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July 26, 2023July 23, 2024

REVIEW: NETheatre York in Grease The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday ***

*Filling the stage: NETheatre York’s cast for Grease The Musical*

IF a picture paints a thousand words, then look at the one above. It captures the essence of NETheatre York.

That stage looks busy, very busy, bursting with happy faces, everyone revelling in performing and being in a group whose love of entertaining York audiences is writ large in every buoyant show. Such is the sugar rush of a Steve Tearle production – he has become the P T Barnum of York – that the impact is almost giddying. No wonder the ‘E’ in NETheatre stands for ‘exciting’.

‘Excitable’ would be true too, maybe even over-excitable, in that desire to delight, with the opening night in too much of a rush at the start amid a few technical gremlins. No doubt those theatrical E numbers will settle down, but the sound balance with so many performers on stage – a cast of 60 – always will be a challenge.

*Finlay Butler’s Danny Zuko, centre, with Flynn Coultous’s Roger, left, and Calum Davis’s Kenickie*

Tearle has found a formula that works at the box office, one that appeals to family, friends and stalwart supporters alike. If you build a production with a big cast, giving opportunities to young performers to cut their stage teeth, as well helping nascent talents to bloom and calling on a stock of regulars, they will come. In big numbers.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and the Saturday matinee have sold out already; Thursday and Saturday night are down to the last few tickets (box office, 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk).

Another factor is at play here: Grease, in a word. Everyone loves Grease, just as everyone loves Abba and Queen, don’t they. Don’t they?! That film, those iconic John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John performances, those songs, are embedded in more than one generation, reflected in the wide age range attending on Tuesday.

*Tough cookie: Melissa Boyd’s outstanding Rizzo*

Sensibly, NETheatre York (the latest name for NE Musicals York) applied for the extra rights to be allowed to use the opening title song, You’re The One That I Want, Sandy and Hopelessly Devoted To You from the 1978 movie. Out go Drive In Movie, All Choked Up and It’s Raining On Prom Night. In come four songs that all made the UK top three, the John and Olivia duet topping the charts for nine weeks.

Tearle likes a night at the theatre to be a full experience for the audience from the moment of arrival, in this case running a glitter station for sparkling facial adornments. Aptly, your reviewer’s programme sparkled on the Creative Team page, from stray glitter particles as it turned out.

Scott Kendrew, in de rigueur spangly trousers, opens the show, fulfilling his dream to sing a solo song in a musical, performing Grease in the guise of Frankie Valli with an all-American swagger. Soon the stage is populated by the T-Birds greaser gang, the Pink Ladies, more and more Rydell High School pupils and the new, young 1959 intake, under the charge of Perri Ann Barley’s indefatigable head teacher Miss Lynch.

*NETheatre York director/producer/co-choreographer Steve Tearle, centre, with co-choreographer Ellie Roberts and musical director Scott Phillips*

It does provide a wow factor, such a full stage, but this staging comes with complications. The central focus of a scene is not always clear amid so many bodies; voices become muffled in dialogue on one occasion when two performers move beyond the stage apron into the auditorium; peripheral movement sometimes distracts from the principals, Maia Beatrice’s college newcomer Sandy Dumbrowski is too crowded in by the ensemble in that all-important Summer Nights duet with Finlay Butler’s Danny Zuko.

The traffic is less heavy, indeed clear, for the confessional, heartfelt solo numbers, emphasising the song and its delivery, whether Butler’s Danny in Sandy; Beatrice’s Sandy in Hopelessly Devoted To You or, best of all, the stand-out Melissa Boyd’s cynical tough cookie Rizzo in There Are Worse Things (I Could Do).

Rizzo is her dream role and it shows. Sparks fly in the company of Calum Davis’s cocksure Kenickie, who revels in his big number, Greased Lightnin, the peak of Ellie Roberts’s choreography too.

*Back to back: Maia Beatrice’s Sandy Dumbrowski and Finlay Butler’s Danny Zuko*

University of Hull theatre student Butler and Cleethorpes pantomime star Beatrice first performed together in York College days, re-sparking that chemistry as strutting Danny and a grittier-than-usual Sandy, culminating in the pent-up romantic release of You’re The One That I Want.

Broad humour courses through the somewhat graphic performances of T-Birds Roger (Flynn Coultous in his NETheatre debut), Sonny (Kristian Barley) and Doody (guitar-playing Matthew Clarke). Juliette Brenot’s Frenchy, Mo Kinnes’s Jan and Erin Greenley’s Marty, leader Rizzo’s fellow Pink Ladies, are not content to stay in the background.

Sam Richardson and Chloe Drake play the nerdy Eugene and goody-goody/irritating cheerleader Patty respectively with admirable enthusiasm for such uncool roles. Ellie Roberts’s Cha-Cha and Kit Stroud’s radio jock Vince Fontaine make the most of their cameos.

*Mo Kinnes’s Jan and Flynn Coultous’s Roger*

Musical director Scott Phillips pops out of the pit to transform into band leader Johnny Casino. Director/producer/co-choreographer Steve Tearle turns into Las Vegas Elvis – if Elvis had made it to his silver sixties – for the Teen Angel set-piece, Beauty School Dropout, all in white, tongue in cheek, lights flickering in his cape.

Phillips leads his band – two tenor sax, guitars, bass and drums – from the keyboards with exuberance and a dash of jazz swing. The ensemble, whether speeding through the aisles or giving their all in the routines, relishes every scene.

Some might want Tearle’s Grease to be a little calmer, less frenetic, to let scenes breathe, but just as the show’s Grease car sign was made and sent from China in only two weeks, so this Grease works flat out to deliver its thrills, right down to Phillips’s Grease Mega-Mix party finale, everyone up on their feet busting their John and Olivia moves.

NETheatre York presents Grease The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office for last few tickets: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatreyork.co.uk

*Yes, You’re The One That I Want, NETheatre York style*

July 26, 2023July 26, 2023

18th century priests’ vestments from Bar Convent secret chapel’s inaugural mass reunited for York Georgian Festival

*Special collections manager Dr Hannah Thomas sets out the Georgian priests’ vestments in the Bar Convent chapel for the York Georgian Festival*. *Picture: Charlotte Graham*

GEORGIAN vestments worn at the Bar Convent’s Opening Illegal Mass are being reunited in the chapel for the first time since 1769 from August 3 to 5 as part of the York Georgian Festival.

Now Great Britain’s oldest living convent, it was established in Blossom Street in 1686 when Roman Catholicism was illegal in this country. The chapel was built in complete secrecy, taking more than 20 years to complete, with the three priest vestments being designed for the inaugural mass, held on April 29 1769.

The vestments were worn together in the chapel only on that occasion. One has since been on display in the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre’s exhibition; the others have been in the possession of other Roman Catholic churches in York – until now.

Special collections manager Dr Hannah Thomas says: “Historically, these three vestments have been lent to different churches in the city, and it has taken some time to arrange for their return to their original home.

“These incredibly significant vestments were designed and made as a set specifically for the opening of this very special chapel and we are both thrilled and moved to be able to share this historic reunion with the public.”

