The 2021 line-up of headliners and early confirmed acts for Leeds Festival and its sister event, Reading Festival
LEEDS Festival will have headliners at the double next summer after last week’s no-show in Covid-2020.
Croydon rapper Stormzy and ex-Oasis lippy lead vox Liam Gallagher, bill toppers from this summer’s scrapped event, will have their day in the Bramham Park sun/rain, joined by four 2021 additions: American rapper Post Malone, rock bands Catfish And The Bottlemen and Queens Of The Stone Age and dance duo Disclosure, who released their new album, Energy, last Friday.
Only Rage Against The Machine from the 2020 headliners will not be at next summer’s August 27 to 29 event.
The six headliners will be split between Main Stage West and Main Stage East in what Melvin Benn, managing director of promoters Festival Republic, calls Leeds Festival’s “most epic plan yet”.
Gallagher will be the Friday headliner on Main Stage East; Queens Of The Stone Age, Friday, Main Stage West; Stormzy, Saturday, East; Catfish And The Bottlemen, Saturday, West; Post Malone, Sunday, East, and Disclosure, Sunday, West.
Further acts confirmed for next summer are Lewis Capaldi; Two Door Cinema Club; Doja Cat; Mabel; AJ Tracey; Fever 333; DaBaby; Ashnikko; MK; 100 Geks; Lyra; Madison Beer; Sofi Tucker and Beabadoobee.
Tickets go on sale on Thursday (September 3) from 9am at leedsfestival.com and via Ticketmaster. Tickets bought for this summer will remain valid; alternatively, refunds will be available.
Benn envisages that entry to Bramham Park, near Wetherby, will be monitored by an NHS-linked tracing app, to be shown at the security gates.
Family drama: Playwright John Godber with wife Jane Thornton and daughters Martha and Elizabeth
LIVE indoor theatre will return on the East Coast this autumn at both Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre and Hull Truck Theatre.
Today, the SJT announces an “innovative autumn and winter season for 2020 that has been carefully crafted to combine live theatre for socially distanced audiences with digital work for those that prefer to stay at home”.
In the SJT’s headline news, the waiting for Godber’s new play is over. The world premiere of the ground-breaking former Hull Truck artistic director’s Sunny Side Up! will be a family affair, starring John Godber, his wife Jane Thornton and their daughter Martha Godber from October 28 to 31 in The Round.
Written and directed by Godber, the humorous and moving Sunny Side Up! depicts a struggling Yorkshire coast B&B and the people who run it. “Join proprietors Barney, Cath and Tina as they share their stories of awkward clients, snooty relatives and eggs over easy in this seaside rollercoaster that digs into what our ‘staycations’ are all about,” invites John.
Further news bongs go to a new audio recording by former SJT artistic director Sir Alan Ayckbourn and a one-woman Christmas show, likely to be one of the few in the region, specially rewritten to adapt to prevailing Covid-19 pandemic circumstances.
After the lockdown success of his debut audio play, Anno Domino, premiered by writer-director Ayckbourn and his wife, actor Heather Stoney, Ayckbourn goes solo for Haunting Julia, his ghostly 1994 play, wherein he will play all three parts. As before, his master’s voice can be heard only via the SJT website, sjt.uk.com, with the play being available online “throughout December”, although the exact dates are yet to be rubber-stamped.
Going solo: Sir Alan Ayckbourn will re-visit his 1994 ghostly play Haunting Julia in a solo audio recording in December
The SJT Christmas show, from December 4 to 30, reassembles the crack team behind the hit productions of the past four winters: director Paul Robinson, writer Nick Lane and musical director Simon Slater, the latter two both serving up shows earlier in the season too.
Adapted by Lane from the Hans Christian Andersen story, the solo version of The Snow Queen will be performed by Polly Lister, who played Mari in Jim Cartwright’s The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice and Di in Amelia Bullmore’s Di And Viv And Rose when part of the SJT’s 2017 summer repertory company.
Scarborough-born Slater, an SJT associate artist, will appear in Douglas Post’s one-man thriller Bloodshot from October 21 to 24 in The Round, where all productions will be mounted, save for the online performances.
Slater will play Derek Eveleigh, a photographer with a serious drinking problem, who pursues a mysterious female subject across 1957 London from racially troubled Notting Hill to the raucous entertainments of Soho.
Often comedic Nick Lane’s sardonic, surreal and “intensely autobiographical” first straight play, My Favourite Summer, was premiered at Hull Truck in January and February 2007. This autumn, the original cast and the belting Nineties’ soundtrack will return in the torrid tale of Dave, who spends a month working alongside a nutcase called Melvin in the summer job from hell in 1995.
Winter chill: Polly Lister in the SJT’s one-woman Christmas show, The Snow Queen, written by Nick Lane
Saving money to take the girl he loves away on holiday, before she disappears out of his life forever, has never been so hard. Still, at least the weather’s nice in a comedy for “everyone who’s ever been in love and lived to tell the tale”.
Lane, whose adaptation of The Sign Of Four was well received by SJT audiences last year, will direct the semi-staged 2020 performance of My Favourite Summer in a run from November 12 to 14.
The autumn/winter season will begin on October 1 with a live performance on Zoom of Love Letters At Home. “In response to our desire for connection in times of physical distance, Uninvited Guests have created an innovative, digital, wholly personal and wonderfully live experience,” the SJT announces.
By collecting song requests and dedications from audience members, Uninvited Guests create a show guaranteed to be unique to each audience. Join them on Zoom to raise a glass to long lost and current loves, to mums and dads, and to absent friends.
Light entertainment: A switched-on Katie Arnstein in her one-woman show Sexy Lamp
“Have you ever been treated like an inanimate object?” asks Katie Arnstein in her solo show Sexy Lamp on October 15. Katie has suffered that slight, she says, although in reality she is a “friendly, lovable and hilarious real-life person”.
Join her as she re-lives, through story and songs, all the times she was not seen as one, however. Billed as “somewhere between the comedy of Victoria Wood, the comfort of going for a drink with your best mate and the high drama of Hamlet”, Arnstein’s show won both Show of the Week and Pleasance Pick at last year’s VAULT Festival in London. “It’s nothing like Hamlet,” she corrects herself.
In Alison Carr’s dark comedy, Dogwalker, on November 6 and 7, Helen finds a dead body in the local dog park, whereupon suddenly everyone is paying attention to her. At least for a little while.
Now she has had a taste of the limelight, Helen will not fade into the shadows without a fight in a play that first dropped through the SJT Open Script Submissions window and is being developed for a potential run at the Edinburgh Fringe under the direction of Chelsey Gillard, the SJT’s Carne Trust associate director.
