Talkin’ about a rev-olution in drive-in cinema from the AA: Arts journalist Charles Hutchinson and Celestine Dubruel arrive at Elvington Airfield for Saturday night’s screening of Le Mans ’66. Picture: AA
NEARLY 2,000 people had that “getaway feeling”, heading out to the AA Getaway Drive-In Cinema, parked up at Elvington Airfield, near York, last weekend.
In “Vol. 1” of the AA’s new cinematic entertainment venture, afternoon and evening screenings took place from Friday to Sunday, Saturday reserved for AA members, the other two days open to the public, with a maximum of five people per car.
The other York drive-in experience available/not available/go to Aberdeen right now is for Covid-19 Testing at Poppleton Park and Ride, and driving past the ever-evocative Air Museum aircraft onto the airfield expanse for Saturday night’s show, there seemed to be even more staff on hand to guide you through a winding course of tyres, in familiar AA livery of gaudy yellow. Even an official photographer was there to snap every car and smiling incumbent.
All on duty were wearing face masks; enthusiastic, helpful, loving that feeling of being out in the open air, like Tukker the dog with the fan and record deck in the new AA advert that would inevitably play its part in the promotional side of this drive-in Saturday experience.
No, not the USA, but driving in for the AA Getaway Drive-In at Elvington Airfield . Picture: AA
Name checked, you were handed sanitised remote speakers for your listening pleasure and informed how you could order food and drink – “locally sourced “ – from that device to be brought contact-free to your car.
A number was placed on each driver’s wing mirror to facilitate those deliveries, once you had been guided into your car’s socially distanced spot by hand signals more associated with guiding an aeroplane across the Heathrow tarmac. Apt for an airfield, of course!
The first York drive-in of the summer, Daisy Duke’s on Knavesmire from July 31 to August 2, had favoured a combination of musical big hitters, Grease, Rocketman, Mamma Mia! and A Star Is Born, family hits, Toy Story and Shrek 2, and something darker for night-time, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction and Joker.
AA Getaway’s triptych of escapist films felt the need for speed, thrills and action, suitable both for the location and the AA’s association with travel and driving. Hence the choice of James Gunn’s 2014 space chase, Guardians Of The Galaxy (12A), Edgar Wright’s 2017 getaway-car heist thriller, Baby Driver (15), and James Mangold’s 2019 Ford v Ferrari race-track clash, Le Mans ’66 (12), Saturday’s evening pick for AA members.
Socially distanced cars at the Elvington airfield drive-in cinema. Picture: AA
Many moons ago, but never to be forgotten, a hapless drive-in showcase in a Clifton Moor car park had combined a blow-up screen that blew over in the howling wind, incongruous ice creams on an absurdly cold and wet early summer’s night, and a much-delayed screening of Grease – Summer Lovin’ didn’t happen so fast, alas – after the forlorn screen had to be deflated and slowly, very slowly, re-inflated.
“Never again” was the vow in the wake of that tragic-comic affirmation that drive-ins were meant for open-topped American cars on balmy American nights with the junkiest of American junk food, not for an anonymous Yorkshire tarmac strip off a bypass.
Until…Saturday night at the movies at Elvington Airfield and AA Getaway’s slick, ultra-efficient, state-of-the-drive-in cinema, where the sound systems were as clear as the staff instructions, the three giant LED screens were pin-sharp and everything ran to time.
Le Mans ’66 was a cracking selection: Ford versus Ferrari, American ruthlessness versus more stylish Italian ruthlessness on and off the track for the 1966 24-hour Le Mans race in a buddy vehicle for Matt Damon and Christian Bale.
Saturday night’s film at Elvington airfield: Christian Bale as Ken Miles in Le Mans ’66
Ultimately, under Mangold’s heart-pumping direction, it turned into a hymn to the uncompromising, temperamental but brilliant engineer and driver Ken Miles, the Motorsports Hall Of Fame of America inductee from Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, whose deeds overseas deserve to be known by more than petrol heads.
Aided by Bale’s bravura performance, there was so much mileage in Miles’s story, hopefully, if belatedly, the Brummie race ace will have his place among the pantheon of British sporting greats.
Will Harrison, AA’s head of brand marketing, said after the weekend: “We launched AA Getaway to offer audiences some true escapism and we’re absolutely delighted with the response. For many, it was their very first drive-in experience and we hope they were able to sit back, relax and smile – all from the comfort of their car.”
Roll on Vol 2: The Drive-In for these days when the car, a kind of home from home, looks a safe option for Covid-secure, socially distanced entertainment.
Here’s Jack: Jack Nicholson in The Shining, part of the Fright Fest By The Sea festival of fear at the SJT
HERE’S Johnny! Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre will present Fright Fest By The Sea, a week of scary movies with “terror levels suitable for all the family” as part of its October film programme.
Anglo-German director Wolf Rilla’s 1960 sci-fi horror movie Village Of The Damned – “Beware the stare that will paralyze the will of the world!”, the poster warns – will be shown on October 23 at 2pm and October 24 at 7pm.
An American Werewolf In London, John Landis’s 1981sci-fi horror comedy advert for Yorkshire’s infamous brand of hospitality for outsiders, is booked in for October 23, 7pm, October 27, 7pm, and October 28, 2pm.
Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan’s 2019 computer-animated black comedy version of The Addams Family will run on October 24, 2pm October 27, 2pm, October 28, 7pm, October 29, 2pm, and October 30, 2pm.
An American Werewolf In London: A taciturn Yorkshire welcome awaits all who enter….
Gerald Thomas’s 1966 British comedy Carry On Screaming, the 12th of 31 Carry On capers, stars Fenella Fielding, Kenneth Williams and Harry H Corbett as a private detective in his only appearance in the series, on October 29 at 7pm and October 31 at 2pm.
Ah, here’s Johnny! Jack Nicholson ad-libbed that “Here’s Johnny” moment, echoing announcer Ed McMahon’s introduction of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, in The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 psychological horror film. Enjoy it again on October 30 and 31 at 7pm.
The October programme of films and streamings in The McCarthy will open with Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes (Captured Live), his Olivier Award-winning dance-drama adaptation of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 film.
This tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world will be shown on October 1, 2pm, October 2, 7pm, and October 3 and 4, 2pm.
What a scream: The poster for Carry On Screaming
October 1’s 7pm screening of Parasite offers the chance to judge why Bong Joon-ho’s black-and-white South Korean dark comedy thriller became the first non-English language film to win the Oscar for Best Picture in February.
Hats off, masks on, for John-Paul Davidson and Stephen Warbeck’s new British comedy, The Man In The Hat, showing on October 2, 2pm, October 3, 7pm, October 6 and 7, 7pm, and October 8, 2pm.
The titular man in the hat (Ciaran Hinds) journeys through France in a Fiat 500, accompanied by a framed photograph of an unknown woman. In pursuit are five angry men in a Citroën Dyane, but why are they chasing him and how can he shake them off?
Thirty years ago, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo made their historic debut as The Three Tenors. On October 8 at 7pm and October 10 at 2pm, Three Tenors: Voices For Eternity (Event Cinema) celebrates the emotional highlights of the first concert and the sequel in Los Angeles, with new interviews and never-before-seen backstage footage.
Ciaran Hinds: The man in the hat in The Man In The Hat
A global audience of 1.6 billion people watched that ground-breaking debut concert, one that catapulted classical music into a new dimension, spawning the best-selling classical album of all time.
