What’s happening at York Residents’ Festival 2023? Find out where to go here

YORK Residents’ Festival 2023 combines more than 100 attractions, events and offers this weekend.

Organised by Make It York, this annual event returns on Saturday and Sunday, when historical attractions such as York Minster, Jorvik Viking Centre, Fairfax House, York Castle Museum, Barley Hall and The Guildhall will be opening their doors for free to residents.   

They also can enjoy free wizard golf at The Hole In Wand, Coppergate Walk, free river cruises with City Cruises and free chocolate tours at York’s Chocolate Story, King’s Square. Theatre lovers can go behind the scenes at York Theatre Royal and experience virtual reality with Pilot Theatre’s Monoliths, featuring sweeping soundscapes and poetic monologues by Hannah Davies, Carmen Marcus and Asma Elbadawi at York Explore Library.  

Offers across York eateries and restaurants include 22 Yards Wine, Ambiente Tapas, Brew York, Forest and Trio Mezze Bar. Plus. Look out for retail offers exclusively for residents at Avorium, The Yorkshire Soap Company, Dean’s Garden Centre, The Hat Shop and more besides.   

For those preferring to explore the city on foot, plenty of free and discounted walking tours are available. York Photo Walks’ free walks provide the chance to learn and improve photography skills while learning more about the history of York. The Wizard Walk of York promises spellbinding family-friendly walks.

To participate in York Residents’ Festival, you must present a valid York Card, student card or identity card that proves York residency. If presenting an identity card, this must clearly state ‘York’ (such as a driving licence or older person’s bus pass). 

Sarah Loftus, Make It York’s managing director, says: “We’re delighted that we have more than 100 attractions, events and offers for Residents’ Festival weekend. This is a great opportunity for residents to rediscover some of the brilliant attractions, retail and food and drink offers on their doorstep. A huge thank-you to our Visit York members for their excellent offers and to our main sponsor, Grand Central.”  

Councillor Keith Aspden, leader of City of York Council, says: “I’m delighted that York Residents’ Festival is once again back this year. The weekend is a great way to enjoy our city and support our businesses. There is a lot explore and discover, with I hope something for everyone on offer during this fun-packed weekend of activities. 

“Our thanks go to all the partners around the city who have come together to make sure that more than 100 attractions, events and offers are available for residents.” 

The full list of offers for York Residents’ Festival can be found at: www.visityork.org/resfest. Please note, some venues require pre-booking. 

Alternatively, wade your way through this comprehensive guide!

Attractions 

Barley Hall, 2 Coffee Yard, off Stonegate, YO1 8AR 

barleyhall.co.uk/01904 615505 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am – 4pm. Free entry after 2pm. 

Barley Hall is a medieval townhouse, tucked away down one of the oldest streets in York. The exhibition The Bard At Barley Hall features costumes worn by famous actors. Pre-booking is required online or by phone. Select the “Free Adult” or “Free Child” option or by calling 01904 615505. 

Bedern Hall Bartle Garth, St Andrewgate, York, YO1 7AL 

info@bedernhall.co.uk/bedernhall.co.uk 

Saturday and Sunday, 10.30am to 3.30pm. Free entry. 

Discover one of York’s true hidden medieval gems – from butchers to bakers and pork pie makers, chorals to squirrels – as Bedern Hall continues its centuries-old tradition of good food, good friend, and good times. Pre-booking is not required. 

Beningbrough Hall, Gallery and Gardens, Beningbrough, YO30 1DD 

beningbrough@nationaltrust.org.uk/nationaltrust.org.uk/beningbrough/01904 472027 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 3.30pm.

Grab your calling cards as you explore the garden and uncover the fascinating stories of the people who shaped Beningbrough with never-been-told-before stories from the latest research, voices from the past, interactive elements and family trail. Pre-booking is not required. 

Black Swan Folk Club 23, Peasholme Green, York, YO1 7PR  

blackswanfolkclub@yahoo.co.uk/Blackswanfolkclub.org.uk/01904 679131  

Sunday only.

Winter Folk Day performances by folk musicians. Two sessions 2pm to 5.30pm and 7.30pm to 10.30pm in the Black Swan Inn’s Wolfe Room. Pre-booking is not required.   

Brew York, Unit 6, Enterprise Complex, Walmgate, York YO1 9TT 

bars@brewyork.co.uk/brewyork.co.uk/01904 848448 

Saturday only. Free 30-minute brewery tour and tasting at 1pm and 2pm. 

Founded in Walmgate in 2016, Brew York boasts a £2million state-of-the-art production facility and global distribution. See where it all began with a mini-tour of the original brewery as you enjoy a fresh beer on them. Pre-booking is required via email. 

City Cruises, King’s Staith Landing and Lendal Bridge Landing 

info@citycruises.com/cityexperiences.com/york/city-cruises/ 

Saturday and Sunday.  Free cruise. 

Set sail with City Cruises for a free cruise at 11am, 12 noon, 1pm, 2pm or 3pm. No pre-booking; first-come, first-served. 

Clifford’s Tower, Tower Street, York, YO1 9SA 

Cliffords.Tower@english-heritage.org.uk/01904 646940 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry 

Immerse yourself in history at this iconic site and experience views over the city. A new roof deck, walkways and staircases have opened up parts of the tower, where a new interpretation brings the tower’s history to life. Pre-booking is not required. 

DIG: An Archaeological Adventure, St Saviour’s Church, St Saviourgate, YO1 8NN 

Digyork.co.uk/01904 615505 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry after 2pm.

Discover exciting artefacts from 2,000 years of York history at DIG. Children can grab a trowel and dig up the clues that show how people lived in Roman, Viking, medieval and Victorian times. Pre-booking is required online or by phone. Select the “Free Adult” or “Free Child” option or by calling 01904 615505 

Fairfax House, Castlegate, York, Y01 9RN 

info@fairfaxhouse.co.uk/fairfaxhouse.co.uk/01904 655543 

Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 2pm. Free entry. 

Numbers are limited and places need to be pre-booked online on a timed ticket basis to visit this furnished 18th century historic house museum.  

Get Cycling, 22 Hospital Fields Road, Fulford, YO10 4DZ 

shop@getcycling.org.uk/getcycling.org.uk/01904 636812 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm.

Free half-day bike hire (for five hours). One hire per person. Deposit necessary. Pre-booking is required via telephone or email quoting Residents’ Festival. 

Holgate Windmill, Windmill Rise, Holgate, York YO26 4TX.

For parking use YO24 4AE (Acomb Road). 

chair@holgatewindmill.org/holgatewindmill.org/07926 151132 

Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 4pm. Free entry. 

Visit York’s only surviving windmill, built in 1770, now restored and in full working order. Stoneground wholemeal and spelt flour milled here is available for sale. Pre-booking is not required. 

Jorvik Viking Centre, Coppergate, YO1 9WT 

Jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk/01904 615505 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry after 2pm. 

Discover York’s Viking legacy at the award-winning Jorvik Viking Centre. Meet a Viking of Coppergate, be up close with rare artefacts and take in the sights, sounds and smells of Viking York. Pre-booking is required online or phone. Select the “Free Adult” or “Free Child” option or by calling 01904 615505. 

LNER Community Stadium (York RLFC), Kathryn Avenue, Monks Cross Drive, Huntington, York, YO32 9AF 

j.bullock@yorkrlfc.com/yorkrlfc.com/ 01904 670880 

Sunday only. Free tours at 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm (12 people maximum per tour) 

Head inside the inner sanctum of North Yorkshire’s premier rugby league teams. The LNER Community Stadium hosts the York Knights and Valkyrie, who offer residents the chance to join them on stadium tours, sharing the full matchday journey of the players and taking in the club’s history. Meet at the York RLFC club shop 15 minutes before your booked tour time. Pre-booking is required by filling out this form:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc-rW6csfuGUuWpc2otzeB0_PdMUp4sqkB2bf6v-xH_4U1X4g/viewform?usp=sf_link 

Lost Earth Adventures, Brimham Rocks, Summerbridge, Harrogate, HG3 4DW 

info@lostearthadventures.co.uk/lostearthadventures.co.uk/01904 500094 

Saturday and Sunday. Free three-hour taster session. 

Try rock climbing and abseiling at Brimham Rocks. Suitable for all abilities and anyone aged 7+. All equipment included. Maximum two people per booking. Pre-booking is required via email. 

Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, Fossgate, York, YO1 8XD 

Merchantshallyork.org/enquiries@merchantshallyork.org/01904 654818 

Saturday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry. 

Fascinating tales, awe-inspiring architecture and intriguing, rare artefacts to be explored at this timber-framed building. The Merchants’ Coffee House will be open, serving food and drinks. Pre-booking is not required. 

Merchant Taylors’ Hall, Aldwark, York, YO1 7BX 

events@merchant-taylors-york.org/merchant-taylors-york.org/01904 624889 

Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry. 

Merchant Taylors of the City of York members will be on hand to explain the many colourful facets and intriguing 600-year history of this medieval hall. Pre-booking is not required. 

National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, YO1 9TL 

boxoffice@ncem.co.uk/ncem.co.uk/01904 658338 

Sunday, 2pm to 4pm. Free session. 

A Residents’ Festival weekend special taster for the NCEM’s monthly singing session, Cuppa & A Chorus. No experience necessary; only a willingness to sing. Hot drinks and cakes too. Pre-booking is required online. 

Pilot Theatre – Monoliths VR, at York Explore Library, Library Square, Museum Street, York YO1 7DS 

info@pilot-theatre.com/rebrand.ly/monoliths/01904 635755 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 12:30pm and 1.30pm to 5pm. Free event. 

A chance to experience virtual reality with York company Pilot Theatre’s Monoliths, exploring three northern environments with sweeping soundscapes and poetic monologues, in an event sponsored by York BID. Monoliths is an arresting testament to the inextricable link between person and place.

The Guildhall, St Martin’s Courtyard, Coney Street, York, YO1 9QL 

conferences@york.ac.uk/york.ac.uk/business/theguildhall/01904 328431 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry. 

Residents will have access to all areas of The Guildhall, with a self-guided interactive tour of the 15th century medieval hall, historic council chamber and committee room. All cakes and coffees will have 10 per cent off at the Riverside Cafe for the weekend, and those who complete the quiz will be in with a chance of winning  a £20 voucher for the Cafe Lounge. The venue’s wedding coordinators will also be on hand to show any newly engaged couples around. York Gin will be running free gin tastings and talks for residents from 11am on both days. Pre-booking is not required. 

The Grand, York, Station Rise, York, YO1 6GD 

info@thegrandyork.co.uk thegrandyork.co.uk/01904 380038 

Saturday to Monday. Free tour.  

