The Chimera Ensemble in concert at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
LAST Friday evening’s concert was dominated by a performance of Julius Eastman’s 1974 work, Femenine, which, given that it lasted one hour plus, is hardly surprising.
Like the best of the minimalist music, I found the performance both hypnotic and radiant. The opening could be likened to that of a musical dawn, beginning with a simple rhythmic figure – semiquaver groupings coupled with a syncopated two-note motif – on vibraphone, inviting the other instruments to join in.
It felt like the players were given freedom – when to come in, how long to repeat material – and this created a fluid, floating quality. This distinguished the effect from the stricter processes of Philip Glass or Steve Reich, in both feel and structure.
The resulting sensual quality may, in part, help explain Eastman’s choice of title, Femenine. As a Black and openly gay composer working outside the classical mainstream, questions of identity and expression inevitably inform how the work is heard.
In the opening section, the instruments don’t simply join in; they overlap, blurring any clear dialogue, harmony or any sense of hierarchy. Yet there was drama, albeit one without a fixed direction. About halfway through, the music kind of disintegrates. Here it becomes fragile, dislocated, vulnerable. As I didn’t see it coming, the effect was striking.
Composer Julius Eastman
The return journey, although covering similar ground – the rhythmic heartbeat still anchoring the music – felt altered, transformed. Drama was further enhanced by the alignment of clear tonal (simple triads) interruptions, signalled by the pianists Catherine Laws and Felix Edwards-McStay.
The locking-in of these tonal events gave the work moments of both clarity and radiance. The ending – a winding down leaving only the vibraphone’s rhythmic heartbeat gently laid to rest – was exquisite.
It would be wrong to single out any of the individual performers – it just isn’t that sort of experience – but credit should go to performance director Catherine Laws, and to percussionists John Rousseau (vibraphone) and Peter Evans (marimba) for their stamina and utterly infectious enthusiasm.
Mercifully, the first half was a short affair, showcasing three works by the university music department’s student composers.
Now then, back in the day – OK, my day – showcasing student compositions meant indecipherable programme notes explaining the unexplainable, accompanied by a performance experience of extremely loud, piercingly dissonant sounds designed toshatter the listeners’ teeth.
I enjoyed Sidney Wood’s Interruptions for solo electric guitar. It opened in a melancholic, reflective mood, but one without a melody or songline to follow. The “interruptions” were sudden distorted attacks with feedback that not only undermined the flow but also continually invited disorder and improvisation.
The Chimera Ensemble: Taking a bow at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
To be sure, “harmonic saturation” enriched the sound world, and the interruptions added drama, but they also set up an expectation of virtuosic release. Just to be clear, I wasn’t expecting the piece to go full Pete Townshend, but certain expectations come with it: electric guitar solo = rock music = (some sort of) rebellion. Still, as I said, I enjoyed it.
I also enjoyed Manlu Du’s Landscape – for a pianist and their friend, although I wasn’t entirely convinced by it. There were lovely moments: the opening exchange of gentle clusters between the two performers (Roy Watkins and Manlu Du), and a simple piano pattern delicately distorted by the second pianist – the “friend” – dampening the strings, for example.
However, the second pianist’s movement around the spacedidn’t add anything meaningful, and the use of two pianos weakened the intended intimacy.
Now I’ve never heard of Brian Kernighan nor, mercifully, read his A Tutorial to the Language B, but I thought Danny Saleeb’s Hello World – based on the (simple) computer programme – was inspired.
Arthur Elliott’s performance on solo viola gave the impression of an unfolding landscape. The opening texture was one of fragility created through a range of extended string techniques: sul ponticello (bowing close to the bridge, creating a glassy, metallic quality); sul tasto (bowing over the fingerboard, harmonics), producing a purer, thinner tone and microtones – shifting, unstable ‘out of tune’ notes etc.
Saleeb uses these to create fascinating, layered textures that feel distinctly otherworldly. I heard traces of folksong and even Bach – arpeggiation, implied counterpoint – peeping through the surface. A short but inventive and musically intelligent work, and technically demanding. Full credit to Arthur Elliott. This was by far the standout work of the first half, and Danny Saleeb is clearly a composer to watch.
Corella: Debuting A Beautiful World To Lose songs at The Crescent. Picture: Charles Agall
MANCHESTER indie rock band Corella will showcase songs from their upcoming second album at The Crescent, York, on May 28 at 7.30pm.
Ahead of September 18 release of A Beautiful World To Lose on FLG, the six-date May tour will see Joel Smith (vocals/guitar), Ben Henderson (bass/vocals), Jack Taylor (guitar) and James Fawcett (drums) taking it back to where it all began, playing songs from the upcoming album live for the first time, as well as performing fan favourites from 2024 debut album Once Upon A Weekend.
Produced by Grammy-winning Jason Perry (The Molotovs, McFly and Don Broco), A Beautiful World To Lose finds Corella performing with a new ferocity and sense of purpose as they take a piercing glare into the state of the world, alongside a deep look into human emotion and being.
“It definitely sounds more fierce than the last one,” says frontman Smith.“We felt like we were testing the waters, whereas now we know we really want to make a difference through our music. We’re also very aware that there are other bands who’ve cruised and put out similar albums throughout their careers…we wanted to challenge ourselves.”
Corella’s tour poster for May itinerary
Corella have developed their skills as musicians, while benefiting from experience both in their careers and in life, reckons Smith. “A lot has happened since we released our first album,” he says. “We’re writing more for ourselves, this time, but we also hope there’s plenty that listeners will be able to relate to. These lyrics have more grit to them, more heart, and we knew we had to be willing to make ourselves more vulnerable.”
