Paloma Faith: Spent the enforced downtime of lockdown “just thinking about the world”
PALOMA Faith will release her fifth studio album, Infinite Things, on Friday the 13th of November, to be supported by a tour…but not until Autumn 2021.
Among the 26 dates will be October 3 at Harrogate Convention Centre, or “Conversion Centre” as you could call it temporarily, now that it forms part of the Harrogate Nightingale Hospital for the Covid-19 pandemic.
London singer, songwriter and actor Paloma, who announced her second pregnancy yesterday, wrote most of the songs for Infinite Things before Coronavirus stalked the world. Once sent into lockdown, however, she ripped them all up and started afresh.
The artwork for Paloma Faith’s November 13 album, Infinite Things. Notice her lack of Faith in it…
She spent her enforced downtime creating, learning to engineer her own music and “just thinking about the world”. Those fruitful months taught her she had been on “a sort of conveyor belt of music and promo”, like “a rat on a wheel”, but lockdown instead gave her “the space to take stock of her frenetic career and to decide what was meaningful to her”.
Paloma, 39, has re-emerged with a new sense of her priorities, leading her to re-connect with her roots, steeped in creativity, says the one-time art student.
For Infinite Things, she worked with a small group of long-time and new collaborators: producers Patrick Wimberly and Detonate; songwriters Ed Harcourt, Starsmith and Tre Jean Marie; producer and songwriter MNEK and friendJosef Salvat, an Australian singer-songwriter.
The poster for Paloma’s The Infinite Things Tour 2021
The resulting album on the RCA Records label offers a rumination on sickness and loss and addresses how to find your way back to romance within a long-term relationship.“It’s love songs for people who are there to stay,” Paloma says. “That enduring love. Warts and all. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a love song like that, actually.”
Last week, she released the video for first single Better Than This, wherein director David Wilson’s imagery places her against “a backdrop of vignettes of human error that historically continuously repeat”.
First single Better Than This: Accompanied by a video filmed in Hackney, Paloma’s home turf
Shot in Paloma’s home manor of Hackney in a single uncut take, Wilson’s video sees her shine a light on such prevalent concerns as the climate emergency, police brutality, race and class divide and the injustices of war.
Paloma’s September 16 to October 25 tour next year will take in Yorkshire gigs at Sheffield City Hall, September 28, Harrogate Convention Centre, October 3, and Hull Bonus Arena, October 7.
Tickets go on general sale on Friday, October 2 at 10am at gigsandtours.com, ticketmaster.co.uk and palomafaith.com. Josef Salvat will be her special guest.
Rachel Croft: “Imagery of long, chilled summer evening drives and warm, dusty coastal paths” on new single Deep Water
YORK folk and jazz chanteuse, guitarist and illustrator Rachel Croft releases her new single, Deep Water, today as the third pick from her February 2019 debut album, Hours Awake.
“It’s about the delicate part earlier on in a relationship where you’re on the cusp of trusting someone and you know it could be serious,” says Rachel, 26, who has instilled fresh indie and contemporary production choices into the recording.
“The whole song comes together to effortlessly sit under imagery of long, chilled summer evening drives and warm, dusty coastal paths.”
Released on her Black Ink label, Deep Water signifies a lighter turn away from such Croft landmarks as 2017’s Only Dreams and We Are earlier this year.
Rachel Croft’s watercolour artwork for Deep Water
“Generally acoustic in its feel, lacings of torn Telecaster riffs nod towards influences of Phoebe Bridgers,” says Rachel, who made Hours Awake with co-producer and fellow York musician Dan Webster at his Paper Plane Records studio from early 2018 onwards.
There she worked with such musicians as drummer Neil Scott, bass and double bass player Emlyn Vaughan, cellist Rachel Brown, keyboard player Karl Mullen, violinist Emily Lawler and Chinese synths player Dian Yu.
Rachel is instrumental in all parts of her music, from production to media, both social and old-school, everything down to the cover art, calling on her skills as a self-taught illustrator. “I painted it myself with watercolour, using paint gifted to me from the person the song is about,” she reveals.
Nottingham-born Rachel, who gained a first in environmental geography at the University of York, has built up a strong online presence, whether chalking up 148,000 views for some of her YouTube videos, attaining 5,000 followers on Facebook or building up a fast-growing subscription on YouTube.
“As a result, I’ve been able to almost entirely crowd-fund each of my releases, documenting my progress through vlogs for donators,” she says.
“I’m now working on my song-writing and rebuilding plans for 2021,” says Rachel
As an emerging artist on the folk festival circuit, Rachel has played Moseley Folk Festival, Costa Del Folk Portugal and Meadowfest. Until Covid-19 intervened, she was set to play Cambridge, Lindisfarne, Moonbeams and Wickham festivals, among others, after acquiring Apex International as her agent in late 2019.
Making her mark abroad too, Rachel has embarked on five solo tours of the Netherlands since November 2018, appeared on the Noardewyn Live TV show to boot. In July 2019, she debuted in Germany, playing in Cologne and further afield.
Looking ahead in the face of the pandemic’s stultifying impact on her 2020 diary, she says: “I’m now working on my song-writing and rebuilding plans for 2021. I hope to release at least a further two singles in 2021 and continue my European tours and UK festival appearances on their promising trajectory.”
To keep up with Rachel’s progress, visit: rachelcroftmusic.com. To chill out to Deep Water, go to: https://soundcloud.com/rachelcroft/deep-water/s-NzizC2CLQw7.