A second new British film, 23 Walks, Paul Morrison’s gentle, sweet, funny, romantic story of love in later life, will have screenings on October 9 at 2pm and 7pm, October 10, 13 and 14, 7pm, and October 15, 2pm.
Alison Steadman and Dave Johns play Fern and Dave, who meet when walking their dogs in a North London park. Over the course of 23 walks together, romance begins to blossom but the two also hide secrets that could derail their new-found love.
Completing a trilogy of new British film releases, Sally Hawkins, David Thewlis, Billie Piper and Penelope Wilton star in Eternal Beauty on October 16 at 2pm and 7pm, October 17 at 2pm, October 20 at 7pm and October 22 at 2pm and 7pm.
Hawkins, who made her professional stage debut as Juliet in Romeo And Juliet at York Theatre Royal, plays Jane, a fragile but irrepressible woman who hears voices and has paranoid episodes.
Sally Hawkins and David Thewlis in Eternal Beauty
The film’s director, actor turned writer-director Craig Roberts, appeared alongside Hawkins in the independent hit film Submarine, by the way.
Michael Ball and Alfie Boe – Back Together (Captured Live) gives cinema audiences the chance to enjoy the final show of their sold-out tour on screen on October 17 at 7pm and October 18 at 2pm.
The SJT has been awarded the VisitEngland We’re Good To Go industry standard mark, signifying its adherence to Government and public health guidance by introducing comprehensive measures for the safety and comfort of cinema patrons, such as limited capacities and aisle access for every pair of seats booked. Find out more at: https://www.sjt.uk.com/were_back
Cinema tickets at the SJT for films cost £7 (concessions £6; Circle members/NHS/under-30s £5); for Event Cinema, including Captured Live, £12; for live streamings, £17.
To book, go to sjt.uk.com/whatson or call the box office on 01723 370541 (open Tuesdays to Saturdays, 11am to 4pm, for both phone calls and in-person bookings).
The Stephen Joseph Theatre poster for Fright Fest By The Sea
Helen Wilson in a damned spot of Scottish bother in York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets at Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York. Picture: John Saunders
MUSICAL theatre in a park, drag cabaret at a sports club, Shakespeare sonnets and songs in churchyards, high-speed film action at an airfield and chamber music online catch Charles Hutchinson’seye
Graveyard smash of the week: York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, until Saturday
WHEN York Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth bit the dust in March, put on hold by the Covid lockdown, York’s purveyors of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Walks decided to stage a sit-down, but not as an act of protest.
Director Mick Taylor and producer Maurice Crichton hatched a plan to present assorted familiar Shakespeare characters, brought into the modern world, to reflect on the pandemic with an accompanying sonnet.
Holy Trinity’s churchyard, with its five park benches, tree shelter and mown grass, provides an ideal socially distanced open-air setting. Bring a rug, cushion, camp chair, flask and biscuits, suggests Maurice, to performances at 5.45pm and 7pm, plus 4.15pm on Saturday.
Polly Bolton: Sharing a double bill with Henry Parker in the NCEM churchyard
Double bills in another churchyard: Songs Under Skies, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, tonight, September 16 and 17
SONGS Under Skies brings together the National Centre for Early Music, The Crescent, The Fulford Arms and the Music Venues Alliance for an open-air series of acoustic concerts.
The opening night with Amy May Ellis and Luke Saxton on September 2 was driven inside by the rain. Fingers crossed for more clement conditions for Wolf Solent and Rosalind tonight, Polly Bolton and Henry Parker on September 16 and Elkyn and Fawn the following night.
Gates will open at 6.30pm for each 7pm start; acts will perform either side of a 30-minute interval with a finishing time of 8.30pm.
The Bev Jones Music Company in a socially distanced rehearsal for Sunday’s show at the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre
Musical theatre showcase part one: Bev Jones Music Company, Strictly Live In The Park, Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, Sunday, 3pm.
THE Bev Jones Music Company stage a full-sized musical theatre concert with more than 20 socially distanced singers and a five-piece band on Sunday afternoon.
Strictly Live In The Park promises a “spectacular show for all the family, with popular show music, pop music, dance and comedy”, under the musical direction of John Atkin with choreography by Claire Pulpher.
Expect numbers from Adele to Robbie Williams, Cabaret to Hairspray, Mack & Mabel to South Pacific, The Full Monty to Chess, Miss Saigon to the finale, Les Miserables, all arranged by the late company driving force Bev Jones. Also expect temperature tests on arrival.
Conor Mellor in York Stage Musicals’ first show at the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York. He will be back for the second one too. Picture: Jess Main
Musical theatre showcase part two: York Stage Musicals present Jukebox Divas, Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, September 18 to 20, 7pm
AFTER the sold-out three-night run of York Stage Musicals’ first ever outdoor show last month, producer/director Nik Briggs and musical director Jessica Douglas return to their Rowntree Park psychedelic igloo to stage Jukebox Divas.
Jessica’s band line-up has changed, so too has the singing sextet, with Conor Mellor from the debut show being joined by Dan Conway, Sophie Hammond, Grace Lancaster and Eleanor Leaper.
“With music from We Will Rock You, Mamma Mia! and more modern releases like + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, audiences will be entertained for 90 minutes with vocal tributes to artists such as Elvis Presley, Queen, Meat Loaf, Katy Perry, Carole King and many more,” says Nik.
Baby Driver: one of the films with high-speed thrills to be screened at AA Getaway Drive-in Cinema at Elvington Airfield
Car experience of next week: AA Getaway Drive-in Cinema, Elvington Airfield, near York, September 18 to 20
AFTER Daisy Duke’s Drive-in Cinema on Knavesmire, now comes a celebration of high-speed thrills and derring-do skills at Elvington Airfield…on screen, courtesy of AA Getaway Drive-in Cinema.
Tickets have sold out already for the September 19 screenings of James Gunn’s 2014 space chase, Guardians Of The Galaxy (12A), at 2.30pm and James Mangold’s 2019 Ford v Ferrari race-track clash, Le Mans 66 (12), at 7.30pm.
Bookings can still be made, however, for Guardians Of The Galaxy on September 18 at 2.30pm and September 20 at 7.30pm and Edgar Wright’s 2017 getaway-car heist thriller, Baby Driver (15), September 18, 7.30pm, and September 20, 2.30pm.
No more kitchen-sink dramas for Velma Celli as York’s drag diva deluxe swaps live-streaming for the great outdoors in Acomb tomorrow
Stepping out of her Bishopthorpe kitchen into the York open air: Velma Celli: An Evening Of Song, York RI Community Sports Club, New Lane, Acomb, tomorrow, 8pm.
AFTER a spring and summer of concerts live-streamed from home, York drag diva Velma Celli takes to the outdoor stage at a sports club.
“The show will be a mixed bag of whatever I fancy on the day – pop, rock, impressions and some musical theatre obviously – and of course requests online. Message me on Facebook,” advises Velma.
Very special guests are promised: definitely York soul powerhouse Jessica Steel will be among them.
Tim Lowe: York Chamber Music Festival artistic director and cellist
Festival of the month: York Chamber Music Festival, September 18 to 20
THE 2020 York Chamber Music Festival is going online to live-stream three concerts from the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, in a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.
Festival artistic director and cellist Lowe will be performing with Simon Blendis and Charlotte Scott, violins; Matthew Jones, violin and viola; Jon Thorne, viola, and Katya Apekisheva, piano. For full details on the programme and on how to watch the concerts, go to ycmf.co.uk.
