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Nothing much happening in these loosening Lockdown days? Everything still being called off? Here are More Things To Do on the home front, courtesy of The Press, York. LIST No. 7

On your mask, get set…go…where?

EXIT stage left 10 Things To See Next Week In York for the still unforeseeable future in these woolly-thinking lockdown times when everyone’s gone to the beach…or Burnsall.

Make do with entertainment at home and now farther afield, in whatever configuration, as you stay alert to working out how to interpret the Government’s green-for-go rules, in the stultifying shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic that has higher figures in York than elsewhere in North Yorkshire, lest we forget.

From behind his door a little more ajar, but still nervous about comings and goings, CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.

Your Place Comedy….from their places: Simon Evans and Jo Caulfield go online for a laugh

Jo Caulfield and Simon Evans, Your Place Comedy, streaming into your living room from theirs, Sunday, 8pm

AFTER Mark Watson and Lucy Beaumont in April, followed by Simon Brodkin and Harrogate’s Maisie Adams in May, Yorkshire’s virtual comedy project Your Place Comedy returns this weekend with a double bill of BBC Radio 4 stalwarts, Jo Caulfield and Simon Evans.

Led by Selby Town Hall manager Chris Jones, ten small, independent Yorkshire and Humber venues unite to present a fundraising evening of humour on the home front, broadcast live from Caulfield and Evans’s living room to yours for free at yourplacecomedy.co.uk. Donations are welcome afterwards.

Here comes the wickedly fabulous Velma Celli, York’s kitchen cabaret diva

Something Fabulous This Way Comes, Velma Celli’s Equinox, June 13, 8pm

DRAG diva deluxe, Velma Celli, the cabaret creation of York actor Ian Stroughair, invites you to “join me in my kitchen as I celebrate all my favourite witchy and misunderstood characters from movies and musicals”.

“Equinox is a love letter to all the witches and magical creatures who have graced our stages and screens, from Wicked to The Wizard Of Oz and every belty enchantress from the coven in between,” says Velma, who will sing the siren songs of the hags and creatures that go bump in the night as she weaves her cabaret magic at the witching hour, when daylight and darkness are almost equal.

Since going into lockdown in Bishopthorpe after an Australian tour, Ian has presented two Velma shows online from Case de Velma Celli: a fundraiser for St Leonard’s Hospice on May 2 and Large & Lit In Lockdown on May 16. Tickets for Equinox cost £7 at: ticketweb.uk/event/velma-celli-equinox-live-stream-tickets/10604915.

Alan Ayckbourn and Heather Stoney: Performing together for the first time in 56 years in his audio play Anno Domino. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

If you haven’t heard Alan Ayckbourn’s Anno Domino yet, why not…?

GOODBYE Alan Ayckbourn’s 83rd play, Truth Will Out, postponed at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre amid the Coronavirus pandemic. Hello instead to his 84th play for lockdown times.

Ayckbourn has not only written and directed it, as per usual, but he performs in the audio recording too, marking his return to acting, 56 years after his last appearance on a professional stage in Rotherham.

In one of his lighter pieces, charting the break-up of a long-established marriage and its domino effect on family and friends, Ayckbourn, 81, and his wife, actress Heather Stoney, play four characters each, aged 18 to mid-70s. “We were just mucking about in our sitting room,” says Ayckbourn of a world premiere available for free exclusively on the SJT’s website, sjt.uk.com, until noon on June 25. 

York Festival of Ideas had a bright idea: let’s go online for a Virtual Horizons fortnight

York Festival of Ideas, staying alert and staying home until June 14

FESTIVAL after festival has bitten the dust in Covid-19 2020, but if one event could be guaranteed to come up with a different idea, it would be…the York Festival of Ideas.

Consequently, ideas are still blooming in June, as the University of York invites you to go on a “journey of discovery that will educate, entertain and inspire you from the comfort of your own home”, under the banner of Virtual Horizons.