Fields And Lanes creative couple Mick and Jessa Liversidge head to the Easingwold Community Library willow tree for an open-air hour of poetry and song on Sunday
BORIS Johnson put on his serious face and hands act on Tuesday night to address the nation on the ins and outs of his Government’s latest Covid-clampdown measures: a stitch in time saves nine, Rules of Six, 10pm curfews and any number of other numbers that invariably add up to confusion.
However, Covid-secure, socially distanced theatre shows, exhibitions, cinema, comedy and concerts can continue, as well as home entertainment, of course.
Here, Charles Hutchinson tracks and traces signs of artistic life…with immediate results
The Easingwold Community Library willow tree: Sunday’s setting for Fields And Lanes poetry and songs
Joint project of the week: Fields And Lanes Under A Willow Tree, Timeless Songs and Poems by Jessa and Mick Liversidge, outside Easingwold Community Library, Sunday, 2pm
INSPIRED by the “wonderful reaction” to the online streaming of their outdoor poetry and song performances in lockdown, creative Easingwold couple Jessa and Mick Liversidge present an hour of uplifting words and music in the open air this weekend.
The show will be Covid-safe and socially distanced; tickets are free, with a pay-as- you-feel collection afterwards, but must be acquired in advance on 07526 107448 or by emailing ecl.generalenquiries@gmail.com.
Giles Shenton…will go to any lengths to promote his one-man show Three Men In A Boat
Three is a magic number: Three Men In A Boat, Kick In The Head Productions, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 2.30pm
GILES Shenton takes the helm for 95 minutes in Kick In The Head’s one-man/Three Men show, a “rip-roaring barrel of fun” wherein he plays writer Jerome K Jerome and everyone besides in a delightfully ridiculous tale of men behaving badly while messing about on boats.
Shenton invites you to “join Jerome as he recounts the hilarious story of his boating holiday along the magnificent River Thames with his two companions, George and Harris, and Montmorency the dog”.
Justin Moorhouse will stay in his house to perform his Your Place Comedy set from the living room on Sunday. Shappi Khorsandi will surely not be needing armour to do likewise from her place
Living room laughs: Your Place Comedy: Justin Moorhouse and Shappi Khorsandi, Sunday, online at 8pm
IN the fifth of six Your Place Comedy shows live-streamed from their living rooms into yours since lockdown, Justin Moorhouse and Shappi Khorsandi form the digital double bill introduced remotely by compere Tim FitzHigham.
The virtual comedy project has been organised by Selby Town Hall manager Chris Jones in liaison with nine other independent North and East Yorkshire arts centres and theatres, with donations welcome after each free screening to be divided between the still-closed venues. You can watch on YouTube and Twitch with more details at yourplacecomedy.co.uk.
Top Of The Hill, acrylic on canvas, by Debbie Lush
Exhibition launch of the week: Debbie Lush, Featured Artist, Blue Tree Gallery, Bootham, York, and online at bluetreegallery.co.uk, Saturday to November 7
TEN new works by Devon landscape artist Debbie Lush go on show at Blue Tree Gallery from this weekend.
The former freelance illustrator, who ran a Somerset country inn for 13 years, draws inspiration for her vividly coloured coastal and rural landscapes from her walks with her dog along weather-beaten coastal paths, across muddy footpaths, through gateways and over fields and farmland.
“I love the act of brushing blobs of paints of varying thickness in bright colours on a surface, one over another, to assemble landscapes,” she says.
Uninvited Guests invite guests to Love Letters Straight From Your Heart at the SJT and on Zoom. Picture: Jonathan Bewley
Antidote to isolation: Uninvited Guests’ Love Letters Straight From Your Heart, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and on Zoom on October 1, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
THEATRE company Uninvited Guests will construct a “completely digital, wholly personal and wonderfully live experience” at the SJT and on Zoom in “very different” afternoon and evening shows.
Performed by Jessica Hoffman and Richard Dufty, Love Letters Straight From Your Heart invites the audience’s words, song dedications and stories – sent in earlier – to the stage where they are given a new shape, look you straight in the eye and offer to dance with everyone in the room.
Only 45 tickets will be sold for each show to maintain intimacy, but any number of audience members can sit at screens to watch what unfolds in 60 to 75 minutes.
Giant story: Riding Lights Theatre Company go online for Christmas
Latest Christmas show to be confirmed: Riding Lights Theatre Company in The Selfish Giant, storytelling theatre on film online, for primary schools
YORK company Riding Lights say, “We can’t come to you, but we can still bring exciting entertainment into every classroom with our online version of The Selfish Giant.
“The Giant is angry. He’s been away for a long time and returns to find children playing in his beautiful garden!
Every day after school, they come and run about, laughing and playing games under the blossom on his peach trees, listening to the delightful songs of the birds. So, he puts up a big wall and an even bigger Keep Out notice to put a stop to all that. Then winter seizes the garden in its icy fingers.”
Riding Lights ask primary school to book the online show via: https://ridinglights.org/the-selfish-giant-no/costs-and-booking/.
No traditional queue at York Barbican when Daniel O’Donnell tickets go on sale tomorrow. Booking is online only
Looking ahead to Irish gigs at the double: Clannad, York Barbican, March 10 2021 and Daniel O’Donnell, York Barbican, October 21 2021
CLANNAD are booked in to play York Barbican on March 10 on their Farewell Tour, but let’s see where Boris Johnson’s new Rule of Six Months’ More Misery leaves that show. Fingers crossed, we can wave goodbye to social distancing by then to enable bidding adieu to the ethereal purveyors of traditional Irish music, contemporary folk, new age and rock, led by Moya Brennan.
