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York Early Music Christmas Festival opens week of music, minstrels and mystery

Beth Stone and Daniel Murphy of Flutes & Frets: Sold-out opening concert today at York Early Music Christmas Festival 2023

MUSIC, Minstrels and Mystery is the theme of the York Early Music Christmas Festival 2023, running from tomorrow to December 9.

This annual celebration conjures up the spirit of Christmas past with an array of atmospheric music, primarily at the National Centre for Early Music, in the medieval St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, complemented by concerts at Bedern Hall and the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York.

Opening at the beginning of Advent, the festival features a host of world-class artists from the Early Music world, celebrating the extraordinary wealth of music associated with Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, from the medieval to the baroque.

To complete the Christmas experience, many concerts take place by candlelight, with mince pies and mulled wine available at most events.

Already the festival has been previewed on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune on November 26, when festival artists the Gesualdo Six spoke to Katie Derham and performed a selection of their work.

Both immersive Gesualdo Six concerts with the Fretwork Viol Consort at 6pm and 8.30pm on Saturday have sold out. Marking composer William Byrd’s 400th anniversary, Secret Byrd will theatrically intersperse Byrd’s private mass for secret worship with his virtuosic music for strings.

Sold out too are Saturday’s opening concert, European Court and Salon Music, by Flutes & Frets (Beth Stone, flute, and Daniel Murphy, lute, theorbo, guitar) at Bedern Hall at 11am, backed by funding from the European Festival Fund for Emerging Artists, and December 9’s Bach Christmas Oratorio concert at 7pm by the Yorkshire Bach Choir and Yorkshire Baroque Soloists at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall.

Festival director Delma Tomlin will host an introductory talk at Sunday’s 6.30pm concert, A Christmas Song – The “original” Messiah, by festival debutants The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen at the NCEM. The Harmonious Society’s 14 musicians and singers face a busy three days of travel, playing Canterbury on Saturday, York on Sunday and Durham on Monday.

Baroque In The North: Festive sweetmeats from Versailles to Rome on December 9 at the NCEM

Fiddlesticks, a new ensemble featuring former festival advisers Kati Debretzeni and Steven Devine, will make their festival debut too with Monday’s 7pm NCEM programme of European court music for three violins and continuo. Earlier that day, the NCEM’s youth instrumental ensemble, Minster Minstrels, will be working on Christmas repertory with Fiddlesticks in the afternoon.

Further festival highlights will be The Marian Consort, performing music written for the festive court, on Thursday and Ceruleo’s Love Restor’d, a theatrical Restoration England programme of Henry Purcell, John Blow and John Eccles works, on Friday, both at 7pm at the NCEM.

On December 9, Baroque In The North will play this festival for the first time, performing Panettone or Bûche de Noël?, Festive Sweetmeats, featuring works by Esprit-Philippe, Chédeville, Vivaldi and Corelli at the NCEM at 11am.

In addition, the Minster Minstrels will work with the Harmonious Society’s baroque trumpeter Will Russell on Sunday, while Owain Park, director of The Gesualdo Six, is inviting singers to join him for a choral workshop, designed to celebrate the music of Willam Byrd on Saturday and Sunday at Bedern Hall.

The York Early Music Festival Christmas Box Set, featuring a selection of recorded highlights from the festival, plus this year’s York Early Music Festival and Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival, is on sale now and will be available to enjoy online from December 15 to the end of January 2024. Highlights include concerts by violinist Rachel Podger and the Dunedin Consort, the Scottish baroque ensemble. The box set costs £50 or concerts can be bought individually at ncem.co.uk.

Ahead of the week of festive music, NCEM director Delma Tomlin says: “Our Christmas festival is one of the highlights of the city’s Christmas calendar. This December we are delighted to present an array of atmospheric Christmas concerts featuring music from the medieval times, through the ages and ending with Bach’s glorious Christmas Oratorio.

“The concerts are the perfect way to celebrate Yuletide and we look forward to seeing old friends and welcoming new ones at the special time of year.”

Full programme details can be found at ncem.co.uk/yemcf/. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

The Marian Consort: Performing music composed for the festive Stuart court in For Delighting The People – A Jacobean Christmas on December 7

York Early Music Christmas Festival programme highlights

Saturday, 11am: Flutes & Frets, European Court and Salon Music, Bedern Hall, Bedern. SOLD OUT.

FLUTES, lutes, theorbo and guitar introducing music of European courts across the ages, performed by NCEM Platform Artists Beth Stone and Daniel Murphy, who received grant from European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists, leading to concerts in Antwerp, Krakow and York. Final concert of tour for young duo selected for annual International Artist Presentation in Flanders. Flutes & Frets will return to York next spring for Baroque Around The Books library tour.

Saturday, 6pm and 8.30pm, The Gesualdo Six & Fretwork Viol Consort, Secret Byrd, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate. Both SOLD OUT.

CREATED and directed by Bill Barclay, this 80-minute immersive experience marks the 400th anniversary of composer William Byrd with a mix of voices, viols and theatricality. A small number of audience members sit and stand among costumed musicians who gather by candlelight to worship in secret as Byrd’s setting of the Ordinary is mixed with his most probing instrumental works, played where the five Proper sections of the Mass would take place.

Sunday, 6.30pm, The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen, A Christmas Song – The “original” Messiah, NCEM.

PRESENTING the only surviving Nativity story in England set to music in the baroque era: the original Messiah and possibly the first oratorio in English. Full title: the anonymous Messiah. A Christ -Mass Song for Voices and Instruments, circa 1720. Complete with tuneful shepherd dialogues, the joyful song of the Virgin Mary, Three Wise Men arias and even a ‘halleluia’ chorus. Plus offertory by Prague composer Simon Brixi.

Monday, 7pm, Fiddlesticks, Three Parts on a Ground: European Court Music for three violins and continuo, NCEM

VIOLINISTS Huw Davies, Kati Debretzeni and Debbie Diamond are joined by harpsichordist Steven Devine for glorious programme of the Pachelbel Canon, a new arrangement of the Corelli ‘Christmas’ Concerto and Bach Concerto for three violins.

Thursday, 7pm, The Marian Consort, For Delighting The People – A Jacobean Christmas, NCEM

DIRECTED by Rory McCleery, one of the festival’s favourite vocal groups returns for a special seasonal programme from the Golden Age of English composers at their most unbuttoned and celebratory, featuring music written for the famously festive Stuart court. Plus more intimate, introspective sacred works by Byrd, Gibbons, Weelkes and Bull.

Friday, 7pm, Ceruleo, Love Restor’d, NCEM

IN the summer of 1660, London’s theatres are reopening after 18 long years of Puritan rule: time for one Henry Purcell – the “English Orpheus” – to make his entrance on the musical stage to lead a musical revolution and new English baroque music. Ceruleo’s programme runs the gamut of Restoration English music, encompassing some of Purcell’s most famous pieces, alongside his lesser-known works and those by John Blow and John Eccles, while also celebrating the first female stars of the English stage.

Saturday, December 9, 11am, Baroque In The North, Panettone or Bûche de Noël? Festive Sweetmeats, NCEM

THIS multi-instrumented programme by Amanda Babington (violin, recorder, musette), Clare Babington (cello) and David Francis (harpsichord) showcases their debut album, Music For French King. Be prepared to fly from Versailles to Rome with works by Esprit-Philippe and Nicholas Chédeville, Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli. Enjoy the Advent spirit too with a tempting set of “French Noëls”. Musette, you ask. 18th century French bagpipes.

Saturday, December 9, 7pm, Yorkshire Bach Choir & Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, Bach Christmas Oratorio, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York. SOLD OUT.

WRITTEN in 1734, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is heard rarely in its complete form, encapsulating rituals of belief, the human spirit’s diversity and the ecstatic joy in the Christmas message. Enjoy all six cantatas written for the feast days of Christmas and New Year, works that demand the largest and most spectacular orchestral forces Bach ever required. Soloists will be soprano Bethany Seymour, countertenor Robin Blaize, tenor Jonathan Hanley and bass Frederick Long.

Green Matthews: Dickens of a festive good time in A Christmas Carol In Concert

Festive folk concerts at NCEM

YULETIDE celebrations at the NCEM will be bookended by three festive folk nights: St Agnes Fountain, tonight; The Furrow Collective on December 5 and Green Matthews, December 19, all at 7.30pm.

