Lynne Dawson: ” bewitching in an unattributed version of Goldilocks”
Review: York Guildhall Orchestra,
York Barbican, January 4 2020
TUBBY the Tuba was the headline
star and Goldilocks & the Three Bears put in an unscheduled appearance at
York Guildhall Orchestra’s family concert on Saturday afternoon.
There
were also sizeable selections from two musicals, Les Miserables and The Sound Of Music, while the more traditional delights of Johann Strauss the Younger
added Viennese touches to the New Year hi-jinks. A good time was had by all.
Not
that the YGO took its duties lightly. On the contrary, behind Simon Wright’s
genial baton there lurks a hard taskmaster; he ensured his charges delivered their
customary high standards.
Anyone
whose 2019 was less than satisfying will have been soothed by the story of
Valjean’s journey from despair to hope, evoked by the musical version of Victor
Hugo’s Les Miserables. YGO brought reassurance to this emotional
roller-coaster: we can all now face 2020 with confidence.
So
too with the Von Trapp family, whose real-life journey from Nazi Germany to
liberation in the USA inspired Rodgers & Hammerstein to write The Sound Of Music60 years ago. Here we had 15 singers from York
Stage Musicals (otherwise unidentified), half sopranos and half children,
adding vivacity and verve to the familiar songs.
Brian Kingsley: soloist for Tubby The Tuba
Although her name unaccountably escaped mention on the front cover of the programme, YGO president Lynne Dawson’s contribution to the afternoon was invaluable, as narrator in the two children’s stories. Her charming, chameleon voices brought her characters instantly to life: we felt Tubby’s disappointments keenly.
She was partnered here by Opera
North ace Brian Kingsley, the north’s finest tuba player, whose velvet tones
were plaintively suggestive.
Dawson
was equally bewitching in an unattributed version of Goldilocks, which
amusingly made reference to other favourites such as Brahms’s Lullaby and Henry
Bishop’s Home, Sweet Home. Soloists in both wind and brass were really on their
toes here.
The
Strauss family and Franz Lehár filled in the rest. And how. The orchestra’s
kitchen department had fun popping the corks in the Champagne polka and
providing fireworks for Thunder & Lightning. The brass went to town in the
Tritsch-Tratsch polka and the crazy ending of Lehár’s Gold & Silver.
But
it was the majestic sweep of the strings in two Strauss waltzes, The Emperor
and The Blue Danube, which lives in the memory. The audience clapped heartily in
the Radetzky march at the close: everyone went away happy. This event has
deservedly become a New Year tradition in York.
Next
up: YGO’s 40th anniversary concert at
York Barbican on February 15. Don’t miss it.
Veteran Yorkshire arts journalist CHARLES HUTCHINSON doffs his cap to the makers and shakers who made and shook the arts world in York and beyond in 2019.
Alan Ayckbourn at 80 in Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
New play
of the year: Alan
Ayckbourn’s Birthdays Past, Birthdays Present, at Stephen Joseph Theatre,
Scarborough, from September 4
Sir Alan
Ayckbourn penned one play to mark his 80th birthday, then decided it
wasn’t the right one. Instead, writing more quickly than he had in years, he
constructed a piece around…birthdays. Still the master of comedy of awkward
truths.
Honourable mention: Kay Mellor’s Band Of Gold, Leeds Grand Theatre, November 28 to December 14.
Lili Miller (Catherine) and Pedro Leandro (Rodolpho) in A View From The Bridge at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Ian Hodgson
You
Should Have Seen It production of the year: Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, York
Theatre Royal, September 20 to October 12.
Once more, the
sage Arthur Miller bafflingly did not draw the crowds – a Bridge too far? – but
Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster found resonance anew for this
age of rising intolerance in Trumped-Up America and Brexit Britain.
Chris Knight as Donkey in York Stage Musicals’ Shrek The Musical
York’s
home-grown show of the year: York Stage Musicals in Shrek The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, September
12 to 21
Nik Briggs
swapped directing for his stage return after five years in the wind-assisted
title role and stunk the place out in Shrek tradition in a good way. Jacqueline
Bell‘s Princess Fiona and Chris Knight’s Donkey were terrific too.
Honourable mention: Pick Me Up Theatre in Monster Makers, 41 Monkgate, October 23 to 27
Rigmarole Theatre in When The Rain Stops Falling
Company
launch of the year: Rigmarole
Theatre in When The Rain Stops Falling, 41 Monkgate, York, November 14 to 16
MAGGIE
Smales, a previous Hutch Award winner for her all-female Henry V for York
Shakespeare Project, set up Rigmarole to mount Andrew Bovell’s apocalyptic
Anglo-Aussie family drama. More please.
Comic capers: Mischief Theatre in The Comedy About A Bank Robbery
Touring
play of the year: The
Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Grand Opera House, York, February 5 to 12
Crime pays
for Mischief Theatre with a riotous show, so diamond-cutter sharp, so rewarding,
in its comedy, that it is even better than the original botched masterplan, The
Play That Goes Wrong.