Strictly between us: Anton du Beke and Giovanni Pernice’s tour poster for Him & Me next summer at the Grand Opera House, York
One for the 2021 diary: Anton & Giovanni, Him & Me, Grand Opera House, York, July 12
STRICTLY Come Dancing staples Anton du Beke and Giovanni Pernice will link up for their debut tour together, Him & Me, next year.
Details are sketchy, but the dapper Sevenoaks ballroom king and the Italian stallion say: “This show promises to be thebest night out in the Summer of 2021 for all ages…A true dance extravaganza!”
Anton and Giovanni will be joined by a “world-class cast” of dancers and singers for a show produced by Strictly Theatre Co and directed by Alan Burkitt.
And what about…?
A visit to the reopened Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre exhibition in Blossom Street, York. Malton Harvest Food Festival on Saturday. New Light Prize Exhibition, with more than 100 artists, opening at Scarborough Art Gallery on September 19. York Walking Festival, running or, rather, walking until Sunday (details at iTravel York website).
Jon, by Laura Quin Harris, at the New Light Prize Exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery
Baby Driver: Car thrills movie at Elvington Airfield as part of AA Getaway Drive-In Cinema programme
THE new AA Getaway Drive-In Cinema will park up at Elvington Airfield, near York, from September 18 to 20, with the now customary social-distancing measures in place.
“We are working hard to provide the ultimate viewing experience for guests,” say the organisers of the AA’s first drive-in enterprise. “Each car will be provided with a high-quality remote sound system and films will be projected onto three giant, back-lit LED screens. Independent locally sourced food and drink will be available to order direct to cars, contact-free.”
AA Getaway’s logo for the drive-in film shows at Elvington Airfield
Saturday’s screenings are available exclusively to AA Members, with free tickets being offered on a first-come, first-served basis for James Gunn’s 2014 space chase, Guardians Of The Galaxy (12A), at 2.30pm and James Mangold’s 2019 Ford v Ferrari race-track clash, Le Mans 66 (12), at 7.30pm.
Public bookings can be made, however, for Guardians Of The Galaxy on September 18 at 2.30pm and September 20 at 7.30pm and Edgar Wright’s 2017 getaway-car heist thriller, Baby Driver (15), September 18, 7.30pm, and September 20, 2.30pm.
Guardians Of The Galaxy: Coming to an airfield near you
Tickets cost £30 per vehicle, each with a maximum of five people, and are on sale at https://www.theaa.com/about-us/aa-getaway or at seetickets.com (searching for AA Getaway).
AA Getaway’s celebration of high-speed action movies at Elvington Airfield will be the second open-air cinema event of the summer in the York area after Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema on Knavesmire from July 31 to August 2, when Grease, Rocketman, Toy Story, Mamma Mia!, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction, Shrek 2, A Star Is Born and Joker were shown.
“We want to explore how we connect with loved ones, with our community, with nature and with our culture,” says Tom Higham, York Mediale’s creative director
YORK Mediale returns next month to deliver ambitious and cutting-edge digital arts projects inspired by and reacting to 2020.
For its second iteration, the international new media arts organisation has lined up six new commissions, five being world premieres, the other, a UK premiere.
Running from October 21 into the New Year, the programme of events will take place in York neighbourhoods, online and at two cultural landmarks, York Minster and York Art Gallery.
The first York Mediale in 2018 was the largest media arts festival in Britain, drawing an audience of 65,000 to diverse digital-rooted events over ten days, celebrating York as the UK’s first and only UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts.
The Coronavirus pandemic has led York Mediale to forego the original 2020 festival dates of October 21 to 25, instead “pivoting from a biennial festival to a charity creating and delivering a year-round programme of exceptional digital arts events, embedded in and enriching the creative life of the city of York and beyond”.
In a progression from the 2018 debut, this will involve working closely with York artists, young people and neighbourhoods.
Themes of love, nature and community – particularly poignant at this time following months of lockdown and isolation – will run through artists’ installations and interactive performance, engaging audiences both in person and digitally.
Leading artists in their field from across the world have created work for York, such as Marshmallow Laser Feast, fresh from their show at the Saatchi Gallery in London; composer, musician and producer Elizabeth Bernholz, otherwise known as the artist Gazelle Twin, and arts collective KMA, whose installations have transformed numerous public spaces, from London’s Trafalgar Square to Shanghai’s Bund.
The York community is being encouraged to take part, so today the Mediale team is launching two calls for participation. Firstly, Mediale is calling out for 50 members of the public to feature in a piece that will serve as a memento for the times we live in.
Secondly, in collaboration with York’s Guild of Media Arts and nine other UNESCO Creative Cities of Media Arts, Mediale is launching a call-out to York artists, worth £2,500.
Tom Higham, York Mediale’s creative director for the 2018 festival and now the 2020 one too, says: “York Mediale is a place where, through digital arts, we can explore, challenge and reflect on our lives.
“Plans for this year’s Mediale were well underway as the pandemic took hold. That we’re able to work with artists and producers to create an event at all is something we’re really proud of.”
Mediale planned “as best it could” for what it knew would be a different type of event. “We looked closely at the works already submitted and worked to develop the pieces that would most closely examine these extraordinary times,” says Tom.
“We wanted to explore how we connect with loved ones, with our community, with nature and with our culture. We have been developing projects around those themes, and we’re excited to now present a series of works.
“All of these projects resonated with us at the start of 2020 but we could never have imagined how they could develop to so beautifully reflect our worries, hopes and relationships to our communities.”
York artist and filmmaker Kit Monkman: Collaborating with Gazelle Twin and University of York Music Department for Absent Sitters, an online event at York Mediale 2020
York Mediale audiences will discover how the human body is hardwired, synchronised and inextricably linked to nature; experiment with a new form of performance, and explore the invisible transaction between a person and a piece of art and how WhatsApp has shaped communities for the COVID generation at this year’s “diverse, digitally engaged and mentally stimulating event”.
What digital delights are upcoming in York Mediale 2020-2021?
People We Love, November 2 to 29 at York MInster
THIS commission from creative collective KMA will be positioned in the Minster nave, where a new temporary “congregation” will be made up of a collection of five large high-definition screens, showing a series of video portraits focused on people that have been filmed looking at a photograph of someone they love.
The viewer will not know who is being looked at but will experience the emotion on the face projected on screen before them, interpreting each unspoken story.
Visitors can add their story to the installation as a pop-up booth will be on-site, ready to capture the love stories of the city without the need for words.
Human Nature, October 21 to January 24 2021 at York Art Gallery
A TRIPTYCH of installations under the banner of Human Nature, curated by York Mediale and York Museums Trust, comes together as a centrepiece of York Mediale 2020 in a “hugely ambitious show”.
Embers And The Giants, a short film by Canadian media artist Kelly Richardson, makes its UK premiere, exploring human intervention through thousands of tiny drones mimicking a natural spectacle, suggesting a time when we will need to amplify nature in order to convince the public of its worth.
The Tides Within Us, a commission from immersive art collective Marshmallow Laser East, looks at the journey of oxygen from lungs to the heart and body in a series of installations that echoes the ecosystem within nature.
Fine artist Rachel Goodyear presents Limina, a series of animations supported by her intricate drawings, in response to an untitled sculpture from York Art Gallery’s collection; all offering a glimpse into the psyche and fragments of the unconscious.
