations of the crow, drawn by Joni Belaruski, symbolise key themes: the crow represents transformation, change and freedom.
First single Tell Me touches on themes of cheating, heartbreak and yearning, with the song retaining a sense of rawness and immediacy both musically and lyrically. “I wanted to write a song set in the heat of a moment,” says Michele. “A brave, one-sided conversation between the truth and lies in a relationship. This is a song about a love affair in denial, hiding behind a sense of control and composure”.
In her double bill at Pocklington – where she has played on more than one occasion with The Magic Numbers – both Michele and Hannah White will be promoting new albums. Co-produced by Michele, Hannah’s Sweet Revolution will be released via The Last Music Company on November 3 in the wake of the south Londoner’s autobiographical song Car Crash winning UK Song of the Year at the 2023 UK Americana Awards.
Tickets for their 8pm gig are on sale on 01759 301547 and at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; for Michele’s Sheffield show, cafe9sheffield.co.uk or wegottickets.com/Cafe9.
NORTHUMBRIAN piper, fiddle player, composer, educator and broadcaster Kathryn Tickell will play the University of York on October 18.
The award-winning roots musician, 56, will be showcasing Cloud Horizons, her second album recorded with The Darkening, released on September 1 on Resilient Records on CD and digital download.
Based in the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall yet reaching out to the wider world, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening explore the connecting threads of music, landscape and people over a period of almost 2,000 years.
The Darkening draw inspiration from the wild, dramatic and weather-bitten countryside along Hadrian’s Wall: a landscape that seems so quintessentially Northumbrian and yet was once inhabited by people from the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire, worshipping different gods and following different customs.
Songs range from themes of freedom, nature and venturing out into the world after times of darkness, to a Roman inscription with links to Libya and Syria magnetically pulled into the 21st century by Amen-inspired breakbeats, ominous vocals and the wildest of piping.
The artwork for Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening’s second album, Cloud Horizons
Cloud Horizons, the follow-up to 2019’s Hollowbone, is an album of extremes, one where Northumbrian traditions meet global influences. Dark, edgy soundscapes flare into euphoria with the precision of the pipes and accordion, bombastic effects-drenched octave mandolin, haunting harmony vocals, programmed beats, evocative slow airs and heart-pounding dance tunes. Lyres, clàrsach, sistrum, bone-flute and traditional Galician percussion add potency to the ambience.
Named after the old Northumbrian word for twilight, The Darkening feature four North East-based musicians, Kathryn Tickell (Northumbrian smallpipes, fiddle, vocals), AmyThatcher (accordion, synth, clogs, vocals), Kieran Szifris (octave mandolin), Joe Truswell (drums, percussion, programming), plus Stef Conner, from Cambridge, (vocals, lyres, sistrum), and Josie Duncan, from the Isle of Lewis, (vocals, clarsach). Together they create “Ancient Northumbrian Futurism”.
Cloud Horizons is Kathryn’s 16th release and the first in a career spanning 39 years to feature completely new material. The track listing is: High Way To Hermitage; Long For Light; Caelestis/Sheep InThe Temple; Quilley Reel; Freedom Bird; Just Stop & Eat The Roses; Bone Music; Clogstravaganza; Gods Of War; One Night In Moaña and Back To The Rede.
Tickets for Kathryn’s 7.30pm concert in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, are on sale at yorkconcerts.co.uk/whats-on/2023-24/kathryn-tickell-the-darkening/ and via kathryntickell.com.
Did you know?
KATHRYN Tickell released her first album, On Kielder Side, recorded at her parents’ house, at the age of 17 in 1984.
Squashbuckling: World champ James Willstrop swaps from court to stage to perform for Pick Me Up Theatre
PICK Me Up Theatre artistic director Robert Readman will direct the northern premiere of Mel Brooks’s stage conversion of Young Frankenstein at the Grand Opera House, York, over Hallowe’en.
The York company’s rehearsals are progressing well for the all-singing, all-dancing horror-movie spoof musical that will run from October 31 to November 4.
“From the creators of the record-breaking Broadway sensation The Producers comes this monster new musical comedy,” says Robert. “The comedy genius, Mel Brooks, has adapted his legendarily funny 1974 film into a brilliant stage creation of Young Frankenstein. I saw the West End production and loved it.”
Grandson of the infamous Victor Frankenstein, Dr Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronk-en-steen”) inherits his family’s castle estate in Transylvania.