Honourable mention: Nigel Slater’s Toast, York Theatre Royal, November 19 to 23
Sarah Crowden and Susan Penhaligon in Handbagged at York Theatre Royal
Political
play of the year:
Handbagged, York Theatre Royal, April 24 to May 11
In a play of wit, brio and intelligence, Moira Buffini presents
a double double act of 20th century titans, Margaret Thatcher and
The Queen, one from when both ruled, the other looking back at those days, as
they talk but don’t actually engage in a conversation.
Emma Rice: director of the year
Director
of the year: Emma Rice
for Wise Children’s Wise Children, in March, and Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers, in
September, both at York Theatre Royal
Emma Rice,
once of Cornwall’s pioneering Kneehigh Theatre and somewhat briefly of
Shakespeare’s Globe, has found her mojo again with her new company Wise
Children, forming a fruitful relationship with York Theatre Royal to boot.
Watch out for Wuthering Heights in 2021.
Director John R Wilkinson in rehearsals for Hello And Goodbye at York Theatre Royal
York
director of the year:
John R Wilkinson, Hello And Goodbye, York Theatre Royal Studio, November
Theatre Royal associate artist John R Wilkinson had long called for the return of in-house productions in the Studio and what he called “the blue magic of that space”. He duly delivered a superb reading of Athol Fugard’s apartheid-era South African work starring Jo Mousley and Emilio Iannucci.
Oh what a knight: Sir Ian McKellen
Comedy show of the year: Sir Ian McKellen in Ian McKellen On Stage With Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others…And You, Grand Opera House, York, June 17
A delightful variation on the An Evening With…format, wherein Sir Ian McKellen celebrated his 80th birthday with a tour through his past. His guide to Shakespeare’s 37 plays was a particular joy.
Honourable mention: John Osborne in John Peel’s Shed/Circled In The Radio Times, Pocklington Arts Centre bar, March 27
Bonnie Milnes of Bonneville And The Bailers
Event launch
of the year: Live
In Libraries York, York Explore, autumn
In the
wood-panelled Marriott Room, veteran busker David Ward Maclean and Explore York
mounted a series of four intimate, low-key concerts, the pick of them being Bonnieville
And The Bailers’ magical set on October 25. Along with The Howl & The Hum’s
Sam Griffiths, Bonnie Milnes is the blossoming York songwriter to watch in
2020.
Meet The Caravan Guys:Theo Mason Wood, left, and Albert Haddenham discuss masculinity in How To Beat Up Your Dad at The Arts Barge’s Riverside Festival
Festival
of the Year: The
Arts Barge’s Riverside Festival, by the Ouse, July and August
Under the
umbrella of Martin Witts’s Great Yorkshire Fringe, but celebrating its own identity
too, The Arts Barge found firm footing with two locations, an ever-busy tent
and, hurrah, the newly docked, freshly painted barge, the Selby Tony. The Young
Thugs showcase, Henry Raby, Rory Motion, Katie Greenbrown, jazz gigs, a naked Theo
Mason Wood; so many highs.
Honourable mentions: York Festival of Ideas, June; Aesthetica Short Film Festival, November.
Terry Hall: leading The Specials at York Barbican. Picture: Simon Bartle
York Barbican gig of the year: The Specials, May 9
Still The Specials, still special, on their 40th anniversary world tour, as the Coventry ska veterans promoted their first studio album in 39 years, Encore, still hitting the political nail on the head as assuredly as ever.
Honourable mentions: David Gray, March 30; Art Garfunkel, April 18; Kelly Jones, September 14.
Mocking Malvolio: Cassie Vallance’s Fabian, back left, Andrew Phelps’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Fine Time Fontayne’s Sir Toby Belch wind up Claire Storey’s Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Picture: Charlotte Graham
Happiest nights of the year: Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in Twelfth Night, Castle car park, York, July 4 and September 1
JOYCE Branagh, Kenneth’s sister, set Shakespeare’s comedy in the Jazz Age, serving up “Comedy Glamour” with a Charleston dash and double acts at the double. “Why, this is very midsummer madness,” the play exhorts, and it was, gloriously so, especially on the last night, when no-one knew what lay just around the corner for the doomed Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre.
Samuel Edward Cook in Glory Dazed
Most moving night of the year: Glory
Dazed, East Riding Theatre, Beverley, January 26
Cat Jones’s play, starring York actor Samuel Edward Cook, brings
to light issues surrounding the mental health of ex-servicemen as they seek to
re-integrate into civilian society while struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder. The post-show discussion with ex-soldiers from Hull spoke even
louder.
Serena Manteghi in Build A Rockdet. Picture: Sam Taylor
Solo show of the year: Serena
Manteghi in Build A Rocket, autumn tour
NO sooner had she finished playing Ophelia in Shakespeare’s
Rose Theatre’s Hamlet than Serena Manteghi revived her remarkable role as a seaside
resort teenage single mum in Christopher York’s award-winning coruscating play.
Honourable mention: James Swanton in Irving Undead, York Medical Society, October 10 to 12.
A Blessed encounter: interviewing Yorkshireman Brian
Favourite interview of the year: Brian Blessed, giving oxygen to his An Evening With Brian Blessed show at Grand Opera House, York, in August
The exuberance for life in Brian – Yorkshire man mountain, actor, mountaineer and space travel enthusiast – at the age of 83 would inspire anyone to climb Everest or reach for the stars.
