Alan Carr looks shocked as he learns he will play York Barbican four nights in a row in December
YET again, Alan?! Yes, comedian Alan Carr
is adding a fourth night of his Not Again, Alan! show on December 16 as he turns
York Barbican into York Carrbican.
Carr, ever-chatty son of former York City footballer Graham
Carr, will play four successive Christmas nights in York, having already added
December 17 to his December 18 and 19 gigs on his first tour in four years.
Tickets for the extra date areon
sale on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box
office.
Since his last comedy travels, chat-show host Carr has “managed
to find himself in all sorts of dramas”, apparently. Such as? “Between his
star-studded wedding day and becoming an accidental anarchist, from fearing for
his life at border control to becoming a reluctant farmer, three words spring
to mind…Not again, Alan!” says his tour publicity. “Join Alan on tour as he
muses upon the things that make his life weird and wonderful.”
Even louder hailer: Alan Carr announces a fourth December night at York Barbican
Not Again, Alan! will be Carr’s fourth UK solo show in four-year
cycles in the wake of Yap, Yap, Yap’s 200 dates in 2015 and 2016, Spexy Beast
in 2011 and Tooth Fairy in 2007. He last brought his chat, chat, chat to York
on the Yap, Yap, Yap! itinerary on July 11 2015 at the Barbican.
Later this
year, Carr will host Alan Carr’s Epic Gameshow on ITV, wherein five all-time
favourite game shows will be supersized and reinvigorated for a new audience:
Play Your Cards Right, Take Your Pick, Strike It Lucky, Bullseye and The Price
Is Right. In 2020 too, Carr will return to the judges’ panel on the second BBC
series of RuPaul’s DragRace UK.
Given the ticket demand for Not Again, Alan! again and again,
again and now yet again, York Barbican advises prompt booking.
Tom Rosenthal: “Maybe I’m stuck in adolescence, I don’t know,” he says. All pictures: Idil Sukan
PLEBS and Friday Night Dinner sitcom star Tom Rosenthal is bringing his first-ever stand-up tour to Pocklington Arts Centre on March 14.
Manhood is truly comedy with a cutting edge, wherein Rosenthal will be “avenging the theft of his foreskin”, as he discusses how he has suffered psychological distress ever since he realised he had been circumcised as a child.
Tom, the Hammersmith-born son of TV sports presenter Jim Rosenthal, applies the use of graphs, statistics, playful jokes and rigid research to tell his story, having spoken to experts on the subject matter.
He may have a Jewish background, but he was not brought up to be Jewish and that was not the reason for the circumcision. He duly felt anger towards his parents, the aforementioned Jim and his mother Chrissy Smith, a former Newsnight producer, when he was younger.
“Most comedy shows will not be an hour about genital-cutting practices,” says Tom Rosenthal of Manhood
“Maybe I’m stuck in adolescence. I don’t know,” says Tom. “As soon as I found out what happened to me, I was just constantly searching for a reason that made sense of it and I’ve still not found one. That’s sort of the driving force of the show: going through all the justifications for it being allowed.”
He is not anti-circumcision, however. “If you want to choose to do it when you’re old enough, go right ahead. It’s like any other kind of body modification, like a tattoo or a piercing,” he says.
“But to do it to a child against their will when they cannot take the decision to take that back, it feels as if it’s against our human rights. I want prospective parents to watch my show. Have a nice night out. Laugh with the boy from the sitcoms with the big nose, but also go away thinking ‘maybe that’s not cool actually’.”
Best known for playing Roman Empire nerd Marcus in ITV2’s Plebs and the perpetually adolescent prankster son, Jonny, in Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner, Tom has long wanted to do a stand-up tour. “The nicest thing about it is getting to meet the people who actually watch the TV programmes I’m in,” he says.
“I think the story of someone who is at odds with their body is something teenagers can relate to,” says Tom Rosenthal
“I’m also really proud of Manhood. It’s a show that I always wanted to make. It has
a dual purpose for me. Obviously, I wanted to put on the funniest show that I
can, but I also want fans to go away thinking about stuff which most people
don’t really think about.
“It’s something that I think is slightly askew with our culture. I should add that this is not your typical comedy show. Most comedy shows will not be an hour about genital-cutting practices.”