Hannah continues: “The vestments will be displayed behind the altar in the chapel where they were first worn together more than 250 years ago, at great risk to the priests and all those who attended.

“Not only have these Georgian vestments survived a time in which Catholic material was regularly seized and destroyed, but also the fact that the chapel and the convent have survived against all the odds is an incredible story that we will be highlighting as part of the inaugural York Georgian Festival 2023.”

A private view will be held on August 3 from 5.30pm to 7pm; tickets (£15) can be booked at barconvent.co.uk. Guests are invited to enjoy private access to the house where they can discover the story behind its Georgian architecture, including the secret 18th century chapel. Dr Thomas will give an introduction to the history of the Bar Convent and the vestments; a glass of fizz is included on arrival.

A second ticketed event, Secrecy & Survival: Georgian York Through The Eyes Of A Catholic Convent, will take place on August 5 from 12.30pm to 1.30pm, when the £10 ticket will include admission to the exhibition after the expert talk.

Dr Thomas will explore how the sisters ran an illegal convent under the nose of the authorities without being caught. How did they construct a secret Catholic chapel? What did the rest of York think of what was happening on 18th century Blossom Street? Over to you, Hannah.

Little-known items from the Bar Convent collections will feature as Dr Thomas delves into the archives to find out more.

*Bar Convent special collections manager Dr Hannah Thomas with the Georgian priests’ vestments, going on display in the chapel from August 3 to 5. Picture: Charlotte Graham*

The Vestments (1769): the back story

DIFFERENT types of priest’s vestments are worn within the Roman Catholic Church. This style is called a chasuble, a sleeveless vestment worn as the top layer by Catholic or High Anglican priests when celebrating Mass.

The shape has varied over time, but this is typical of the 17th and 18th centuries. There is a matching stole too: a narrow, long piece of fabric to be worn underneath the chasuble.

Chasubles often have elaborate embroidery, and these particular vestments are a fine example of 18th century craftmanship. Given that they were made to be worn for the opening of the secret chapel in 1769, the design is befitting of the occasion.

They are handmade with gold threads on a background of silk damask and feature an early use of sequins on liturgical clothing in England.

The icon of the pelican on the back is a direct reference to the pelican on the altar in the Bar Convent chapel. In Roman Catholicism, the pelican is used to symbolise Jesus, as legend has it that the pelican fed its young with its own blood, as Jesus also sacrificed himself for others.

The beautiful flower designs are a symbol of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

York Georgian Festival, August 3 to 6

THIS summer, the glorious Georgians are taking over the city of York.

The fabulous fashions of dashing dandies, extravagant feasting and romantic country dancing add up to the vibrant tale of a golden social scene hidden within the brickwork of York’s abundant 18th century architecture.

In celebration, York Mansion House is collaborating with York museums, venues and historical experts to present York’s first ever Georgian Festival.

Dust off your petticoat and powder your best wig for a plethora of engagements at Fairfax House, Bar Convent and elsewhere. Learn to dance the minuet, discover Georgian family life with Horrible Histories writer Terry Deary, solve the mystery of tricky Dick Turpin’s missing corpse in an immersive murder mystery night and take a peep behind-the-scenes with York’s curators.

For full festival details, head to: mansionhouseyork.com/yorkgeorgianfestival.

July 25, 2023September 18, 2023

And now there are ten as Pick Me Up Theatre announces September cast for Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. UPDATED 18/9/2023

*Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for September’s production of And Then There Were None at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York*

1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. Eight strangers receive an intriguing invitation to a posh house party on Soldier Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast.

These house guests are to be met by the butler and his housekeeper wife…And Then There Were Ten, but not for long.

So begins Agartha Christie’s groundbreaking whodunit And Then There Were None, to be staged by York company Pick Me Up Theatre under Andrew Isherwood’s direction at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from September 22 to 30.

*Grave expression:* *Rory Mulvihill, cast as Sir Lawrence Wargrave, the retired judge, in And Then There Were None*

What the guests have in common is a wicked past that they are unwilling to reveal and a secret destined to seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. As the weather turns, the bloodbath begins and one by one they are brutally murdered in accordance with the lines of a sinister nursery rhyme.

“Cut off from the mainland, they are each accused of a terrible crime. When one of the party dies suddenly, they realise they may be harbouring a murderer among their number,” says producer Robert Readman. “The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but also is preparing to strike again… and again.”

*See Emily play up: Jess Murray, cast as “ruthlessly religious” knittijng fiend Emily Brent in And Then There Were None*

Director Isherwood will be among Pick Me Up’s “fabulous cast of the county’s finest”, playing William Blore alongside Flo Poskitt’s Vera Claythorne; Mike Hickman’s Philip Lombard; Rory Mulvihill’s Sir Lawrence Wargrave; husband and wife Martyn and Jeannette Hunter’s butler Rogers and housekeeper wife Mrs Rogers; Andrew Roberts’s Anthony Marston; Ian Giles’s General John MacKenzie; Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong and Jess Murray’s Emily Brent.

Pick Me Up’s Facebook page is introducing Christie’s “motley characters” one by one in an on-going series. First up: meet Rory Mulvihill’s judge, Sir Lawrence Wargrave. “The Judge…you wouldn’t want to cross him,” forewarns Readman’s profile notes.

*What the butler’s wife saw: Jeannette Hunter, picked to play housekeeper Mrs Rogers in Pick Me Up Theatre’s And Then There Were None*

“Recently retired, he is intelligent, cold and commanding. During his years on the bench, he had a reputation as a ‘hanging judge’ – a judge who persuaded juries to bring back guilty verdicts and sentenced many convicted criminals to death. He should be right at home then.”

Next meet Jeanette Hunter’s Mrs Rogers. “She is the housekeeper in a big posh mansion where eight perfect strangers have been invited to spend the weekend by an unknown host. She is rather timid, has a dominating husband and she tells us she’s ‘always left to do the dirty work’,” says Readman.

*Mysterious, confident, cunning: Mike Hickman’s Philip Lombard*

“And there’s plenty of it in And Then There Were None but take nothing at face value in this twisty tale of murder and revenge! Jeanette’s character might not be all she seems.”

Step forward dodgy character number three: Jess Murray’s Emily Brent. “She is a ruthlessly religious woman who reads her Bible every day,” says Readman. “She might devour the good book – but her actions are anything but Christian. And she knits – like those ghouls from the guillotine!”

*Does Martyn Hunter’s butler Thomas Rogers look shifty? Find out from September 22 to 25*

Next up: Mike Hickman’s Philip Lombard. “A mysterious, confident and cunning man, we think he was maybe a mercenary soldier in Africa? Anyway, it looks like Mike Hickman isn’t about to take any prisoners in this role…Could he be the guilty one?” ponders Robert.

Who’s next? “Here comes Thomas Rogers…A respectable and reliable butler. Or is he? Don’t you think he looks a bit shifty? And Martin Hunter plays the part perfectly. Come and find out if he dunnit in Agatha Christie’s corking murder mystery,” says Robert.

