Russell Kane: Pandemic pontifications in The Essex Variant! show
ON football’s January transfer deadline day, York Barbican made three big signings of its own: comedian Russell Kane, Barnsley heavy metal veterans Saxon and blues guitarist/singer-songwriter Joanne Shaw Taylor.
Enfield humorist Kane, 46, offers his “gut-punch funny, searing take on the two years we’ve just gone through” on December 14 in his new stand-up tour show, Russell Kane Live: The Essex Variant!.
Comic, writer, presenter and actor Kane presents two podcasts, Man Baggage and BBC Radio 4’s Evil Genius and is a regular on Channel 4, BBC and ITV. “I drink lots of coffee and I’m ‘like that in real life’,” he says.
He was the first comedian to bag the two most prestigious comedy awards on Earth in the same year, for the same show: The Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly known as the Perrier) and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award, (formerly the Barry Award). “I’m also a raving bighead that likes listing my achievements,” he says.
Saxon invaders: Barnsley heavy metal veterans take over York Barbican in November
After 15 million album sales and four top ten albums in a career-spanning 44 years, heavy metal stalwarts Saxon visit York on November 23 on their Seize The Day tour.
Plugging new album Carpe Diem in 14 cities with Diamond Head as their special guests, Saxon frontman Biff Byford, 71, says: “Can’t wait to get out on a real tour again. It’s gonna be monumental. See you all out there. Seize the day!”
Produced by Judas Priest guitarist Andy Sneap at Backstage Recording Studios in Derbyshire, with Byford and Sneap mixing and mastering, Carpe Diem will be released on Friday (4/2/2022) on Silver Lining Music, in the wake of two singles, Remember The Fallen and Carpe Diem (Seize The Day).
Joanne Shaw Taylor has picked York for one of only five dates on her spring tour, performing songs from last September’s The Blues Album on April 24.
Joanne Shaw Taylor: Feeling the blues in York on April 24
Shaw Taylor, who will turn 37 on February 20, topped Billboard Magazine’s Official Blues Album Chart last year, when her covers record was voted #Number 1 Most Played Blues Album of 2021 by the Independent Blues Broadcasters Association.
The Blues Album comprises the Wednesbury musician’s personalised covers of 11 rare blues numbers recorded by Albert King, Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green, Little Richard, Magic Sam and Aretha Franklin, complemented by some “not obvious choices” by Little Village, Little Milton, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and James Ray.
“I’d known from the beginning of my recording career that one day I wanted to record an album of blues covers; I just wasn’t sure when the right time to do that would be,” she says. “I’ve always found it far easier to write my own material than come up with creative ways to make other artists’ material my own.”
Tickets for all three shows go on sale on Friday from 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Enjoy free admission to York Art Gallery’s Young Gainsborough: Rediscovered Landscape Drawings exhibition as part of York Residents’ Festival. Booking required. Picture: Charlotte Graham
YORK attracts 8.4 million visitors, but this weekend you are invited to be a tourist in your own city, as Charles Hutchinson highlights.
Festival of the week: York Residents’ Festival, today and tomorrow
MORE than 70 events, attractions and offers make up this weekend’s York Residents’ Festival, with the offers continuing all week.
Organised by Make It York, this annual festival invites all York residents with a valid YorkCard to “explore the city and be a tourist for the weekend”, one card per person.
Pre-booking is required for some highlights of a festival that takes in museums, theatres, galleries, churches, hidden gems, historic buildings, food and drink and shops. For more details, visit: visityork.org/residents-festival.
Tall storey in Tall Stories’ The Smeds And The Smoos at York Theatre Royal this weekend
Children’s show of the week: The Smeds And The Smoos, York Theatre Royal, today, 2.30pm and 4.30pm; tomorrow, 10.30am and 1.30pm
SOAR into space with Tall Stories’ exciting new stage adaptation of writer Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler’s joyful tale of star-crossed aliens.
On a far-off planet, Smeds and Smoos cannot be friends. Nevertheless, when a young Smed and Smoo fall in love, they promptly zoom off into space together.
