“I found it to be a good place for seeing the forest through the trees,” says Gill Landry, who wrote Skeleton At The Banquet while staying in a French village
GILL Landry, the two-time Grammy-winning American singer, songwriter and
guitarist, is booked into The Crescent in York for February 12 2020 on his
ten-date British tour.
The Old Crow Medicine Show alumnus and founder
member of The Kitchen Syncopators will be promoting his fifth solo album, Skeleton
At The Banquet.
Released on Loose Music on January 24 2020, Landry’s follow-up to 2017’s Love Rides A Dark Horse was preceded by his November single, I Love You Too.
Recorded and produced in Los Angeles by Landry and Seth Ford-Young, who has worked previously with Tom Waits and Edward Sharpe, Skeleton At The Banquet features Landry on vocals, guitars, pedal steel, keys and harmonica, Ford-Young on bass, Josh Collazo on drums, Stewart Cole on trumpet and Odessa Jorgensen on violin.
The album artwork for Gill Landry’s new album, Skeleton At The Banquet, to be released next month
“This album is a series of reflections and thoughts on the collective
hallucination that is America, with a love song or two thrown in for good
measure,” says Landry. who also uses the stage name of Frank Lemon, by the way.
“I wrote it from within the refuge of a small flat in a small village in
western France, where I spent last summer. I found it to be a good place for
seeing the forest through the trees, so to speak.”
Landry, originally from Lake Charles, Louisiana, will open his British
dates at the Americana Music Association UK’s festival in London on January 28.
Tickets for February 12 are on sale at £12 at Earworm Records, Powells Yard, Goodramgate, York, from The Crescent or online via the crescentyork.com.
Landry will play a further Yorkshire gig at The Lantern, Halifax, on February 16. Box office: 01422 341003 or thelanternhalifax.co.uk.
Rainbow chasers: Shed Seven on the road again for December
Shed Seven, Shedcember Tour 2019, Leeds First Direct Arena, December 7
SHED Seven, December 7, and they must be in heaven. Sixteen
years after York’s only ever Top Ten band split – a case of Britpop crackle,
then snap – they are at a maximum high, playing to their biggest ever indoor
crowd down the A64 in Leeds, where Manchester’s Happy Mondays had to settle for
the smaller Leeds O2 Academy. You’re twisting their lemon, man.
First re-forming in 2007, going for concert gold again, the
Sheds have since made their Shedcember winter tours a regular fixture, this
year playing their record run of 23 shows between November 21 and December 21,
with Leeds Arena at the epicentre.
This has been the year when “Britpop’s meat and potatoes band”
had their Going For Gold compilation dipped in molten gold for a 20th
anniversary deluxe vinyl reissue, and frontman Rick Witter enjoyed a November
natter and a tipple-tasting session on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. Overdue
respect of sorts, first from their former major label, Polydor, who had jettisoned
them while the hits were still flowing, High Hopes dashed, and then a
long-running chat-and-chomp show.
However, the Shed renaissance is built on their raucous, beer-swilling,
body-still-willing, terrace-chant live shows, peaking across the Pennines in
Summer 2018 when 8,000 gathered at Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl one June
night.
By now, their set lists have been bolstered by 2017’s
“comeback” album, Instant Pleasures, their first since 2001’s Artful work,
Truth Be Told (a record entirely absent from Saturday’s 19-song setlist).
These Shedcember shows are bigger, brighter in their
lighting, filmed up close on the video screens, and bolstered in Leeds by
boisterous support slots from Birmingham’s The Twang and Sheffield’s Reverend
And The Makers.
Shout-out: Shed Seven had a message for Mrs Craig Lilley at Saturday’s gig
Striding on to The Magnificent Seven theme tune, it was T-shirts
for Witter and guitarist Paul Banks, Breton-striped top for guitarist and
keyboards player Joe Johnson, shirts for bassist Tom Gladwin and high-rise
drummer Alan Leach. There is still nothing flash about the Sheds, save for the
lightning bolt on Banks’s T and the glistening sheen of the regularly employed
brass trio.
They started with the swaggering Room In My House, the
instant pleasure from Instant Pleasures, later represented by Enemies &
Friends (the night’s one lull), Better Days, an even better It’s Not Easy and knock-out
first encore Invincible.
