LIAM Byrne and Jonas Nordberg’s 2019 concert at the National Centre for Early Music, York, will be streamed online on Saturday at 1pm.
This follows the NCEM’s live stream of two Early Music Day 2020
concerts, performed behind closed doors at St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, by harpsichordist Steven
Devine, playing Bach Preludes and Fugues, and later by The Brabant Ensemble in
an evening programme ofA Monk’s Life:
Music From The Cloisters, 1550-1620.
Those concerts drew more than 63,000 views from across the world. “Messages arrived from Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, from people in lockdown in Italy and others waking up to wonderful music in the United States,” says NCEM director Dr Delma Tomlin.
This Saturday’s streaming will feature the 2019 Early Music Day concert by virtuoso Irish viol player Liam Byrne and Swedish lutenist Jonas Nordberg. “The delicious sonic combination of viol and lute from 17th century France made for an incredible evening last year and was also broadcast by BBC Radio 3,” says Delma.
“Now, music lovers can join us again for this fabulous feast by simply logging on to our Facebook page @yorkearlymusic.”
Described by the New York Times as “defying expectations
with an obscure instrument and a hipster look”, Byrne is no stranger to the NCEM,
where last year he collaborated with the Walmgate venue on the NCEM Young
Composers Award 2019, working with the finalists and later performing their
work at a concert in Bristol.
Byrne, professor of viola da gamba at the Guildhall
School in London, is regarded by many as the leading viol player
of his generation; lutenist and guitarist Nordberg has performed all over the world,
with many recordings to his name.
“Last year’s concert at the NCEM was one of the highlights of
York’s cultural calendar, with electrifying performances by both musicians,”
says Delma.
“Now, in these strange times, we are discovering more and more how the power of music is bringing us together and lifting our spirits. We hope you can join us for this wonderful concert by these two extraordinary musicians. Our doors may be temporarily closed but we will continue to bring a selection of fabulous music over the coming weeks.”
YORK
country singer-songwriter Twinnie will go ahead with the April 17 launch of her
debut album, Hollywood Gypsy, even amid the Coronavirus lockdown.
After all,
it took the West End musical leading light, model, Hollyoaks soap star and film
actress ten years to land a record contract with big hitters BMG.
“I feel
very excited and it’s come around really quickly since I released my first EP
[Better When I’m Drunk] last March,” says Twinnie, 32, who first took to the York
stage as Twinnie-Lee Moore at the age of four.
“Given the
current situation with the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s a weird time, but I’m a
new artist, I’ve waited so long to make an album, and right now, more than
ever, I feel I need music, we need music.
“It would
be easy to panic, but I’ve found I’ve connected more than ever with my fans on
Instagram Live.”
Twinnie was
to have played a sold-out home-city gig at The Crescent on March 22 to showcase
Hollywood Gypsy, but the Coronavirus pandemic put paid to her debut headline tour,
now re-arranged for the autumn. Glasgow, London, Manchester, Birmingham and
Bristol await, before a Crescent crescendo on November 29, with tickets
remaining valid.
Twinnie did
perform, however, at the prestigious Country2Country (C2C) Festival in Berlin
on March 7 and 8, and coming next was a C2C show at the O2 Arena, London, on March
14. “That would have been a really big deal for me, being able to promote my
album and tour, so it’s a real downer, but I’m just really grateful that
there’s still light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s good that we’ve managed
to re-schedule the tour,” she says.
As chance
would have it, the C2C cancellation led to a prompt invitation to fill the void
in Twinnie’s diary with a live set on BBC Radio 2’s The Country Show with Bob
Harris on March 12. “Bob has been a really big supporter of mine,” she says.
“He was the first DJ to support me on the radio, even before I had a recording
contract. I just sent him a track and he played it!”
