The art beat of YORKshire
AHEAD of June 18’s release of his fourth album, To Carry A Whale, York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich discusses life, York, London, music, spiritual recovery, collaborations and the decade since his stellar debut, in conversation with Two Big Egos In A Small Car podcast duo Chalmers & Hutch.
To listen, go to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/8376650
NO mention of home entertainment here, as Charles Hutchinson decides to cast fears aside – albeit while acting responsibly – as he looks forward to theatres, bars, galleries, museums and music venues opening their doors once more.
Cupid, draw back your bow and let the beer flow, straight to the York Theatre Royal patio
LOVE is in the Step 2 air, and soon on the York Theatre Royal stage too for The Love Season from May 17.
Perfect timing to launch Cupid’s Bar for five weeks on the Theatre Royal patio, where the bar will run from midday to 9.30pm every Thursday to Sunday, providing an outdoor space in the heart of the city for residents and visitors to socialise safely.
Working with regional suppliers, Cupid’s Bar will offer a range of drink options, such as draught beer from Black Sheep Brewery, Masham, and York Gin from, er, York.
Exhibition of the month ahead outside York: Ian Scott Massie, Northern Soul, Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, North York Moors National Park, May 17 to July 11
MASHAM artist Ian Scott Massie’s Northern Soul show of 50 watercolours and screenprints represents his personal journey of living in the north for 45 years.
“The north is the truth of England, where all things are seen clearly,” he says. “The incomparable beauty of the landscape; the harsh ugliness left by industry; the great wealth of the aristocracy; the miserable housing of the poor; the civic pride of the mill towns and a people as likely to be mobilised by political oratory as by a comedian with a ukulele.”
Reopening exhibition of the month ahead in York: Pictures Of The Floating World: Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints, York Art Gallery, from May 28
YORK Art Gallery’s display of rarely seen Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, complemented by much-loved paintings from the gallery collection, will go on show in a new Spotlight Series.
Marking next month’s gallery reopening with Covid-secure measures, Pictures Of The Floating World will feature prints by prominent Ukiyo-e artists such as Utagawa Hiroshige, along with works by those influenced by Japanese art, York artist Albert Moore and Walter Greaves among them.
This free-to-visit exhibition will highlight the significant impact of Japanese art on the western world and the consequential rise of the artistic movements of Aestheticism and Art Nouveau.”
On the move: Van Morrison’s York Barbican shows
NO reopening date has yet been announced for York Barbican, but Irish veteran Van Morrison’s shows are being moved from May 25 and 26 to July 20 and 21.
“Please keep hold of your tickets as they will be valid for the new date,” says the Barbican website, where seats for Van The Man are on sale without social distancing, in line with Step 4 of the Government’s pandemic Roadmap to Recovery, whereby all legal limits on social contact are potentially to be removed from June 21.
Morrison, 75, will release his 42nd album, Latest Record Project: Volume 1, a 28-track delve into his ongoing love of blues, R&B, jazz and soul, on May 7 on Exile/BMG.
New play of the summer: Alan Ayckbourn’s The Girl Next Door, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, June 4 to July 3
AFTER the 2020 world premiere of his virus play Truth Will Out lost out to the Covid pandemic restrictions, director emeritus Alan Ayckbourn returns to the Stephen Joseph Theatre to direct his 85th play, The Girl Next Door, in the summer season.
“I wrote it back in Spring 2020. I like to think of it as a lockdown love story,” says Ayckbourn, introducing his touching, tender and funny reflection on the ability of love to rise above adversity and reach across the years.
Influenced by his own experiences in two “lockdowns”, one in wartime London in childhood, the other in the on-going pandemic in Scarborough, Ayckbourn will play with time in a plot moving back and forth between 2021 and 1941. Box office: sjt.uk.com.
Gig announcement of the week in York: Imelda May, York Barbican, April 6 2022
IRISH singer-songwriter Imelda May will play York Barbican next April in the only Yorkshire show of her Made To Love tour, her first in more than five years.
“I cannot wait to see you all again, to dance and sing together, to connect and feel the sparkle in a room where music makes us feel alive and elevated for a while,” says May. “Let’s go!”