Presented by the Black Swan Folk Club, St Agnes Fountain lines up with Chris While on vocals, guitar, bodhran, dulcimer, darbuka and percussion; Julie Matthews on vocals, piano, guitar, accordion and gazouki, and Chris Leslie on fiddle, mandolin, tenor guitar, bouzouki, ukulele, banjo, oud, whistle, Native American flute and “anything else he can lay his hands on”.

Postponed from last year, The Furrow Collective perform We Know By The Moon with Lucy Farrell on viola, voice and saw; Emily Portman on banjo, concertina and voice and Alasdair Roberts on guitars and voice.

Playing the NCEM for the second Christmas season in a row, Green Matthews turn Dickensian for A Christmas Carol In Concert, performed by Sophie Matthews, voice and flute, Chris Green, voice, guitar, mandocello and piano, and Jude Rees, voice, oboe and melodeon. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Series at All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, November 25

Violinist Charlotte Scott

MENTION the names Charlotte, Daniel, Jamie and Katya to any regular punter at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival and they will instantly know who you mean.

For the uninitiated, this is a reference to violinist Charlotte Scott, pianist Daniel Lebhardt, cellist Jamie Walton and pianist Katya Apekisheva. All are core members of the resident team during the summer festival – so I shall use their first names here.

It was a special pleasure to welcome them back to our area as winter closes in, incidentally reminding us of treasures in store next summer (specifically, August11 to 24 2014). Here we enjoyed sonatas by Strauss and Rachmaninov, alongside bonbons by the latter and by Schubert.

Pianist Daniel Lebhardt

Schubert’s Adagio in E flat, D.897 (known by its publisher’s title, Notturno) is a touching piano trio. It begins pianissimo and is – rarely for Schubert – marked appassionato. With the benefit of hindsight, we can feel the nostalgia of a piece written during his 32nd and final year.

Here it was beautifully controlled, with Katya’s rippling piano a constant underlay and the dotted figure in its opening phrase still prominent in its brief chorale.

Rachmaninov stood at the heart of the evening. His Cello Sonata in G minor, a work of his late twenties and the last chamber music he was to write, brought a much-deserved spotlight on Jamie, with Katya still in support (although the actual spotlights flickered distractingly).

Cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson

Its first three movements showed varying degrees of agitation here. The opening grew in intensity, right up to its fiery conclusion. Scherzo and trio were neatly contrasted, the one nervy and staccato, the other smoothly melodious.

The slow movement teetered on the brink of sentimentality – but never crossed that line. The finale was quite different. Now in the major key, it reached unexpectedly sunny uplands, delivered with immense conviction right through to its furiously happy coda.

Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque in D minor (1893) dates from his late teens but took another two decades to reach its final form. It sounds much like Brahms. Its themes emerged clearly from Daniel’s piano, although Charlotte’s violin needed to resort to some muscularity to match his enthusiasm. Jamie’s cello remained firm and the ending was properly solemn.

Pianist Katya Apekisheva

Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata is another early work, dating from his early twenties, with all the exuberance that implies. Daniel’s passionate piano moved a little too readily directly from piano to forte, with little between. Charlotte not merely withstood the challenge but soared sumptuously in both the outer movements.

The Andante between, marked ‘Improvisation’, was a different matter: an absolute gem. Its song-like melody elicited exceptionally sweet tone from Charlotte, with Daniel nobly self-effacing, and reached a rare ‘pin-drop’ moment at its close, the audience completely transfixed. It crystallised an evening of exceptional warmth – just what the doctor ordered, in fact.

Review by Martin Dreyer

* Next summer’s programme details are available at www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond the second star to the right. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 48 for 2023, from The Press, York

Christmas In Neverland at Castle Howard

’TIS the season for Dickens shows to begin, from solo shows to a musical, and to venture into Neverland too as Charles Hutchinson gets his festive skates on.

Fantastical adventure of the week and beyond: Christmas In Neverland, Castle Howard, near York, extended until January 7

CASTLE Howard is transformed with floristry, installations, props, soundscapes and projections to create an enchanting festive experience inspired by J M Barrie’s Peter Pan in Charlotte Lloyd Webber Event Design’s sixth magical installations inside the 300-year-old country house.

Look out for the Darling children’s London bedroom, Mermaid’s Lagoon, Captain Hook’s Cabin and the Jolly Roger as the design team prioritises sustainability and recycled materials, such as paper and glass, and teams up with Leeds theatre company Imitating The Dog, whose immersive projections and soundscapes feature for the first time. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.    

Nunkie Theatre Company’s artwork for Casting The Runes

Thriller of the week: Nunkie Theatre Company in Casting The Runes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday (26/11/2023), 7.30pm

M R James wrote his ghost stories to perform to friends in the years leading up to the First World War. Today they have lost none of their power to terrify and amuse in the hands of Nunkie Theatre Company, presenting two tales in a one-man show.

Casting The Runes’ story of the unforgettable Mr Karswell, magic lanternist, occult historian and scourge of academics, is partnered by James’s most neglected masterpiece, The Residence At Whitminster, wherein a dark shadow looms over the precinct of a peaceful English church. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Who am I? The answer is Bridget Christie, feeling the heat at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Natasha Pszenicki

Comedy gig of the week: Bridget Christie: Who Am I?, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday (26/11/2023), 7.30pm

BRIDGET Christie is hot, but not in a good way, she says, in her menopause comedy, where she is confused, furious, sweaty and annoyed by everything. At 52, she leaks blood, sweats, thinks Chris Rock is the same person as The Rock and cannot ride the motorbike she bought to combat her mid-life crisis because of early osteoarthritis in her hips and RSI in her wrist.

In Who Am I? Christie wonders why there are so many films, made by men, about young women discovering their sexuality, but none about middle-aged women forgetting theirs. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

James Swanton: Presenting Ghost Stories For Christmas at York Medical Society

Dickens of a good storyteller: James Swanton’s Ghost Stories For Christmas, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, select dates from November 27 to December 11, 7pm

SOON to be seen in Lot No. 249, Mark Gatiss’s retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Christmas ghost story for the BBC, gothic York storyteller and actor James Swanton revives his seasonal Charles Dickens trilogy: A Christmas Carol (six performances), on the book’s 180th anniversary, The Haunted Man and The Chimes (two each).

“‘All three stories are richly rewarding,” says James. “They brim with Dickens’s eye for capturing the weird, the strange and the odd, from human eccentricities to full blown phantoms. Dickens’s anger at social injustice also aligns sharply with our own – and of course, there’s a lot to be angry about at the moment.” Box office and performance details: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Joanne Clifton’s Princess Fiona in Shrek The Musical at Grand Opera House, York

American musical of the week: Shrek The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinee

LEAVE winter troubles far, far away to join the musical adventure as ogre Shrek (Antony Lawrence) and his buddy Donkey (Brandon Lee Sears) endeavour to complete their quest to defeat the dragon and save Princess Fiona (2016 Strictly champ Joanne Clifton). Look out for James Gillan’s Lord Farquaad too.

Based on the first animated Shrek film, DreamWorks’ musical features such David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori songs as Big Bright Beautiful World and I Know It’s Today alongside Neil Diamond’s climactic I’m A Believer. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Kit Stroud as Ebenezer Scrooge in NE Theatre York’s A Christmas Carol

Festive musical of the week: NE Theatre York in A Christmas Carol, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

STEVE Tearle first staged Alan Menken’s musical version of Charles Dickens’s heart-warming story A Christmas Carol for NE Musicals five years ago. Once more he will combine directing a cast of 60 with playing the chain-clanking Jacob Marley.

Kit Stroud plays Ebenezer Scrooge, whose deep dislike of mankind is interrupted on Christmas Eve by three ghosts who, one by one, warn him of the consequences of the suffering he has caused. Will he join them, or will he mend his ways? Tickets update: all but the first two performances have sold out; last few tickets for Tuesday and Wednesday, 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Mark Farrelly in Jarman at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Solo play of the week: Mark Farrelly’s Jarman, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm

MARK Farrelly, the writer-performer behind Quention Crisp: Naked Hope and Howerd’s End, turns his attention to Derek Jarman, iconoclastic filmmaker, painter, Prospect Cottage gardener, gay rights activist and writer.