Twinnie
first trod the boards in York when attending the late Miss Isobel Dunn’s dance
school, started playing a keyboard at seven and then performed in the Grand
Opera House pantomime dance ensemble. She progressed from roles as Bet in
Oliver! in 2001 and Lilly in Annie in 2002 in the Grand Opera House Summer Youth
Project to playing Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz in 2003.
“I was 16 and I thought
I might have been too tall for Dorothy but the director, Simon Barry, said I
was the right choice,” she recalls.
A
month later, the former Joseph Rowntree School pupil was leaving behind her Haxby
Road home for three years of dance and musical theatre studies at Phil
Winston’s Theatre Works in Blackpool.
West End roles ensued in We Will Rock You and the short-lived Desperately Seeking Susan, and in April 2009, now 21, she returned home to the Grand Opera House as 1920s’ Chicago double murderess and aloof nightclub singer Velma Kelly in the national tour of Chicago.
Her face greeted the London Underground
throng on Chicago’s trademark black-and-white posters too and she had a year as
the Latino character Jazmin in Flashdance in the original London cast at the
Shaftsbury Theatre from autumn 2010.
Twinnie sang Miley Cyrus’s The Climb when competing on BBC One talent show The Voice in March 2012, failing to hit the heights alas with an early exit. After film roles in Iron Clad 2 and Strangelove in 2014, she made her soap debut as racy Porsche McQueen in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks in November that year, playing her for a year.
A further screen role followed in The
Wife, the Oscar-nominated Glenn Close film, but all the while, Twinnie was
drawn to making music. “To be honest, music was probably the first thing I
started out wanting to do, which people don’t know about. But people pay their
dues to pay their mortgage,” she says.
“Even when I was doing We Will Rock You
at 19 with Brian May, performing eight shows a week, I was playing country
songs in dive bars too at the weekend.”
Now dividing her time between London and
Nashville, Twinnie is living out that wish to put her song-writing to the fore.
“I’ve been on stage since I was four years old, and my dad introduced me to the
music of some of the best songwriters. Like my first gig was Gilbert
O’Sullivan,” she says.
“And I always loved musicals too. I grew
up watching Hollywood movie musicals, especially Judy Garland, which is one of
the reasons I’ve called the album Hollywood Gypsy.”
Determination to succeed marked out
Twinnie from a young age. “Even at eight, I wrote down the addresses of the
Sony Music and Universal record company labels. Then one of my poems got
published at school. I always wanted to tell stories,” she says.
“I got told you have to do everything for
what you do to work. You can’t just stand there and sing. I always want people
to feel entertained when I do a show.
“I don’t think there are many ‘triple
threat’ performers like me, so I want to tell the story, not just in the song,
but in the performance too.”
Country music might not have been an
obvious outlet for a York singer and songwriter, but Twinnie says: “For me,
country music was always big. Johnny Cash; Dolly Parton, one of the great
songwriters; Shania Twain and now Taylor Swift,” she says.”
Twinnie has been travelling to
Nashville, Tennessee, for the past six or seven years, leading to her co-writing in the capital of country with Grammy
Award-winning writers Nathan Chapman, Liz Rose and Dave Barns.
“I also wrote with Ben
Earle, before he formed The Shires with Crissie Rhodes, and two of my songs
with him, Black And White and First Flight Out, ended up on their first album,
Brave,” she says.
Now, after winning Best
Breakthrough Act at the 2019 British Country Music Association awards and a
support slot on Kiefer Sutherland’s tour, everything comes to fruition for
Twinnie on Hollywood Gypsy.
This is a thoroughly modern country album, made with the likes of Little Mix, One Direction and Britney Spears producer Peter Hammerton, and recorded in Nashville, London and Sweden,with such song titles as Better When I’m Drunk, Type Of Girl, Whiplash, Lie To Me and I Love You Now Change.
“Every genre changes
and country music is now so diverse, but everyone appreciates a good melody,
strong lyrics, and that’s why people really respect country music,” says
Twinnie, who loves the candour of country songs.
“Coming from the North, I’m always
looking to make a real connection. That’s why I write so honestly, talking
about all my faults,” she says.