Carr, by the way, had the disappointment of her sold-out performances of The Last Quiz Night In Earth in March being scrapped under the Coronavirus theatre shutdown.
On the beach: Serena Manteghi, in her guise as teenage single mum Yasmin in Build A Rocket. In November, she returns to the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
After writer Alexander Flanagan-Wright and musician Phil Grainger’s performances of linking shows Orpheus and Eurydice in the At The Mill season at Stillington Mill and York Theatre Royal’s Pop-Up On The Patio festival, Serena Manteghi will be in the cast for SJT performances from November 19 to 21.
Serena premiered Eurydice to award-winning success in Australia, when joined in the two-hander by actor and designer Casey Jay Andrews. She will be familiar to SJT audiences from playing LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice and Yasmin in the premiere of Christopher York’s Build A Rocket.
From The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre stable, Orpheus and Eurydice are modern re-tellings of ancient Greek mythology, interweaving a world of dive bars, side streets and ancient gods. (Newsflash: 21/10/2020: Flanagan-Wright, Grainger, Manteghi and Andrews will be performing the plays together in a new version at the SJT).
A series of rehearsed play readings will take place in the theatre on October 7, 13 and 20, then each Tuesday from November 3 to 24, including Sarah Gordon’s The Underdog, Katie Redford’s Tapped and Rebecca Jade Hammond’s Canton.
Further shows will be announced soon, among them an evening of conversation with Hull-born Maureen Lipman and an innovative online show from outspoken Denby Dale comedian Daniel Kitson.
“We see it as part of our ongoing civic role to open as soon as is reasonably practicable and to present irresistible work,” says SJT artistic director Paul Robinson
The re-opened SJT has been showing films in the McCarthy at the former Odeon cinema building since last month and will continue to do so. Now, artistic director and joint chief executive Paul Robinson is looking forward to the return of live theatre.
“We’ve worked hard to create an ambitious season of relatively small-scale work, but one that promises great entertainment and really does have something for everyone, including shows for those who are happy to return to the building, and also for those who aren’t.
“We see it as part of our ongoing civic role to open as soon as is reasonably practicable and to present irresistible work alongside meticulously thought-through health and safety measures.
“Our family show at Christmas, for instance, was originally written for five actors, but that would have made rehearsing impossible under current guidelines. Writer Nick Lane has adapted it into a remarkable one-woman show that we’re confident will be every bit as much fun as the original and will really showcase the multi-talented Polly Lister.”
The SJT has introduced comprehensive measures for the safety and comfort of its audiences – full details at https://www.sjt.uk.com/were_back – and has been awarded VisitEngland’s We’re Good to Go industry standard mark, signifying adherence to government and public health guidance.
On a knife edge: Simon Slater in Bloodshot, playing the SJT from October 21 to 24
“Everything will pay proper heed to social distancing, for both the audience and for our staff and performers,” says Robinson. “The seating capacity in The Round will vary from show to show but the socially distanced maximum will be 185.”
All the autumn and winter events will be added to the SJT website shortly; booking will open for Circle members from September 8 and for general sales from September 11.
To book, visit sjt.uk.com/whatson or call the box office on 01723 370541. The box office is open Thursdays to Saturdays, 11am to 4pm, for both phone calls and in-person bookings.
HULL Truck Theatre will reopen with the Hull Jazz Festival from November 12 and a seating capacity reduced to 20 to 30 per cent, but The Railway Children will not go ahead.
A statement from the Ferensway theatre announces: “The Hull Jazz Festival is a key part of our autumn season and we are really pleased that after eight months of closure, we are able to work with long-term partners J-Night to open the building with their exciting programme. Audience capacity will be smaller as we adhere to social distancing, but the programme and experience will still be the same great quality.”
York playwright Mike Kenny’s The Railway Children will be back on track in December 2021 after being de-railed from its 2020 Hull Truck Theatre Christmas run by the Covid curse
However, the theatre bosses have had to make the “difficult decision” to postpone the 2020 Christmas production of E Nesbit’s The Railway Children, scripted by York playwright Mike Kenny in a re-visit of his award-winning adaptation for York Theatre Royal at the National Railway Museum (2008/2009) and Waterloo Station, London (2010).
“The creation of one of our Christmas shows usually begins in August but without an announced date from the Government on when theatre performances can resume without social distancing, a show of this scale would not be economically viable,” the Hull Truck statement reads.
“The Railway Children will be postponed until Christmas 2021 and all tickets will be automatically transferred into the equivalent date, time and original seat selection. We will be contacting all customers with details of their ticket transfer and, with our reduced team, we ask that customers do not contact the box office at this time.”
The statement continues: “While we may not be able to do something in our auditorium on the scale of The Railway Children, we remain committed to creating magical Christmas experiences for our audiences and are delighted to announce we will be producing an alternative show for 2020.”
The new show will be a promenade production of Prince Charming’s Christmas Cracker that will enable audiences to enjoy a festive adventure within small groups and under social-distancing measures as they move through the theatre.
“We are very excited to have a reopening date,” says Hull Truck Theatre artistic director Mark Babych
What lies in store? Every year on Christmas Eve, Prince Charming – soon to be King and deluded Crooner – celebrates the festive season with an annual knees-up: the Christmas Cracker. This year, a big announcement is imminent and you are all invited.
Further details and on-sale dates for Hull Jazz Festival and Prince Charming’s Christmas Cracker will be announced in September, alongside up-to-date information on how Hull Truck is being made a safe place to visit within Government guidelines.
Announcements on the updated January to March 2021 season will be made later in the autumn, once Hull Truck has more information regarding social-distancing guidelines.
“We are dependent on Government advice on social distancing regarding the ability to stage productions and therefore whether they are financially viable,” the statement emphasises.
Artistic director Mark Babych and his joint chief executive officer, Janthi Mills-Ward, say: “We are very excited to have a reopening date to bring alive our wonderful theatre again. We will obviously be operating at a much-reduced capacity – 20 to 30 per cent – while social distancing is in place, which makes re-opening a difficult financial jigsaw of what and how we present work.
Truck on: Hull Truck Theatre’s main auditorium, reopening from November 12
“But with meticulous planning to ensure the theatre is a safe place and innovative ideas for a programme that is possible with social distancing, we look forward to sharing the joy of live theatre again.”
They continue: “Part of this will be doing Christmas differently this year, which presents lots of creative challenges for the Hull Truck team to work on together, as well as opportunities for freelance artists.
“Our vision is to create a joyful, fun and uplifting production that takes audiences on an exciting journey through the theatre and we are sure this show is going to be just what we all need to get us in the Christmas spirit after a difficult year!”