Smith says of first single Rewire: “A lot of people are so vulnerable, especially in the UK, it feels as though they’ll believe anything that gets put in front of them. This song came out of our frustration from simply observing that people have maybe been ‘rewired’ to think a certain way, but also encouraging them to flip that on its head, to challenge the status quo.”
Formed at university, Corella have been supported BBC Radio 1, Radio X and BBC Introducing, while clocking up more 70 million streams, performing at Leeds & Reading, Kendal Calling, Truck, Latitude and Neighbourhood festivals, touring across the UK and Europe and supporting Kaiser Chiefs, Pale Waves, Circa Waves and The Wombats.
The tour includes a further Yorkshire gig at The Parish, Huddersfield, on May 23. Box office: York, thecrescentyork.com; Huddersfield, parishpub.co.uk.
“Now we know we really want to make a difference through our music,” says Corella frontman Joel Smith
Eileen Walsh‘s TV psychic Sheila Gold in York Theatre Royal’s premiere of The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan
DYSON and Nyman’s dark thriller world premiere and women sporting Holmes & Watson waxed moustaches tickle Charles Hutchinson’s fancy in his recommendations for the week ahead.
World premiere of the week: The Psychic, York Theatre Royal, until May 23
“IS any of it real,” ask Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman in The Psychic, the latest spook-fest from the writer-director duo behind Ghost Stories. In their twisted new thriller, popular TV psychic Sheila Gold loses a high-profile court case that brands her a charlatan, costing her not only her reputation but also a fortune in legal fees.
When a wealthy couple ask Sheila to conduct a séance to attempt to make contact with their late child, she senses an opportunity to bleed them for money. What follows makes her question everything she has ever believed, leading her on a journey into the darkest corners of her life. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Laura Castle’s Dr John Watson in Neon Crypt’s The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Picture
Mystery thriller of the week: Neon Crypt in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
JOIN York company Neon Crypt for side-splitting stupidity, hot dog disguises and absolute terror in Jamie McKeller’s staging of Peepolykus co-artistic director John Nicholson’s incredibly high-brow adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery The Hound Of The Baskervilles.
Sherlock Holmes (Laura McKeller) and Dr Watson (Laura Castle) must unravel the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, found dead on his estate with a look of terror still etched on his face and the paw prints of a gigantic hound beside his body. Look out for Michael Cornell popping up as Sir Henry and Sir Charles Baskerville and assorted meat-wielding Yokels. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Pop gig of the week: K-Pop All Stars, Grand Opera House, York, tonight, 7pm
RIDE the global K-pop wave with K-Pop All Stars’ explosive live celebration of the music, artists and Korean culture that is taking over the pop world. Feel the power of stadium-sized anthems, razor-sharp choreography and a cast that delivers every beat with precision and passion, performing hits by Blackpink, NewJeans, Katseye, BTS, Itzy, Stray Kids, Twice, Jung Kook and more. Cue light sticks glowing in the crowd. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Folk gig of the week: Dervish, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tonight, 7.30pm
LEGENDARY Irish traditional folk music band Dervish, recipients of a BBC lifetime achievement award in 2019, have recorded and performed all over the world, playing at festivals from Rio to Glastonbury. Fronted by singer Cathy Jordan. the line-up of fiery fiddle, flute, bouzouki, mandola, bodhran and accordion delivers vibrant sets of tunes and compelling songs. Box office for returns only: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Tribute show of the week: The Steelers, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 8pm
THE Steelers, a nine-piece band of musicians drawn from around Great Britain, perform songs from iconic Steely Dan Steel albums Pretzel Logic, The Royal Scam, AJA and Goucho, crafted by Walter Becker and Donald Fagan since 1972.
Once described as “the American Beatles”, Becker and Fagan’s songs are noted for their clever lyrics and sophisticated arrangements. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Exhibition of the week: Ceri Jenkins, Through Darkness We Can Find A Light, Helmsley Arts Centre, until July 5
NORTH Yorkshire portrait and art photographer Ceri Jenkins’ exhibition is the culmination of her personal healing journey; showcasing powerful and evocative images that use light, reflections and mirror images to inform the narratives of mental health, overcoming trauma, abuse and addiction and to convey a profound message of hope.
Through Darkness We Can Find A Light explores how, when she felt surrounded and suffocated by falseness, subtle signs from the universe pointed Ceri in the direction of using her art and creativity to look within and find her own light in the darkness. This exhibition is a testament to her long-term mission to utilise art and creativity to promote and support natural healing in herself and others while inspiring us to seek inner peace. Opening hours: 10am to 2pm, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; Thursday, 11am to 2pm; Sunday, 11am to 3pm, plus during public events. Admission is free.
Solo show of the week: Ali Williams in Careless Talk, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday 7.30pm
IN a true story of high treason, espionage, spam fritters, the only British person to be tried for treason in the Second World War takes to the stage for the first time in Ali Williams’s show. Was Mabel a collaborator? A visionary? Or just an outsider? Was she the victim of a witch hunt? Or the victim of her own uncompromising nature? Join Mabel on Sandown Beach with her secateurs, sequinned tassels and heartfelt, if misguided, self-belief.
This stage adaptation of James Friel’s novel Careless Talk.tale opens a dialogue on the justice system in this country: who does it protect, how and why? And what of those who fall through the net, the unpopular, the uncompromising? Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Children’s show of the week: English National Ballet & English National Ballet School, My First Ballet: Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, Saturday, 10.30am and 2pm; Sunday, 1am and 3pm
MEET the nature-loving Cinderella, who lives on the edge of an enchanted forest where she once gardened and sang with her mother. After loss and silence settle over her home, she is left with a sharp-tongued stepmother, two noisy stepsisters and a house full of chores and shadows.