Absent Sitters, October 21 to 25, online
GAZELLE Twin, billed as “one of the UK’s most vital contemporary voices in electronic music”, collaborates with York artist and filmmaker Kit Monkman and the University of York Music Department to experiment with a new form of performance.
In this intimate, shared event, you will be guided by a “performer medium” to investigate what is live performance in 2020? The audience, contributing via video call, will become part of an online audio-visual experience that examines the power of “collective imagination” and the importance of “presence/absence” in a live event. Are we live? Can we connect? Who are you? Questions, questions, questions.
Good Neighbours, October 21 to 25, The Groves, York
GOOD Neighbours, from Amsterdam’s affect lab – interactive artist Klasien van de Zandschulp and researcher Natalie Dixon – is based on research into the micro-politics of communities and the increase in WhatsApp neighbourhood watch groups through lockdown.
Individual audience members will use their own mobile devices as they immerse themselves in a weirdly familiar fictional documentary walk alongside live performance, taking place in The Groves area of York.
What exactly is York Mediale?
York Mediale is an international media arts organisation that celebrates York as the UK’s first and only UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts. The independent arts charity was founded in 2014 to mark that designation.
As well as bringing new commissions from leading artists to the city for each festival, Mediale provides opportunities for the best emerging talents to showcase their art. Through incorporating technologies into their works, artists of all kinds will challenge, provoke, interrogate and celebrate our cities, our landscapes, our lives.
UPDATE 15/10/2021
THE RETURN OF PEOPLE WE LOVE, YORK MINSTER, OCTOBER 16 to NOVEMBER 12 2021
KMA creative collective artist Kit Monkman stands beside one of the faces in the People We Love installation, commissioned by York Mediale, at York Monster on October 14 2021. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
YORK has the chance to love People We Love all over again after the KMA creative collective’s installation for York Mediale had to close only three days into its York Minster residency in November 2020.
The Covid pandemic’s second national lockdown forced the sudden shutdown, but now Kit Monkman’s commission from the festival of digital media arts has a second run from October 16 to November 12.
People We Love returns refreshed for 2021 with 25 new subjects added, filmed at Spark:York, to combine with those recorded last year for the evocative installation sited in the Minster nave, just below the Great West Window with its Heart of Yorkshire.
This temporary ‘congregation’ is made up of a collection of five large high-definition screens, each showing video portraits of York residents looking at an unseen, unnamed picture of someone they love.
Viewers watch them reflect, remember and be reminded of a loved one, filmed as they respond silently but expressively to a series of questions in a Scottish accent, unheard by the audience.
Willow Bowen, York Mediale assistant producer and People We Love participant, at the 2021 installation launch at York Minster. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
After multiple months of Government restrictions keeping people at a distance from family and friends, People We Love has become an even more poignant reminder of how precious love and those loved are. Then add the church season of All Souls Day and Armistice Day, and the exhibition could not be better timed nor better placed.
People We Love was inspired by The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Coxwold parson and author Laurence Sterne. First published in York in 1759, the book contains a blank page for the reader to imagine, draw or write about a person they love.
KMA’s Kit Monkman, artist and creator of People We Love, says: “In Tristram Shandy, the reader becomes an active participant in the book. We wanted to take that idea and incorporate it into People We Love, making the audience member an active participant in the creative process as they engage with the film.
“There is a private communion between the person filmed and the viewer, and each draws their own meaning from it, the viewer never knowing anything about the story between the person on screen and their photograph.”
Each unspoken story has its own tale to tell, but one that will never be discovered by the viewer, who will instead have their own understanding of what they are watching, creating a different narrative.
“You don’t have to emote with words; it can be all in the face,” says KMA’s Kit Monkman. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
In a time where it has become more commonplace to interact with those we love via a screen, this quiet artwork offers a chance for contemplation and consideration in a sacred building.
Neil Sanderson, director of the York Minster Fund, says: “We’re delighted to have People We Love return to the Minster after its early closure in 2020 due to the national lockdown. The installation forms part of a wider season of remembering at the cathedral that we hope will give visitors time to pause, reflect and think about their own loved ones during what has been an extraordinarily difficult time for so many.
“This installation kicks off our season of memorial, with All Saints’ Day, All Souls Day and Remembrance Sunday to come, and it’s such an important thing to do, remembering people who have died, especially at this time.
“This is a model we would like to build on as it fits in so well with the vast window and the Heart of Yorkshire. One of the great challenges is finding things that work well here as the Minster is such a monumental building, but People We Love does exactly that. But you also don’t need to explain it to people: they will each get something out of it, just as people get a lot out of the Minster in different ways.”
Among the new faces in the installation for 2021 is York Mediale assistant producer Willow Bowen. Explaining her choice of photograph, she says. “In choosing someone who was dead, I didn’t necessarily want to make myself cry. I’d heard the recording with the questions before, because of working on the project, and one person came to mind when I first heard them, so that was the only choice for me. Being filmed was a very cathartic experience for me and transportive too.”
“Being filmed was a very cathartic experience for me,” says Willow Bowen. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Looking at herself on screen, Willow says: “I remembered being really emotional when I was filmed, but now, when I see myself, I look really stoic, so maybe I had constrained my feelings inside, rather than bubbling over, and yet I’d felt very emotional – I’m just not showing it.”
KMA’s Kit Monkman loves the interaction between the installation and the Minster. “Just being in this space, even if you’re not religious, it’s an awe-inspiring building that makes you reflect and contemplate. You look around and you find yourself contemplating, and so it’s nice to make that connection, with People We Love being here, as we approach All Souls Day and Remembrance Sunday.”
Coming face to face with the human face on screen at a time when we have had to wear masks adds to the installation’s impact. “During the pandemic, we’ve talked about how people have been masked, when so much of the face and emotional expression is hidden, but all these faces in People We Love are without masks and that makes them all the more powerful,” says Kit.
Silence is important to the installation: “We could have had the sitters talking, but that’s not what this work is about. It’s about human connection, and a desire to have that connection, without the need for conversation,” says Kit.
“You can just look into their eyes and empathise with them. It’s not about knowing about what someone is feeling, but being supportive and understanding.
CharlesHutchPress editor Charles Hutchinson with Kit Monkman at the press launch of People We Love on October 14. Picture: Tony Batholomew
“You don’t have to emote with words; it can be all in the face. Besides, if you ask the people you’re filming to tell you about the person in the photograph and what they’re thinking, they probably wouldn’t be anywhere near as forthcoming.”
Developing this point further, Kit says: “What always strikes me is that it’s just so rare to see an ‘uncurated’ face, faces that are stripped of self-consciousness. In People We Love, they are genuinely being themselves in that moment. It’s a privilege to hold them in our gaze as they do that.
“We have just filmed them; we have not ‘curated’ the videos in any way; we are just showing people as they are. That’s where it differs from advertising or portraits.”
The power of imagination is important to People We Love. “If you are just showing a human face, it is still fascinating, but when you know they are looking at someone they love, that sparks the imagination,” says Kit.
“Our culture in the modern world has robbed us of the space for our inner imagination because instead it’s been commodified amid the rise of binge-watching. Our inner space has been bought, but this installation is unapologetically about imagination. Empathy and imagination are two bedfellows here.”
People We Love is testament to “the invisible thread that binds us all” – love – as we seek to understand each silent story. “Because that’s what we do every day, isn’t it, as we try to reach out and understand what’s going on behind the eyes of another.”