*Ian Giles’s General John Gordon McKenzie*: *“Upstanding”…or does that not stand up to appraisal?*

How about Ian Giles’s General John Gordon Mackenzie? “He’s an upstanding military man – or is he?” asks Robert. “One of eight seemingly random guests invited to a mysterious house party in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, how could anyone think our Ian Giles could be the one wot dunnit?”

Who is Andrew Roberts playing? “This handsome devil (see below) is Anthony Marston: a rich, swanky guy who likes fast cars and fast living,” says Robert. “He seems to have no conscience but is he a murderer?”

*If looks could kill…but is Andrew Roberts’s Anthony Marston the murderer in And Then There Were None*

Back in York after an Edinburgh Fringe run in York musical comedy duo Fladam’s children’s show Green Fingers, Flo Poskitt takes the role of former governess Vera Claythorne, who comes to Soldier Island as secretary to fellow guest Mrs Owen.

“Flo’s Vera is clever and capable, but she is also super-nervy and suffers from attacks of hysteria, so don’t cross her off the murderer suspect list just yet,” says Robert.

*“Clever and capable, but super-nervy too”: Flo Poskitt’s Vera Claythorne in And Then There Were None*

“Don’t trust him – even though he’s a doctor,” he forewarns of any encounter with Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong. “The other seven guests certainly don’t. In fact Armstrong is high up the suspect list because – well, he knows media stuff, doesn’t he?! He could easily bump someone off (if he wasn’t always yearning after a large glass of scotch).

“So, is Mark Simmonds our man in And Then There Were None? If you’ve read Agatha Crhsistie’s book or seen the films, no spoilers please!”

*High up on the suspect list: Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong*

And now there are ten

INTRODCING retired Inspector William Henry Blore, director Andrew Isherwood ‘s on-stage contribution to And Then There Were None.

“He should know his way around a crime scene and be a dependable chap in a crisis – like the one ten strangers find themselves facing at a weird house party in Christie’s nail-biter,” says Robert. “But really…when the killing starts – is the former policeman your best hope?”

*On closer inspection: Andrew Isherwood looks judgemental in his guise as retired Inspector William Henry Blore*

Ten Little Soldiers: the back story of a sinister nursery rhyme

THIS epigraph appears at the start of Agatha Christie’s 1939 murder mystery novel, And Then There Were None, foretelling the ten deaths (spoiler alert!) that will occur on Soldier Island.

Ten Little Soldier Boys went out to Dine, one choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine Little Soldier Boys stayed up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight Little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon; One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.

Seven Little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six Little Soldier Boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five Little Soldier Boys going through a door; One stubbed his toe and then there were four.

Four Little Soldier Boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three Little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two Little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was One.

One Little Soldier Boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

Did you know?

THE island and Art Deco hotel of the same name that inspired Agatha Christie to write both And Then There Were None and the Hercule Poirot mystery Evil Under The Sun are for sale at £15 million: namely Burgh Island, off the south Devon coast. The sale includes Christie’s beach house, where she wrote, on the cliff edge.

Pick Me Up Theatre in And Then There Were None, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 22 to 30. Performances: 7.30pm, September 22, 23, 26 to 30; 2.30pm, September 23, 24 and 30. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Recommended age: eight plus.

July 24, 2023July 25, 2023

Grease lightning strikes as NETheatre York’s cast of 60 revs up for JoRo run

*NETheatre York’s production triumvirate for Grease The Musical: Creative director/producer Steve Tearle, centre, with choreographer Ellie Roberts and musical director Scott Phillips*

AFTER another name change, NETheatre York begins a new term at Rydell High with a cast of 60 pupils enrolled for Grease The Musical from tomorrow to Saturday.

Formerly NE and before that NE Musicals York and several variations on a New Earswick theme, the company with the “New and Exciting” tag is spanning its scope.

“The reason why we wanted to change the name is because we want our company to be as diverse as possible and to cover as many things as possible, not just musicals, but plays and dance too,” says Steve. A case of NE theatre symbolising any form of theatre.

“Like taking part in the York Community Choir Festival at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre next year and performing at the York Proms in June, when we had our part in both sections on the main stage – and that’s the first time Rebecca [organiser Rebecca Fewtrell] has done that – as well as being on the community stage in the interval. We did selections from Oliver! in the first half and Les Miserables in the second.”

Amid the NamE changes, the company has shown consistency in its choice of production team for this week’s show at the JoRo. Once more, Steve Tearle is the creative director/producer – and cannot resist playing Teen Angel to boot – alongside musical director Scott Phillips and choreographer Ellie Roberts as audiences are transported back to all-American 1959 and the senior year at Rydell High.

After a whirlwind summer romance, Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski thought they would never see each other again but find themselves at the same high school as the T Birds and the Pink Ladies assemble for the new term.

Playing Danny and Sandy will be University of Hull student Finley Butler and Cleethorpes pantomime star Maia Beatrice (her stage name, shedding her surname of Stroud). “We know each other from doing the diploma in acting at York College six years ago, so we have a few shows together under our belt, like The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui Rise, and then last year I did The Wind In The Willows with this company, who I got to join because of Maia,” says Finley.

Maia, 22, from York, will be returning to TaleGate Theatre’s pantomime ranks this winter for Cinderella at the Parkway Cinema, Cleethorpes, playing Prince Charming after her title role in Pinocchio there last winter. “I get all the principal boy parts,” she says of pantomime’s traditional thigh-slapping role. Her thighs? “Very slappable!” she laughs.

*Maia Beatrice’s Sandy Bumbrowski and Finley Butler’s Danny Zuko in NETheatre York’s Grease The Musical*

For Grease, she was drawn to playing either Sandy or bad girl Rizzo. “I’m used to playing grittier characters that I can get my teeth into,” she says. “But I do feel I’m more of a Sandy with my blonde hair and blue eyes – and Sandy is the dream role.”

Steve chips in: “We’ve not made Sandy as sweet and innocent as she’s usually played.” Such as? “I take Rizzo down…to the floor,” says Maia.

Steve elaborates: “The musical is meatier than the film version, which they cleaned up a little. The original story was much grittier when it was first launched in Chicago, written for a bunch of teenagers. I haven’t gone back to that version, but we’ve kept the grittiness, and as part of that emphasis, the story of Rizzo and Kenickie runs side by side with Danny and Sandy’s.”

Finley, 22, has just graduated from the University of Hull with a degree in drama and theatre practice and will return there this autumn to study for a Masters in theatre making. “The course I’ve done is not just about the acting and drama side but there’s very much a focus on practice, so you can specialise in many different things, and towards the end my focus was on directing and lighting design,” he says.

*Melissa Boyd and Calum Davis as Rizzo and Kenickie*

“Throughout my time there, I directed shows, like doing a children’s theatre pieced called The Forest, where we had to use sign language and stage it in the round. On top of that, I’m now the president of the university’s performing arts society, a post which runs on into the next year as I do my Masters.”

Finley, by the way, will be Steve’s assistant director for NETheatre York’s upcoming production of Fiddler On The Roof when Steve will combine directing duties with playing the lead, the poor Jewish milkman Tevye.