Meanwhile, tickets go on sale at 9am tomorrow (Friday) at yorkbarbican.co.uk for Kincasslagh crooner Daniel O’Donnell’s return to the Barbican on October 21.
And what about…?
A visit to Duncan Lomax’s new photographic exhibition space, Holgate Gallery, opening officially from tomorrow in Holgate Road, York, to show work by the 2016 York Mystery Plays official photographer and political satirist Cold War Steve.
The York Printmakers Virtual Print Fair, running until October 4, with daily updates at https://www.facebook.com/YorkPrintmakers/
David Gedge: Writing new material for Reception, a musical built around his songs of love and loss, break-ups and breakdowns for The Wedding Present and Cinerama
THE Crowdfunder appeal to kick-start work on The Wedding Present musical, Reception, has hit the initial £10,000 target with more than a day to spare.
You can still visit @crowdfunderuk where the @ReceptionSoon page welcomes further contributions today and tomorrow to aid York writer-director Matt Aston start crafting a story of “love, loss, break-ups and breakdowns – everything you’d expect really from a musical based on the songs of David Gedge”.
The Crowdfunder Gedge pledge will facilitate work on the first draft, artwork and branding of a show that will combine Gedge’s songs for his Leeds band The Wedding Present and Cinerama with new material by the 60-year-old songwriter, who now lives in Brighton.
Reception writer-director Matt Aston in his Wedding Present T-shirt when rehearsing Park Bench Theatre’s summer production of Samuel Beckett’s First Love with actor Chris Hannon. Picture: Northedge Photography
Aston and production partner Tony Ereira anticipate beginning research and development in early 2021 to road test their ideas – Covid-19 Government guidance permitting – with a group of actor-musicians, incorporating Gedge’s new songs. The premiere is pencilled in for Leeds in 2022, to be followed by a small tour that would take in Brighton.
Full details on Reception can be found in an earlier CharlesHutchPress article, filed on September 15.
“The crowdfunding campaign is a chance for fans to get involved from the beginning with a bunch of rewards that are all exclusive to this production, including specially commissioned artwork from Lee Thacker, illustrator of David’s autobiography, Tales From The Wedding Present,” says Matt, artistic director of Engine House Theatre, who staged the Park Bench Theatre season in the Friends Garden, Rowntree, Park, York, this summer.
To support the project, go to: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/reception-the-musical
A Quiet moment: Kaiser Chiefs, minus Ricky Wilson, who was ill that day, launch When All Is Quiet, their ground-breaking collaborative exhibition with York Art Gallery, in December 2018. Picture: Charlotte Graham
OH my god, Leeds indie rock band band Kaiser Chiefs’ collaboration with York Art Gallery has hit the top spot in the prestigious Museums + Heritage Awards.
The cutting-edge exhibition When All Is Quiet: Kaiser Chiefs In Conversation With York Art Gallery won the Partnership of the Year Award at a Covid-enforced virtual ceremony, broadcast on M + H Awards’ Facebook and YouTube channels on Tuesday night.
The Kaisers’ audio-visual show drew more than 25,000 people to its run in the Madsen Galleries from December 2018 to March 2019.
At the invitation of York Art Gallery curators, the Leeds band took on the pioneering challenge of exploring the boundaries between art and music, using the gallery collections as a starting point.
Anna Preedy, director of the annual Museums + Heritage Awards, said of the award-winning exhibition: “Collaboration is increasingly important and here we have a project which is the definition of a true partnership, achieving something which neither York Art Gallery nor Kaiser Chiefs could not have done on their own.
From Riot to Quiet: Kaiser Chiefs swap raucous gigs for contemplative art in York Art Gallery. Picture: Anthony Chappel-Ross
“Their collaborative project, When All Is Quiet, was bold in its creativity and hugely inspiring – a very worthy winner.”
Reyahn King, chief executive of York Museums Trust, said: “We’re thrilled to have won this award. The exhibition was bold and brave in its approach, with our curators and Kaiser Chiefs working closely to create a unique experience which presented our collections in new and innovative ways.
“It was fantastic to work in partnership with them on the project and to create something which proved so popular with a wide range of audiences.”
Suitably upbeat Kaiser Chiefs drummer Vijay Mistry enthused: “Wow! Thanks so much for this award; it’s really greatly received, especially at this challenging time. “We knew that we had created something unique and special and it’s amazing for that to have been recognised. Huge thanks to York Art Gallery for the collaboration and massive thanks to everyone involved; your contributions were priceless.”
York Art Gallery and Kaiser Chiefs were shortlisted for the Partnership of the Year Award alongside: Royal Collections Trust, Barber Institute of Fine Arts and University of Birmingham; Lichfield Cathedral; Oxford University Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM) and Iffley Academy Partnership and National Galleries Scotland and North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership.
Riot of colour: Kaiser Chiefs’ Nick “Peanut” Baines, Vijay Mistry, Simon Rix and Andrew White bestride their When All Is Quiet exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham
What exactly was in the When All Is Quiet: Kaiser Chiefs In Conversation With York Art Gallery exhibition?
YORK Art Gallery invited Kaiser Chiefs to work with curators to re-examine the gallery’s collections, with a brief to explore the boundaries between art and music in an experimental way designed to appeal to a wide range of audiences.
Using their position as musicians as a starting point, the band delved deep into the Exhibition Square gallery’s Fine Art collections and paired paintings with a Set List of songs inspired by the art.
Visitors were then able to view the artworks, while listening to songs chosen by the Leeds band.
