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More Things To Do in York and beyond as the eyes have it in museum’s new Roman display. List No. 77, courtesy of The Press

The Roman bust, key handle, plumb bob and horse and rider from the Ryedale Hoard at the Yorkshire Museum, York

FROM Roman remnants to re-discovered early Pink Floyd gems, Charles Hutchinson reveals highlights of the week ahead.

Exhibition of the week: The Ryedale Hoard, Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens, York, open daily during half-term, then Tuesday to Saturday from April 25

THE Yorkshire Museum has re-opened with the new exhibition The Ryedale Hoard: A Roman Mystery. For the first time, visitors can see some of Yorkshire’s most significant Roman objects, while exploring an intriguing archaeological mystery: who buried them 1,800 years ago?

Discovered by metal detectorists, on permanent show are a rare bust, made to adorn the top of a sceptre and thought to show Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from AD 161 to 180. An intricate figurine of a horse and rider, probably made in Britain, represents the god Mars.

A horse-shaped handle for a key, for magical purposes, may have been deliberately broken before burial. A plumb bob, large and finely created, would have been a weight for establishing a “plumb” vertical line. To book tickets: yorkshiremuseum.org.

Living for today: Bite My Thumb Theatre Company in Rent The Musical at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

York musical of the week: Bite My Thumb Theatre Company in Rent The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm

ARTISTIC director Neil Knipe directs Bite My Thumb in a spring tour of Jonathan Larson’s ground-breaking 1994 American musical about falling in love, finding your voice and living for today.

Set in the East Village of New York City, Rent follows a year in the life of a bohemian group of impoverished young artists, struggling to survive as they negotiate their dreams, loves and conflicts. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

 Forever thinking up new rules for Crunchem Hall Primary School: Joshua Lewis’s headmistress Miss Trunchbull in Ryedale Youth Theatre’s Matilda Jr The Musical

Ryedale musical of the week: Ryedale Youth Theatre in Matilda Jr The Musical, Tuesday to Saturday, 7pm; 3pm matinees, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

BORN with astonishing wit, intelligence, a vivid imagination and special powers, school pupil Matilda rebels against the mean, monstrous, rule-ridden regime of headteacher Miss Trunchbull.

Scripted by Dennis Kelly with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin, Matilda Jr is packed with multiple featured roles. Given the profusion of young Ryedale talent, director Chloe Shipley has decided on double casting to give everyone who auditioned the opportunity to perform in the principal parts. Box office: yourboxoffice.co.uk.

BalletBoyz: Deluxe dance delight at Grand Opera House, York, on Monday

Dance return of the week: BalletBoyz Deluxe, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 7.30pm

MICHAEL Nunn and William Trevitt’s BalletBoyz return to York with what began as the boisterous, bold company’s 20th anniversary show but is now running into a 23rd year.

Eight young dancers interweave in two mesmeric dances, fused with the BalletBoyz’ trademark witty use of film and behind-the-scenes content.

Deluxe features a commission from choreographer Xie Xin and composer Jiang Shaofeng, followed by a collaboration between Punchdrunk’s Maxine Doyle with jazz musician and composer Cassie Kinoshi, from SEED Ensemble. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Dance, dance, wherever they may be, they are the Lord Of The Dance dancers, arriving for a four-night run at York Barbican

Anniversary show of the week: Michael Flatley’s Lord Of The Dance, York Barbican, Monday to Thursday, 8pm

MICHAEL Flatley’s Lord Of The Dance show is “going to the next level” in 2022 for its 25th anniversary travels, wherein high-energy Irish dancing combines with original music, storytelling and sensuality.

Expect new staging, costumes and choreography plus cutting-edge technology, special effects and lighting, in a production featuring 40 young performers directed by Flatley, dancing to new compositions by Gerard Fahy as tradition meets the excitement of the innovative. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

News headliners: Harry Gration and Christine Talbot fronting A Grand Yorkshire Night Out at York Theatre Royal

Yorkshire event of the week: A Grand Yorkshire Night Out with Harry Gration & Christine Talbot, York Theatre Royal, Monday, 7.30pm

YORKSHIRE broadcasting legends Harry Gration and Christine Talbot, formerly of the BBC’s Look North and ITV’s rival Calendar respectively, join forces to host a journey down memory lane on a rare occasion these friends will have presented together.

The duo look back at memorable stories, plus a smattering of their crazier fundraising exploits, from tandem rides and a sofa push to Harry being tied to weather presenter Paul Hudson for days on end. 

Special guests will be production team members from the original All Creatures Great And Small series, Leeds band The Dunwells and Harry’s musical son, Harrison, singing songs from the shows. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Barry Humphries: Revealing The Man Behind The Mask in first performance for three years

Confessions of the week: Barry Humphries, The Man Behind The Mask, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm

BARRY Humphries takes to the stage for the first time in three years on Wednesday to reveal The Man Behind The Mask, playing the Grand Opera House in the only Yorkshire show of his 2022 tour

The Australian actor, comedian, satirist, artist, author and national treasure, aged 88, conducts a revelatory trip through his colourful life and theatrical career in an intimate, confessional evening, seasoned with highly personal, sometimes startling and occasionally outrageous stories of Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson, four marriages et al. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets: Re-visiting Pink Floyd’s early days

Pink Floyd show of the week: Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, York Barbican, August 16, 7.30pm

PINK Floyd drummer Nick Mason teams up with Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp, Guy Pratt, Lee Harris and Dom Beken for this re-arranged show with original tickets still valid.

The 2022 tour finds Mason and co further expanding their repertoire on a journey of Pink Floyd re-discovery, playing songs from their early catalogue up to the 1972 album Obscured By Clouds. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Oh, and another thing

THIS is the second weekend of York Open Studios, 10am to 5pm today and tomorrow. Go discover at yorkopenstudios.co.uk.

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‘You must realise as an actor you’re naturally ridiculous,’ a director told Barry Humphries. Cue Dame Edna and Sir Les

Hat’s off to Barry Humphries for revealing the man behind the mask at the Grand Opera House next Wednesday

BARRY Humphries will reveal The Man Behind The Mask at the Grand Opera House, York, on April 13.

This one-man show comes fully eight years after his supposedly valedictory Yorkshire visit in February 2014, when the creator of Dame Edna Everage presented Eat Pray Laugh!, Barry Humphries’ Farewell Tour in a five-night run at Leeds Grand Theatre.

Now, in the only Yorkshire show of his 2022 tour, the veteran Australian actor, comedian, satirist, artist, author and national treasure will take a revelatory trip through his colourful life and theatrical career in an intimate, confessional evening, seasoned with highly personal, sometimes startling and occasionally outrageous stories of Dame Edna et al.

Peeling off his mask at the age of 88 to introduce the man behind the clown, Humphries says: “This is a show in which I am the principal character; it’s not Les [Sir Les Patterson], it’s not Edna, it’s not Sandy Stone. It is really about this character called ‘me’. I’m not in disguise.”