The festival team has worked hard with their partners to bring together a diverse programme of talks, music, activities and community trails. Topics range from author Tansy E Hoskins revealing what exactly your shoes are doing to the world (Foot Work, June 6, 1pm), to scientist Phil Ball discussing genetic editing, cloning and the growth of organs outside the body (How To Grow A Human, June 8, 6pm).

Or, if you need your topicality topping up, how about trenchant broadcaster and political commentator Iain Dale mulling over “the phenomenon” of Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a talk “big on comedy and fun” (The Book Of Boris, tomorrow, June 5, 6pm)? Comedy? Fun? Just what we need to tackle the Corona crisis.

L’Apothéose in the grounds of the National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, York, in 2019. Picture: Jim Poyner

Fieri Consort and L’Apothéose, National Centre for Early Music streamed concert, June 13

THE NCEM, in Walmgate, York, continues to share concerts from its archive on Facebook and online. On June 13 comes the chance to enjoy music by past winners of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, a double bill featuring Fieri Consort from 2017 and last year’s winners L’Apothéose.

To view Fieri Consort and L’Apothéose in concert for free at 1pm, follow https://www.facebook.com/yorkearlymusic/ or log on to the NCEM website, ncem.co.uk.

Cotton Bud Carousel Horse, by Vivien Steiner: Inspiration for the Scarborough Great Get Together postcard competition. Copyright: Scarborough Museums Trust/Vivien Steiner

Scarborough’s Great Get Together, June 19 to 21

ORGANISED by We Are Scarborough and Say Hello Coast, this event is inspired by the Jo Cox Foundation’s national Great Get Together: a celebration of the late Labour MP’s life and her vision of bringing people together.

This year, it will take place online and will include three competitions: creating a postcard comp on the theme of Scarborough Fair; song lyrics and a multi-genre comp for writers, poets, model-makers and performers. 

For more information on the Scarborough Great Get Together, full details on entering the competitions and more about Scarborough Fair and its history, go to: facebook.com/TheGreatGetTogetherScarborough or wearescarborough.co.uk/.

Voice of an Angel: Christie Barnes recording her role in the York Radio Mystery Plays remotely from home

York Radio Mystery Plays, on BBC Radio York, Sunday mornings throughout June

YORK Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York are collaborating to bring the York Mystery Plays to life on the airwaves in four 15-minute instalments on the Sunday Breakfast Show with Jonathan Cowap from this weekend.

Working remotely from home, a cast of 19 community and professional actors has recorded Adam And Eve, The Flood Part 1, The Flood Part 2 and Moses And Pharaoh, under the direction of Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.

Jane McDonald: New date for her Let The Light In concert at York Barbican next summer

Seek out the good news

YORK River Art Market in July and August, ruled out by social-distancing rules. York Early Music Festival’s summer of Method & Madness in July, called off. Jane McDonald’s Let The Light In concert at York Barbican tonight, lights out. The list of cancellations may show no sign of abating, but you can always look ahead by searching for event updates on websites.

York River Art Market? Charlotte Dawson and co promise a return to Dame Judi Dench Walk in 2021. York Early Music Festival? Watch this space for the possibility of an online version of this summer’s festival emerging. Wakefield wonder Jane McDonald? Lights up on July 4 2021.

The Howl & The Hum: York band release their debut album

And what about…

The debut album for our disconnected times, Human Contact, by York band The Howl & The Hum. Jorvik Viking Centre’s Discover From Home, digital resources for stay-at-home exploration, such as videos, downloads and audio recordings about Viking life and culture. Garden centres, the real green-for-go sign of lockdown easement. Castle Howard reopening its gardens and grounds; bookings only. Walks on Hob Moor, to the Railway Pond. Crepes at Shambles Market. Pextons reawakening for DIY needs and more on Bishopthorpe Road.

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Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love comes under Harrogate Vinyl Sessions spotlight tonight

KATE Bush’s 1985 album Hounds Of Love will be the subject of tonight’s Harrogate Vinyl Sessions via Zoom to raise funds for the Friends of Harrogate Hospital charity.