This summer, Finley’s focus is on Danny Zuko and not least on the way he moves. “A lot of it I have taken from John Travolta, those Travolta-isms. Danny is very bold in his movement,” he says.

“But I also wanted to focus on the conflict within Danny, who has this core persona of not liking a particular girl above any other, but then Sandy comes along, and she’s like a thorn, getting under his skin. You find subtle ways to show that inner conflict through his movement as he’s so expressive.”

As for achieving the Danny Zuko look: “I’ve just received the all-important comb!” says Finley. “The styling takes a lot of gel and a lot of hairspray. I must have got through nearly a whole can for the photo-shoot.”

In the cast too will be Ali Butler Hind. “I’m playing the ballet teacher, part of the staff that oversee the pupils and do the scene changes in this production, which is a clever idea,” she says. “We’re there to support the head teacher, Miss Lynch, and I think our presence in this production really helps, especially in the dance contest scene.”

NETheatre York has paid the extra musical rights to be able to use Grease, You’re The One That I Want, Sandy and Hopelessly Devoted To You from the 1978 film. “They’re not normally in the musical but we really wanted to have them,” says Steve. Out go Drive In Movie, All Choked Up and It’s Raining On Prom Night.

“With songs like Hopelessly Devoted To You and There Are Worse Things (I Could Do), the text is incredible and says so much,” says musical director Scott Phillips. “They’re a good example of the how the songs pull the plot along and really show the character too, and that’s why Grease has stuck around down the years.”

From the keyboards, Scott will be leading a band featuring two tenor saxophones, two electric guitars, one bass guitar and drums. “The show verges on modern jazz in terms of its arrangements,” he says.

Scott has arranged a Grease Mega-Mix for a party mood to close the show. “We’re delighted to have been given permission to use it,” says Steve. “People will leave the theatre with that vibe.

“It’s all part of making it an experience to go to this show, whether it’s the glitter station at the theatre, the authentic Fifties’ costumes, or the mega-mix finale. You’ll know you’re at Rydell High from the moment you arrive, and we’ll be breaking down theatre’s fourth wall straightaway.

“We’ve even got a big neon Grease sign on stage in the shape of a car, made and delivered from China in only two weeks.””

NETheatre York in Grease The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 25 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Tickets update: first night, sold out; last few tickets for all other shows. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

Who will be playing the principal roles in NETheatre York’s Grease The Musical?

Finley Butler as Danny Zuko; Maia Beatrice as Sandy Dumbrowski; Melisaa Boyd, Rizzo; Calum Davis, Kenickie; Flyn Coultous, Roger; Mo Kinnes, Jan; Mat Clarke, Doody; Juliette Brenot, Frenchy; Kristian Barley, Sonny, Erin Greeley, Marty, Sam Richardson, Eugene, and Chloe Drake, Patty.

Did you know?

LOOK out for Maia Beatrice at York Maze, Elvington, this summer, hosting a trailer ride, playing characters and being a mascot. If you spot Corn on the Cob or the back end of a cow, between now and September 4, that will be Maia.

July 22, 2023September 4, 2023

More Things To Do in York and beyond. Advice? Ignore the rain. Consult Hutch’s List No. 30 for 2023, from The Press, York

*Finley Butler’s Danny Zuko and Maia Beatrice’s Sandy Dumbrowski in NETheatre York’s Grease at the JoRo Theatre*

GREASE is not the only word as Charles Hutchinson picks highlights aplenty for the weeks ahead, from comedy to puppetry, workshops to festivals, burlesque to blues.

Musical of the week: NETheatre York in Grease, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

STEVE Tearle directs University of Hull theatre student Finn Butler and Cleethorpes pantomime star Maia Beatrice in the lead roles in this celebration of the 1950s in its duck-tailed, bobby-soxed, gum-snapping glory.

The American high school dream is about to explode in this coming-of-age musical with its story of hot-rodding T-Bird Danny Zuko and the sweet new girl in town, Sandy Dumbrowski, whose secret summer romance resurfaces as they unexpectedly discover they are now at the same school. Tickets update: limited availability, so prompt booking is advised on 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

*Russell Howard: Two problem-solving shows in a day at Grand Opera House, York*

Comedy gig(s) of the week: Russell Howard, Grand Opera House, York, today, 3pm and 7.30pm

COMEDIAN Russell Howard plays two shows in a day in York on his 2023 tour, the afternoon gig having sold out already. As we reel from one global crisis to the next, the host of Russell Howard’s Good News and The Russell Howard Hour will be putting the world to rights. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

*The poster for this week’s Connect Festival, hosted by Four Wheel Drive*

Children’s activity of the weekend: Play In A Day with Four Wheel Drive, Connect Festival, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 10am

AIMED at ten to 14-year-olds, this action-packed, fast-paced, fun session will create a play based on a classic text in only four hours, guided by Connect Festival organisers Four Wheel Drive’s Educate creative team.Participants will showcase their work in the black-box theatre in front of an audience of family and friends at 4pm. Tickets: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*The Outside In plant studio owner Alice Maynard, who will lead tomorrow’s workshop at the Connect Festival*

Workshop of the week: Build A Mini Terrarium With The Outside In, Connect Festival, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 12.30pm

YORK plant studio The Outside In hosts a step-by-step guide to creating a sustainable miniature garden world, using tropical plants, mosses and decorative stones to bring the landscape to life.

The key words to describe Alice Maynard’s Sunday session are sustainability, mindfulness, creativity, relaxation and insightfulness as adults and children aged seven and over learn the history of terrariums. Each participant will be provided with a mystery mini-figure to help tell a story. Tickets: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*Lempen Puppet Theatre Company in Flotsam & Jetsam, on tour in Pocklington*

Family show of the week: Lempen Puppet Theatre Company in Flotsam & Jetsam, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 2.30pm

FLOTSAM is soft, flexible, laid back. She slides and glides through life on the ice. Jetsam is the opposite, his insectile body is stiff and nervy, alert and watchful, suspicious of all in his forest home. Both are cast adrift in a world that is strange to them and full of danger.

Finally washed up on the same island beach, these two very different creatures must discover the other and work together in a hope-filled adventure story, told with original music and puppetry, for four-year-olds upwards. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

*Public Service Broadcasting: Saturday headliners at next week’s Deer Shed Festival*

Festival of the week: Deer Shed Festival, Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, July 28 to 31

THE Comet Is Coming, Public Service Broadcasting and The Delgados take the music headline slots at Deer Shed 2023. Keep an eye out for Gaz Coombes, The Big Moon, This Is The Kit, Dream Wife, Gwenno, James Yorkston & Nina Persson, Rozi Plain, Elanor Moss and a DJ set by snooker legend Steve Davis & Kavus Torabi.

A science tent with AI album covers, comedy, sports, spoken word and literary events, workshops, theatre, cinema and well being all play their part in the four days too. For ticket availability, head to: deershedfestival.com.