Please note, Hull Truck “asks for your patience and kindness at this time as the box-office team work to contact all customers who have booked for The Railway Children”.
Banding and bonding: The Sam Johnson Big Band and and a galaxy of York musical theatre stars recording Broadway Baby to raise funds for Theatre @41’s roof renovation
TWENTY-ONE singers, 22 musicians and even four cats have come together – remotely, you can never herd cats – to make a fundraising video for Theatre @41 Monkgate’s roof renovation.
Under the musical direction and arranging skills of pianist Sam Johnson, they have recorded a big-band version of Broadway Baby, marking the 90th birthday year of composer Stephen Sondheim.
The video combines the Sam Johnson Big Band with cast members from the York musical theatre scene and you can see them in full swing on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6RcpRBJPwA
York band leader, tutor, composer, performer, producer and now video maker Sam says: “I put the video together, getting in touch with all the singers, after having put together four or five other videos with the Big Band. I thought it would be a good video to wrap them all up and to include such a large number of people together for the cause!
“I also noted that everyone in the video has benefited in some way from the Monkgate venue, whether it be through a performance or rehearsal.”
“It’s a good, brassy Broadway big-band number to mix the two ensembles together in the smoothest way possible,” says band leader Sam Johnson of Sondheim’s Broadway Baby
Explaining his choice of musical-theatre song, with its apposite Covid-era lyric of “Waiting for that one big chance to be in a show”, Sam says: “I went for Sondheim’s Broadway Baby song-wise as it’s from one of the shows I’ve enjoyed most working on at Monkgate when Pick Me Up Theatre staged Follies’ last year.
“It’s a good, brassy Broadway big-band number to mix the two ensembles together in the smoothest way possible!”
Welcoming the fundraising boost of Broadway Baby, Theatre @41 board secretary Jo Hird – whose “dressing up is better than my vocals” on the video – says: “With Theatre @41 closed, we’re trying to crack on with as much decorating and renovating as we can, so as not to disrupt shows when we’re allowed to reopen.
“One of the shows we had to postpone was Pick Me Up Theatre’s Sondheim 90: A Birthday Concert to celebrate the New York composer’s 90th birthday. How brilliant of Sam Johnson to put Broadway Baby together. It took a lot of coordinating.
Sam Johnson in rehearsal with his big band in pre-Covid days
“We’re really grateful to Sam for bringing this fundraiser to life because we need every penny we can get to repair our roof and keep our Monkgate building open.”
The cast taking part in the recording were: Susannah Baines; Emily Chattle; Emma-Louise Dickinson; Anna Hale; Iain Harvey; Sam Hird; Jo Hird; Darren Lumby; Sandy Nicholson; Adam Price; Emily Ramsden; Tracey Rea; Andrew Roberts; Rosy Rowley; Lauren Sheriston; Maggie Smales; Joanne Theaker; Dave Todd; Juliet Waters; Natalie Walker and Jennie Wogan.
Joining pianist, musical director and arranger Sam Johnson in the band were Katie Wood and Katie Maloney on alto sax; Richard Oakman and Stephen Donoghue on tenor sax; Nick Jones on baritone sax and a multitude of trumpet players, Connor McLean, Sam Rees, Charles Tomlinson, James Lolley, Daniel Dickson and Leo James Conroy.
So too did trombonists Anna Marshall, Lauren Ingham and Fliss Simpson; violinists Claire Jowett and Emily Jones, viola player Jess Douglas; cellist Lucy McLuckie; guitarist Tom Holmes; upright bassist Georgia Johnson and Andy Hayes on the drum kit.
Look out too for cameo appearances by a quartet of cats, Strummer, Misty, Paris and Bob.
Doubling up: Sarah Beth Briggs has made five videos of music for two pianos, taking on the role of both pianists
YORK pianist Sarah Beth Briggs has released her tenth album, The Austrian Connection, bringing back memories of her earliest days of making her mark in the classical music world.
“2020 got off to a good start when I spent three days recording the album in early January at Leeds University’s Clothworkers Hall,” she says.
This summer’s new disc on the AVIE Records label features music associated most closely with Briggs during a career that stretches back to teenage days. At 15, she was the joint winner of Salzburg’s International Mozart Competition and Mozart has since been prominent on several of her recordings.
She has established herself too as a performer at home in the Viennese tradition and works by Haydn, Schubert and Brahms form an important part of her discography.
“In a market where one-composer discs have become the norm, I’ve come up with a different line of thought,” says Sarah. “My CDs feel more like my recitals in the concert hall, with both linked threads and the kind of stylistic contrasts that I choose to offer my live audiences.”
The idea for The Austrian Connection began with Sarah’s commitment to the music of Austrian-British composer Hans Gál. “I see Gál as the last great composer to uphold the tonal Austro German tradition,” she says.
“I’ve already made award-winning recordings of his Piano Concerto – a world premiere recording – and chamber music and now, on my latest album, I trace the connection between Gál’s writing and that of his great Austrian forebears, Haydn, Mozart and Schubert.”
The artwork for Sarah Beth Briggs’s latest album, The Austrian Connection
Sarah would welcome Gál’s music being featured much more regularly in the concert hall. “I was particularly happy when my recording of the slow movement of the Piano Concerto made it on to Classic FM’s Smooth Classics, as I see it as being just as accessible as the great romantic piano concerto slow movements,” she says.
“Gál has the wit of Haydn, the precision of Mozart and the song-like qualities of Schubert and whenever I present this great music in the concert hall, audiences delight in it.”
Sarah is thrilled by the early responses to The Austrian Connection. “The disc has already been popular with BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio, as well as featuring in a dedicated programme on Austrian Radio – and it’s also been warmly received both here and abroad,” she says.
As with artists the world over, the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown brought an abrupt halt to Sarah’s performing career. “As the spread of Covid-19 accelerated, watching my concerts being erased from the diary one by one was like seeing a pack of dominoes falling,” she recalls. “Solo recitals, chamber music concerts and my Spanish concerto debut all went, and the future looked bleak.
“Zoom teaching over the internet soon followed, but something else was very necessary as an artistic outlet.”
As with many other international musicians, the only possibility was to record music at home to share with those that love it over the internet. “In dark times, the arts are needed more than ever,” asserts Sarah, who set about making “unedited, basically recorded home videos”.
“It was time to rid myself of my concerns about poor sound and amateurish video production and get on with sharing music. It proved a very cathartic process for me – at last I could share something again.”
“A world without live arts is very monochrome,” says Sarah Beth Briggs. “We, as musicians, need our audiences and hope that they need us very soon!”