“I have no shame in highlighting my
flaws and being vulnerable: there’s a strength in vulnerability when we can all
connect with it. Each song shows a different side of my personality: I either
want to break someone’s heart or make them dance.”
Returning to the album title, Twinnie says: “It
pretty much sums me up. As well as my love of Hollywood musicals, I’m a
traveller by nature and by heritage, so I’m quite free. Hollywood Gypsy is about me, my
life, my artistry.
“I’m representing my dad’s heritage, my mum’s heritage, and I’m very proud of that heritage. It’s who I am and why I’m free spirited.
“All of it, whether I’m acting, dancing, modelling
or singing, I’m just not afraid to push my boundaries because, when you feel
you’re getting out of your depth, that’s when the magic happens.”
Recording in Nashville, London and Sweden adds to
Twinnie being a Hollywood Gypsy, she suggests. “I feel I’m a bit of a musical
gypsy, taking from different genres, growing up listening to Tupac, Gilbert O’Sullivan,
Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Joel, Shania Twain,” she says. “Obviously Queen too: I’m
always so grateful to Brian May for when I did We Will Rock You.”
In the Coronavirus
lockdown, Twinnie has set herself a three-week challenge that began a week ago to
listen to an album a day and then pick her favourite song from each one to
learn how to play it. “I never have time to do things like this, so I’m using
this time to grow and get inspired,” she says. “I’m also trying to learn
Spanish.”
Along with many
musicians, she is “trying to find new ways to do things at the moment”. Such
as? “I’ve written a song on FaceTime with Dave Stewart, from the Eurythmics,”
Twinnie reveals. “I’d never met him before, but he’s from Sunderland, I’m from
York, so we had that banter of being northerners together!”
Still in
the diary for July 11 is Twinnie’s appearance at Pocklington Arts Centre’s
Platform Festival at the Old Station, Pocklington (an event subject to further Coronavirus
updates), but what’s coming next for Twinnie? “I was meant to be going to
America to make an EP in Nashville, and that recording will still happen, but I
may now have to find a way of doing it remotely,” she says.
Looking further ahead, she says: “Hollywood Gypsy is the first chapter. Next year will be the next half of the story. So it’ll be like a double album.”
Did you know?
IN Twinnie’s
new video for I Love You Now Change, she is seen signing divorce papers.
“I put my ex’s name on the papers when we shot
the video for a laugh, but some people actually thought it was real,” she says.
“Just to clarify, I have never been married and Boris killed off the
socialising and dating scene, so looks like I won’t be in a white dress anytime
soon.”
The husband
in the video is played by Gustav Wood. Watch it at twinnieofficial.com.
How did The Press
reviewer judge 16-year-old Twinnie-Lee Moore’s lead performance as Dorothy in
the Grand Opera House Summer Youth Project’s The Wizard Of Oz in York in August
2003?
“Twinnie-Lee displays supremely confident skills in stage movement; her Kansas accent is spot-on too, and once her voice fully warms up after Over The Rainbow, she sings with expression, albeit in the modern pop style that might better suit The Wiz.”
YORK drag
queen supreme Velma Cella is to appear in thousands of living rooms across the
country – and around the world – in an uplifting live concert, streamed
tomorrow evening.
Velma’s
Drag Party will be on screen at 6.30pm as
part of the Leave A Light On concert series promoted by Lambert Jackson and The
Theatre Café, St Martin’s Lane, London, to provide financial support for the
performers involved and entertainment for people in self-isolation.
“This
is a tough time for many people, particularly those who regularly attend live
concerts, shows and gigs who are missing the unedited nature of live
performance,” says Ian Stroughair, the West End actor and singer behind Velma
Celli’s spectacular make-up and even more spectacular singing.
“So, it’s
fantastic that Lambert Jackson and The Theatre Café have produced such a superb
series of concerts that can be watched live at home from some of the finest
West End performers. I’m incredibly proud to be taking part.”