Sanna Jeppsson: Playing lab assistant Inga in Young Frankenstein
Aided yet hindered by hunchbacked sidekick Igor (pronounced “Eye-gore”), leggy lab assistant Inga (pronounced normally), devilishly sexy Frau Blucher (Neigh!) and needy fianceeElizabeth, Frederick finds himself filling the mad scientist shoes of his ancestors, striving to fulfil his grandfather’s legacy by bringing a corpse back to life.
“It’s alive!” he exclaims as his experiment yields a creature to rival his grandfather’s monster. Eventually, and inevitably, this new monster escapes. “Hilarity abounds,” promises Robert, in Young Frankenstein’s combination of madcap success and monstrous consequences.
Working in tandem with Thomas Meehan, Brooks gleefully reanimates his horror-movie send-up of Mary Shelley’s novel with even more jokes, set-pieces and barnstorming parody songs that stick a pitchfork into good taste. Among those songs will be Puttin’ On The Ritz, Please Don’t Touch Me, He Vas My Boyfriend, The Transylvanian Mania, There Is Nothing Like A Brain! and many more Transylvanian smash hits.
Leading Readman’s cast will be erstwhile world squash champion James Willstrop, continuing his transfer from court to stage after playing Captain Von Trapp in Pick Me Up’s The Sound Of Music last Christmas.
Helen Spencer: From Hello, Dolly! to hello, Frau Blucher
Starring opposite him again will be Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson (Maria in The Sound Of Music), here cast as Inga. Jack Hooper, Mr Poppy in last year’s Nativity!, will be Igor; Helen Spencer, seen latterly as the Mother Abbess and Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!, will play Frau Blucher; Jennie Wogan-Wells, the Narrator in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, will be Elizabeth Benning.
Craig Kirby, Mr Tom in Goodnight Mr Tom, will be in Monster mode and further roles will go to Tom Riddolls as Sgt Kemp, Sam Steel as Bertram Bartam and Andrew Isherwood, fresh from directing Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, as The Hermit. A supporting ensemble will play Transylvanians, students and more besides.
“Every bit as relevant to audience members who will remember the original as it will be to newcomers, Young Frankenstein has all the of panache of the screen sensation with a little extra theatrical flair added,” says Robert. “Young Frankenstein is scientifically proven, monstrously good entertainment.”
Pick Me Up Theatre in Young Frankenstein, Grand Opera House, York, October 31 to November 4, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Drawing a crowd:Author Ian Donaghy, centre, and illustrator Alfie Joey with All Saints RC School Year Seven students Molly, left, Sophia, Gabriel, Ava and Florence at Tuesday’s York launch of Never Stop Drawing at the Explore York Hungate Reading Cafe. Already Ian has led the children in a session on the book at All Saints. Picture: David Harrison
YORK author Ian Donaghy will launch his latest book, Never Stop Drawing, in his native North East this evening (27/9/2023) at Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at 6pm.
Illustrated by Alfie Joey, the book champions never letting the flame of creativity die in a story full of colour, hope and inspiration for children aged eight to 108.
Drawn in: A young reader enjoying Never Stop Drawing
Billed as “the children’s book every grown-up needs to read before it’s too late”, Never Stop Drawing encourages readers to “find what you love and never stop”.
Former Maths teacher turned conference speaker, author, dementia charity champion and long-standing frontman of York party band Huge to boot, Ian says: “The world needs to stop asking how clever you are and instead ask how are you clever?”
This sporting life… but Albie, left, is more interested in pens than penalties in this Alfie Joey illustration from Never Stop Drawing
Yesterday evening, over tea and cakes baked by Sue Stewart, he launched two editions of the book – one with Joey’s illustrations, the other with spaces left blank for readers to draw their own pictures – at Explore York’s Hungate Reading Café, where he had spent many an hour crafting the text.
In the tradition of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, he held up placards, one saying: Different NOT Worse. Different NOT Less. Just Different. #NeverStopDrawing.
Colourful character meets colourful character: Author Ian Donaghy presents a copy of Never Stop Drawing to Eurovision pop star Sam Ryder at August’s Yorkshire Balloon Fiesta at Castle Howard
From the Tow Law-born author of wellbeing books Dear Dementia, The Missing Peace and A Pocketful Of Kindness, Never Stop Drawing is dedicated to Ian’s daughter, the singer and musical theatre student Annie Donaghy, “who views the world in a beautiful, different way, often seeing things that many of us miss”.
Ian hopes the book will make its way into schools and children’s wards in hospitals and already that is happening. Tomorrow, he will give a talk to the British Library at Malmaison, Rougier Street, York.