How will their families get them back? Find out in an interplanetary adventure for everyone aged three upwards, full of music and laughter, from the company that delivered The Gruffalo and Room On The Broom on stage. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Bedtime story: Ian Ashpitel and Jonty Stephens as Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise in Eric & Ern
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be; it’s better in: Eric & Ern, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday and Wednesday, 7.30pm
IAN Ashpitel and Jonty Stephens bring you sunshine in their uncanny portrayal of comedy duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise in a show that has been touring for more than five years.
Combining renditions of famous comedy sketches with contemporary references, Eric & Ern contains some of the first new writing in the Morecambe & Wise style in more than in 30 years. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Abstract collage, by Peter Schoenecker, at Pocklington Arts Centre
Exhibition of the week outside York: Peter Schoenecker, A New Way Of Looking, Pocklington Arts Centre, until February 19
PETER Schoenecker’s mixed-media artworks open Pocklington Arts Centre’s 2022 season of exhibitions in the studio.
On show are watercolours, acrylics and lino prints by the Pocklington artist, a former graphic designer, who is inspired by the landscape and seascape textures and lighting in and around his Yorkshire home.
“My aim is usually to create a mood or atmosphere using colour or black and white,” he says. “Switching between media keeps me interested and innovative, hopefully bringing a freshness to the work.”
Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant: From Liverpool to Leeds on Wednesday
Gig of the week outside York: Echo & The Bunnymen, Leeds O2 Academy, Wednesday, doors, 7pm
AHEAD of the February 18 vinyl reissue of their 1985 compilation Songs To Learn & Sing, Liverpool legends Echo & The Bunnymen play plenty of those songs and more besides in Leeds (and at Sheffield City Hall the night before).
Available for the first time since that initial release, the “Best Of” cherry picks from their first four albums with the single Bring On The Dancing Horses as the icing on top. On tour, vocalist Ian McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant will be leading a band now in their 44th year, still too cool to be called a heritage act. Box office: gigsandtours.com/tour/echo-and-the-bunnymen.
Granny (Isabel Ford) and Ben (Justin Davies) in the Crown Jewels-stealing scene in Birmingham Stage Company’s Gangsta Granny
Family show of the week: Birmingham Stage Company in Gangsta Granny, Grand Opera House, York, February 3 to 5, 2.30pm and 7pm; February 6, 11am and 3pm
IN David Walliams’s tale, Friday night means only one thing for 11-year-old Ben: staying with Granny, where he must put up with cabbage soup, cabbage pie and cabbage cake.
Ben knows one thing for sure – it will be so, so boring – but what Ben doesn’t know is that Granny has a secret. Soon Friday nights will be more exciting than he could ever imagine, as he embarks on the adventure of a lifetime with his very own Gangsta Granny, in Neal Foster’s touring production, back in York next week for the first time since 2016. Suitable for age five upwards. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
Two out of Seven: Shed Seven’s Rick Witter and Paul Banks to perform as a duo in Scarborough
Compact Sheds: Rick Witter and Paul Banks, Scarborough Spa Theatre, April 17, 7.30pm
SHED Seven shed three when frontman Rick Witter and lead guitarist Paul Banks “go where no Shed has gone before” to play Scarborough over the Easter weekend.
Mr H Presents promoter Tim Hornsby says: “Expect a special night of classic Shed Seven material and a few surprises”.
“You already know this whites-of-their-eyes show is going to sell out, so don’t get bothered with the regular unholy last-minute scramble for tickets and purchase early for a holler-along to some of the best anthems ever,” he advises. Box office: scarboroughspa.co.uk.
James Swanton as Lucifer with cast members of The Last Judgement when plays from the 2018 York Mystery Plays were staged in the Shambles Market. Picture: Lewis Outing
Looking ahead to the summer: 2022 York Mystery Plays, York city centre, June 19 and 26
HERE come the wagons, rolling through York streets on two June weekends, as the Guilds of York maintain their four-yearly cycle of York Mystery Plays set in motion in 1998.
As in 2018, Tom Straszewski is the artistic director for a community production involving nearly 600 people creating hours of drama, performed for free, on eight wagons at four locations, including St Sampson’s Square, St Helen’s Square and King’s Manor.
“The plays will cover the creation of the world, floods, last meals together and resurrections,” says Strasz. “We’re still seeking directors, performance groups and actors, who should email director@yorkmysteryplays.co.uk to apply.”
“My shows are always where my head is on that day,” says surrealist comedian Ross Noble
ROSS Noble once said: “As usual, I have lots of stuff backing up in my mind and it’s time to let it out”.