The Shedlist was dominated by fan favourites, from debut
single Mark, through exhilarating versions of She Left Me On Friday, Dolphin
and Bully Boy, before the one surprise as Going For Gold segued into its distant
third cousin, U2’s Angel Of Harlem, on a suitably cold and wet December day, where
by now no-one’s feet were touching the ground in the standing zone.
Parallel Lines, a cautionary tale as viewed today from the
distance of fatherhood and “day jobs” in the Sheds’ latter forties, assumed its
rightful place as the set’s extended closer. The night ended, as it always must,
with the riotous Disco Down and all-our-yesterdays Chasing Rainbows, matching
the multi-colour lighting chosen to cloak the Arena’s chameleon reptile skin.
Oh, and Mrs Craig Lilley, should you by a miracle be reading
this, you were roundly booed after Witter revealed you had made your husband stay
in, despite his ticket in his pocket. Rather than the room in your house, here’s
where you should have been tonight, both of you.
Double bill: The tour poster for Go West and Paul Young’s 2020 show at York Barbican
EIGHTIES chart heavyweights Go West and Paul Young will hit the road
next year as a double bill that will visit York Barbican on September 13.
Formed in 1982 by Peter Cox and
Richard Drummie, Go West scored such hits as We Close Our Eyes, Call Me and Don’t
Look Down and were voted Best Newcomer at the 1986 BRIT Awards. In 1990, their
song King Of Wishful Thinking featured on the soundtrack for Pretty
Woman, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere’s romantic hit.
After fronting Streetband and Q-Tips, Paul Young
went solo, his career taking off with the 1983 album No Parlez and such singles
as the chart-topping Wherever I Lay My Hat, Love Of The Common People, Everytime
You Go Away and Everything Must Change. He won a BRIT Award for Best Male
Vocalist and sung the opening lines on the original 1984 Band Aid single, Do
They Know It’s Christmas? (Feed The World), also performing at Live Aid at
Wembley Stadium in July 1985.
Young, 63, is a keen chef, biker and fan of all
things Mexicana, not least touring with his Tex Mex/Americana band Los
Pacaminos.
Tickets for Go West and Paul Young’s co-headline gig are on sale on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Wainwright times three: Loudon Wainwright III with Suzzy Roche and their daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche, playing Pockington next autumn
LOUDON Wainwright III, the North Carolina songwriter, folk musician,
humorist and actor, will play Pocklington Arts Centre on October 3 next year.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am on Wednesday (December 11), as indeed they
will for Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of authors turned musicians, making their
Pock debut on May 30.
Grammy Award-winning Wainwright, 73, will be joined by Suzzy Roche and their daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche at next autumn’s gig, the smallest venue of his 2020 British tour.
They will perform their own songs, complemented by a
selection by songwriters they admire, such as Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty,
Stevie Nicks and Baker Knight.
Over the course of 23 albums of acerbic, wry writing, Wainwright’s
songs have been covered by Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Earl Scruggs, Mose Allison,
Big Star, Freakwater, Norma Waterson, [late former wife] Kate and Anna
McGarrigle and son Rufus Wainwright.
Arts centre director Janet Farmer says: “Our auditorium is no stranger to welcoming music legends to the stage and Loudon Wainwright III is certainly no exception. We’ve previously welcomed his daughter Martha to Pocklington in August 2013, so we’re delighted to be featuring in Loudon’s forthcoming tour.
“This will be a very rare opportunity to see such a big name from the music world perform within the intimate surroundings of our auditorium.
“But with only a handful of UK dates lined up and Pocklington
Arts Centre being the smallest venue, this is likely to sell out fast, so I
would recommend you get your tickets as early as possible.”
Three Wainwright albums have been nominated for Grammy awards: 1985’s I’m Alright, 1986’s More Love Songs and 2009’s High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, winner of the Best Traditional Folk Album prize in January 2010. Wainwright also has appeared in such films as The Aviator, Big Fish, Elizabethtown, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, for which he composed the score with Joe Henry.
Read the riot act: Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers could murder a good tune at Pocklington Arts Centre next May
Meanwhile, prepare for a different form of murder on the
dancefloor next spring, committed by fiction supergroup Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers.
Harrogate Theakston Old
Peculier Crime Writing Festival stalwarts Mark Billingham and Val McDermid, together
with Chris Brookmyre, Luca
Veste, Doug Johnstone and Stuart Neville, will put down their pens and pick up guitars to “happily murder”
much-loved songs by The Clash, Elvis Costello, Hank Williams, The Beatles,
Talking Heads, The Jam, Johnny Cash
and many others “considering legal action”, apparently.