After premiering Manhood at last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe and playing dates
last autumn, Tom is touring from February 8 to April 9. “I’m really a molly-
coddled actor,” he says. “It has surprised me how tiring live comedy is. Some
of my friends seem to be able to walk on stage and just be themselves, whereas
I’m always nervous. I have the utmost respect for all comedians. I guess, by
comparison, an actor’s life is quite easy.”
The tour marks a new phase in Rosenthal’s career. Although he started out as a stand-up, becoming joint winner of the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year Award in 2011 after graduating from London University with a Philosophy degree, acting has taken up most of his time since then.
“I’m really proud of Manhood. It’s a show that I always wanted to make,” says Tom.
“I was reluctant to call myself a comedian despite the fact that I did stand-up. I felt like until you’ve done a tour, you can’t call yourself a comedian. So, one semi-benefit of doing Manhood is that now I’m a little bit more comfortable saying I’m a comedian as I’ve gone to towns, people have paid money to see me and I definitely heard some of them laugh.”
Although the subject matter of Manhood may be personal, Rosenthal believes the feelings of
alienation he discusses are universal. “I’ve had quite a lot of teenagers
coming and I think the story of someone who is at odds with their body is
something they can relate to,” he says. “What makes it interesting though also
makes it quite odd. The fact that you are watching a guy talking about his
penis quite a lot.”
His Pocklington audience next week will discover more about Tom in his Manhood
show, but for those familiar with his television characters, does he consider
himself to be closer to Marcus or Jonny?
“I probably feel I’m more Marcus,” he decides. “He’s a neurotic schemer who thinks that he’s smarter than he is, whereas Jonny is a sort of teenage boy prankster. Ultimately though, if you combine the two, that’s my whole terrible personality.”
Tom Rosenthal: Manhood, Pocklington Arts Centre, March 14, 8pm. Box office: 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Looking ecstatic to be back at York Barbican: Paul Weller , booked in for November 3
YORK Barbican has a fistful of new shows going on sale on Friday: Modfather Paul Weller, comedians Jason Manford, Joel Dommett and Daniel Sloss and the dance extravaganza Here Come The Boys.
Weller, 61, has sold out his May tour
and will go back out on the road for 19 British and Irish dates in October and
November, playing York on November 3.
Jason Manford: seeking approval at York Barbican next February
Weller will play an acoustic set for
the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on March 25 as a
special guest of The Stereophonics and his new album, On Sunset, will be released
on June 12 on Polydor, his new label.
He performed previously at York Barbican in March 2015 and August 2018 and his last North Yorkshire gig was at Dalby Forest, near Pickering, last June.
Joel Dommett: new show in December
His autumn travels also will take in further
Yorkshire dates at Hull Bonus Arena on November 2 and Bradford St George’s Hall
on November 17.
Jason Manford, who reached the final of ITV’s The Masked Singer this winter, will return to York Barbican in almost a year’s time, on February 17 2021, with his new stand-up show, Like Me.
Expect “observational comedy mixed with comic gold” from the Salford comedian, presenter and actor who chalked up three Barbican performances of his Muddle Class show in October 2018 and March 2019.
Smoke alarm: Daniel Sloss will be full of Hubris on October 3
Rockhampton comedian, actor and
presenter Joel Dommett, host of The Masked Singer, will play York on December 11,
delivering a new show after this 2016 I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here runner-up
brought his Live 2018 tour to the Barbican in February that year.
Scottish comic Daniel Sloss will follow up his X show – taken to 40 countries, including Russia – with his new solo outing, Hubris, booked in for his Barbican bow on October 3.
Here come Michael, Aljaz, Pasha and Sam on June 24
Strictly Come Dancing’s Aljaž Škorjanec sold out his last appearance at York Barbican and will return on June 24, joined in the Here Come The Boys line-up by former Strictly favourite Pasha Kovalev, West End ballet star Sam Salter and NBC World Of Dance champion and Broadway star Michael Dameski, from Australia.
Ballroom, Latin, commercial, contemporary, ballet, acro and tap all will feature in a show where the Boys will perform alongside dancers, gymnasts, tap dancers and more.
Tickets can be booked from 10am on Friday (February 28) at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from Barbican box office.