“His influence remains as strong as it was on the day AIDS killed him in 1994, but his story, one of the most extraordinary lives ever lived, has never been told. Until now,” says Farrelly, whose passionate, daring reminder of the courage it takes to truly live when alive takes Jarman from Dungeness to deepest, brightest Soho. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Paul Weller: Returning to York Barbican next spring

Gig announcement of the week: Paul Weller, York Barbican, April 17 2024

THE Modfather Paul Weller will head back to York Barbican next spring after kicking off 2024 with a long-awaited January return to Japan and a trip to Australia, highlighted by three nights at the Sydney Opera House. He last performed at the Barbican in April 2022.

In 2023, Weller has played around Europe, performed a handful of Forest Live shows and had a special guest slot to Blur at Wembley Stadium. Next spring’s 14-date tour also takes in Sheffield City Hall on April 11. Tickets go on sale from Friday, December 1 at 10am at ticketmaster.co.uk, seetickets.com, gigantic.com and paulweller.com.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond from November 18. Here’s holidaying Hutch’s List No. 47 for 2023, from The Press, York

Who’s next as the death count rises in Lucy Bailey’s production of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Manuel Harlan

AND then there were thrillers, music, spoken word and comedy gigs, a cricket legend show and smooth crooner tribute for Charles Hutchinson to recommend.  

Thriller of the week: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Grand Opera House, York, November 22 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

AFTER Pick Me Up Theatre’s September staging at Theatre@41, Monkgate, here comes Lucy Bailey’s “genuinely terrifying” touring production of Agatha Christie’s best-selling 1939 crime novel, starring, among others, Andrew Lancel as William Blore, David Yelland as Judge Wargrave and Sophie Walter as Vera Claythorne.  

Ten strangers – eight guests and a butler and his housekeeper wife – are lured to a solitary mansion off the coast of Devon. When a storm cuts them off from the mainland, the true reason for their presence on Soldier Island becomes horribly clear. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Spanish sarcasm of the week: Ignacio Lopez, YO1 Live Lounge, York Barbican, November 18, 8pm

SPANISH export Ignacio Lopez, from Live At The Apollo, The Now Show and Stand-Up Sesh, scrutinises his immigrant upbringing and family tree in a show about clashing cultures and never fitting in. 

Sharing his biggest failures with a globe-trotting story of music, comedy and admin cock-ups, exotic outsider comedian Ignacio skewers Britain and Spain with an armada of stand-up sarcasm, silliness and songs. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Simon Brodkin: Screwed Up revelations from prankster at Grand Opera House, York

Comedy times two at Grand Opera House, York: Simon Brodkin, Screwed Up, November 18, 8pm; Lucy Beaumont, The Trouble & Strife, November 19, 8pm

THE most viewed British comedian of all time on TikTok, notorious prankster and Lee Nelson creator Simon Brodkin rips into celebrity culture, social media, the police, Putin, Prince Andrew and Jesus in his new stand-up show, Screwed Up. Nothing is off limits, from his mental health to his five arrests and his family.

An award-winning stand-up (and actress) before she met Leeds comedian and now husband Jon Richardson, Hull-born Lucy Beaumont lets slip on her rollercoaster world through a surrealist lens. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Not just cricket: Henry Blofeld discusses “flannelled fools” and much besides at York Theatre Royal

Chat show of the week: An Audience With Henry Blofeld, York Theatre Royal, November 20, 7.30pm

TEST Match Special alumnus Henry Blofeld, 84, will discuss rather more than the art of cricket commentary. “If you think you’re going to learn how to play a forward defensive, you’ll be sadly disappointed,” he forewarns.

Instead, expect his colourful life story in a tongue-in-cheek show, full of after-dinner anecdotes and meandering digressions where Blowers pokes fun at himself and his TMS gaffes and his subjects veer from intergalactic travel to horticulture to mountaineering. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The Trials Of Cato: Twisting folk into new shapes at Pocklington Arts Centre

Folk gig of the week: The Trials Of Cato, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm

2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winners The Trials Of Cato pay homage to the folk tradition while twisting old bones into something febrile and modern, combining stomping tunes and captivating stories.

Formed in Beirut, Lebanon, the Welsh/English band have been based in Britain since 2016, releasing the albums Hide And Hair in 2018 and Gog Magog, named after the mythical giant of Arthurian legend and a Cambridgeshire hilltop, last year. Mandolin player and vocalist Polly Bolton has joined the trio after leaving The Magpies. Support act will be Annie Dressner, once of New York City, now of Cambridgeshire. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk

Jess Gardham: On Navigators Art & Performance’s Basement Sessions bill at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York

Underground movement of the week: Navigators Art & Performance, The Basement Sessions, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, November 25, doors, 7pm

YORK creative hub Navigators Art & Performance launches the Basement Sessions series of Music, Spoken Word and Comedy – Live, Local and Loud! with a bill of performers from the York area and “a few surprises up the sleeve”.

In the line-up are punk/post-punk/alt. rock/indie band What Fresh Hell, playing their farewell gig; pop, soul and acoustic singer-songwriter Jess Gardham; comedian John Pease; performance artist Carrieanne Vivianette, exploring the legacies of radical women through voice, movement and improvisation, and jazz-turned-punk Battle of the Bands finalists Attacker TV. Box office: bit.ly/nav-base-1 or on the door.

Stepping out of the shadow: Atila Huyesin celebrates the music of Nat King Cole at the NCEM, York

Tribute show of the week: Atila Huseyin in King For A Day: The Nat King Cole Story, National Centre for Early Music, York, November 26, 7pm

ATILA Huseyin combines live music, narration and projected archive images and footage in his concert celebration of one the 20th century’s greatest vocalists and entertainers, Nat King Cole. of the Twentieth Century: Nat King Cole.

Accompanied by world-class musicians, Huseyin performs such favourites as Nature Boy, Unforgettable and When I Fall in Love alongside stylish reworkings of his lesser-known gems. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Chris McCausland: Warming up at Selby Town Hall for a year of travels on his 2024 Yonks! tour

Looking ahead: Chris McCausland, Yonks!, Grand Opera House, York, November 10 2024

LIVERPUDLIAN comedian Chris McCausland will follow up his 140-date Speaky Blinder tour with 104 shows on his Yonks! travels in January to May and September to December 2024. Why Yonks? “I’ve been called an ‘overnight success’, even though I’ve been doing this for yonks,” he reasons after more than two decades on the stand-up circuit.

This year, McCausland, 46, has hosted his own travel series, Wonders Of The World I Can’t See, on Channel 4. His Work In Progress show at Selby Town Hall on Wednesday (8pm) has sold out. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Who won the prizes at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2023? Here’s the full list

Tom Berkeley & Ross White’s The Golden West: Winner of the Best of Festival and Best Drama awards at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2023

TOM Berkeley & Ross White’s The Golden West has won the Best of Festival Award at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2023 in York.

Award winners in the 13th festival were announced in a ceremony on Sunday at the Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens, spotlighting outstanding storytelling across multiple genres.

Winner of the Best Drama Award too, The Golden West is set in November 1849, when two warring Irish sisters seek their fortune in the gold rush after fleeing the Great Famine. However, with winter fast approaching, their feud soon threatens to become deadly.

Other award winners were:

Best Advertising Award: RNIB/See Differently, directed by Jesse Lewis-Reece.

Best Animation Film: Letter To A Pig, directed by Tal Kantor.

Best Artists’ Film Award: The Song, directed by Bani Abidi.

Best Comedy Award: Festival Of Slap, directed by Abdou Cissé

Best Dance Award: Spicy Pink Tea, directed by Aqsa Arif.

Best Documentary Award: Nail Nai & Wai Po (Grandma & Grandpa), directed by Sean Wang.

Best Documentary Feature: After The Bridge, directed by Davide Rizzo & Marzia Toscano.

Best Experimental Film: Thieves, directed by Michelle Williams Gamaker.

Best Fashion Award: An Ode To Procrastination, directed by Aleksandra Kingo.

Best Family Friendly Award: I’m Not Afraid, directed by Marita Mayer.

Best Music Video Award: Debbie featuring Berwyn, Cousin’s Car, directed by Relta.

Best Narrative Feature: Black Moon, directed by Tonatiuh Garcia.

Best Thriller Award: Hide Your Crazy, directed by Austin Kase.

Best VR & 360 Award: From The Main Square, directed by Pedro Harres.

Best Game: Paper Trail, by Newfangled Games.