Old soul in a Newman: John Newman’s hot, hot gig at The Crescent
Gig of
the year: John
Newman, The Out Of The Blue Tour, The Crescent, York, June 30
THE unsettled
Settle sound of soul, John Newman, and his soul mates parked their old camper van
outside the almost unbearably hot Crescent, threw caution to the wind and burnt
the house down on a night that must
have been like watching Joe Cocker or Otis Redding on the rise in the Sixties.
Honourable mentions: Nick Lowe’s Quality Rock’n’Roll Revue, Pocklington Arts Centre, June 25; The Howl & The Hum, The Crescent, York, December 14
Van Gogh: ‘ere, there and everywhere at York St Mary’s
Exhibition
of the year: Van
Gogh: The Immersive Experience, York St Mary’s, York, now extended to April 2020
This 360-degree digital art installation uses technology to create
a constantly moving projected gallery of 200 of Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous
19th century works in the former church. Breathtaking, innovative, and,
yes, worth the admission charge.
Honourable mention: Ruskin, Turner and The Storm Cloud, Watercolours and Drawings, York Art Gallery, from March 28
Agatha Meehan, centre, as Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz at Leeds Playhouse
Christmas
production of the year: The Wizard Of Oz, Leeds Playhouse, until January 25
AFTER its
£15.8 million transformation from the West Yorkshire Playhouse to Leeds
Playhouse, artistic director James Brining gave West Yorkshire’s premier
theatre the grandest, dandiest of re-opening hits. Still time to travel down
the Yellow Brick Road with Agatha Meehan, 12, from York, as Dorothy.
Dame Berwick Kaler’s fina;l wave at the end of his 40 years of pantomimes at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Anthony Robling
Exit
stage left: Berwick
Kaler, retiring on February 2 after 40 years as York Theatre Royal’s pantomime
dame; Tim Hornsby, bowing out from booking acts for Fibbers on June 29, after 27
years and 7,500 shows in York; Damian Cruden, leaving the Theatre Royal on July
26 after 22 years as artistic director; James Cundall’s Shakespeare’s Rose
Theatre, in September, after hitting the financial icebergs .
Richard Bainbridge R.I.P.
Gone but
not forgotten: York Musical Theatre Company leading man,
director, teacher, chairman, bon viveur and pub guvnor Richard Bainbridge, who
died on July 6.
Jessa Liversidge: celebrating female singers of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in Songbirds
YORK singer Jessa Liversidge presents
Songbirds, a celebration of female icons through the decades, at Helmsley Arts
Centre on January 18.
“The show is a wonderful journey of
song, celebrating some of the most iconic female singers and songwriters of the
Sixties, Seventies and Eighties,” says Jessa.
“From musical theatre legends Julie
Andrews and Barbra Streisand and pop sensations Carole King, Karen Carpenter,
Kate Bush and more, to the hilariously clever comedy of Victoria Wood, this
programme has something for everyone.”
Every song will be sung by Jessa in
her trademark style: heartfelt, pure vocals, delivered with emotional
conviction, complemented by entertaining storytelling.
Born in Dundee and now based in North
Yorkshire, Jessa has devised and performed three one-woman shows: her tribute
to wartime women Till The Boys Come Home, the musical theatre compilation Some
Enchanted Sondheim and now her melange of vintage pop, musical theatre and
comedy, Songbirds, which she launched at Tollerton Village Hall last November.
She has sung at the Joseph Rowntree
Theatre and National Centre for Early Music in York, Helmsley Arts Centre and
Castle Howard, as well as performing as a soloist at the Royal British Legion
Festival of Remembrance at York Barbican for the past three years.
She sings as a guest soloist with the
award-winning Shepherd Group Brass Band and featured on their In Concert II CD.
“I enjoy spreading the joy of singing with all ages, from singing lessons and
schools to my dementia-friendly group, Singing For All,” she says.
At her 7.30pm concert, Jessa will be
accompanied by pianist Malcolm Maddock, who studied music at St John’s College,
Cambridge, specialising in composition and performance when working under
tutors David Wilcock and John Rutter.
On moving to London, he worked at the
London Opera Centre and Covent Garden. He has lived in York for the past 30 years,
working for soloists, bands, choirs and musical theatre companies.
Looking ahead, Jessa hopes to perform
her Songbirds show in York in the spring. Watch this space for more details.
Tickets for the Helmsley concert are on sale at helmsleyarts.co.uk or on 01439 771700.
Ward Thomas: Playing Leeds City Varieties this spring
COUNTRY-POP twin sisters Ward Thomas will play Leeds City Varieties
Music Hall on April 30, the second night of their Unfiltered acoustic tour.
After winningthe Global Artist Award at the 2019 CMA Awards,
Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas have announced a seven-date tour for Spring
2020.
The Hampshire twins will be complementing fan favourites from 2019’s top
ten album, Restless Minds, 2016’s chart-topping Cartwheels and 2014 debut release
From Where We Stand with new compositions.
The stripped-back arrangements will show off the sisters’ harmonies in
an intimate setting after a year when they toured Europe with Jack Savoretti, joining
him in a duet of The Killers’ Human at his sold-out Wembley Arena show. They
also played the Isle of Wight Festival, supported David Gray on his Australian tour
and performed Whiskey Lullaby with Brad Paisley at London’s O2 Arena.