Hair-raising: Milton Jones on a spying mission at York Barbican
REVIEW: Milton Jones: Milton Impossible, York Barbican, February
22
THE whole point of camouflage is not to be spotted, but in his new guise as an ex-MI5 spy, Milton Jones’s gaudy military fatigues looked like they hadn’t slept for days.
As for his fuchsia, frilly dress shirt, it would have guaranteed he had absolutely no fuchsia in spying, if blending into the background were a requirement. Definitely a case of Milton Impossible.
Mind you, Jones’s attire was not the only sartorial talking point of Saturday’s triple bill. Support act Tom Houghton was gently settling into revelations of being the Honourable Tom – now that his ex-Army chief father, General Sir Nicholas Houghton, was a Lord and the Constable of the Tower of London – when he was distracted by a Technicolor nightmare of a shirt making an even louder exit down the stairs.
“You’ve missed nothing,” said Houghton, lobbing a comedy bomb
after the escapee. “Except fashion”. Boom, off went the bomb, as if he were
sentencing him to the Tower for a fashion crime.
Cheeky, charming, posh-boy fledgling comic Houghton went on to define the rules of rugby – a game of backs and forwards and going backwards and forwards – with a wit that outwitted the well-worn tea towel trying to explain the laws of cricket.
Tom, a hawk: Tom Houghton was quick to spot fashion crimes in the York Barbican audience
“I always love to help underprivileged children,” said Jones
drily later, but Houghton, one quarter of the improv comedy troupe The Noise
Next Door, needs no leg-up through entitlement. Check out his upcoming tour at
The Basement, City Screen, York, on June 12 or The Carriageworks, Leeds, the
next night.
Before Hon Tom, Milton’s waspish “grandfather” had opened the
show, entering with a trampoline as his mobility aide, and combining a flat cap
with a dressing gown for a dressing down on the real meaning of assorted
familiar road signs.
If you could imagine a hopelessly ill-prepared learner driver trying to wing his written test with wild guesswork, Milton’s grandad goes even further. Rather than being merely daft or surrealist, however, the new meanings actually make weird sense, and the world would be a happier place if they were true.
Although, in this city of cycling, cyclists might not have
enjoyed his dig at them not recognising the meaning of a red light.
Post-interval, Jones returned, his shock of hair madder than ever at 55, to go with the aforementioned psychedelic dress code. Seventy-five minutes of the matador of piercing one-liners ensued, ostensibly on his spying past, but ranging far and wide, his timing deadly, his manner deadpan. (Ideal qualities for a spy, you might say).
From his last tour, the Kew comedian revived his droll Brexit
commentary through the novel format of national flags engaging in sparring
conversations, each seeking the last word, and no Jones show would be complete
without a run of “my other grandfather” gags.
Before the tour, Jones joked: “At a difficult time for our
country, I believe there’s a chance this show could unite the nation.
Admittedly quite a small chance.” True, but Milton is comedy paradise
found, and you wish more could see the world through his eyes. It is a lovely place
to be, warmly knowing but not devoid of a child’s sense of wonder, playful, not
cynical, absurd yet spot on.
If you missed Milton Impossible in York, your next mission, and you really should accept it, is to make it to Hull City Hall on March 18 or Leeds Town Hall the next night, 19.30 on the dot. Box office: hulltheatres.co.uk; leedstownhall.co.uk.
Opinions this way: Mark Thomas welcomes you to his 50 Things About Us show
IN his new tour show, mischief-making activist comedian Mark
Thomas is pondering “how we have come to inhabit this divided wasteland that some
of us call the United Kingdom”.
On the road since January 23, the South London satirical writer, political agent provocateur, TV and radio presenter, journalist and podcaster is bringing 50 Things About Us: Work In Progress to The Crescent, York, on March 4.
“The Crescent has a certain ramshackle charm, and it’s run with absolute integrity,” says Mark, breaking away from cooking up a pot of a very British winter warmer, leek and potato soup, to take this interview call.
Introducing the show’s theme, he explains: “I was really struck by one thought: how on earth did we get to the point we’ve got to, and part of the answer is that we’ve never come to terms with who we are.”
Was he referring to the English or the British here? “Well,
Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales; the United Kingdom includes Northern
Ireland too, and it’s been England that’s driven the creation of the union,”
says Mark, whose show combines storytelling, stand-up, mischief and typically well-researched
material.