Best Cinematography Award: The Red Suitcase, directed by Cyrus Neshvad.

Best Director Award and Best Screenplay Award: Safe, directed by Debbie Howard.

Best Editing Award: Outlets, directed by Duncan Cowles.

All the films from the five-day festival can be streamed online at asff.co.uk until November 30, along with the 60 masterclasses.

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Welcome to the inaugural Scarborough Film Festival. Co-director reveals what’s on, where and when and why it’s happening

Elizabeth Boag: Co-director of Scarborough Film Festival

THE inaugural Scarborough Film Festival is running from today until Sunday.

“We’ve put together a really fantastic programme of films that includes feature films, both arthouse and mainstream, short films, documentaries, animation, locally made films and artist moving images,” says co-director Elizabeth Boag. “We hope there really is something for everyone.”

A familiar face to theatre audiences from her Stephen Joseph Theatre performances, not least in Alan Ayckbourn comedies, actress Elizabeth is joined in the directorial team by Martha Cattell, archivist at the Yorkshire & North East Film Archives.

Elizabeth had decided to move back to Yorkshire from London in April 2021, after the pandemic, with a new son to bring up as a Yorkshireman and teach to walk in the sea.

“Having worked at the SJT, where they still show films in the McCarthy auditorium in what was the old Odeon cinema building, I messaged the theatre about setting up a film festival, as I’d love one to be held in Scarborough,” she says.

“I’d done a scheme in London called Firehouse Films [“a film lab with a difference”], where the principle was to give fledgling filmmakers the chance to work with actors and crew at a South East London location, without having to pay to pay for any of those.

“Each director would have a month to make a short film, with Firehouse Films providing a database and crew, and the actors would work for free for two days. That was in January to March 2013, producing 12 films, before I ended up coming to the SJT to do Alan Ayckbourn’s Arrivals And Departures that summer.”

Elizabeth admits she “didn’t know short films were a thing until I started acting”, but the seed was duly planted in her head to establish a film festival to “show amazing films to the people of Scarborough”.

Roll the years forward, and serendipitously Martha Cattell also had approached SJT artistic director Paul Robinson over the possibility of launching a film festival at the East Coast resort.

“Paul asked if I knew her and said she had some very cool friends that I did know,” recalls Elizabeth. “We met and got on really well, and while we come from different angles and our areas of interest are quite different, our tastes are similar. I’m more in touch with the narrative side and Martha more with artist films and documentary films.”

Martha was working as the curator for Crescent Arts in Scarborough [October 2020 to December 2022] when they first met and is now the project delivery manager for the Yorkshire & North East Film Archives, exploring how the moving image can be used in environment and climate narratives.

Profiled on LinkedIn as a freelance film programmer and creative producer, she gained a PhD from the University of York in 2019 in the ethics of representing the whaling industry in art and film. Earlier, she had chaired the York Student Cinema on campus.

An artist too (who works with seaweed), Martha’s diverse career has taken in programming and coordinating the Gateway Film Festival in Peterborough, involvements with the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest and Hebden Bridge Film Festival, and co-directing and programming Sea/Film, an organisation committed to bringing alternative film and cinema to Yorkshire, the Humber and the North East.

Pooling their skills, Elizabeth and Martha decided “we wanted to make a film festival that would be very accessible, make it something for everyone, something they may not have seen before but would speak to them”.

More than 30 years since York entered the modern age of cinema-going at Clifton Moor, Scarborough still awaits its first multiplex cinema, although multi-million-pound plans were approved in March for one to transform the Brunswick shopping centre. In the meantime, Scarborough cinephiles must head up the stairs at the SJT or to the Hollywood Plaza Cinema, in North Marine Road, home to a weekly programme of Hollywood blockbusters and newly released films.

“One of the reasons we were keen to partner with the SJT for the festival was to help it survive as an arthouse cinema, presenting a cross-section of films. The SJT was the obvious hub for the festival as I’d worked there so much that I had a natural ‘in’,” says Elizabeth.

“I grew up in Pickering, where there was the Pickering Castle cinema, but sadly it closed when I was in my teens [in 2006, later to be converted into apartments in 2013], but we loved going there. It was such a wonderful place to go.”

A love of cinema was born. “For young people growing up in Scarborough, I want to give them the chance to go to the cinema and enjoy it as I did and still do,” says Elizabeth.

To that end, she and Martha are encouraging children and school groups to partake in the festival, whether in a Q&A, workshop or family screening.

Film aficionados will note that the debut Scarborough Film Festival is running in the same week as the 13th Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York. “In our planning, we said, ‘we have to avoid our weekend clashing with Aesthetica’…but our festival has a very different remit, with a very different offering, and next year we will make sure we don’t clash.

“If people are going to Aesthetica and spot something that attracts them in our programme, then maybe they’ll come over here too.”

CharlesHutchPress’s guide to the Scarborough Film Festival programme

Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, screening on Friday with a Q&A with lead actor Dave Turner, pictured right

November 9, 5pm: Opening event, McCarthy Cinema, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Bait and The Tide, plus Q&A with local cast and crew of The Tide. A night of films exploring the tensions faced by coastal communities. Suitable for age 15 plus.

​SHOT on a vintage 16mm camera using monochrome Kodak stock, Mark Jenkin’s timely, funny, poignant Bait goes to the heart of a Cornish community facing up to unwelcome change.

Made in Scarborough, with support from Film Hub North through the BFI Network Short Film Fund, Dan Hartley’s 2021 film The Tide charts the fate of a rusting trawler and its beleaguered crew as they struggle to eke out a living from the waters of the North Sea beyond Scarborough.

Producer and cast member Liam Thomas will lead the Q&A session. “This will be the first screening of The Tide in Scarborough, and we’re delighted that cast members and the crew will be attending,” says festival co-director Elizabeth Boag.

Fehinti Balogun in Complicité’s Can I Live?, Friday’s digital performance at Scarborough Film Festival. Picture: David Hewitt

​November 9, 8pm, McCarthy Cinema, Stephen Joseph Theatre: Complicité presents Can I Live?,plus Q&A with Fehinti Balogun. Conceived, written and performed by Fehinti Balogun. Suitable for age 12 plus. Captioned screening.

​WHY don’t we talk about it? Fehinti Balogun asks this urgent question and offers an invitation in Can I Live?, a new digital performance about the climate catastrophe, exploring his personal journey into the biggest challenge of our times.

Addressing themes of racism and classism as he weaves his story with spoken word, rap, theatre, animation and the scientific facts, Fehinti charts a course through the fundamental issues underpinning the emergency.

In doing so, he identifies the intimate relationship between the environmental crisis and the global struggle for social justice, and shares how, as a young Black British man, he has found his place in the climate movement. 

In the face of a sense of helplessness about the climate catastrophe, Can I Live? is an outstretched hand, inviting audiences to recognise they are not alone – and that through understanding the issues and connecting with the many powerful activists around the globe driving change, we can find a sense of hope for the future.

Caribbean Stories: Film programme from Caribbean International Film Festival on Friday afternoon

November 10, 1.45pm, McCarthy Cinema, Stephen Joseph Theatre: Caribbean Stories short films programme, curated by Barbadian journalist turned filmmaker, programmer and exhibitor Denyce Blackman. Age: 18 plus

PRESENTED in partnership with the Caribbean International Film Festival, this collection of varied, stirring stories from around the Caribbean showcases the richness of culture, language and experiences in portraits from Bahamas, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Martinique.

November 10, 5.30pm, Woodend Gallery & Studios, The Crescent; Queer Shorts: Liquid Thoughts short films programme. Age:18 plus

A SERIES of short films exploring themes of water and queerness, showing in collaboration with SJT, Crescent Arts and Scarborough Museums and Galleries alongside their exhibitions Always Been Here; and Garth Gratrix: Cheeky Felicia.

“There’s a vibrant queer artistic community in Scarborough and we’re very keen to invite them into the festival,” says Elizabeth.

November 10, 8pm, McCarthy Cinema, Stephen Joseph Theatre: Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, plus Q&A with lead actor Dave Turner. Age: 18 plus

KEN Loach partners again with screenwriter Paul Laverty for what is reportedly his final film at 87. In a once thriving North East mining community, The Old Oak is the last pub standing, kept afloat by a few remaining locals who feel abandoned by the system.