Velma Celli’s monthly show at The Basement, City Screen, York, is in abeyance during the Coronavirus lock-down, but devotees and first-timers alike tuning in tomorrow evening can expect “some belted classics and plenty of laughs along the way as we leave reality behind for an hour of camp fun”.
Leave The Light On pays homage to the theatre tradition of leaving a single light burning on the stage of an empty theatre, supposedly to appease the ghosts who reside there.
Tickets
for the live stream cost £7.50 and can be bought up to an hour before the
broadcast. Viewers will be sent a link via email that enables them to
watch the performance live. To buy, go to thetheatrecafe.co.uk/event/leave-a-light-on-velma-celli-live
COUNTRY duo The Shires are moving their 25-date 2020 tour to the autumn,
in response to the Coronavirus pandemic shutdown.
Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes have switched their York Barbican show from May 20 to November 1, when they will be joined by Texan country singer and songwriter Eric Paslay.
Tickets remain valid for the revised date – The Shires’ only Yorkshire
gig on the itinerary – but those seeking a refund should contact their point of
purchase.
The first Brits to win Best International Act in the American Country
Music Association awards, Earle and Rhodes released their fourth album, Good
Years, in this anything but good year on March 13, reaching number three in the
charts.
As with their past albums, 2015’s Brave, 2016’s My Universe and 2018’s
Accidentally On Purpose, the recording sessions took place in Nashville,
Tennessee.
“We are so excited to be releasing Good Years,” say Earle and Rhodes. “Honesty and storytelling have always been such an important part of our song-writing. We’ve poured some of the incredible experiences and life we’ve lived into these songs.
“We can’t wait to play these live across the country. The songs mean so much to us personally, but there really is nothing like looking out at our fans in the crowd and seeing how much of an impact they can have in someone else’s life. It’s truly a very special thing”.
The Shires last played York Barbican in May 2018 and performed a headline set at Pocklington’s Platform Festival at The Old Station last summer.
Only a smattering of seats remains on sale for their Barbican return on 0203 356 5441 or at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
THIS is the time to explore Explore York online, providing the Libraries
from Home service during the Coronavirus lockdown.
“If you are confused or overwhelmed by the huge amount of information on offer, Explore can help,” says executive assistant Gillian Holmes, encouraging visits to the website, exploreyork.org.uk, “where it is simple to find what you need”.
This encouragement comes after all Explore York library buildings, reading cafes and the City Archives were closed to the public from 12 noonon March 21, in response to Government strictures.
“We are making it easy for people to find information and advice, as
well as inspiration, as we all deal with the Coronavirus crisis.”
The Explore website has assorted useful links to help people cope during
the coming weeks. “Some sites have always been part of our online offer and
some are brand new,” says Gillian.
“We are also working with City of York Council and our many partners in
York, so that our communities can join together and we continue to support
their initiatives, just as we will when our buildings open again.
“Organisations across
the country are developing their online services in this challenging time. We
are using our expertise to gather together the best offers and add them to the
lists of sites we recommend.”
Explore
York will be developing online activities of its own, such as a Virtual Book Group. “We
will be updating the website regularly as these new things come on stream and
sharing on social media using #LibrariesFromHome,” says Gillian.
The chance to visit the new York Images site to explore the history of
the city through photographs, illustrations, maps and archival documents at exploreyork.org.uk/digital/york-images/
The King Is Back, Ben Portsmouth’s tribute show, will be back at York
Barbican on April 9 next year.
Berkshire singer Portsmouth was last in the building with his Elvis Presley act on December 20 2019. Tickets for his return are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk or on 0203 356 5441.
Portsmouth and his band Taking Care Of Elvis have been taking care of
Elvis tribute business for a dozen years in a show built around “a little less
conversation, a lot more action, please”.
“The show I do is pretty much all of Elvis’s eras,” he says. “So, from
the Sun Studio to his movie years. Then I’ll do the 1968 comeback with the
leather outfit.