Superstar Melbourne housewife Dame Edna’s sequined frocks and uncouth Sydney cultural attaché Sir Les’s food-spattered ties may make cameo appearances – or “interruptions” – in film clips, but the primary focus will be on Humphries relating anecdotes and observations from life on and off stage.

“Frankly, I thought it would be a little easier. No need to dress up,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of extremely interesting, colourful, scary, joyous experiences in my life – and I’m quite good with audiences.”

Humphries premiered The Man Behind The Mask in Australia, where it was “very, very successful”. “In a way, it was my out-of-town try-out. Now I’m bringing it here,” he says. “I’ve written the whole show plus a new song called Alone At Last, which would bring a tear to a glass eye.’”

When he appears at the Grand Opera House next Wednesday, Humphries will be setting foot on stage for the first time in nearly three years. Is he scared? “Oh no, I’ll get back in the groove very quickly,” he asserts.

Reflecting on his stage renaissance at 88, Humphries says: “Yes, but it’s not as though I’m going to pass away mid-performance like poor Tommy Cooper. But is it brave? On the contrary, I’ve always thought of myself as quite cowardly. The sound of a cricket bat hitting a ball invariably causes me to duck.”

First and foremost, Humphries’ show is a comedy. “The most important thing is to get that first laugh. Then I’ll be back in my comfort zone,” he says.

Hello, possums! Barry Humphries in superstar Melbourne housewife Dame Edna Everage mode

It was ever thus. After working in the wholesale department at EMI in his native Melbourne for a year in his late teens, he was taken on by Australia’s only touring repertory theatre company and was cast as Prince Orsino in Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night. “Or should I say miscast? I had to wear tights and, when I walked on stage, I thought I heard a titter running round the audience,” recalls Humphries.

“Immediately, I tried to disguise the bottom half of my body. After three performances, the director said that my entrance was terrible. Why was I skulking behind the furniture?

“I explained that I thought my legs were ruining this serious play. He assured me his wife was of the opinion that I had very good legs, but then he added: ‘You must realise as an actor that you’re naturally ridiculous’.”

“Naturally ridiculous”, Barry? “Now, some people might regard that as a bit of an insult. I was 18 at the time and it could have shaken my confidence, but it didn’t,” says Humphries. “What it made me realise was that I was in the wrong department of theatre. Whether I liked it or not, I belonged in comedy.”

At the time, he considered himself to be a painter, mostly of landscapes, but caricatures too. Once at university, however, he began writing sketches for revues in the style of Noel Coward or Terence Rattigan.

‘Later on, I tried my hand at writing about what was in front of me,” Humphries says. “No-one at the time wrote about Australia in general and the suburbs in particular.”

Come the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956, the repertory company director decided to present a revue and asked the 22-year-old Humphries to contribute material.

“There weren’t enough hotel rooms in the city, so people were encouraged to let international athletes stay in their spare rooms, so I wrote a sketch about a housewife called Edna who invited a muscular sportsman into her home,” he recalls.

In that first incarnation, Edna was “rather shy, very suburban, a little dowdy”. “But, in time, that changed. It was as though she started to assert herself,” says Humphries. “I’d wake up one day and she’d acquired those trademark glasses. Her confidence grew. Suddenly, there was an invalid husband, Norm; a gay son; a delinquent daughter, a silent bridesmaid, Madge.

“She took on a life of her own. It was as though she’d started writing her own script. I’d be on the side, observing with some admiration, Edna’s quips.”

Barry Humphries in ‘Early Edna’ days

Nevertheless, by the early 1960s, Humphries decided that Edna had run her course. “But no, she proved indestructible, and she’s turned out to be a very useful mouthpiece,” he reappraises. “She can say things, for instance, about political correctness that I couldn’t possibly express.”

The same freedom applies to Sir Les’s coarse outbursts. “Absolutely. For example, I never swear in real life,” says Humphries. “Both characters are wonderful outlets. I’m very careful myself about what I might say. Edna and Sir Les, on the other hand, can point to the nudity of the emperor.”

Off stage, Humphries has conducted a somewhat lively private life. Married four times and father to two daughters from his second marriage and two sons from his third, he and fourth wife, Lizzie, tied the knot in 1990. Why has marriage endured this time? “Oh, because I’m a bit smarter now,” he says.

“The truth is that I’m not a very easy person to be married to. For over ten years of my life, I had a serious alcoholic illness.” So much so, his out-of-control drinking culminated in Humphries being found unconscious in an Australian gutter.

“I’d been beaten up, almost certainly by two or three policemen who I’d been cheeky to – let us say – the previous day. They didn’t like that and took their revenge,” he says.

It was to prove a turning point. ‘If you’re dependent on alcohol for your happiness or your comfort or merely to function, it’s not only degrading but you head in one direction – and that’s downwards,” Humphries says.

“I finally put the cork in the bottle when I was 38 and I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol from that day to this. But I know many alcoholics who have chastening experiences and yet carry on drinking.”

His long-held philosophy is to live in the present. “That’s a very hard thing to do but a very good spiritual exercise,” Humphries says. “I’m happier since the arrival of my grandchildren. I’m relating to them in a way I didn’t get round to doing with my own children. That’s a major regret. I’m trying to make up for the years lost to alcoholism.”

Barry Humphries, The Man Behind The Mask, Grand Opera House, York, April 13, 7.30pm, with an opportunity for audience questions. Tickets update: Still available on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/york.

By Charles Hutchinson and Richard Barber. Copyright of The Press, York

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How America and Britain bonded magically for Penn & Teller’s hit show with Mischief

Magic Goes Wrong: Magical mayhem at York Theatre Royal from April 26

AMERICAN comedy magicians Penn & Teller have been sawing the magic rulebook in half for five decades. Now they have teamed up with British masters of mishap Mischief for Magic Goes Wrong, heading for York Theatre Royal on tour from April 26 to May 1.

Teller, 74, and Penn Jillette, 67, have long specialised in combining bamboozling illusions with dark comedy, their magic often seeming to go horribly wrong in its combination of comic danger, sometimes gore, even violence.

Their notorious habit of repeatedly revealing to the audience exactly how their tricks work has long prevented the duo from being members of the Magic Circle. Not that they mind. Far from it. patter-merchant Penn and the silent Teller revel in the illusion of chaos, typified by one of their stage shows beginning with a giant fridge falling on the pair, apparently crushing them. 

Meanwhile, the Mischief team of Henry Shields, Henry Lewis, and Jonathan Sayer have delivered such calamitous comedy hits as The Play That Goes Wrong, Peter Pan Goes Wrong and The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, along with the BBC One series The Goes Wrong Show, where the comedy is rooted in the show-must-go-on spirit of the straight-faced cast members determinedly defying everything collapsing around them.

Penner & Tell plus Mischief equalled the perfect match in the making. Sure enough, in 2019, the Americans announced they would be teaming up with the Brits. Cue Magic Goes Wrong opening in the West End, London, and subsequently casting a spell on tour.