UPDATE 7/11/2021
John Mateer looks at his sister Penny Mateer, on screen, on Pittsburgh Day at York Mediale’s People We Love installation on November 5. Picture: Esme Mai
YORK Mediale’s People We Love installation has now been commissioned by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership in the United States, where it will open next April in its first international showing.
In keeping with KMA’s York template, the team there has filmed Pittsburgh people looking at photos of someone they love, and on November 5, the York Minster installation replaced the videos of York residents with around 70 people from the Pennsylvanian city.
Participation in the project was especially meaningful for siblings John and Penny Mateer. John lives in York and his sister Penny is an artist in Pittsburgh; they have not seen each other since the start of the pandemic . Penny took part in the project and her face was among those shown on the screen in the Minster for one day only.
Penny said: “Even though I am camera shy, I had to participate in this project because of its theme. I also had to participate because my brother John, a video-effect producer, lives in York. I was surprised to feel such emotion and love through focusing only on a photograph during the guided meditation. It was truly cathartic.
“Those feelings of community, connection and love, which we’ve all missed because of the pandemic, are needed now more than ever.”
KMA artist Kit Monkman on Pittsburgh Day at the People We Love installation at York Minster. Picture: Esme Mai
John said: “It was a great surprise when my sister Penny told me that she was participating in People We Love and I couldn’t wait to see her contribution.
“As she’s an artist, I’m used to seeing her on the ‘other side of the frame’, so to speak, not as part of the work itself. Having known Kit Monkman for nearly 20 years, I knew it would be something special. How serendipitous that he chose to use my hometown for the installation’s US debut and how wonderful that I could see it in my current home of York.”
Artist Monkman said: “People We Love is a work with global appeal; the ability to read a loving human face is universal. Every face tells its own unique story, and each and every edition of People We Love speaks of and to its own community. That’s why I was so excited to bring the varied and poignantly beautiful faces of Pittsburgh to one of the world’s most contemplative spaces.”
Tom Higham, York Mediale’s creative director of York Mediale, concluded: “It’s so exciting that a project that started out at York Mediale is travelling over to the US next year. People We Love is such a profoundly moving installation. It feels very personal to be looking at a person as they contemplate the face of someone they love, and I know that audiences in Pittsburgh will feel the same connection.”
The Hills are alive with the joy of dancing for the #goggledance Scarborough project
THE #goggledance Scarborough series of short films showcasing Scarborough residents’ dance moves will be available to view from next week.
Made by the Stephen Joseph Theatre in a co-production with dance theatre company Voxed, the films feature people from around the East Coast resort watching, commenting on and joining in with freelance professional dancer Alethia Antonia as she gives bespoke performances outside their houses.
The results are “uplifting, inspiring and occasionally hilarious”, says Alethia, who loves experimenting with different styles and sharing her passion for movement through improvisation and performance.
Dancing in the street: Professional dancer Alethia Antonia doing one of her “bespoke performances” for Eastfield residents in Scarborough
The project was developed by choreographer, director and movement director Wayne Parsons, Voxed’s founder and artistic director, who says: “We spent a brilliant day filming with residents in Eastfield and other areas of Scarborough.
“Everyone involved really got into the spirit of it. As one participant put it: ‘We all need a little D.I.S.C.O in our lives’!”
SJT creative producer Amy Fisher says: “This was our first live performance since March and it was brilliant to see families enjoying it together and joining in. It felt really special to be able to perform it on their home turf – or pavement! – as a way of engaging with the community.”
Busting a move: The Flintoff family reach for the ceiling in the #goggledance Scarborough film project
Made by James Williams, the films are narrated by self-proclaimed “Irish loudmouth” Sarah Blanc, whose show My Feminist Boner was a hit at the SJT pre-lockdown.
Films will be released at 5pm each Friday for five weeks from September 4 on the Voxed and SJT Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube accounts.
Did you know?
VOXED are an associate company of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, creating work that, at its heart, is all about storytelling, aiming to bring people together through the shared experience of dance. Whether in their indoor or outdoor work or participation projects, Voxed seek to reflect the world we live in and the stories we share.
Sarah Blanc: Narrator for the #goggledance Scarborough short films, here starring in her show My Feminist Boner at the Stephen Joseph Theatre earlier this year. Picture: Roswitha Chesher
Benched: Lisa Howard as grief-stricken Cathy, coming out of isolation on Easter Sunday 2020 in Matt Aston’s lockdown play, Every Time A Bell Rings, presented by Park Bench Theatre. Picture: Northedge Photography
A BANK Holiday on Monday, the return to schools drawing ever closer, masked or unmasked, the summer calendar is speeding by.
Make the most of the outdoors before the crepuscular Covid uncertainty of autumn and beyond arrives for theatres, concert halls and gig venues alike.
Charles Hutchinson pops outside, then quickly head back indoors in the rain with these recommendations.
Comedy for your living room…from theirs: Your Place Comedy presents Paul Sinha and Angela Barnes, Sunday, 8pm
Paul Sinha and Angela Barnes: The stream team for Your Place Comedy, performing in their living rooms on Sunday night
YORKSHIRE virtual comedy project Your Place Comedy returns after a summer break to deliver a second series of live streamed shows over the next three months, re-starting with The Chase star Paul Sinha and BBC Radio 4 News Quiz guest host Angela Barnes this weekend.
Corralled by Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones, ten small, independent theatres and arts centres from God’s Own Country and the Humber are coming together again, amid continued unease for the industry, to provide entertainment from national touring acts.
Sunday’s show will be broadcast live to viewers’ homes for free, with full details on how to watch on YouTube and Twitch at yourplacecomedy.co.uk. “As before, viewers will have an option to make a donation to the venues if they have enjoyed the broadcast,” says Chris.
Mucking around: Cassie Vallance enjoying herself in Teddy Bears’ Picnic in the Friends’ Garden, Rowntree Park, York. Picture: Northedge Photography
Garden theatre part three: Park Bench Theatre in Every Time A Bell Rings, Friends Garden, Rowntree Park, York, until September 5
SAMUEL Beckett’s First Love has left the bench for good. Children’s show Teddy Bears’ Picnic, starring Cassie Vallance, resumes daytime residence from today. From this week, the premiere of Engine House Theatre artistic director Matt Aston’s lockdown monologue Every Time A Bell Rings occupies the same bench on evenings until September 5.
Performed by Slung Low and Northern Broadsides regular Lisa Howard and directed by Tom Bellerby on his return to York from London, Aston’s 50-minute play is set in Lockdown on Easter Sunday 2020, when isolated, grief-stricken Cathy searches for solace on her favourite park bench in her favourite park in this funny and poignant look at how the world is changing through these extraordinary times.
Tickets for performances in the Covid-secure Friends Garden must be bought in advance at parkbenchtheatre.com or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Bring picnics, blankets and headphones to tune in to shows delivered on receivers.
Decked out: Hannah Sibai’s design for the Pop-Up On The Patio festival at York Theatre Royal
Deckchairs will be provided: Pop-Up On The Patio, week three at York Theatre Royal, August 28 and 29
YORK Theatre Royal’s Covid-secure summer festival of outdoor performances on Hannah Sibai’s terrace stage climaxes with five more shows, three tomorrow, two on Saturday.
First up, tomorrow at 4pm, is York company Cosmic Collective Theatre’s cult show Heaven’s Gate, an intergalactic pitch-black comedy starring satirical writer Joe Feeney, Anna Soden, Lewes Roberts and Kate Cresswell as they imagine the final hour of four fictionalised members of a real-life UFO-theistic group.