Between them, the writers have
sold more than 20 million books worldwide and won every major crime-writing
award. Now they swap page for stage to discover if the sword/axe is
mightier than the pen after all.
So far, their set list of
killer tunes has survived in tact at Glastonbury Festival, Cornbury
Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. Now
they must rock in Pock.
“The very concept of crime
writers putting their own killer spin on well-known songs is simply brilliant,
so we can’t wait to bring them to Pocklington for what promises to be a
thrilling night of live music literally like no other,” says Janet Farmer.
Last month, the arts
centre played host to a sold-out evening of poetry readings, questions and
answers and book signings by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, when Pocklington School
students were among the audience.
Tickets cost £44 for Wainwright, £23 for The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Cellist Cara Berridge: “Displayed beautifully rounded, resonant tone”
York Symphony Orchestra (YSO)/Venn; Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, December 8
YORK Symphony Orchestra’s newish conductor Edward Venn likes to take risks – and with the largest work on Sunday’s menu he was notably successful.
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony overtly moves from tragedy to triumph. Beneath the surface, it is heavily laced with irony: Stalin’s Great Purge threatened the composer himself. The performance reflected this.
The violins quickly recovered from a tentative opening and thereafter never looked back. The central march accelerated majestically and the change to the major key was nicely controlled, before a chilling close with celeste to the fore. The scherzo provided just the comic relief we needed, Claire Jowett’s solo violin leading the way.
With the brass side-lined, first the strings, then the woodwinds conjured a rapt, almost religious, intensity in the Largo, typified by the trio of harp and two flutes. The finale’s mounting crescendo, with brass back in the fray, kindled anger rather than triumph, despite the brief oasis of calm. It was a splendid achievement, owing much to Venn’s impressive familiarity with the score.
Earlier, as soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Cara Berridge displayed beautifully rounded, resonant tone. But in a work notorious for its stop-go pitfalls, she and Venn too rarely took the same view of the music. The result was tuneful but episodic, too many trees and not enough wood. The orchestra sustained a respectful diffidence. Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave had made a bold, brash curtain-raiser. But the Shostakovich was something else.
Kate Rusby in Holly Head mode for her fifth Christmas album. Picture: David Lindsay
BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby has released her fifth
album of South Yorkshire carols and original winter songs, Holly Head, so named
on account of her love of Christmas music.
As with her fellow festive collections on her Pure Records label, 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over and 2017’s Angels And Men, it is being promoted by a Kate Rusby At Christmas tour with Kate’s regular band and brass quintet.
Songs range from the Rusby original The Holly King, to a
cover of John Rox’s novelty Christmas number Hippo For Christmas, via the
carols Salute The Morn and Kate’s sixth version of While Shepherds Watched and
God’s Own Country variations, Yorkshire Three Ships and Bleak Midwinter
(Yorkshire).
Now part way through her 14-date concert series, Kate answers Charles Hutchinson’s questions ahead of Yorkshire Christmas shows at Leeds Town Hall on December 13 and York Barbican on December 18.
Five
Christmas albums, Kate. Five! That must surely be a record? What keeps drawing
you back to make another recording for the Yule season?
“I know, five albums, how on
Earth has that happened?! It’s also album number 18 of mine, which I can’t
believe either. Where have all those years gone? I still love making music and
touring, so that time has whizzed by in a flash.
“The Christmas side of things began for
me in the ‘pub sings’ around South Yorkshire. We were taken along as kids; our
parents would be in the main room singing away, while us kids were sat with the
other kids in the tap room, colouring and drinking pop, unaware that the carols
and Christmas songs were seeping into our brains!”
“I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a ‘Holly Head’,” says Kate. “You know, like car fanatics are petrol heads.” Picture: David Lindsay
What
happened next?
“It was only when I’d started touring around the country, I realised the ‘pub sings’ are quite specific to South Yorkshire and people were unaware of these amazing songs we have.
“They’re mostly songs thrown out of the churches by the Victorians as they were thought to be far too happy! Ha! Those who loved singing them took them to the pubs, where you could combine a good old sing with beer and a natter, and there the songs have remained and kept alive, being passed down the generations.