Unsurprisingly, Sarah began with a beautiful Hans Gál movement, since when her musical journeys have taken in an eclectic mix of everything from Bach to Albeniz, complemented by a new Prelude and Fugue by her great friend, the composer Christopher Brown, thrown in for good measure.
“It felt a strange process,” says Sarah. “Having had all ten of my commercial CDs produced by Simon Fox-Gál, one of the world’s great producers – and, as it happens, Hans Gál’s grandson! – I was suddenly recording myself on a mini Zoom recorder.
“I synched that sound with visuals made on an iPhone, at first poised on a well-used music stand which had belonged to my mother when she played the violin in schooldays. I really hit the big time when I moved on and purchased a ‘selfie stick’ to secure the iPhone!”
In addition to her solo videos, Sarah has recorded remotely with her violinist duo partner, David Juritz. “Playing Mozart with David in Chiswick and me in York certainly was a novel experience,” she says. “Chamber music is such a huge part of what music is about to me and I’m greatly missing working with others.”
More unusually still, Sarah has made five videos of music for two pianos, taking on the role of both pianists. For a taster, seek out her particularly dramatic offering of the first movement of Brahms’ Sonata for Two Pianos, better known to many as the Piano Quintet, at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRgxb8loUig
She remains “cautiously optimistic” about the gradual reopening of the arts, not least being delighted that Yorkshire has hosted two of the first classical music events with an audience present: Jamie Walton’s vibrant North York Moors Chamber Music Festival in a marquee at Welburn Abbey, Ryedale, from August 9 to 22, and a pilot concert with the Orchestra of Opera North at Leeds Town Hall on August 28.
‘It has been a very rough time for so many people and those of us in the arts world are certainly among the worst hit, but there is a thirst for live music and theatre out there and we will win the battle and get things back on track,” she says. “A world without live arts is very monochrome – we, as musicians, need our audiences and hope that they need us very soon!’
Benched: Lisa Howard as grief-stricken Cathy, coming out of isolation on Easter Sunday 2020 in Matt Aston’s lockdown play, Every Time A Bell Rings, presented by Park Bench Theatre. Picture: Northedge Photography
A BANK Holiday on Monday, the return to schools drawing ever closer, masked or unmasked, the summer calendar is speeding by.
Make the most of the outdoors before the crepuscular Covid uncertainty of autumn and beyond arrives for theatres, concert halls and gig venues alike.
Charles Hutchinson pops outside, then quickly head back indoors in the rain with these recommendations.
Comedy for your living room…from theirs: Your Place Comedy presents Paul Sinha and Angela Barnes, Sunday, 8pm
Paul Sinha and Angela Barnes: The stream team for Your Place Comedy, performing in their living rooms on Sunday night
YORKSHIRE virtual comedy project Your Place Comedy returns after a summer break to deliver a second series of live streamed shows over the next three months, re-starting with The Chase star Paul Sinha and BBC Radio 4 News Quiz guest host Angela Barnes this weekend.
Corralled by Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones, ten small, independent theatres and arts centres from God’s Own Country and the Humber are coming together again, amid continued unease for the industry, to provide entertainment from national touring acts.
Sunday’s show will be broadcast live to viewers’ homes for free, with full details on how to watch on YouTube and Twitch at yourplacecomedy.co.uk. “As before, viewers will have an option to make a donation to the venues if they have enjoyed the broadcast,” says Chris.
Mucking around: Cassie Vallance enjoying herself in Teddy Bears’ Picnic in the Friends’ Garden, Rowntree Park, York. Picture: Northedge Photography
Garden theatre part three: Park Bench Theatre in Every Time A Bell Rings, Friends Garden, Rowntree Park, York, until September 5
SAMUEL Beckett’s First Love has left the bench for good. Children’s show Teddy Bears’ Picnic, starring Cassie Vallance, resumes daytime residence from today. From this week, the premiere of Engine House Theatre artistic director Matt Aston’s lockdown monologue Every Time A Bell Rings occupies the same bench on evenings until September 5.
Performed by Slung Low and Northern Broadsides regular Lisa Howard and directed by Tom Bellerby on his return to York from London, Aston’s 50-minute play is set in Lockdown on Easter Sunday 2020, when isolated, grief-stricken Cathy searches for solace on her favourite park bench in her favourite park in this funny and poignant look at how the world is changing through these extraordinary times.
Tickets for performances in the Covid-secure Friends Garden must be bought in advance at parkbenchtheatre.com or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Bring picnics, blankets and headphones to tune in to shows delivered on receivers.
Decked out: Hannah Sibai’s design for the Pop-Up On The Patio festival at York Theatre Royal
Deckchairs will be provided: Pop-Up On The Patio, week three at York Theatre Royal, August 28 and 29
YORK Theatre Royal’s Covid-secure summer festival of outdoor performances on Hannah Sibai’s terrace stage climaxes with five more shows, three tomorrow, two on Saturday.
First up, tomorrow at 4pm, is York company Cosmic Collective Theatre’s cult show Heaven’s Gate, an intergalactic pitch-black comedy starring satirical writer Joe Feeney, Anna Soden, Lewes Roberts and Kate Cresswell as they imagine the final hour of four fictionalised members of a real-life UFO-theistic group.
York performance poet Henry Raby puts the word into sword to slice up the past decade in Apps & Austerity at 6.30pm; Say Owt, the York outlet for slam poets, word-weavers and “gobheads”, follows at 8pm. On Saturday, York magician, juggler and children’s entertainer Josh Benson is unstoppable in Just Josh at 1pm before York pop, soul and blues singer Jess Gardham closes up the patio at 4pm.
Jo Walton: Rust on show at Pyramid Gallery
York exhibition of the week and beyond: Jo Walton, Paintings and Rust Prints, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until September 30
YORK artist Jo Walton uses rust and rusted metal sheet in innovative ways to create her artworks. Iron filings are applied as ‘paint’ and as they rust, reactions occur, resulting in every painting being unique and unrepeatable.
“Jo’s work is abstract, inspired by horizons,” says Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett. “Her work features enhanced rust-prints on plaster surfaces, combinations of rusted sheet metal with oil painting and painting seascapes on gold-metal leaf.”
The poster for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet
First blockbuster of the summer…at last: Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, at York cinemas
THE wait is over. This summer has been more blankbuster than blockbuster, thanks to the stultifying impact of the Covid lockdown and the big film companies’ reluctance to take a chance on a major release in the slow-burn, socially distanced reopening of cinemas.
Step forward Christopher Nolan, director of Memento, Inception, three Dark Knight/Batman movies and Dunkirk to grasp the nettle by releasing the 151-minute psychological thriller/action movie Tenet.