Muddled thinking: Why give dyslexia such a difficult label to spell, ponder author Ian Donaghy and lead characterAlbie in Never Stop Drawing. Illustration: Alfie Joey
“It’s a book about a little lad called Albie, who’s different. Different, not worse. Different, not less. He’s just different – and that’s fine. Socks don’t know they’re odd,” says Ian. “Let’s embrace the differences and make the world fit around people instead of us hammering the same round pegs into the same square holes.
“We’re all different and that’s a good thing, Imagine how dull the world would be if we were all the same.”
Booking up their ideas: Author Ian Donaghy and illustrator Alfie Joey at the York launch of Never Stop Drawing at the Explore York Hungate Reading Cafe. Picture: David Harrison
Published by ID Publications and printed by YPS Printing Services in Elvington, both versions of Never Stop Drawing are available from neverstopdrawing.co.uk and bigian.co.uk.
Did you know?
NEVER Stop Drawing illustrator Alfie Joey is a writer, comic, actor, impressionist, singer, presenter and artist/cartoonist. He hosted the flagship breakfast show on BBC Radio Newcastle from 2009 until his last broadcast on October 28 2022.
The last word: Albie “went to sleep after a life of reams and dreams” in Never Stop Drawing’s closing chapter. Illustration: Alfie Joey
Pedal power: Cyclists at York Theatre Royal with the mechanism that turns their kinetic energy into electricity for the lighting and sound in A Play For The Living In A Time Of Extinction. Picture: James Drury
A PLAY For The Living In A Time Of Extinction is a darkly humorous, life-affirming one-woman show, written by American playwright Miranda Rose Hall and powered at each performance by cyclists.
Undertaking a “life-changing journey to confront the urgent ecological disaster unfolding around us”, this fiercely feminist off-grid production is part ritual, part battle cry in a moving exploration of what it means to be human in an era of man-made extinction.
Billed as a “bold experiment in eco theatre-making” on a groundbreaking zero-travel tour, Hall’s witty, ambitious 80-minute play has toured across the country under Headlong’s banner while the people and materials involved have not.
After London, Coventry, Plymouth, Newcastle, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Prescot,the last stop is York Theatre Royal, where resident artist Mingyu Lin follows up co-directing the 100-strong company in the Theatre Royal’s summer community production of Sovereign by directing a cast of only one, Leeds actress Stephanie Hutchinson, in the role of Naomi from tonight to Saturday.
Stephanie will not be alone, however. Not only will she be accompanied by the York Theatre Royal Choir, last heard in Sovereign at King’s Manor, but also by eight cyclists, pedalling on specially adapted bikes that will power the lighting and sound.
“What’s been done is to find a way to be both sustainable and tour,” says Ming. “The concept of the play never changes but the talent working on it changes at each venue. Cyclists are recruited at each venue to power the show. The only thing that’s moved physically is the technology which transforms kinetic energy into electricity – and that all comes in one big box.”
In keeping with York’s status as a cycling city, more than 50 people have applied to be volunteer cyclists, including community cast members from Sovereign, members of York Theatre Royal’s Access All Areas Youth Theatre strand and participants celebrating International Day of Older People. Consequently, a different set of cyclists will saddle up at each of the five performances, with a maximum of eight putting in a shift each show, by comparison with a maximum of four elsewhere.
Coinciding with the start of rehearsals, York Theatre Royal has begun an environmental campaign encouraging staff and community members to pledge to do better for the environment in a manner that they choose.
“We are definitely at a turning point,” says Stephanie Hutchinson, who plays Naomi in A Play For The Living In A Time Of Extinction at York Theatre Royal. Picture: James Drury
This includes an opportunity for all to share their pledges with the chance to be featured in the digital programme for A Play For The Living. Pledges can be made on social media with the hashtag #IPledgeWithYTR or through a display in the York Theatre Royal foyer.
Sharing learning from Europe and Katie Mitchell, director of a version of the play in Switzerland, Headlong’s innovative touring model is the first of its kind in Great Britain. The Barbican, in London, played host to the beginning of this journey, since when a blueprint of the show has been brought to life by a different team of theatre makers in each venue as part of an international experiment in reimagining theatre in a climate crisis.
“There’s been a little bit of serendipity for me to be directing the York leg,” says former University of York Eng. Lit student Ming. “When I was working on programming for Headlong, when I was still living in London, during the pandemic we were looking at plays to put on after Covid, and I came across A Play For The Living because it was on the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize shortlist, an international playwriting prize with UK funding,” she recalls.
“On the short list were five plays and we really wanted a play by a female writer with a strong theme. All at Headlong decided they liked this one, and we had a meeting on Zoom with the writer, Miranda Rose Hall, who was very, very passionate about the risk of extinction and climate change, and you can really feel that in the play.