“I decided to start the Christmas tour
to take the songs out around the country to show them off and share them out
again. It’s just perfect when we go back to a town again and they’re singing
the songs back to us. It brings me such happiness. Like, ‘my work is done
here’!”
And the
Christmas albums keep coming too…
“There are so many songs still to go at, I’ve no idea how many I’ll end up doing. I am a Holly Head, after all!”
What’s the story behind Hippo For Christmas, the quirkiest song on Holly Head? One for the Rusby daughters, no doubt!
“Aw, it’s such a brilliant song! I came across it while I was researching for the album. I love how it’s the magic of Christmas through the child’s eyes, ‘cos why on Earth would Father Christmas not be able to bring a hippo? He’s magic, right?
“But, of course,, once it’s there, how do you look after it? The brass arrangement on that track is just a delight; you can’t help but smile as they play it. It’s a big tuba moment! They don’t get many moments, tubas, do they? Well, it does on this song!”
While
Shepherds Watched is the Christmas carol that keeps giving! Another one has
popped up on the new album…
“Well, there’s over 30 different versions of While Shepherds Watched that get sung in the pubs here in South Yorkshire, so I’ve still got a lot to go at! This one is actually to the tune of a different song that I also love, but I wasn’t that keen on the words, then realised it went with the While Shepherds words, so yey, another has now been invented.”
Holly and the ivy: The album artwork for Kate Rusby’s new winter album
What is a
Holly Head exactly, Kate?!
“Ha ha!! Well, I decided anyone who adores Christmas music is called a ‘Holly Head’. You know, like car fanatics are petrol heads. I thought it was the perfect title for such people, and I’m a fully paid-up member of the Holly Head club! ”
What is
the most significant Christmas song on this album for you? One of your own
compositions?
“Oooh, am I allowed to choose one of my
own? Well, OK, I will, I’ll choose The Holly King. It celebrates the more
pagan side of Christmas. I wrote it after reading about the winter king, The
Holly King, and the summer king, The Ivy King.
“Legend has it that the two met twice a
year and had almighty battles. Going into winter, the Holly King would win and
reign for the winter months. Then the Ivy King would wake and overthrow the
Holly King and reign through the summer months, and on they went in a perfect
cycle.
“I just loved the images that it
conjured up and a song came flowing out. I gave him a wife, The Queen of Frost,
who creeps across the land to be with him for his time. In fact, I’m writing
her song at the moment, so she will appear on the next Christmas album, I’m
sure!”
How will you be adorning the stage for the 2019 Christmas shows? Maybe a new reindeer?
“Ooh yes, I can’t tell you too much or it won’t be a surprise. What I can confirm, though, is Ruby Reindeer will be taking her place on stage again; it’d be too strange without her now.
“We have a completely new set this
year…and there will definitely be sparkles.”
Who is in
your Christmas tour line-up this time?
“Ooh, this year we have me, hubby Damien
O’Kane on guitars and electric tenor guitars, Duncan Lyall, double bass and
Moog; Stevie Byrnes, bouzouki and guitar; Nick Cooke, diatonic accordion and
sleigh bells (ha!); Josh Clark, percussion, and our lovely, fabulous brass
boys, Rich Evans, Gary Wyatt, Robin Taylor, Mike Levis and Sam Pearce.
“So, 11 of us altogether on stage, and six crew, I think, and of course not forgetting Ruby Reindeer!”
What do
you most want for Christmas, Kate?
“A big lump of Cornish Kern cheese – it won best cheese in the world last year and is just gorgeous – and a bottle of Bread and Butter white wine to go along with it. It’s a big creamy white; just love it.”
Kate Rusby At Christmas, Leeds Town Hall, December 13 and York Barbican, December 18. Box office:Leeds, 0113 376 0318 or at leedstownhall.co.uk/whats-on/; York, 0203 356 5441, yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Golden moment: Kate Rusby received the Gold Badge from English Folk Dance & Song Society earlier this month. Picture: David Angel
On a separate note
ON
December 4, Kate Rusby received the English Folk Dance & Song Society Gold Badge,
in recognition of her 25-year contribution to folk music.
Among past winners were Cecil Sharp in 1923; Ralph Vaughan
Williams, 1943; Ewan MacCoIl, 1987; Peggy Seeger, 1987; Shirley Collins, 2003,
and Eliza Carthy, 2007.