The 7.30pm online event will be introduced by organiser and master of ceremonies Colin Paine, before a comprehensive Bush profile by Harrogate Advertiser journalist and Charm event host Graham Chalmers, the spa town “Professor of Pop”.

This will be complemented by “some video action” from Jim Dobbs during the album playback in full from 8pm.

“The multi-million selling Hounds Of Love is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter and musician Kate Bush,” says Graham. “Originally released on September 16 1985, it marked a return to the public eye for Bush and won her success in the USA after the relatively poor sales of her previous album, 1982’s The Dreaming.

“The lead track Running Up That Hill became one of Bush’s biggest hits. The album’s first side produced three further successful singles, Cloudbursting, Hounds Of Love and The Big Sky.

“The second side, subtitled The Ninth Wave, forms a conceptual suite about a person drifting alone in the sea at night.”

Colin says: “For our latest Vinyl Sessions we have put together a superb JVC turntable and Shure V15III Run via a magnificent Sony STR 6120 Receiver. We stream via our HQ Nidd server for music fans to enjoy. We run our dual platform audio stream and Zoom for the event.”

To join tonight’s online event, you need to book at Eventbrite on the Vinyl Sessions website at www.vinylsessions.org.

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Here comes the Welsh singer Martyn Joseph, playing Pocklington Arts Centre

“A good song makes you feel like you’re not alone in the world, ” says Martyn Joseph

PENARTH folk singer, songwriter and guitarist Martyn Joseph will play Pocklington Arts Centre on January 16 2021.

Often called “the Welsh Springsteen”, he has released 32 albums in a career spanning 30 years, half a million record sales and thousands of live performances.

In April 2019, Joseph won a Wales Folk Award for Here Come The Young, the title track of that year’s album. “He’s never sounded more potent than he does here,” said Uncut on its release.

In 2018, he was honoured with a Spirit of Folk Award by Folk Alliance International in Kansas, USA, and he received Fatea magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Britain.

In his song-writing of passion and humour, Joseph, 59, engages with challenging narratives that tackle the complexity of the human condition, underpinned with a promise of hope.

“Really what I do is to try and write songs that might step up and make some sense of a moment in time,” says the Welsh raconteur of his tales of topical concerns and stories of the fragility of love. “A good song makes you feel like you’re not alone in the world.”

Tickets are on sale at £18 at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

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Opera North commissions sound journeys for lockdown from Walking Home quintet

South African cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe: Responding to beneficial effects of walking. Picture: Mlungisi Mlungwana

OPERA North is creating Walking Home: Sound Journeys For Lockdown in response to the easing of Covid-19 regulations on exercise and time spent outdoors.

For this commission for BBC Arts and Arts Council England’s Culture in Quarantine programme, the Leeds company has asked five artists to write and record new works specifically to be heard while walking.

Crossing folk, jazz, Middle Eastern and African traditions, classical and contemporary music, with a propensity for experimentation and breaking the confines of genre, the contributors are South African cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe; Syrian-born qanun virtuoso Maya Youssef; Syrian-born Iraqi oud player and composer Khyam Allami; Anglo-Polish vocalist, violinist and songwriter Alice Zawadski and English accordionist and electronic experimentalist Martin Green, from the cutting-edge folk trio Lau.

Martin Green: Has a dawn or early morning walk in mind for his piece. Picture: Genevieve Stevenson

Building on Opera North’s history of innovative sound walks and installations, the five musicians are writing and recording their pieces in home studios across Britain and Europe. Once complete, Walking Home will be available through broadcast slots across BBC radio and television, through podcasts on BBC Sounds, and via the BBC Arts website, continuing the Culture in Quarantine mission to bring the arts to homes despite arts venue closures, social distancing and UK-wide lockdowns.

One of 25 new commissions for Culture in Quarantine,Walking Home is billed as a “vibrant cross-section of music-making in Britain today, made by musicians under lockdown for audiences in the same predicament”.