Step inside York’s only five-star hotel, previously the head offices for the North Eastern Railway HQ, for a guided tour of bedrooms, old railway offices, event spaces. Even meet the resident bees! Pre-booking is required online via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tour-of-yorks-only-five-star-hotel-and-former-ner-hq-the-grand-york-tickets-463708734307 

The Hole In Wand, 14-16 Coppergate Walk, York YO1 9NT 

york@theholeinwand.com/theholeinwand.com/york/01904 890135 

Saturday and Sunday, ,3pm to 9pm. Free entry. 

Visit “the world’s most magical golf course” in the heart of York. This Wizard-style adventure will see you tackle a bubbling cauldron and become part of a giant picture while you search for Grobblenook! Entry only; excludes potion. Pre-booking is required online. Use code RESFEST2023. 

William’s Den, Castle Farm, Wold Hill, North Cave, East Riding, HU15 2LS 

rachel@williamsden.co.uk/Willliamsden.co.uk/01430 472230 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry (but small booking fee).

Custom-built family adventure playscape with indoor play areas, climbing ropes and zip lines, woodland walks and pizza dining. Pre-book your free tickets for William’s Den online using the promo code YKRES2829.  A booking fee of 50p is payable.  

York Army Museum, 3 Tower Street, York, YO1 9SB 

contact@yorkarmymuseum.co.uk/yorkarmymuseum.co.uk/01904 461010 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry. 

Discover the regiments’ stories from 1685 to the present day. Trails, crafts and object-handling. While here, collect a free mini-sketch book (made from recycled coffee cups), pencil and sketching guide to sketch your favourite parts of York as you go around the city. Pre-booking is not required. 

York Art Gallery, Exhibition Square, York, YO1 7EW 

yorkartgallery.org.uk/01904 687687 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry. 

The galleries of fine art and ceramics are free to enjoy. Discover a new display of treasures from the stores. See jewels of the collection in a new light plus rarely displayed works. Pre-booking is required online. Maximum group size of six. 

York BID – Reunion, St Sampson’s Square, York, YO1 8RR 

On show until February 6.

York’s winter nights are being brightened up by Kumquat Lab’s light art installation, Reunion. Brought St Sampson’s Square by York BID, this artwork represents connectedness and the act of gathering together. 

York Castle Museum, Eye of York, York, YO1 9RY 

Yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk/01904 687687 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5pm. Free entry. 

Immerse yourself in 400 years of York’s history, whether the Victorian street Kirkgate, infamous prisoners in the spooky cells or the Swinging Sixties. Pre-booking is required online. Maximum group size of six. 

York Cemetery, Cemetery Road, York, YO10 5AJ  

yorkcemeteryvolunteers@gmail.com/yorkcemetery.org.uk/07908 221152  

Sunday, 10am to 4pm.

The Friends of York Cemetery will open the Pritchett Chapel for self-guided walking trails, catacomb tours, garden walks and much more. Discover the cemetery’s history and make a cone bird feeder, an activity ideal for children. Free tea/coffee and cake. Pre-booking is not required. 

York Cold War Bunker, Monument Close, York, YO24 4HT 

yorkbunker@english-heritage.org.uk/english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/york-cold-war-bunker/01904 797935 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry. 

York Cold War Bunker uncovers the secret history of Britain’s Cold War. Enter the blast-proof doors and investigate the more unusual side of York’s heritage. In active service from the 1960s to the 1990s, the bunker was designed as a nerve-centre to monitor fallout in the event of a nuclear attack. Pre-booking is required online. Use code RESFES101 

York’s Chocolate Story, King’s Square, York, YO1 7LD 

info@yorkschocolatestory.com/yorkschocolatestory.com/01904 527775 

Saturday and Sunday, 9am to 6pm. Free entry for the first four tours each day.

This offer is for walk-ins only. Residents also will receive 20 per cent off the guided tours for the whole weekend. Pre-booking is not required. 

York Dungeon, 12 Clifford Street, York, YO1 9RD 

yorkguests@merlinentertainments.bizthedungeons.com/york or 01904 632599 

Saturday to Tuesday (31/1/2023). Free entry before 12 noon.  

Limited availability. Tickets must be pre-booked online using the promotional code ydresfest23. Prebooking is required online via: https://www.thedungeons.com/york/?promocode=complimentary  

York Explore Library: Map Attack! – Lego City of Wonder, Library Square, York, YO1 7DS 

york@exploreyork.org.uk/exploreyork.org.uk/01904 552828 

Saturday, 10am to 2pm.  

Drop in to use a range of Lego and Duplo to build the wonderful city of York. Take inspiration from historic maps of York from the city’s archives. What will you create? Pre-booking is not required. 

York Explore Library: Mapping Historic York Exhibition, Library Square, York YO1 7DS 

york@exploreyork.org.ukexploreyork.org.uk/01904 552828 

Saturday, 10am to 4pm. 

Explore the history of York’s built environment. Learn about York as it was, as it is, and as it might have been in this display of original material from the city’s archive. Pre-booking is not required. 

York Mansion House, St Helen’s Square, York, YO1 9QL 

mansionhouse@york.gov.uk/mansionhouseyork.com/ 01904 553663 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5pm (last admission 4pm). Free entry. 

Walk in the footsteps of lords and ladies, cooks and butlers. Explore four floors, from the authentic Georgian kitchen below stairs to the 18th century splendour above, steeped in 300 years of scandal, secrets and superstition. Pre-booking is not required. 

York Medical Society, 23 Stonegate, York, YO1 8AW 

yorkmedicalsociety@gmail.com/yorkmedsoc.org/01904 849821 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 3pm 

York Medical Society has its own rooms within a beautiful Grade II listed building in Stonegate, providing a location for topical lectures, events and wedding receptions. Explore the building; refreshments will be available, with proceeds supporting York Foodbank. Pre-booking is not required. 

York Minster, Deangate, York, YO1, 7HH 

info@yorkminster.org/yorkminster.org/01904 557200 

Saturday and Sunday.

Experience panoramic views of York from the highest point in the city: York Minster’s Central Tower. See medieval stonework and gothic grotesques as you climb 275 steps to the top. You must be aged 8+ to climb the tower.

Trips run every 45 minutes, starting at 10.15am on Saturday, with the last taking place at 3.30pm. On Sunday, the first trip begins at 1.15 pm; the last at 2.45pm. Trips can only be booked in person on the day, are weather dependent and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Health and safety conditions apply; see website for details. 

York Steiner School, 33 Fulford Cross, York, YO10 4PB 

info@yorksteinerschool.org/yorksteinerschool.org/01904 654983 

Sunday. Tours at 9am, 10.30am, 12 noon or 1.30pm. 

A warm welcome awaits all York families at the seasonal craft day and tour. Experience the magic of a Steiner education over a hot drink in the cosy community room and find out why parents rate them so highly! Pre-booking is required via email or telephone. Numbers are limited to four families per session. 

Yorkshire Heart Vineyard & Brewery, The Vineyard, Pool lane, Nun Monkton, York, YO26 8EL 

office@yorkshireheart.com/yorkshireheart.com/01423 330716 

Sunday, 10am to 3.30pm. Free vineyard tour and wine tasting

Yorkshire Heart are offering wine tasting in their Winehouse café and a short vineyard and winery tour on the hour every hour from 11am until 2pm. Pre-booking is not required. 

Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens, Museum Street, York, YO1 7FR 

Yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/01904 687687 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Free entry. 

Home to some of the greatest archaeological and geological finds in Britain. Explore York’s Roman, Viking and medieval past through a range of artefacts and meet our prehistoric predecessors in Yorkshire’s Jurassic World! For all the family. Pre-booking is required online. Maximum group size of six. 

York Theatre Royal, St Leonard’s Place, York, YO1 7HD 

boxoffice@yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/01904 623568 

Sunday. Free tour.

Find out more about the fascinating history of the Theatre Royal, discover secrets about the backstage world and learn more about the building. Pre-booking is required via the box office. 

Tours 

Mountain Goat Tours, Duncombe Place, York 

tours@mountain-goat.com/mountain-goat.com/01539 445161 

Saturday and Sunday.

York residents will receive a 50 per cent discount. Pre-booking is required online using the promo code “YORK50”. 

York’s Hidden History, York city centre 

yorkshh@gmail.com/facebook.com/yorkshiddenhist/07725 040647 

Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 11am; 2pm to 3pm. 

Join York’s Hidden History and uncover the city’s ancient, natural and scientific secrets on their guided walks. For the Residents’ Festival, they will be offering a York Ice Walk in the morning and a Micklegate Meander in the afternoon. Pre-booking is required via the events section of their Facebook page: facebook.com/yorkshiddenhist 

York Photo Walks

Meet outside York Art Gallery. 

info@yorkphotowalks.uk/yorkphotowalks.uk/07950 882794 

Saturday, 10am to 4pm. Free walk. 

The photo walks involve learning and developing photography knowledge, while exploring York’s rich history, people, nature and architecture. The aim is to inspire you to stretch your creative legs when out and about with your camera. Walks will take two hours. Pre-booking is required via email or phone.  

Wizard Walk of York, Shambles, by the railings of St Crux Church, York. 

info@wizardwalkofyork.com/wizardwalkofyork.com/08454752124 

Saturday, 4pm. Free tour. 

Join The Wizard of York for family fun with spellbinding magic, comedy and a dash of history. Ideal for ages five to ten and their families. Pre-booking is required via email. Please include details of the total number of adults and children. 

Churches 

All Saints’ Church, North Street, York, YO1 6JD 

engagement.allsaintsnorth@gmail.com/allsaints-northstreet.org.uk/07709 191400 

Friday and Saturday, 10am to 4pm. 

All Saints’ Church has two days of events, with a coffee morning and church history talk on Friday,  followed by tours of the stained glass and anchorhold, fun family activities, and illuminated evensong and benediction on Saturday. All welcome. Pre-booking is not required. 

Central Methodist Church, St Saviourgate, York, YO1 8NQ 

centralmethodistyork.org.uk/01904 612171 

Saturday, 11am to 4pm. 

This Grade II-listed building, built in 1840, is one of the few chapels of its period still intact. See the horseshoe-shaped interior with gallery and box pews and listen to the organ, one of the finest in York. Pre-booking is not required. 

St Denys Church Welcome Day, Walmgate, York, YO1 9QD 

nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-denys-york 

stdenyschurchyork@gmail.com/07941 246312 

Saturday, 10am to 4pm.

A warm community welcome is extended to allcomers with tea, tours, talks and entertainment under the theme of “Eat-Pray-Love…”, telling the history and ambition of St Denys Church, alongside refreshments both bodily and spiritual, while celebrating the refurbished church fabric and fabulous ‘Henry’ organ installation. 

Trinity Church York, St Anthony’s Hall, Peasholme Green, York, YO1 7PW  

trinitychurchyork.org.uk/contact@trinitychurchyork.org.uk/01904 651726  

Saturday and Sunday.

Visit the medieval hall to see timber bracing, 15th century carvings and the home of a thriving church. Mini-lectures at 10am, 11am and 1pm on Saturday on Medieval Motherhood, How York Became Christian and The York Conservation Trust. Pre-booking is required via email. 