“The first half is more like a story of Elvis’s
life and what he was doing in his career at the time. The second half is
just like an Elvis Seventies’ concert.”
In pursuit of authenticity to the maximum, all of Portsmouth’s
Elvis outfits are flown over from the United States, with the peacock jumpsuit
being his favourite.
In August 2012, Portsmouth made Elvis history when he became
the first act from outside the United States to win the annual Elvis Presley
Enterprises “Worldwide Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist”, held in Memphis,
Tennessee.
Portsmouth loves the Elvis voice, the look, the stage charisma, his
humour, but more than that. “He was just a people person,” he says. “He was just a simple country boy who liked his cars, his food and all
the rest of it.”
BAGPIPE band Red Hot Chilli Pipers are postponing
their April and May tour under the Coronavirus shutdown, but don’t be too deflated.
The Celtic rock band’s dates are being rearranged for next spring.
The 2020 tour would have opened at the Royal Hall,
Harrogate, on April 24, a show now re-scheduled for April 10 2021.
Tickets remain valid for the new date, but anyone
unable to attend the revised gig – although who can predict anything in their
diary for a year’s time?! – should claim a refund from the original point of
purchase by Friday, April 10.
Formed in Scotland in 2002, Red Hot Chilli Pipers made a cameo appearance at the T In The Park festival with The Darkness in 2004 and won the BBC talent show When Will I Be Famous? in 2007.
Bringing together musicians, dancers and singers from Scotland and further afield, many holding world championship
titles, they specialise in “Bagrock”, a groundbreaking fusion of traditional
Scottish music and rock/pop anthems.
In 2014, the Pipers released
the Live At The Lake DVD and CD, recorded at the Milwaukee Irish Fest, their
American spiritual home by the shores of Lake Michigan, when they brought 16
musicians and dancers across the Atlantic.
The set that
night took in Insomnia, Gimme All Your Lovin’, Thunderstruck, Everybody Dance
Now, Amazing Grace, Fix You, Chasing Cars, Wake Me Up, Don’t Stop Believin’ and We Will Rock You.
In
February 2019, the Pipers and Tom Walker released a new version of his 2018
hit Leave A Light On in aid of Nordoff Robbins, the music therapy charity. Earlier
Walker and the band performed at Murrayfield before the Scotland versus Italy Six
Nations rugby match.
In a new
departure for the Pipers, last June’s studio album of new songs and covers,
Fresh Air, featured lead vocals on many tracks, such as Walker on Leave The
Light On and Chris Judge on the American band Walk The Moon’s Shut Up And Dance
and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
Next on the horizon in Yorkshire for Red Hot Chilli Pipers is a July 11 appearance at Pocklington Arts Centre’s Platform Festival at the Old Station, Pocklington. Watch this space for news of whether the festival will go ahead or not as the Coronavirus pandemic’s progress unfurls.
AFTER her Singing For All choir had everyone singing I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing at A Night To Remember at York Barbican, now Jessa Liversidge wants to reach the world to sing online.
The York singer, entertainer and singing group tutor, leader and inspiration
is going virtual in response to these Coronavirus lockdown days.
“Going from running seven different singing groups a week, plus other sporadic ones, to having to cancel them all, I was faced with a big challenge,” says Jessa. “But I’ve been buzzing with ideas to keep people singing and to keep their spirits up in these strange times and I have a lot planned.”
Not only planned but coming to fruition already too. “I held my first
virtual choir session on March 18, mainly Easingwold folks but some extras,
including some singing leaders from all over, who came along to check out a
session from a singer’s perspective,” says Jessa.
“We did it again last night, building an online community choir with people
from Easingwold, Helmsley, York, and even other parts of the country – people who
knew me from elsewhere.”
How does it feel, performing together across the ether in our new social-distancing,
stay-at-home world? “It is, of course, very different to a real in-person
choir, but very uplifting and great fun,” says Jessa. “The good news is that
everything is on screen, so you don’t need to provide the lyrics!