Lily Monarch rules in the poster artwork for A Little Bit Of Everything at The Crescent

Could we interest you in…A Little Bit Of Everything? On show at The Crescent, York, next Saturday, 7.45pm to 11pm

IN a night of drag, cabaret, burlesque and comedy, Lily Monarch is joined by The Family Shambles and the crown jewels of York’s drag scene. Look out for Bodie Snatcher, Bailey Bubbles, Lois Carmen, Denominator, Wilhelmina Rose, Robynne Ryske, Luna Hex, Dick Fran Dyke, MX Fish Fingers, Tommy Boi, Reese Wetherspoon and York’s drag king boy band Boyz 2 Kings. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

*The poster for Cafe Mambo Ibiza Classics In The City at York Barbican*

House moves: Cafe Mambo Ibiza Classics In The City: A Night Of Timeless House Music, York Barbican, August 5, 8pm

AFTER two sell-out shows, iconic house music brand Cafe Mambo Ibiza completes a hattrick of York Barbican nights with Classics In The City, showcasing influential floor fillers from three decades, from CeCe Peniston’s Finally to Derrick May’s Strings Of Life.

On the decks will be Paul Oakenfold, Judge Jules, Danny Rampling and Erik Hagleton, complemented by live performances from Julie McKnight and Shingai. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Star Stone: Starring in #MeToo, her one-woman comedy show, at Theatre@41, Monkgate*

Fringe politics: Star Stone in #MeToo, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, August 3, 7.30pm

AMERICAN writer, actress, producer and playwright Star Stone presents her one-woman educational comedy #MeToo in York ahead of her Edinburgh Fringe debut next month.

“Sex cults with fake feminism, Pretend Shamans, Burning Man and Lower East Side nightclub ‘photographers’” all make an appearance in a hour-long show with 20-plus characters. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*On the road to the patio: Jess Gardham heads for York Theatre Royal*

Moody blues: Jess Gardham, York Theatre Royal patio, August 4, 6pm

YORK singer, songwriter and musical theatre actress Jess Gardham plays outdoors in an evening performance on the revamped Theatre Royal patio.

Jess has played on BBC Introducing, supported Paul Carrack, KT Tunstall, The Shires and Martin Simpson and starred in principal roles in Hairspray The Musical, Ghost The Musical and Rock Of Ages. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

July 22, 2023July 18, 2024

REVIEW: The 39 Steps, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until July 29 ****

*Niall Ransome, left, Olivia Onyehara, Dave Hearn and Lucy Keirl in the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s even better 2023 revival of The 39 Steps. Picture: Tony Bartholomew*

THE 39 Steps has enjoyed a happy association with Yorkshire, first in North Country Theatre founder Nobby Dimon and Simon Corble’s initial stage concept of taut thriller and comic release.

Next came Patrick Barlow’s frantically fast-moving yet unflappable West Yorkshire Playhouse adventure with seeds sown in the earlier show.

Barlow’s spiffing version has since played here, there and everywhere, first given Stephen Joseph Theatre comedic top spin by artistic director Paul Robinson in June 2018.

Five summers on, Robinson revisits that slick, playful jaffa of a show, with the promise of 39 new gags, one for each step, to supplement the elegance, eloquence and elasticity of this dapper and dastardly clever whodunit.

Niall Ransome is back from 2018, in the same role (make that multiple roles) but now called Clown 1, rather than Man. Significantly, he teams up with fellow Mischief maker Dave Hearn, duly mining the hugely popular Mischief brand for dextrous feats of physical comedy rooted in a battle of wits and will against chaos and catastrophe.

York audiences have experienced Hearn’s manic craft already this year in Original Theatre’s three-hander account of HG Wells’s The Time Machine, another comedy vehicle steered by a short-handed cast in a race against time.

On that occasion, in a play within a play conceit, his assertive, egotistical Dave Wells was in such a hurry, he wore tracksuit trousers and trainers.

This time, in a play with a novel and a film within it, Hearn is playing more of an old-fashioned, cigarette-card matinee idol, Richard Hannay, side-parting in his immaculate haircut, side splitting in his comic clambering on the Forth Bridge, reminiscent of a Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. Suspense in suspension.

This is but one of a series of scenes that re-creates setpieces from The Master’s movies, complemented by pastiches and references to other Hitchcock classics, with new additions among those 39 new jokes.

The novel is John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps; the film is Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 British spy thriller, based loosely on Buchan’s serialised 1915 work. Barlow and in turn Robinson marry the two together, gravely serious in replicating the tone and dramatic peaks of both against all logical odds, while finding comedy at every opportunity without turning everything into a stiff upped-lipped send-up.

This is Hearn’s skill too, serving Hannay’s dispirited mien first and foremost before the John Cleese school of alarm-bell comedy bursts through. Dashing and upright, yes, with pipe and pencil-slim moustache, but newly returned to his lonely Portland Place abode, he is tired of life and its mounting pile of problems. Feeling anything but alive in 1935. Suicidal even.

What he needs is…a night at the theatre (don’t we all, especially one like this!), only for a much bigger problem to ensue once there. Not only must he navigate his way through the hairpin bends of Buchan’s book and Hitchcock’s film, but now too he finds himself murder suspect number one when a mysterious German woman, Annabelle Schmidt (Olivia Onyehara), dies in his arms after insisting on leaving the London Palladium by his side, desperate to impart vital information.

In a moment typical of the comic invention in Hearn’s performance, he extricates himself from beneath the dead weight of the woman’s body by using the knife in her back as a lever.

Hannay must hot-foot it to Scotland by train. On his fluttering jacket tail are policemen, secret agents and assorted women, all delivered with elan by Ransome and Lucy Keirl’s Clown combo, parading accents and exaggerated characters stride by stride, sometimes side by side.

What cracking casting in Ransome making his return in tandem with Keirl, who is as delightful as she was in Nick Lane’s Cinderella at the SJT last winter.

Onyehara, a familiar name to Yorkshire credits lists from her work with Pilot Theatre, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, Hull Truck and York Theatre Royal, is terrific too. Not only as anguished Annabelle, but also as femme fatale Pamela and shy but far from retiring Scottish farmer’s wife Margaret, each drawn to the cut of Hannay’s jib.

Ever straight as Geoffrey Boycott’s bat at North Marine Road, Hearn’s narrator Hannay takes on whatever is thrown at him, defying the need to lead the story-telling with such limited resources, improvising emergency props and scenery, chalking up those extra gags amid the comic carnage.

Robinson’s 2023 company applies even quicker sleight of hand to Barlow’s spinning plates of verbal wit, theatrical anarchy, satirical savvy and visual panache, somehow pulling off their Hitchcock homage without a hitch.

Simon Slater’s sound design, compositions and nods to swing tunes play their part too, as do Helen Coyston’s fabulous, fun costumes and set design, stretched by Robinson’s direction beyond the SJT stage to the aisles and director’s box too.

Look out for the ushers blocking the exits at one particularly urgent moment. Even the theatre is against Hannay! Make sure you too are trapped in his breathless, befuddled world before this month is out. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

July 20, 2023July 31, 2023

York College’s first acting degree intake heads for a knockout climax at York Theatre Royal Studio tonight and tomorrow

*Jorgie Willingham’s Referee and Jim Carnall’s boxer Paul Stokes in rehearsal for The Sweet Science Of Bruising at York Theatre Royal. Picture: James Harvey*

FOR the knock-out show of the week in York, look no further than Joy Wilkinson’s The Sweet Science Of Bruising, staged at York Theatre Royal Studio tonight and tomorrow by the York College and University Centre’s first cohort of Acting for Stage and Screen BA students.