Last Friday, the 46-year-old Dubliner released her sixth studio album, 11 Past The Hour. The box office opens tomorrow at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Gig announcement of the week outside York: James, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, September 9
WHERE better for James to announce a summer show in the week they release new single Beautiful Beaches than at Scarborough Open Air Theatre?
The Manchester legends will play on the East Coast in the wake of launching their new album, All The Colours Of You, on June 4. Tickets go on sale tomorrow (23/4/2021) at 9am at scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
This will be the third that James, led by Clifford-born Tim Booth, have played Scarborough OAT after shows in 2015 and 2018.
And what about?
GOOD news: Live theatre bursts into life in York for the first time since December 30 when York community arts collective Next Door But One presents Yorkshire Trios in The Gillygate pub’s new outdoor seating area tomorrow and on Saturday.
Themed around Moments Yet To Happen, trios of actors, directors and writers will bring to theatre-starved York a quintet of short stories of laughter, strength, dreams and everything in between: a neighbour with a secret; a delivery driver full of wanderlust; an optimistic carousel operator; a poet inviting us into her world and a Jane McDonald fan on a soapbox.
Bad news for tardy readers? The 7.30pm shows have sold out.
BEVERLEY Early Music festivities for 2021 will have a new look in May and June.
As the Government’s phases of easing lockdown unfold, the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM), York, and the Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival will present, not one, but two musical celebrations from the East Yorkshire town.
Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival ’21 Live will run from May 28 to 30, followed by Beverley ’21 Online: Concerts, Talks and Hidden Gems on June 5 and 6.
Social-distancing restrictions and the festival’s commitment to accommodating all those who booked for last year’s postponed festival mean that only a limited number of tickets are on sale for the “in person” concerts at the end of May.
All the concerts, however, will be available to enjoy in the specially created digital festival, Beverley ’21 Online, on the first weekend in June.
Festival director Dr Delma Tomlin says: “We are delighted to be returning to Beverley and we’ve been working hard to ensure that our 2021 festival is available for everyone to enjoy. “As well as producing a live festival, for the first time we are delighted to invite you to join our festival online, which showcases of the majesty of the glorious county town of Beverley.”
Delma continues: “Beverley ’21 Online is a specially commissioned digital version of the festival filmed around the town and audiences will be able to enjoy all the concerts from the weekend, plus talks and exclusive footage of some of Beverley’s magnificent historic buildings.
“We hope you’ll join us for this joyous celebration of wonderful music set against the backdrop of this beautiful Yorkshire town.”
Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival ’21 Live, Friday, May 28 to Sunday, May 30
May 28, Beverley Minster, 7.30pm to 8.40pm: Stile Antico, Toward The Dawn, sold out
This programme charts a course from twilight to sunrise, seductive and unsettling in equal measure. Thrill to the spine-tingling sounds of Allegri’s beloved Miserere and enter into the glorious sound world of Nico Muhly’s Gentle Sleep, a haunting setting of words by Shakespeare, written especially for the 12 voices of Stile Antico.
Singers: sopranos Helen Ashby, Kate Ashby, Rebecca Hickey; altos Emma Ashby, Cara Curran, Hannah Cooke; tenors Andrew Griffiths, Jonathan Hanley, Benedict Hymas; basses James Arthur, Will Dawes, Nathan Harrison.
May 29, St Mary’s Church, 12.30pm to 1.30pm: Alva, Angels In The Architecture
Vivien Ellis, voice, Giles Lewin, fiddles and bagpipes, and Leah Stuttard, mediaeval harps, perform songs and melodies spanning 1,000 years, revealing stories hidden in the stones of the beautiful St Mary’s Church.
May 29, Toll Gavel United Church, 7.30pm to 8.30pm: La Serenissima with Tabea Debus, recorder, “The Italian Gang”, sold out
Life-affirming music of 18th-century Venice, featuring Sammartini and Vivaldi, directed by Adam Chandler.
May 30, Toll Gavel United Church, 3pm to 4pm: Kati Debretzeni, violin, Through The Eye Of A Lens
A virtual tour of Europe through the “lens” of a violin, performed by one of the world’s leading exponents.