“All these places have a very distinctive identity and culture, and it defies this binary, simplistic definition.
“The Irish language was kept alive by Presbyterians when the
English buried it, and now the Irish language is being taught by Unionist women
on the Falls Road [in Belfast], so it’s a fascinating place that defies your
normal expectations.”
“People say, ‘can’t you say something positive?’, but there’s a load of positives in there ,” says Mark Thomas of his new show
Mark notes how “English culture is seen as part of the British
empire, when Britain was ruling the world with this bombast, without
understanding the implications of that”.
So, it may be a generalisation, Mark, but why is that people
think the abiding negative aspects of the British empire are defined by Little
Englander characteristics, not British ones?
“That’s the weird thing. Scotland joined England in the union in
a time of fantastic prosperity, so Scotland doesn’t get out of its role in the empire,”
he says. “It’s fascinating that it’s
about England adopting the empire as its nationalist cause, with everyone else
slipping off.”
50 Things About Us is billed as “a show about money, history, identity, art, tradition, songs, gongs, wigs, guns, bungs, sods of soil and rich people”, as Thomas picks through the myths, facts and figures of our national identities to ask how we have so much feeling for such a hollow land”.
Summing up his night of story-telling, stand-up and subversion as a “sort of funny national edition of Who Do You Think You Are?”, Thomas says: ” It’s another slightly odd show, a sort of sweary, History Channel with laughs and creative mischief. If you’ve seen my shows before, this one’s in the vein of 100 Acts Of Minor Dissent.”
As a work in progress, the list of 50 Things is not set in stone. “It’s always being added to. You always do that. You keep going ‘b****y hell’ when you discover new things,” says Mark. “I found out the other day we’re the only nation that doesn’t have its name on its stamps.
“We have a picture of The Queen, not even a picture, but a
silhouette, and there’s a certain weirdness about that. We won’t even say where
we are! We say, ‘here’s The Queen, we’re better than everyone else’.”
Thomas, 56, has made his mark down the years by stopping arms
deals; creating a manifesto and bringing the winning policy to parliament;
walking the entire length of the Israeli wall in the West Bank and setting up a
comedy club in the Palestinian city of Jenin.
“Just looking at who we think we are, this idea we can stand alone is completely myopic,” says Mark Thomas.
He has hosted six series on Channel 4, alongside several
television documentaries and radio series; written books; grabbed a Guinness
World Record; sold out numerous tours; won awards aplenty; nabbed himself a
Medal of Honour and succeeded in changing some laws along the way.
In other words, he is a man of both action and words. How are his latest words going down on tour? “People say, ‘can’t you say something positive?’, but there’s a load of positives in there, like Britain being one of only five countries that doesn’t have a [codified] written constitution. New Zealand is one other, Canada another,” says Mark.
“We have the Charter of the Forest, our economic charter that came in in 2017, which recognises that idea of shared assets of the country [the charter re-established for free men rights of access to the royal forest that had been eroded by William the Conqueror and his heirs] .
“It was there for our mutual benefit and no-one else has ever produced anything like it. It used to be read out four times a year in church, when the squirearchy were at the front, the peasants at the back.
“It was the statute that remained longest in
force in England, but they just got rid of it in 1971 [when it was superseded
by the Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act]. But it’s something to be proud of
as part of our history; there’s an historic part of our character that, since
1217, says we have the right to run things for our common benefit.”
Where does Brexit fit into Mark’s exploration
of who we are? “I think that notion that we are a country that can go it alone
is really that characteristic of English exceptionalism, where we believe we’re
different, we’re superior, because we’re the cleverer than anyone else, reckoning
we won two World Wars and a World Cup by playing fair, which is nonsense,” he
says. “Just looking at who we think we are, this idea we can stand alone is
completely myopic.
“I’m not a great supporter of the European
Union, but I did vote Remain reluctantly, as I don’t want a move to the far right,
which is what we’ve ended up with.”
Mark Thomas’s Gilbert & George-style poster for his 50 Things About Us tour
Mark continues: “I’m a Socialist and I think
massive changes are needed but when you ignore democracy [the Brexit referendum
vote], it will bite you on the backside. If I were a Leave voter, I’d be b****y
angry. This idea that people got it wrong, and we should vote again and again
until we get it right is extremely patronising. The way they’ve been treated is
pretty awful, though I’m not defending the far right.”