This epic tale of passion, politics and pugilism in the world of 19th-century women’s boxing forms their graduating production after two intense years at the Slim Balk Lane campus in Bishopthorpe

Set up in partnership with York Theatre Royal and Screen Yorkshire in 2021, the course is designed for a maximum intake each year of 16, 12 signing up in the first year and 11 in the second.

“Entry is based on rigorous auditions, with many more applications than places available,” says programme leader and acting lecturer James Harvey. “The youngest starter would be 18; the oldest, 37. There’s no age limit. It’s all about giving an opportunity.

“Lots of the students in the first year were the first from their family to go to university, so the aim is to offer high quality but not at a prohibitive expense.

“Setting up the course was wrapped in the idea that there needs to be a place in our region that has great accessibility and is affordable, doing a course over two years, when the vast majority of training takes place in London and courses around the country are out of people’s price range. Since Bretton Hall closed, there was nowhere to go around here, and we’ve changed that.”

Gaining the partnerships with York Theatre Royal and Screen Yorkshire gave the degree course momentum, and crucially too, it is endorsed by the Open University and is one of around 20 education providers in Great Britain and Ireland affiliated to the Spotlight Graduate Membership Scheme. The only other one in Yorkshire is based in Leeds.

The students have been undertaking two years of professional acting training under Harvey, who has been assisted by a team of experienced industry professionals, such as voice lecturer Yvonne Morley-Chisholm, who works regularly at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London; movement lecturers Jen Malarkey and Gemma O’Connor; professional development lecturers Niall Costigan and Cassie Vallance, both familiar figures from the York stage, and screen acting lecturer Kate Chappell.

External industry experts are invited frequently to share their knowledge with the students, while the Royal Shakespeare Company has delivered a workshop on motion capture.

“The students have done incredibly well, doing an accelerated two-year course rather than the usual three, so they only get the college breaks: two weeks at Christmas, two at Easter, then working through the summer, with two weeks off in September,” says James.

“The first-year students spend five weeks on a placement, whether at York Theatre Royal, Pilot Theatre in York, Talking Lens Pictures in Leeds, or Blackpool Grand Theatre, for example. Even Harvest Films in Sweden.

“That’s a big focus for us, the industry side of it, to go with Spotlight-recognised daily training, all day, every day, which gives credibility to what we’ve done for professional industry training.”

James has been impressed by the commitment of the first intake. “Some had done a foundation course at drama school but they wanted to come and do intensive training here, really buying into two years of living as actor-training monks,” he says.

As well as doing productions at York College and York Theatre Royal, students have worked with Screen Yorkshire at York Castle Museum last year and York Mansion House this year.

In May, York College University Centre staged its debut Graduate Showcase at the Theatre Royal, where the first graduating cohort exhibited their drama skills in a series of extracts from Patrick Marber’s Closer, Lucy Prebble’s The Effect, Matt Hartley’s Sixty Five Miles, Penelope Skinner’s Eigengrau, Evan Placey’s Consensual and Katherine Chandler’s Bird, played out in front of industry professionals on the lookout for talent.

A video of the performances is being sent out to agents unable to make the showcase. “It was a culmination of two years of professional actor training and gave our first cohort of actors an opportunity to present their work to the industry, which will launch them into successful careers for many years,” says James.

Now comes their final show, The Sweet Science Of Bruising, set in London, 1869, where four very different Victorian women are drawn into the dark underground of female boxing by the eccentric Professor Sharp. Controlled by men and constrained by corsets, each finds an unexpected freedom in the boxing ring as they fight inequality as well as each other.

“The students will still be with us throughout August, working on Creating My Own Work, which is like the practical equivalent of a dissertation, with full responsibility for everything they do in their ten-minute pieces,” concludes James.

York College BA (Hons) Acting for Stage and Screen Graduating Students in The Sweet Science Of Bruising, York Theatre Royal Studio, tonight and Friday, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Did you know?

JAMES Harvey is developing a musical with West End collaborators.

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023

REVIEW: York Theatre Royal in Sovereign, King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York, until July 30 ****

Sleuth and sidekick: Fergus Rattigan’s Matthew Shardlake with Sam Thorpe-Spinks’s Jack Barak in Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s Sovereign in the King’s Manor courtyard. Picture: Charlotte Graham

FIRST the bad news. Not the July weather forecast, but the Sold Out notices denoting you are too late to book for the rest of the fortnight run of this summer’s York Theatre Royal community play.

Such has been the demand to see Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s Tudor-set thriller in the very place where the biggest chunk of this best-selling sleuth story is set: King’s Manor, so re-named from the Abbot’s House to mark Henry VIII’s visit to the city with his latest queen du jour, Catherine Howard.

Staged in partnership with the University of York on its city campus, Sovereign plays out in the courtyard, the one with the tree at its epicentre and steps that add both height and dramatic statement to co-directors Juliet Forster, John R Wilkinson and Mingyu Lin’s grand production.

Aside from the front row, each capacity house of 240 is protected by a canopy from the rain, leaving the cast of 100 to battle with the elements, as they did last night and rather more so amid Saturday’s heavy downpours.

Kenny, a veteran of York outdoor productions from 2012’s The York Mysteries in the Museum Gardens and Blood + Chocolate on the city streets, even has Sovereign’s Greek chorus – or Women of York Chorus, to be precise – defy the rain with a knowing Yorkshire shrug. They will comment on a woman’s lot in Henry’s world with feminist ire too, resonating with the #MeToo era.

In our age of “levelling up”, but not levelling truthfully with the people, Kenny makes much of the north-south divide in Sovereign, right from the opening scene where Mark Gowland’s gouty, vainglorious Henry makes claim to godlike status, to the chagrin of Rosy Rowley’s no-nonsense God on a York Mystery Plays wagon on the other side of the stage.

As the play unfolds, towards its close after two hours and 45 minutes, Kenny makes a series of bullet pronouncements on the division between Protestant South and Papist North. Not only did Henry take land from Yorkshire landowners and dissolve the monasteries of God’s Own Country, but he put a stop to the Mysteries, seeing them as Catholic propaganda. History will tell you the wagons rolled on for a while longer, but then fell silent until the 1951 Festival of Britain.

Henry is a hated figure in York in Sansom’s story, as he seeks to impose the Royal Progress of 1541. The “Southerans” are unwelcome, not only “Fat Harry”, but also disabled lawyer Matthew Shardlake (Fergus Rattigan) and his Jack-the-lad Jewish sidekick, Jack Barak (University of York history and politics alumnus Sam Thorpe-Spinks).

Shardlake is mocked as a bottled spider by Henry, a crouchback by others; Joe Hooper’s Fulke Radwinter takes against Barak and Shardlake, taunting Barak about the events of March 16 1190, the Massacre of the Jews at Clifford’s Tower.