But when a letter arrives, inviting all to a garden ball, Cinderella’s journey to find her true self begins, guided by the spirit of her mother and the magic of the forest. Using a narrator to help the young audience follow the story, and a shortened, recorded version of Prokofiev’s score, this introduction to ballet is choreographed by George Williamson and performed by English National Ballet School Graduate Artists Programme students. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Eileen Walsh in rehearsal for her lead role as Sheila Gold in the world premiere of The Psychic at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Manuel Harlan
DYSON and Nyman’s world premiere dark thriller and women sporting Holmes & Watson waxed moustaches tickle Charles Hutchinson’s fancy in his recommendations for the week ahead.
World premiere of the week: The Psychic, York Theatre Royal, until May 23
“IS any of it real,” ask Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman in The Psychic, the latest spook-fest from the writer-director duo behind Ghost Stories. In their twisted new thriller, popular TV psychic Sheila Gold loses a high-profile court case that brands her a charlatan, costing her not only her reputation but also a fortune in legal fees.
When a wealthy couple ask Sheila to conduct a séance to attempt to make contact with their late child, she senses an opportunity to bleed them for money. What follows makes her question everything she has ever believed, leading her on a journey into the darkest corners of her life. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Writer-directors Andy Nyman, left, and Jeremy Dyson in the rehearsal room for The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan
Cutting-edge music and art collaboration of the week: York Late Music presents Late Music Ensemble: Picture This!, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate York, tonight, 7.30pm
INSPIRED by the relationship between visual art and music, Picture This! explores how composers have responded to artworks across time, from Modest Mussorgsky to the present day.
Today’s audience is invited on a promenade through an imagined exhibition, where works by Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Bridget Riley and John Martin, alongside sculpture by Alexander Calder, are reflected in a musical programme featuring a new arrangement of Pictures At An Exhibition, Igor Stravinsky’s miniature tribute to Pablo Picasso, songs by Don van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) and David Byrne, plus new works. Nick Williams gives a pre-concert talk at 6.45pm. Tickets: latemusic.org or on the door.
Feeling his collar: Tom Davis in Spudgun, full of freshly cooked observations on life’s hot topics
Comedy gig of the week: Tom Davis in Spudgun, Grand Opera House, York, tonight, 7.30pm
CROYDON comedy turn, actor and podcaster Tom Davis is back on the road, firing out his freshly cooked observations on life’s hot topics. Co-host of the Wolf And Owl podcast with Romesh Ranganathan, star of BAFTA and Royal Television Society award-winning comedy series Murder In Successville and BBC One comedy King Gary, he also has his own Sky and NOW TV special, Underdog. “Get ready,” he says. “This one is fully loaded.” Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Hank, Pattie & The Current: Innovative twist on traditional bluegrass at Selby Town Hall
Bluegrass gig of the week: Hank, Pattie & The Current, Selby Town Hall, tonight, 7.30pm
HARD-HITTING bluegrass pickers who moonlight as symphonic classical musicians, Hank, Pattie & The Current approach their string band much as they would a string quartet. The Raleigh, North Carolina four-piece are led by Hank Smith’s banjo and Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw’s fiddle in an innovative twist on traditional bluegrass flavoured with classical, Motown, jazz and pop. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.
Steve Cassidy: Leading his band through rock and country numbers at the JoRo
Vintage performance of the week: Steve Cassidy Band, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
THE Steve Cassidy Band return to their favourite home-city venue with guests in tow for a night of rock and country music chosen to appeal to all age groups. Steve, a three-time winner on New Faces, recorded with John Barry as a teenager and performed on shows with legends of the music industry. His line-up features John Lewis, guitar, George Hall, keyboards, Mick Hull, bass, guitar and ukulele, and Brian Thomson, percussion. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Katherine Priddy: Showcasing new album These Frightening Machines at Pocklington Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: Katherine Priddy, Pocklington Arts Centre, Sunday, 8pm
AFTER writing and recording two songs with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and appearing on Later…With Jools Holland, Birmingham folk singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy released her third album, These Frightening Machines, in March on Cooking Vinyl.
Priddy’s new compositions explore what it means to keep going when things fall apart, to hold on to connections in a world that sometimes divides and to figure out where we fit into the machines and systems we find ourselves confronting. Northallerton singer-songwriter George Boomsma supports. Box office: pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Farewell tour for opera impresario and director Ellen Kent
Exit stage left: Ellen Kent, The Farewell Tour, Madama Butterfly, May 3, 7.30pm, and Carmen, May 4, 7.30pm, both at Grand Opera House, York
OPERA impresario and director Ellen Kent is on the road with her farewell tour, presented by Senbla, featuring Opera International Kyiv, from Ukraine, in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Bizet’s Carmen.
Sung in Italian with English surtitles, Madama Butterfly’s heart-breaking story of the beautiful young Japanese girl who falls in love with an American naval lieutenant will be led by sopranos Elena Dee and Viktoria Melnyk, mezzo-soprano Yelyzaveta Bielous and tenors Oleksii Srebnytskyi and Hovhannes Andreasyan. Sung in French with English surtitles, Carmen promises passion, sexual jealousy, death and unforgettable arias, performed by Dee, Melynk and Mariia Davydova. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Laura Castle’s Dr John Watson, left, and Laura McKeller’s Sherlock Holmes in Neon Crypt’s The Hound Of The Baskerville
Mystery thriller of the week: Neon Crypt in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 5 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
JOIN York company Neon Crypt for side-splitting stupidity, hot dog disguises and absolute terror in Jamie McKeller’s staging of Peepolykus co-artistic director John Nicholson’s incredibly high-brow adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery The Hound Of The Baskervilles.