Can you image how crammed the Geordie surrealist’s brain must be as he prepares to perform his Humournoid show at the Grand Opera House, York, on Saturday, given that tickets first went on sale as long ago as June 6 2019.
At that time, the gig was scheduled for April 30 2020, but then Coronavirus brought everything to a halt. “It’s been hilarious!” says Ross, managing to see the funny side of Covid’s curse on live entertainment.
“I’d been waiting two years, with dates being on, then off, then back on, then off, having to keep reorganising the tour, before I finally could start it at the end of last year.”
Ross, now 45, called an earlier tour show Brain Dump, in acknowledgement of every improvised performance being a clear-out of his in-tray of thoughts. “My shows are always where my head is on that day,” says the Newcastle-born absurdist comic and actor.
Lockdown had led others to occupy their head space in such a way too, he notes, and that has since had an impact on Humournoid. “We started doing Humournoid in Australia [where Noble lives in Melbourne], just before the country got shut down. It’s a bit unusual that people, the entire world over, whether they liked it or not, were then forced to re-evaluate themselves and be in their head, in isolation at home, which I think has been a good thing.
“Weirdly, every comic has written either a children’s book or a self-help book in lockdown,” says Ross Noble, who has done neither
“I know it’s been hard and I know we’re still in the pandemic and people are hurting, but it’s extraordinary that even though 9/11 changed the course of how society thinks, Covid has forced the whole world to take stock and think about things.”
Since resuming performances, Ross has seen at close hand how “some people are desperate to get out to see a show but others are still nervous about going out”.
Unlike the freewheeling, wild path his shows take, he is conducting himself on the road with caution. “I wear a mask all the time, and even though people think Omicron is less severe, I’ve not yet had Covid, and if I did get it, I’d have to shut down for five days, which would affect the tour,” he says.
“My strategy is to play the gig, go to the hotel, play the next gig, go to the hotel. The only interaction with the outside world is at a petrol station, or when I’m on stage, or signing in at the hotel. Otherwise, I’m always on my own. The one thing I can do is to try to make sure that each gig happens.”
How did Ross spend his lockdowns? “Weirdly, every comic has written either a children’s book or a self-help book, and they’re the last people I’d want to get self-help advice from or want to read their stories talking about bringing up their kids,” he says.
“What I’ve done is six weeks of hotel quarantine, when moving around in Australia, if I wanted to cross into another state to do TV. Melbourne, my home, is the most locked-down city in the world, with an eight o’clock curfew, and you were only allowed to go three miles from your home. Only one person per household per day was allowed to go out to the supermarket.”
The tour poster for Ross Noble’s Humournoid show
When he travelled to Sydney, it was “proper quarantine”, he recalls. “Locking you in your hotel room, with the police and the army on the door, and you could only open the door for a bag of food and a Covid test, when they would send a nurse around twice a week, and you had to stand there with your back against the wall as they shoved the test equipment up your nose,” says Ross.
“But in the first lockdown, I seriously loved it. Normally if I’m in a hotel room, I’d be staring at the wall, thinking ‘I should be doing more’, but just being allowed to sit there and stare into the distance, I loved it.
“The fact is I already do meditation, or as my wife calls it, ‘not listening’. People are into all this mindfulness stuff, whereas if you’re told you’re not allowed to do anything or go anywhere, I naturally drift off, as opposed to doing an hour’s formal meditation.”
It turns out Ross did put lockdown to good use. “I always have lots of ideas in my head, but the great thing about the pandemic was that I found myself thinking, ‘oh, I’m going to finish these ideas off,” he says.
“I started writing screenplays and they’re now at various stages of development. Well, the thing is I can’t really say. It’s not top secret but you have to be really careful, but in two years’ time, people could be saying, oh, he’s been busy’, or it could die in the water and become something you find in the drawer long after it never happened.”
Let’s see what happens to these Noble deeds, but in the meantime, he will be in Humournoid form in York this weekend.
Having made his return to the Grand Opera House on his El Hablador in October 2018 after a run of shows at York Barbican, he is delighted to be going back there once more. “It’s one of the best rooms for comedy,” says Ross. “I put it in my top five favourite places to play. I love it there.”