Tuning in: A York Art Gallery visitor listens toMercury Rev’s The Dark Is Rising, matched by Kaiser Chiefs to Jack Butler Yeats’s That We May Never Meet Again. Picture: Anthony Chappel-Ross
Kaiser Chiefs also brought together works by sound artists that had resonated with them while travelling. Among them were Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet, Mark Leckey’s short filmFiorucci Made Me Hardcore and Elizabeth Price’s Turner Prize-winning work The Woolworth’s Choir Of 1979.
Inspired to design their own art installation, the Kaisers used light, colour and lyrics from the songs on the Set List to create Silent Gig, an immersive environment that offered visitors a reconfigured experience of a live music show and its elements but without sound.
When All Is Quiet increased visitor numbers by 39 per cent, by comparison with the same period the year before. Overall, more than 25,000 people visited during what is a traditionally quiet time of year for York Art Gallery, with more than 45 per cent of viewers being aged 18 to 44, an increase of nearly 15 per cent on the 2018 average.
Got it licked: Kaiser Chiefs, in tandem with York Art Gallery, win the Partnership of the Year Award at the Museums + Heritage Awards
Charles Hutchinson’s guided tour of When All Is Quiet, in conversation with Kaiser Chiefs members Simon Rix and Vijay Mistry. First appeared in The Press, York, on December 14 2018. Courtesy of The Press, York
MOVE over Andy Warhol. Here comes the new Pop Art in the form of When All Is Quiet, Kaiser Chiefs In Conversation With York Art Gallery.
Using their position as pop musicians as a starting point, the chart-topping Leeds band have co-curated an experimental exhibition, the first of its kind.
“We are not artists, we are musicians, and so we’ve chosen to use this opportunity to work with the gallery to explore sound as a medium – our medium – and to open that up further for us and for the viewer/listener,” said the Kaisers en masse. “To stretch ourselves, to explore the edges between music and art, creation and performance.”
Band members Simon Rix, Vijay Mistry, Nick “Peanut” Baines and Andrew White attended Thursday’s launch (13/12/2018) but singer Ricky Wilson was absent through illness, although plans are afoot for Wilson to “do something” in January. Watch this space.
Working in tandem with York Art Gallery staff, Kaiser Chiefs have created an exhibition with three interlinking elements. Firstly, they have brought together works by internationally regarded sound artists Janet Cardiff, Mark Leckey and 2012 Turner Prize-winning Elizabeth Price, who have inspired the Kaisers to look at sound in new ways.
Exhibition centre-piece: Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet in the central Madsen Gallery at York Art Gallery. Picture: Anthony Chappel-Ross
The main gallery space has been given over to Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet, which allows you to walk through an oval of speakers to hear a reworking of Thomas Tallis’s Elizabethan work Spem In Alium Nunquam Habui, from the singers’ perspective, as witnessed through 40 individual speakers, one for each voice from the Salisbury Cathedral Choir in 2001.
The band selected Cardiff’s sound installation on account of its relevance to how they hear their own music while performing: “an all-encompassing space of sound”, as they put it.
Secondly, in the Kaiser Chiefs Take Over York Art Gallery’s Collection room, the Kaisers have chosen 11 artworks from York Art Gallery’s collections, spanning 1798 to 2013, from LS Lowry and John Hoyland to Jack Butler Yeats and Bridget Riley, and an accompanying Set List song to be heard on a headset while looking at the picture.
Along with the likes of The Kinks, Kavinsky, Mercury Rev and Super Furry Animals is the 2011 Kaiser Chiefs song that gave the exhibition its title, When All Is Quiet, here bonded with Leeds artist Rebecca Appleby’s Sketch For The Disrupted Expectation.
Thirdly, the band have commissioned a new installation, Silent Gig, that uses light and colour and projected lyrics from the Set List songs to create an immersive environment to offer visitors a reconfigured experience of a live music show, without sound.
Take a bow, Kaiser Chiefs’ lighting designer Rob Sinclair, who also worked his magic on David Byrne’s American Utopia Tour show, as seen at Leeds First Direct Arena on October 21 [2018]. Utilising 73 lights and two tons of equipment, it took two days to build and three days to light, but its silence will certainly be a conversation piece.
Kaiser Chiefs’ Nick “Peanut” Baines, Vijay Mistry, Simon Rix and Andrew White in the Silent Gig installation at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham
“The feeling of euphoria at a gig can come just as much from the production as the song,” says Simon Rix.
Look out for a black door – last seen floating in an ocean in the My Life promo – from a series of Kaiser Chiefs pop videos and Sarah Graham’s Kaisers Rock!, the original cover artwork for the Kaisers’ 2012 album, Souvenir, loaned by owner Marc Macintosh Watson after he heard about the York show.
“We were making our new album [Duck, subsequently released in July 2019] and this exhibition at the same time and the exhibition won the race by a long stretch,” said bassist Simon Rix at Thursday’s launch.
He and drummer Vijay Mistry have taken the leading roles in putting the exhibition together, although all the band have played a part, participating in project meetings with senior curator Dr Beatrice Bertram, while dynamic Scottish design company Acme Studios were commissioned by the gallery for the exhibition’s marketing, branding and merchandising, such as T-shirts, mugs and posters.
“When you come into York Art Gallery, the show’s branding runs throughout the gallery, all taken from the band’s own identity,” says Beatrice.
Dr Beatrice Bertram: York Art Gallery senior curator, who held project meetings with Kaiser Chiefs band members for When All Is Quiet
We found it difficult trying to talk about the show while it was taking shape, as it was hard to visualise how it would turn out, rather like I can find it difficult to talk about our albums before they’re finished, but it’s come together really well, all the little details,” says Simon.
“We had initially started looking at the gallery’s archives but were overwhelmed by the sheer body of work,” recalls Vijay.