For Food and Drink and Retail offers, go to: www.visityork.org/resfest.

Later in the year 

Goddards, 27 Tadcaster Road, York, YO24 1GG 

nationaltrust.org.uk/goddards/goddards@nationaltrust.org.uk/01904 472027 

March 4 and 5, 11am to 4pm. 

Explore the garden where the Terry chocolatier family lived on its opening weekend for 2023. Five acres of garden rooms surround their former home. Discover fragrant borders, wildlife areas and glasshouse, alongside a more formal pond and lawn. Pre-booking is not required. 

Treasurer’s House, Minster Yard, York, YO1 7JL 

treasurershouse@nationaltrust.org.uk/nationaltrust.org.uk/treasurershouse/01904 624247 

April 23 and 24, 11 am to 4pm. 

Behind York Minster, discover this intriguing house on a tour. See the collection of fine antiques, art and furniture created by the wealthy, eccentric Industrialist Frank Green, who gave it to the National Trust in 1930. Pre-booking is required online via the website. Select National Trust member option and type RESFEST when asked for a membership number. Bring valid York Card or residency ID on the day. 

More Things To Do in and around York in the jaws of a Jurassic invasion. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 4, courtesy of The Press, York

FROM giant dinosaurs to a heavyweight comedian, hardcore songs to a royal reading, Charles Hutchinson seeks to make life eventful.

Dinosaurs make a comeback: Jurassic Earth, Grand Opera House, York, January 28, 1pm and 4pm

JURASSIC Earth’s “live dinosaur show” roams York in an immersive, interactive, 75-minute, storytelling experience for all ages with state-of-the-art, animatronic, life-like creatures.

Audiences are invited to “bring your biggest roar and your fastest feet as you take Ranger Danger’s masterclass to become an Official Dinosaur Ranger – gaining the skills you need to come face-to-face with the world’s largest walking T Rex, a big-hearted Brontosaurus, tricky Triceratops, uncontrollable Carnotaurus, vicious Velociraptors and sneaky Spinosaurus”. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Tim Lowe: Cellist and York Chamber Music Festival director, performing Messiaen’s Quartet For The End Of Time at York Minster

 Holocaust memorial concert of the week: York Chamber Music Festival, Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet For The End Of Time, York Minster, Tuesday, 7pm

YORK Chamber Music Festival marks Holocaust Memorial Week – and the start of the festival’s tenth anniversary – with a performance of “one of the greatest pieces of music from the 20th century”, written and premiered in the German prisoner-of-war camp at Stalag VIIIa, Gorlitz, in 1941.

Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet For The End Of Time will be played by John Lenehan, piano, Sacha Rattle, clarinet, John Mills, violin, and festival director Tim Lowe, cello, in York Minster’s Lady Chapel under John Thornton’s restored 15th century Great East Window (the “Apocalypse Window”). Box office: tickets.yorkminster.org.

Lloyd Griffith: Comedy measured out as One Tonne Of Fun at The Crescent, York. Picture: Matt Crockett

Comedy gig of the week: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Lloyd Griffith, One Tonne Of Fun, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

AFTER Covid stretched Lloyd Griffith’s last tour to “eight years or so”, he returns with his biggest itinerary to date, One Tonne Of Fun.

Since school, he has always been a show-off, and 20-odd years later, nothing’s changed, so expect stand-up, dubious impressions and a sprinkling of his (incredible) singing from the comic with Ted Lasso, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Soccer AM, Question Of Sport, Not Going Out and House Of Games credits. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Ewa Salecka: Directing Prima Vocal Ensemble at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Choral concert of the week: Prima Vocal Ensemble, Lift Every Voice, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, January 29, 7.30pm

EWA Salecka directs Prima Vocal Ensemble in a life-affirming concert that weaves its way through diverse generations and genres with live accompaniment.

Living composers Lauridsen, Gjeilo, Whitacre and Jenkins sit alongside favourite numbers from Les Misérables and The Greatest Showman, complemented by songs by Annie Lennox, Elbow, the Gershwins and Cole Porter and a tribute to the people of Ukraine. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls: Playing York Barbican at the end of January

Hardcore York gig of the month: Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, York Barbican, January 31, 8pm

FRANK Turner, punk and folk singer-songwriter from Meonstoke, Hampshire, will be accompanied by The Sleeping Souls in York as he draws on his nine studio albums from a 17-year solo career.

Last year, the former Million Dead frontman, 41, topped the UK Official Album Chart for the first time with FTHC (his anagram for Frank Turner Hardcore) after his previous four all made the top three. Support slots go to Lottery Winners & Wilswood Buoys. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Rosemary Brown: Author gives an insight into the remarkable life of Nellie Bly at York Theatre Royal

Who was Nellie Bly? In Conversation With Rosemary Brown, York Theatre Royal, February 4, 5.15pm, free admission

YORK Theatre Royal and Tilted Wig’s touring adaptation of Jules Verne’s madcap adventure Around The World In 80 days features not only the fictional feats of Phileas Fogg but also the real-life story of Nellie Bly, American journalist, industrialist, inventor, charity worker and globe-crossing record breaker.

In a free talk, director and adaptor Juliet Forster will be in conversation with Rosemary Brown, author of Following Nellie Bly, Her Record-Breaking Race Around The World, a book inspired by this human rights and environmental campaigner’s aim to put female adventurers back on the map. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Tony Froud: Directing York Shakespeare Project’s rehearsed reading of Edward II

The second coming of…York Shakespeare Project, Edward III, rehearsed reading, upstairs at Black Swan Inn, Peasholme Green, York, February 7, 7.30pm

PHASE Two of York Shakespeare Project begins with a staged rehearsed reading of Edward III, the rarely performed 1592 history play now widely accepted as a collaboration between William Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd, replete with its celebration of Edward’s victories over the French, depiction of the Black Prince and satirical digs at the Scots.

Rehearsed readings in February will be a regular part of YSP’s revamped remit to include work by the best of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Tony Froud’s cast includes Liz Elsworth, Emma Scott and Mark Hird, best known for his work with Pick Me Up Theatre. Tickets: on the door or via eventbrite.com.

Home work: Sara Howlett, Sophie Bullivant and Laura Castle in rehearsal for Rowntree Players’ spring production of Teachers Leavers ’22

Spring term school play: Rowntree Players in Teechers Leavers ’22, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, March 16 to 18, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee  

REHEARSALS are underway for Rowntree Players’ production of Teechers Leavers ’22, former teacher John Godber’s update of his state-of-education play, commissioned for £100 by Hull Truck Theatre in 1984.

Actor Jamie McKeller, familiar to York ghost-walk enthusiasts as Deathly Dark Tours spookologist Doctor Dorian Deathly, is working with a cast of Sara Howlett, Sophie Bullivant and Laura Castle as they “put in the hard work needed for this very physically demanding play”. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

More Things To Do in York and beyond as 2023’s shoots start to poke through. Hutch’s List No. 3, courtesy of The Press

Linus Karp: Invitation to join Diana in heaven as she shares the untold and untrue tale of her extraordinary life at Theatre@41. Picture: Dave Bird

FROM a drag Diana to a DIY staging of Harry Potter, synth pop turned symphonic to a long-running Agatha Christie mystery, Charles Hutchinson goes in search of entertainment new and old.

Royal verité show? Probably not! Linus Karp in Diana: The Untold And Untrue Story, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 3 and 4, 7.30pm

DO you know the story of Diana? Probably. But do you know writer-performer Linus Karp’s  story of Diana? “We very much doubt it,” say Awkward Productions, the harbingers of theatrical chaos responsible for this humorous, if tasteless, celebration of the people’s princess.

Join Diana in heaven as she shares the untold and untrue tale of her extraordinary life through a combination of drag, multimedia, audience interaction, puppetry and “a lot of queer joy”. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Sketch of Lendal and street in progress by Steve Beadle, one of the Navigators Art artists exhibiting at Helmsley Arts Centre

Exhibition of the week: Navigators Art, Moving Pictures II, at Helmsley Arts Centre, until March 3; Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10am to 3pm; Thursdays, 11am to 3pm, and during event opening times

YORK collective Navigators Art are represented by seven artists at Helmsley: Kai Amafé, prints and 3D work; Steve Beadle, paintings and drawings; Michael Dawson, paintings; Richard Kitchen, prints and collages; Katie Lewis, textiles and paintings; Timothy Morrison, constructions, and Peter Roman, paintings.

“The title Moving Pictures is deliberately open to interpretation by the audience as well as the artists,” says co-founder Richard Kitchen, who will be stewarding an 11am to 3pm open day tomorrow (15/1/2023). Exhibition entry is free.

Textile art by Katie Lewis, another of the Navigators Art artists on show in Moving Pictures II at Helmsley Arts Centre

Fundraiser of the week: White Rose Theatre in A Gala Night (and day) Of Musical Theatre, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, today, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

THE Katie Ventress School of Dance, York Musical Theatre Company and guest soloists will be accompanied by a band under the musical direction of John Atkin in these uplifting gala concerts to blow away the post-Christmas blues.

Favourites from Les Miserables, Jesus Christ Superstar and Anything Goes are promised. All proceeds will go to the JoRo’s Raise The Roof campaign. Box office for the last few tickets: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Electrifying Eighties: Calling Planet Earth gives a symphonic coating to Duran Duran and co

Nostalgia of the week: Calling Planet Earth, A New Romantic Symphony, York Barbican, January 21, 8pm

A NEW Romantic Symphony heads out on a journey through the electrifying Eighties to revisit the songs of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, The Human League, Ultravox, Tears For Fears, Depeche Mode, Japan, ABC, Soft Cell and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.

Symphonic arrangements combine with “stunning vocals” in a parade of hits that defined a decade. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Pottervision: Lukas Kirkby and Tom Lawrinson re-create first film Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone with DIY props, wigs and charity-shop costumes

Magic with mayhem? Pottervision, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, February 10, 7.45pm

LUKAS Kirkby and Tom Lawrinson gather up DIY props, charity-shop costumes and wizarding wigs for their “ridiculous re-creation” of Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, staged with multiple role-playing and limited resources after two fellow performers drop out.

What could possibly go wrong?! Find out in Pottervision, a fantastical spectacular for casual fan and avid squib alike. Please note: suitable for age 16 upwards on account of adult language and dark humour. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Miles & The Chain Gang: New single to promote at Alne Village Hall

Back on the Chain Gang: Alne Music Club presents Miles & The Chain Gang, Alne Village Hall, Main  Street, Alne, February 11, 7.30pm

YORK band Miles & The Chain Gang head to their first gig of the year with an imminent new single in their locker, Charlie. Recorded last September at Young Thugs Studio in York, it features Miles Salter, guitar and vocals, Tim Bruce, bass, Daniel Bowater, keyboards, Steve Purton, drums, and Mat Watt, guitar.

“We’re filming the video in the next few days with our video guru Dave Thorp,” says Salter. Tickets: from  d.lepper27@btinternet.com or on 01347 838114. 