How did the marriage in magical mayhem come to fruition? A few years ago, Penn & Teller were performing in London when Penn’s family decided they wanted to see a West End show. “I don’t go to comedy theatre at all,” recalls Penn.

Penn & Teller: Revelling in the illusion of chaos

“I like theatre to be deadly dull, slow and depressing, but my wife and children picked The Play That Goes Wrong. I realised that not only was my family laughing harder than I’ve ever seen them, but I was too.” Immediately, he told Teller to book a ticket. 

Despite being known for his onstage silence, it was Teller who started discussions with Shields, Lewis and Sayer, Mischief’s artistic directors. “I am more shy than Teller, so it never crossed my mind to go backstage,” says Penn. “But Teller took himself backstage and said, ‘hey I’m a star’!”

Teller insists it was a somewhat different story: “As I was sitting in my seat, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘You’re Teller, aren’t you? The cast wants to give you free ice cream’. So, afterwards, I went backstage to thank the cast and compliment them, because it really was one of the finest shows I’ve ever seen.”

What’s more, Penn had mentioned to Teller that the show featured a magic trick. “He told me there’s a moment where a person reappears in a grandfather clock, and it’s going to fool you,” Teller explains. “And he was right. It absolutely fooled me. So, I said to the Mischief guys, ‘You do stuff that is so much like magic, we should do something together sometime’.” 

A few months later, all five of them were eating homemade pancakes at Teller’s Las Vegas house and plotting a new stage show. Working with unfamiliar people was a new experience for Penn & Teller who, despite decades in show business, rarely collaborate beyond the two of them. Teller has directed two Shakespeare plays, as well as a documentary film, but for Penn it was nerve-wracking. 

What could possibly go wrong? Magic Goes Wrong up to its tricks on tour

“Teller and I have a dynamic that we’ve built over 46 years, so this was a huge leap of faith,” he says. “We couldn’t go out to dinner with these guys; we had to jump straight into bed. We were told: ‘they are going to be here at 10am on Wednesday and you’ll start writing your show. You won’t even know which one is Jonathan and which ones are Henry [times two]. But it took about 20 minutes before I felt like I was around my closest friends.”

Shields, Lewis and Sayer spent a week and a half putting together the show’s bones in a small side room off the stage of The Rio hotel, where Penn & Teller are the longest-running headline act in Las Vegas history. Penn & Teller taught the team magic – “they picked it up incredibly quickly” – and  suggested tricks to include, while the Mischief trio improvised dialogue and story. 

Just as Mischief were excited to be working with two of their heroes, Penn & Teller were no less in awe of Mischief’s talent.  “There was one moment Henry (Lewis) and Jonathan said, ‘it could kind of go like this’, and then the two of them did a five-minute improvisation,” recalls Penn.

“Now, I have sat in a room with Lou Reed playing Sweet Jane four feet from me. I’ve talked to Richard Feynman about physics. I’ve spoken to Bob Dylan. But I said, ‘this is a moment I will bookmark for the rest of my life’.

“I felt like I was watching the Pythons at their peak, and I thought, ‘this is why I’m in showbiz: to be that near that level of talent and skill’. And when I’m on my deathbed listing the 100 artistic events of my life, that moment will be there.”

Tricky! Magic Goes Wrong combines the trick that goes wrong with the trick that dazzles the audience

Roll on a few more sessions and the show had come together, its storyline built around a disastrous fundraising benefit. However, by adding the trademark Goes Wrong approach, all the tricks had to work on two levels: there had to be the trick that goes wrong, and then the trick that dazzles the audience.

How did they devise these illusions? As Teller explains, the process can be laborious. “You get an idea, which is usually quite grand, then you find that it’s impossible, and you revise it over and over again until it works.

“There’s a trick in the show where one of the cast members gets accidentally sawed in half by a buzzsaw. That was more than a year of work. Part of the trick involves blood, but if you just show the blood on stage, it looks boring; it has no impact at all.

“So a big part of the buzzsaw trick for us was developing it in such a way that when the blood came, it would be sprayed up against a huge backdrop where you could truly enjoy the bright red colour.”

While on the subject of blood and buzzsaws, Magic Goes Wrong is more comically gory than Mischief’s previous work. Was that Penn and Teller’s influence? “Guilty!” says Penn. 
“I’m afraid it might have something to do with us,” Teller admits. “We think that gore is essentially funny. It’s really hard to pull off serious gore in the theatre because people tend to want to laugh. They know that it’s fake, but they see that it looks real. And that’s very much like a magic trick.”

“We don’t ever allow the possibility of something going seriously wrong because if we did, we wouldn’t have been working successfully for 46 years,” says Teller

Penn & Teller’s work thrives on this clash of instinct and intellect. “What you want to do is get the visceral and the intellectual to collide as fast as possible,” says Penn. “It’s like being on a rollercoaster: I’m safe; no, I’m not; I’m safe; no, I’m not. Those two parts of your body are fighting.”

Despite Mischief and Penn & Teller having built their careers on making it appear that everything is going horrifically wrong, they insist that mishaps are incredibly rare in real life. “While we’re rehearsing, we might get a minor cut or bruise,” says Teller. “But we don’t ever allow the possibility of something going seriously wrong because if we did, we wouldn’t have been working successfully for 46 years.”

Indeed absence of safety angers Penn & Teller, who show disdain for “edgy’ magicians who put themselves in actual physical danger, even lampooning them in the show with the character of The Blade, who puts his limbs on the line for art’s sake.

“If you want to see someone actually get hurt, go watch NASCAR [ferocious high-speed car racing with frequent crashes],” says Penn. “If you want your art to be dangerous, stay away from me.” 

Teller concurs: “Anytime I hear that in the making of a movie somebody was actually injured or killed, I’m angry about that, because art is what you do for fun.” The paradox of the magician duo’s work, and of Magic Goes Wrong too, is that everything must be incredibly safe precisely in order to make it look so dangerous.

Magic Goes Wrong: “A full magic show and a full comedy show,” says Penn

For Penn, what makes Magic Goes Wrong so right is the combination of magic and comedy. “It’s a full magic show and a full comedy show happening at the same time,” he says.

Teller highlights a deeper, more unexpected layer to the show: “What’s interesting to me is how well it reflects the actual culture of the magic world,” he says. “It’s mostly populated by well meaning, very nice amateurs. And there is a great, heart-tugging beauty about that to me.

“The poignancy of the magic trick that isn’t quite achieved, where your aspirations are to behave in a godlike manner, and instead you’re slapped in the face by reality – I think that’s such a beautiful thing. That’s what this show is about. It has all these laughs and all these wild, crazy moments, but when it lands at the end, it’s about the sweetness of friends who love magic.”

Mischief and Penn & Teller’s Magic Goes Wrong appears at York Theatre Royal from April 26 and vanishes from York after May 1; performances, 7.30pm, plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday. Please note, show co-creators Penn & Teller will not be appearing on stage.