“We got an email from Katie Mitchell, who’d directed a smaller-scale production with two cyclists, and we decided we wanted the ethos of the production to reflect the ethos and energy of the play by having more cyclists.”
Ming knew she would be moving to York Theatre Royal as resident artist by the time the tour was put in place. “One of the reasons I wanted to leave London is that I really want plays to come out of London, and I thought you could have local directors and actors for each tour venue, but also not spend loads of money on the set, with only the mechanism for converting pedal power into electricity and a LED neon flex lighting system going from venue to venue,” she says.
“Working from an original design and black-and-grey colour palette by Moi Tran, each theatre must provide the staging, the microphones, the bicycles and the cyclists, and the theatre is not allowed to use anything new. Everything has to be from the Theatre Royal’s existing stock or charity shops for costumes. The Recycle York shop is lending us the bikes.”
Reflecting on the tour’s zero-travel policy, Ming says: “It really makes you aware of the cost of touring theatre in terms of sustainability and the use of electricity in your artistic vision, but I think those challenges turn into opportunities. Too much freedom can make you lazy.”
Leeds actress Stephanie Hutchinson
Stephanie Hutchinson will be performing in a one-woman show for the first time. “The amount you have to learn is crazy,” she says. “I had to find a sense of what the play is about, and there’s a video by the writer, explaining the show and why she wanted to write it, that’s been really useful.
“I would say that rehearsals have been interesting and challenging but very positive and working with Ming has been nothing but positive. It’s a different experience because I’ve never done a monologue before, especially as it’s one this long and it’s just me speaking on stage.”
Stephanie’s character Naomi is “part of a theatre company that has made a play especially for you, those living through extinction, but the actors have not shown up yet. In the meantime, Naomi has a plan.”
“I keep thinking throughout, ‘I really want to get the audience thinking and talking about extinction’,” says Stephanie. “Naomi is asked if she’s read The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, a book by Elizabeth Kolbert [the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, university visiting fellow and environmental journalist for the New Yorker], because we’re going through the Sixth Extinction right now” …
…“We’re losing creatures at a quicker rate now than in the days of the dinosaurs,” points out Ming.
Hall’s play posits that “the difference between death and extinction is this: death is to cease to exist. Extinction is to extinguish. I think of death as individual. Extinction is collective”.
“We are definitely at a turning point,” says Stephanie. “Naomi is thinking, ‘we need to do something on this, a play, but she’s a dramaturg, not an actor, but when the actors who’d normally be doing it have an emergency, she has to go on stage. So it’s set up as a sort of improvised ‘gotta make a show’.”
Ming says: “It’s interesting for an actor to be playing someone who’s not an actor and wouldn’t normally be on stage, so that’s been fun.”
“It shouldn’t be preachy, and Naomi isn’t going to be preachy, but maybe provoke conversations,” says Stephanie. Picture: James Drury
Stephanie says: “I like how it’s educational, with Naomi learning as well as the audience, taking it in as if she’s learning it for the first time as she tells you all these facts.”
As Ming puts it, the playwright has created a story and character with emotional stakes at play, “not a TED talk”. “It stays engaging because there are parts that are so personal, so it to-and-fros between Naomi’s story and the wider story,” says Stephanie.
“In a story like this, you need to care,” says Ming. “The stakes must be there from almost the top of a play, and that’s something that really works with this play, where you get to care about it and you invest in the conceit of the dramaturg telling it.”
Stephanie adds: “I find it easier to express that in the moments when Naomi is feeling vulnerable, and you can definitely play with the emotion there.”
Last question: why should we see A Play For The Living in this time of extinction? “I don’t think a pedal-powered production on this scale has been done before, and a tour of this type has never been done,” says Ming.
“It’s definitely life affirming because, yes, ‘extinction’ is in the title, but so is ‘living’ and the sustenance of life is worth fighting for.”
For Stephanie, “it’s something new, something I’ve never come across before. It shouldn’t be preachy, and Naomi isn’t going to be preachy, but maybe provoke conversations,” she says. “She won’t have the answers, but we’re all going through this, and we must all go through it together.”
A Play For The Living In A Time Of Extinctionruns on pedal power at York Theatre Royal from tonight (27/9/2023) until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Jody Stephens and Luther Russell performing as a duo at The Crescent, York. Picture: Paul Rhodes
THE Crescent proved itself once again to be the venue to beat for live music in York. On a Tuesday too.
Those Pretty Wrongs are led by Jody Stephens, drummer, songwriter and singer in cult band Big Star, and Luther Russell. Russell is better known as a producer but is a serial collaborator and solo performer too.