Dimitra Ananiadou: Violinist to peform recital with pianist Richard Whalley at NCEM

Take a bow: Dimitra Ananiadou & Richard Whalley, A Travel Through Time, National Centre for Early Music, York, February 25, 7pm

DIMITRA Ananiadou returns to York to travel back in time for a violin recital that explores the creation of Baroque, classical and 20th century music with the aid of her special bows.

Composer and pianist Richard Whalley will be accompanying her on the journey through JS Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor (Ciaccona), Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice for Solo Violin No. 24 Op. 1, Beethoven’s Violin Sonata Op. 30 No. 2 and Fritz Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro in the style of Gaetano Pugnani. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Todd Carty: Playing Major Metcalf in 70th anniversary tour of The Mousetrap

Mystery play in York:The Mousetrap, Grand Opera House, March 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

AGATHA Christie’s mystery The Mousetrap, “the longest running play in the world”, takes in more than 70 venues on its 70th anniversary tour, including a return to York’s Grand Opera House.

EastEnders’ duo Todd Carty, as Major Metcalf, and Gwyneth Strong, as Mrs Boyle, feature in Ian Talbot’s cast for this tale of intrigue and suspense set at Monkswell Manor, a stately countryside guesthouse where seven strangers find themselves snowed in as news spreads of a murder in London. When a police sergeant arrives, the guests discover – to their horror – that a killer is in their midst. Whodunnit? Box office: atgtickets.com/York.

York Ceramics Fair confirms 2023 return for March 4 and 5 event at York Racecourse

AFTER a short break to find a new venue, York Ceramics Fair will  return on March 4 and 5 indoors at York Racecourse.

The springtime show promises an “impressive line-up of ceramicists for this fourth instalment of the popular fair”, complemented by new public engagement activities, events, talks and more besides.

“This event will offer something for all,” says publicist Lotte Inch, the York curator and arts consultant, who is one of the fair’s planners. “Whether you’re a seasoned collector or just want to explore anew the wonderful world of ceramics and pots, why not drop in and support this fantastic event and all the talented makers involved in the show?”

A free shuttle bus will run between York Racecourse, on Kavesmire Road, and the Memorial Gardens Coach Park, in Station Road, York. Opening hours will be 10am to 5pm, March 4, and 10am to 4pm, March 5.

Tickets are priced from £6.13 on Eventbrite: https://www.yorkceramicsfair.com/ticket-info/

Navigators Art artists follow up Coney Street intervention with Helmsley Arts Centre and City Screen shows

Ana Alisia, Big Issue Seller, by Peter Roman, from the Navigators Art exhiibition at StreetLife

YORK collective Navigators Art will conclude the extended run of their mixed-media exhibition at StreetLife’s project hub in Coney Street, York, on Sunday.

The 13 artists taking part in Coney St Jam: An Art Intervention will hold a sale of works on Saturday, when artists will be on site to meet visitors from 11am to 5pm.

Meanwhile, seven Navigators Art artists are exhibiting at Helmsley Arts Centre from this week to March 4 in a follow-up to last spring’s City Screen Picturehouse exhibition, Moving Pictures, and a further exhibition is to be held at City Screen from March 19 to April 22.

Drawing inspiration from the city’s rich heritage and vibrant creative communities, the StreetLife project explores new ways to revitalise and diversify Coney Street, York’s premium shopping street but one blighted with multiple empty premises.

In a creative response to Coney Street’s past, present and future, Navigators Art have made new work designed to enhance and interpret StreetLife’s research for a project involving the University of York, City of York Council, Make It York, My City Centre, York Civic Trust, York Music Venues Network and Thin Ice Press.

On show are paintings, drawings, collages, photography, textiles, projections, music, poetry and 3D work. Entry to the exhibition space is accessible by one set of stairs. 

Taking part are Steve Beadle, figurative painting and drawing; Michael Dawson, mixed-media painting; Alfie Fox, creative photography; Alan Gillott, architectural and scenic photography; Oz Hardwick, creative photography, and Richard Kitchen, collage, abstract drawing, prints and poetry.

So too are Katie Lewis, textiles; Tim Morrison, painting and constructions; Peter Roman, figurative painting; Amy Elena Thompson, prints and tattoos; Dylan Thompson, composer; Simon AG Ellwood, sculptures, and Nick Walters, painting, video and sculpture.

“The arts are essential to public, cultural and personal wellbeing, despite efforts to ignore, undermine, underfund and generally devalue them to a shocking and highly unintelligent extent,” says Navigators Art co-founder Richard Kitchen.

“The arts should be central to every decision-making process in government and to education at every level.

Artwork by Amy Elena Thompson at StreetLife, Coney Street, York

“In the times we’re living through, we need creative solutions on a gigantic scale, and we need the sheer energy of the arts to help us survive and adapt. Those things aren’t going to be provided by bureaucracy or petty squabbling between political parties.

“I’d say give artists the kudos they deserve and let us help to turn things around. Pay us. Give us space to work in: let us use those empty buildings! Art isn’t just about old monuments. There are many living artists in York who could successfully take on social responsibilities because of the nature of what they do. We’re an asset to the city and should be valued and promoted as such.”

Richard continues: “Make Coney Street a flagship enclave for creatives and independent small retailers and an affordable, inspiring resource for the public to enjoy.

“That’s something we provided when we were based at Piccadilly [Piccadilly Pop Up] and we came to realise more and more how much that environment meant to people and benefited them. Offer that on a much wider scale and we’ll see real change for the better in society.”

Mixed-media artist Michael Dawson’s work is an homage to “all the words that poured out of Coney Street”, conjured since his move from Edinburgh to York last January. “I generally make dense, vibrant paintings and images on paper, wood, and canvas with mixed media, mainly acrylic and oil paint sticks,” he says.

“They often combine expressionistic, graphic and romantic elements that may be considered ‘outsider’ in style. Some are simple in layout, and some are busy and complex, but all have an air of the confessional; they are deeply personal.

“However raw the composition, I do always strive to bring poetry and aesthetics to the mix. My connection to the theme of ‘printing’ is ‘words’; words that once sprang from the Yorkshire Herald newspaper and words that continue to help define a new era for the area.” 

Peter Roman likes to “use everything” in his works, not only oils, acrylics, pastels and charcoal, but even a repurposed cupboard door and a chipboard for his painting of Big Issue seller Ana Alisia.

“It features the issue I bought from her that day, using paper from that edition, the one with Alan Ayckbourn on the front,” says Peter.

“Ana is always on the corner of Coney Street and Market Street, and she’s there pretty much every day. I moved out to Elvington three years ago, but when I come into York, she’s still there, and she’s always smiling.

“When I talked to her, she told me she’s originally from Rumania and now lives in Leeds.”

Torrents Willow Herald Speak, by Mike Dawson

Amy Elena Thompson, who studied illustration at York St John University, is presenting prints and tattoo designs rooted in the history of the now-demolished George Inn at Number 19, Coney Street, where Charlotte and Anne Bronte once stayed.

“I was interested in seeing how I could use designs from there in my own practice, given how decorative they were and how similar they were to tattoos, which I’m hoping to get into as a career, starting with an apprenticeship, working with a tattooist as my mentor to pass on the necessary knowledge.”

Amy’s research led her to learning about an artist who provided illustrations for coaching inns, depicting both the buildings and the life on the street.

Favouring 3D designs in her work, Amy uses calligraphy pens. “You have to think about the pressure you apply with them, like you do with a tattoo, but it gives  a natural flow to each work.”

Participating in the Moving Pictures II show at Helmsley Arts Centre are Kai Amafé, prints and 3D work; Steve Beadle, paintings and drawings; Michael Dawson, paintings; Richard Kitchen, prints and collages; Katie Lewis, textiles and paintings; Timothy Morrison, constructions, and Peter Roman, paintings.

“The title Moving Pictures is deliberately open to interpretation by the audience as well as the artists,” says Richard.

“Looking ahead, we hope to be working with York Archaeology in 2023 and are planning a series of themed events in and around the city.”

Coney St Jam: An Art Intervention by Navigators Art, at StreetLife Project Hub, 29-31 Coney Street, York, is open 10am to 5pm, Thursday to Saturday, 11am to 4pm, Sunday. Free entry.

Navigators Art’s Moving Pictures II exhibition runs at Helmsley Arts Centre until March 3; open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10am to 3pm; Thursdays, 11am to 3pm, as well as during event opening times. Artist Richard Kitchen will be stewarding an 11am to 3pm opening on Sunday, January 15. Admission is free.

More Things To Do in York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 2 for the road ahead in 2023, apocalyptic art et al, from The Press

John Ledger: Back To Normalism artist at Micklegate Social and Fossgate Social

IT’S time for back-to-normal service to resume as Charles Hutchinson wipes the sleep from the eyes of his diary for 2023. 

Exhibition launch of the week: Back To Normalism, by John Ledger, Micklegate Social, Micklegate, and Fossgate Social, Fossgate, York, January 13 to March 13

ON the portentous Friday the 13th, the preview of Barnsley artist John Ledger’s solo show Back To Normalism begins at 7pm at Micklegate Social. 

Ledger looks at the uncanny reality that has unfolded since the pandemic started, along with the underlying weirdness of trying to patch up the black holes in our collective experience of time, in a show about cultures uprooted and disjointed by a series of disasters and distorted by the consequences of trying to repeatedly return to a “before” moment.

Baaaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhbican frustration! Ricky Gervais’s brace of Armageddon dates at York Barbican sold out in 27 minutes

Apocalypse very soon: Ricky Gervais, Armageddon, York Barbican, Tuesday and Wednesday 7.30pm precisely

ARMAGEDDON is not the end of the world as we know it but the name of grouchy comedian, actor, screenwriter, director, singer, podcaster and awards ceremony host Ricky Gervais’s new tour show.

Gervais, 61, will be torching “woke over-earnestness and the contradictions of modern political correctness while imagining how it all might end for our ‘one species of narcissistic ape’,” according to the Guardian review of his Manchester Apollo gig. Box office? Oh dear, you’re too late for Armageddon; both nights have sold out.

Chris Helme: Revisiting his days in The Seahorses

Love Is The Law unto himself: Chris Helme, solo Do It Yourself 25th Anniversary Tour, Pocklington Arts Centre, January 14, 8pm

YORK singer-songwriter Chris Helme is marking the 25th anniversary of The Seahorses’ only album, Do It Yourself, released on May 26 1997 in guitarist John Squire’s short-lived post-Stone Roses project with Helme and fellow York musician Stuart Fletcher on bass.

Recorded in North Hollywood, California, the album was pipped to the number one spot by Gary Barlow while debut single Love Is The Law reached number three. A further highlight of Helme’s solo acoustic set will be Love Me And Leave Me, Liam Gallagher’s first songwriting credit, no less. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

The Lonesome Ace Stringband: Turning bluegrass bluer and grassier at Selby Town Hall

Better late than never: The Lonesome Ace Stringband, Selby Town Hall, January 18, 8pm

RE-SCHEDULED from January 20 2022, The Lonesome Ace Stringband’s gig features righteous folk and country music, played by an old-time band with bluegrass chops and a feel for deep grooves.