Tickets for April 30 are on sale on 0113 243 0808 or at cityvarieties.co.uk or seetickets.com.
Charles Hutchinson reflects on the YORKshire year in the arts in 2019
NOTHING special happened in the arts scene in 2019…or did it? Find out tomorrow when the Hutch Award winners are announced for what made the art beat race faster across YORKshire at charleshutchpress.co.uk.
Kate Rusby wearing her Holly Head, the title of her fifth Christmas album. Pictures: David Lindsay
Kate Rusby At Christmas, York Barbican, 18/12/2019
“HOW nice to be back in mighty Yorkshire,” said the Barnsley
nightingale. “Don’t have to calm mi accent. Don’t have to worry about saying
the word ‘mardy’.”
That said, there is nothing mardy about Kate Rusby At
Christmas, her joyous celebration of South Yorkshire carols still sung heartily
in pubs, complemented by Rusby’s own winter songs and a brace of novelty
numbers.
It turned out Rusby was the only Yorkshire-born musician on stage, her sparkling green party dress twinkling like a Christmas tree in the forest of men in black: her folk band and regular winter guests, the “Brass Boys” quintet.
“Ruby Twosday”, the decorative reindeer, was there too,
bedecked with fairy lights, her head nodding when Rusby asked her a series of
questions. Rusby had been given the option of a “Yay” or “Nay” reindeer, and in
keeping with the surge of positivity and humorous banter that accompanies these
winter-warmer concerts, she chose the affirmative.
Hark, hark: Kate Rusby at Christmas
As evocative as the crisp sound of walking in newly settled
snow, Hark Hark, from 2017’s Angels & Men, opened the set with the Brass
Boys in situ, before Rusby explained the roots of these Christmas concerts, now
in their 12th year, with Christmas album number five, to showcase.
Holly Head, so named by Rusby to equate her love of
Christmas music with petrol heads’ love of cars, featured prominently in her
two sets, each also sprinkled liberally with versions of While Shepherds
Watched too. More than 30 exist, apparently, and Kate is working her merry way through
them.
Here We Come A Wassailing and Sunny Bank (a variation on I
Saw Three Ships) were early festive highs before the bleak midwinter’s chill of
Lu Lay (aka The Coventry Carol) brought an eerie night air to the Barbican,
Duncan Lyall’s Moog keyboard sending temperatures dropping. Not for long,
however, as Rusby introduced her row of knitted miniature hippos to herald
Hippo For Christmas, a particularly perky rendition of John Rox’s novelty
wish-list song, parping tuba and all.
The album cover for Holly Head
Rusby’s own Christmas compositions are among her very best,
never more so than this year’s newcomer, The Holly King, played early in the
second set, where she evoked Clannad while stretching out fruitfully into folk-prog
terrain.
Santa Never Brings Me A Banjo, a Canadian ditty by David Myles, wholly suited Rusby’s tightrope walk between melancholia and hope, and after a break for Damien O’Kane to lead the band through dexterous instrumentals and unexpected Christmas classics, Rusby steered us towards Christmas with an extended Hail Chime On, a delightful Walking In A Winter Wonderland and the latest heroic rescue mission for Barnsley’s Big Brave Bill.
No Rusby At Christmas show would be complete without the fancy-dress encore, and this year they really made a meal of it, Rusby dressing as a Christmas pudding, the Brass Boys as sprouts and O’Kane as, wait for it, a roast turkey for Sweet Bells and Yorkshire Merry Christmas.
Ruby Twosday was not the only one nodding in approval as Kate
Rusby At Christmas grows ever better by the year.
Native Harrow’s Devin Tuel and Stephen Harms. Picture: Brenna Tuel
AMERICAN duo Native Harrow head down from their Celtic Connections show
in Glasgow to play York the next day, January 18.
Singer-songwriter Devin Tuel and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Harms
will be promoting their wistful folk-rock 2019 album, Happier Now, at The
Basement, City Screen.
Signed to Loose Music, the London home to The Handsome Family, Courtney
Marie Andrews and Israel Nash, Native Harrow will be performing 11 British gigs
in January before returning to North Yorkshire for the Deer Shed Festival at Baldersby
Park, Topcliffe, from July 24 to 26.
Native Harrow is the nom de plume of Tuel, a former ballerina and classically trained singer, from Newburgh, New York, who says of her third album: “This record is about becoming your own advocate. Realising that maybe you are different in several or a myriad of ways and that that is okay. And further, it is about me becoming a grown woman.”
After nearly two decades of rigorous training in ballet, theatre and singing, Tuel needed to break out of the oppressive rules of academia. She had to find her natural voice, write from her heart, and figure out what kind of performer she truly was, rather than the one she was being moulded into from the age of three. “I spent my early twenties playing every venue in Greenwich Village, recording demos in my friend’s kitchen and making lattes,” she says.
“I felt very alive
then. I was on my own living in my own little studio, staying up all night
writing; the dream I had of being a bohemian New York City artist was
unfolding. I wanted to be Patti Smith.
“I was also
heartbroken, poor and had no idea what I was getting myself into. My twenties,
as I think it goes for most, were all about getting up, getting knocked down,
and learning to keep going. I never gave up and I think if I told 20-year-old
me how things looked nine years later she’d be so excited”.