At Clifford’s Tower in Sovereign the body of Robert Aske, convicted of high treason by Henry, is still hanging five years after his execution in 1537. Plenty more bodies will pile up by the play’s end, more in the tradition of Jacobean tragedies.

Thorpe-Spinks has called Barak “Dr Watson to Shardlake’s Holmes”, but he rather more reminds you of Dennis Waterman’s Terry McCann in Minder with his feisty willingness to challenge all comers and eye for the ladies. Or one lady in particular, Livy Potter’s resourceful Tamasin Reedbourne, as Potter continues her run of winning performances in recent months.

Rattigan makes for a wily and worldly Shardlake, but lawyers have a bad name in this world – another dig delivered with comic timing in Kenny’s canny script – and so he becomes a more complex character as Sansom’s stinging story progresses. Not a conventional hero, not morally straight-backed, but remorseless as a Poirot. By comparison, Thorpe-Spinks’ lovable Barak is a little under-used, but then he is preoccupied with Potter’s Tamasin.

Shardlake and Barak have been sent north to keep an eye on political prisoner Edward Broderick (Nick Naidu-Bock, haunted and haunting), but the murder of a York glazier finds the plot thickening like a bechamel sauce.

So much is bubbling away in Sansom’s story: Matthew Page’s Giles Wrenne earnestly seeking to challenge Henry’s right to the throne; the Conspiracy at work; Scarlett Rowley’s insouciant Queen Catherine playing away from home with Josh Davies’s former beau Thomas Culpeper (or Culpepper in this version); Maurice Crichton’s curmudgeonly Yorkshireman Maleverer in peak scene-stealing form.

Not only does this community play have a chorus but an even larger York Ensemble for crowd scenes and dance numbers steered by movement director Hayley Del Harrison, and a King’s Ensemble for more north-south shenanigans.

The directing triumvirate achieves a balance between scenes on a physical grand scale and ones of more intimacy of a psychological nature. As for spectacle, look out for dramatic entrances by horses and a bear, courtesy of Animated Objects’ animal heads, and a cock-fighting scene too.

Dawn Allsopp’s set design works in happy union with King’s Manor, Hazel Fall’s costume designs are a Tudor delight and Craig Kilmartin’s lighting design plays to daylight’s progress into night. Out of view, to the side, apart from musical director Madeleine Hudson’s outstretched arms, is the choir, but their contribution is vital, commenting in song on what is ensuing through Dominic Sales’s wonderful compositions.

Yes, Sovereign could be shorter, and in a future staging it probably would be, but Mike Kenny has worked his Midas touch once more. York Theatre Royal is ahead of the game too: a television series of Sansom’s stories is on its way.

York giving Fat Harry the proverbial two fingers will live long in the memory.

Box office for returns only: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023

Bee Scott unveils queer sci-fi travelogue at Connect Festival tonight. Are you ready to play your part in a night of choices?

*Bee Scott’s poster for tonight’s Connect Festival performance of If You Find This*

QUEER science fiction theatre maker and University of York researcher Bee Scott presents the premiere of her new play, If You Find This, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, tonight (20/7/2023).

Forming part of the Innovate strand at Four Wheel Drive Theatre’s Connect Festival, the 50-minute interactive sci-fi travelogue invites audiences to make choices leading them to one of three possible endings each night.

“My production plays with game mechanics that let the audience change how they explore the universe, depending on what it is they hope to find. When you imagine the future, do you hope for love, adventure, or comfort in the familiar?” asks Bee.

What happens in If You Find This? “Earth is trashed, but space is vast! And you’ve stumbled on a bunch of messages from the first human intergalactic hitchhiker telling you exactly how to chart your way to safety,” says Bee.

All the messages seem to be addressed to her girlfriend. “They’re kind of private, but it’s probably fine? This is for survival,” says Bee. “The messages are a little jumbled up. But you’re smart and you’ve played those make-a-choice Netflix episodes before. Finding your way through the cosmos along with the other remnants of humanity should be easy. If she could make it, you can too, right?”

As for Bee’s own progress, born to an English father and American mother in Sacramento, the “city of trees” in California, Bee studied theatre at Occidental College, Eagle Rock, the only small liberal arts college in Los Angeles.

Holding dual citizenship, she moved to the UK in 2014 to do an MA in music theatre at Central School of Speech and Drama. Performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, voiceover work and new writing pieces in the sci-fi sphere ensued, leading to her first full-length play, Mission Creep, being mounted by Controlled Chaos Theatre Company in London after being developed from a series of 15-minute extracts with various companies.

Bee had been working front of house at the Old Vic too and had just started afternoon shifts as a receptionist for Hospice UK when the pandemic struck. “We still kept phonelines operational, so we were very, very busy, but I never worked at their office,” she says. “I only visited it for the interview and never saw those people again! Everything went onto Zoom.”

*Controlled Chaos Theatre Company in Bee Scott’s Mission Creep in 2019*

During lockdown too, Bee was working on a proposal for her PhD. “I got in touch with Louise LePage at the School of Arts and Creative Technologies, who’d been a speaker at an event I’d helped with, where she looked at robot actors.”

Bee duly left “lockdown London” for York two years ago to study for her creative practice PhD on the subject of “How we imagine the future of queer people through science-fiction theatre”.

“It’s been a mixture of looking back and looking forward as science-fiction always looks to the future, but then you can look back at how it influenced what we ended up doing, as well as looking at how those predictions worked out,” says Bee.

“I would say the easiest way to consider queer sci-fi is through the characters, for example the San Junipero episode in Black Mirror. The 2010s had a lot of queer sci-fi and audiences were primed and ready for it.

“Russell T Davies planted the seeds early in Doctor Who and has had such an influence on queer sci-fi culture, and there’s a lot happening in literature too.”

Historically, Bee says, the queer character is seen as the outsider. “The default position has the heroic white man as the main character, with the colonial settler narrative of going out and conquering the world,” she says.

“Whereas now writers can explore things from more perspectives with more people coming forward to offer their view, and that’s something that If You Find This plays with.”

For her PhD, Bee’s first step has been to “dive into queer theory in theatre and contemporary literature”. “I’ve refracted that theory through theatre and then, since last term, I’ve been able to mess around was able to mess around with interactive theatre, working with another practitioner, Anna Gallon, when she did a VR [virtual reality] musical in March,” she says.

“This interactive element is new for me, and If You Find This is my chance to get my feet wet with this form of theatre.”

If You Find This is a solo piece but with more than one central character. “There are two main characters and depending on the ending we arrive at, there could be a third character. Those alternative endings depend on how the audience on how the audience chooses to interact with other life forms,” says Bee.

“The way the play ends with all those different endings possible tells you there is a very definite sense that this exploration of where one is in the universe never finishes. There’s a lot in the play about finding home, finding a place of safety, and that’s not only for humans.”

Expect minimalism in Bee’s performance. “I’m a big fan of it, and it’s one of the most powerful things about sci-fi theatre,” she reasons.

Expect unpredictability too. “Tonight will be its first outing, and I want to see how it plays with an audience. I want to see how the audience vote works,” says Bee.