May 30, St John’s RC Church, Beverley, 6.30pm to 7.30pm: Ex Corde, Heaven On Earth: Thomas More’s Utopian Dream
Reflections based on Thomas More’s Utopia with vocal music by Robert Fayrfax and Josquin des Prez, plus the premiere of a commission by Christopher Fox, inspired by More’s vision, directed by Paul Gameson.
May 29 and 30, Beverley Ballad Walks; Saturday, In And Around Beverley Minster, 4pm; Sunday, It All Happened In Beverley!, 10am, and In And Around Beverley Minster, 1pm
Taking place over the live festival weekend will be the hugely popular Ballad Walks, led by singer Vivien Ellis, brimming with songs and stories from the streets. The tales span 800 years of history and reveal Beverley’s sometimes murky past, as well as the fascinating tales of inhabitants.
Beverley ’21 Online, Saturday, June 5 and Sunday, June 6
TO ensure the festival can be enjoyed by the widest possible audience, all five concerts will be filmed and available online, with an added bonus of many exclusive treats.
Historian David Neave will talk about the Pilgrims of the East Riding, who left these shores in 1638 to set out for a new, and better, world in North America; Stile Antico share the music of the period through a specially commissioned film available to all ticket holders; and John Bryan, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield, introduces the festival from the Rococo splendour of Beverley Guildhall.
There also will be opportunities to visit some of Beverley’s hidden gems in the company of guest curators Fiona Jenkinson and Dr Jennie England.
Further details of Beverley ’21 Online will be available from May 6.
For full Beverley Early Music festivities details, times and ticket prices, go to: ncem.co.uk.
Tickets are on sale now online at ncem.co.uk/whats-on-bemf/, by email to boxoffice@ncem.co.uk or on 01904 658338, but due to limited capacity, some events may be sold out already, and the organisers will be operating a waiting list via email sent to boxoffice@ncem.co.uk.
YORK country-pop singer-songwriter Twinnie is releasing a reimagined five-track EP to mark the first anniversary of her debut studio album, Hollywood Gypsy.
The album was made BBC Radio 2’s Album of the Week after its chart peak of number one in the UK iTunes Country Chart and a five-week consecutive stay in the UK Country Top 20 Chart.
Since being launched on April 17 2020 on BMG, Hollywood Gypsy has been streamed more than seven million times across Spotify and was re-released as an acoustic package late last year.
Now, to bring a new dimension to the hit crossover record, Twinnie is releasing an EP exclusively via bandcamp that reimagines five of the songs as you have never heard them before: Better When I’m Drunk, I Love You Now Change, Hollywood Gypsy, Daddy Issues and Feeling Of Falling.
“Bringing a dynamic and powerful new stylistic to several of the tracks, the York performer delivers an emotive vocal and allow fans to find a new favourite with this exciting take on the album,” proclaims the press release.
The EP, out this week, will act as a bridge to new music from the pop-influenced artist, who is working on new material with revered producers in Nashville, Tennessee, for a project set for release soon via her American label, BBR Music Group.
Twinnie, 33, made her name as Twinnie-Lee Moore in West End and touring musicals, such as playing murderer Velma Kelly in the 2009/2010 tour of Chicago, and in the soap opera role of Porsche McQueen in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks from November 4 2014 to December 24 2015.
Twinnie will play a re-scheduled sold-out gig at The Crescent, York, on September 14. All tickets acquired for the original 7.30pm show remain valid, but refunds are available from your original point of purchase.
WHERE better for James to announce a summer show on the day they release new single Beautiful Beaches than at Scarborough Open Air Theatre?
The Manchester legends will play on the East Coast on Thursday, September 9 in the wake of launching their new album, All The Colours Of You, on June 4. Tickets will go on sale on Friday (23/4/2021) at 9am at scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
This will be the third that James, led by Clifford-born Tim Booth, have played Scarborough OAT after shows on May 22 2015 in the venue’s hindersome moat days and post-moat redesign on August 18 2018.
Bassist Jim Glennie says: “We always have a great night there – even back in the days when you had to cross the old moat to get to the audience! We’re looking forward to another very special night on the Yorkshire coast.”