Sherlock Holmes (Laura McKeller) and Dr Watson (Laura Castle) must unravel the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, found dead on his estate with a look of terror still etched on his face and the paw prints of a gigantic hound beside his body. Look out for Michael Cornell popping up as Sir Henry and Sir Charles Baskerville and Yokel 2. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
The poster artwork for K-Pop All Stars, bound for Grand Opera House, York
Tribute gig of the week: K-Pop All Stars, Grand Opera House, York, May 6, 7pm
RIDE the global K-pop wave with K-Pop All Stars’ explosive live celebration of the music, artists and Korean culture that is taking over the pop world. Feel the power of stadium-sized anthems, razor-sharp choreography and a cast that delivers every beat with precision and passion, performing hits by Blackpink, NewJeans, Katseye, BTS, Itzy, Stray Kids, Twice, Jung Kook and more. Cue light sticks glowing in the crowd. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Dervish: Traditional Irish folk music at National Centre for Early Music. Picture: Tim Jarvis
Recommended but sold out already: Dervish, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, May 6, 7.30pm
LEGENDARY Irish traditional folk music band Dervish, recipients of a BBC lifetime achievement award in 2019, have recorded and performed all over the world, playing at festivals from Rio to Glastonbury. Fronted by singer Cathy Jordan. the line-up of fiery fiddle, flute, bouzouki, mandola, bodhran and accordion delivers vibrant sets of tunes and compelling songs. Box office for returns only: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Teddy Thompson: Releasing 11th album, Never Be The Same, on May 15
TEDDY Thompson will bring his Never Be The Same UK Tour to All Saints Church, Pocklington, in a June 6 show promoted by Hurricane Promotions.
The London-born, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter will play a second Yorkshire gig on his 13-date British and Irish itinerary at Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, on June 11.
Thompson, 50, will be showcasing Never Be The Same, his 11th album, featuring his first collection of original material since Heartbreaker Please in 2020, to be released on May 15 on RPF Records/Royal Potato Family on CD, digital, and vinyl formats.
Across ten tracks, Thompson refines his craft via an exploration of music’s enduring preoccupations: love, longing and the uneasy passage of time.
The album was not built on a grand narrative. There was no self-imposed exile, no forced reinvention. Instead, it is centred around an exhortation threaded through the songs like a refrain, namely “Never Be The Same”, whose title only revealed itself to Thompson after he had completed the recording.
“It’s a phrase that, unconsciously, I used twice,” he says. “And when I saw it on the page, I realised, this is the message of this album. Don’t ever be the same. Change. Grow! Even when the sentiment is, ‘woe is me’, I’ll never recover after that love or loss. The message is still, change. Don’t get too comfortable. Everything is temporary, so evolve or perish!”
This pull and tension between comfort and change runs quietly throughout the album, produced by Grammy Award–winning musician/producer David Mansfield.
At the core is Thompson’s longstanding commitment to songwriting as a form, inspired by early influences such as Chuck Berry, Hank Williams and Crowded House, as well as the towering figures of the craft, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, The Beatles and, certainly, his parents, British folk icons Richard and Linda Thompson.
The poster artwork for Teddy Thompson’s gig at All Saints Church, Pocklington
For Thompson, the search for this truth starts with authenticity and personal experience. “Songwriting is magical,” he says. “You can hear 100 people sing ‘I love you,’ and you know which one is telling the truth. If the root of the sentiment is authentic, it will resonate.”
The album’s first single, So This Is Heartache, is a bruised waltz for the broken- hearted. Reminiscent of the golden age of Stax Records, it weds Thompson’s keening tenor and soaring falsetto with a classic soul feel and a warm horn section.
“If you sit down to write the most raw emotion you can summon, most of the time it’s going to touch on some kind of loss,” he says. “People will say, ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ but it’s not that I’ve had more heartbreak than anybody else; I just wrote it down.”
A crucial presence throughout the album is Mansfield, who also helmed My Love Of Country, Thompson’s 2023 country covers project. Mansfield once again presents Thompson with a deft touch, framing his vocals in elegant and understated arrangements.
“He’s a big part of the aesthetic. We work very well together; we are simpatico,” says Thompson. “It’s a great feeling to put someone else in charge after having the songs rolling around in your head for ages. Once you’ve done the writing, you’re able to just be the singer. The sound of the record is down to him; he did an amazing job.”
On Come Back, Thompson begs for redemption with a departed lover whom he did not do enough to retain, alternately grappling with the need for self-improvement and pleading for a return. Baby It’s You is the album’s most tender moment, a yearning ballad juxtaposed by a chorus that could fill a stadium and punctuated by John Grant’s wicked, percolating synthesisers.
I Remember is the stuff of nostalgia, wherein Thompson recalls the angst of childhood and the soothing “pale, rock pool eyes” of the one who set him on his path. There is even an appropriately dry kiss-off to unnamed vices with Worst Two Weeks Of My Life.
Ultimately, Never Be The Same is an album of steady evolution, a suite of deeply considered, carefully constructed songs rooted in lived experience. If one message prevails, it is that change is not only inevitable but essential, even when you would rather stay exactly where you are.
Tickets for Pocklington and Leeds are on sale at https://www.alttickets.com/teddy-thompson-tickets.