“I’ve had some fantastic feedback from people too; the best quotes being
‘A wonderfully positive hour’ and ‘On a challenging day, when it felt hard to
be bright and cheerful, this was just a perfect end to the day. It was great to
let someone with a really joyful personality take you on a different type of
musical journey, a real sharing of community spirit’”
Jessa intends to run these sessions weekly on Wednesday evenings at 7pm. “People will need to contact me on 07740 596869 or email me at jessaliversidge@googlemail.com to find out how to join,” she advises.
She has started up York Military Wives Choir sessions too online, the
first one being held on March 19 for one of 70 such choirs across the country.
“I’m also setting up some free open-to-anyone sessions, starting with a live stream Singing For All session on YouTube that I held on Monday morning this week at 11am: the time the Easingwold Singing For All usually meets,” Jessa says.
“I’m so worried about some of the group as Singing For All has been a
lifeline to so many, and lots of them are now isolated in more than one way, so
this is important for them.”
Not only Easingwold Singing For All took part this Monday morning. “We had people joining in from their living rooms, again from across the country, and that singing session is now available on You Tube,” says Jessa. “Hundreds of people have watched it already, and we had people joining in as families and even with three generations. Hopefully these sessions will now happen every Monday morning.”
A further Singing For All virtual session will be running on Tuesday mornings at 11am, this one on Zoom, set in motion last Tuesday. To take part in these interactive sessions, you will need to ring or email Jessa.
She hatched one other project, abruptly halted by the Covid-19 lockdown’s
dictum on social distancing, banning gatherings of more than two people. “I was
going to try out some very spread-out, non-contact park sings,” says Jessa.
“Inspired by the Italians singing from their balconies, I thought this
was the nearest we could get to it, but that has had to fall by the wayside.
Instead I’m going to record myself singing outdoors, put that on social media
and then people can sing along to that.”
Anything else still to come, Jessa? “Yes, youth choirs.” Watch this space…and keep watching your space too, two metres apart; you know the drill by now.
EXIT 10 Things To See Next Week in York and beyond for the unforeseeable future. Enter home entertainment, wherever you may be, whether still together or in isolation, in the shadow of the Coronavirus pandemic. From behind his closed door, CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these further suggestions.
Compiling lists of best songs by favourite artists
THE Beatles, The Rolling Stones, solo Beatles, Van Morrison, Velvet Underground, solo Velvets, Bob Dylan, Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, The Smiths, The Fall, whoever. Make a Top Ten or even Top 20, then send to friends to ask for their suggestions for the list and why they disagree with you.
You could also set up arguments: Kylie’s Top Ten versus Madonna; The Specials versus Madness; Holland Dozier Holland versus Bacharach and David; Rod Stewart versus Elton John; Abba versus Queen; U2 versus Coldplay. Any others?
Desert Island Slipped Discs
IF past editions of the BBC Radio 4 Sunday morning staple have slipped your attention, it is never too late to discover the back catalogue at the Beeb online. You could pick a running theme, such as artists, musicians, poets, scientists, entrepreneurs, comedians, sportsmen, film stars, pioneers and church leaders.
Or, given the very necessary daily Covid-19 briefings from Number 10, how about politicians? Margaret Thatcher (1978); Edward Heath (1988); Enoch Powell (1989); Alan Clark (1995); Tony Blair (1996); Gordon Brown (1996); David Cameron (2006)…or, for a satirical variation, Spitting Image’s Peter Fluck and Roger Law (1987)?
Follow the advice of Stephen Fry
FOLLOWING up last Thursday’s 10 Things advice to make a timetable for the day, Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning interview on the Beeb with national treasure and former Cundall Manor prep school teacher Stephen Fry elicited one gem of a suggestion. Take time, take longer, to do things, whether cooking a dish from a recipe book, or even when brushing your teeth.