Peter Taylor, venue programmer for Scarborough OAT promoters Cuffe and Taylor, says: “We are absolutely delighted James are returning here this summer. They continue to be one of the UK’s most relevant and influential bands – pioneers of the Manchester music scene since the 1980s – and a must-see live act. Roll on September 9. It’s going to be an amazing night.”
New single Beautiful Beaches was written by Tim Booth in response to climate change migrations and the subsequent increasingly regular Californian fires bringing devastation to the community where he lived before moving to Costa Rica.
All The Colours Of You, James’ “sweet 16th” studio album, follows last December’s release of Live In Extraordinary Times, a double-CD and DVD concert recording built around their last studio album, 2018’s Living In Extraordinary Times.
Recorded in part before the Covid pandemic struck, All The Colours Of You was produced by Booth’s neighbour in Topanga Canyon, the Grammy award-winning Jacknife Lee, who has worked previously with U2, REM, Taylor Swift, Snow Patrol and The Killers.
On production duties with James for the first time, Lee has bought a fresh approach to their sound, working remotely from his studio as he liaised with Booth and Glennie, reimagining, deconstructing and reassembling their demos and capturing a band in all their virtual glory.
Reflecting on the album’s creation, Booth says: “With all the s**t that went down in 2020, this was a miraculous conception and another big jump forward for us on the back of the last three albums. I hope it reflects the colours of these crazy times. Sweet sixteen is a proper album, no fillers and is up there with our best. With love, Tim.”
Glennie is pleased, proud and surprised by the record in equal measure. “Jacknife has pushed us and the songs somewhere new and it’s very exciting,” he says. “After all these years, we are still challenging ourselves and our fans. Enjoy.”
The track listing on James’s first album on Virgin Music will be: ZERO; All The Colours Of You; Recover; Beautiful Beaches; Wherever It Takes Us; Hush; Miss America; Getting Myself Into; Magic Bus; Isabella and XYST.
Looking ahead, James will open their seven-date 2021 tour at Leeds First Direct Arena on November 25, supported by fellow Manchester maverick institution Happy Mondays. “Soo looking forward to seeing you,” said Booth, when announcing the gigs last November on Twitter and at wearejames.com.
“We’re playing with the brilliant Happy Mondays. Last played with them in 1988, hopefully this time they won’t steal our rider or try and spike my drink…”
The tour has sold faster than any previous James tour, chalking up 60,000 ticket sales for shows in Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester and London. Remaining tickets are available at: https://wearejames.com/live/
In the summer, James will play a second North Yorkshire outdoor gig, headlining the Saturday bill at Deer Shed Festival 11, confirmed to run from July 30 to August 1 at Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, near Thirsk.
IRISH singer-songwriter and poet Imelda May will play York Barbican on April 6 2022 in the only Yorkshire show of her first major UK tour in more than five years.
Meanwhile, May and April will unite on Friday (16/4/2021) when the 46-year-old Dubliner releases her sixth studio album, 11 Past The Hour, on Decca Records.
Tickets for May’s 12-date Made To Love Tour next spring will go on general sale on April 23 at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk and on 0203 356 5441.
“I cannot wait to see you all again, to dance and sing together, to connect and feel the sparkle in a room where music makes us feel alive and elevated for a while,” says Imelda. “A magical feeling we can only get from live music. Let’s go!”
On a record that “brims with sensuality, emotional intelligence, spirituality and intuition, marking a new chapter for Imelda and showcasing her at her most authentic”, May collaborates with Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, Noel Gallagher, Miles Kane and Niall McNamee.
Feminist thinkers and activists Gina Martin and Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu make inspired contributions too to an album that adds up to “an invigorating blast of rock’n’roll with a purpose”.
Born and raised in The Liberties area of Dublin, May – real name Imelda Mary Higham – was discovered by boogie-woogie pianist Jools Holland, who asked her to tour with him.
She has since performed duets with U2, Lou Reed, Sinead O’Connor, Robert Plant, Van Morrison, Jack Savoretti and Elvis Costello and has featured on albums and live tours with Jeff Beck, Jeff Goldblum and Ronnie Wood.
May last played York Barbican in May 2017 in support of her T-Bone Burnett-produced Top Five album, the post break-up record Life. Love. Flesh. Blood, and previously performed there in November 2011, two years on from a show at The Duchess in her bequiffed retro-rockabilly Love Tattoo days.