Ross Noble: Humournoid, Grand Opera House, York, Saturday (29/1/2022), 8pm. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
Who’s listening? Hutch cocks an ear beside Maggi Hambling’s seaside sculpture, The Scallop, on the beach at Aldeburgh, Suffolk
DOES Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza top Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood?
Arts podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson mull over two Tinsel Town fables.
Plus re-discovering Bruce Springsteen on scorching form at No Nukes in 1979, on its belated CD and DVD release, and welcoming news of new music venues for York and Edinburgh.
Beth Hutchinson in her monologue in Rowntree Players’ premiere of The Missing Peace. Picture: Duncan Lomax
FROM The Missing Peace to Shed Seven at the races, Charles Hutchinson finds the missing pieces to fill your diary
Premiere of the week: Rowntree Players in The Missing Peace, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, January 27 to 29, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
ROWNTREE Players director Gemma McDonald has adapted York author, singer, motivational conference speaker and charity champion Big Ian Donaghy’s book The Missing Peace, now billed as “One play…15 endings”.
On stage, Donaghy’s exploration of life after death takes the form of 15 Talking Heads-style monologues, many drawn from interviews he conducted in York. “It’s not a play about death, it’s a play about life,” he says. “There will be moments of laughter, sadness and reflection throughout.”
Look out for Mark Addy, who has recorded the narrator’s role as the Station Announcer. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes of The Shires: Acoustic show in their regular haunt of Pocklington
Country gig of the week: The Shires – Acoustic, Pocklington Arts Centre, January 26, 8pm
THE Shires, Britain’s best-selling country music act, bring their 2022 intimate acoustic tour to Pocklington on the back of working on their upcoming fifth album.
Award-winning duo Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes have made a habit of playing Pocklington since their Studio debut in 2014, appearing regularly at PAC and playing the Platform Festival at The Old Station in 2016 and 2019. To check ticket availability, go to pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk or call 01759 301547.
Ross Noble: What is a Humournoid? Find out, or maybe not, in his new tour show
Comedy gig of the week: Ross Noble: Humournoid, Grand Opera House, York, January 29, 8pm
WHAT happens when a creature is created and bred to do stand up, asks Geordie comic Ross Noble in his Covid-delayed but finally here new tour show, Humournoid?
“Nobody knows because that isn’t a thing,” says his tour blurb. “What is a thing is Ross Noble doing a show. You can come and see it. This is it.”
As ever with this improviser supreme, it turns out Humournoid has no theme, says Noble, who promises a typically freewheeling performance on his return to one of his five favourite venues in the world. Box office: atgtickets.com/York.
Porridge Radio: Brighton band making waves at The Crescent in York. Picture: El Hardwick
If you discover one band this month, make it: Porridge Radio, The Crescent, York, January 31, 7.30pm
EVERY Bad, their 2020 album released by the super-cool Secretly Canadian label, has propelled Porridge Radio from a word-of-mouth gem of Brighton’s DIY scene to one of the country’s most exciting upcoming bands.
“Last here opening for BC Camplight, we’re very pleased to see them return,” say promoters Please Please You and Brudenell Presents. Pet Shimmers, a new supercharged seven-piece from Bristol, support. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Malaika Kegode: Guest poet at Say Owt Slam’s return to The Crescent
Word wars: Say Owt Slam with guest poet Malaika Kegode, The Crescent, York, February 5, 7.30pm
BRISTOL writer, performer and producer Malaika Kegode will be the special guest at York spoken-word hub Say Owt’s first Slam night for more than two years.
Kegode has appeared at WOMAD and Edinburgh Book Festival, published two poetry collections with Burning Eye Books and created Outlier, an autobiographical gig-theatre with prog-rock band Jakabol. Passionate about cinema, culture and race, her lyrical work journeys through lives and loves, exploring genre, form and the power of the written word made visual.
In the raucous poetry Slam, performers will have three minutes each to wow the audience. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Contrarian comedian Alfie Brown: Emotional moments in his Sensitive Man show
Moral dilemmas: Alfie Brown: Sensitive Man, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 10, 8pm
DOES emotion help us make moral judgments? In his new show, contrarian comedian Alfie Moore will address this question, using jokes.
These jokes will weave together to create something greater than the sum of their parts, answering a question about emotion and its complicated relationship with morality.