The series seeks to engage with the lockdown context for walking and solitary activity, each 15-minute piece “offering an opportunity to renew our imaginative connections with our environment”.

Maya Youssef: Intense and thoughtful music on the qanun

Jo Nockels, Opera North’s head of projects, says: “The spark for the Walking Home commissions came from the strange alchemy we found between walker, place and music that was powerfully evident in the past sound journey commissions we have made for the Humber Bridge and River Tyne.

“While these five new walking commissions are on a much more intimate scale, and meant for wherever you are, all five respond to the dynamic of walking, listening through headphones and taking in your surroundings to produce an experience as much created by the listener as by the artists. 

“They might offer a soundtrack to a daily escape from lockdown; intensify the sensations experienced on their chosen route; or conjure up something altogether harder to define.”

Iraqi oud player and composer Khyam Allami: Taking cinematic approach to disconcerting atmosphere of urban areas under lockdown

Nockels adds: “We are delighted to be working with five such brilliant and varied composer/musicians on this project, each of whom innovates way beyond the boundaries of genre. Together they will form a collection of music that is refreshing, unexpected and individual.”

Best known as one third of the visionary folk trio Lau, Martin Green’s reputation as a composer in his own right was cemented by an Ivor Award for his Opera North commission for the Great Exhibition of the North in 2018.

Evolving over the course of a half-hour walk along the banks of the River Tyne, Aeons was an epic sound work that featured the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North and Becky Unthank of The Unthanks. His contribution to the Walking Home series has a dawn or early morning walk in mind.

Alice Zawadski: Classical violin, gospel, jazz and folk. Picture: Monika S Jakubowska

Syrian-born Iraqi oud player Khyam Allami’s haunting installation Requiem For The 21st Century was an Opera North commission for the 2019 PRS New Music Biennale, combining microtonal tuning, ancient Arabic musical modes and generative software to produce ever-changing melodic sequences from speakers fitted within an array of decaying ouds.

Allami will be writing and recording his sound walk from his base in Berlin, taking a cinematic approach to the disconcerting atmosphere of urban areas under lockdown.

Now based in Manchester, cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe moves seamlessly from collaborations with world musicians and beatboxers to concerto performances and solo classical recitals.

He spent an Opera North Resonance residency working on a new body of solo music for the cello influenced by traditional African instruments. His sound journey will acknowledge the beneficial effects that he has felt from walking over the past weeks.

Walking Home: Five artists are writing and recording new works specifically to be heard while walking

Born and raised in Damascus, Maya Youssef plays the qanun, the Arabic form of the zither with a history dating back to the 19th century BC. She has made her home in the UK after recognition from the Government’s Exceptional Talent programme for her intense and thoughtful music, rooted in the Arabic classical tradition but taking inspiration from Western classical music and jazz. 

Drawing on classical violin, gospel, jazz and folk, Alice Zawadzki’s output as soloist and collaborator is prodigious and eclectic. Her second solo album, last year’s Within You Is A World Of Spring, showcased her mastery of a range of styles in an inspired collection of songs.

Opera North is “still in discussion with the BBC about a release date, but hopefully it will be within the next month or so”.

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Why the show will not go on for York Light Opera at York Theatre Royal in 2021

Rory Mulvihill as Fagin and Jonny Holbek as Bill Sikes in York Light Opera Company’s February production of Oliver! at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Tom Arber

AFTER 60 unbroken years, York Light Opera Company will NOT perform at York Theatre Royal in 2021.

The decision has been taken in response to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding when, how and in what form theatres will re-open as the Government conducts a phased easing of Covid-19 lockdown measures, with theatres expected to be at the back of the queue.

“We said, ‘let’s just bite the bullet’ and so we’ve scrapped our February 2021 show,” says leading player Rory Mulvihill, a York Light member for more than 35 years. “Given the present situation surrounding theatres, I’d be very surprised if we weren’t vindicated.”