What happens in Magic Goes Wrong?

A HAPLESS gang of magicians is staging an evening of grand illusions to raise money for charity, but as the magic turns to mayhem, accidents spiral out of control, so does the fundraising target. Cue dare-devil stunts, jaw-dropping feats and magical mishaps.

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More Things To Do in York to celebrate losing an hour’s lie-in tonight. Clock in to List No. 75, courtesy of The Press, York

Quick step: Jake Quickenden as dancing cowboy Willard in Footloose The Musical at York Theatre Royal

FROM Holding Out For A Hero to Search For The Hero, Charles Hutchinson is on a quest to find heroic deeds and much else to entertain you.

Musical of the week: Footloose at York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday

DANCING On Ice champ Jake Quickenden rides into York as cowboy Willard and musicals stalwart Darren Day plays Reverend Moore in Racky Plews’s touring production of Footloose The Musical.

Reprising the 1984 film’s storyline, teenage city boy Ren is forced to move to the rural American backwater of Bomont, where dancing and rock music are banned. Taking matters into his own hands, soon he has all hell breaking loose around him and the whole town on its feet. 

The set design, by the way, is by Sara Perks, who designed York Theatre Royal’s open-air show Around The World In 80 Days last summer and Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in York. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Reunited: EastEnders soap stars Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett in the chilling thriller Looking Good Dead

Thriller of the week: Looking Good Dead, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday

AFTER playing bickering husband and wife Ian and Jane Beale in EastEnders for years and years, Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett are re-uniting, this time on stage in Shaun McKenna’s stage adaptation of Peter James’s thriller Looking Good Dead.

No good deed goes unpunished in this story of Woodyatt’s Tom Bryce inadvertently witnessing a vicious murder, only hours after finding a discarded USB memory stick.

Reporting the crime to the police has disastrous consequences, placing him and his family in grave danger. When Detective Superintendent Roy Grace becomes involved, he has his own demons to face while he tries to crack the case in time to save the Bryces’ lives. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Writer, journalist and historian Simon Jenkins: Appearing at York Literature Festival

Festival event of the week: York Literature Festival presents Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals with Simon Jenkins, St Peter’s School, Clifton, York, tonight, 7pm

FOR Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals, former editor of the Evening Standard and The Times Simon Jenkins has travelled the continent, from Chartres to York, Cologne to Florence, Toledo to Moscow, to illuminate old favourites and highlight new discoveries.

Tonight he discusses the book’s exploration of Europe’s history, the central role of cathedrals in the European imagination and the stories behind these wonders. Box office: yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk.

That Old Devil Moon, by Richard Kitchen, from Navigators Art’s Moving Pictures exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse

Exhibition of the week: Navigators Art in Moving Pictures, City Screen Picturehouse café and first-floor gallery, until April 15

FROM December’s ashes of the Piccadilly Pop Up Collective studios and gallery in the old York tax office, Navigators Art have re-emerged for a spring exhibition at City Screen.

For their first post-lockdown project, founder Navigators Steve Beadle and Richard Kitchen have invited fellow artist and teacher Timothy Morrison to join them for Moving Pictures: From Fan Art To Fine Art.

“The title is deliberately ambiguous, and we’ve responded to it accordingly,” says Richard. “There are works that relate to cinema and other media but also many of which interpret ‘Moving’ in other ways.”

BC Camplight: Examining madness and loss at The Crescent, York

Rearranged York gig of the week: BC Camplight, supported by Wesley Gonzales, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

MOVED from March 10, BC Camplight’s gig in York highlights the final chapter of his “Manchester trilogy”, Shortly After Takeoff.

“This is an examination of madness and loss,” says BC, full name Brian Christinzio. “I hope it starts a long overdue conversation.”

Fired by his ongoing battle with mental illness, Shortly After Takeoff follows 2018’s Deportation Blues and 2015’s How To Die In The North in responding to BC’s move from his native Philadelphian to Manchester. Cue singer-songwriter classicism, gnarly synth-pop and Fifties’ rock’n’roll. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps and George Stagnell’s Will Shakespeare in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

York premiere of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Shakespeare In Love, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 1 to 9

LEE Hall’s 2014 stage adaptation of Shakespeare In Love, the Oscar-winning film written by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman, celebrates the joys of theatre in Pick Me Up’s first show of 2022.

Directed by Mark Hird, it recounts the love story of struggling young playwright Will Shakespeare (George Stagnell) and feisty, free-thinking noblewoman Viola de Lesseps (Sanna Jeppsson), who helps him overcome writer’s block and becomes his muse.

Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will’s love for Viola blossoms, inspiring him to write Romeo And Juliet. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Heather Small: Proud moment at York Barbican

Voice of the week: Heather Small, York Barbican, April 2, 7.30pm

BILLED as “The voice of M People”, soul singer Heather Small will be combining songs from her Nineties’ Manchester band with selections from her two solo albums.

As part of M People, she chalked up hits and awards with Moving On Up, One Night In Heaven and Search For The Hero and the albums Elegant Slumming, Bizarre Fruit and Fresco. The title track of her Proud album has since become a staple at multiple ceremonies.

At 57, she will never be one to rest on her laurels: “If you got the feeling I do when I sing, you’d understand,” she reasons. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Steven Jobson (Jekyll/Hyde) gets to grips with Matthew Ainsworth (Simon Stride) in rehearsals as York Musical Theatre Company director Matthew Clare looks on

Book early for: York Musical Theatre Company in Jekyll & Hyde The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, May 25 to 28

FLOOR rehearsals are well under way for York Musical Theatre Company’s spring production under the direction of Matthew Clare, who is delighted by how the cast is responding and supporting each other.

The epic struggle between good and evil in Jekyll & Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of myth and mystery on London’s fog-bound streets, comes to stage life in Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s pop-rock musical, where love, betrayal and murder lurk at every chilling twist and turn.

YMTC are running an early bird discount ticket offer with the promo code of JEKYLL22HYDE when booking at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk by April 10.

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‘A theatre critic knows the way but not how to drive’. Ouch! Here comes the podcast verdict on Richard Bean’s riotous new play

Joanna Holden’s caustic landlady, Mrs Snowball, and Adrian Hood as her franker than frank son, Our Seth, in Hull Truck Theatre’s premiere of Richard Bean’s 71 Coltman Street

TWO Big Egos In A Small Car podcasters Graham Chalmers & Charles Hutchinson discuss Richard Bean’s Hull of a good new play, 71 Coltman Street.

Under debate too are Russia sanctions, Tchaikovsky and the arts; Barenaked Ladies’ non-PC moniker and Benny Hill; Harry Sword’s drone music book, Monolithic Undertow, plus Harrogate’s strangely Hollywood street names.

Episode 82 awaits you at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10259934

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Maggie Fox, York actress and LipService Theatre satirist, RIP. A tribute

Maggie Fox, left, and comedy partner Sue Ryding in Lip Service’s award-winning show Withering Looks

YORK actress Maggie Fox, one half of the long-running satirical comedy duo LipService Theatre, has died after a “catastrophic accident”.