Band members Chris Coole, banjo, John Showman, fiddle, and Max Heineman, bass, are three Canadians lost in the weird and wonderful traditional country music of the American South, having served their time in New Country Rehab, The David Francey Band, The Foggy Hogtown Boys and Fiver. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.

Robert Gammon: Relaxed concert of piano music at St Chad’s

Afternoon entertainment: Robert Gammon, Dementia Friendly Tea Concert, St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, January 19, 2.30pm

AT the first Dementia Friendly Tea Concert of 2023, pianist Robert Gammon plays J S Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B flat major from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2, Mozart’s Piano Sonata in B flat major K. 570 and Schubert’s serene Impromptu in A flat major, D. 935 No. 2. 

As usual, 45 minutes of music will be followed by tea and homemade cakes in the church hall. Next up will be University of York Students (violin and piano) on February 16. No charge, but donations welcome for church funds and Alzheimer’s charities.

Tales From Acorn Wood: Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s stories take to the York Theatre Royal stage

Children’s show of the month: Tales From Acorn Wood, York Theatre Royal, January 26, 4pm; January 27, 11am and 2pm

NLP’s world premiere staging of Tales From Acorn Wood is based on favourite stories from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s lift-the flap books for pre-school children, featuring the sock-losing old Fox, the tired Rabbit, Postman Bear’s special surprise and Pig and Hen’s game of hide-and-seek.

Suitable for one-year-olds and upwards or anyone who loves books, this 50-minute touring show is full of songs, puppetry, projection and flap-lifting technology. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Rob Auton: Getting mighty Crowded in his new stand-up show

Crowd pleaser: Rob Auton, The Crowd Show, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 24, 8pm; Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, February 25, 7.30pm

CHARMINGLY eccentric, uplifting and poetic writer, comedian, actor and podcaster Rob Auton returns home to York on the 2023 leg of The Crowd Show tour.

After his philosophical observations on the colour yellow, the sky, faces, water, sleep, hair, talking and time, now he discusses crowds, people and connection in a night of comedy and theatre “suitable for anyone who wants to be in the crowd for this show”. Box office: York, tickets.41monkgate.co.uk; Leeds, hydeparkbookclub.co.uk.

Stewart Lee: Three nights, fully booked already, at York Theatre Royal in March

Too late for tickets already: Stewart Lee, Basic Lee, York Theatre Royal, March 20 to 22, 7.30pm

AFTER filming last May’s three-night run of his Snowflake/Tornado double bill for broadcast on the BBC, spiky comedian Stewart Lee returns to York with his back-to-basics new show.

Following a decade of ground-breaking high-concept gigs involving overarched interlinked narratives, Lee enters the post-pandemic era in streamlined solo stand-up mode: one man, one microphone, and one microphone in the wings in case the one on stage breaks. Tickets update: Sold out, basically.

Hands up who’s starring in Heathers: The black comedy musical to die for is heading to the Grand Opera House

Too cool for school: Heathers The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, May 9 to 13

WELCOME to Westerberg High, where Veronica Sawyer is just another nobody dreaming of a better day. When she joins the beautiful and impossibly cruel Heathers, however, her craving for popularity may finally come true, whereupon mysterious teen rebel JD teaches her that it might kill to be a nobody, but it is murder being a somebody.

Winner of the What’sOnStage Award for Best New Musical, Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s black comedy rock musical, based on the 1988 cult film, makes its York debut,  produced by Bill Kenwright and Paul Taylor-Mills, directed by Andy Fickman and choreographed by Gary Lloyd. Box office: atgtickets.com/York.

John Ledger addresses the ‘most pressing issues of our time’ in Back To Normalism show at Fossgate and Mickelgate Social UPDATED with full interview 11/01/2023

Horrorsterity, 2022, by John Ledger

ON the portentous Friday the 13th, apocalyptic artist John Ledger will launch the preview of his Back To Normalism exhibition of drawings at Micklegate Social, Micklegate, York.

This solo show by the Barnsley provocateur addresses the theme of a time and culture that has been uprooted and disjointed by a series of crises and disasters, together with the distorting consequences of trying repeatedly to return to a “before” moment.

His latest works have come in response to Covid times, prompted by the saying “back to normal” becoming a rallying cry since the start of the pandemic as people craved a return to a life they recognised.

Exhibition curator Mike Stubbs says: “Back To Normalism looks at the uncanny reality that has unfolded ever since, and the underlying weirdness of trying to patch up the black holes in our collective experience of time.” 

On show at both Micklegate Social and Fossgate Social from next Friday to March 13, the exhibition assembles a collection of the South Yorkshireman’s works that spans the past 14 years, stretching back to the 2008 financial crisis, in order to explore Ledger’s depiction of a  culture that “feels increasingly stuck and detached from itself”.

“Back To Normalism explores the darkest concerns of our age, while inviting all viewers to contemplate how they felt as the world momentarily stopped in 2020, and to ask beyond the hustle and white noise of the present tense, what sort of world do you truthfully desire?” says Mike.

£$[We]€$[Can’t]$£[Take]£€[Any]$€[More!!]$£, 2016, by John Ledger

“The exhibition looks at a bigger picture: that since that Covid moment we have been lacking a unifying narrative that reflects the needs of the times and are trapped by the whims of defunct ideas.

“This stasis, on top of the pandemic, holds us powerless against an ongoing spate of crises, to which the default cultural cry of getting ´back to normal´ has begun to sound more warped.”

Ahead of his time as it now turns out, in 2012 Ledger participated in Pandemic York, a situationist art event that took place in the basement of Micklegate Social when it was operating as Bar Lane Studios, a community hub that provided studio space for York artists, as well as a gallery, pop-up shop, café and basement performance space.

Now named “the Den”, the basement has been presenting creative work since the end of the pandemic lockdowns. “This exhibition is the most ambitious yet, spanning both Micklegate and Fossgate Social venues and continuing to support emerging talent under the banner of Fotografic,” says Mike.

“John Ledger is an extraordinary artist who combines writing, montage, painting and drawing to create complex patterned works that comment on the most pressing issues of our time, most recently at Bloc Projects in Sheffield.

“For more than a decade, John has explored the interplay between politics, technology, addiction and mental health in contemporary society through his large-scale, chaotic-yet-meticulous drawings. We can’t wait for Back To Normalism to open.”

Back To Normalism artist John Ledger. Picture: Warren Draper

John Ledger back story

BORN in Barnsley, South Yorkshire in 1984, visual artist John’s work emerges from “lengthy autoethnographic and socio-political assessments”. Taking the form of large-scale drawings, maps or films, his practice is deeply informed by the post-industrial landscape and the post-historical culture that defined his formative years.

His work also looks at our relations to the “self” in late capitalism and an age of social media overload.

Since 2019, he has come to be acquainted with curator, director and filmmaker Mike Stubbs, creative producer at Doncaster Creates, and partner Sarah Lakin, from the Fossgate and Micklegate Social café bars in York, partaking in events for Artbomb in Doncaster.

John works with adults with learning disabilities in Sheffield and Rotherham, his job combining creative workshops with social day care. “The organising seeks to develop the confidence in social skills of those who attend through art and creative projects,” he says.

All Those Promises, 2022, by John Ledger

John Ledger discusses York’s first topical exhibition of the new year with CharlesHutchPress

How did this exhibition come about, John? Through Mike Stubbs?

“Yes, I was invited to exhibit at the The New Fringe space in Doncaster exactly three years ago. I met Mike around that point, as he was and still is very central to the Doncaster art scene, and after the Doncaster show he invited me to exhibit at the Micklegate Social.

“This was just before the pandemic, so the exhibition has had more or less had three years to develop into what is has become.”

You exhibited previously at this location in its Bar Lane Studios days in 2012. What do you recall of that show?

“It was for an inclusive, participatory event called Pandemic York: a sequel to another event held in Sheffield in 2011, right at the time of the Occupy movement that spread to cities like Sheffield.

“So, it was about art, politics and philosophy, but also about people having a good time, as it was trying to be a kind of ‘safe space’, although I’d never heard the term ‘safe space’ at that point.

“It’s a very, very hard event to locate on the internet now, though, because unfortunately the word ‘pandemic’ has a very different tone to it than it did ten years ago.”

How does the “post-industrial landscape” of Barnsley influence your work?

“That’s an interesting one. The pits had more or less gone by the time I was old enough to remember. I recall watching the Woolley Colliery be demolished with dynamite exactly 30 years ago; the area was like the surface of Mars until they built a housing estate on it.

“But this itself wasn’t a direct influence. It’s the complex social legacy that has influenced my work. The area I grew up in was next to the motorway and greenbelt, so it’s slowly become a commuter area, and dare I say, ‘middle class’.

“This has created a lot of complex feelings, as for me (and I have to be careful how I word this, because we Barnsley people are very protective over our town, which is understandable), there’s still a lot of pain here, but most noticeably in the town centre.

“I feel that I’ve been affected by it, and it’s certainly influenced my work, but the specific part of the town I am from has lost its past a little more easily – and that sometimes troubles me.

“This specific area backs onto the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I worked there in a front-of-house position for some years. Many visitors from further afield were perplexed when you told them the town in the horizon was Barnsley; they had an almost Dante-esque mental picture of the town, and were in disbelief by the reality, of how green it looks. But behind the greenery, there’s still the scars of the post-industrial legacy.”

Manifesto For The Just-About-Managing, 2017, by John Ledger

How did the “post-industrial culture” define your formative years?

“It did define them, but perhaps not in the expected way. As I was born in 1984, I came of age in the ’90s. As I child, the ’80s felt like this darkly lit, foreboding place, which you didn’t want to go back to.

“Partly down to improved family circumstances, the “newness” of the ’90s, the shopping centres, retail parks, made it feel like the future was going to a blissful place. At this age, I was glad the pits had gone, because it meant I didn’t have to go down them, and the culture of that time was telling me I could now be anything I want to be. The shackles of the past had been taken away.

“My thoughts and feelings on all of these things are vastly different now, but these feelings shaped a very important part of my life.

“But I was also a very sensitive child, and looking back on some of more unpleasant aspects of my childhood, such as bullying, or just the look and feel of some of the areas, it was a confused time. A lot of families were clearly damaged and dysfunctional from the breakdown of the previous work/life systems (the kind of families that largely can’t afford to live in this specific area anymore).

“It’s hard to separate these aspects as specific to towns like Barnsley, and aspects of growing up anywhere, but I’m certain there was residual trauma in these villages.”

What are “lengthy autoethnographic and socio-political assessments” and how do you turn them into artworks? 