Reviewing the situation: “We said, ‘let’s just bite the bullet’,” says Rory Mulvihill after York Light decided the show must not go on in 2021 in these Covid-19 times. Picture: Anthony Robling

Rory led the York Light cast as light-fingered gang boss Fagin in the late-February 2020 production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!. “We’re celebrating 60 consecutive years at the Theatre Royal this year and we were able to do that show, when this [Coronavirus] tsunami was coming but was still on the horizon,” he says.

York Light’s next show, Ali Kirkham’s June production of Kander and Ebb’s Chicago at Theatre @41 Monkgate, has been “cancelled until further notice”.

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Your chance to make an impact in 99 seconds on George’s lockdown playlist

“You have 99 seconds, starting now”: George Reid’s lockdown playlist rules

YORKSHIRE musician George Reid is spending his lockdown collaborating remotely with fellow musicians on the new platform The 99 Second Playlist.

“The platform was launched at the start of quarantine in March with the intention to keep musicians creative during lockdown,” says George, from Penistone, Barnsley. “I also wanted to spread positivity and help to expand people’s ears to music they may not have heard of before.”

Every Thursday, a video is released at 6pm via George’s YouTube page and this Thursday, May 28, will mark the project’s tenth week.

“Over those ten weeks, I’ve created a weekly audience of 300 people that will tune in to listen to the videos. The catch is that every single video must be under 99 seconds,” he says.

Yorkshire musician George Reid: Hoping to run his playlist project for 52 weeks

“The challenge is to get the best parts of any song into 99 seconds. Not only is this quite a challenge for musicians, but in a world where people flick through social media feeds so quickly, you’ve got a very limited amount of time to capture someone’s attention.

“It dissuades musicians from making long, self-indulgent music videos that we know people won’t watch. The goal is to create projects that musicians and audiences can enjoy in equal measure.”

Since March, George has collaborated with actors George Griffiths, from The Book Of Mormon’s international tour, Eilidh Loan, from Frankenstein’s UK Tour, and Tom Berkeley, from Buddy The Musical, and professional musician Alex Barton.  

Songs from The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Ed Sheeran, Bill Withers and Les Misérables have featured in bite-size form so far.

George Reid: Musician, actor , playlist enthusiast

“I have plans to work with even more musicians in the coming months, and I’m aiming to get to 52 weeks of the playlist” says George.

“To follow my journey, you can search for The 99 Second Playlist on YouTube. Any musicians interested, or anyone wanting to hear a specific song, please get in touch at george@georgereid.com.”

For more information, visit georgereid.com/the99secondplaylist or YouTube search The 99 Second Playlist.

Pen portrait: George Reid

GEORGE is an actor and musician from Penistone, Barnsley. He trained at Guildford School of Acting, graduating in 2018, and has performed at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, and in two international Shakespeare tours. He has been gigging since the age of 15 around Leeds, Sheffield, Barnsley and Huddersfield.

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Gilbert and Sullivan Festival confirms 2021 performances at Harrogate Royal Hall

The National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company in the dress rehearsal for The Pirates Of Penzance in July 2018. Picture: Jane Stokes

THIS summer’s 27th International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Harrogate has been scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic, but the festival organisers have put next summer’s festival line-up in place already.

As is custom, the 2021 festival will run at two locations, the original home of Buxton Opera House from July 31 to August 7 and Harrogate Royal Hall from August 8 to 22.

Taking part will be three professional companies, the National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, Charles Court Opera and Forbear! Theatre, and amateur performers from Abbots Langley G&S Society, Brussels Light Opera, Bus Pass Opera, Peak Opera, Ploverleigh Savoy Players, SavoyNet Performing Group and Trent Opera.    

Harrogate dates for the 2021 diary are:

August 8, The Mikado, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 2.30pm; H.M.S. Pinafore, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 7.30pm.

August 9, Iolanthe, Peak Opera, 7.30pm.

August 10, The Gondoliers, Trent Opera, 7.30pm.

August 11, Iolanthe, Charles Court Opera, 2.30pm; Ruddigore, Charles Court Opera, 7.30pm.

August 12, The Pirates Of Penzance, Brussels Light Opera, 7.30pm.