In a statement on the company’s website, co-founder Sue Ryding says: “It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of Maggie Fox, my comedy partner of 40 years and co-artistic director of LipService.

“Maggie passed away yesterday with her family around her. Consequently the Spring Tour of Chateau Ghoul has been cancelled. As you can imagine I am completely heartbroken.”

Maggie and Sue met when studying drama at Bristol University in the 1970s. “We were in a very serious production of Ibsen’s The Lady For The Sea but for some reason the audience was on the floor laughing,” recalls Sue.

“A tragedy for Ibsen – he was good at those – but the launch of an epic comedy partnership. Our theatre company LipService was officially launched in 1985 and we have written 22 original comedies, touring all over the world, managing to have children in between!

Maggie Fox, back, and Sue Ryding in LipService Theatre’s Scandi-noir spoof Inspector Norse

“It’s notoriously difficult to present new work in theatre and we are really proud that we managed to do so and to build an audience for it.”

LipService had been touring their latest two-hander, the haunted house thriller Chateau Ghoul, written, produced and performed by Maggie and Sue with a multi-media combination of on-stage live humour and digital projections.

Sue did give one performance with an understudy, but following Maggie’s death, the tour has been discontinued. “Maggie is irreplaceable and so, reluctantly, Sue Ryding and the rest of the company have decided we must cancel the remaining dates of the upcoming tour,” read LipService’s first announcement released to such venues Pocklington Arts Centre, where regular visitors Maggie and Sue had been booked to perform on March 26.

“We appreciate that this will come as a great shock to our wonderful and loyal followers. We would like to thank them for their understanding at this difficult time and for their valued and much cherished support over the years.

Sue’s LipService website statement continues: “We are still all in a state of shock as this was very sudden following an accident. We had planned a new digital version of Chateau Ghoul, which we had already filmed, which will be shared with you later in the year in memory of Maggie, plus some live events using the huge amount of digital footage we thankfully have archived. Details to be published when have a plan.

Maggie Fox, right, and Sue Ryding in their latest show, the haunted house thriller Chateau Ghoul

“Thank you for supporting us over all these years; we are so lucky to have such a loyal audience. We do hope you will join us to celebrate Maggie’s comedy genius later in the year.”

Janet Farmer, director of Pocklington Arts Centre, paid tribute to Maggie. “We have welcomed Maggie and Sue as LipService Theatre for 15-plus years; they have always been hugely popular with many sell-out performances of their wonderful spoof shows based on literary classics.

“I, along with my colleagues, am shocked and devastated to hear the tragic news of Maggie’s death. It is obviously a huge loss to Sue and to Maggie’s family but also to the touring theatre circuit. 

“Maggie and Sue were a unique duo presenting their laugh-out-loud shows. They even continued with on-line versions of their shows during the pandemic. We are very sad not to be presenting their Chateau Ghoul this Saturday.”

Maggie, the very tall one from Yorkshire, and Sue, the rather shorter one from the other side of the Pennines, toured nationally and internationally to the United States, Germany, Eastern Europe and Pakistan.

Maggie Fox, right, and Sue Ryding in LipService Theatre’s Strangers On A Train Set

An inseparable, instinctive, inventive, mischievous, less-is-more, only-us-against-the-odds double act, they presented such savvy, gently anarchic shows as their Bronte Sisters send-up Withering Looks; Strangers On A Train Set; Inspector Norse; Knit One Murder One; The Picture Of Doreen Gray; Mr Darcy Loses The Plot and Desperate To Be Doris (the musical comedy one they did with a 50-piece community choir in York).

Not forgetting Jane Bond, their James Bond satire in Live And Let’s Dye; Very Little Women; Horror For Wimps; Move Over Moriarty, Women On The Verger; King Arthur & The Knights Of The Occasional Table; B-Road Movie!, Tony & Twizzle, The Glory Years, and Margaret III Parts Two and Three, all subjected to their microscope of mirth.

York Theatre Royal was one of multiple collaborators, along with Oldham Coliseum; The Lowry, Salford; The Brindley, Runcorn; The New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme; Greenwich Theatre, London; Watford Palace and Barclays Stage Partner

Described as the “Laurel & Hardy of literary deconstruction” by the Guardian, “Britain’s favourite literary lunatics” by the Independent and “an unstoppable force for comic inventiveness” by Time Out magazine, Maggie and Sue won the Critics’ Award for Comedy for both Withering Looks and Knot One Murder One at the Edinburgh Fringe; the Manchester Theatre Awards Stage Door Award for Excellence in 2013 and the Manchester Evening News Award for Withering Looks.

LipService duo Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding with Darren Southworth in their Doris Day celebration, Desperate To Be Doris

To complement their mainstream theatre , Maggie and Sue worked with heritage organisations on site-specific events, such as  the Bronte Parsonage Museum, in Haworth; Elizabeth Gaskell’s House; the National Trust at Quarry Bank, Wilmslow, Cheshire; Manchester Histories Festival; European City of Science and Stockport Council.

LipService hosted series on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 4, made television appearances and were commissioned by the Bronte Parsonage to film Withering Looks, The Movie!, shot on location at the Brontes’ parsonage and on the wild and windswept moors with Arts Council England funding.

Maggie also appeared in four roles in Coronation Street (Ruth Audsley, Nurse, Judge Travers, Charmian Gray), between 1990 and 2010; six episodes of The Forsyte Saga, as Bilson, in 2002-2003; seven episodes of Soul Music as Ms Butts; Bob The Builder, as the voice of The Librarian and two episodes of How Do You Want Me?, as another Librarian.

In addition, she played Mrs Parke in the 2012 TV movie The Making Of A Lady and popped up in one episode each of Reckless (Woman With Dog), Shameless (Registrar), Accused (Defence Barrister) and South Riding (Matron).

Interviewed by The Press, York, on LipService’s 30th anniversary in February 2015, when presenting their walk on the Wilde side, The Picture Of Doreen Gray at Harrogate Theatre,  Maggie said: “Thirty years! I know, it’s ridiculous really. You just think, ‘could you not think of anything else to do?’.” Thankfully, the answer was always No, and so LipService have delighted so many with their “general silliness”, as Maggie called it.

Maggie Fox, right, and Sue Ryding sending up TV presenters in Tony & Twizzle, The Glory Years

“We were trying to work out the other day how many hours we must have spent on the road, on a train, in a rehearsal room or on stage,” said Maggie, as she reflected on a partnership that had begun in the Bristol University drama department.

“We hadn’t really come across each other until our third year when we both cast in Ibsen’s The Lady From The Sea. At my height, I’m a dead ringer for Vanessa Redgrave, who’d just done the play at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, where she came on dripping in seaweed. So the image I had was of this queen of drama draped in a hell of a lot of green stuff.