“I refute that I am saying things to plainly and wilfully disrupt social progress,” he says. “I am not. I might seem smug, I know, apologies, and I am often misunderstood. So, at this particular point in the unfolding history of meaning, intention, signs and signifiers, I am sometimes going to tell you what I mean.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Florence Odumosu as Nina Simone in Black Is The Color Of My Voice at the SJT, Scarborough
Nina’s blues: Black Is The Color Of My Voice, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, March 12, 7.30pm
FLORENCE Odumosu plays Nina Simone in Apphia Campbell’s story of the North Carolina-born jazz and blues singer and activist seeking redemption after the untimely death of her father.
Simone reflects on the journey that took her from a young piano prodigy, destined for a life in the service of the church, to a renowned vocalist and pianist at the forefront of the civil rights movement. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
Chasing winners: Shed Seven to play after the May 14 race card at Doncaster Racecourse
Racing certainty…hopefully: Shed Seven, Live After Racing @Doncaster Racecourse, May 14, from 11.15am
YORK band Shed Seven’s day at the races should have taken place on May 15 2021, but Covid made it a non-runner. Now they are under starter’s orders at Doncaster Racecourse for a hit-laden live set after the May 15 race card this spring.
Among the Sheds’ runners and riders will be Going For Gold, Chasing Rainbows, She Left Me On Friday, Disco Down, Dolphin, Where Have You Been Tonight? and fan favourites from 2017’s comeback album Instant Pleasures, Room In My House and Better Days. For tickets for the race-day and concert package, go to: doncaster-racecourse.co.uk/whats-on.
Berwick Kaler: Had to miss the last week of Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House, York, after positive Covid test. Picture: David Harrison
HOW did a York theatre cope with Covid crocking its legendary dame? Find out in Episode 73 of Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson‘s Two Big Egos In A Small Car podcast. Under discussion too are Peter Jackson’s fab, formidable Beatles documentary Get Back; Mike Leigh’s Naked foreseeing Britpop and The Tourist going down better than Novax in Australia.
Director Janet Farmer in the Pocklington Arts Centre auditorium
DIRECTOR Janet Farmer is to leave Pocklington Arts Centre this spring, ending a 25-year association with the East Yorkshire venue.
She will retire in mid-April after 22 years in post, preceded by three years of fundraising to transform the market town’s former cinema into a theatre, concert venue, cinema and studio gallery. The recruitment process to appoint her successor will start later this month.
From a standing start in 2000, Janet has led Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) into becoming a leading small-scale arts venue, recognised nationally as a beacon of good practice with a significant cultural reputation.
Janet has drawn more than £1million in public funding to support the venue’s presentation of 3,500 film screenings and staging of 900 live events, numerous festivals, from Pocktoberfest to the Platform Festival at the Old Station, plus hundreds of community events, workshops, exhibitions and private hires.
She has programmed a diverse range of acts over the past 22 years, naming her personal favourites as Joan Armatrading, Lesley Garrett, Shed Seven, John Bishop, The Shires, Rhod Gilbert, Sarah Millican, Lucinda Williams, Baroness Shirley Williams, KT Tunstall, The Unthanks, Mary Chapin Carpenter, David Ford and Josh Ritter.
When informing PAC staff and volunteers of her decision, Janet said: “I am sure this will be said on many occasions over the next few months, but I want to thank all of the staff and volunteers for their tireless support, hard work, dedication and friendship. This has been vital to making PAC the success it is today.
“It has been an absolute pleasure and honour to lead PAC over two decades and it fills me with immense pride knowing what has been achieved during this time. I look forward to returning as a customer and perhaps a volunteer in years to come.”
In reply, “all at Team PAC” responded on social media: “Janet, you moulded our identity, you are part of the building’s DNA and the legacy and success of your tenure will be seen for decades to come. Pour yourself a large drink and enjoy your well-deserved retirement.”
CharlesHutchPress will be interviewing Janet Farmer and venue manager James Duffy to reflect on her tenure at Pocklington Arts Centre. Watch this space.
Pilot Theatre’s The Bone Sparrow: Premiering at York Theatre Royal next month
PODCASTING culture vultures Graham Chalmers & Charles Hutchinson pick their way through what lies ahead in their 2022 arts diary, from formulaic films to pioneering theatre in Episode 72 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car.