Fry, the president of MIND, also advocated taking up a new hobby, or re-discovering a craft, in his case, calligraphy. Further suggestions: learn a language; learn sign language; test yourself on road signs (when did you last do that?).
Meanwhile, Fry’s partner in comedy since Cambridge Footlights days, House doctor Hugh Laurie, says of Coronavirus: “We solve it together by staying apart.” Couldn’t have put it better.
Administer a spring clean
STUCK at home, as you really should be by now, key workers excepted, this is the chance to gut rooms; to go through files, drawers, cupboards; to work out what clothes to keep and which to donate to charity shops. Likewise, games; books; kitchen utensils. Update Christmas card lists and address books.
Make time for nostalgia
DIG out old scrapbooks (Leeds United, League Champions, 1973-1974; the Cardiff Candlewits revue show, The Rantings Of A Raw Prawn, at the 1982 Edinburgh Fringe; cookery crush Nigella Lawson’s recipes – more pictures than recipes, to be truthful – to give three Hutch examples). Ah, those were the days.
Likewise, take a look through old photo albums, sure to trigger memories and promote family discussions… and maybe even lead you to research your family ancestry in the manner of BBC One’s Who Do You Think You Are?.
Try to find good news
GREAT Yorkshire Show off. Ryedale Festival off. York Pride off. The Olympic Games off. The list of cancellations keeps growing. Against that backdrop, however, theatres, music venues and festivals are busy re-booking acts and shows for later in the year or next year.
Keep visiting websites for updates, whether York Barbican, York Theatre Royal, the Grand Opera House, wherever.
Look out too for the streaming of past shows. More and more theatres and arts companies are doing this.
Online exhibitions
GALLERIES in York are going online to keep the art (and hopefully sales) going. Step forward Pyramid Gallery, in Stonegate, where owner Terry Brett has launched Strange Days.
This service is not only a website portal for works from this season’s Full Sunlight show, featuring Askrigg artist Piers Browne and Holtby sculptor Hannah Arnup, but Terry also is inviting the 144 artists from next month’s cancelled York Open Studios to show their work on there too.
Anywhere else?
LOTTE Inch Gallery, at Fourteen Bootham, will host its first online-only exhibition, Yorkshire artist Tom Wood’s The Abstract Crow, from April 17 to May 16.
“Known for his imaginative and allusive abstract approach to painting, Tom will pay homage to his love for the natural world in his new paintings,” says Lotte.
Venturing outdoors
AMID the stricter Government strictures, aside from walking the dog and one burst of exercise a day, gardening looks the most fruitful way to spend time outdoors. The first mow of the season; buds coming through; plants to plant; garden furniture to varnish: ready, steady, grow.
And what about…
Podcasts. Books. More podcasts. More books. Season two of Liar on Monday nights on ITV. Noughts + Crosses on BBC One on Thursdays. Writing a 10 Things like this one. Reading the regular Tweets from Matt Haig, the Reasons To Stay Alive author with the York past. Drinking hot drinks, gargling regularly, and building up your zinc levels, as well as all that hand-washing.
FRIENDS! The Musical Parody has been
rescheduled for March 3 2021 at York Barbican after the March 20 show was postponed
under the Coronavirus strictures.
The lampooning show both celebrates and pokes fun at the misadventures of Manhattan 20-somethings Ross, Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, Joey and Rachel from the cherished 1990s’ American TV sitcom as they navigate the pitfalls of work, life and love.
Friends!
The Musical Parody is a “good-hearted romp through our favourite moments in an
uncensored, hilarious, fast-paced, music-filled show” that opens on a typical
day at New York coffee shop Central Perk. When an unexpected runaway bride
enters the picture, it kicks the whole gang out of second gear.
The show
will play York Barbican as part of the off-Broadway and Las Vegas musical’s now
extended first UK and Irish tour. Tickets for the revised date are on sale at
yorkbarbican.co.uk.