“We thought, if we look through them all, they’re probably won’t be a show until 2030,” recalls Simon.
Instead, they drew up a long list of possibilities for the Kaiser Chiefs Take Over York Art Gallery’s Collection space, finally settling on the 11. “‘Yorkshireness’ and ‘Northernness’ were important to us, as a Yorkshire band, so that’s why we picked out Turner’s Fountains Abbey work and Lowry too, as we wanted to represent northern art,” says Simon.
“I’m most proud of linking Jack Butler Yeats’s That We May Never Meet Again with Mercury Rev’s The Dark Is Rising,” says Vijay. “I had that piece of music in my head when I looked at the painting, but I’d never owned a Mercury Rev record; I just knew the instrumental version; I sang it, but no-one recognised it, but then suddenly I thought, ‘It could be Mercury Rev’…and I found it!”
The Kaisers were particularly keen to give a give a first northern exposure to Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet. “Hearing voices through 40 speakers is an experience you can’t find anywhere else,” says Simon. “You can’t set up 40 speakers in your living room, but we thought it was a really contemporary sound installation that you could place at the heat of a gallery.” Best heard, by the way, when all around is quiet.
Rebecca Appleby’s Sketch For The Disrupted Expectation, paired by Kaiser Chiefs with…Kaiser Chiefs’ exhibition title song When All Is Quiet
The Set List
KAISER Chiefs’ “set list” of songs chosen in response to works from York Art Gallery’s collection that reference creation, production or performance were:
Bridget Riley’s Study 4 for Painting With Two Verticals, paired with Julia Holter’s Sea Calls Me Home
L S Lowry’s The Bandstand, Peel Park, Salford; The Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society
John Golding’s H.19 (Canticle); The Beach Boys’ Caroline No
Jack Butler Yeats’s That We May Never Meet Again; Mercury Rev’s The Dark Is Rising
Oliver Bevan’s Flickering Grid II; Super Furry Animals’ Pan Ddaw’r Wawr
JMW Turner’s The Dormitory and Transept of Fountains Abbey – Evening; Talking Heads’ Love – Building On Fire
Peter Leonard Donnelly’s Red Plot; Kavinsky’s Nightcall
Malcolm Hughes’s Study No 3; Plastic Bertrand’s Ca Plane Pour Moi
John Hoyland’s Pact; The Cure’s A Forest
Bryan Wynter’s Under Mars; Adam & The Ants’ Prince Charming
Rebecca Appleby’s Sketch For The Disrupted Expectation; Kaiser Chiefs’ When All Is Quiet
Picture the green scene: Kaiser Chiefs line up in shadow play to promote their exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham
MIck and Jessa Liversidge in the Yorkshire open air during their Fields And Lanes lockdown project
JESSA and Mick Liversidge are to perform Fields And Lanes Under The Willow Tree, an uplifting hour of timeless songs and poetry, in the open air at Easingwold Community Library on Sunday afternoon.
“Fields And Lanes is a joint project for Mick and me, inspired by the wonderful reaction we’ve had to our outdoor poetry and songs in lockdown,” says Jessa, the song half of the creative Easingwold couple, whose performances can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/fieldsandlanes/.
“It’s been a great structure for us through the weird and difficult times we’ve all been going through: a way of expressing ourselves creatively, choosing and learning the songs and poems, and we’ve had such warm responses from a wide range of people.
Mick Liversidge performing one of the 82 outdoor poems he recited online once lockdown began
“To begin with, when lockdown started, it was great for those who couldn’t get out – and a nice way to see the countryside as well.”
Actor Mick chalked up 82 outdoor poetry readings before calling a temporary halt to his regular routine on September 9 when learning dialogue for acting work demanded his attention.
“It all began at the beginning of lockdown,” he recalls. “I was due to appear in a play at the end of March: it was a two-hander, so lots of dialogue learned and lots of work put in by all involved, for nothing.
“We are delighted to have the opportunity to share a selection of our songs and poems with an actual live audience,” says Jessa Liversidge, looking forward to Sunday afternoon’s performance. Picture: Rebecca Rowan
“So, I was feeling a bit lost and down, but we saw Sir Patrick Stewart had decided to recite a Shakespeare sonnet a day to keep him active, which prompted Jessa to suggest I should do the same with passages of Dickens.”
Mick took that advice on board but decided that his love of poetry should lead him to recite his favourite poems instead. “So, what I did was find a poem, learn it and go out into the beautiful countryside around here the following day and recite it,” he says.
“That’s what I did during lockdown, one day looking for a suitable poem, making sure it wasn’t too long, learning it during the evening, ready for ‘outdoor poem’ recital the following day.
Mick Liversidge as Malvolio in York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York, in September
“It became harder as the weeks progressed as I had to find new poems that I’d not heard before. The positive side of that is I’ve found some real gems. I’ve loved doing this and it really has kept my brain active and ready for the next job when it comes along.”
Mick wrote on Facebook on September 9: “After 8I ‘outdoor poems’, today’s No. 82 will be my last…for now. I’ve loved reciting them so much and many of the poems have genuinely moved me to tears, so I’ve decided I’m going to continue reciting one a week for the foreseeable future. I’m looking forward to getting out into the countryside as the seasons change and finding new poems.”
Meanwhile, Easingwold Community Library has been running socially distanced, Covid-secure events under its beautiful willow tree, the latest being Sunday’s all-seated show starring Jessa and Mick at 2pm.