“’Autoethnographic’ is a posh word, ha-ha, that I was encouraged to use at university because I found it next to impossible to write my dissertation and make work that wasn’t deeply involved with my own experiences and present struggles. It basically means writing as a social group/community, but one that you are also part of.

“My work is this as much as my own attempts to try to visually diagnose where we are, politically and socially. I’m trying to say, ‘this is how I see our world at the moment, but this is also me, my life, my struggles, at the moment’.”

What draws you to creating large-scale works? The bigger the artwork, the bigger the impact?

“Feelings of being overwhelmed. That I often feel small, and powerless. The rings that ripple around you as an individual right up to the global. I can rarely find ways of expressing this in smaller works.”

A Frog In Warming Water (Just A Myth…), 2008, by John Ledger

How do you use maps in your work and why?

“I’ve always loved maps. Particularly maps of human geography. Cities, etc. But in the past ten years, maps and methods of mapping have become part of my practice.

“This exhibition will feature some elements of this ten-year process of mapping, but after ten years I only just about feel like my mapping is working artistically. It’s taken a long time to make it visually work alongside my drawing/paintings. Although some people may say that the drawings/painting are a form of mapping in themselves.”

How do you use film in your work and why?

I’ve only come to use film in the past five years. I’ve found film a much more accessible medium when it comes to making work more explicitly about psychological/emotional battles.

“I fell out of love with drawing for a few years because it felt that the drawings were being too overtly read as political statements and nothing else. And I felt it was creating a picture of me as this ‘cocky leftie’ that I wasn’t.

“I’m quite an anxious person – that’s an understatement – and I’m not emotionally equipped for self-assured political posturing. I could never get ‘into’ politics in that boxing ring kind of way.

“Equally, I don’t judge others for their life choices (unless I feel under threat from them); most people (with obvious exceptions) are where they are because that’s what’s worked best for them in their own journey through life – and I don’t want people to feel that I’m saying ‘you’re wrong/bad’ etc.

“I make the artwork I do because it’s necessary on an emotional and existential level. For a few years, these dilemmas became very intense, and film was the best medium with which to express this.”

What is your “relation to the ‘self’ in our age of late-capitalism and social media overload”?

“As I child in the ’90s, the culture was beaming a message at us from all directions. Whether through ‘education, education, education!’ or Oasis lyrics, we were being told to ‘be yourself’.

“This equipped us to think in an individualistic manner but didn’t prepare us for how difficult it is to be authentic to yourself – how long it takes to work on yourself. A lot of the time it was just a phrase used to sell us things.

“Fast forward 25 years, and a mental health crisis is now seen as a normal thing. People are clearly so desperate to find themselves, and this is amplified as a message through social media. And it’s an intensifying feedback loop.

“I’ve found one of the most painful experiences of adult life is trying to find a self that can find its place in a world that is defined by having to ‘be something’, because being something, and being things, is crucial to finding work, finding where we’d like to live, and even things like dating.

“I felt a lot of shame in my 30s, as my friends ‘became’ things – careers and husbands, fathers etc – and I just couldn’t locate a self within our cultural constellation that I could become.

“A lot of expressed ‘negativity’ in my art is from an existential position of having not known how to be a self in the world; a lot of it has been a two fingers up to a world where I felt the pressure to ‘become’ but couldn’t find a way to do so. So, yes, my work is very deeply about selfhood in our current kind of society.”

Dead Ethics Hysteria, by John Ledger

Can you use social media in a good way?

“I use it a lot. Maybe slightly addicted. But, in all honesty, I don’t have a conclusive answer to that. It’s now so ingrained that it’s hard to imagine a reality without it. Would I like a reality without it? Maybe, I do sort of miss the days of blogging and buying newspapers. But yeah, I don’t have a confident answer on the matter.”

Are we in an even worse place than we were in 2008. when mired in a financial meltdown, and how does your work over the past 14 year reflect that?

“I’ve often been accused (or at least felt accused) of presenting an image of ‘reality’ that is actually just in my head. But any outlook of reality is going to be coloured by how the person presenting it is feeling, and those feelings are informed by concrete factors of reality.

“This question, at root, goes back to the time-immemorial debate about whether we ourselves control our destiny or whether external forces control it. I hope it’s evident that this has been an ongoing focus of concern in the work I make. 

“I feel like I needed to go there, before answering if I think January 2023 is worse than January 2008. There’s a work in this show from 2008, quite an important one. It very much belongs to the same family of landscape drawings I have been making ever since, yet from around 2013 onwards, my work began to get even darker.

“I’ve experienced the past ten years as a decade of increasingly heavy energy, although there have been moments of surprise that have momentarily brought different energies in.

“I would say that we, as a society in 2023, are in a dark place, although I’m not without hope in the knowledge that things can change unexpectedly. But are these my own feelings? Do they reflect only me, and how I feel, or is it a sense of reality shared by many? I think the only way to properly answer this is by asking the people who look at and engage with the work I make.” 

Whilst We Were All In The Eternal Now, 2014, by John Ledger

How does “a culture become stuck and detached from itself”?

“That’s a hard one to answer in a rush. I’ll try to identify a few symptoms and see if they correlate with the statement I made!

“Number one: I find increasing amounts of people, young and old, feel like time no longer moves with the same rhythm and continuity that it possibly did in, say, 2008, when we weren’t as dependent on social media and smart phones (although they were there, they were still partly novelty).

“In public space, I often feel haunted by music that still seems to be being played as if it is contemporary, but it’s not, it’s actually like 15 years old or something. This is partly because new music these days doesn’t command the dominance it got through TV and radio, pre-streaming days.

“But sometimes I feel like we’re still partly stuck in the 2000s, even the 1990s, and that this could be not just down to how this newer technology has altered the experience of everyday life, but because we feel happier there, because something about those times made more sense to us.

“I think there’s a real sense that nobody can make sense of all the things that are occurring in the world these days, and that this is reflected in a culture. I have to add a disclaimer that a lot of these ideas have been informed by the late writer Mark Fisher, who wrote a non-fiction book called Ghosts Of My Life, in which he said ‘the past keeps returning because the present cannot be remembered’.

“Number two: If we could identify our age as one stuck in a state of trying to get back to a ‘normal’, some aspects of life such as increased homelessness, food banks, really happening climate change, things that would have terrified us if they just emerged in their current state 15 years ago, have become ‘normalised’.

“We have grown used to things such as new upmarket bits of town centres coexisting with folk laying on the street, on the drug spice, looking like they’re dead, or climate change like we had last summer.

“This creates a dislocation within us. Humans always compartmentalise, and can disregard inconvenience, but what I’ve seen over the past decade has really worried me.

“And, look, I’m giving this answer in a trendy cafe right now, so I’m not judging anyone for wanting to go to nice places! And there’s nothing wrong with nice places to go, dressing nice, or any of that! It’s just this dislocation that seems to have occurred; it concerns me. 

“But equally, I admit I’m saying some pretty heavy stuff here, in responding to these questions. I don’t want to make people feel like they have to think all this kind of stuff to get my work! If people like the drawing for its own sake, and they enjoy the show, then that’s good…probably better than getting bogged down in all of this!” 

The Long Night Of A Needless Storm, 2015, by John Ledger

Graduating in 2019 as a ‘mature student’, how did your MA in Fine Art at the University of Leeds influence your work?  Did your work change? 

“I really enjoyed being back in a university environment and having that freedom again. It wasn’t all plain sailing; for a start, I encountered a lot of imposter syndrome, being around young, confident well-spoken students, because, as much as I know, in such esteemed environments, I felt intellectually clumsy with my flat-toned Yorkshire accent.

“And I started around the months of the #metoo moment (which, I’d argue, alongside Black Lives Matter have been some of the most important events of the past ten years). This, and the fact that culture is now very much invested in breaking down a more historically, white, male, heteronormative slant on the world, gave me a lot of deep self-reflection – some of it, admittedly, pretty unpleasant.

“But I think this is what made me, and my work, change during my Masters. I intellectually agreed with all the social justice stuff, but I needed to unpack why it was producing very pleasant feelings, while trying to understand why the university environment was giving me imposter syndrome, and it gave life to the film work I mentioned earlier.

“Film work allowed me to look at issues such as toxic masculinity, from a ‘lived in’ perspective, but certainly one that wasn’t endorsing these things, but looking at it as a social problem that leads to dangerous things like ‘incel’ culture.

“I created a fictionalised film based on personal experiences of mental health, isolation and societal expectations, but I twisted the story to talk about the black hole of radicalisation happening to lots of, specifically, men on the internet.

“This sounds all very bleak and heavy, but my time making this film at Leeds was one of the most enjoyable times of my life.”

How do you respond to the statement on a gallery poster: “Beware of artists. They mix with all classes of society and are therefore the most dangerous”?

“That’s quite difficult to answer, but I think art allows people of all social groups to sit with ideas and concepts that would probably rub more problematically against the identities and beliefs if those same thoughts were delivered in, say, a twitter post, for example. 

“But, for me, art is a meeting place of many ideas; it’s rarely just saying one specific thing. And for me, that’s where its potency is. But that admittedly is more a definition of the type of work I make.”

Back To Normalism, 2021, the title work from John Ledger’s exhibition at Micklegate Social and Fossgate Social

For Ai Weiwei’s exhibition The Liberty of Doubt, at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, last year, the Chinese artist and activist made badges and mugs that said: “Everything Is Art. Everything Is Politics”. Is it?

“I think it is…and isn’t. I think just as humans are able to hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously, we’re all capable of picking and choosing what is art and what is politics at any given moment. But yeah, it doesn’t disprove the statement.”

How would you sum up the work in the Back To Normalism exhibition? Is there really such a thing as “normal”?

“I don’t think there is a ‘normal’, but there is an almost shared mental picture of ‘normal’ that holds a collective/a society together. These aren’t my words (it’s kind of half taken from writer George Monbiot), but all societies function by a story, which, even if we are personally critical of it, it creates a cohesiveness that makes a society function.

“The premise of Back To Normalism is built on this idea that the functioning story we, at least in the UK, had until 2008 was one built by the narratives of both Thatcherism and New Labour, and whether you liked it or loathed it, it created a story that enabled a social cohesion for enough of that society.

“I believe that this stopped in 2008, but we went into an age of trying to return to pre-2008, through sticking plasters, and this has been most notable since after the pandemic.

“But I believe trying to get back to a normal, when the actual present situation has so vastly changed, creates a warped reality.”

In your latest blog on January 3 at johnledger1984.wordpress.com, you say, “I realise that at near-enough 40, I’m in a place I always prayed I’d never be in”. When you turn 40 next year, what will you seek to achieve in your art and life in the decade ahead. having been “on the run” in your 30s?

“I wish to find a more sustainable and healthy confluence with both art and life.”

But does an artist need to be restless, dissatisfied, troubled?

“I hope not, for my own future’s sake!”

How do you move on when consumed by a sense of failure?  Keep drawing?