Why does Mark call Britain “a hollow land”? “The fact that masses
of our history is ignored at the expense of our identity, like the history of
the NHS…that sense of absence, because we don’t tell parts of our history, is
wrong,” he says.
And now for the big question, after all Mark’s research, can he
define who we are? “It’s an important question to answer, because we’re changing
all the time, as a collective, as individuals, as parents, grandparents, how we
see ourselves,” he says.
“Though interestingly, who we think we are is not who we are.” Let’s
leave that thought hanging in the air, the perfect enticement to find out more
at The Crescent on March 4.
Mark Thomas’s 50 Things About Us: Work In Progress tour also
takes in further Yorkshire gigs at Sheffield Memorial Hall, March 1; Wakefield
Theatre Royal, March 5, and Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, April 9.
Box office: York, 01904 622510 or at thecrescent.com; Sheffield, 0114 278 9789 or sheffieldcityhall.co.uk; Wakefield, 01924 211311; Leeds, 0845 644 1881 or cityvarieties.co.uk.
Did you know?
Mark Thomas also broadcasts 50 Things About Us
as a podcast.
JOKER Jimmy Carr is Terribly Funny.
Or at least that’s the title the dry-witted British-Irish comedian, presenter
and writer has behest on this year’s York-bound travels.
Isleworth-born Carr, 47, has just
added a York Barbican date on October 25, in doing so making a crosstown switch
for the first time from his regular York stamping ground, the Grand Opera
House.
Not that the urbane stand-up putdown
specialist is not booked into the Opera House too on his 2020 tour. He is. Carr
will be Terribly Funny there first, on June 21.
Arch cynic Carr first played York in
2003 at the inaugural York Comedy Festival and The Other Side Comedy Club at The
Basement, City Screen, making his Grand Opera House debut with Public Displays Of
Affection in November 2004.
He returned in October 2006 and April
2007 with Gag Reflex; a one-off Repeat Offender in March 2008; two nights of Joke
Technician in September 2008, one in April 2009, and a brace of Rapier Wit dates
in September 2009, another in March 2010 and yet another two months later.
Jimmy Carr will be Terribly Funny twice over in York
Laughter Therapy brought Carr back for
two shows in October 2010 and one the next April; next came four performances
of Gagging Order, one in June 2012, two that December, one more in September 2013,
and two Funny Business gigs in October 2014. The Best Of, Ultimate, Greatest
Hits Tour sent him north in September 2016, October 2016 and June 2017.
His last public appearance in York
was as a guest at the York Minster wedding ceremony of pop star Ellie Goulding
and North Yorkshire-born art dealer Casper Jopling last August.
Terribly Funny contains jokes about all
kinds of terrible things, says Carr: “Terrible things that might have affected
you or people you know and love. But they’re just jokes – they are not
the terrible things. Having political correctness at a comedy show is like
having health and safety at a rodeo. Now you’ve been warned, buy a ticket.”
York Barbican tickets for Carr, the Channel 4 host of The Friday Night Project, 8 Out Of 10 Cats and The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year, are on sale on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the box office. Grand Opera House tickets, 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
THE Guardian’s fourth best comedy show of 2019, Max & Ivan’s
Commitment, will play Selby Town Hall on February 7.
“I’m delighted that Selby is the only Yorkshire date on their UK tour
and am genuinely very excited to see the show in our little venue,” says Chris
Jones, Selby Town Council’s arts officer.
“It’s one of the most talked-about comedy shows of last year, receiving a
slew of four and five-star reviews for its Edinburgh Fringe debut, and an agent
for an entirely different comedian told me last week that it was one of the
best things she’d seen…and that doesn’t happen very often.”
Performed by comedy duo Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez, Commitment is the
true story of how Max, as Ivan’s Best Man, attempted to reunite Ivan’s teenage
band – Voodoo 7:2, the premier “art rock post-punk funk” group in mid-Noughties
Liverpool – for one final gig.
“It’s a show about dreaming big, growing up, and trying – but ultimately
very much failing – to make it in the band,” says Chris.