When a group of Syrian refugees arrives to be placed in the former pit village’s cheap, vacant homes, tensions begin to rise, but an unlikely union forms between the pub’s affable landlord, TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner), and an aspiring young Syrian photographer, Yara (Ebla Mari).

Song Of The Sea: Family Film screening on Friday morning

November 11, 10am, McCarthy Cinema, Stephen Joseph Theatre: Family Film, Song Of The Sea (PG)

TOMM Moore’s enchanting Irish animation tells the story of Ben and his little sister Saoirse – the last Seal-child – who embark on a fantastic journey across a fading world of ancient legend and magic in an attempt to return to their home by the sea.

November 11, 11.45am to 1.30pm, Boden Room, Stephen Joseph Theatre: Animation Workshop. Age recommendation: perfect for families with children aged four plus.

​CHILDREN’S author and self-taught animator Terenia Edwards leads an Introduction To Animation workshop. Learn the basic mechanics of animating and make your very own thaumatrope – a spinning toy that creates a visual illusion – inspired by Song Of The Sea. Free event but book to ensure a place.

November 11, 3pm, McCarthy Cinema, Stephen Joseph Theatre: Competition Selection, film programme of Yorkshire Shorts  with presentation and Q&A

“INITIALLY, we did an international call-out asking for submissions on the themes of Coast, Community and Environment, but we had so many submissions – more than 2,000 – that we decided to narrow it down to Yorkshire films, either filmed in Yorkshire or made with Yorkshire talent in them,” says Elizabeth.

“Our selection panel watched them and then Martha and I made the final decision on the choice of films to be shown.”

The panel of industry judges for Saturday’s competition will be: BAFTA-winning TV drama director Jordan Hogg; broadsheet film critic, Tim Robey; Zoe Naylor, from the BFI Academy, and Scarborough Film Festival’s resident blogger, freelance journalist (and Elizabeth’s cousin to boot) Laurence Boag-Matthews.

A Q&A with attending filmmakers will follow the screening, whereupon the panel will announce the winner and runner-up.

Terenia Edwards: Leading an Introduction To Animation workshop at the SJT on Saturday morning

November 11, 5pm, Stephen Joseph Theatre bar: Gala Drinks Reception, Celebrating The Filmmakers

SCARBOROUGH Film Festival partners with Brass Castle to celebrate East Coast filmmakers and their work. Those purchasing a ticket for the Yorkshire Shorts film programme automatically will book a place at the drinks reception and receive a free Brass Castle beer when they show the ticket at the bar.

​This is an opportunity for audience to meet the filmmakers and judges in an informal setting, for people to network and for plans for future collaborations to be hatched.

November 11, 7.45pm, McCarthy Cinema, Stephen Joseph Theatre:  Revive, live performance

REVIVE combines live music and spoken word with a chance to see archive film through a new lens. Environmental archive film from Martha Cattell’s Nature Matters project for the Yorkshire and North East Film Archives will be given new music or spoken-word scores by five performers with links to Scarborough.

Step forward: musical comedian Charlotte Brooke, poet and actor Tanya-Loretta Dee, rap artist Charles Kirby, poet Charlotte Oliver and singer-songwriter Jon Plant. Book a ticket for the Yorkshire Shorts programme to attend this event.

Stories Of The Sea: a morning of artist moving image work at SeaGrown, Scarborough Harbour

November 12, 11am, SeaGrown, Scarborough Harbour: Stories Of The Sea: Artist Moving Image

STORIES Of The Sea explores the work of artists who have focused on communities living in or near the sea.

Julia Parks’s Seaweed Stories looks at the relationship between people, seaweed and landscape, in the past, present and future. Webb-Ellis’s For The First Baby Born In Space was filmed during the long, hot summer of 2018, recording teenagers from Whiby and elsewhere as their coming of age coincides with a time when so much else is in flux.

Both Julia Parks and Webb-Ellis will attend a Q&A after the screening. Please note: unfortunately the SeaGrown boat is accessible only via a series of steps, so this venue is not suitable for wheelchair users or people with mobility issues.

What is an “artist moving image”? “Not necessarily narrative or documentary, though there is a narrative to both these works but they are pieces of art on film that move,” says Elizabeth.

November 12, 4pm, Railway Club, next to Scarborough railway station: So Which Band Is Your Boyfriend In?, film exploring real-life experiences of non-male participants in the UK’s DIY/underground music scenes, plus Q&A with local musicians

THROUGH a series of interviews with members of the music community, this film looks at their experiences – both positive and negative – and investigates what can be done to make music more accessible to everyone, regardless of gender. Screened in collaboration with Record Revivals, the record store next to the SJT.

Franco Rosso’s film Babylon: Screening at Railway Club, Scarborough, on Sunday

November 12, Railway Club, Scarborough, 7pm: screening of  Babylon preceded by premiere of visual companion piece to The Hydrogen Trees’ debut album Secret Arcade and followed by Rebel Radics Sound System live set

IN Franco Rosso’s Babylon, a 1980 cult classic that pulsates with an irresistible dub soundtrack, a young Blue (Brinsley Forde) aims for success at a Reggae Sound System competition.

Presented in collaboration with Record Revivals, the screening will be followed by a live dub set by Dan from Scarborough’s very own Rebel Radics Sound System, who will give a brief introduction to the film and sound system culture. The film will be played through Rebel Radics sound system too.

BA Acting students from CU Scarborough presenting Vida at Scarborough Film Festival: right to left, Joshua Parker, Ellen Ramos, Guilherme Nogueira, Lawrence Scott Sanders, Chloe Thompson, Liam Farricker, Jamielee Squires and Heather Taylor

November 9 to 12, at Mandy Apple Artspace, 44, Newborough, Scarborough, Developing Filmmakers, Thursday, 10am to 2pm; Friday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm

IN response to Scarborough being home to vibrant young film-making talent, Scarborough Film Festival will showcase a selection of their films on a loop in Mandy Apple’s intimate lounge space throughout the four days.

​Featured work includes: Vida, devised, shot and produced by BA Acting students from CU (Coventry University) Scarborough; Birds On The Edge, produced by Arcade, in partnership with North York Moors National Park Trust and Scarborough Pupil Referral Service; Written In The Waves, devised, shot and produced by CU Scarborough BA Acting students Chavez Idjerhe, Crystal Jackson, Selwyn Peterken and Luke Simpson; The Wait, written, directed and starring first-time filmmaker, Jessica Vautier. 

This event is FREE and unticketed; feel free to drop in any time.

Scarborough Film Festival tickets can be booked at https://www.scarboroughfilmfestival.co.uk/festival.

The Wait, written, directed and starring first-time filmmaker, Jessica Vautier
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Future of York’s cultural economy up for debate in Reignite creative industry event at Aesthetica Short Film Festival this evening

Cherie Federico: Aesthetica Short Film Festival director and driving force behind Reignite

REIGNITE II: The Creative Economy will bring together key partners and industry leaders to explore the impact of large-scale cultural programming on York’s wider economy this evening at City Screen Picturehouse, York

The 6pm to 9pm event will feature a film screening and Q&A with “some of the UK’s most significant creative talent”, as part of this week’s BAFTA-qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival, when York becomes a cinematic playground for global giants in the media and gaming industries.

Highlighting York’s decade-long UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts designation, the discussion will focus on the role of media arts in driving economic growth, attracting tourism and fostering a vibrant and creative city for years to come.

Aesthetica director Cherie Federico says: “Reignite II is an opportunity to discuss the economic impact of culture on our city and how bold cultural programming offers an uplift in the city centre through economic and social inclusion.

“Through Reignite, we are looking to unite the city in support of the high growth and economic potential of York’s creative industries, and we’re committed to supporting the sector to reach its full potential.”

Rachel Bean, project manager at York BID (Business Improvement District), says: “We believe that media arts have a vital role to play in the city’s economic future, and we’re excited to build on the success of [the first meeting of] Reignite and continue to work closely with Aesthetica and partners to explore this potential.”

Reignite: Economic Impact Through Creative Industries was launched last month to celebrate York’s creative sector and its significant impact on the local economy. The inaugural event brought together representatives across all sectors to unite under York’s UNESCO Media Arts status, with the aim of encouraging all sectors in York, including hospitality, retail, and transport, to recognise the vast potential of York’s creative sector to transform the city’s economy.