Not only a singer and songwriter but also a multi-instrumentalist, equally adept on bodhrán, guitar, bass guitar and tambourine, last year she added another string to her bow: poetry.
Last June, in the cauldron of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, she released You Don’t Get To Be Racist And Irish, a sentiment adopted subsequently by the Irish government’s ReThink Ireland campaign on billboard display.
This was followed in October by the reflective nine-poem Slip Of The Tongue EP, set to an uplifting soundscape as May addressed such themes as home and love, feminism, the harsh realities of life, defiance, lovelorn longing and escapism.
Now comes 11 Past The Hour, to be followed by next April’s tour, for which VIP packages, including access to soundcheck and a Q&A with May, are available. Eager fans can secure exclusive access to a presale for the tour when they pre-order the new album from May’s store at imeldamay.tmstor.es.
What was Charles Hutchinson’s verdict when Imelda May played York Barbican on May 16 2017?
WHEN else would Imelda May tour but in May, when every day is a May day, 17 dates in all this month on the Irish pocket dynamo’s first British travels in three years.
“It’s been a while,” said the 42-year-old Dubliner, reintroducing herself to a pleasingly full York Barbican crowd for the first time since November 2011. “Thank you very much for sticking with me and turning up tonight.”
Much has changed in that time. Imelda ditched the rockabilly look and sound last sported on 2014’s Tribal album; her 18-year marriage to guitarist Darrel Higham ended; she turned 40; she gave herself permission to find new love; she allowed her spectacular voice full range in her song-writing for the first time since hit single Johnny Got A Boom Boom steered her down Retro Avenue.
All this is reflected in her post break-up March album, Life. Love. Flesh. Blood, whose every song – even from the deluxe edition – was in Tuesday’s setlist, bolstered by a couple of Sixties covers (The Animals, The Shangri-Las) and a smattering of May oldies. That’s confidence for you, and one met approvingly by an audience of Imelda’s age and upwards who had in turn experienced Life. Love. Flesh. Blood.
Dressed in black, down to her ankle boots, with hair designed to a Chrissie Hynde template, Imelda began seated as if in a scene from the musical Chicago, she and guitarist Oliver Darling picked out by spotlights for Call Me: the album opener that announces the blues, rock, soul and gospel-singing, mature May is a cut above the more derivative, bouncier, boom-boom past.
Stage lit warmly by nine copper-toned lamps, May fronted a wonderfully responsive band, the guitars and Al Gare’s double bass complemented by saxophone and trumpet, as she sang from and to the heart, with Black Tears, The Longing and The Girl I Used To Be particular highs. The girl she used to be is still there, but the 2017 Imelda May is flowering in fullest bloom.
Review copyright of The Press, York
YORK’S drag diva deluxe Velma Celli is on the move.
Out goes the Covid-suspended monthly camp cabaret Friday nights at The Basement, City Screen, York.
In comes a resplendent residency from next month at Impossible, York, Tokyo Industries’ new tea-room, cocktail bar, restaurant and speakeasy enterprise in the old Terry’s café in St Helen’s Café, latterly home to Carluccio’s restaurant.
“It’s happening!” says an excited Velma Celli, the exotic international drag alter ego of musical actor Ian Stroughair, last seen on a York stage in December as the villainous Fleshius Creepius in York Stage’s debut pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, at Theatre @41, Monkgate.
“Velma has a new residency!! My very first live gig at the utterly fabulous Impossible, York. May 21st. Doors 7pm. Show 8pm! My very special guest is [York soul sister] Jessica Steel (obvs). More special West End guests to be announced! Grab those tickets as it will sell out!”
Take that advice, Velma insists. “50 per cent of tickets have gone! If you want to come to opening night, don’t wait to book! This baby is flying!!!!”
Tickets are on sale at https://www.ticketweb.uk/event/the-velma-celli-show-impossible-york-tickets/10900325, priced at £22 for VIP front cabaret table seats and £16.50 for reserved seating.
“Basically, it’s replacing the shows at The Basement, where we don’t know when it will reopen for shows under Covid guidance as it’s a small space,” says Ian, as he switches from the impossible to Impossible, York.