To look the elephant in the room in the eye, this was not a Big Star tribute show. The two Big Star songs played, the timeless 13 and Way Out West, were by some distance the best of the evening. Those two encores were performed without mics, almost in the audience, surrounded by the love that people have for these songs.
The newer material can’t begin to match those that blew out of that combustible, short-lived collision of Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel, then given a lustrous shimmer by Ardent Studios’ John Fry.
Those Pretty Wrongs: “Not really in the nostalgia market, they make no qualms about playing new album Holiday Camp in full” at The Crescent. Picture: Paul Rhodes
With the benefit of time, the story of Big Star reads like an ironic screenplay. They made three unmistakable records that are synonymous with their Memphis hometown. Each is up there with anything from the 1960s and ’70s, before misfortune and mismanagement stopped them in their tracks and cult status slowly grew out from the ashes of all those might haves.
Chilton then beat a perverse, wilful path while Bell died broken in a car crash. The survivors at least received the late acclaim they deserved in the 1990s – one concertgoer was proudly wearing a T-shirt bought at their Leeds Duchess show in 1993.
Stephens, a youthful 71, has emerged from that tale intact and shows no signs of letting up. He is now the last surviving member of the original, classic line-up. More stories from that time would have been welcome, but Those Pretty Things aren’t really in the nostalgia market and make no qualms about playing their new album, Holiday Camp, in order and in full.
Performing as a duo rather than a four-piece, Stephens and Russell were in good spirits and voice. They were full of warm words for opening act Ned Roberts (incidentally once the lead conspirator at open-mic nights at the Waggon and Horses when he studied at the University of York).
Support act Ned Roberts: “Light, versatile voice recalled James Taylor”. Picture: Paul Rhodes
Not coincidentally, Russell has produced each of Roberts’s four albums. Roberts’s set made a strong case for seeking out those records out – and his new album, due next year, in particular. His light, versatile voice recalled James Taylor, or Jeff Cowell’s buried treasure Lucky Strikes and Liquid Gold. Roberts’s set contained a well-rounded clutch of good songs, with Halfway To Reason and Song Of Spring making most impact.
Without a drum kit, out front and seated, Stephens’ hands couldn’t resist keeping time. As a front man, he has no problems keeping an audience’s attention. His evocative voice feels familiar from Big Star of course and has aged well.
Russell, the more outgoing of the two, knew when to step in with a quip or anecdote. Much more than a foil, his guitar playing and particularly his harmonies were wonderful. Not all of the original Those Pretty Wrongs songs were keepers but the strike rate was pretty high. Paper Cup and Scream were easily the equal of their recorded versions and it was good to hear their (seemingly) impromptu take on Lucky Guy in memory of John Fry.
After 75 minutes, Leicester then Memphis were calling, but it was good while it lasted.
THE next Dementia Friendly Tea Concert will be on October 19 at St Chad’s Church, on Campleshon Road, near ork Racecourse.
“We have something a bit different to enjoy next month as Julia Elliott and Peter Harrison will be presenting Branwell Brontë’s Flute Book,” says co-programmer Alison Gammon.
The 2.30pm concert will be an exploration in words and music of the fascinating musical world of Branwell Brontë (1817-1848).
“He was keenly interested in and influenced by music and kept a notebook of his favourite tunes arranged for the instrument, including popular songs such as Home Sweet Home and All Through The Night,” says Alison.
“Branwell played the flute and his sisters Emily and Anne played the piano. Peter will be playing an historic flute, which will give us a flavour of the sound world of the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth.”
As usual, 45 minutes of music will be followed by tea and homemade cakes in the church hall. “The event is a relaxed concert, ideal for people who may not feel comfortable at a formal classical concert, so we do not mind if the audience wants to talk or move about,” says Alison.
“Seating is unreserved and there is no charge, although donations are welcome. We give the hire cost to the church and the rest goes to Alzheimer’s charities.”
The church has a small car park and on-street parking is available along Campleshon Road, but it can be busy, so do allow plenty of time. “If you are more mobile it would really help if you could park on the street to allow for disabled parking in the car park,” requests Alison. “There is wheelchair access via the church hall.”
The remaining concerts in 2023 will feature Giocoso Wind Ensemble on November 16 and Ripon Resound Choir in a Christmas programme on December 7.
The monthly concert series will continue on Thursdays at 2.30pm. “Many of our musicians will be returning to play for us, so there is plenty to look forward to,” says Alison. “Sanitiser is always available in the church and church hall if you need to use it.”