“It’s a beautiful space, under an amazing willow tree, and the forecast looks promising,” says Jessa
“We are delighted to have the opportunity to share a selection of our songs and poems with an actual live audience, after months of performing to our phones and laptops,” says Jessa, whose diary is invariably busy with teaching and choir-leading sessions for Singing For All, the York Military Wives Choir, youth choirs and more singing groups besides.
“On Sunday, Mick will include some of the most well-known poems such as John Masefield’s Sea Fever and W H Davies’s Leisure and even some Spike Milligan.
“The songs, from pop classics by Carole King and The Beatles to gentle folk songs, and even my own take on a Harry Lauder classic, will all be sung unaccompanied, apart from my new performing friends, the real songbirds.”
Back for more: Mick and Jessa hope to do more Fields And Lanes shows
Places for Fields And Lanes Under The Willow Tree must be booked in advance on 07526 107448 or via ecl.generalenquiries@gmail.com to ensure that everyone is aware of and agrees to the safety procedures. Tickets are free, with a pay-as-you-feel collection on the day.
“It’s a beautiful space, under an amazing willow tree, and the forecast looks promising,” says Jessa, who is keen to do further performances.
“With both of our busy schedules during normal times, it has been so lovely to work on this project together, and we hope to roll it out to other suitable venues in the next year. So, if anyone involved with an outdoor space would like us to bring Fields And Lanes to them, it can be arranged. You can send a message via https://www.facebook.com/fieldsandlanes/.”
El-ectric: Eleanor Leaper relishing the solo spotlight in Jukebox Divas. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick
York Stage Musicals, Jukebox Divas, Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7pm. Box office: yorkstagemusicals.com
BLOWN away by the reaction to York Stage Musicals’ first ever open-air shows last month, artistic director Nik Briggs was quick to replicate the format for a second set of three shows.
Last time, the concert theme was a celebration of musical theatre’s favourite hits, performed by six professional performers with YSM history, accompanied by musical director Jessica Douglas’s crack band at Rowntree Park.
Now, Briggs assembles another quintet of professionals, whose ambitions took hold in their YSM days; cruise-ship crooner Conor Mellor returning from the first show, joined by Sophie Hammond, back home in old York after musical theatre training in New York; Grace Lancaster, Best Leading Female winner in the 2020 Great British Pantomime Awards, here with added sax appeal too; BBC Pitch Battle finalist Eleanor Leaper and Kinky Boots principal Dan Conway.
Conor Mellor: Ain’t no mountain high enough that he won’t conquer in Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love
Party dresses have made way for leather jackets and fishnets for the girls, suits for sharp informality for the boys, while Jessica Douglas, celebrating her birthday at the keyboard last night, has put together another band line-up of all the talents: Neil Morgan, on guitar, Christian Topham, on bass, Clark Howard, on drums, and Sam Johnson, on keyboards.
Under Tech247’s ever-changing lighting of the igloo stage on the amphitheatre bandstand, YSM’s 85-minute show is performed to a socially-distanced audience, divided into ‘Bubble Blanket’ spaces on the embankment, everything running smoothly, from the exhilarating singing to the stewarding on a night for woollens, not rainwear. Hopefully, the occasional sound glitch can be ironed out for tonight.
Jukebox Divas turns the spotlight on the ever-extending branch of musical theatre that builds shows around a collection of pop hits, as opposed to songs written expressly for a show. Briggs and Douglas’s programme is up to the minute, accommodating current hit shows Beautiful, + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, as well as the well-established Queen and Abba vehicles We Will Rock You and Mamma Mia! and Eighties’ rockathon Rock Of Ages.
Grace and fervour: Grace Lancaster singing with feeling at Rowntree Park
The Jukebox format means the show can find room for an Elvis chart topper (Sophie’s all-action A Little Less Conversation) and close with a couple of Katy Perry belters (the ensemble Firework and Sophie-fronted Roar).
Dan, so smooth and sweet of tone, leads the way with Can’t Stop The Feeling; Conor’s I Want To Break Free and Eleanor’s Somebody To Love are early highlights; and Dan and Grace’s Under Pressure is a stupendous duet, stamping their own character on a Mercury and Bowie rock landmark.
You want the perfect balance of solo showcases, duets and ensemble set-pieces, and Jukebox Divas delivers. Step forward Eleanor’s The Winner Takes It All, Sophie’s No One But You, Dan’s My Eyes Adored You, Grace’s Natural Woman and Conor’s I’d Do Anything For Love, climbing every mountainous peak of Meat Loaf’s rock-opera showstopper.
Best support act in Jukebox Divas? It just has to be Sophie Hammond’s chair
You will hugely enjoy the interplay of Sophie, Grace and Eleanor in The Weather Girls’ It’s Raining Men, Harden My Heart and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and even more so in Lady Marmalade, as they grow ever more assured in performing together, and when the five unite, you know why Briggs was so keen to stage this show.
Can’t Help Falling In Love suits its boy-meets-girl arrangement, Every Rose is full of drama and if one song encapsulates what we have missed in not being allowed to fill theatres with song and joy in these ever-more gruelling Covid times, it is Don’t Stop Believin’, a high point for singers, band and audience alike.
How apt the night should end with a mighty Roar. Theatre and music will continue to find their voice, whatever this pandemic throws our way. Do keep believin’.
The closed eyes have it: Dan Conway in an expressive moment in Jukebox Divas
The Bev Jones Music Company in a socially distanced rehearsal for last Sunday’s Strictly Live In The Park at Rowntree Park, York
THE Bev Jones Music Company will return to the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, in York, for shows at Christmas and next Easter.
“Further to the overwhelming success of our musical theatre show there last Sunday afternoon, we’ve booked a Christmas date and Easter date for the park,” says producer Lesley Jones.