“I met the Impossible manager, Stephanie, in December, meeting her between Jack And The Beanstalk shows, and then five weeks ago she knocked on the window saying, ‘I’ve been trying to contact you!’.
“And so the first Velma Celli Show there will be on May 21, up the stairs, in the fabulous Impossible Wonderbar setting overlooking the square, with more shows to be announced later. This one will be fun, comedic, with stand-up, impressions, the usual mix of rock, pop and the blues, plus Jess and guests.”
Ian first moved back to York for Lockdown 1 when the pandemic sent him home from a Velma Celli Australian tour and he plans to settle back in his home city permanently from May, travelling to London for three days a week when necessary.
Streamed concerts, first from a Bishopthorpe kitchen and latterly from a riverside abode by the Ouse Bridge, have kept Velma Celli’s voice in spectacular working order, sometimes accompanied by Jessica Steel, leading light of Big Ian Donaghy’s fundraising A Night To Remember shows at York Barbican.
“Jess is reopening her salon [Rock The Barnet in Boroughbridge Road] from Monday, so we did our last stream together last night, Last Online – A Grand Finale, that ticket holders can see until Sunday,” says West End star Ian, who has appeared in such musicals as Cats, Fame, Chicago and Rent, but had to forego a long run in Funny Girls in Blackpool last year, thwarted by Killjoy Covid.
For the latest Velma Celli trailer, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a005o6eGZWI. Hit it!
FOR the first time, tonight Barnsley folk singer Kate Rusby will perform her lockdown covers’ album, Hand Me Down, in full on stage in a worldwide stream at 7.30pm BST.
Released on her Pure Records label on August 14 last summer after recording sessions with husband musician Damien O’Kane, the collection of her favourite songs brought Kate, 47, her highest-charting album to date.
Bar the odd part recorded remotely by a band member, Hand Me Down was made by Kate and Damien when dividing days between home studio and home schooling their daughters.
Tonight will be the first chance to hear the likes of Manic Monday, Friday I’m In Love, Shake It Off and Three Little Birds performed live by Kate and her regular band in a two-hour concert including an interval.
Hand Me Down debuted at number 12 in the Official Album Charts – number three in the CD album chart and number four in the independent release chart – and a vinyl version followed on January 15.
Tickets are available at live.katerusby.com, from where Kate’s globally streamed concert will be available on demand until May 22, a date that would have been the last day of her cancelled spring tour.
As with her streamed Christmas concert, Kate Rusby’s Happy Holly Day on December 12 last year, the location for tonight’s recording will be Cast in Doncaster.
To watch a trailer, go to: youtube.com/watch?v=7v7Ag1y_OcM
Hand Me Down’s track listing:
YORK Stage are to present Songs From The Settee – Live On Stage from May 20 to 23 at Theatre @41, Monkgate, York, in the wake of a hit series of online shows.
Director/producer Nik Briggs and his York production company never let the first pandemic lockdown grind them down, instead bringing together their performers, musicians and technicians remotely for a streamed concert season that played out over ten weeks under the title of Songs From The Settee.
“The idea was to keep the city entertained with top-quality musical theatre while we were in uncharted territory,” says Nik. “We thought the weekly publications would last three to four weeks, but before we knew it, we were at ten!
“We were blown away and driven by our friends and followers, who were engaging with the series and sending us messages, saying how we were helping them get through the week.”
The first online recording, Heroes All Around, was released on April 9 2020. “So, it feels like the perfect date, one year later, to announce what we’ll be bringing to our audiences as theatres are set to reopen with social distancing from May 17: Songs From The Settee – Live On Stage,” says Nik.
“From May 20 to 23, we have two different concerts that will run back to back under the same title at 7.30pm each evening.
“Musical director Jess Douglas will start the ball rolling with her band and some of York Stage’s finest vocal talents on May 20 and 21, before passing the baton to Stephen Hackshaw, who will bring in a new band and showcase more of the York Stage talent pool on May 22 and 23.”
The event will be staged in the Covid-secure John Cooper Studio at Theatre@41 on Monkgate, where audiences will be seated at cabaret tables, socially distanced from other bubbles around the studio. Drinks and refreshments will be served throughout the show with a table-service offering.