Kevin Clifton in Burn The Floor, returning to the Grand Opera House, York
FEEL the heat, despite the chill, as Charles Hutchinson’s calendar starts to hot up like a burst of tango.
Return of the week: Kevin Clifton in Burn The Floor, Grand Opera House, York, January 21, 7.30pm
STRICTLY champ Kevin Clifton returns to York to lead an international ballroom dance company in the fiery, rebellious tango, waltz and rhumba show Burn The Floor.
“Kevin from Grimsby”, who left BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing professional roster after seven seasons at the end of 2019, last scorched the Grand Opera House boards in May 2019.
“Burn The Floor is the show that ignited a spark in me and changed me forever as a performer,” he says. “Through Broadway, West End and touring all over the world, this show has ripped apart the rule book, revolutionised our genre and inspired and shaped me as the dancer I am today.” Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Alfie Moore: Front-line copper-turned-comic. Picture: Tony Briggs
Offbeat police procedural: Alfie Moore, Fair Cop Unleashed, Helmsley Arts Centre, today, 7.30pm
FAIR Cop Unleashed, Alfie Moore’s latest stand-up tour show, is based on a dramatic real-life incident from the cop-turned-comic’s police casebook.
Re-live the thrilling ups and downs of the night when a mysterious clown came to town and more than one life ended up in the balance, as recalled with insightful humour by the BBC Radio 4 presenter. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Teddy Thompson: Rearranged gigs in Pocklington and Leeds
Heartbreaker of the week: Teddy Thompson, supported by Roseanne Reid, Pocklington Arts Centre, January 22, 8pm; Leeds Brudenell Social Club, January 23, 8pm
TEDDY Thompson, an Englishman in New York since his 20s, heads home to play his tour rearranged from last year, showcasing his 2020 album Heartbreaker Please.
Famously the son of songwriters Richard and Linda Thompson, he was influenced heavily by Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers, rather than his family folk roots, claiming he listened only to early rock’n’roll and country until he was 16. Box office: Pocklington, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; Leeds, brudenellsocialclub.seetickets.com.
Vintage performance: Pasadena Roof Orchestra, revelling in the music of the Twenties and Thirties
Nostalgia on tap: Pasadena Roof Orchestra, York Theatre Royal, January 28, 7.30pm
LED by suave singer and band leader Duncan Galloway, the Pasadena Roof Orchestra invite you to “pack up your troubles, come on get happy, and experience an evening of superlative live music with more than a dash of wit and humour”.
For more than 50 years, they have put on top hat and tails to re-create the golden era of the 1920s and 1930s, performing the songs of Irving Berlin, Ray Noble, Cole Porter and their contemporaries, complemented by the hot jazz of Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
One of York artist Ian Cameron’s works on show at Helmsley Arts Centre
Never too late to start: Ian Cameron exhibition, Helmsley Arts Centre, until February 25
IAN Cameron became interested in art “quite late in life”, aged 50 in 2003, when he enrolled for an GCSE evening class. Art and design foundation course studies at York Art College ensued, since when he has taken part eight times in York Open Studios.
In his garden studio, he starts his paintings by doing a wax crayon rubbing on a manhole cover, then covering the rubbing with a vibrant watercolour wash called Brusho that causes a wax-resist result. “On to that I draw my image with a dip pen and Indian ink,” he says. “I embellish the artwork with collage and watercolours.”
Theatre Of The Macabre’s artwork for their Frankenstein premiere at Theatre@41, Monkgate
The horror, the horror: Theatre Of The Macabre in Frankenstein, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 2 to 5, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
“IF you think you know everything about this story then come along and be pleasantly surprised about how little you really know,” say Theatre Of The Macabre, introducing the twisted fantasies and grotesque dreamscapes of their adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
“Join us as we discover his innermost fears and misgivings which haunt his troubled mind and how his ungodly experiments defied the Laws of Nature.”
What dreadful secret does he keep hidden? Who is the mysterious stranger he can only refer to as “It”. All will be revealed in this disturbing premiere. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
My Darling Clementine: Delving into Costello country in Selby
Off to the country: My Darling Clementine, Selby Town Hall, February 3, 8pm
MY Darling Clementine, a labour of love for spouses Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish, began as a homage to the Sixties and Seventies’ country duets of George Jones & Tammy Wynette and Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash.