In the York Barbican spotlight: Jalen Ngonda on the first night of his spring tour at York Barbican. Picture: Paul Rhodes
JALEN Ngonda is a stylist. He doesn’t lay things on too much or too little.
The rising American-born soul star doesn’t overdo his incredible vocals or over-extend his scratch guitar playing or showboat on the piano. Instead, he lets the grooves and the vibe carry the day.
His is a sunlight and birdsong sort of a voice, bright, energetic and brimming with life.
This was the first night of the tour, and Ngonda and his three-piece band (who remained un-introduced, but were Michael Buckley ,keyboards and guitar, Vincent Chiarito, bass, and Sam Merrick, drums) showed no hint of nerves as they delivered an assured 68-minute set.
Seemingly effortless, Ngonda didn’t seek to seduce, to tease or to milk his audience, who treated him like a superstar anyway. While he has been playing the music trade in the UK for more than a decade, and his breakout album Come Around And Love Me came out in 2023, you sense Ngonda is about to become something of a big thing.
Jalen Ngonda performing with drummer Sam Merrick, keyboard player Michael Buckley and bassist Vincent Chiarito. Picture: Paul Rhodes
To this point Ngonda could be viewed as a singles artist, reeling off would-be hit after would-be hit. Tunes such as Just As Long As We’re Together and That’s All I Wanted From You could stand with the best soul of any era.
Fortunately, he hasn’t gone psychedelic but is doubling down on affairs of the heart. His piano numbers revealed a man who could go in any number of musical directions.
This Maryland man with the high, androgynous voice, now an adopted Liverpudlian, is in every sense a star turn. True, his songs are all cut from the same cloth, but it’s a very stylish cloth that captures the best of 1960s’ Motown soul, the Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Smokey Robinson sound.
The contemporary edge is well hidden, but Ngonda is more than a tribute to a great period. It’ll be interesting to see the reaction to his forthcoming much-anticipated new LP, Doctrine Of Love.
On this showing, he seems poised to take his material to the next level, as evidenced by his multi-generation appeal and the response to his music. Ngonda was clearly pleased to be in such an appreciative setting, and his natural modesty only endeared him more to the crowd.
Kristian Barley’s Adam, left, Steve Tearle’s Bernadette and Matthew Clarke’s Tick in NE Theatre York’s Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert
FROM Priscilla in the outback to dark thriller The Psychic, the Romanian Richard III to Neon Crypt’s Holmes and Watson, Charles Hutchinson picks the week ahead’s best shows and gigs.
Musical of the week: NE Theatre York in Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
STEVE Tearle, creative director of NE Theatre York, plays Bernadette, joined by Matthew Clarke as Tick and Kristian Barley as Adam, in the adventure of two drag artists and a trans woman embarking on a life‑changing road trip across the Aussie outback in their battered tour bus, discovering the power of love, identity, acceptance and true friendship.
“As they head west through the Australian desert to chase a dream aboard their lavender bus, our three terrific travellers come to the forefront of a comedy of errors,” says Tearle, whose high-energy production also features Helen Greenley as Shirley, Ben Rich as Jimmy, Steve Perry as Bob, the mechanic, Ali Butler-Hind as his wife Cynthia, plus disco divas Perri Ann Barley, Melissa Boyd and Aileen Hall. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Andy Nyman, left, and Jeremy Dyson in rehearsal for their world premiere of The Psychic at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Manuel Harlan
World premiere of the week: The Psychic, York Theatre Royal, today to May 23
“IS any of it real,” ask Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman in The Psychic, the latest spook-fest from the writer-director duo behind Ghost Stories. In their twisted new thriller, popular TV psychic Sheila Gold loses a high-profile court case that brands her a charlatan, costing her not only her reputation but also a fortune in legal fees.
When a wealthy couple ask Sheila to conduct a séance to attempt to make contact with their late child, she senses an opportunity to bleed them for money. What follows makes her question everything she has ever believed and leads her on a journey into the darkest corners of her life. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Gemma Curry in Hoglets Theatre’s Spooky Shakespeare Suitcase Theatre
Children’s show of the week: Hoglets Theatre presents Spooky Shakespeare Suitcase Theatre, York International Shakespeare Festival, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, today, 6.30pm
HAGS, hauntings, hobgoblins and more emerge from the spooky suitcase owned by Lady Macbeth (Dotty to her friends). These spectres from performances past must retell their stories before they can find peace in the literary afterlife, but are they friends or will we need to be vanquished back into the supernatural suitcase?
Written, crafted and performed by Hoglets Theatre founder, director, writer and performer Gemma Sharp, this funny, energetic children’s theatre experience presents a world of hand-made puppets, music and storytelling, all performed from a single suitcase. “No prior knowledge of Shakespeare is required,” she says. Box office: https://yorkshakes.co.uk/programme-2026/spooky-shakespeare-suitcase-theatre/.
Dirty Ruby: Playing the blues at Milton Rooms, Malton
Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents Dirty Ruby, Milton Rooms, Malton, tomorrow, 8pm
SPECIALISING in sharp-edged blues rock, East Midlands five-piece Dirty Ruby have drawn comparison with 1970s’ acts Stone The Crows and Vinegar Joe with their energetic combination of Hammond organ, beautiful bluesy guitar, tight rhythm section and soulful lead vocals. After a five-track EP and debut single, they are working on completing their debut album. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Paulus The Cabaret Geek in the Victoria Wood tribute Looking For Me Friends
Tribute of the week: Looking For Me Friend: The Music Of Victoria Wood, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 7.30pm
PAULUS The Cabaret Geek and pianist Michael Roulston marks the tenth anniversary of Victoria Wood’s death in Looking For Me Friend. Directed by Sarah-Louise Young (from An Evening Without Kate Bush), the show is filled with Wood’s best-loved songs, such as Ballad of Barry & Freda’ (Let’s Do It) and It Would Never Have Worked. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Sarah McQuaid: Playing Helmsley Arts Centre on Friday
Folk gig of the week: Sarah McQuaid, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
SINGER and songwriter Sarah McQuaid draws on her seven albums of velvet-voiced folk songs, performed with wit and warmth in concert on acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards and occasionally drums.