York performance poet Henry Raby puts the word into sword to slice up the past decade in Apps & Austerity at 6.30pm; Say Owt, the York outlet for slam poets, word-weavers and “gobheads”, follows at 8pm. On Saturday, York magician, juggler and children’s entertainer Josh Benson is unstoppable in Just Josh at 1pm before York pop, soul and blues singer Jess Gardham closes up the patio at 4pm.
Jo Walton: Rust on show at Pyramid Gallery
York exhibition of the week and beyond: Jo Walton, Paintings and Rust Prints, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until September 30
YORK artist Jo Walton uses rust and rusted metal sheet in innovative ways to create her artworks. Iron filings are applied as ‘paint’ and as they rust, reactions occur, resulting in every painting being unique and unrepeatable.
“Jo’s work is abstract, inspired by horizons,” says Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett. “Her work features enhanced rust-prints on plaster surfaces, combinations of rusted sheet metal with oil painting and painting seascapes on gold-metal leaf.”
The poster for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet
First blockbuster of the summer…at last: Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, at York cinemas
THE wait is over. This summer has been more blankbuster than blockbuster, thanks to the stultifying impact of the Covid lockdown and the big film companies’ reluctance to take a chance on a major release in the slow-burn, socially distanced reopening of cinemas.
Step forward Christopher Nolan, director of Memento, Inception, three Dark Knight/Batman movies and Dunkirk to grasp the nettle by releasing the 151-minute psychological thriller/action movie Tenet.
John David Washington (yes, Denzel’s son), Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh ride a rollercoaster plot that follows a secret agent who must manipulate time in order to prevent the Third World War. Apparently, Tenet is a “film to feel, not necessarily understand”, like a Scarborough fairground ride, then.
Bella Gaffney expresses her enthusiasm for taking part in Songs Under Skies in the National Centre for Early Music churchyard garden
Double bills galore outside a church: Songs Under Skies, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, between September 2 and 17
SONGS Under Skies will bring together the National Centre for Early Music, The Crescent, The Fulford Arms and the Music Venues Alliance for an open-air series of acoustic concerts next month in York.
Dates for the diary are: September 2, Amy May Ellis and Luke Saxton; September 3, Dan Webster and Bella Gaffney; September 9, Kitty VR and Boss Caine; September 10, Wolf Solent and Rosalind; September 16, Polly Bolton and Henry Parker; September 17, Elkyn and Fawn.
Gates will open at the NCEM’s Walmgate home, St Margaret’s Church, at 6.30pm for each 7pm start; acts will perform either side of a 30-minute interval with a finishing time of 8.30pm.
The artwork for the new album by perennial York Barbican favourites The Waterboys
And what about…
Discovering The Waterboys’ new album, Good Luck, Seeker, Mike Scott’s latest soulful blast, met with universal thumbs-up reviews. Or bunking down with 1981 Ashes-winning captain turned psychoanalyst Mike Brearley’s new book for the end of summer, Spirit Of Cricket.
Kate Bramley: Badapple Theatre artistic director is looking to launch two autumn shows, one outdoors, the other indoors
WANTED! Badapple Theatre, the Green Hammerton company that takes shows to your doorstep, needs your urgent help to secure funding for two autumn projects.
Urgent really does mean urgent, as company founder and artistic director Kate Bramley explains: “We’ve just been offered a new grant from Arts Council England to cover our interim work between now and December 2020. They have set a deadline of Monday, August 31 for us to have six outdoor performances and six film events confirmed, so please do get in touch as soon as possible if you would like to be included.”
To put flesh on those bones: “As part of that, we’re looking to find a small number of outdoor spaces that would be willing to host a performance of Danny Mellor’s new play, Suffer Fools Gladly, between September 16 and 23,” says Kate, who commissioned Danny in the spring to write the piece for Badapple’s Lockdown Podcast series.
“It’s an extremely inventive and witty short comedy that at its core simply looks at the perils and perks if you had to tell the truth…all the time!” says Kate.
“Appealing to young and old audiences alike, this upbeat tale narrates the comic fall from grace of Ozzy, the court jester who is exiled from the magical kingdom of Marillion. It takes an unlikely friendship with a cynical 17-year old Earth girl, Stevie, to bring the joy back to both of their worlds.
Danny Mellor: Actor and writer for Badapple Theatre’s September play, Suffer Fools Gladly
“Danny’s play has a hint of political comment for the times but is really just meant to be a fun hour of upbeat storytelling to give people a bit of a lift.”
Danny has signed up to perform in next month’s mini-tour with Anastasia Berham, his co-star in last year’s Badapple Christmas show, Bramley’s warming winter play The Snow Dancer.
“They’re two great young actors who’ll be taking on the many voices and parts in a show with costume and puppetry design by Catherine Dawn,” says Kate, who will co-direct next month’s production. “So, I’m now hoping to find a few hosts/ venues – we need six in mid-September – to make it work and we’re moving swiftly to do this.”
Badapple’s second putative autumn project has been prompted by an “overwhelming response from halls” [village and community halls] to a survey, expressing an interest in high-quality filmed versions of theatre shows.
“We’re looking at late October to early November for bookings for film-live screenings of Eddie And The Gold Tops,” reveals Kate. “To this end, we are again seeking a minimum of six venues to take part.
Last Christmas: Danny Mellor and Anastasia Berham in Badapple Theatre’s 2019 tour of The Snow Dancer. Picture: Karl Andre
“When we started looking for the ultimate ‘feel-good’ show from the Badapple back catalogue, there was no contest! Eddie And The Gold Tops is our 1960s’ comedy about the unexpected and meteoric rise to stardom of Eddie, the local Bottledale milkman.
“With award-winning design by Charlie Cridlan and catchy and comic 1960s-style songs from our Sony Award-winning resident composer Jez Lowe, this show has delighted our audiences since 2012.”
In the Eddie And The Gold Tops storyline, Eddie inherited the family milk round from his father and has fulfilled his deathbed promise to never miss a delivery to the good people of Bottledale. Suddenly things are on the up: his songs are heading up the charts and if he can turn up by tonight, he will be on Top Of The Pops…so, get ready, Eddie, go! When things take a churn for the worse, however, will he arrive back in time for the morning milk round?
“Arts Council England have accepted our programme to make Eddie And The Gold Tops the first of these live-film featured events,” says Kate. “Our ambition is to create a new style of filmed performance – the ‘hybrid-live’ – that captures the energy, theatricality and immediacy of our live theatre shows while providing a quality of filmed entertainment that modern audiences have come to expect.
“The filmed show will feature a cast of three versatile performers leaping swiftly through a multitude of roles and songs, for audiences of all ages to tap their feet and laugh along to. We’re therefore looking for a small number of organisers to screen these pilot Theatre Film Night performances for socially distanced audiences at indoor venues in late October. Even better, make it a Sixties’ themed night with fancy dress and Bring Your Own.”
Anastasia Berham: Signed up to co-star with Danny Mellor in Suffer Fools Gladly
Summing up Badapple’s aims in an open letter headlined “Badapple Theatre: To Boldy Go… “, administrator and company director Claire Jeffrey says: “As you all know, the Coronavirus pandemic has meant the closure of all live events for a prolonged period and we are hoping to now work in partnership with Arts Council England to safely deliver a small number of live events between September 2020 and January 2021.