“Having produced a socially distanced pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, at Theatre @41 over Christmas, we know we can bring a show with full Covid compliance to the venue successfully and very much look forward to doing so,” says Nik.
The announcement of Lockdown 3 sadly stopped Jack and his Beanstalk antics short of the early January finishing line when theatres were forced to close on December 30.
“Up to that point, I’d been thinking about what shows I could be making for January and February, but as the days passed, I realised that was not to be!” he says.
“We knew it was coming, but the real blow was not getting our New Year’s Eve shows in. It felt like we’d been robbed of something we’d fought for after the most difficult year ever; to see through to the last day of the year weirdly seemed at the time as though it would have taken the sting out of the closure.
“But it feels so good to be returning to the venue and reopening public performances with these concerts. Boris says the reopening will be irreversible, so fingers crossed that it’s the first of many events for 2021.”
Tickets can be bought online at yorkstagemusicals.com from April 10.
Here CharlesHutchPress fires off a fusillade of questions for a round of quickfire responses from artistic director Nik Briggs:
What will be the format of each concert? Will each one have a separate theme?
“Songs From The Settee: Live On Stage will bring some of the our online performances to the stage for the first time, alongside lots of other musical theatre and pop songs.
“There will be some group numbers of course, but the main part of the evenings will be made up of a series of cabaret/live lounge-type sets that will see our performers take to the stage solo with a collection of songs that mean something to them!
“Throughout lockdown, we saw a lot of people setting up their ring lights and creating mini- recording studios in their homes in order to continue to create and be creative and the evenings are set to celebrate the tenacity performers showed across the industry and the work they created in lockdown.
“I often say to younger performers who I work with, ‘Sing like you sing in your bedroom mirror and now it’s time to see what that mantra brings from our older performers!”
Will Jess and Stephen decide on each concert’s content or will you be involved too?
“This one is set to be a real collaboration between the artists, musical directors and myself due to the nature of the evening.”
Who will be the singers and the musicians for Jess’s shows and Stephen’s shows?
“On May 20 and 21, Jess will be working alongside Sophie Hammond, Lauren Sheriston, Joanne Theaker and some recent graduates who are yet to be confirmed.
“On May 22 and 23, Stephen will be returning to the musical director’s chair after a year for his concerts and he’ll be working with Grace Lancaster, Conor Mellor, Damien Poole, Emily Ramsden and, again, recent grads who are TBC.
“The directors are currently working on the set lists with the singers in order to work out which instrumentalists will be best suited for their evenings. Due to Covid guidelines, we’re limited to the numbers we can have on stage and in the band, so we have to really plan these things and work out what is best for all involved.”
How will the stage be dressed for each show? What will be the dress code for the performers?
“Well, we’re indoors this time, so we’ll not need as many layers as when we had our sell-out shows in Rowntree Park last August and September. Umbrellas certainly not called for! “There’s is no real dress code for this one though; our performers will be dressed to make them feel suitably fabulous and ready to entertain.”
Just wondering: will there be a settee (or ‘sofa’ as my mother has always insisted I should say) on stage?
“Of course! How could we have Songs From The Settee: Live On Stage without a settee? I joked that we should maybe have a sacrificial burning or destruction of the settee at the end of each show to symbolise Boris’s plans that these reopening will be very much irreversible.
“The venue will be beautifully lit again from Adam Moore and his Tech 24:7 team.”
What did you learn from mounting the Songs From The Settee shows online series; will “streaming” continue to play a role in York Stage’s work?
“Who knows. What I think it showed was yet again York Stage are adaptable. We responded and worked hard to ensure we continued and provided top-notch entertainment for the city, even in the darkest, hardest times for theatre.
“As you yourself have often commented in reviews, we really aim to set the bar high with everything we do as a producer in York. We are unique in that we proudly sit between others in the city where we continually mix professional performers and production teams with only the best of York’s community actors.
“That is what makes us exciting and ensures we are are able to bring huge West End and Broadway titles to the city, alongside smaller concerts, plays and studio pieces, which all have high production values, the best performances and stories that are filled with spirit and heart.”
What’s coming up next for York Stage on stage?
“We have lots planned over the coming years. We’re starting with the Christmas spectacular, ELF the Musical, at the Grand Opera House this November and December; tickets on sale soon!”