“There’s a ‘Game Master’ element to the show, the mechanism for choice that facilitates the options available to the audience and then guides them through each option they choose.

“But the interactive element is quite gentle. I’m not putting anyone on the spot. It’s a group effort. No spotlights!”

As for sci-fi’s desire to head into space, to expand our reach beyond Earth, Bee says: “It’s been interesting to watch certain people with all their money explore that vision of space travel, but I don’t think we’ll quite get there in my lifetime. Maybe in another generation after that. It feels like we need to clean up our own mess first.”

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, Bee is working on another project: making audio dramas. Watch this space…and watch Space too.

*Natasha Stanic Mann in The Return, tonight’s 8.45pm performance at the Connect Festival*

IF You Find This forms part of Connect Festival’s Non-Linear Narratives night at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. At 8.45pm, Natasha Stanic Mann performs her devised one-woman show, The Return, an immersive insight into the hidden consequences of war, directed by Andres Velasquez.

“The beaches are lovely. Remembering is crass, embarrassing and in poor taste. But to remember is to return,” says Natasha. “If we cannot return, where do we start from? Come to laugh, to cry and to feel awkward. Whatever it is, we will survive it – survival being an art. Or an embarrassment?”

The story, based on the experience of living in Croatia during the break-up of former Yugoslavia, is fragmented and collaged. “It unveils an aspect of family history and explores the surreal circumstances around a conflict building up and what goes into surviving it,” says Natasha.

Combining movement, storytelling and poetry, her piece explores how living through war has affected where Natasha is now.

Bee Scott: If You Find This, 7.30pm tonight; Natasha Stanic Mann: The Return, 8.45pm tonight, Connect Festival, Theatre@41 Monkgate, York. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*Connect Festival: “Enabling audiences to connect with one another and with new work”*

Four Wheel Drive’s Connect Festival: the 2023 back story

“TO us, enabling audiences to connect with one another and with new work is invigorating,” say Connect Festival organisers Four Wheel Drive.

Running from July 19 to 23 at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, the festival aims to connect York-based creatives with one another and the next stage in their career.

This week’s event not only connects York creatives with like-minded individuals and industry experts, but also enables networking across disciplines, as live arts, digital media and innovative technology connect to celebrate this city’s creative communities.

*Connect Festival offers York creatives the chance to broaden their horizons and network with others*

Connect Festival offers opportunities for people in York to connect with York’s creative and cultural scene. Festival guests include: Ben Porter, founder of NODE and York Creatives; Mary Stewart David, of Imminent XR; freelance York playwright and comedy sketch writer Paul Birch; Joe Rees-Jones, of XR Stories, and award-winning audio drama producer Kate Valentine.

Masterclasses, workshops, networking events and panels during the day and early evening offer York creatives the chance to broaden their horizons and network with others who share the same passions.

The evenings present theatrical performances, followed by late-night entertainment on selected days. After Friday evening’s two comedies, Joe Maddalena and Gianluca Scatto’s Self Help and Aidan Loft’s On The Rail, Freida Nipples Burlesque hosts burlesque performances of glitz and glamour in A Night With York’s Stars.

*In the frame: Joly Black and Anna Gallon, Four Wheel Drive’s co-producers for the Connect Festival, in the doorway of Theatre@41, Monkgate, York*

Following Saturday’s LGBTQ+ performances, Josh Maughan’s Nice Jewish Boy and Aidan Thompson-Coates in the collaborative work Contradicktion, the Family Shambles Drag troupe will be in action. Both evenings have limited tickets and are predicted to sell out fast.

Connect co-producer Anna Gallon is passionate about welcoming everyone to the festival, be they from a theatrical background or not: “If you want to pursue your creativity, then my question would be: why not? This is a positive and inspiring space where we want to know what you are creating and what you are interested in,” she says.

*The programme for the 2023 Connect Festival*

For co-producer Joly Black, this ties in with accessibility: “The success of Connect is all about opportunity; I want to create as many opportunities for people to learn, exploring their creativity in a low-risk environment, and build their network to step up their career,” he says.

“But in the end, if you want to be connected with the next stage of your career – theatrical or otherwise – to experiment with new technologies while meeting new people, or simply have a great time watching vibrant performances, come on down to the Connect Festival. We’ve got something for everyone!

“You can browse tickets at www.connectyork.co.uk with free events available. Book now to avoid disappointment as tickets are very limited.”

July 19, 2023July 19, 2023

Heritage pink is the ‘in’ colour as Bar Convent and New Visuality team up for young artists’ display embracing AI tech

*Bar Convent Overgrown (with pink), by Ethan Wood, from the Colour! display*

YOUNG York artists are adding a colourful twist to the city’s iconic heritage landmarks for a summer display at the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, Blossom Street.

Award-winning York arts charity New Visuality has worked with children aged five to create the fun, fresh and vibrant artworks, on show in the Colour! exhibition until September 23.

The combination of arts and culture continues in the Bar Convent garden, where an outdoor sketch space has been created with easels and drawing materials, with the invitation to take inspiration from the exhibition and collections to create your own artistic interpretations. Easels are subject to availability and weather permitting.

*Boom, by Evie Measor*, *at Clifford’s Tower*

Under New Visuality’s wing, York’s young artists have reimagined the city’s heritage bolstered by funding from City of York Council’s Micklegate, Clifton, and Westfield wards. They visited the Bar Convent and other heritage sites to find inspiration for their work.

Charity co-director Ails McGee says: “We always love coming over to Bar Convent Heritage Centre with groups of young people. Many of our young participants initially report that heritage and culture are just not for them, for one reason or another, but the warm welcome they receive as soon as they come here helps dispel that notion.

“It’s our job, as a visual charity, to build on the groundswell of enthusiasm and encourage creative responses that we can then exhibit.”

New Visuality spent time working in the Bar Convent archives, helping to realise the vision behind Colour! by briefing the young artists to take photos, find photos and use innovative AI technology for the first time to create digital pieces such as Ethan Wood’s Bar Convent Overgrown (with pink), Rosie Measor’s Beatles and Alfie Wood’s Hippopinkimus.

Co-director Greg McGee says: “Heritage without innovation is just history. This project has brought so much joy to our young artists and is a microcosm of what Bar Convent continues to do so well, which is to intersect tradition and technology. The future is indeed bright.”

Dr Hannah Thomas, Bar Convent’s special collections manager, says: “We’re thrilled to be involved in this wonderful project that has enabled us to host these amazing and talented young people.

*Hippopinkimus, by Alfie Wood*, *in Shambles beneath a pink sky*

“The purpose of sharing our collections and history with the public is to preserve the legacy of our house and to celebrate the lives of those who changed the course of history. The younger generations are custodians of this legacy.

“Many young people feel that museums are not for them, and perhaps have a perception of them being boring and dusty places. With the fantastic work done by New Visuality, we can begin to change that idea and show that heritage is for everyone.”

The Colour display is included in admission to the Bar Convent exhibition from 10am; last admission, 4pm. Tickets: 01904 643238 or barconvent.co.uk.