Organisations Aesthetica, Viridian FX, Bright White, York Museums Trust and the National Railway Museum, together with a panel of young creatives, highlighted the need to embrace the city’s UNESCO designation to strengthen the York economy, with ambitions to create educational pathways, develop new skills and jobs and attract investment.

“Reignite is about making York’s UNESCO Media Arts relevant to the city’s arts and culture and seeking to transform York into a knowledge-based economy,” says Cherie. “We’re looking to develop Reignite events every quarter, working in tandem with City of York Council.

“We have a few hundred businesees in the creative industries in York already, but we must encourage more businesses to set up in York, particular in gaming and coding. We’ve reached the point where the city is being recognised for being very innnovative in what it’s achieving in the worlds of visual special effects and gaming, and we need to build on that.

“York has a unique cultural heritage and we must re-define ourselves as a regional city that thinks nationally and internationally, with a strategy for start-ups, education and inward investment.

“We want to encourage future careers, whether as arts workers or coders, and to legitimise those career paths in York, and we want to inspire not only young people in the city.”

New York-born Cherie has studied, worked and lived in York for more than two decades, setting up the international art magazine Aesthetica 20 years ago and subsequently the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, now its 13th year, and the Aesthetica Art Prize, an annual showcase for cutting-edge global talent at York Art Gallery.

“Aesthetica Short Film Festival underpins the values of York’s UNESCO Media Arts designation, making it visible with large-scale, bold cultural programming that has an economic impact on the city and cultural impact on residents and visitors alike,” she says.

“The draw of the festival, bringing big names to the city, highlights everything we’re seeking to do. This year we have ten representives from from Ridley Scott Associates; Oscar-winning filmmaker Tim Webber; the head of BAFTA Games, Luke Hebblethwaite; the BBC’s head of environmental documentaries, Mike Gunton, and fashion photographer Michel Haddi.

“BAFTA-winning Bait director Mark Jenkin, Bridgerton cinematographer Diana Olifirova, Suffragette director Sarah Gavron, Northern Irish director Kathryn Ferguson, who made the Sinead O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares, and Aesthetica alumna Jennifer Sheridan, director of Extraordinary for Disney+, they’re all coming too.

“So is Terri White, former editor-in-chief of Empire film magazine, whose memoir Coming Undone is being adpated into a TV series starring Billie Piper. We’ll have films by Ricky Gervais, Maxine Peake and Ben Whishaw too.”

Tonight’s event is supported by City of York Council, York BID, Aesthetica, Kit Monkman’s Viridian FX and York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce.

Reignite II is free to attend, but registration is required at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/740066949167?aff=oddtdtcreator.

The back story of York: UNESCO Creative City

YORK is one of only 12 UNESCO Creative Cities in the United Kingdom and is unique in being the UK’s first and only UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts.

York is part of a network of 246 Creative Cities that has identified creativity as a strategic factor in sustainable urban development. 

The aims:

To strengthen the creation, production, distribution and dissemination of cultural activities, goods and services.

To develop hubs of creativity and innovation and broaden opportunities for creators and professionals in the cultural sector.

To improve access to and participation in cultural life, in particular for marginalised or vulnerable groups and individuals.

To fully integrate culture and creativity into sustainable development plans.

In 2020, York launched a new Culture Strategy – York’s Creative Future – with inclusion and participation at its core, “showcasing the city’s commitment to ensuring culture is relevant and accessible to everybody in York regardless of age, background or postcode”.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond for November 4 onwards. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 45 for 2023, from The Press

Tous Love Me, directed by Victor Claramunt, showing at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2023

FIVE days of short films lead off a week long on Latin pop and school rock musicals, plus science and sticks, dance moves and festive designs, as Charles Hutchinson reports.

Festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York city centre, November 8 to 12

THE 13th edition of York’s Aesthetica Short Film Festival combines 300 films and 15 venues in a five-day showcase of worldwide independent film that champions emerging creative talent.

Guest programmes explore the climate crisis, Black British cinema and LGBTQ+ experiences. Look out too for the Aesthetica Games Lab, in celebration of video game culture, plus multiple masterclasses, networking sessions, kids’ workshops, AI workshops and the VR Lab’s selection of 360 (degree) and immersive film experiences. York residents can save 50 per cent each day with the York Days Discount. Full programme and tickets: asff.co.uk.

Shower After Swimming, linocut by Anita Klein, from the Comfort And Joy exhibition at Pyramid Gallery, York

Exhibition launch of the week: Comfort And Joy, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, November 4, 11am to 3pm, until mid-January 2024

PYRAMID Gallery’s Christmas show, Comfort And Joy, combines paintings, prints, ceramics, sculpture and glass. Look out for needlepoint by Dinny Pocock, jewellery by Joy McMillan and sculpture by Paul Smith, Lynn Muir, Helen Martino, Peter Hayes, Eva Mileusnic, Gwen Vaughan, Fidelma Massey and Louise Connell, among others.

On show too will be paintings and original prints by Sarah Williams, Anita Klein, Lesley Birch, Eliza Southwood, Emma Whitelock, Trevor Price, Mychael Barratt and Hilke Macintyre, porcelain origami by Kate Buckley, plus glass by Keith Cummings, E&M Glass, Hannah Gibson, Tracey Knowles, Will Shakspeare, Morag Reekie, Jo Kenny and more besides. Attending today’s launch will be Smith, Birch, McMillan, Whitelock and Knowles.

York illustrator Elliot Harrison

Inspired event: York Artists & Designer Makers’ Annual Christmas Show, York Cemetery Chapel, Cemetery Road, York, November 4 and 5, 10am to 5pm

YORK artists and designers return to York Cemetery Chapel this weekend for their Inspired festive showcase. Adrienne French will be exhibiting paintings; Jo Bagshaw and Richard Whitelegg, jewellery; Elliot Harrison, illustrations; Catherine Boyne-Whitelegg, pottery; John Watts and Wilf Williams, furniture; Petra Bradley, textiles; Sally Clarke, prints, and Simon Palmour, photography.

Safia Bartley’s Filomina in Tutti Frutti and One Tenth Human’s The Lightbulb Princess at York Theatre Royal

Science show of the week: Tutti Frutti and One Tenth Human in The Lightbulb Princess, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 5, 2pm

LEEDS company Tutti Frutti Productions and Lancaster’s One Tenth Human team up for a magical, fun-filled 50-minute extravaganza for children aged four and upwards that explores the science behind electricity.

Kai’s sister Ray is determined that Mum will enjoy a perfect Christmas. It may be way too early, but already she has Kai and Ali hunting everywhere for decorations. When they find tree-top sparkly fairy Filomina, an unexpected adventure begins, one where they will need your help in a show full of electrifying storytelling and original songs. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Anton Du Beke: Chat and cha cha cha at York Theatre Royal

Song and dance of the week: An Evening With Anton Du Beke And Friends, York Theatre Royal, November 6, 7.30pm

STRICTLY Come Dancing legend and judge Anton Du Beke sashays into York with his live band, guest singer Lance Ellington and dancers for a fab-u-lous evening of song, dance and laughter. The ballroom king will be combining songs and dances that have inspired him with behind-the-scenes stories from his many years on Strictly. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

La Bamba! leaps into the air at Grand Opera House, York, from Tuesday. Picture: Pamela Raith

New musical of the week: La Bamba!, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; Wednesday and Saturday, 2.30pm

NOT to be confused with the 1987 film of the same name or Richie Valens’ teenage hit from 1958, La Bamba! is a new musical fiesta of passion, pride and Latin pop anthems starring Strictly Come Dancing champion Pasha Kovalev, The Wanted’s Siva Kaneswaran and rising star Inês Fernandez, choreographed by Strictly’s Graziano Di Prima.

Follow young Los Angeles dreamer Sofia as she takes her first steps toward stardom and witnesses the power of music to unite communities. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Stick Man: Freckle Productions head to York Theatre Royal with Julia Donaldson’s story

Children’s show of the week: Freckle Productions in Stick Man, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, 4.30pm; Wednesday, 10.30am, 1.30pm and 4.30pm

WHAT begins as a morning jog becomes a misadventure for Stick Man: a dog wants to play Fetch, a swan builds a nest with him, and he even ends up atop a fire. How will Stick Man return to the family tree in time for Christmas?  