August 13, The Yeomen Of The Guard,  Forbear! Theatre, 7.30pm.

August 14, Patience, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 2.30pm; The Mikado, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 7.30pm.

August 15, The Pirates Of Penzance, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 2.30pm; H.M.S. Pinafore, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 7.30pm.

August 16, Ruddigore, Abbots Langley G&S Society, 7.30pm.

August 17, The Mikado, Ploverleigh Savoy Players, 7.30pm.

August 18, Patience, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 2.30pm; The Pirates Of Penzance, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 7.30pm.

August 19, The Grand Duke, SavoyNet Performing Group, 7.30pm.

August 20, Princess Ida, Bus Pass Opera, 7.30pm.

August 21, H.M.S. Pinafore, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 2.30pm; Patience, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 7.30pm.

August 22, The Mikado, National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 2.30pm; The Pirates Of Penzance,  National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, 7.30pm.

A night at the light opera: The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival at the Royal Hall, Harrogate, in a past year

This summer’s festival run in Harrogate from August 9 to 23 would have featured five new National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company productions: The Pirates Of Penzance and The Sorcerer, directed by Richard Gauntlett; rising star Rachel Middle’s HMS Pinafore; Simon Butteriss’s Patience and Alan Borthwick’s The Emerald Isle (or The Caves Of Carrig-Cleena), a work staged only rarely.

Further highlights were to have been Charles Court Opera’s smart, stylish new take on The Mikado, directed by John Savournin, and their new production of Iolanthe, plus Rachel Middle’s production of The Yeomen Of The Guard for Forbear! Theatre.

After the cancellation of the 2020 festival, the organisers have launched a streaming service at gsopera.tv to show “the very best of the National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company and festival productions at home and abroad since 1994, plus many other G&S classics”.

“There’s something for everyone and our content will be constantly updated with new, exciting films for you to enjoy from the best seat in your house,” says festival trustee Bernard Lockett. “There’s free content to watch there too.

“You can watch gsopera.tv on your tablet, laptop, smart TV, smartphone or PC: anywhere with the internet. It’s easy to use and your purchases can be accessed on all your internet devices forever.

“Keep an eye out for our new weekly podcasts and webinars starring your festival favourites and Gilbert and Sullivan experts. They are coming soon and we can’t wait to share them with you. We are also selecting some outstanding films for an eagerly awaited virtual festival in August, so this year you can simply stay safely at home and enjoy being entertained.

“Gsopera.tv lets you re-live treasured memories and enjoy those magical performances that have made the Gilbert and Sullivan Festival such an amazing and unique event.”

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Heaven is a place at York Barbican on Belinda Carlisle’s The Decades Tour

Carlisle to York: Belinda confirms Barbican date for October 2021 on The Decades Tour

CALIFORNIAN singer, musician and autobiographical author Belinda Carlisle will return to York Barbican on October 14 2021 on The Decades Tour, marking her 35-year solo career.

Now 61 and living in Bangkok, Thailand, with husband Morgan Mason, she last played the Barbican in September 2019 on her Runaway Horses 30th Anniversary Tour.

To go to Carlisle next autumn, tickets will be on sale from Friday, May 29 at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Belinda made her name as the lead singer of The Go-Go’s, the all-female band formed in Los Angeles in 1978, and enjoyed solo success with 1987 chart topper Heaven ls A Place On Earth, I Get Weak, Leave A Light On, Summer Rain, Circle In The Sand, Runaway Horses, In Too Deep and Always Breaking My Heart.

In 2010, she charted her colourful life story in her autobiography Lips Unsealed. In 2021, on The Decades Tour, she will “celebrate her rich musical catalogue and chameleonic musical prowess”.

The itinerary will close with Carlisle’s second Yorkshire show, playing Sheffield City Hall on October 30.