John David Washington (yes, Denzel’s son), Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh ride a rollercoaster plot that follows a secret agent who must manipulate time in order to prevent the Third World War. Apparently, Tenet is a “film to feel, not necessarily understand”, like a Scarborough fairground ride, then.
Bella Gaffney expresses her enthusiasm for taking part in Songs Under Skies in the National Centre for Early Music churchyard garden
Double bills galore outside a church: Songs Under Skies, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, between September 2 and 17
SONGS Under Skies will bring together the National Centre for Early Music, The Crescent, The Fulford Arms and the Music Venues Alliance for an open-air series of acoustic concerts next month in York.
Dates for the diary are: September 2, Amy May Ellis and Luke Saxton; September 3, Dan Webster and Bella Gaffney; September 9, Kitty VR and Boss Caine; September 10, Wolf Solent and Rosalind; September 16, Polly Bolton and Henry Parker; September 17, Elkyn and Fawn.
Gates will open at the NCEM’s Walmgate home, St Margaret’s Church, at 6.30pm for each 7pm start; acts will perform either side of a 30-minute interval with a finishing time of 8.30pm.
The artwork for the new album by perennial York Barbican favourites The Waterboys
And what about…
Discovering The Waterboys’ new album, Good Luck, Seeker, Mike Scott’s latest soulful blast, met with universal thumbs-up reviews. Or bunking down with 1981 Ashes-winning captain turned psychoanalyst Mike Brearley’s new book for the end of summer, Spirit Of Cricket.
Katherine Jenkins: 2021 York Barbican concert to be rearranged
KATHERINE Jenkins has been forced to call off her 2021 tour until “later in the year”, putting paid to her February 5 concert at York Barbican.
Today’s statement on the Barbican website explains: “Due to the on-going situation with Covid-19 and the announcement that Guildford G Live and Southend Cliffs Pavilion will be closed until January 31 2021, unfortunately we have no alternative but to postpone Katherine’s January and February 2021 tour.
“Ticket holders are asked to keep hold of their tickets as we’re working to reschedule the tour to later in 2021 and a further announcement regarding new dates will follow shortly. All tickets will remain valid.”
South Welsh mezzo soprano Katherine, who turned 40 on June 29, celebrated her latest number one in the UK Classical Chart last month, when she released her 14th studio album, Cinema Paradiso, on Decca Records.
When her York Barbican concert does go ahead, Katherine will combine songs from Cinema Paradiso with favourites from throughout her career that began at 23 after she swapped school teaching for the concert stage and recording studio on signing to Universal Classics.
“I wanted to create an iconic movie moment with this record,” said Katherine Jenkins of Cinema Paradiso
Also peaking at number three in the Official UK Album Chart, Cinema Paradiso assembles 15 tracks from “the world’s best-loved movie moments”, such as Moon River, from Breakfast At Tiffany’s, When You Wish Upon A Star, from Pinocchio, Tonight, from West Side Story, and the themes from Schindler’s List, Lord Of The Rings and Dances With Wolves.
“I’ve always loved movie soundtracks,” said Katherine. “I wanted to create an iconic movie moment with this record – all the best film musical themes that we know and love, all together on one album.
“The last few albums I’ve made have been inspired by what’s happening in my own world. This one, in particular, was inspired by the things that were going on around me. Having played my first movie role last year, it felt like a natural transition for me.”
In February 2019 in Serbia, Katherine filmed her debut film part of Millie in her husband Andrew Levitas’s eco-disaster movie Minamata, playing opposite Johnny Depp and Bill Nighy in the true story of war photographer W Eugene Smith being pitted against a powerful corporation responsible for mercury-poisoning the people of Minamata, on the Japanese coast, in 1971.
Minamata was released in February 2020. Previously Katherine had appeared as Abigail Pettigrew in a Doctor Who Christmas special, A Christmas Carol, in December 2010 and in the West End as Julie Jordan in the musical Carousel in 2017.
“Having played my first movie role last year, it felt like a natural transition for me,” said Katherine Jenkins, explaining her decision to make an album of film songs. Picture: Decca Records/Venni
Katherine has been treating fans to Facebook Live concerts from her home during the pandemic lockdown and dedicated the chart-topping success of Cinema Paradiso to “all my lockdown lovelies who’ve been spending the past 16 weeks with me, through lockdown, through our concerts”. “You’ve all been amazing and I can’t thank you enough,” she said.
The track listing for Cinema Paradiso is:
1. When You Wish Upon A Star, from Pinocchio.
2. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (Somewhere Far Away), from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
3. Cinema Paradiso, featuring Alberto Urso, from Cinema Paradiso
4. Never Love Again, from A Star Is Born
5. Moon River, from Breakfast At Tiffany’s
6. Singin’ In The Rain, from Singin’ In The Rain
7. West Side Story – Somewhere/Tonight, featuring Luke Evans, from West Side Story
8. O Danny Boy, from Memphis Belle
9. Schindler’s List, from Schindler’s List
10. The Rose, from The Rose
11. May It Be, from Lord Of The Rings
12. Here’s To The Heroes, from Dances With Wolves
Bonus tracks
The Rose, featuring Shaun Escoffery
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (Somewhere Far Away), featuring Sarah Alainn
Emily Ramsden, left, Joanne Theaker and May Tether performing at the Rowntree Theatre Amphitheatre in York on Sunday night. Pictures: Jess Main
REVIEW: York Stage Musicals At Rowntree Park, Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm. Tickets update: Sold out.
NIK Briggs and Jessica Douglas were “so sick of bad news about the arts”, the York Stage Musicals duo decided they had to “do a thing…anything”.
Three weeks later, the director and musical director are staging three nights of open-air, socially distanced, family-favourite concerts of musical-movie hits at the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre in YMS’s first ever outdoor show.
The three-night run that began last night sold out within a week. Quick work all round, not least by Adam Moore’s Tech 247, who set up the stage in only two hours yesterday afternoon.
Richard Upton stands out front in Sunday’s concert
“A huge thank you to our audience tonight!” tweeted producer Briggs afterwards. “We loved performing for you!!”
They did indeed. Emily Ramsden, Ashley Standland, May Tether, Joanna Theaker, Richard Upton and late addition Conor Mellor, professional performers all, with York Stage credits to their name, could not have looked more glad to be back on a stage when theatres remain in the dark but thankfully outdoor shows are on the rise.
Tonight and tomorrow, the singing six will take to the blow-up polytunnel stage again, attired in black, cocktail party dresses on one side, suits on the other, Upton and Standland in white shirts, Mellor more informal in a black T-shirt.