“Anyway, Sue was playing my daughter in the university production, and we were just finding it very funny in rehearsal. The more it went on, the funnier we were finding it, but the others weren’t finding it funny and they weren’t finding it funny that we were finding it funny.

“We were doing that ‘looking into the distance’ acting for Ibsen, draped in seaweed, and it was so liberating to have found someone else who found it funny too, especially when no-one else did.”

Maggie and Sue then did the sound effects for another show, a radio play, to distractingly humorous effect as it turned out.

Maggie Fox, right, and Sue Ryding in their online performance of The Ghost Writer during the pandemic lockdowns

“We found the audience was watching us rather than the show. The director wasn’t happy,” said Maggie. “All I can remember is doing the noises for the clattering of teacups in the tea room and drowning out everyone else.”

Maggie had been born into a theatrical family: her father was on the board of York Theatre Royal; her uncle was a mainstay of the York Settlement Community Players.

“I knew I wanted to act; that was what I was going to do, so Sue and I got together and tried to do cabaret, going up to the Edinburgh Fringe, but no women were doing comedy, until Victoria Wood and Julie Walters became the trailblazers, but still the perception was that men were funnier than women,” said Maggie.

Not for long would she and Sue settle for doing “our flopsy bunny act between two aggressive comedians”. Lip Service would change all that, and how.

LipService double act Maggie Fox, the tall one, and Sue Ryding, the rather shorter one, in their Wilde satire, The Picture Of Doreen Gray

From cabaret roots, with a natural bent for impromptu interaction with the audience, the free flow of improvisation and the desire  to “do the impossible”, Maggie and Sue also established the improv company Comedy Express in the 1990s, taking it to the pubs and clubs of Manchester, where Steve Coogan and Caroline Aherne would come along.

“You can play a lot of the same games in improvised comedy but they work and the shows are different every time, and that’s what I want with Lip Service shows,” Maggie said.

“I want them to be different every night or to have elements of surprise because it’s a different audience each night. We like living on the edge.”

Thank you, Maggie. You brought us so much merry mayhem in slickly organised yet deliriously chaotic comedy; now you have been taken away by tragedy, theatre’s other face. God bless you and a fond farewell.

By Charles Hutchinson

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More Things To Do in York and beyond, whether locating your ‘inner outlaw’ or just going out. List No. 74, courtesy of The Press

Charles Hutchinson unearths Indian jazz, jive, cabaret, ceramics , 70 years of hits and a candlelit concert for Ukrainian solidarity for your diary.

Re-entry, by Danny Barbour, on show at According To McGee from today

Exhibition launch of the week: Christine Cox, Geoff Cox and Danny Barbour, Unearthed, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, today until April 24.

CHRSTINE Cox, Geoff Cox and Danny Barbour will be at Terry Brett’s gallery today from 11.30am to 2pm to talk about their Unearthed exhibition.

Pyramid Gallery’s spring show combines Christines ceramics, derived from repeated visits to a Cumbrian sea-cliff; Geoff’s ceramic pots and sculpture, rooted in archaeology and long-lost civilisations, and Danny’s paintings and collages that draw on his fascination with what lies beneath the surface.

“Unearthed features the work of three artists whose work is inspired by the passing of time: changes observed in the built environment and found remnants from the past,” says Terry.

Lady Lounges, ceramic, by Geoff Cox, at According To McGee

Diva at the double: Velma Celli: Me And My Divas, York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7.30pm; Velma Celli: Outlaw Live, National Centre for Early Music, York, doors, 7pm; show, 8pm

YORK’S drag diva deluxe, Velma Celli, returns to York Theatre Royal for “an overindulgent diva fest celebrating the songs and behaviour of all your favourite divas” with York singer Jess Steel and West End leading lady Gina Murray.

This cabaret night of impressions and banter celebrates Whitney, Aretha, Bassey, Streisand, Garland, Cilla, Dolly, Madonna, Adele, Sia and latest addition Jessie J.

Next Friday, Velma and York Gin launch Outlaw Live, an outrageous night of cabaret and gin at the NCEM, raising a glass to Guy Fawkes, Dick Turpin and all that’s villainous and defiantly naughty about York and its outlaws. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/yorkgin/590817.

“Explore your inner outlaw”: Velma Celli in Outlaw Live mode

Welcome to the Pleasure dome: King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys, Selby Town Hall, tonight, 8pm

AFTER 6,500 performances across 21 countries in more than 30 years on the road, the jump, jive and swing band King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys bring their high octane, good-time show to Selby.

The sartorially sharp British band have performed their dance-hall rhythm & blues opening for BB King, Cab Calloway and Ray Charles and have toured with the Blues Brothers Band from the movie. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.

King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys: In the swing at Selby Town Hall

Jazz gig of the week: Arun Ghosh and Yaatri, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

IN a showcase of Indian-influenced jazz, York promoter Ouroboros presents award-winning clarinettist Arun Ghosh’s return to The Crescent to perform music from new album Seclused In Light. Ghosh and his band deliver a passionate sound driven by soaring melodies, hypnotic rhythms and transcendental textures as he melds jazz with  jazz myriad of musical influences, from jungle to punk, blues to Bollywood.

Support act Yaatri are an art-rock/jazz crossover five-piece, formed in Leeds in 2018, led by Indian/American guitarist and composer Liam Narain DeTar. Box office: thecrescentyork.seetickets.com.

Arun Ghosh: Showcasing his Seclused In Light album at The Crescent, York. Picture: Emile Holba

Why life is a minestrone: 10cc, The Ultimate Greatest Hits Tour, York Barbican, March 26, 7.30pm

CO-FOUNDER Graham Gouldman leads 10cc on their return to the concert stage after the lockdown lull, as the art-rock icons perform the chart-topping I’m Not In Love, Rubber Bullets and Dreadlock Holiday alongside eight more top ten hits.

Bass and guitar player Gouldman, 75, is joined by lead guitarist Rick Fenn, drummer Paul Burgess, keyboards player Keith Hayman and vocalist Iain Hornal. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Graham Gouldman and 10cc: Playing their greatest hits at York Barbican

Candlelit concert of the week: The Ebor Singers, How Do You Keep The Music Playing?, Chapter House, York Minster, March 26, 7.30pm

THE Ebor Singers return to the Chapter House for the first time since March 2020 to celebrate being together again, while pausing to reflect on what society has endured together.

The candlelit programme features Allegri’s Miserere; choral pieces by Whitacre and Esenwalds; an arrangement of Michel Legrand’s jazz classic How Do You Keep The Music Playing? and premieres of two lockdown commissions, Kerensa Briggs’s The Inner Light and Philip Moore’s O Vos Omnes.

In solidarity with the people of Ukraine, the singers perform works by Kyiv composer Valentin Silvestrov, 84, who managed to leave the country safely last week. Tickets: on the door or at tickets.yorkminster.org.