“Directed by multiple Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Kieran Hodgson, it melds
fast-paced visuals – including a wealth of embarrassing adolescent photos – with
razor-sharp gag writing, classic double-act dynamics and a smattering of
virtuoso multi-character performances.
“At its heart, the show is a storytelling hour about Max & Ivan’s
real-life friendship and the lengths Max will go to in order to pull off the
best night of Ivan’s life.”
Olesker and Gonzalez have performed at the Melbourne International
Comedy Festival; the SXSW (South By Southwest) festival in Austin, Texas; UCB
Sunset in Los Angeles and Brooklyn’s Union Hall in New York, as well as touring
throughout Britain.
Among their past work is the super-show The Wrestling, where the world’s
best comedians step into the ring and wrestle alongside enormous professional
wrestlers in Edinburgh and Melbourne.
At last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, they debuted Max & Ivan’s Prom
Night, an anarchic, interactive, 1950s’ high-school prom show-cum-party, to a
sell-out, thousand-strong crowd in Assembly High, a purpose-designed location.
Max & Ivan created, wrote and starred in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom The
Casebook Of Max & Ivan, attracting such guest stars as Matt Lucas, June
Whitfield, Reece Shearsmith and Jessica Hynes, as well as appearing in BBC Two comedy
W1A as Ben and Jerry.
“Max & Ivan’s Commitment tour is one of The Times’s picks of 2020,”
says Chris. “I’m aware that Max & Ivan are not yet household names, but I would
love as many people as possible to catch this 8pm show.”
Tickets cost £14 on 01757 708449 or at selbytownhall.co.uk or £16 on the door from 7.30pm.
Loud hailer ! Alan Carr announces a third night at York Barbican
WHAT, again, Alan? Tickets have sold so quickly for Alan Carr’s first tour in four years, that Not Again, Alan!, is now, Yes, Again and Again and…Again, Alan, at York Barbican.
Carr, ever-chatty son of former York City footballer Graham Carr,
will play three successive Christmas nights in York, newly adding December 17
to December 18 and 19.
Tickets areon sale on
0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Since his
last comedy travels, chat-show host Carr has “managed to find himself in all
sorts of dramas”, apparently. Such as? “Between his star-studded wedding day
and becoming an accidental anarchist, from fearing for his life at border
control to becoming a reluctant farmer, three words spring to mind…Not again,
Alan!” says his tour publicity. “Join Alan on tour as he muses upon the things
that make his life weird and wonderful.”
Carr pile-up: Alan Carr to play York Barbican again and again and again
Not Again,
Alan! will be Carr’s fourth UK solo show in four-year cycles in the wake of
Yap, Yap, Yap’s 200 dates in 2015 and 2016, Spexy Beast in 2011 and Tooth Fairy
in 2007. He last brought his chat, chat, chat to York on the Yap, Yap, Yap!
itinerary on July 11 2015 at the Barbican.
Later this year, Carr will host Alan Carr’s Epic Gameshow on ITV, wherein five all-time favourite game shows will be supersized and reinvigorated for a new audience: Play Your Cards Right, Take Your Pick, Strike It Lucky, Bullseye and The Price Is Right. In 2020 too, Carr will return to the judges’ panel on the second BBC series of RuPaul’s DragRace UK.
Loudhailer! Alan Carr announces a brace of York Barbican gigs for December
HOW does
joker Alan Carr feel news of his first tour in four years will be received?
By
calling it Not Again, Alan!, the son of former York City footballer Graham Carr
supplies his own answer as he announces York Barbican gigs on December 18 and
19.
Since his last comedy travels, chat-show host Carr has “managed to find himself in all sorts of dramas”, apparently. Such as? “Between his star-studded wedding day and becoming an accidental anarchist, from fearing for his life at border control to becoming a reluctant farmer, three words spring to mind…Not again, Alan!” says his tour publicity. “Join Alan on tour as he muses upon the things that make his life weird and wonderful.”
Tickets go on sale on Wednesday at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Not Again, Alan! will be Carr’s fourth UK solo show in four-year
cycles in the wake of Yap, Yap, Yap’s 200 dates in 2015 and 2016, Spexy Beast
in 2011 and Tooth Fairy in 2007. He last brought his chat, chat, chat to York
on the Yap, Yap, Yap! itinerary on July 11 2015 at the Barbican.