Congratulations
on your Gold Badge, Kate. What does this award mean to you? Just look at the
names that have gone before!
“Aw, thank you. Goodness
me, I still can’t believe it. It’s just amazing to be considered for this award
as it’s recognition of my work from the massive organisation who work to
preserve and document folk music and dance.
“I’ve done various gigs at Cecil Sharp House over the years, the building where they’re based in London. One time, they let me use the library as a dressing room and, oh my word, I was like a child in a sweet shop with all the ballad books. In fact, I think I may have been late on stage due to reading the books.
“But, yes, a real honour to be added to
the list of Gold Badge winners. My love of the music has kept me entranced all
these years, so to be given this award is just incredible.
“It was presented to me at our gig at
in Sheffield City Hall, when it was also my [46th] birthday that
day; what an amazing birthday present.”
CARA Berridge will be the guest soloist for tonight’s performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor. the centrepiece of York Symphony Orchestra’s Winter Concert in York.
Conducted by Edward Venn, the 7.30pm programme at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, also features Tchaikovsky’s March Slave and and Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 in D Minor.
Tickets cost £15, concessions £13, children and students £5, at yso.org.uk, from orchestra members or on the door.
Frank Turner: bringing history and song-writing together at York Barbican next March
FRANK Turner will turn York Barbican into No Man’s Land on March 8 on the Hampshire folk-punk singer-songwriter’s 2020 tour.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am tomorrow morning on 0203 356 5441, at
yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Turner, 37, released his latest album, No Man’s Land, in August, touted
as his most original to date with its parade of fascinating characters, such as
the woman who invented rock’n’roll, a serial killer from the Deep South, who
plucked her victims from lonely hearts pages, and a Wild West vaudeville star
shot by a small-town outlaw.
“It’s bringing together my two main interests in life, which have always
been separate from each other: history and song writing,” says Turner, who
can be found seeking out long-forgotten historical sites on self-guided
psycho-geographical strolls when not touring.
No Man’s Land is dedicated to the women “whose incredible lives
have all too often been overlooked by dint of their gender”. “These
stories should have been told already,” says Turner of the album and
its accompanying podcast series. “And I suspect if they were men, they would be
better known.”
A couple of names here will be familiar, in the form of Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Sister Rosetta and the mysterious Mata Hari in Eye Of The Day, but other women who feature have long been ignored by the mainstream.
Turner was inundated with crowdsourcing suggestions when seeking more names.
“I know a lot of very smart people who sent me these huge lists of historically
interesting women,” he says, after he ended up researching hundreds, seriously
expanding the size of his home library in the process. “It felt a bit like
going back to school, but it was so much fun.”
The women featured on the album’s 13 tracks come from across wide
geographical and historical lines, whether Byzantine princess Kassiani in The
Hymn Of Kassiani; Egyptian feminist activist Huda Sha’arawi in The Lioness, or Resusci
Anne, an apocryphal drowned virgin whose face was used as the model for the
medicinal CPR mannequin across the world.
“You can’t resist writing a song about a woman who died never having
been kissed and then became the most kissed face in history,” reasons Turner.
No Man’s Land boast perhaps the most revelatory song of Turner’s
career. Written in tribute to his mother, Rosemary Jane honours her grit and
determination through the harder parts of his childhood. “It’s quite a raw
song,” he admits, adding that he felt compelled to ask permission from his
mother and sisters to include the track. “But it’s nice about her. It’s not
necessarily nice about my dad.”
Turner, by the way, will be making his York Barbican debut at next March’s
gig.
Not exactly dressed for winter! The Ebor Singers nevertheless will be in the mood for Christmas at the NCEM on December 15
LOOK forward to “a whole
new world of carols” when The Ebor Singers present the British premiere of American
Christmas choral works alongside Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols on
December 15.
The York choir’s ever-popular candlelit Christmas concert always features Britten’s festive favourite from 1942, this time complemented by modern compositions from the United States at the National Centre for Early Music, York, at 7.30pm.
“Benjamin Britten
was particularly drawn to Christmas,” says Paul Gameson, the choir’s
director, introducing Britten’s masterpiece, scored for three-part treble
chorus, solo voices and harp.
“Britten spent three
years in North America at the beginning of the Second World War, and he
composed A Ceremony of Carolsduring the long and dangerous transatlantic
crossing back to Britain in 1942.”