September 13’s Strictly Live In The Park concert featured more than 20 socially distanced singers and a five-piece band in a “spectacular show for all the family, with popular show music, pop music, dance and comedy”.
“Sunday was hot and sunny, whereas December will be scarves and hats, fairy lights and hot mulled wine (non-alcoholic),” says Lesley.
Strictly Christmas Live In The Park will take place on Sunday, December 13 at 2pm. “Our Christmas programme will be a mix of modern popular festive music in a spectacular song and dance show, then will culminate in an audience-led Carols By Candlelight at 5pm. Two shows in one,” says Lesley.
“Our production will be staged and directed by Nathan Lodge and Jordan Langford, two former York stage performers with Bev’s company, who turned professional and have been performing and choreographing all over the world.
“We’re delighted we’ll be welcoming back other familiar names from our company past, plus our current company, resulting in our most talented cast ever.”
Looking ahead to next spring too, Lesley says: “Easter’s show will have a different musical focus, culminating in our own Jesus Christ Superstar tribute in the park in traditional style.”
Tickets for Strictly Christmas Live In The Park will go on sale for social bubbles on October 1 at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk or on 01904 501935.
Kitty VR: Playing her first gig for seven months at the NCEM churchyard. Picture: Neil Chapman/Unholy Racket
REVIEW: Songs Under Skies, Kitty VR and Boss Caine, National Centre for Early Music churchyard, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York
THE inaugural Songs Under Skies season of open-air acoustic concerts in the NCEM churchyard resumes with Polly Bolton and Henry Parker tomorrow, concluding with Elkyn and Fawn on Thursday (both nights sold out).
Alas the skies were so sodden for the opening night that Amy May Ellis and Luke Saxton had to scurry indoors for their show, but the great British weather was on best behaviour for double bill number three, Kitty VR and Boss Caine last Wednesday, co-hosted by the NCEM, The Crescent and the Fulford Arms under the campaigning umbrella of the Music Venues Alliance.
At least a couple of sets of gravestones were not obeying social distancing, but this was a Covid-secure event in every way, from the requirement to sanitise hands on arrival to the one-way system in operation for entering and leaving the NCEM church building (wearing masks when inside too).
Audience members were seated in pods – or perhaps “God pods”, because we were in a churchyard – as a full garden gathered, full of the joy of being able to watch Kitty VR live, rather than in VR in that virtual reality hinterland of Zoom that has substituted stoically in lockdown and beyond.
Gravestones at the NCEM: Standing out from the social-distancing measures at the Songs Under Skies concerts
Kitty nearly came a cropper before the start, falling in an unseen hole as she carried her box of CDs, but thankfully not disappearing like Alice into Wonderland.
Once on stage, Kitty cut a composed, quietly spoken, contemplative figure in familiar singer-songwriter mode, a la Laura Marling, so much so that her spectral electric guitar would never have said Boo to any passing acoustic music wardens or below-ground churchyard inhabitants for that matter.
In her first concert since lockdown, Kitty introduced new song Wisteria, rhyming that butterfly of short-lived flowers with hysteria, rather than listeria in these pandemic times, unless the Hutch hearing was failing, and revealed a predilection for single-word titles – Dimensions, Whirlpool, Slumber – and single-speed compositions in life’s slow lane.
Closing with an acoustic rendition of Release on a stool, her sunsetting set was the balm before the country, blues and even rockabilly storm of Boss Caine, aka Daniel Lucas, the stalwart sentinel of the York gig scene for so long in his rapscallion role as the city’s grizzled answer to Tom Waits.
Boss Caine and stand-up bassist Paddy Berry playing Songs Under Skies after rehearsing remotely. Picture: Neil Chapman/Unholy Racket
He has been creative in lockdown, writing sleepless nocturnal songs for Bandcamp premieres and EPs and now airing them live, as darkness descended and lighting picked out the churchyard trees’ frameworks as subtly as watercolours.
“We’re going to be brave and play a completely new set,” said Lucas, who had rehearsed remotely with stand-up bass player Paddy Berry and would now be playing together for the first time. All the more reason to love to this troubadour tornado.
“If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die high,” he sang defiantly…“I could use a little chemical sedation”… “I’ll even put your secret into one of my songs”… “Take me out like a Kennedy”…the memorable lyrics kept a’coming.
“No-one will be offended if I use a Conference League swear word, will they?”, he said, more as a statement, rather than seeking permission. Lucas has always been a master of the banter too.
Kitty VR closes her set by playing an acoustic version of Release, taking to the stool after her guitar strap broke the day before. Picture: Neil Chapman/Unholy Racket
“You keep going for the song,” he reasoned for not caving in to the stultifying impact of Covid-19, before a self-deprecating finale flourish. “This is a song about people having complaints after Boss Caine gigs,” he announced.
Too much that, not enough this, they say. Wrong, wrong, wrong, on all counts. Instead, in his concluding words, Boss Caine will always “Burn on bright, burn on bright again”: York’s torch-bearer for why live music at its best will always be a thrill, a rush, like no other.
Kitty VR, by the way, has contributed a haunted solo rendition of Colour Me In, Phil Grainger and lyricist Alexander Flanagan Wright’s finest composition, to The Mythstape, the North Yorkshire duo’s gradually emerging mixtape of recordings by their favourite artists of songs from their two-hander shows Orpheus, Eurydice and Gods Gods Gods.
The Howl And The Hum’s Sam Griffiths has applied his golden brush to Tumble Down, from Eurydice, now floating high on angel’s wings. Watch this space for news of more Myth making…
…Oh, and Phil, could you please deliver on your sort-of promise to record your own versions too. Make that particular myth come true!