She and Harms recorded Happier Now at Chicago’s Reliable Recorders over three days in March 2018, working with co-producer Alex Hall on nine songs that addressed fear, love, the open road, ill-fated relationships and coping with the state of the world.
“I wanted to share
that I made it out of my own thunderstorm,” says Tuel. “I had experienced the
high peaks and very low valleys of my twenties.
“I saw more of the
world on my own, got through challenges, revelled in true moments of triumph, but
all the while the world around me was growing louder, wilder, and scarier.
Music for me is a place to be soft. This album was my place to feel it
all.”
Happier Now’s songs
were written in the duo’s “downtime” during three back-to-back tours across
North America, spanning 108 dates, in support of Native Harrow’s second album,
Sorores.
Tuel approached the
sessions like a musicians’ workshop, each morning beginning with the songwriter
presenting her collaborators with the day’s material.
Tuel, Harms and
Hall rehearsed and documented each song live on the floor, tracking as a band
through each take. No click tracks, scratch tracks, or even headphones; just
three musicians in a small room, captured with Hall’s collection of vintage microphones
and subtle retro production techniques.
Overdubs, including vocal harmonies, B3 organ and the rare lead guitar, were added to decorate these live performances. The creative energy of the tightly knit sessions spilled over into Tuel’s songwriting as well: she skipped lunch on the third and final day of recording to pen the road-weary Hard To Take.
Four days after arriving in Chicago, Native Harrow were back on the road and Happier Now was complete, with its songs oscillating between feeling the sting of uncertainty on Can’t Go On Like This, through the beauty of California on Blue Canyon, to the ache for lavish stability on Way To Light.
Hear them live in York on January 18 in an 8pm show promoted by Please Please You. Tickets cost £10 at ticketing.picturehouses.com.
Agatha Meehan, from York, in the lead role of Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz at Leeds Playhouse, All pictures: The Other Richard
The Wizard Of Oz, Leeds Playhouse, until January 25 2020. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk
AGATHA Meehan is going places. Right now, the blossoming York acting talent
is travelling in a whirling tornado from her Kansas farm to Oz and the Emerald
City in the lead role of Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz.
Already she has starred in the West End as Summer Hathaway in School Of
Rock and Annie in Annie, a part she first played for York Musical Theatre
Company in March 2017 while a pupil at St George’s RC Primary School.
After adding Jane in the UK premiere of A Little Princess at the Royal
Festival Hall to her London credits, now she is alternating Dorothy with Lucy
Sherman in the first Christmas family musical in the Quarry Theatre since the Leeds
Playhouse’s £15.8 million redevelopment. All this, and she is only 12 years
old. What a whirlwind rise.
Sam Harrison’s Tinman leading a merry dance in The Wizard Of Oz
There’s no place that Agatha feels more at home than on stage, and she
gives a remarkably assured performance, from the moment she sings the iconic
Over The Rainbow.
Her Kansas accent is spot on; her Dorothy, in pigtails and farm dungarees and later the ever-evocative blue gingham dress, is a stoical young girl of moral conviction, passion and determination, challenging adult authority and inertia in Baum’s Kansas of the 1900s and Emerald City alike.
Combining Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg’s songs
from the more innocent 1939 MGM film with John Kane’s witty, somewhat knowing 1987
script for the Royal Shakespeare Company, artistic director James Brining’s
production delivers on an epic, filmic scale, full of heart and humour, joy and
jeopardy, Munchkins and monkeys, mystery and magic.
Eleanor Sutton’s Scarecrow in The Wizard Of Oz
Meehan’s Dorothy is surrounded by a combination of
hi-tech and lo-tech, and likewise the familiar and the freshened up, with
Jitterbug re-introduced as one of two premier league showstoppers alongside The
Merry Old Land Of Oz, choreographed to dazzling effect by Lucy Cullingford.
Phil Cole’s Uncle Henry and Angela Wynter’s Aunt Em are a mixed-race couple; Eleanor Sutton is a female Scarecrow; Sam Harrison’s Tinman is gay and the outstanding Marcus Ayton is a black timorous Lion, with boxing moves and a knock-out singing voice to boot for If I Were King Of The Forest.
Simon Wainwright, from innovative Leeds company Imitating The Dog,
provides the video projections for the twister scene that combine with the
time-honoured skills of spinning aerialists. Toto the dog is played by a real
dog before the storm, then by a puppet animated so expressively by Ailsa
Dalling in Oz. Look out too for the crow puppets, and be sure to duck when the
Wicked Witch of the West and her dive-bombing monkeys are flying overhead.
A roaring success: Marcus Ayton’s outstanding Lion in The Wizard Of Oz at Leeds Playhouse
Polly Lister is terrifically terrifying as the mean, twisted neighbour Miss
Gulch and the cackling, droll Wicked Witch, whose vamp camp air never quite ventures
into pantomime villainy.
As you would expect of a major-city Christmas show, this is a big, big production:
a cast of 20, supported by a young Leeds
community company as the Munchkins; a band of 11 directed with panache by Tamara
Saringer; and wonderful set and costume designs by Simon Higlett, whose palette
progresses from parched, dustbowl Kansas with its plain farmhouse and water
tower, to the spectacular greens and yellows of a futuristic Emerald City.