“It does help sometimes. But you need friends too, and community, and sunny spring days that lift the gloom. I can easily go heavy into what my work is about, and sound like I don’t have any hope. But I do. I think if I lost all hope, I’d stop making art.”

John Ledger: Back To Normalism, on show at Micklegate and Fossgate Social, York, from January 13 to March 13. Friday’s 7pm preview will include a sonic performance by artist Adam Denton, in collaboration with John Ledger. Drinks will be served.

The poster for John Ledger’s Back To Normalism exhibition at Micklegate and Fossgate Social, York

More Things To Do in York in 2023. Hutch’s New Year List No. 1, courtesy of The Press

The horror, the horrror: Doctor Dorian Deathly swaps ghost walks for ghost talks at Theatre@41, Monkgate

AS the New Year fast approaches, Charles Hutchinson starts to fill the blank pages of a diary in need of cultural counters to so much front-page gloom.

From ghost walk to ghost talk: Doctor Dorian Deathly: A Night Of Face Melting Horror (or The Complete History Of Ghosts), Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, January 24 to 28, 8.30pm

COVID crocked York spookologist and ghost botherer Doctor Dorian Deathly’s Halloween season of macabre stories, paranormal sciences, theatrical trickery, horror, original music and perhaps the odd unexpected guest (with the emphasis on ‘odd’?) at Theatre@41.

The Visit York Tourism Awards winner has rearranged his five fright nights for late-January, when he will explore spine-chilling tales of hauntings, both local and further afield, dissemble horrors captured on film and trace the ghost story from its origins to Victorian classics and modern-day frights. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Ukrainian National Opera: First visit to York with Carmen

Ukrainians in York: Dnipro Opera in Carmen, York Barbican, February 12, 7pm

DNIPRO Opera, from Ukraine, perform Georges Bizet’s opera of fiery passion, jealousy and violence in 19th century Seville in French with English surtitles, to the accompaniment of a 30-strong orchestra.

Carmen charts the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who falls head over heels in love with Carmen, a seductive, free-spirited femme fatale, abandoning his childhood sweetheart and neglecting his military duties, only to lose the fickle firebrand to the glamorous toreador Escamillo. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk

Robert Forster: New album to showcase at The Crescent

York’s Australian gig of the year: Robert Forster, The Crescent, York, March 14, 7.30pm

BRISBANE singer, songwriter, guitarist, music critic and author Robert Forster, co-founder of The Go-Betweens with the late Grant McLennan, plays a rearranged date in York, now in support of the February 3 release of his eighth solo album, The Candle And The Flame.

Made an honorary Doctor of Letters at Queensland University in 2015, Forster, 65, is writing a novel, overseeing the upcoming Volume 3 of The Go-Betweens’ boxset series, G Stands For Go-Betweens, and touring the UK, Europe and Australia in the first half of 2023. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Tommy Cannon: Comedian in conversation at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Rock on, Tommy, for charity: An Evening With Tommy Cannon, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 15, 7.30pm

KELFIELD comedian Tommy Cannon, 84, takes to the JoRo stage for an evening of songs, stories, anecdotes and conversation, reflecting on his double act on television and the boards with the late Bobby Ball.

Cannon – real name Thomas Derbyshire – will take questions from the audience at this fundraising event in aid of The Snappy Trust, the York charity that seeks to maximise the personal development of children and young people with wide-ranging disabilities. The Boro Blues Brothers will be the support act. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Composer Gus Gowland: Premiering new musical Mayflies at York Theatre Royal

New musical of the year: Gus Gowland’s Mayflies, York Theatre Royal, April 28 to May 13

GUS Gowland, an award-winning London composer, lyricist and playwright now living in York, presents the world premiere of Mayflies, the story of a romantic relationship from its first flourish to its final goodbye.

First making his mark with debut full-length musical Pieces Of String in 2018, Gowland now charts May and Fly’s progress from dating apps to tentative conversations and blossoming romance…and then they meet! Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The joy of SIX: Henry VIII’s wives weave their woes through Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s revenge musical on its return to the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith

Quickfire return of the year: SIX The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, June 27 to July 2, 8pm, Tuesday to Thursday; 6pm and 8.30pm, Friday; 4pm and 8pm, Saturday, and 2pm, Sunday

HERE come the Spouse Girls again. After the history and hysteria of October’s sold-out debut run in York, the SIX pop queens make a regal return next summer in Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s all-female show for the millennial age.

In a pop concert with diva attitude, Henry VIII’s trouble-and-strife sextet air their grievances in song in chronological order to decide who suffered most at Henry’s hands once he put a ring on the wedding finger. From this talent-and-talons contest will emerge the group’s lead singer. Book early at atgtickets.com/York.

Miriam Margolyes: Booked into York Barbican for her Oh Miriam! musings

Outspoken national treasure speaks out: Miriam Margolyes, Oh Miriam! Live, York Barbican, October 16, 7.30pm

BAFTA-WINNING actress, chat-show regular and travel show presenter Miriam Margolyes, 81, will be telling tales from her new book, Oh Miriam!, “something that has been said to me a lot over the years, often in tones of strong disapproval,” she says.

“Reliably outrageous” Margolyes promises a riotous evening full of life and surprises, her conversation spanning revelations, stories and discoveries that she cannot wait to share. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Ross Noble: Geordie Jibber Jabber Jamboree joviality in Harrogate and York

Stream-of-consciousnonsense on tap:  Ross Noble, Jibber Jabber Jamboree, Harrogate Royal Hall, October 26, 7.30pm; Grand Opera House, York, November 15, 8pm

GEORDIE surrealist Ross Noble ventures out on his 53-date Jibber Jabber Jamboree itinerary, his 21st solo tour, from October 2023 to March 2024. Expect inspired nonsense in his freewheeling stand-up.

“Imagine watching someone create a magic carpet on an enchanted loom,” says Noble, 46. “Oh, hang on… magic carpets fly; that would smash the loom as it took flight. I haven’t thought that through… That’s what people can expect. Razor-sharp observations on things I haven’t thought through.” Box office: atgtickets.com/York.

Castle Howard delights in stories in fairtyale Christmas installation Into The Woods

The Nutcracker in Into The Woods at Castle Howard. All pictures: Peter Seaward

CASTLE Howard’s winter installation, Into The Woods, A Fairytale Christmas is drawing record numbers.

After the frosted, icy spectacle of Christmas In Narnia last winter, Charlotte Lloyd Webber Event Design and The Projection Studio have returned to transform North Yorkshire’s stateliest home’s grand rooms into a “wonderland of happily-ever-afters, fair maidens, magical forests and faraway kingdoms”, bringing cherished fairy tales to life with a sight-and-sound combination of theatrical installations and state-of-the-art soundscapes.

“All around the house, tales which have drifted through the forests of our memory since early childhood now weave amongst each other to conjure up the world of once-upon-a-time,” say Nicholas and Victoria Howard in the visitors’ guide.

“Reinvented again and again, these fairytales are as much a part of our heritage as the walls of this house and its towering dome. Their names alone are enough to plunge us into the warm milk of childhood memories.

“Weave your way through this magical fairytale world and who knows? Maybe you’ll live happily ever after your visit to a Christmas like no other.”

Creating A Fairytale Christmas’s world of fantasy, inspired by Stepehen Sondheim’s 1987 musical Into The Woods, is the work of a multi-disciplined team, headed by artistic director/interior designer Charlotte Lloyd Webber and design director Adrian Lillie, co-directors of CLW Event Design.

The Christmas table at Into The Woods at Castle Howard

Senior designer Dave O’Donnell, sculptor Mandy Bryson, model and prop designer Mark and the floristry team of Laura Newby and Celina Fallon play their part.

So does the Production Studio duo of video projection designer Ross Ashton and sound designer/audio artist Karen Monid, whose light and sound installation Platinum And Light illuminated the nave of York Minster from October 20 to 27 this autumn, just as their Northern Lights installation had done so in October 2019.

Charlotte and Adrian have known each other for 25 years – originally as an actress/producer and costume designer respectively – and have overseen the magical winter transformations of Castle Howard for six years.

“This gig came about slightly by accident,” recalls Adrian. “We’d come up to do some outdoor Shakespeare, but the programme planning changed. Victoria [Howard] then said, ‘we need someone to design a Christmas installation. Do you know anyone who could do it?’. We thought, ‘well, we could’!

“That first year, we were very conscious of taking it back to the house’s roots, to architect John Vanbrugh’s theatrical roots. We used a lot of dry floristry and delicate fabrics, and we soon found we needed a lot more ‘product’ as it can be sucked up in such grand rooms.

“Year on year, we lay on more and more, and so Into The Woods is our most ambitious installation yet.” Be it Rapunzel’s tower looming over the Great Hall, where her golden braid offers an escape route; Jack’s giant beanstalk, winding its way around a steel construction up to the roof of the Garden Hall, or the 20,000 baubles glittering in room after room.

York artist Emily Sutton’s artwork for the Into The Wood press invitation, publicity leaflet and visitors’ guide

“We use ‘filler’ from the previous year’s story, like on the China Landing, where the materials have been used before, but with a new top layer created for the new theme,” says Adrian of a scene where the mirror forms the archway into the woods.

“We still re-use items from the first year; we use paper and silk, we avoid plastics, so we’re always thinking about sustainability. For the last four years, the big Christmas tree had come from Scotland but to discover there were suitable trees on the Castle Howard estate for this Christmas was wonderful.”

This year, CLW Event Design also created Bamburgh Castle’s Christmas installation, The Twelve Days Of Christmas – whose first version was on display at Castle Howard in 2018 – as the Lloyd Webber-Linnie partnership thrives on ever-growing challenges. “We’ve worked together so long, we finish each other’s sentences,” says Adrian.

“We learn more every year, thinking outside the box, trying to be more outrageous and bringing in the team to get their ideas – and we have an incredibly strong team now, who are so encouraging.”

Adrian revelled in doing the Long Gallery finale for the first time this year for Prince Charming’s Ball, with its golden coach and lavish gowns, but his favourite is the Music Room, where the Elves must deal with a massive order of party shows for the upcoming ball.

The Wicked Queen Grimhilde, the Snow Queen, the Wolf, Princess Aurora, Red Riding Hood, Rapuunzel and Gretel have all submitted their measurements. “That room has a really lovely feel,” says Adrian. “It required lots of shoe shopping online and buying in sales! For all the joy I had with the costumes, finding the right boots and shoes has been a lot of fun too, capturing each character in their footwear.”

Castle Howard ventures into fairytales for Christmas

Look out for Red Riding Hood’s thigh-high boots, the big bad Wolf’s killer heels in polka dots and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s ballet shoes, gorgeous all of them!

Audio artist Karen Monid took on a new task for Into The Woods. “There are voices in the installation this time [such as Francine Brody for Wicked Queen Grimhelde and Beth Hayward for the Witch], and because each room focuses on a particular tale and character that I could draw on, I then had to pick the right emotion,” she says.