Adapting Julia Donaldson’s book, Freckle Productions combine puppetry, songs, live music and funky moves in the 55-minute performance. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Emma Dickinson and Jonny Holbek rehearsing with the York Light Youth ensemble for the York amateur premiere of School Of Rock

Are you ready to rock? York Light Youth in School Of Rock, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK Light Youth’s tenth anniversary show is the York premiere of the technically and musically challenging musical School Of Rock, combining young performers aged ten to 17 and York Light Opera Company adults.

Based on the 2003 film, the storyline follows Jonny Holbek’s Dewey Finn, a failed wannabe rock star, who vows to turn his clueless prep school students into a rock band to enter Battle of the Bands. Along the way, Dewey finds romance, self-worth, a proper job, while initiating the children and their parents in the beauty of rock. Box office: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Recommended but fully booked

QUEEN of British soul Beverley Knight’s York Barbican concert on Thursday has sold out, as has indie pop trio Scouting For Girls’ gig there the next night.  

In Focus: Gigs of the week: Teenage Fanclub on tour in Leeds and Sheffield with new album Nothing Lasts Forever in tow

Teenage Fanclub: Heading for Leeds and Sheffield on tour. Picture: Donald Milne

GLASGOW indie legends Teenage Fanclub follow up September’s release of 11th full-length studio album Nothing Lasts Forever with a 12-date November tour, taking in Yorkshire gigs in Leeds on Wednesday (sold out) and Sheffield on November 12

On songs looking for positives while faced with the grim realities of the 21st century, songwriters and guitarists Raymond McGinley and Norman Blake are joined by Francis Macdonald on drums, Dave McGowan on bass and Euros Childs on keyboards.

Light is a recurring theme, both as a metaphor for hope and as an ultimate destination further down the road. That said, although McGinley and Blake found themselves covering similar ground, it was pure coincidence.

McGinley says: “We never talk about what we’re going to do before we start making a record. We don’t plan much other than the nuts and bolts of where we’re going to record and when.

“That thing about light was completely accidental; we didn’t realise that until we’d finished half the songs. The record feels reflective, and I think the more we do this thing, the more we become comfortable with going to that place of melancholy, feeling and expressing those feelings.”

Blake reflects: “These songs are definitely personal. You’re getting older, you’re going into the cupboard getting the black suit out more often. Thoughts of mortality and the idea of the light must have been playing on our minds a lot.

“The songs on the last record were influenced by the break-up of my marriage. It was cathartic to write those songs. These new songs are reflective of how I’m feeling now, coming out of that period.

“They’re fairly optimistic, there’s an acceptance of a situation and all of the experience that comes with that acceptance. When we write, it’s a reflection of our lives, which are pretty ordinary.

“We’re not extraordinary people, and normal people get older. There’s a lot to write about in the mundane. I love reading Raymond Carver. Very often there’s not a lot that happens in those stories, but they speak to lived experience.”

While the vocals and finishing touches on Nothing Lasts Forever were added at McGinley’s place in Glasgow, the music was recorded in an intense ten-day period in the bucolic Welsh countryside at Rockfield Studios, near Monmouth, in late August.

This environment led to a record full of soft breezes, wide skies, beauty and space. “We like to get something out of where we go, and you can definitely hear a stamp of Rockfield on the record,” says McGinley.

“We recorded our album Howdy there in the late ’90s. Prior to that, I’d been a bit reluctant to go as everyone seemed to record there, especially if you were signed to Creation, but I thought I’d go and have a look at the place. “

McGinley continues: “When I went down there, I loved the fact that there’s no memorabilia about anyone who’s ever been in the studio. The only visual musical reference is a picture of [pioneering space age record producer} Joe Meek on their office wall.

Teenage Fanclub’s artwork for their 11th studio album, Nothing Lasts Forever

“Anyway, over 20 years after our first visit, we decided to go back. When you’re there, it feels like your place. We’re really rubbish at trying to find words to describe how our music sounds, but maybe because we recorded in Rockfield in late summer, there’s something pastoral about the record.”

Blake, McGinley, Macdonald, McGowan and Childs arrived at the residential studio without a fixed plan. Their confidence and ease with working together meant the record came together quickly. 

McGinley says: “When we got offered ten days in Rockfield, we weren’t ready in our minds but then we just thought, ‘**** it’ and went for it. If you’re sitting around waiting for the stars to align, you can end up never doing anything. We turned up and worked our way through ideas, and came up with some while we were there.

“The song Foreign Land was born in the studio. If we hadn’t gone there at that point through happenstance, that song wouldn’t exist. We like to let things happen. As people, we find a deadline inspiring. We like to put ourselves on the spot and see what happens. We usually get away with it. This record is the cliche of the blank canvas, which thankfully we managed to fill.”

Blake adds: “We’ve all been playing together for such a long time. In the past, whoever had written the song would have been the director. ‘This is how I’m hearing the drums, if you could play the bass like this’…We don’t do that now.

“Raymond or myself would just bring in the idea and people would listen and play what works with it. We’d play for a couple of hours and that would be the arrangement. There’s a trust that comes from knowing each other such a long time, a kind of telepathy. Everyone knows where they fit in the puzzle.”

The seven-minute acoustic closing track, I Will Love You, looks to a point beyond the fury and polarisation of our modern discourse, to a time when “the bigots are gone/after they apologise/for all the harm that they’ve done”. 

McGinley says: “In many ways, us-and-them-ism has taken over the world. I Will Love You is looking for positivity but it’s being totally fatalistic at the same time. This s**t will exist forever, what are you going to do about it?

“I came up with the line ‘I will love you/until the flags are put down/and the exceptionalists are buried under the ground’ while I was playing the guitar. I started wondering what that was all about and where it might go. It’s looking for positives within a fatalistic, negative view of human nature.”

The full track listing is: Foreign Land; Tired Of Being Alone; I Left A Light On; See The Light; It’s Alright; Falling Into The Sun; Self-Sedation; Middle Of My Mind; Back To The Light and I Will Love You.

Teenage Fanclub play Leeds Brudenell Social Club, Wednesday, doors 7.30pm, sold out; Leadmill, Sheffield, November 12, 7.30pm. Support comes from Sweet Baboo. Box office for Sheffield: leadmill.co.uk.

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Aesthetica Short Film Festival is big on names, games and the future of York and AI

After We’re Gone, directed by Ira Iduozee, showing at Aesthetica Short Film Festival

THE 13th edition of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival will be bigger and better than ever with big industry names, new features, more masterclasses and a 50 per cent YorkDays residents’ discount each day.

Significantly too, the festival is determined to highlight York’s status as the UK’s first and only UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts, not only through a festival with one eye on the future, but also through the newly launched Reignite drive, propelled by Aesthetica director Cherie Federico, to highlight the financial impact of York’s creative sector and the need to transform York into a knowledge-based economy.

“The time for complacency is over,” says Cherie. “York has a unique cultural heritage and we must re-define ourselves as a regional city that thinks nationally and internationally, with a strategy for start-ups, education and inward investment.”

At the heart of the five-day festival, spread across 15 venues from November 8 to 12, will be 300 films in competition, including new works by Rick Gervais, Maxine Peake, Ben Whishaw and Oscar-winner Tim Webber, from Framestore.

The 2023 Official Selection of shorts, feature-length films and documentaries VR experiences and games screenings has been curated into five themes: Now, In This Very Moment; Standing at the Threshold of Change; A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With One Step; Be Free From Yourself and It’s Nice to Meet You.

The Guest Programmes for 2023 come from BFI Doc Society, Iris Prize and We Are Parable, among others, while the New Wave initiative provides a platform for up-and-coming directors. Issues such as gender, identity, the climate crisis and social injustices will be prominent throughout the festival film choice.

Festival films span 12 genres: advertising; animation; artists’ film; comedy; dance; documentary; drama, experimental; family friendly; fashion; music video and thriller. They can be experienced on the big screen at assorted locations during the festival run or streamed from home via the festival’s Virtual Platform, open for viewing On Demand until November 30, along with the masterclasses.

Cherie Federico: Aesthetica Short Film Festival director

Top film industry organisations will be participating in more than 60 masterclasses and practical workshops for adults and children from November 8 to 11, with pre-booking recommended.