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Nothing happening in these slightly loosened Lockdown limbo days. Everything called off. Here are More Things To Do on the home front, courtesy of The Press, York. LIST No. 6

Nothing happening full stop. Now, with time on your frequently washed hands, home is where the art is and plenty else besides

EXIT 10 Things To See Next Week in York and beyond for the unforeseeable future in Stay Alert, but still sort-of-inert, Baby-Step Britannia. Make do with home entertainment, wherever you may be, in whatever configuration that you interpret the Government’s green-for-go rules now permits in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic. From behind his door ajar, CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.

Alan Ayckbourn and Heather Stoney in their Scarborough garden. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Arts event of the week ahead and beyond: Alan Ayckbourn’s Anno Domino, online from May 25 to June 25

WHEN the Coronavirus pandemic meant Truth Will Out would not be out this summer at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, Alan Ayckbourn responded by writing a new play in lockdown, Anno Domino.

And not only write and direct it, but perform in the audio recording too, marking his return to acting, 58 years after his last appearance on a professional stage.

What’s more, former radio producer Ayckbourn, 81, has teamed up with his wife, actress Heather Stoney, his co-star in that 1964 production, to record the new show.

His 84th play takes the form of an audio account of the break-up of a long-established marriage and the domino effect that has on family and friends, Ayckbourn and Stoney playing four characters each, aged 18 to 75. “We were just mucking about in our sitting room,” says Ayckbourn, who also supplied the sound effects.

The world premiere of Anno Domino will be available for free exclusively on the SJT’s website, sjt.uk.com, from noon on Monday, May 25 to noon on June 25. 

York Musical Theatre Company in Off-Stage But Online 2, Sunday, 7.30pm

AFTER the success of the inaugural Off-Stage But Online! concert on April 26, York Musical Theatre Company return with a second digital performance on Sunday, live on the company’s YouTube channel from 7.30pm.

This weekend’s programme is compiled by musical director Paul Laidlaw again and features 25 numbers performed at home by Matthew Ainsworth, Jessa & Mick Liversidge, John Haigh, Eleanor Leaper, Chris Hagyard and Florence Taylor, among others.

Expect video recordings of numbers from Rent, Les Miserables, Heathers, A Chorus Line, Follies, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Company and Showboat.

Fieri Consort: Online concert from the National Centre for Early Music archives

National Centre for Early Music streamed concerts, May 30 and June 13

THE NCEM, in Walmgate, York, continues to share concerts from its archive on Facebook and online. The next will be on Saturday, May 30, featuring one of the last concerts by the European Union Baroque Orchestra, captured in March 2017.

On June 13 comes the chance to enjoy music by past winners of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, a double bill featuring Fieri Consort from 2017 and last year’s winners L’Apothéose.

To view these concerts for free at 1pm, follow https://www.facebook.com/yorkearlymusic/ or log on to the NCEM website, ncem.co.uk.

Barbara Marten in the role of Heworth housewife and suffragette Annie Seymour Pearson in York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre’s community production Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes

Still streaming: Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes, York Theatre Royal Collective Arts programme

YORK Theatre Royal is streaming the 2017 community play Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes for free on its YouTube channel until May 31.

Co-produced with Pilot Theatre, this outdoor and indoor production was performed by a community cast of 150 and a choir of 80, taking the form of a protest play that recalled how women in York ran safe houses, organised meetings, smashed windows and fire-bombed pillar boxes as part of the early 20th century Suffragette movement.

“Now the stage is dark and the streets are empty, but looking back to the way in which that show brought people together, inspiring them in so many ways, is a wonderful reminder of the power of theatre and community,” says playwright Bridget Foreman.

York artist Sue Clayton’s stairs, newly painted in rainbow-coloured trim

Activity of the week: Decorating your house in the bright spring light

BE inspired by York portrait artist Sue Clayton, whose painting of Sainsbury’s trolley attendant Andrew Fair, from her York Heroes series in 2018, appeared on the first episode of Grayson Perry’s Channel 4 show Grayson’s Art Club.

“The urge to paint left me temporarily, which frightened me, but home decorating began instead and my creativity was encouraged this way, from ripping up the stairs carpet and painting the stairs in rainbow colours to remember this period, through to painting a cupboard with a Chinese heron/crane,” she says.