Joanne Theaker in the solo spotlight
Picnicking audience members sit in Covid-secure designated bubbles, arranged in a crescent on the grass hillside opposite the bandstand stage that could, indeed should, be used more often each York summer.
As evening turns to night over the unbroken 100-minute span of the concert, the light show within the tubing matches the songs’ subjects and moods, while also picking out keyboardist Douglas’s fellow musicians: drummer Andy Hayes, guitarist Neil Morgan, bassist Rosie Morris and keyboard player Sam Johnson.
Songs from Hairspray, Grease, Cats, Cabaret, West Side Story and The Greatest Showman are to the fore, and a selection on the theme of Green is particularly inspired. Likewise, the teasing introduction seeking a diva to sing Hopelessly Devoted You that settles on…Conor Mellor, who should have been away at sea this month, after returning to York from his Caribbean cruise-ship shows in April, but is still grounded by the pandemic.
As darkness descends, Emily Ramsden, left, Ashley Standland, May Tether, Richard Upton, Joanne Theaker and Conor Mellor bring Sunday’s concert to a close
Highlights are many, from Ramsden’s All That Jazz and Saving All My Love For You to Tether’s Memory and Theaker’s Cabaret; Upton’s Luck Be A Lady to Tether and Standland’s Summer Nights. Mellor hits the heights in Kinky Boots’ Soul Of A Man, while Upton and Theaker’s Elephant Love Medley, from Moulin Rouge, is the fast-moving arrangement of the night.
How else could the show end but with Dirty Dancing’s uplifting I’ve Had The Time Of My Life, although social distancing ruled out any attempt at the film’s infamous climactic lift.
If Covid-19’s social-distancing requirements have reinforced the suitability of the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre for open-air shows, then at least something good has come out of these killjoy times for the York musical theatre and live music scene.
Conor Mellor, back home in Bishopthorpe from the Caribbean, wins the Best Socks In Show award while singing Soul Of A Man
Delighted by the response of singers, musicians and audiences alike to these Rowntree Park shows, Briggs says: “It’s just been overwhelming. I knew us ‘Theatre Crew’ who work in it were desperate to get back, but we didn’t appreciate how much it meant to our audiences!! Here’s to Bravery going forward. Give us a space and York Stage will get a show on.”
Alas, that show will not be September’s Covid-scuppered production of Kinky Boots, but in mentioning “Bravery”, Briggs is echoing the sentiments of one of last night’s outstanding numbers, This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. “I am brave, I am bruised…And I’m marching on to the drum I beat, I’m not scared to be seen, I make no apologies, this is me,” the lyrics assert.
Such positivity, in the face of understandable Covid fear, is the way forward, step by step, drum beat by drum beat, for deeply bruised live entertainment. Not recklessness, no-one would suggest such a course so irresponsibly, but a combination of ambition and practicality, as shown by Briggs and Douglas.
York Stage Musicals producer/director Nik Briggs and musical director Jess Douglas
NOT THROWING IN THE TOWEL: “Creativity will not be silenced” says cellist Jamie Walton, artistic director of the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, here performing in the open-air marquee at Welburn Abbey. Picture: Matthew Johnson/Turnstone Media
NORTH York Moors Chamber Music Festival artistic director Jamie Walton is warning against giving in to the “climate of fear that is shutting down the arts”.
“I am humbled by the sheer success of this year’s festival, a gamble which took tremendous courage and sheer willpower,” he says, ahead of today’s closing concert.
“I hope this sends powerful ripples out to motivate others to do the same. It seems tragic that we were the only live classical music festival in the whole of the UK.”
Walton and his festival musicians from Britain and overseas had “dared to dream despite the odds” by mounting the August 9 to 22 event with an apt theme of Revolution.
“We have fought back against this Government and the disgraceful, destructive way it’s shutting down industries and, more ominously, the nation’s confidence,” he says.
The Welburn Abbey marquee lit up in blue for a 2020 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival concert. Picture: Matthew Johnson
“We seem to be living in a climate of fear, a paralysed state, which, after talking to my colleagues at the festival, I believe isn’t anywhere to be seen elsewhere in Europe and Scandinavia right now.”
In a call to the arts world to go on the front foot, Jamie says: “It’s time to fight back against this scandal in order to save our creative industries and send a message of hope, particularly for the younger generation who are, after all, our future.
“We don’t have to put up with the reality being imposed upon us and the message sent through our festival this year was a healthy start. Creativity will not be silenced!”
The 2020 festival ends today after going ahead against the tide of Cassandra doom elsewhere when rearranged by the resolute Walton, who found a new Covid-secure location in less than a week.
For the past decade, concerts have been held in churches across the North York Moors National Park, but like so many other arts events, this year’s festival was in jeopardy, discourtesy of the Coronavirus crisis.
Socially distanced audience members watching a concert at this month’s North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Matthew Johnson
And when the Government made a last-minute U-turn, postponing the re-opening of indoor performances first announced for August 1, Walton had to act swiftly.
The international cellist, who lives within the National Park, settled on presenting a series of concerts in a 5,000 square-foot, wooden-floored, acoustic-panelled marquee in the grounds of Welburn Abbey, Welburn Manor Farms, near Kirkbymoorside.
More than 50 per cent of the marquee sides can be opened, in effect making the concerts an open-air event, further boosted by the good fortune of the festival being blessed with an August heatwave.
Originally, before the curse of Covid, Revolution! in Ryedale would have comprised more than 30 musicians, around 40 chamber works, in ten churches. Instead, it has added up to 34 works being performed by 23 musicians at ten concerts in one outdoor location, under the concert titles of A Hymn; Time Of Turbulence; Janus; Incandescence; Mystique; Transcendental; Voices; Vivacity; Towards The Edge and Triumph!.
Those musicians have travelled from across Europe to perform over an “intense fortnight of concerts to emotional and appreciative audiences”, who came in their droves, pre-booking every single one of the limited number of tickets available in a socially distanced seating plan.
Bring us your bows: The Cremona Quartet travelled from Italy to Ryedale to perform at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Matthew Johnson
Jamie says: “Some of the world’s finest musicians, including Italy’s renowned Cremona Quartet, have all been playing their hearts out. Each and every one of these artists has been on incredible form and I think it’s safe to say that the atmosphere this year is the best it’s ever been, which is saying something!”
Walton points out the festival has been “the only and first work any of my colleagues have had since lockdown began”.
Among those artists in residence have been: Katya Apekisheva, Christian Chamorel and Richard Ormrod, piano; Claude Frochaux, Rebecca Gilliver and Jamie Walton, cello; Nikita Naumov, double bass, and Meghan Cassidy, Tetsumi Negata and Simon Tandree, viola.