Click your ruby red heels, make a wish and find yourself having a wizard
time on the Yellow Brick Road at Leeds Playhouse this winter.
Toto and puppeteer Ailsa Dalling in The Wizard Of Oz
Lynne Dawson: narrator for Tubby The Tuba at York Guildhall Orchestra’s New Year concert on January 4
YORK Guildhall Orchestra will open 2020 with a
family-orientated, mid-afternoon concert on January 4 at York Barbican.
“This is a great way to finish off the festive
break by introducing the younger members of the family to the fantastic and
entertaining world of live orchestral music,” says publicist Geoff Eggington.
Joining Simon Wright’s orchestral forces will be
the YGO’s president, Tollerton soprano Lynne Dawson, in her role as narrator for
a couple of pieces.
Brian Kingsley: tuba soloist for Tubby The Tuba
These will include Kleinsinger’s Tubby The Tuba, the
heart-warming story of Tubby, the butt of all the jokes in the orchestra, who nevertheless
finds a wonderful tune and persuades the whole orchestra to play it. The tuba
soloist will be Brian Kingsley, from the Orchestra of Opera North.
Other family favourites in the 3.30pm programme
will be Viennese waltzes and polkas by Johanne Strauss, the Elder and the Younger,
such as Thunder & Lightning, Champagne, Gold & Silver and The Blue
Danube.
Extracts from The Sound Of Music and Les Miserables
will feature York Stage Musicals members in the singing roles.
Simon Wright: conducting York Guildhall Orchestra’s New Year concert
Looking ahead to 2020, this will be YGO’s
40th anniversary year, when the main celebratory concert will be
held on February 15, almost to the day when the orchestra’s debut concert was
performed in the York Guildhall, hence the name.
On that first programme were Ravel’s
Mother Goose Suite and a Brahms Symphony. This time, the orchestra will be
joined by Jamie Walton in Sir Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto.
“As always, we’re delighted we’ll be working
with the City of York Council and the York Music Hub in 2020 by providing free
places at our May concert for children from York primary schools and members of
Yorchestra.”
Further information on the year ahead can be found at yorkguildhallorchestra.com. Tickets for the New Year’s Family Concert are on sale on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
A Dickensian-clad Robbie Williams gives a thumbs-up to his 13th number one album
Robbie Williams, The Christmas Present (Columbia) *****
Wrapping: Robbie is one of the very few contemporary artists who truly embraces
album artwork: pleasing to the eye, telling a story and setting the scene for a
multitude of surprises. A Dickensian-clad Rob goes shopping on a street not
dissimilar to York’s Shambles.
Gifts inside: Double disc features a cocktail of new and evergreen classics. Rod
Stewart, Bryan Adams, boxer Tyson Fury, Jamie Cullum, Helene Fisher and Mr
Williams Senior, alias Poppa Pete, are guests across the 28 tracks. Tyson Fury?
Really? Yes, on Bad Sharon. It’s a big hit. Of course.
Style: Mostly upbeat and certainly very jolly. A very content Robbie Williams
is on top form.
’Tis the season to be jolly: Embrace this genuinely enjoyable
album of good cheer, curated with love and affection.
Scrooge moan? Rob’s fabulous update of Let Me Entertain You, for Aldi’s Christmas
campaign, and the rumoured cover of Fairytale Of New York with Britney Spears
didn’t make the final cut. Maybe next year?
White Christmas? Not on this set, although you do get fabulous covers
of I Believe In Father Christmas and a jazzed-up Merry Xmas Everybody with
Cullum.
Blue Christmas? Absolutely not. Robbie’s gift is one of happiness!
Stocking or shocking? This is destined to become one of the greatest and most cherished Christmas albums of all time.
Ian Sime
Ex- Leeds United midfielder Chris Kamara tackles ten Christmas evergreens
Chris Kamara, Here’s To Christmas (So What/Silva Screen
Records) ****
Wrapping: – At 62, Chris Kamara is a very
handsome fellow. The chromosome photograph is very becoming, yet not at all
seasonal.
Gifts inside: The consummate Renaissance Man, this ex-Leeds United footballer is now a regular television presenter on Sky Sports. Who knew the former sailor and Bake Off finalist could also sing? Unbelievable, Jeff. The very talented crooner tackles ten glorious upbeat evergreen classics.
Style: Big Band, all day and night long.
’Tis the season to be jolly: …and singalonga with Mr Kamara to
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty The Snowman and It’s Beginning To Look A
Lot Like Christmas.
Scrooge moan? Don’t be so silly. This is a
joyful swinging affair.
White Christmas? Absolutely not. We are, however, treated to Winter
Wonderland and Let It Snow!
Blue Christmas? Christmas with Mr Karama is a very jolly event.
Stocking or shocking? Chris Kamara is number one on the Jazz chart. Good for him. This is a very happy album.
Ian Sime
Bing-go: White Christmas guaranteed for Crosby
Bing Crosby with the London Symphony Orchestra, At Christmas (Decca
Records) ****
Wrapping: Decca have done their best with a selection of period family
photographs. The set is boxed in a handsome, rather snazzy, gold-embossed
sleeve.