“Our project ambition is simply to offer a series of pure feel-good events that are open to all ages and are just about local people having the confidence to gather safely with friends and neighbours at our ultra-small-scale Theatre On Your Doorstep events.
“We will, of course, be preparing a full Covid-19 risk assessment in line with Government guidelines for both of these projects that have been specifically designed to build audience confidence for live events by offering reduced capacity/ socially distanced showings.”
Claire’s letter concludes: “We would be delighted to answer any questions that you may have about the details, including finances and being Covid-19 safe. I’m working from home at the moment and can be reached on 01423 331304 or by email to clairebadappletheatre@gmail.com if you have any questions or wish to talk anything through.”
Hurry, hurry, with that phone call or email as Badapple need six of the best twice over…venues, that is. “We have to get them confirmed for Eddie And The Gold Tops before we can get the money to do the filming,” urges Claire.
The poster for Badapple Theatre’s first tour of Eddie And The Gold Tops, or Eddie & The Gold Tops as it was billed in 2012
Shaping the future: the Futureproof logo for York Theatre Royal’s young team on a mission
YORK Theatre Royal is giving the green light to young people from Yorkshire to lead the way to a bright future for the arts despite the heavy Covid cloud.
Welcome to Futureproof, a dozen-strong team determined to have a voice in the changing landscape of arts and culture. Through a combination of activities, events and consultations, their mission is to “ask the big questions and debate, make and inspire others to explore how the arts and young people can have a future together”.
Circle Saturday, August 22, on the calendar: launch day for the first big Futureproof online event to kick-start a long-term dialogue between young people and the cultural sector. This weekend, the Futureproof team is inviting 14 to 26 year olds to join in a day of free participatory workshops, consultations, careers sessions, debates and shared online performances from 9.45am to 9pm.
Edenamiuki Aiguobasinmwin and Abigail Sewell: dance company director and theatre and film director leading the Futureproof Symposium
Futureproof is split into four different themes: Futurepractice; Futurepaths; Futureproof Symposium and Futurevoices.
Futurepractice is a series of online skills-building workshops delivered by specialists, covering choreography, beatboxing, playwriting, acting and film making.
Futurepaths looks at careers in design, directing, performing and writing for stage from the perspective of those who work in those fields.
Futureproof Symposium is a conversation between film and theatre director Abigail Sewell, Namiuki Dance Theatre director Edenamiuki Aiguobasinmwin, the Futureproof programming team and panellists with key roles in the arts sector.
Futurevoices rounds off this weekend’s programme of free events with an online Open Mic session, enabling participants and audience members to contribute and complete the launch. For full details, go to yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/be-part-of-it/collectiveacts/futureproof/.
PIlot Theatre’s cast members Nigar Yeva, left, Zak Douglas, Aimee Powell, Kate Donnachie and Khai Shaw in Crongton Knights. Picture: Robert Day
Along with Sewell and Aiguobasinmwin, among those leading the day’s activities will be playwrights Richard Hurford and Mike Kenny; Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson; York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster and Freedom Studios’ filmmaker Dermot Daly.
So too are set designer Hannah Sibai; Royal Shakespeare Company actor Laura Elsworthy; company members from Pilot Theatre’s Covid-curtailed Crongton Knights production and choreography session leaders Luella Rebbeck and Lizzy Whynes, youth theatre officer at Harrogate Theatre.
Juliet Forster asks: “Is anything future-proof? We’ve never been in a time like this, and the question in many of our heads is this: how on earth are the performing arts going to survive this pandemic, and will the theatre industry we know now even be recognisable in a few years’ time?
“The voices, thoughts and ideas of the young generation have never felt more timely or more urgently needed,” says York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster
“The arts have survived many disasters and setbacks over the centuries, and not without pain, but only through a process of renewal and reconnection, discovering the arts’ relevance in a changing society.
“The future has never felt more unknown or more fragile, but with the uncertainty comes this incredible opportunity for change. The voices, thoughts and ideas of the young generation have therefore never felt more timely or more urgently needed, as they could shape, re-invent and dream an exciting new cultural landscape – one that reflects their experiences, speaks to them, inspires them and is inspired by them.”
Song Of Our Heartland community rehearsals in Shildon in November 2019. Picture: Graeme Rowatt
OPERA North is ready to Switch ON for an autumn programme of outdoor events and digital projects after Covid-19 put paid to the indoor season.
Coming up will be Will Todd’s new community opera, Song Of Our Heartland, released as a film in a digital premiere in October; South African cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe’s new soundwalk for Leeds, As You Are, in November, and a new animation, La Petite Bohème, that re-interprets Act III of Puccini’s La Bohème in a digital project to be shown in northern cities in the run-up to Christmas.
First up, from Tuesday, August 18, will be a tour of socially distanced open-air performances of Whistle Stop Opera: Hansel And Gretel for family audiences, concluding at the National Centre for Early Music, York, on September 5.
The re-arranged season “embodies the Leeds company’s commitment to make music with and for audiences in communities across the North of England, respecting Government guidelines on social distancing and live performances”.
In the coming weeks, Opera North plans further announcements of concerts and staged opera, either live or available digitally, as the national opera company responds to the changing Coronavirus guidelines.
Those guidelines forced the postponement of the previously planned season of large-scale operas that Opera North would have toured to theatres across northern England from September.
Richard Mantle, Opera North’s general director, says: “We are extremely pleased to be able to announce such varied projects as the first newly planned activity for this autumn. Switch ON is our first step back to sharing music and performance with audiences in villages, towns and cities across the North of England.
“We have not been silent during lockdown, with thousands of people from around the world engaging with films of our work online, from Wagner’s Ring cycle to The Turn Of The Screw, and over 1,000 amateur singers taking part in weekly lessons alongside the Chorus of Opera North in From Couch To Chorus, but we are delighted now to be announcing this first selection of new work.”
On Friday, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden confirmed that indoor performances with socially distanced audiences would be allowed from August 15, after the original re-opening date of August 1 was called off by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the last minute.
Nevertheless, as Mantle says: “The overall picture regarding live indoor performances remains unclear over the next few months. We hope to be able to plan and present more live performance of great opera and music for audiences across our region, in as many different cities and communities as possible, once we are able to perform within social-distancing guidelines.
“We are currently undertaking detailed planning with our partner venues in Leeds [Leeds Grand Theatre] and beyond to ensure that we will be ready to restart performances safely and with financial viability, once there is a clear green light from the Government.”
In the meantime, tickets for Switch ON events will all be “accessibly priced”. “We hope as many people as possible will have the opportunity to experience music with us either live or digitally,” says Mantle.
“We are a partner in Leeds Says Thanks, an initiative by Leeds City Council to thank NHS and frontline workers for their enormous efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic; as part of this we will ensure that tickets to As You Are, our soundwalk for Leeds, will be made available to frontline staff.
“We remain committed to our purpose and whatever challenges we face, Opera North will continue to use music to create extraordinary experiences every day for and with the communities we serve. Live or digitally, in classrooms, theatres, homes and public spaces; we will continue to share music with people of all ages and backgrounds.”
All productions previously planned for Autumn 2020 – La Traviata, Jack The Ripper and Trouble In Tahiti/West Side Story Symphonic Dances, in association with Phoenix Dance Theatre – and Winter (early) 2021 – Carmen, Alcina, and The Girl Of The Golden West – have been postponed and will be rescheduled over the next two years.
Opera North’s new concert staging of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, scheduled for concert halls across the country in Spring 2021, remains on sale.