Born in Spain, raised in Chicago, holding dual Irish and American citizenship and now settled in rural England, she brings the eclecticism of her background to her contemplative ballads, playful blues and atmospheric instrumentals, her music inviting reflection, connection and a deep appreciation of the quiet power of a well-crafted song. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Eduardo Martín & Ahmed Dickinson Cárdena
Guitar concert of the week: Eduardo Martín & Ahmed Dickinson Cárdenas, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, Friday, 7.30pm
GRAMMY nominee composer Eduardo Martín and virtuoso classical guitarist Ahmed Dickinson Cárdenas combine in an intergenerational duo that celebrates the depth and diversity of Cuban guitar music, weaving together classical, Afro-Cuban, jazz, rock and cinematic influences into a vibrant and emotionally rich dialogue.
Together, Martín and Dickinson Cárdenas embody a powerful artistic synergy. More than a concert, their collaboration is a sonic journey where generations meet, traditions evolve and Cuban identity resonates on a global stage. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Liviu Cheloiu in Richard III – The Man at York International Shakespeare Festival. Picture: Teatrul Tony Bulandra
Discontented son of York of the week: Tony Bulandra Theatre in Richard III – The Man, York International Shakespeare Festival, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Friday, 7.30pm
SHAKESPEARE’S “most captivating character” returns to York in Targoviste company Tony Bulandra Theatre’s Richard III – The Man, performed in Romanian with English surtitles by versatile actor and festival director Liviu Cheloiu, celebrated in the Eastern European country for his film roles and theatre work.
Exploring themes of power and its corrupting allure, the nature of evil, the manipulation of language and the thin lines between reality and fiction, the show delves into Richard III’s psyche while attempting to relate the Bard’s description – or character assassination? – with the historical truth about the Yorkist Plantagenet king in a series of scenes inspired by the Bard’s plays, showcasing Richard’s chameleon-like personality to reveal how he utilises those around him to achieve his goals. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk or tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Laura Castle’s Dr Watson, left, and Laura McKeller’s Sherlock Holmes in Neon Crypt’s The Hound Of The Baskervilles
Mystery thriller of the week: Neon Crypt in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 5 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
JOIN York company Neon Crypt for side-splitting stupidity, hot dog disguises and absolute terror in Jamie McKeller’s staging of Peepolykus co-artistic director John Nicholson’s incredibly high-brow adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery The Hound Of The Baskervilles.
Sherlock Holmes (Laura McKeller) and Dr Watson(Laura Castle) are summoned to investigate the ancient curse of the Hound of the Baskervilles and unravel the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, found dead on his estate with a look of terror still etched on his face and the paw prints of a gigantic hound beside his body. Look out for Michael Cornell popping up as Sir Henry Baskerville and Yokel 2. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Collage and mixed-media artist Donna Maria Taylor: Participating in York Open Studios at South Bank Studios
FROM Rocky Horror film stars to Shakespeare in a suitcase, Bowie to Boe, Priscilla to The Psychic premiere, Charles Hutchinson is spoilt for choice again.
Art event of the week: York Open Studios, York and beyond, today and Sunday, 10am to 5pm
FOR a second weekend, 150 artists and makers within York and a ten-mile radius of the city are welcoming visitors to 107 workplaces and studios.
This annual event offers the chance to gain a sneak peek into where the artists work, their methods and inspirations, whether a regular contributor or the 27 new participants, spanning traditional and contemporary painting and print, illustration, drawing, ceramics, mixed media, glass, sculpture, jewellery, textiles and photography. For more information, visit yorkopenstudios.co.uk; access the interactive map at yorkopenstudios.co.uk/map.
Weather Balloons’ Anne Prior: Playing Navigators Art’s YO Underground #7 bill at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse
Arts collaboration of the week: Navigators Art/Projects presents YO Underground 7, The Basement, City Screen, York, tonight, 7.30pm
CONTINUING its mission to present adventurous left-field music and words from York and the region, Navigators Art plays host to a mixed bill of uniquely styled indie song-writing from Weather Balloons’ Anne Prior, the Joe Douglas Trio’s North African-inspired free jazz and a collaboration between audiovisual projections and Ben Hopkinson’s quartet Synaefonia. Box office: bit.ly/nav-events.
Blue: In full bloom at York Barbican tonight
Limited ticket availability: Blue and special guests 911, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm; Alfie Boe, York Barbican, April 28, 7pm
REVITALISED boy band Blue have released the single Flowers, penned by good friend Robbie Williams and Boots Ottestad, ahead of their 25th anniversary tour date at York Barbican.
“Robbie reached out to me a while back and said ‘I’ve got a song for Blue’,” says Blue’s Antony Costa, who will be joined as ever by Duncan James, Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe. “We only got to record it recently and thought it would be perfect to release for the anniversary tour. We can’t wait for you all to hear Flowers.”