The Ebor Singers: First Chapter House concert at York Minster since March 2020

Nostalgia of the week: 70 Years Of Pop Music, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, March 27, 7.30pm

THIS year marks the 70th anniversary of the dawn of the British pop charts, when Al Martino claimed the first number one spot with Here In My Heart on November 20 2022.

Don Pears’ singers and musicians take a journey through the decades from Perry Como and Doris Day to Adele and Ed Sheeran in this fundraiser for the JoRo theatre.  

“Somewhere between A for Abba and Z for ZZ Top, whether you are a fan of the Fifties and Sixties or the Nineties and Noughties, there will be music that will delight you,” promises Don. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Eboracum Baroque: Heading back to the alehouses of 17th century England

Baroque’n’roll: Eboracum Baroque, Purcell And A Pint, York Mansion House, St Helen’s Square, York, May 7, 7.30pm

EBORACUM Baroque are teaming up with York Gin for an evening of rowdy drinking songs, fiddle tunes, alongside music by Purcell and baroque composers “he might have had a pint with”.

“This time our concert is called Purcell And A Pint, sadly not a pint of gin but you still get a free gin on arrival!”, says trumpet player and percussionist Chris Parsons.

“We’ll transport you back to the alehouses of 17th century England. Taverns were raucous surroundings and overflowed with music, alcohol, sex, gossip, fights, fumes, shouting, singing, laughing, dancing. Our performance won’t have all of these – but audience participation is a must.” Box office: eboracumbaroque.co.uk.

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The Howl & The Hum, Bull and Huge to play Make It York’s new YorkLife festival weekend in Parliament Street in April

The Howl & The Hum: York Life headliners on April 3

YORK’S new spring festival weekend will showcase the city’s musicians, performers, comedians and more besides on April 2 and 3.

Organised by Make It York, YorkLife will see more than 30 performers and organisations head to Parliament Street for a free open event from 11am to 9pm each day with no need to book tickets in advance.

The Saturday headliners will be Big Donaghy’s long-running York party band Huge; the Sunday bill will climax with The Howl & The Hum in their biggest home-city performance since gracing York Minster on May 25 2021.

Both bands will play the main YorkLife stage as part of a programme curated by York’s Music Venue Network, presenting such York acts as Bull, Kitty VR, Flatcap Carnival and Hyde Family Jam.

An array of interactive sessions will be held by York organisations, taking in theatre workshops, instrumental workshops, face painting, comedy and dance performances, plus fire performers and circus acts.

The main stage on Parliament Street will have an open viewing area with a 500 capacity, while a covered stretch tent will hold a York Gin bar and seating area for 90 people with a one-in, one-out policy.

YorkLife is supported by City of York Council’s ARG (Additional Restrictions Grant) funding, which aims to boost businesses impacted by Covid-19. The April 2 and 3 programme has been curated with York residents in mind and to support the city’s recovery from Covid.

Big Ian Donaghy: Fronting Huge on the YorkLIfe main stage on April 2

Councillor Darryl Smalley, executive member for culture, leisure and communities, says: “Our cultural sector is the lifeblood of our communities. There is so much talent in York, from musicians to comedians and poets to performers, which makes our city so vibrant and unique.

“YorkLife is an excellent way to celebrate our home-grown musicians and performers, particularly after what has been a challenging few years for us all. I would encourage residents to join the festival and enjoy the best of York’s own talent.”

Sarah Loftus, Make It York’s managing director, says: “YorkLife is a celebration of York talent and culture, from our street musicians to our community groups. We want to really celebrate the sense of community in York and we’re encouraging residents to join the party and see some of the hottest talent York has to offer.”

Chris Sherrington, from the York Music Venue Network, says: “It’s wonderful to have this opportunity to showcase some of York’s amazingly talented artists who have developed their careers across the city of York’s many great grassroots music venues.

“As part of YorkLife weekend, we’re looking forward to celebrating the return of live music to the city and enjoying the wonderful variety of music for one and all. This event has been a true cooperative effort of York’s event industry and creatives and we look forward to working on future events.”

To find out more about YorkLife, head to visityork.org/yorklife. The full line-up will be announced later this month. 

Bull: Home-city gig for York’s first band to sign to a major label since Shed Seven

Confirmed acts and workshops

Musicians: 

The Howl & The Hum; Huge; Bull; Kitty VR; Flatcap Carnival; Hyde Family Jam;  Floral Pattern; Bargestra and Wounded Bear.

Workshops:

Mud Pie Arts: Cloud Tales interactive storytelling;

Thunk It Theatre: Build Our City theatre workshop; 

Gemma Wood: York Skyline art;

Fantastic Faces:  Face painting; 

York Mix Radio:  Quiz; 

York Dance Space:  Dance performance;

Burning Duck Comedy Club: Comedy night; 

Henry Raby, from Say Owt: Spoken poetry; 

Matt Barfoot: Drumming workshop; 

Christian Topman: Ukulele workshop; 

Polly Bennet: Little Vikings PQA York performing arts workshop; 

Innovation Entertainment: Circus workshops. 

Nicolette Hobson and Gemma Drury of Mud Pie Arts: Hosting Cloud Tales interactive storytelling workshops at YorkLife
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Storyteller Sam Freeman combines love, a projector and a notebook in his rom-com for the lonely hearted in Harrogate and York. Hear his podcast interview…

Storyteller Sam Freeman

FORMER York Theatre Royal marketing officer and 2009 TakeOver Festival co-director Sam Freeman heads back to his old stamping ground on Friday night with his solo rom-com for the lonely hearted and the loved-up, armed with a projector, a notebook, wonky spectacles and nods to Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill.

This 7.45pm performance of Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention) will be preceded on his ten-date tour by tonight’s 7.30pm show at the Cold Bath Brewery Co Clubhouse in Harrogate.

Freeman, marketeer, occasional writer, director and stand-up comedian, combines storytelling and whimsical northern comedy in his multi-layered story of a chance encounter between two soulmates, how they fall in love, then part but may meet again. 

Performed by a man in a red checked shirt, black jeans, red Converse, a passable knowledge of Powerpoint and an inexplicable love of Excel spreadsheets, Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention) is about “love, Calippo lollies, lazy days under blues skies, cats, answerphones, stabilisers, dangerous places to eat, Google Earth, the necessities of strong planning, dead phones and wiggling toes, time standing still, crazy-paved driveways, mountains, hills, bravery and high-fives. But mostly, love,” says Sam.

Against a film backdrop, Freeman interweaves five stories that start separately and in isolation before gradually coming together as themes, characters, objects, words and callbacks.

Sam says: “The show’s a beautiful mix of storytelling and comedy. It’s warmly influenced by the Richard Curtis rom-coms like Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral but with a more whimsical, Northern feel.

“It has part of me written into it, places I’ve been and seen, from travelling home on the Transpennine express when the snow has fallen, to moments of being a hopeless (and often failed) romantic. It’s a show written for the lonely hearted and those in love.”