For ticket details for Switch ON, go to operanorth.co.uk/.
Whistle Stop Opera: Hansel And Gretel, when performed in 2017
SWITCH ON: Event information
Whistle Stop Opera: Hansel And Gretel, August 18 to September 5
DEVISED and directed by John Savournin for four singers and accordion, Whistle Stop Opera: Hansel And Gretel provides an introduction to opera for families, as well as being suitable for adults.
This 40-minute performance uses excerpts from Engelbert Humperdinck’s magical 1893 opera to retell the fairy tale of two hungry children, lost in the woods, and a gingerbread cottage that hides a scary secret.
Whistle Stop Opera: Hansel And Gretel will be performed in outdoor settings across the North in August and September, with social distancing in place for audience members and performers and limited numbers of tickets available, in accordance with Covid-19 guidelines.
Tickets will be on sale for “pods” of up to five people, with each space including two seats and a floor mat. Exact seating arrangements may vary from venue to venue; please check with venues for further details.
Performers include Laura Kelly-McInroy (Jennie Hildebrand in Street Scene, 2020) as Hansel; Jennifer Clark (Flora, The Turn Of The Screw, 2020) as Gretel; Claire Pascoe (Emma Jones, Street Scene, 2020; Witch, Into the Woods, 2016) as Mother/Witch, and director John Savournin (Carl Olsen, Street Scene, 2020; Priest Fotis, The Greek Passion, 2019) as Narrator/Sandman. Miloš Milivojević will play accordion.
Venues and dates: Slung Low, The Holbeck, Leeds, August 18, 4.30pm; Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, August 20, 1pm and 3pm; Ushaw House, Durham, August 22, 1pm and 3pm; Allendale Village Hall, Hexham, August 25, 6.30pm; The Lowry, Salford Quays, August 26, 11.30am and 1.30pm; Harewood House, Leeds, August 30, times to be announced; Stage@TheDock, Hull, September 2, times to be announced; Pontefract Castle, Pontefract, September 4, 4.30pm; National Centre for Early Music, York, September 5, 11.30am, 1pm and 3pm.
Song Of Our Heartland, October
THIS new community opera should have premiered at Locomotion, in Shildon, County Durham, in May 2020, but you know the rest.
Commissioned by Northern Heartlands, the Great Place scheme for County Durham, it was written by Durham-born composer Will Todd, with a storyline by Caroline Clegg and libretto by Emma Jenkins, and was developed in partnership with members of north-eastern communities.
However, after the cancellation of rehearsals and performances earlier in the year, Song Of Our Heartland now will be created digitally, with different elements recorded separately under social-distancing guidelines and pieced together as a 60-minute film, expected to be released in October 2020.
Participants in the Community Chorus and members of the community taking solo roles in the opera have been rehearsing with Opera North’s music team via Zoom sessions during lockdown; their parts will each be recorded individually.
Set in a town marked by declining industry and loss of civic spaces, Song Of Our Heartland is both a love letter to the landscape, the heritage and the people of the area and an act of storytelling by three generations of indomitable women.
After the death of Harold, a former miner and railwayman, the opera shines a light on his family, his wife Lilian, daughter Jacqueline and granddaughter Skylar, as they face a stark choice between moving away to find jobs and new opportunities or staying to face an uncertain future.
Forced by Harold’s death to remain and driven by her grandad’s spirit, Skylar fights to save the things that are most important to her: the school choir and the abandoned Moonlight Ballroom Theatre.
Directed by Caroline Clegg and conducted by Holly Mathieson, the film of Song Of Our Heartland will be filmed on location at Locomotion and the surrounding County Durham area and recorded by the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North and the newly formed Community Chorus, with solo roles shared between members of the Chorus of Opera North and community participants.
Clegg says: “Having had to cancel the planned live performances, everyone involved in the creation of Song Of Our Heartland was utterly determined to find a way to share this inspiring community opera with audiences this year.
“The people of south-west County Durham have been so generous in sharing their rich and diverse stories and experiences with us. Many of the participants have been with us all the way through this project, from the first poetry and drama workshops that inspired the story, the music and the libretto, to community chorus rehearsals and ultimately now to rehearsing online over Zoom and taking part in the film.
“This project exists because of them and I feel privileged to be a part of it. The opera is a celebration of their cultural legacy, their strength in community, and their hopes and dreams. We couldn’t let it disappear this year.”
Jill Cole, director of Northern Heartlands, says: “Song Of Our Heartland was intended to be the culmination of our work as a Great Place Scheme in south-west Durham. Although we were not able to perform it live, I am delighted that we have found a way to turn the project into a film, so that we can share it with others in the local community and beyond.
“It is a real tribute to this unique part of the county, its history and heritage, and to the communities who live and work here.”
Abel Selaocoe: Composing an interactive soundwalk for Opera North’s home city of Leeds. Picture: Mlungisi Mlungwana
As You Are, November 14 2020 to January 6 2021
AS You Are, an interactive outdoor soundwalk for Opera North’s home city of Leeds, will be composedby South African cellist Abel Selaocoe. The journey will start and end at Victoria Gate, Leeds, following a route that will explore many of the city centre’s most recognisable landmarks, as well as its arcades and sidestreets and the River Aire waterfront.
Audience members taking part in the soundwalk in small groups each will be given a set of headphones connected to a wireless receiver, triggering new musical chapters at different points on the walk through Leeds, experiencing the cityscape through a new and transformative journey.
Taking inspiration from his South African heritage, Abel Selaocoe is creating music that embraces the healing power of walking. At times uplifting with full orchestra and chorus, at others reflective with only a single voice, As You Are expresses acceptance that there will be difficult times, but that we will come through to the other side.
To record the music, Selaocoe will be joined by guest African musicians such as Sidiki Dembele, as well as the full Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North.
“It is exciting to be writing during a time of incredible personal and collective change, focusing on the importance of celebrating resilience and being adaptable to change, by walking and exploring what is around us while we listen,” says Selaocoe.
As You Are will run in Leeds city centre from November 14 2020 to January 6 2021. Tickets will go on sale in September.
La Petite Bohème, in the run-up to Christmas
THE fourth Switch ON new project is an animation re-imagining Act III of Puccini’s La Bohème, snipped from black paper and animated by artist and filmmaker Matthew Robins with his customary eye for emotion and humour.
In the frozen streets of Paris, two pairs of lovers sing of their jealousy, passion and desire and wonder if they will still be together when spring comes again.
This heart-breaking scene from the core of Puccini’s classic opera will feature a newly recorded soundtrack by the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North and four soloists.
The finished animation will be projected outdoors in found spaces in towns and cities across the North, with limited audiences at each screening listening via headphones.
Projected on to walls in the familiar streets of our cities, the film and music will transform your surroundings and have the power to transport you to another time and place.
Artist and filmmaker Matthew Robins says: “I like trying to find my own way into telling a story that already exists. How can I make these characters mine? Do I see myself or my friends’ lives reflected in them?
“Working with cut-out silhouettes is a way to create my own stylised version of the big emotions and melodies that are intrinsic to the piece. The stylised cut-out paper shapes are detailed but leave room for the audience to add their own imagination as well to the piece.
“I come from the West Country and as a teenager used to visit London about six times a year just to queue up and get cheap front-row tickets for Rent, another retelling of La Bohème, so I feel like this story is deeply embedded in me, and in a way makes me feel at home exploring my own characters and settings for this story.”
Dates and locations for La Petite Bohème will be announced as soon as possible.