Later
this year Carr will host Alan Carr’s Epic Gameshow on ITV, wherein five all-time favourite game shows will be supersized and reinvigorated for a
new audience: Play Your Cards Right, Take Your Pick, Strike It Lucky, Bullseye and The
Price Is Right. In 2020 too, Carr will return to the judges’
panel on the second BBC series of RuPaul’s DragRace UK.
Martin Witts in happier times at the Great Yorkshire Fringe. Picture: Steve Ullathorne
THE comedy is over for the Great Yorkshire Fringe
after five summers in York, blaming “city-centre management” for the decision
to exit stage left.
In a formal statement, founder and director
Martin Witts said: “Our experience of sponsoring, curating and managing
an event in this small city of ours has led to the conclusion that until a
well-managed and efficient is implemented, a festival of our size cannot thrive
and does not have a place in York.”
Here Martin, who also runs the Leicester Square
Theatre and Museum of Comedy in London, answers Charles Hutchinson’s questions.
1.What made you take this decision, Martin?
“My patience with all the red tape ran out of time.
It was the same things every year, no matter what you try to do to address the
most critical things on the Parliament Street village green site. Access.
Drainage. The licence. Security. What we were required to do changed
every year.
“Right from the start, there were frustrations. We
wanted to start the festival in 2014, but it took a year to get the licence from
the city council for Parliament Street.”
2.What would constitute a “well-managed and
efficient city-centre management”?
“The City
of York Council, Make It York and York BID are all involved in how the city centre
is run. Everyone has great intentions, but there are too many chiefs, not
enough Indians, and it’s got too complicated. That’s the frustration.”
3.Sean Bullick, managing director of Make It York,
says he would “welcome the opportunity to discuss options with you to
bring the event back”. Will you have that discussion?
“I had a meeting with Sean and
Charlie Croft [assistant director of communities and culture at City of YorkCouncil] last year to say this needs to
be resolved, but we still had problems at last summer’s festival with the drainage
provision for the toilets.”
4. Last summer, some people said the ticket prices were high; some
reckoned the quality of the newer acts had lowered; others felt the same names
kept returning. Your thoughts?
“We had no complaints about the festival content or
the programming or the pricing. There were no negative comments from patrons on
our social media and in the box-office day book. Indeed, only positives. The
average ticket price remained the same.
“But there was a drop in audience numbers certainly,
when the Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, running at the same time at the Castle car
park, had an impact.”
5. Do festivals have a natural cycle, especially
when the fickle world of comedy is prone to “the new rock’n’roll” going in and
out of fashion?
“No, I disagree with that. Comedy always has a new
audience and new acts. You only have to see the popularity of the New Comedian of
the Year award we ran each year.
“Comedy is always changing, but people like to keep
seeing their favourite comedian too.”
6.Emotionally, how do you feel about calling a halt
to the Great Yorkshire Fringe after five years?
“I’m incredibly disappointed to be having to do this. You should see the messages I’ve had from the volunteers who worked for the Fringe saying it was the highlight of their career. It was the highlight of my career too.
“In an ideal world, if it had been easier, if there
wasn’t the problem of the structure of the city-centre management, we would
like to have continued the festival, but your patience runs out in the end when
you want things to run smoothly.”
7. What did you achieve?
”We were committed to running the festival for five years and you hope
that after those five years, you’ve covered your costs, broken even, and
established yourself, which we had – and we proved Parliament Street could be a
village green with shows and all the food and drink stalls.”
8. Would you consider taking the Great Yorkshire
Fringe to another great Yorkshire city?
“No, absolutely not. I’m not planning to move it to
Leeds. This festival was always designed for the city of York, the city where
my family is from. York is the capital city of Yorkshire; the second city of
the world.”
9. You say you will “continue to invest in the
cultural scene of York”. In what ways will you do this?
“We’ll continue to do events in York, but not hold
the festival, but do them in the spirit of the Great Yorkshire Fringe. We’ll
probably have a year off but we’ll support The Arts Barge by doing a couple of
things with them in York this summer.”
10. What else is happening in the world of Witts right now?
“We’re opening a scenery workshop in Pocklington, and I’ve bought the contents of the Goole Waterways Museum after it went into liquidation. We might look at doing something with antiquities and artefacts there.”