For Harrogate tickets, harrogatetheatre.co.uk; for York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

For Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers’ interview with podcast special guest Sam Freeman, head to the Two Big Egos In A Small Car listening link at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10231399.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond the norm as horror shows and love stories beckon. List No. 73, courtesy of The Press

2,000 shows and counting: Kristian Lavercombe, as Riff Raff, far right, clocks up another milestone in The Rocky Horror Show on its return to York . Picture: David Freeman

LET’S do The Time Warp again? It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to right, to enjoy plenty more of Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations.

Fancy dress invitation of the week: Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday

KRISTIAN Lavercombe celebrates his 2,000th performance as Riff Raff as Richard O’Brien’s 1973 musical extravaganza enjoys yet another York run.

Alongside Lavercombe in Christopher Luscombe’s touring production will be 2016 Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba as preppy college nerd Brad Majors, Haley Flaherty as squeaky-clean fiancée Janet Weiss and Stephen Webb as castle-dwelling Transylvanian transsexual doctor Frank-N-Furter.

Cue fabulously camp fun and even camper costumes, shlock-horror comedy and science-fiction send-ups, audiences in fancy dress and sassy songs such as Sweet Transvestite, Science Fiction/Double Feature and The Time-Warp singalong. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

New Beverly Cinema, by Imogen Hawgood, at According To McGee, York

Exhibition launch of the week: Imogen Hawgood and Horace Panter, Hyperrealism in America and Japan, at According To McGee, Tower Street, York, from 11am today until March 25

NEW According To McGee signing Imogen Hawgood, from County Durham, introduces her collection of realist paintings in a duo show with Pop artist and Ska legend Horace Panter, The Specials’ bassist.

Panter’s Edward Hopper-inspired depictions of Midwest motels, inner-lit Japanese kiosks and sun-warmed Coca-Cola crates complement Hawgood’s exploration of Americana icons and the idea of “the road” as a transitional landscape.

The vampire strikes back: Steve Steinman’s Baron von Rockula with his vampettes in Vampires Rock – Ghost Story

Rock horror show: Steve Steinman’s Vampires Rock – Ghost Train, Grand Opera House, York, tonight (12/3/2022), 7.30pm

NOTTINGHAM singer and producer Steve Steinman returns to York with his tongue-in-cheek show stacked high with rock anthems, guitar gods and vampy vampettes.

Steinman’s Baron von Rockula and his vampires take refuge in an old fairground’s ghost train as he seeks a new virginial wife after the death of his beloved Pandora. Ordering faithful sidekick Bosley to find him one, enter Roxy Honeybox.

Now in its 20th year, Vampires Rock sets a cast of singers, dancers and musicians loose on Queen, AC/DC, Bonnie Tyler, Meat Loaf, Bon Jovi, Journey and Guns N’ Roses chestnuts. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Glenn Tilbrook: Squeezing in hit after hit at The Crescent

York gig of the week: Glenn Tilbrook, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

THIS is a standing show…and an outstanding one too as endearing and enduring Deptford singer, songwriter, guitarist and troubadour Glenn Tilbrook makes his debut appearance at The Crescent.

More than 45 years after he first answered an ad placed by Chris Difford looking for like-minded sorts to form the band that became the evergreen Squeeze, an ending is nowhere in sight, even if he called his fourth solo album Happy Ending in 2014. Expect silver-tongued Squeeze and solo numbers, peppered with audience requests, tomorrow night.

Squeeze up, by the way, because this Gig Cartel-promoted gig has sold out. Fingers crossed for any returns (www.thecrescentyork.com), but otherwise you’re really up the junction for a ticket.

Alexander McCall Smith: Delving into his books at York Theatre Royal

Literary event of the week: Alexander McCall Smith, York Theatre Royal, Monday, 7.30pm

YORK Literature Festival plays host to Alexander McCall Smith as he discusses the new instalment in his long-running Scotland Street series, the warm-hearted, humorous and wise Love In The Time Of Bertie.

Fiona Lindsay pops the questions, intertwined with footage shot on location in Edinburgh, wherein McCall Smith invites guests into his study, where he writes surrounded by paintings and books, and visits key landmarks from the books.

The festival follows from March 18 to 27 with full details at yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

NOT Thu 17 March 2022 after all: It’s different for Joe Jackson now as York gig moves to the summer

Postponement of the week: Joe Jackson, Sing, You Sinners! Tour, York Barbican, moving from March 17 to July 29

BLAME Covid for this delay to only the second ever York concert of singer, songwriter and consummate arranger Joe Jackson’s 44-year career.

“After months of uncertainty, it finally became clear that continuing Covid restrictions (particularly on venue capacity) in certain countries, would make our Spring European Tour un-viable as planned,” says Jackson’s official statement. “We can’t tour at a loss, and the situation did not look like changing soon enough.”

Tickets remain valid for the new July 29 date when Jackson promises hits, songs not aired in years and new material. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Sam Freeman: Thirty years of love burst out of his storytelling show in Harrogate and York

Storytelling show of the week: Sam Freeman, Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention), Cold Bath Brewery Co Clubhouse, Harrogate, Monday, 7.30pm; York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm

FORMER York Theatre Royal marketing officer and 2009 TakeOver Festival co-director Sam Freeman heads back to his old stamping ground with his solo rom-com for the lonely hearted and the loved-up, armed with a projector, a notebook, wonky spectacles and nods to Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill.

Freeman, marketeer, occasional writer, director and stand-up comedian, combines storytelling and whimsical northern comedy in his multi-layered story of a chance encounter between two soulmates, how they fall in love, then part but may meet again. Box office: Harrogate, harrogatetheatre.co.uk; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

For Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers’ interview with podcast special guest Sam Freeman, head to the Two Big Egos In A Small Car listening link at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10231399.

Off to the woods: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It

Shaking up Shakespeare: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Tuesday to Saturday; York Theatre Royal, March 23 to 26

MARKING Northern Broadsides’ 30th anniversary, artistic director Laurie Sansom’s diverse cast of 12 northern actors captures the “sheer joy of live performance and the crazy power of love to change the world” in his bold, refreshing take on Shakespeare’s most musical comedy.

Exiled from the court, high-spirited Rosalind, devoted cousin Celia and drag queen Touchstone encounter outlaws, changing seasons and life unconfined by rigid codes in the forest.

Gender roles dissolve and assumptions are turned on their head in a natural world of endless possibilities. Box office: Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Lola May as daughter Aramide, Oyi Oriya as mother Omotola and Anni Domingo as grandmother Agbeke in Utopia Theatre’s Here’s What She Said To Me

Touring show of the week: Utopia Theatre in Here’s What She Said To Me, York Theatre Royal Studio, Thursday and Friday, 7.45pm

MEET Agbeke, Omotola and Aramide, three generations of proud African women connecting with each other across two continents, time and space, in Oladipo Agboluaje’s distaff drama, conceived and directed by York St John University graduate Mojisola Elufowoju.

Together the women share their struggles, their joys, tragedies and broken dreams, in order to find healing in the present. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.