Rallying to the Revolution! cause too have been: Rachel Kolly, Victoria Sayles, Charlotte Scott and Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, violin; Ursula Leveaux, bassoon; Matthew Hunt, clarinet; Naomi Atherton, French horn; Claire Wicks, flute; Adrian Wilson, oboe; Anna Huntley, mezzo-soprano, and The Cremona Quartet (Cristiano Gualco, violin, Paolo Andreoli, violin, Simone Gramaglia, viola, and Giovanni Scaglione, cello).
A beacon of light for the arts: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival goes ahead under a marquee moon. Picture: Matthew Johnson
For the Revolution! theme in the festival’s 12th year of celebrating chamber works, the focus has fallen on and around the music of Beethoven – the “revolutionary” – and beyond to mark the 250th anniversary of the German composer’s birth in Bonn.
“Living through the French Revolution undoubtedly had a profound effect on this great composer and much of the repertoire we have chosen is to convey this triumphant spirit against all odds, which appears timely in light of recent events,” says Walton.
“It seems ironic that for such a Titan, the world has been forced into relative (artistic) silence while it tries to control the pandemic, almost as if we are in tune with Beethoven’s very own debilitating deafness.”
The programme has featured chamber music by Beethoven, Schubert, Dohnányi, Pärt, Lutosławski, Ravel, Satie, Fauré, Elgar, Bach, Mozart, Spohr, Weber, Ravel, Schoenberg, Berg, Messiaen and more.
Red sky at night, cellist’s delight: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival founder and artistic director Jamie Walton surveys the moorland landscape. Picture: Paul Ingram
“We have documented this year’s festival on film, to be embedded within our website next month and released through social media,” says Jamie. “We will then continue to film the building of a new recording studio, Ayriel Studios, which is being constructed up in Westerdale, opening next year as we head into our 13th festival.”
“In essence, it will be a ‘year in the life’ of a creative vision which fought its way through during the pandemic and its aftermath. I’m a great believer in true art thriving through adversity and we want to demonstrate what that means. Instead of our voices being supressed, they just got louder.”
Today’s festival-closing 3pm concert has the appropriate title of Triumph!. Next year’s 13th North York Moors Chamber Music Festival will run from August 8 to 21 and the programme will be released in mid-November.
Lucky 13? Judging by the determined spirit of Jamie Walton, success does not come down to luck, especially when a pandemic throws a curve ball. “For more information about this ground-breaking festival, visit northyorkmoorsfestival.com and join the mailing list,” he urges.
Trouble at the Mill: Musician Phil Grainger and writer/storyteller Alexander Flanagan-Wright presenting Orpheus and Eurydice at Stillington Mill. Picture: Charlotte Graham
REVIEW: The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre, in At The Mill, Stillington Mill, and beyond
ALEXANDER Flanagan-Wright and Phil Grainger should have been in Edinburgh right now. Instead they will be popping up at the Pop-Up On The Patio festival at York Theatre Royal tomorrow.
On The Fringe up further north, they were all set to perform the North Yorkshire double act’s British premiere of The Gods The Gods The Gods, episode three of their spoken-word and soulful-song 21st century twist on ancient Greek tragedies in the year 2020BC…Before Covid.
The duo had been touring The Gods x 3 and its “brother and sister” predecessors, Orpheus and Eurydice, in Australia, with New Zealand next, when Covid-19 dropped in its unwelcome calling card, sending Alex back to Stillington Mill, his family’s converted 17th century corn mill, and Phil to Easingwold.
Eighteen months of UK and international tour plans have gone into the pending file, but Alex and Phil are not of the “so far, so furlough” lockdown mentality. Alex took to ‘writing’ while walking the dog, recording his rhythmic thoughts; Phil penned new songs on his unruly guitar, as well as shaping up on shifts in his father’s picture-framing business.
“You have to try to find round pegs to fit round holes,” said Alex, as he and Phil and their respective companies, The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre, set about launching their five-pronged art attack, I’ll Try And See You Sometimes, seeking new horizons in the year 2020BC. Beyond Covid and its killjoy claw in this new age of “Use your hand sanitiser but try not to lose your sanity”.
Definitely not Yorkshire! Alexander Flanagan-Wright and Phil Grainger on their global travels
Among this summer’s outward-thinking projects has been the Hyper Local Tour of Orpheus, taking the two-hander to people’s socially distanced back gardens at their invitation.
A small step, for small audience numbers, maybe, but nevertheless adding back gardens to Orpheus’s list of 325 shows in Oz, NZ, New York, Bali, let alone a boat on the River Ouse and a shoes-off night in the magnificence of Castle Howard.
Alex and Phil then decided to go even more Hyper Local for “six days of work” in Alex’s own back garden at Stillington Mill, 11 miles north of York.
This is no ordinary back garden with its mill pond, fairy-lit woodland, shepherd’s hut for holidays lets and open-air marquee for weddings and performances on what appears to have been a disused tennis court. Game on, nevertheless, for the artship enterprise.
Entering this magical arts hub is like leaving behind the Athenian court for Titania and Oberon’s woods in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Alex perhaps in the sprightly sprite role of Puck and big Phil as a keen-to-do-everything Nick Bottom but never quite making an ass of himself!
At The Mill ran for six shows in six nights with Covid-secure, social distancing measures in place, picnics optional, as the globe-trotting, back-home gents played to a maximum audience of 30 per 7pm gig from August 2 to 7. Total attendance: 175 out of a possible 180, making the low-key run a palpable hit, like the shows, whether old, nearly new or hot off the book and songbook presses.
Oh…you are Orpheus. The poster for The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre two-hander
“We’re doing some Orpheus, some Eurydice, and one night of New Stuff We Haven’t Done Before,” the duo had announced online, with the aid of an Instagram poll to decide whether Orpheus or Eurydice would win out on the Tuesday.
Eurydice had her day and her say that evening beneath the trees as Alex and Phil took on roles that had been shaped by Serena Manteghi and Casey Jay Andrews on overseas duty. Alex had a book in his hand, not because he couldn’t be bothered with learning the lines, but because he loves the feel of the book in which he wrote those lines.
It as if by touching the book, he connects directly to his heart, because his heart bleeds in these words. Without dwelling too much here on his own circumstances, it hurts…and this time it’s personal, cathartic, but beyond the dates he mentions, it is universal too.
Add Phil’s songwriting, guitar and electronica to Alex’s lyrics, and Eurydice’s torrid yet beautifully nuanced tale of love and loss, a bee tattoo and a bee sting, hits you with the force of a Bill Withers or Otis Redding song.