Tenor Alfie Boe plays York on Tuesday and Harrogate Royal Hall on Wednesday on his 35-date tour, combining his most iconic hits and fan-favourite classics with material from new album Face Myself. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk; for Boe, https://gigst.rs/AB26.
Alfie Boe: Tenor dramatics at York Barbican. Picture: Ray Burmiston
Book event of the week: Rivers, Water and Wildness, A Talk by Amy-Jane Beer, St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, April 28, 7.30pm to 9pm
THE Friends of Nun Ings invite you to Rivers, Water and Wildness, Our Rivers and Their Landscapes, a talk by biologist-turned-writer and former South Bank resident Amy-Jane Beer, author of The Flow, winner of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2023, who now lives on the Derwent.
The Flow is a book about water, and, like water, it meanders, cascades and percolates through many lives, landscapes and stories. From West Country torrents to Levels and Fens, rocky Welsh canyons and the salmon highways of Scotland to the chalk rivers of the Yorkshire Wolds, Beer follows springs, streams and rivers to explore tributary themes of wildness and wonder, loss and healing, mythology and history, cyclicity and transformation. Tickets are available via eventbrite; admission is free but donations are welcome.
Nell Campbell (Columbia), Barry Bostwick (Brad Majors) and Patricia Quinn (Magenta) celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Let’s do the Time Warp…again: The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour 2026, York Barbican, Sunday, 7pm
JOIN the original Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick), Magenta (Patricia Quinn) and Columbia (Nell Campbell) for this once-in-a-lifetime screening event with a live shadow cast. Jim Sharman’s 1975 film of Richard O’Brien’s musical will be shown in a 4K remastered edition, preceded by a Q&A with the movie stars. Expect a costume contest, memorabilia display with film artefacts and a participation prop bag for every ticket holder. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: In Concert: David Bowie on screen at York Barbican
Fantastical film and music event of the week: Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: In Concert, York Barbican, April 27, 7.30pm
JIM Henson’s musical fantasy film Labyrinth is on tour in concert in celebration of its 40th anniversary, transporting audiences to Goblin City in a fusion of film on a large HD cinema screen and live music on stage, performed by a band playing David Bowie and Trevor Jones’s soundtrack score and songs in sync with Bowie’s original vocals.
Taking on an ever-growing cult status since its release on June 27 1986, Labyrinth stars Bowie as principal antagonist Jareth the Goblin King, who rules the goblin kingdom, kidnaps protagonist Sarah’s baby brother and presents a charming yet menacing challenge, appearing as a rock star-like figure who lures and influences her journey. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Degrees Of Error’s poster for you-do-it whodunit Murder She Didn’t Write
Sleuthing opportunity of the week: Degrees Of Error in Murder She Didn’t Write, Grand Opera House, York, April 28, 7.30pm
DON your deerstalker, grab your magnifying glass and prepare your “finger of suspicion” as Edinburgh Fringe favourites Degrees Of Error return for your sleuthing pleasure, creating a classic murder mystery on-the-spot in this ingenious improvised comedy.
You, the audience, become the author as the cast acts out your very own Agatha Christie-inspired masterpiece live on stage. At each show, the company uses your suggestions to create an original and comical murder mystery. All you have to do is solve it. Ms Gold poisoned at a synchronised swimming gala? Dr Blue exploded by cannon during a hot air balloon race? Professor Violet crushed to death at a Love Island re-coupling? You decide – but will you guess whodunit before the killer is revealed? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Kristian Barley’s Adam, left, Steve Tearle’s Bernadette and Matthew Clarke’s Tick in NE Theatre York’s musical Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert
Musical of the week: NE Theatre York in Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 28 to May 2, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
STEVE Tearle, creative director of NE Theatre York, plays Bernadette, joined by Matthew Clarke as Tick and Kristian Barley as Adam, in the adventure of two drag artists and a trans woman embarking on a life‑changing road trip across the Aussie outback in their battered tour bus, discovering the power of love, identity, acceptance and true friendship.
“As they head west through the Australian desert to chase a dream aboard their lavender bus, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, our three terrific travellers come to the forefront of a comedy of errors,” says Steve, whose high-energy production also features Helen Greenley as Shirley, Ben Rich as Jimmy, Steve Perry as Bob, the mechanic, Ali Butler-Hind as his wife Cynthia, plus disco divas Perri Ann Barley, Melissa Boyd and Aileen Hall. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Eileen Walsh, left, Jaz Singh Deol, Megan Placito, Andy Nyman, Nikhita Lesler and Jeremy Dyson in rehearsal for the world premiere of The Psychic at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Manuel Harlan
World premiere of the week: The Psychic, York Theatre Royal, April 29 to May 23
“IS any of it real,” ask Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman in The Psychic, the latest spook-fest from the writer-director duo behind Ghost Stories. In their twisted new thriller, popular TV psychic Sheila Gold loses a high-profile court case that brands her a charlatan, costing her not only her reputation but also a fortune in legal fees.
When a wealthy couple ask Sheila to conduct a séance to attempt to make contact with their late child, she senses an opportunity to bleed them for money. What follows makes her question everything she has ever believed and leads her on a journey into the darkest corners of her life. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Pulling Shakespearean strings: Gemma Curry in Hoglets Theatre’s Spooky Shakespeare Suitcase Theatre at York International Shakespeare Festival
Children’s show of the week: Hoglets Theatre presents Spooky Shakespeare Suitcase Theatre, York International Shakespeare Festival, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, April 29, 6.30pm
HAGS, hauntings, hobgoblins and more emerge from the spooky suitcase owned by Lady Macbeth (Dotty to her friends). These spectres from performances past need to retell their stories before they can find peace in the literary afterlife, but are they friends or will we need to be vanquished back into the supernatural suitcase?