The 2023 event welcomes directors and cinematographers such as Sarah Gavron (Rocks), Mark Jenkin (Bait), Nicolas Brown (1917), Diana Olifirova (Heartstopper) and Kathryn Ferguson (director of the Sinead O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares), to give sessions on their experience working in the industry, from editing, sound design and cinematography to screenwriting, interactive storytelling, games, AI (artificial intelligence) and VR (virtual reality).

Festival-goers can go behind the scenes with multi-award-winning British animation studio Aardman; BBC Studios will demonstrate its work in the Natural History Unit, producing series with David Attenborough, while Ridley Scott Associates will delve delves into The Future of Storytelling. 

Aesthetica also welcome George Lucas’s VFX studio, Industrial Light and Magic, alongside Oscar winners Framestore, to discuss the world of visual effects and post-production.

One event asks What is the Role of the Intimacy Co-Ordinator, while another looks at the female gaze and what it means for women to depict women. Other compelling topics will be: Next Level Scriptwriting, Developing Award-Winning Animations; Where to Shoot Your Film; the Power of True Stories and Composing  for Screen.

Practical sessions take place at Pitcher & Piano, the StreetLife Hub, the Guildhall and York Theatre Royal, hosted by key organisations, from the London College of Communication to the Pitch Film Fund.

Festival visitors can travel to the past to uncover the magic of traditional printmaking or look to the future in Testbed of AI Generators and Writing in 360°: A Practical Workshop. Look out too for sessions on how to pitch, a virtual production demonstration and a showcase of Canon’s cinema cameras.

Hitting the heights: The Secret Diary Of A High Rise, directed by Stehen James Ong

Children can learn to direct, edit and make their own films in Do You Want to Be a Director and How to Make a Film, led by the Pauline Quirke Academy. New for 2023 is How to Make a Game and Do You Want to be a Game Developer? from Impact Games: a chance for young people to learn the secrets behind their favourite games. Pre-booking is essential.

In its 13th year, ASFF becomes the first British film festival to introduce a Games Lab, at Spark:York, inviting audiences to explore new worlds and interactive storytelling with 40 new independent games to play in a celebration of game culture, design and production on PC, console and headset. Workshops, events and masterclasses will accompany the Games Lab too.

“The video game industry is undergoing dramatic change culturally and technologically and is now larger than the film industry and music industry combined,” says festival director Cherie Federico. “We see journeys into narrative design as a crucial way to understand how storytelling is evolving in the 21st century. We see gaming much like film, but as a player you are involved in bringing a story to life.

“The inaugural Games Lab marks a new chapter in the festival’s story and reflects how the screen industry evolving. It’s an exciting moment to take stock of and recognise the impact of gaming culture, and how it touches our daily lives.”

Twenty VR projects in the Screen School VR Lab will be part of the festival’s ever-expanding offering of Virtual and Expanded Reality experiences, presented in tandem with Investigative Games and Kit Monkman’s York-based special effects studio Viridian FX.

This year’s Aesthetica Fringe comprises a sound installation, looking at feminism and women’s experiences in public places, at Bedern Hall; the Inside [Out] exhibition by three female photographers, celebrating women behind the lens, at City Screen Picturehouse; a display of contemporary film posters from the Official Selection at StreetLife Hub and workshops in printmaking, gaming and film for children and adults.

For the festival programme and tickets, head to: asff.co.uk.

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Top Ten Things To Do at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2023 in York. Here’s director Cherie Federico’s November best of fest 

Aesthetica Short Film Festival director Cherie Federico

300 independent films on your doorstep

EXPERIENCE a vast range of films from around the world with the Official Selection, Guest Programmes and New Wave screenings. This year’s outstanding selection includes films by Ricky Gervais, Maxine Peake, Ben Whishaw and Oscar-winner Tim Webber.

The Official Selection is curated with more than 300 films spanning 12 exciting genres, covering comedy, drama, animation, documentary, family friendly, thriller and more. Guest Programmes come from BFI Doc Society, Iris Prize and We Are Parable among others. New Wave spotlights new talent and is the only strand in a UK festival to showcase graduate films, introducing the filmmakers of the future.

UK film festival first: Pioneering Games Lab

THE Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom sold 10 million copies in three days, making it the fastest-selling game in Nintendo history. Games enable players to interact with stories like never before, from journeying through vast open worlds to navigating mesmeric VR (virtual reality) experiences. 

Aesthetica sees the games industry evolving and wants to spotlight and celebrate all that interactive media offer, proudly becoming the first British film festival to develop a Games Lab alongside the film screenings, VR and immersive experiences.

Head to Spark:York to play your way through 40 captivating titles, from squirrel mysteries to mythical island escapades, as these Official Selection games immerse users in imaginative worlds.

Masterclasses and Panel Discussions

WHETHER you are an actor, cinematographer, director, developer, producer, screenwriter or a film aficionado, ASFF has world-class masterclasses to suit you, bringing together big names from across film, games and VR. Speakers include representatives from Aardman, Guardian Documentaries, the BFI, Film4, Ridley Scott Associates, Ubisoft and BBC Writersroom.

The list of directors, producers and visual effects specialists have worked such iconic projects as: Avengers: Endgame, Bridgerton, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Gravity, Ready Player One, Wallace And Gromit, and much more.

Family Friendly screenings: Bring the whole family

INSPIRE your children with a selection of incredible films. The whole family can experience the best in independent cinema at Family Friendly film screenings of comedies, engaging dramas and fun-filled animations. Follow compelling characters, from a brave hummingbird to a shy presenter, in shorts that encourage us to be our best selves. ASFF’s three reels are divided into ascending age groups.

Screen School VR Lab: Expanded Realities here in York

THE possibilities of 360° film are endless. Immersive experiences like these bring audiences closer to the action than ever before, positioning them in both real and entirely imagined environments.

Aesthetica and LCC’s (London College Of Communication) Screen School invite you to dive into a bold selection of imaginative stories. Embark on a multi-sensory journey as you explore the world of 360 cinema. The VR Lab will be held at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, alongside panel discussions at York Explore. To join virtually, buy a cardboard headset and experience at home.

Networking Sessions: Meet filmmakers

BUILD relationships, seek out collaborations and make lasting memories. Whether you are looking to connect with industry representatives, discover new opportunities or learn new approaches to filmmaking, Networking Sessions are the perfect opportunity to meet with film sector professionals and share ideas. 2023’s representatives are from renowned organisations such as Canon, The Pitch Film Fund and York special effects studio Viridian FX.

Insightful Workshops: Learn new skills

TRAVEL to the past to uncover the tactile magic of traditional printmaking or look to exciting futures with Test Bed of AI Generators and Writing in 360: A Practical Workshop. A series of workshops will run at Pitcher & Piano, StreetLife Hub, The Guildhall and York Theatre Royal’s Studio, with a host of key organisations, ranging from the London College of Communication and The Pitch Film Fund to Viridian FX and Canon.

These practical workshops are centred around expanded realities, making them essential for those looking to try out new technologies and learn from industry professionals.

Three Exhibitions: Sound & Photography

THE premiere of Flux & Possibilities, Martyn Riley’s deep listening, multi-channel sound installation, explores personal identities and histories at Bedern Hall. Created in partnership with Aesthetica, LCC and Audible, it invites you to listen to numerous female-identifying interviewees across different locations and generations, revealing their personal stories of feminism, inequality and gendered spaces.

Look out too for a film poster exhibition at the StretLife hub and photography exhibition, Inside (Out), featuring three female photographers, at City Screen Picturehouse, both in Coney Street.

Pitching Sessions: Speak with the experts

DEVELOPING a new short or feature project? ASFF offers a series of 20-minute pitching sessions where experts provide guidance on how to develop ideas, break into the industry and further your distribution goals.

These sessions will be led by delegates from BBC Film, Goldfinch, Film4, Guardian Documentaries and Neal Street Productions across various days at Malmaison York, as well as virtually. Pre-selection and applications are required.

Kids’ Workshops: Filmmaking & Games

ASFF believes in nurturing children’s creative potential. New for this year, children can attend workshops to learn how to direct, edit and make films. Budding game developers can join Impact Games to learn what goes into creating the games they love.  

Pauline Quirke Academy will lead workshops for young directors keen to get behind the camera,  shout “action” and “cut” and tell their unique stories.

Two types of workshops will run: filmmaking and gaming, where children can learn how to code and develop their own games.

Aesthetica Short Film Festival runs  in York from November 8 to 12; full programme and tickets at asff.co.uk.