Gifts inside: Fourteen of Mr Crosby’s classic Christmas songs given a modern
orchestral makeover, with special guests The Puppini Sisters, Pentatonix The
Tenors and, from the archives, The Andrew Sisters and David Bowie.
Style: Bing Crosby invented the Christmas album. This album is Bing’s original
iconic tones with a complementary lush orchestra.
’Tis the reason to be jolly: The chance to rediscover why we love
secular Christmas music so much in the first place.
Scrooge moan? There’s no reason to be a Grinch when Bing sings.
White Christmas? Well, the best-selling Christmas single of all
time had to be included. It’s the law.
Blue Christmas? No, this is an upbeat Easy Listening classic.
Stocking or shocking? If you’re tired of Bing, you’re tired of Christmas! Every stocking should have one.
Ian Sime
Christmas Day? Let’s play Michael Buble….again
Ian Sime’s top five Christmas albums of all time
Mariah Carey, Merry Christmas (Columbia, 1994)
Donna Summer, Christmas Spirit (Mercury, 1994)
Whitney Houston, One Wish – The Holiday Album (Columbia, 2003)
We wish you a metal Christmas: Rob Halford “gives off some attitude”
Rob Halford with Family & Friends, Celestial (Sony) **
Wrapping: Halford, the metal god from
Judas Priest, giving off some attitude as he is pasted on to wrapping paper.
Inside we see his family and friends (his brother Nigel and his band Voodoo
Sioux) smiling and giving the devil horns metal salute. Worth a second
glance? No.
Gifts inside: Heavy metal, from a much
outdated style, set awkwardly against the simple melodies of the eight
Christmas chestnuts, with four new songs cleverly woven in.
Style: Imagine if buzz and noise music never
happened. Imagine if the musical time clock was stuck in 1985. It’s old-school
metal, full of tight-trousered screams and flashy guitar solos, with some great
drumming too. If that wasn’t bad enough, there are ballads and a choir-like
song too.
‘Tis the reason to be jolly: Deck The Halls and Hark The Herald
Angels Sing rise above the rest, with a powerful punk-like attitude and some
searing musicianship. Halford’s voice remains formidable. Lead track Donner And
Blitzen should be big in Scandinavia and the Black Forest.
Scrooge moan: If you look for merry metal Christmas albums in the shops, you will probably only find this (although, perhaps for the most persistent, also Halford III: Winter Songs from 2009). There’s a good reason for that; putting the two styles together does neither any favours. It makes the tough looking and talented musicians sound daft, and would anyone into this type of music admit to owning a copy?
White Christmas? The only snow, in blue, is printed on the CD.
Blue Christmas? The mood is more defiant, but A
Winter’s Tale is more sombre.
Stocking or shocking? Shocking, for the
unreconstructed rocker in your life. who will enjoy it, just to be rebellious.
Paul Rhodes
“Piano settings really suit the monochromatic winter world in the songs” on Rick Wakeman’s Christmas album.
Rick Wakeman, Christmas Portraits
(Sony) ****
Wrapping: A grand piano perched in front
of a starlit Christmas tree in a wintry wood. A strange star is rising in the
sky. The booklet has a few portraits of the great man, the credits and a simple
message.
Gifts inside: 14 traditional
tracks, including seven medleys, from the purveyor of The Grumpy Old Christmas
Show Tour that visited Harrogate Royal Hall on December 10.
Style: This is the sound of one man and his
piano (a Granary Steinway Model D), from .
‘Tis the reason to be jolly: The album is beautifully recorded, and
the piano settings really suit the monochromatic winter world in the songs.
Like Jan Johannson’s Jazz På Svenska, which timelessly dances
with folk tunes, Wakeman’s variations on these age-old melodies are both
graceful and fitting.
Scrooge moan: This is certainly more BBC Radio 3 than
prog, so won’t please all of Wakeman’s admirers, and enjoyable while it is, it
does all blur together.
White Christmas? No, this is a more
traditional set aimed towards the classical fan rather than frequenter of
supper clubs (you know who you are).
Blue Christmas? There is certainly melancholy,
and a sense of bitter cold, but the melodies should cast sunlight into the
gloomiest of moods.
Stocking or shocking? Stocking, for anyone who gets
lost in their thoughts while pondering the frost through the kitchen window.
Paul Rhodes
Aimee Mann’s Christmas album: so good, she released it twice
Paul Rhodes’s top five Christmas
albums of all time
The Staple Singers, The 25th Day Of December
Carols from Kings
Aimee Mann, One More Drifter In The
Snow
The Louvin Brothers, Christmas With
The Louvin Brothers
Christmas Greetings From Nashville –
featuring Skeeter Davis
Flowering anew: Kate Rusby’s fifth Christmas album
Kate Rusby, Holly Head (Pure Records)
****
Wrapping: Barnsley nightingale Kate in snowy white with her very own Holly Head, a Christmas garland of wintry flowers, foliage, twigs and leaves atop her curls. A “Holly Head” loves Christmas music like a petrol head loves cars, she says.
Gifts inside: South Yorkshire pub carols, Yorkshire
winter songs, one new Rusby composition and a couple of novelty numbers (John Rox’s
Hippo For Christmas, from 1953, and a third rescue mission for Kate’s Yorkshire
Tea-powered Barnsley superhero, Big Brave Bill).