How apt, then, to present
Britten’s work alongside Christmas music from the USA. “We’ve had a lot of
enjoyment putting this together”, says Paul. “As well as pieces
now considered popular mainstays of the repertoire, by Lauridsen and Whitacre,
we’ve been exploring sacred pieces by Jake Runestad, Nico Muhly and Stephen
Paulus.
“Runestad’s
writing in Sleep Little Baby, Sleephas an American folk-song
quality, and Paulus’s exploration of the sonority of choir with
accompaniment of oboe and harp is every bit as imaginative as Britten.
“Muhly is one of
today’s most imaginative choral composers, and his Whispered And Revealed,a setting of Longfellow’s poem Snowflakes,is quite breath-taking, within three minutes magically conjuring up
images of snow covering a winter landscape.
“So, we’re delighted to be
giving some of this music its UK premiere. Then throw in some classic seasonal
jingles and some choral ‘mash-ups’ and you have a seasonal concert quite
unlike anything else you will have heard, guaranteed to bring you Christmas
cheer.”
Tickets for Britten, A Ceremony of Carols, By Candlelight cost £15, concessions £12, students £5, at eborsingers.org/currentevents or on the door.
Florence Poskitt: Making her York Stage Musicals debut as Gabriel, the angel who covets the role of Mary in The Flint Street Nativity. Picture: Kirkpatrick Photography
YORK Stage Musicals will bring an alternative
festive offering to York this Christmas for the first time, staging The Flint
Street Nativity at the John Cooper Studio @41Monkgate from December
12 to 22.
Tim Firth’s story was first performed as a television drama on ITV in
1999 with a cast featuring York actor Mark Addy, Frank Skinner, Neil Morrissey
and Jane Horrocks.
Firth, the Frodsham-born writer of Neville’s Island, All Quiet On The
Preston Front, Calendar Girls and the Madness musical Our House, then re-worked
it for the Liverpool Playhouse stage premiere in 2006.
Firth’s show follows “Mizzis Horrocks’s” class of seven year olds as they
prepare to perform their Nativity play at Flint Street Junior School for the
proud mums and dads – and the occasional social worker.
Squabbles arise when Angel Gabriel wants to play Mary; the Star grumbles
he isn’t a proper star like they have at NASA; Herod won’t stop waving to his parents
and the subversive Innkeeper is determined to liven up the traditional script.
Then the class stick insect escapes.
Leading the ensemble company as the ambitious Angel Gabriel will be
blossoming York actress and comedienne Florence Poskitt, making her York Stage
debut alongside Fiona Baistow in the coveted role of Mary. Look out too
for YSM debutant Conor Wilkinson, playing both Herod and Joseph.
The York Stage Musicals’ show poster for The Flint Street Nativity
Here, Charles Hutchinson asks York Stage Musicals artistic
director Nik Briggs to come forth on Firth by answering a Christmas sack-load
of questions.
What made you choose this Tim Firth
piece as your debut Christmas production?
“York is the ultimate Christmas
destination, and many people ask us each year what we’re staging
at Christmas but it hasn’t been something we’ve ventured into before. But then
Jim Welsman [chairman at the time] asked us if we’d be interested in bringing
a Christmas offering to 41 Monkgate, so I jumped at the chance and knew
what show would be the perfect choice.
“I was looking for one that really
would provide the city with an alternative theatrical offering. It needed to be
a show that suited York Stage and the 41Monkgate venue. Flint Street was
the perfect choice. It’s not saccharine; it’s fun, energetic and a
tad off the wall.
“So, come join us as we alter your perspective on not only the art and
politics of the humble Nativity, but the John Cooper Studio as a whole!”
What makes The Flint Street Nativity so humorous?
“This festive play really is one of the funniest observations I’ve come
across based on the Christmas holidays. Everyone knows the traditions
surrounding the institution of the school Nativity, tea towels tied to the
head and tinsel-clad Angels everywhere, but Tim Firth has created
a brilliant script, set in the build-up to the much-anticipated show
filled with laughs and pathos in an oversized classroom where adults play
the children in Mrs Horrocks’s class.”
What do you most enjoy about Tim
Firth’s writing?
“The detail
in the observation of the people he writes about is just brilliant; it really
is all on the page. Like in Calendar Girls, you can relate to and recognise the
characters. The seven year olds just come to life through the writing.