If Eurydice pulls off the trick of being both formal in structure yet informal, then Wednesday night’s New Stuff We Haven’t Done Before in the marquee was very much the latter.
Alex once more in jaunty trilby, jeans and T-shirt, Phil in baggy clown’s pantaloons, they introduced crossfire works from The Gods The Gods The Gods before Alex premiered his new piece penned in lockdown, This Story Is For You.
One guitar + one book + two hats + six shows = Phil Grainger and Alexander Wright’s At The Mill festival of two-handers at Stillington Mill. Picture: Charlotte Graham
Already available in assorted print forms decorated by guest illustrators for I’ll Try And See You Sometimes, now it tripped off the lucid tongue, as poetic, as timely, as insistent and surprising as a Kae Tempest (formerly Kate Tempest) album, as Alex recounted a female love story gone so right, then so wrong. Throughout, Phil accompanied on gentle waves of guitar, the tide coming in on the key of E.
The second half was given over to Phil, a storyteller without a script or book, as much as a soul-mining singer and songwriter, encouraged by Alex to grow more confident in his own candid, humorous, touching lyric-writing to match his ever-affecting way with a tune.
He even covered a teenage lament by a former Easingwold school colleague called Josh, who has long deserted his list-making song. Wrong, Josh, it’s a curio beauty, worthy of The Undertones’ first album.
Phil calls himself Clive, his middle name, his father’s name too, when performing solo (with occasional vocals and drum patterns from Alex), but this is Phil talking, this is the Phil sound, and it really is time he made an album.
And so, Orpheus and Eurydice, Alex and Phil, move on to the Theatre Royal patio for tomorrow’s double bill: another day, another garden.
What comes next for the ever-busy double act? Wood has arrived at Stillington Mill for Alex and Phil to start work on converting the marquee into an outdoor theatre. If they build it, we will come.
In the swing of it: Phil Grainger and Alexander Flanagan-Wright at the outset of their six-pack of At The Mill shows at Stillington Mill. Now they switch to the more compact Pop-Up On The Patio garden at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlotte Graham
Orpheus, The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre in Orpheus, Pop-Up On The Patio, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow, August 21, 6pm
WRITTEN by Alexander Flanagan-Wright, with incidental music and songs by Phil Grainger, Orpheus is a thoroughly modern, beautifully poetic re-telling of an ancient Greek myth.
Dave is single, stood at the bar; Eurydice is a tree nymph…and Bruce Springsteen is on the juke box in this tale of impossible, death-defying love told through hair-raising spoken word and soaring soul music, where Alex and Phil weave a world of dive bars, side streets and ancient gods.
Eurydice, The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre, Pop-Up On The Patio, August 21, 8pm
LENI is five years old, holding a Superman costume for her first day at school. Eurydice is five years into the rest of her life, sporting a bee tattoo on her wrist, in Alexander Flanagan-Wright’s story of someone defined by someone else’s myth.
This tale of making changes, taking leaps and being a daily superhero is billed as “a story about a woman told by women”. That was the case when performed by Alex and Phil Grainger’s co-creators, Serena Manteghi and Casey Jane Andrews, to 2019 Adelaide Fringe Best Theatre award-winning success.
Now, Alex and Phil take over to weave a world of day-to-day power and beauty and goddesses, relayed through heart-stopping spoken word and live electronica. Watch out for the sting in the tale.
Tickets are on sale at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk and MUSTbebought in advance.
Shaping the future: the Futureproof logo for York Theatre Royal’s young team on a mission
YORK Theatre Royal is giving the green light to young people from Yorkshire to lead the way to a bright future for the arts despite the heavy Covid cloud.
Welcome to Futureproof, a dozen-strong team determined to have a voice in the changing landscape of arts and culture. Through a combination of activities, events and consultations, their mission is to “ask the big questions and debate, make and inspire others to explore how the arts and young people can have a future together”.
Circle Saturday, August 22, on the calendar: launch day for the first big Futureproof online event to kick-start a long-term dialogue between young people and the cultural sector. This weekend, the Futureproof team is inviting 14 to 26 year olds to join in a day of free participatory workshops, consultations, careers sessions, debates and shared online performances from 9.45am to 9pm.
Edenamiuki Aiguobasinmwin and Abigail Sewell: dance company director and theatre and film director leading the Futureproof Symposium
Futureproof is split into four different themes: Futurepractice; Futurepaths; Futureproof Symposium and Futurevoices.
Futurepractice is a series of online skills-building workshops delivered by specialists, covering choreography, beatboxing, playwriting, acting and film making.
Futurepaths looks at careers in design, directing, performing and writing for stage from the perspective of those who work in those fields.
Futureproof Symposium is a conversation between film and theatre director Abigail Sewell, Namiuki Dance Theatre director Edenamiuki Aiguobasinmwin, the Futureproof programming team and panellists with key roles in the arts sector.
Futurevoices rounds off this weekend’s programme of free events with an online Open Mic session, enabling participants and audience members to contribute and complete the launch. For full details, go to yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/be-part-of-it/collectiveacts/futureproof/.
PIlot Theatre’s cast members Nigar Yeva, left, Zak Douglas, Aimee Powell, Kate Donnachie and Khai Shaw in Crongton Knights. Picture: Robert Day
Along with Sewell and Aiguobasinmwin, among those leading the day’s activities will be playwrights Richard Hurford and Mike Kenny; Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson; York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster and Freedom Studios’ filmmaker Dermot Daly.
So too are set designer Hannah Sibai; Royal Shakespeare Company actor Laura Elsworthy; company members from Pilot Theatre’s Covid-curtailed Crongton Knights production and choreography session leaders Luella Rebbeck and Lizzy Whynes, youth theatre officer at Harrogate Theatre.
Juliet Forster asks: “Is anything future-proof? We’ve never been in a time like this, and the question in many of our heads is this: how on earth are the performing arts going to survive this pandemic, and will the theatre industry we know now even be recognisable in a few years’ time?
“The voices, thoughts and ideas of the young generation have never felt more timely or more urgently needed,” says York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster
“The arts have survived many disasters and setbacks over the centuries, and not without pain, but only through a process of renewal and reconnection, discovering the arts’ relevance in a changing society.
“The future has never felt more unknown or more fragile, but with the uncertainty comes this incredible opportunity for change. The voices, thoughts and ideas of the young generation have therefore never felt more timely or more urgently needed, as they could shape, re-invent and dream an exciting new cultural landscape – one that reflects their experiences, speaks to them, inspires them and is inspired by them.”