“Charlotte produces her mood board to say what each room represents, and I also had to be aware that it’s a trail with a beginning and an end. Last year it was easier because it was just one story [C S Lewis’s The Chronicles Of Narnia]; this year there are so many stories and characters; at least ten stories, four of them in the first four rooms [Princess Aurora, alias Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel and Snow White].

“The most difficult was the fourth one [the Castle Howard Bedroom], where Snow White’s mother is essentially dead and the Wicked Queen is very much alive. You think, ‘how do I do that in sound in one room?’. I decided to treat the mother like a ghost, so even though the new queen has moved in, there’s always an echo of the mother she could have had from before, with the angelic quality of the harp playing, which then fades away as more strident music comes in.”

Attention to detail is paramount, from the Goose honking to the elves starting to hammer when an alarm goes off. “The passing of time and the sense of the tempo picking up runs through the installation [leading to the clock striking 12 at Prince Charming’s ball]. If you pick up on the chimes as you walk round, you will find that the time is getting later,” says Karen.

“In Hansel & Gretel’s room [the Castle Howard Dressing Room], the cuckoo clock strikes three; in the ‘creators’ room’ [the New Library] for The Nutcracker, the clock strikes six in a scene with a steam punk edge to it. In the Crimson Dining Room, the Sugar Plum Fairy is a clockwork figure.

The beanstalk climbs to the Garden Hall ceiling in the Into The Woods installation. Look out for the tiny figure of Jack starting his ascent

“That’s why this installation feels so full, with all that detail, like the music changing to reflect the origins of each story, some being French, some German, and only one English, Jack And The Beanstalk.”

Listen to the female voices. “All the good female characters sing, while the bad characters only speak, and they say too many words, like the Witch still talking in the Great Hall while Rapunzel is singing in her tower,” says Karen. “Music is of the heart, connecting with the soul, that’s why they sing.

“I love it when Rapunzel hits her high notes and the glass shatters. ‘Lovely,’ says Rapunzel! That brings a pantomime touch to it, but you always know you’re in their world.”

Ross, who voices the Giant in the Jack And Beanstalk scene, has brought his projection skills to the Octagon Room, as he did last year for Narnia, Aslan the lion and Father Christmas, and now the Long Gallery too.

“We designed a system for the Long Gallery with as little impact on the space as possible, so you’re not aware of the equipment I use, such as the low-key projector stands,” he says.

“It’s something I learnt when projecting onto Buckingham Palace. No-one wants to see the wires or gaffer tape. Now we’ve done this year’s design, we’ll do even more with it next year.”

Attention to detail in Castle Howard’s Into The Woods installation

As in Sondheim’s musical, the characters from different fairytales interact and conjoin in the story, leading to the happy-ever-after vibe of the young characters turning up as their teenage selves for a party.

That ties in with Charlotte’s desire for regeneration, renewal and sustainability in CLW Event Design’s future. “Everyone took stock during Covid, thinking about ‘what are the events that can address the bigger issues [the environment, climate change] in a joyous way, rather than doom and gloom?’,” she says.

“I come from the world of entertainment but entertainment with a purpose, telling a story in a real-life context.

“We have so little manufacturing left in this country, but if we can find glass manufacturers here, bauble makers here, rather then having to import them from China, people who make things out of wood, if we could rely on cottage industries over here, keeping them in work, that would be a good policy for our installations.

“Next year, I’m hoping to really build that up, starting locally, then regionally, then nationally, rather than importing.”

Into The Woods, A Fairytale Christmas enchants at Castle Howard, near York, until January 2 2023. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk

The “creators room”, evoking The Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Professor Drosselmeyer amid a multitude of Nutcrackers in Castle Howard’s New Library

Castle Howard’s fairtyale Christmas installation goes online for virtual tour

FOR the first time, a virtual tour of Castle Howard’s Christmas installation is available to watch online.

The North Yorkshire stately home, near York, has created a 37-minute video of Into The Woods: A Fairytale Christmas for those who “who can’t visit in person, from international tourists who are still facing travel restrictions to Yorkshire locals unable to get out and about as easily”.

The online video offers a detailed exploration of Into The Woods’ fairytale-themed installation that fills Castle Howard’s grand rooms with decoration, soundscapes and projections.

The tour is presented by CLW Event Design artistic director Charlotte Lloyd Webber, who reveals behind-the-scenes details and the creative team’s inspirations room by room.

Abbigail Ollive, head of marketing, sales and programming, says: “Christmas at Castle Howard is famous for its wow factor, and we welcome thousands of visitors through our doors this time of year.

“We wanted to create an enchanting virtual tour that allowed people to experience the magic from their own homes, including local people who can’t get to us; people across the UK who can’t travel to us, and international tourists who are still limited by travel restrictions.”

Profits from the Into The Woods in person and the Virtual Tour experience will be directed towards Castle Howard’s conservation deficit to restore and protect the historic buildings and beautiful landscape stewarded by the estate.

The Virtual Tour is available via castlehoward.co.uk for£8, giving viewers unlimited access to watch the video. No closing date for this online service has been set yet.

More Things To Do in York at Christmastide and beyond the New Year. Hutch’s List No. 111, courtesy of The Press, York

Hold on, is that Noddy Holder? No, it’s a nod to Noddy Holder as tribute band Slade UK invite you to Cum On Feel The Noize at the Victoria Vaults

SLEIGHS and that Slade song, pantomime mayhem and New Year parties signify the changing of the diary for Charles Hutchinson, with one eye on 2023.

Merry Xmas Everybody: Slade UK, Victoria Vaults, Nunnery Lane, York, Christmas Eve, 7pm

SO here it is, Merry Xmas, everybody’s having fun as Slade UK, tribute act to the Wolverhampton wonders, roll out that 1973 festive chart topper and a whole heap of misspelt Slade smashes, from Gudbuy T’ Jane to Cum On Feel The Noise, Coz I Luv You to Mama Weer All Crazee Now.

“We’re really looking forward to having Slade UK at the Vaults,” says owner/manager Chris White. “It’s going to be a great evening and a lot of fun.” DJ Garry Hornby will be on the decks. Box office: theyorkvaults.com.

Mayhem, mischief and nautical naughtiness: Jonny Weldon’s Starkey, left, and Paul Hawkyard’s Captain Hook in York Theatre Royal’s The All New Adventures Of Peter Pan

Still time for pantomime, part one: The All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, York Theatre Theatre Royal, until January 2 2023

CBEEBIES’ science ace Maddie Moate and three stars of last year’s Cinderella – Faye Campbell, Paul Hawkyard and Robin Simpson – head to Neverland in York Theatre Royal’s third collaboration with Evolution Productions.

Moate plays naughty fairy Tinkerbell, Campbell, plucky Elizabeth Sweet, Hawkyard, histrionic Captain Hook and Simpson, dame Mrs Smee, joined by Jason Battersby’s Peter Pan and Jonny Weldon’s madcap pirate Starkey in creative director Juliet Forster’s production, scripted by Evolution’s pun-loving Paul Hendy. Look out for acrobats Mohammed Iddi, Karina Ngade and Mbaraka Omari too. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Goose in the Grand Opera Hoose: Dame Berwick Kaler’s Mrs Plum-Duff in The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose. Picture: David Harrison

Still time for pantomime, part two: The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose, Grand Opera House, York, until January 8 2023

PETER Pan is not alone in flying across a York pantomime stage this winter. Dowager Dame Berwick Kaler does likewise at 76 in his second season at his adopted home, presented with the Grand Opera House’s new partners in panto, UK Productions.

Joining his ad-libbing granny, Mrs Plum-Duff, are sidekick Martin Barrass’s Jessie, villain David Leonard’s Lucifer Nauseus, principal gal Suzy Cooper’s Cissie, AJ Powell’s Brum Stoker and ever-game dancer Jake Lindsay’s Jakey Lad. Look out for Boris Johnson’s cameo as a dummy, me babbies, me bairns. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

New Year Gala Concert, Harrogate-meets-Vienna style

Viennese waltzing into 2023:  International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival’s New Year Gala Concert, Harrogate Royal Hall, January 7 2023, 7.30pm 

CELEBRATE the dawning of the New Year in the company of the National Festival Orchestra on a whirlwind tour of bygone opulence, taking in the cafés of Vienna, the bars of Paris and the drawing rooms of London.

Enjoy waltzes, ballads and Gilbert and Sullivan favourites in a gala concert conducted by Christopher Milton and featuring international opera stars. Box office: gsfestivals-tickets.gsfestivals.org.

New Year Party, Ukrainian style: The Ukrainians mark Malanka at The Crescent, York

New Year on a different calendar: The Ukrainians: Malanka, The Crescent, York, January 14 2023, 7.30pm

ON the eastern calendar, New Year falls on January 13 and is marked in Ukraine with a variety of festivities known as Malanka.

The Ukrainians have been playing their brand of Ukrainian music for three decades on folk and roots stages, clocking up eight albums and 1,000 gigs. High-energy party songs and a few surprises are promised. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Heavy Spring Showers, by John David Petty, on show at Kentmere House Gallery from February 3

Exhibition on the horizon: Lost and Found, East Riding paintings by John David Petty, Kentmere House Gallery, Scarcroft Hill, York, February 3 to April 2 2023

WHERE does Kentmere House Gallery owner Ann Petherick find her artists, she is often asked. “The best ones always have to be searched out, and I think I first found John David Petty in Beverley Minster, showing a collection of wonderful paintings of doors and windows of Holderness churches,” she says.

Petty is more often to be spotted outdoors, among the flatlands of the East Riding, where this former graphic artist relishes the solitude and wide landscapes.

Favouring oils, acrylics and charcoal, his church work uses the same techniques of deeply etched lines, with the addition of paper collage to capture the texture of ancient stonework. For opening hours, go to: kentmerehouse.co.uk.

Matt Goss: Bros hits, new songs and a celebration of Cole Porter at York Barbican

What’s Matt doing next after Strictly? The Matt Goss Experience, with the MG Big Band and Royal Philharmonic, York Barbican, March 4 2023, 8pm

STRICTLY Come Dancing 2022 contestant and former Bros frontman Matt Goss, 54, performs his biggest hits, new original material and a tribute to songwriter Cole Porter in an evening of swing, glitz and swagger.

Having headlined Las Vegas for 11 years, Goss is back doing what he loves, singing with a big band and a philharmonic orchestra. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Jimmy Carr: Still Terribly Funny in 2023

Repeat offender…or not?! Jimmy Carr, Terribly Funny 2.0, York Barbican, September 12 2023

AFTER completing a hattrick of York performances on his Terribly Funny tour – November 4 and 9 2021 and April 15 this year – provocative comedian and television panel show host Jimmy Carr is to return to the city on his Terribly Funny 2.0 itinerary.

Carr, 50, says his show “contains jokes about all kinds of terrible things. Terrible things that might have affected you or people you know and love. But they’re just jokes – they are not the terrible things”. New material is promised. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk or ticketmaster.co.uk.