Phil Grainger, left, and Alexander Flanagan Wright: Inviting Kitty PR, Sam Griffiths and fellow favourite singers to record their songs from Orpheus, Eurydice and Gods Gods Gods for The Mythstape. Picture: Charlotte Graham
David Gedge: Creative consultant for a new musical based around his songs for The Wedding Present
DO you have a gift for a Wedding Present project?
To explain, a crowdfunder campaign is being launched to support the creation of a musical based on the songs of David Gedge’s “semi-legendary“ Leeds group and John Peel favourites, The Wedding Present…with “some brand new material” from Gedge too.
The driving force behind Reception, The Wedding Present Musical, is York writer, theatre director and Engine House Theatre artistic director Matt Aston, fresh from mounting this summer’s season of Park Bench Theatre monologues in the Friends Garden at Rowntree Park.
“Reception will be a story of love…loss…break-ups…and breakdowns,” says Matt. “Everything you’d expect, really, from a musical based on the songs of David Gedge.”
Gedge, who turned 60 in April, will be the creative consultant for a show that will incorporate his songs for both The Wedding Present and Cinerama, plus the aforementioned new material, targeting 2022 for a Leeds premiere.
The Gedge pledge crowdfunder campaign “gives fans the opportunity to get involved at the very beginning of an exciting journey – and pick up a bunch of specially commissioned artwork and merchandise, only available here, in doing so”.
Reception is the story of a group of friends from Leeds University who keep in touch over two decades of trials, tribulations, and receptions. Their stories are rooted in Gedge’s songs and the title is inspired by the name of The Wedding Present’s original record label, Reception Records.
Matt Aston: Artistic director of this summer’s Park Bench Theatre season at Rowntree Park, York, now working on a musical play inspired by his favourite band The Wedding Present. Picture: Livy Potter
The idea of doing such a musical has been brewing for writer/director Aston for several years. When he met Tony Ereira, director of the Come Play With Me and Clue Records record labels – where else but at a Wedding Present gig, in Leeds in early 2019 – the concept was batted around still further.
The concept of the play started to take shape, with the documentary nature of Gedge’s candid, darkly humorous song-writing in the never-ending minefield of love and loss, lovers and losers, longing and lost opportunity suited to transferring those anguished stories and their quotidian protagonists onto the stage.
As Gedge himself said in Gigslutz on August 24 2015: “I’m interested in the minutiae of relationships. I like to write about what actually happens, rather than some imaginary situation cloaked in metaphor, hence the references to the everyday, though I have been known to decorate the songs with science fiction or comic book references!”
Aston first saw The Wedding Present at Confettis nightclub in Derby in 1988. “So, you could say this musical is over 30 years in the making,” he says. “I’ll always be grateful to my older brother and his mates for taking his little 15-year-old brother to his first ever gig. I got a T-shirt, a set of badges and a nosebleed. Not to mention a new favourite band.”
How come Aston suffered a nosebleed? “I remember standing there, when the support band were on, and everyone was being very polite…and then…The Wedding Present came on and there was this huge surge. That’s when I got the nosebleed!” he recalls.
Gedge’s songs “really struck a chord” in Aston’s teenage days. “They are those difficult 15 to 19 years, and his lyrics really connected with me; his songs have stuck with me ever since. They’re just good songs – they’ve never got the recognition they deserve. They’re down-to-earth stories of love gone wrong and they’ve been there for me in both good times and dark times.”
Writer-director Matt Aston in a Wedding Present T-shirt – not the one from 32 years ago! – in rehearsals with actor Chris Hannon for Park Bench Theatre’s production of Samuel Beckett’s First Love. Picture: Northedge Photography
Aston elaborates on their suitability for a musical play: “I’ve always felt there was something very theatrical about David’s songs. The storytelling, the arrangements, the anguish,” he says. “And, as proven with Cinerama’s 2012 re-recording of The Wedding Present’s Valentina album, they have the flexibility to be arranged in a number of different, epic and dramatic ways. Although the show will, of course, still have plenty of fast guitars too!”
Attending a Cinerama concert five years ago affirmed that conviction. “They did this gig with a 15-piece orchestra and I thought, ‘these are musical theatre songs’; that’s what will work on stage,” says Matt. “‘The show will connect with fans, but people who are not Wedding Present fans will connect with the songs too, making for a good show, a new musical story rather than a typical jukebox musical’.”
Aston and Ereira put the idea to Gedge, along with an early synopsis for the story, and never one to shy away from a new medium to present his work, Gedge was equally excited to explore the idea further.
“With this crowdfunder campaign, we are looking to raise initial funding to get a first draft of the script written, some artwork and branding in place, and to start preparing for a period of research and development in early 2021 to road test our ideas – Covid-19 permitting – with a group of actors/musicians and some brand new material from David,” says Matt.
“Once I get down to writing the script in full, it will become clear whether and where new songs may be required. When we met up, David he said he’d be happy to get writing for the show, and it will be exciting to have new David Gedge work in there.”
Aston anticipates working on the script over the next six months. “There’s just huge potential for this show,” he enthuses. “The intention is to be in a position to premiere the musical in Leeds in 2022 and then do a small tour after that, hopefully taking it to Brighton, where David now lives.
“This crowdfunding campaign is a chance for fans to get involved from the beginning with a bunch of rewards that are all exclusive to this production, including specially commissioned artwork from Lee Thacker, illustrator of David’s autobiography, Tales From The Wedding Present.”
To support the project, go to: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/reception-the-musical