Maybe a Chinese heron would be too ambitious as a starting point, but painting the stairs in rainbow colours…?

 Jeff Beck: New date for York Barbican show in 2021

Still keep trying to find good news

LEEDS Festival in late-August, cancelled. York Early Music Festival’s summer of Method & Madness in July, off. Jeff Beck at York Barbican this week, not now. The list of cancellations shows no sign of coming to an end, but always look on the bright side of strife by seeking out updates on websites.

Leeds Festival at Bramham Park will return in 2021; so too will York Early Music Festival. As for Jeff Beck: there is a hi-ho silver lining there too. The legendary Wallington guitarist and two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, now 75, has re-arranged his gig for April 22 2021.

Jonathan Williams’s stained-glass artwork for our Corona crisis times 

Clap for Carers

STAND by your doors, bang a gong, at 8pm every Thursday, no excuses. Theatre-goers, concert-goers, save your hand-clapping for our NHS doctors, hospital staff, carers, volunteers and key workers.

If one work of art encapsulates a city in gratitude, and in prayer, step forward Jonathan Williams’s stained glass window of York Minster and York Hospital in rainbow union.

Lips/ink: A pensive Simon Armitage, Yorkshireman of words, both spoken and written

And what about…

NEW albums by Badly Drawn Boy, The 1975 and The Dears. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s new series of interviews on BBC Sounds and his appearance and musical choices on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. Channel 4’s Gogglebox for weekly political insight. Going to a garden centre, where plant salvation awaits.

 

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York Musical Theatre Company go online for second digital performance on Sunday

AFTER the success of their inaugural Off-Stage But Online! concert on April 26, York Musical Theatre Company return with a second free digital performance on Sunday, live on the company’s YouTube channel from 7.30pm.

This weekend’s programme is compiled again by director Paul Laidlaw and features 25 numbers performed at home by Matthew Ainsworth, Jessa and Mick Liversidge, John Haigh, Eleanor Leaper, Chris Hagyard and Florence Taylor, among others.

Expect video recordings of numbers from Rent, Les Miserables, Heathers, A Chorus Line, Follies, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Company and Showboat.

Musical director John Atkin opens Off-Stage But Online 2! with the Star Wars theme on piano, leading into Chris Jay’s Till I Hear You Sing, from Love Never Dies; Holly Inch’s It Means Beautiful, from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, and John Haigh and daughter Sofia’s Don’t Rain On My Parade, from Funny Girl.

Peter Wookie performs Ol’ Man River; Sarah Pollard and Charly Wetherell, For Good, from Wicked; Mick Liversidge, Bless Your Beautiful Hide, from Seven Brides For Seven Brothers; Kaia Stainton, Lifeboat, from Heathers; Matthew Clare, King Of The World, and Eleanor Leaper, No-One But You, from We Will Rock You.

Matthew Ainsworth’s pick, accompanied by “And All”, is Seasons Of Love, from Rent; Amy Lacey, I Have A Dream, from Mamma Mia!; John Atkin and Cathy Atkin, By My Side, from Godspell; Sarah Pollard, Holding Out For A Hero, from Footloose, and David Martin, Only Love, from The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Next, Charly Wetherell sings When Will My Life Begin?, from Tangled; Chris Mooney, Heaven On Their Minds, from Jesus Christ Superstar; Rachel Higgs, Taylor, The Latte Boy; Helen Barugh and Peter Wookie, Falling Slowly, from Once, and Jessa Liversidge, Losing My Mind, from Follies.

Matthew Ainsworth returns for Bring Him Home; Flo Taylor performs Nothing, from A Chorus Line; Chris Gibson, Anyone Can Whistle; Jessa and Mick Liversidge, It’s The Little Things, from Company, and John Haigh, Somewhere, from West Side Story.

To watch Sunday’s online concert, tap in: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiTrGyeP93_to9uYOsvoS4w.