“I work with children of this age
quite regularly and, as I read the script, I could see the
children he was talking about and describing. It seems far-fetched to some, but
it really isn’t! Then, the twist in the final scenes and his ability to
inject just the right amount of pathos into a riotous comedy is what
clinches it for me.”
What are the particular challenges of
this piece for director and cast?
“The key to
the whole show, for me, comes in getting the final part of the show just right,
when – spoiler alert! – the actors who’ve been playing the
children throughout then turn to play the respective parents and we
see what’s made the children the way they are.
“It’s been fairly easy to work on the
scenes with the brilliant actors where they’re playing around and having
lots of fun playing the seven year olds, but actually getting that to tie in
with the adults is where the magic is, so we started the rehearsals with the
adult scenes and got to know them before we then worked on creating
their children, as it’s the adults who nurture.”
What is Tim Firth’s Christmas
message?
“The final
line in the play is ‘I’m in a Nativity. Yeah, it’s great…really brings it
home’, and I think that sums it up. In the fast-paced world we live in,
the simplest, purest things can really make you slow down and take stock.”
Assistant director Jonny Holbek with Florence Poskitt’s despondent Angel Gabriel
What are your recollections of
Nativity plays when you were nobbut a lad?
“Absolute terror!
Every year, I’d come in from school and tell my mother that I’d been cast
as a lead role in the show. Every year, she’d then have to go in and tell
that year’s teacher that they should be prepared that come the day of the show, I’d
just cry and refuse to go on as I suffered from crippling stage
fright!
“They would assure her I’d been
fine in class rehearsing and that I was doing brilliantly with
it. Then every year she’d turn up and sit in the hall expectantly, to be
hauled out by the teacher and informed I was having a meltdown. This
happened every year until I was ten!”
Why are Nativity plays still
important?
“Purity! It’s
plain and simple to see in any Nativity the purity in the children and the
performances they give. Sadly, it’s not a quality we always see in society and
on stage nowadays. so let’s cling on to it in Nativity plays!
What have been your highlights of the
York Stage Musicals year in 2019?
“2019 really has
been a dream. We had the opportunity to produce a classic musical in
The Sound Of Music; have worked on new writing with Twilight Robbery; created magic
with our acclaimed youth production of Disney’s Aladdin, but I think the
cherry on the top has to be Shrek The Musical at the Grand Opera House
in September.
“The buzz around the production, from
auditions through to the closing night, were just electric. The reviews and
comments were just sensational. It really did raise our bar yet again and will
really be a cherished production for us for a very long time.”
What’s coming next for York Stage
Musicals?
“We have a
bit of a bumper year planned already actually. An Eighties’ classic, a York
premiere, a birthday celebration and what is set to be possibly the biggest and
messiest youth show the city has ever seen!
“We start in February with Robert
Haring’s Steel Magnolias at 41 Monkgate. We then head across town to the Grand
Opera House with a brand-new production of Bugsy Malone in April.
Chris Knight’s perennially enthusiastic Donkey in York Stage Musicals’ “monster hit”, Shrek The Musical, at the Grand Opera House, York, in September
“Then it’s a return to Monkgate in
May to present the York premiere of Sondheim On Sondheim to mark Stephen
Sondheim’s 90th birthday [on March 22 2020].
“We’re still firming up plans for our
big autumn show, but things are looking exciting, and we’ll again end the year
back at 41 Monkgate with another Christmas alternative!”
And finally, Nik, what would be your Christmas
Day message to the nation?
“People of
the United Kingdom, it seems that the country truly is in the… No, in all
seriousness, we are in a transition, whether we want to be or not.
“In times of transition and change,
we have to really look out for each other as not everyone will move at the same
pace or be able to keep up. Stay genuine and be kind to those around us
and trust that love will always win.
“Sadly
nowadays, there are too many people in the world who like to over-promise and
oversell themselves for personal gain. This can only lead
to disappointment as we can see everywhere. “Know yourself, know your
limits, don’t compare yourself to others and work hard to run your
own race. Celebrate successes briefly, remain humble and learn from your
mistakes.”
York Stage Musicals present The Flint
Street Nativity, John Cooper Studio @41 Monkgate, York, December 12 to 22,
7.30pm except Sundays at 6pm. Box office: 01904 623568, at
yorkstagemusicals.com or in person from the York Theatre Royal box office.