NO reopening date has yet been announced for York Barbican, but Irish veteran Van Morrison’s shows are being moved from May 25 and 26 to July 20 and 21.
“Please keep hold of your tickets as they will be valid for the new date,” says the Barbican website, where seats for Van The Man are on sale without social distancing, in line with Step 4 of the Government’s pandemic Roadmap to Recovery, whereby all legal limits on social contact are potentially to be removed from June 21.
Morrison, 75, will release his 42nd album, Latest Record Project: Volume 1, a 28-track delve into his ongoing love of blues, R&B, jazz and soul, on May 7 on Exile/BMG.
The Barbican listings – and her own website – suggest Wakefield cabaret singer Jane McDonald’s Let The Light In show on July 4 could be the first show since Frank Turner on March 8 last year: aptly named as York Barbican has lain dormant and dark since the first lockdown.
A multitude of York Barbican bookings has been rearranged, led off by “The Greatest Rock & Roll Band In The World”. Who? Er, Leicester’s Showaddywaddy, apparently, it says here, Hey Rock And Roll, Under The Moon Of Love, Hey Mister Christmas, I Wonder Why, et al.
When? Yes, that was a hit too, number three in 1976. No, when is the re-booked date? “Our Showaddywaddy that was due to take place on 1 Aug 2020/ 29 April 2021 has now been rescheduled for Friday, 4th March 2022,” says the Barbican website.
Rumours of Rumours Of Fleetwood Mac’s tribute show moving are true, now in the 2021 diary for July 26, rather than May 21.
Born in Kingston upon Thames but Scottish, Daniel Sloss has re-scheduled his Hubris, his 11th solo show, for September 19 after his October 3 2020 and May 8 2021 dates were Covid-crocked.
Shagged. Married. Annoyed. With Chris & Rosie Ramsey, the Geordie duo’s 18-million-download podcast transported to the stage, has switched from June 16 to September 28.
The only way the Ramseys can have a conversation without being interrupted by a small child or ending up staring at their phones is by doing a podcast…and now a live show. As always, life, relationships, arguments, annoyances, parenting, growing up and everything in between, will be up for discussion.
Jimmy Carr: Terribly Funny foregoes May 2 in favour of November 4 2021, when the Channel 4 host of The Friday Night Project and 8 Out Of 10 Cat will mull over terrible things that might have affected you or people you know and love.
“But they’re just jokes. They are not the terrible things,” he qualifies. “Having political correctness at a comedy show is like having health and safety at a rodeo.”
Russell Watson: 20th Anniversary Of The Voice will now be marking the 21st anniversary of the Salford tenor’s debut album, released on September 25 2000. Moving his York show from October 9 2020 to November 7 2021, when he will be joined by a choir, he will perform career highlights such as Caruso, O Sole Mio, Il Gladiatore, Nessun Dorma, You Are So Beautiful, Someone To Remember Me and Where My Heart Will Take Me.
Kim Wilde is taking no chances, putting back her Greatest Hits Tour date from September 17 this year to that date next year in a case of keeping us Hangin’ On. Special guests, by the way, will be China Crisis, the presciently named Liverpool crafters of such Eighties’ delights as Wishful Thinking and King In A Catholic Style.
Dionne Warwick’s Farewell Tour, One Last Time, should have brought the silken voice of I Say A Little Prayer, Do You Know The Way To San Jose, Anyone Who Had A Heart and Walk On By to York on October 29 2020.
Instead, the show will go ahead on June 10, 2022, by when the City of Orange soul queen would be 81. “After almost six decades I’ve decided it’s time to put away the touring trunk and focus on recording, one-off concerts and special events,” said the six-time Grammy Award winner, forever associated with the Burt Bacharach & Hal David songbook, when she announced the tour in November 2019.
“I still love performing live, but the rigours of travelling every day so far from home, sleeping in different hotels each night, one concert after the other, is becoming hard. So, I’ve decided to stop touring on that level in Europe…but I’m not retiring!”
Tickets are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk or on 0203 356 5441. All York Barbican tickets remain valid for the new dates highlighted here, but ticket holders should contact their point of purchase if they have any questions.