Their latest album, 2020’s Country Darkness, reinterpreted Elvis Costello’s country songs in a collaboration with Steve Nieve, Costello’s stalwart keyboardist in The Attractions and The Imposters. Box office for their first gig of 2022: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.
What’s the Buzz? Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard can be spotted flying high in Leeds in April
Bird song: Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, April 23
BUZZARD Buzzard Buzzard, “the most exciting new band to break out of Wales”, promote their February 25 debut album in Leeds on the closing night of their 18-date spring tour.
The Cardiff indie glam rockers’ front man, Tom Rees, says: “Backhand Deals is a practice in subverting the ideology of rock music as something that needs to be ‘brought back from the dead’.
“Rock should be about enjoying yourself honestly, whether that’s washing the dishes, sweeping the yard, or complaining about whoever got elected.” Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
” It’s a show that massively talks about the Nineties’ ‘ladette’ culture,” says Shaparak Khorsandi of It Was The 90s!
SHAPARAK Khorsandi, the Iranian-born British stand-up comedian and author formerly known as Shappi, tackles 1990s’ culture in her new show at Selby Town Hall on January 22.
Back then, she flew around London with hope in her heart, a tenner in her pocket and spare knickers in her handbag. “But how does the decade of binge drinking and walks of shame look now without snakebite and black-tinted specs?” asks Shaparak, 48.
“It Was The 90s! is a show about how we ’90s kids are looking to young people to learn how to take care of ourselves, because if you survived the car crash of being a ’90s kid, then surely Things Can Only Get Better.”
The new show emerged from Shaparak realising that her son’s generation regards the 1990s the way her generation regards the 1960s. “It’s a show that massively talks about the Nineties’ ‘ladette’ culture, which was a culture of women supposedly taking their power back by drinking the boys under the table and all that mayhem of emulating the worst of laddish behaviour,” she says.
“I talk about how and why I threw myself into that wholeheartedly in the ’90s, which is also when I started stand-up comedy. That was part of my need for freedom and the comedy circuit seemed like the most punk place to be. It’s very different to the way it is now.”
Hedonism and escapism form Shaparak’s abiding memories of the Nineties. “In the show I talk about all the harm I need to undo. You didn’t just go out for a drink hoping you’d meet someone you fancied, you drank and drank until you fancied someone,” she says.
“It’s also about how, back then, I went to university with people who’d say ‘I’ve only got £200 to last me until Monday’ when I was a cleaner on Saturdays and Sundays to pay for my beer. “
You really saw the class difference, she recalls. “I had one friend who said of her parents, ‘They want me to have a work ethic, so they’ve said to me, if I get a job, they’ll match my hourly rate pound for pound’.
“Before I went to university in the ’90s, I’d never come across private-school kids before. That’s why Jarvis Cocker became my absolute hero with Common People, because that song for me expressed how I was feeling in this brand-new adult world I was navigating. Then I come to 2022 and how I’ve changed from the 23-year-old me.”
Contemplating how she has altered since then, Shaparak notes: “I’m not quite the Socialist she was. I’m looking back at how my politics have changed and how my outlook has also changed. And you have to shelve the ‘ladette’ behaviour if you want to live for longer.
Shaparak Khorsandi’s tour poster for It Was The 90s!
“I look at Emma Watson now. She’s the sort of leading light of young feminism and when I look at her, I go, ‘Oh my God, you look so clean’. She looks like she goes to bed at a sensible time, whereas in the ’90s I don’t remember ever deliberately going to bed.
“It Was The 90s! offers me the chance to look at how young people look after themselves now compared to then.”
Looking for examples of the difference between then and now, Shaparak says: “Self-care in the ’90s was about having a Berocca. If I’d said to my friends in the ’90s, after a one-night stand where the bloke thought my name was Jackie, that I was going to take some time out, do some breathing exercises and meditation, become vegetarian and work on my boundaries, they would have thought I’d joined a cult. Self-care was what people in cults did.”
Alongside Pulp’s Common People, what would made Shaparak’s ultimate 1990s’ playlist? “Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, because it was the first time I’d really heard an angry female voice in a pop song. Also, Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping, The Prodigy and all of the songs that talked about chaos and mayhem. Then Eminem. Weirdly, I was really connected to Eminem.”