Style: Kate and her touring folk players, augmented as ever by the “Brass Boys”, on her fifth Christmas collection in 11 years. Songs merry, melancholic and daft, all to be found here.
’Tis the reason to be jolly: Kate’s sixth version of While Shepherds
Watched (only another 24 still to go, apparently!); the titles Yorkshire Three
Ships and Bleak Midwinter (Yorkshire); and Kate branching out into folk prog
via Clannad with the beautifully frosty The Holly King.
Scrooge moan: Hip, hippo, but not hurray for The
Hippo Song, despite Mike Levis’s pomp-pomp tuba. Bah Humbug to such
jollification.
White Christmas? No, but Lu Lay (The Coventry Carol) is chillier than a Yorkshire moor in winter.
Blue Christmas? Bleak Midwinter (Yorkshire); that
title says it all.
Stocking or shocking? Christmas Is Merry, sings Kate, and
Holly Heads and hippo devotees everywhere will love it.
Charles Hutchinson
Going on holiday: Josh Rouse’s Nashville Christmas album
Josh Rouse, The Holiday Sounds Of
Josh Rouse (Yep Roc) ****
Wrapping: No hint of winter in a painting with warm red, pink and yellow hues. The opening song title, Mediterranean X-mas, explains it, as American singer-songwriter Rouse has only latterly moved to Nashville from Valencia after ten winters in Spain.
Gifts inside: Rouse’s first“ holiday concept album”, his 13th in all, contains nine originals, complemented by a bonus disc bearing the gifts of three demos and Rousing versions of trad holiday songs All I Want For Christmas, Up On The Housetop and Let It Snow.
Style: Breezy, warm, vintage folk, pop, country blues and jauntily jazzy rock, not too far removed from Nick Lowe’s 2013 seasonal selection, Quality Street. Indeed Basher urged him to make this record when touring together in 2015.
Happy holidays: Josh Rouse raises a glass of bubbly to Christmas
’Tis the reason to be jolly: Lush, warmly reflective songs of childhood nostalgia and holidays spent away from home are the perfect accompaniment to the year’s glowing embers. Red Suit, New York Holiday, Lights Of Town and Christmas Songs are the pick.
Scrooge moan: None, unless you crave the absent sleigh
bells, children’s choirs and Yuletide standards you won’t find in the Rouse
house.
White Christmas? No. Presumably gone on holiday to
somewhere colder.
Blue Christmas? Sadness seeps through Letters In The
Mailbox and Heartbreak Holiday.
Stocking or shocking? Rouse should be in your house come Christmas Day.
Merry Cryptmas from The Cramps’ vinyl vaults
Merry Luxmas, It’s Christmas In Crampsville!, Season’s
Gratings From The Cramps’ Vinyl Basement (Righteous/Cherry Red) *****
Wrapping: Family album photo from the Fifties, one
woman, her glasses, her pearls, her dog and her overladen Christmas tree. What
a swell party that looks.
Gifts inside: In the ghostly spirit of Christmas
past, an original cassette compilation by the late Lux Interior of Sacramento psychobilly
punks The Cramps, lovingly entitled Jeezus ****, It’s Christmas, is re-activated
and re-mastered. Lux and Poison’s Ivy raves from the Christmas crypt add up to
31 of the “strangest Yuletide 45s ever”, now accompanied with ace sleeve notes
by Mojo magazine’s Dave Henderson.
Style: Wild and weird rock’n’roll music and jumpin’
jive for beatniks, hipsters and swinging hep cats. Doo-wop ballads, novelty oddities,
jailbird laments, mighty bluesmen, even skewed country (George Jones’s Eskimo
Pie), are all Cramped in.
’Tis the season to be jolly: So many.Especially
Tony Rodelle Larson’s impossibly cool Cool Yule; Louis Armstrong’s joyous Zat
You, Santa Claus; Joan Shaw’s insistent I Want A Man For Christmas and Jimmy
Butler’s innuendo-laden Trim Your Tree, culminating in the Reverend J M Gates’s
fire-and-brimstone sermon, Did You Spend Christmas Day In Jail.
Scrooge moan: Spike Jones and His City Slickers’ dogs
launching a barking-mad assault on O Christmas Tree. Doggerel.
White Christmas? Anything but. Make way for The
Marquees’ Christmas In The Congo, more like.
Blue Christmas? Too many to mention, but these will
do for starters: Floyd Dixon’s Empty Stocking Blues, Little Esther & Mel
Walker’s Far Away Christmas Blues; Julia Lee And Her Boy Friends’ Christmas
Spirit, T-Bone Walker’s Cold, Cold Feeling and Washboard Pete’s Christmas
Blues.
Stocking or shocking? Do you know someone who hates
Christmas? Present incoming.
Charles Hutchinson
Great work: Emmy The Great and Ash’s Tim Wheeler do Christmas
Charles Hutchinson’s top five
Christmas albums of all time to discover
Bruce Cockburn, Christmas (Columbia,
1993)
Glasvegas, A Snowflake Fell (And It
Felt Like A Kiss) (SonyBMG, 2008)
Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler Present…This Is Christmas (Infectious Music, 2011)
Smith & Burrows, Funny Looking
Angels (Kitchenware/Play It Again Sam, 2011)