Shaparak is heading out on her first tour since 2017, her first dates too since being diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in lockdown. “I got proper help with it,” she says.
“What I’m finding is that it’s changed the way I do comedy. People ask, ‘Are you worried it’s going to affect how you are on stage?’ and I’m like, ‘No, it’s made me better. It’s made me a better writer and a better performer, having pills that help me to focus’.
“There was always a lot of anxiety around tours and there was always a lot of ‘I’ll just do it in the moment and hopefully it’ll work’. This is the first time I’ll be doing a show whilst looking after my ADHD and creatively it’s been a game-changer.”
A game-changer in all sorts of ways, she expands: “I’d say this is the first time doing a tour where I’m absolutely sure that I’m going to have a lot of fun and no anxiety. It’s a real privilege to have a clear head.
“I feel my brain works for comedy much better than before. I feel like I’m starting my career from scratch whilst also having 20 years’ experience behind me, if that makes sense.”
Shaparak kept busy in lockdown writing her book Emma when she “should have been educating my children, so their careers and dreams are going to have to happen a year later than planned”.
Shappi Khorsandi, as was, promoting her 2019-2020 tour of Skittish Warrior…Confessions Of A Club Comic, which visited Pocklington Arts Centre in February 2020
“I’m a single mum with two kids, so there wasn’t a moment of boredom in lockdown, and I’ve got two dogs, so there was a lot of mopping of floors. I didn’t have the sort of lockdown where people were looking for boxsets to binge on. I wish I’d had time to watch telly but I was writing and putting this show together.”
Lockdown also made Shaparak very nostalgic about her younger days. “It made me revisit my youth, which was something I hadn’t done before, and the reason it made me do that was because of the loss of freedom,” she says.
“It took me right back to the age where I felt the most free, which was in the ’90s, where every night was spent rushing out with nothing but a tenner in my pocket, spare knickers in my handbag and hope in my heart.
“It made me think about those years a lot and what a blur they were, yet actually stepping back into that era during lockdown, it was interesting just how much I inhabited twentysomething me again.”
By comparison with those Shappi Nineties, her idea of a great night out now comprises a “nice, chilled festival somewhere, where someone hands me something nice to eat and we watch a band that we love”. “I still like a party but not to the detriment of my physical and mental health,” she says.
Should you be wondering why she now goes by her full name of Shaparak – although her Twitter account is still @ShappiKhorsandi – here is the explanation. “The first thing I did in the ’90s was start A-level college and I went, ‘Right, no-one’s allowed to call me Shaparak anymore, I’m Shappi’,” she says.
“If you had a foreign name, you were expected to make it as easy as possible for everyone by either shortening or changing it. That doesn’t exist for young people anymore. I changed it back in spring this year. I was very invested in the football and Raheem Sterling comes from Brent, near where I grew up, and Bukayo Saka went to school in Greenford.
“I went to a school down the road in Hanwell and we used to play sports against his school. These are the sort of boys I’d have gone to school with, and I was impressed that they spoke so proudly of the backgrounds they came from, how they were from poor and immigrant families and how they had elevated themselves without changing their names. It wasn’t Ray Sterling and Bob Saka. I thought, ‘Wow, back then life would have been so different for them’.”
This led her to ask herself, “Why am I Shappi? I’m almost 50 years old, for God’s sake. Why have I got the name of a puppy?”.
“I watched Dirty Dancing again, and you know where she says at the beginning ‘That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me ‘Baby’ and it didn’t occur to me to mind’? I just thought that it really should occur to me to mind that on all the posters and TV shows and books and everything I’m billed as Shappi, but that’s not my name,” she says.
“The only reason I’d got rid of it was because I grew up in a time when you were made to feel a bit ashamed of being foreign and making life difficult for everyone because you had a three-syllable name that was unfamiliar. I’ve changed it back because I don’t think we live in that world anymore.”
Shaparak Khorsandi: It Was The 90s!, Selby Town Hall, January 22, 8pm. SOLD OUT. Also: Square Chapel, Halifax, February 4, 8pm; The Civic, Barnsley, May 20, 7.30pm. Box office: Halifax, 0343 208 6016 or squarechapel.co.uk; Barnsley, 01226 327000 or barnsleycivic.co.uk.