Written, crafted and performed by Hoglets Theatre founder, director, writer and performer Gemma Sharp, this funny, energetic children’s theatre experience presents a world of hand-made puppets, music and storytelling, all performed from a single suitcase. “No prior knowledge of Shakespeare is required,” she says. Box office: https://yorkshakes.co.uk/programme-2026/spooky-shakespeare-suitcase-theatre/.
The poster for Scott Bradley’s premiere of A Kingdom Jack’d at York International Shakespeare Festival
The poster for Scott Bradley’s premiere of A Kingdom Jack’d at York International Shakespeare Festival starring Rosy Rowley, whose birthday coincides with the opening night
Shakespeare spin-off of the week: 1st Zanni Theatre in A Kingdom Jack’d, York International Shakespeare Festival, Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York April 29 and 30, 7.30pm
IN A Kingdom Jack’d, American playwright Scott Bradley re-imagines an iconic moment in political and Shakespearean history: what if disgraced knight Jack Falstaff (Rosy Rowley) somehow found his way onto the throne of England in 1399, instead of serious warrior-king Henry IV?
Stupid, lecherous, selfish but humorous, Shakespeare’s most (in)famous clown must somehow fund the army, balance the budget and make foreign policy between naps. His government is drunk, his enemies are plotting,his allies are scheming, and even his girlfriend wants a piece of the action. Falstaff is king but for how long? Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk.
Nell Campbell (Columbia), left, Barry Bostwick (Brad Majors) and Patricia Quinn (Magenta): Reuniting for The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour
THREE stars from The Rocky Horror Picture Show are doing the Time Warp again on a 13-date tour to mark the cult film’s 50th anniversary. Next stop, York Barbican, tomorrow night (26/4/2026).
Barry Bostwick, the original Brad Majors; Nell Campbell, the original Columbia, and Patricia Quinn, the original Magenta, are touring Great Britain together for the first time to take part in a question-and-answer session at each show before the screening of Jim Sharman’s film version of Richard O’Brien’s musical.
The August 1975 movie will be shown in a new 4k print, accompanied by a shadow cast performing key scenes ‘live’ on stage while the full unedited film is shown behind them.
Tomorrow’s audience will have an opportunity to meet the stars; view a memorabilia display with film artefacts; participate in a costume contest (judged by Patricia); interact with the shadow cast and utilise the participation prop bag included with every ticket for use throughout the show.
Barry Bostwick’s Brad Majors in the 1975 film
Barry, now 81, says: “It’s coming back where it all began: London, Bray Studios in Windsor, then the world! Thank you to my friends of inclusion and weirdness for welcoming me 50 years ago and again today!! I look forward to sharing my amazing 50 years of Rocky with all of you.”
Patricia, 81, says: “[More than] 50 years ago, I auditioned for The Rocky Horror Show at the 60-seat Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London. I asked my agent, ‘what’s it about?’. He replied, ‘something to do with a circus’. He wasn’t wrong. I’ve been in this circus ever since! ‘Cirque du Rocky Horror’. I’m lucky! We’re all lucky!! Don’t dream it, be it.”
Nell Campbell, 72, says: “It is extraordinary that five weeks’ filming in 1974, belting out the joys of transvestites and dancing The Time Warp in fishnets and corsets, resulted in a movie so beloved that a fifth generation of fans are frocking up to join in our celebrations. What a thrill to meet the UK fans, share our stories and together shiver with aaaaanticipation.”
Quick refresher course: The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the iconic little movie of O’Brien’s musical that conquered Hollywood starring Tim Curry as the devious and fabulous Frank-N-Furter; Bostwick and Susan Sarandon as nerdy American college couple Brad and Janet; Meat Loaf as ex-delivery boy Eddie, who dates a groupie, Campbell’s Columbia, and Quinn’s Magenta, servant to Riff Raff, O’Brien’s role.
Patricia Quinn’s Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show
“We’ve already done the tour across America, 15 states” says Patricia, when speaking ahead of the UK tour’s opening show in Manchester on April 10. “More like 32 cities,” says Barry.
The reaction? “It was truly beyond belief,” says Patricia. “It was beyond my wildest dreams. I thought I knew everything about Rocky Horror. I thought I knew all the fandom. I thought I knew everything. I do a lot of Comic Cons and there’s grandmas and their daughters and their granddaughters all dressed as Magenta, whatever, asking for one’s autograph.
“And I thought, there’s nothing I don’t know about the fan situation of this. But I hit the States and I was beyond overwhelmed. I mean, 1,000, 2,000, sometimes 3,000 people a night would be at the film. Beyond extraordinary – and they don’t clap when one comes on. They stand up and yell!”
Patricia and Nell are no strangers to audience cheers. “Pat and I were both in the original London stage production,” says Nell. “We were witness to the show being written and put together, and the songs came out throughout what was only a three-week rehearsal period. But the show came together and sort of doubled in its size to what it began as.
Nell Campbell’s Columbia in The Rocky Horror Picture Show
“But because Tim Curry [Frank-N-Furter] especially was so unbelievable on stage and worshipped, we did have an audience going nuts every night after he came on.”
Barry first saw Curry in the role at the Roxy in Los Angeles. “From the moment I saw him on stage and running around, I was in ball!” he recalls. Cue audience participation: “Well, the ghouls, they come and they seat you. And then they do things to you, apparently, to warm you up for the craziness! And I felt underneath my table that my toes were being sucked on by Kim Milford, who was playing Rocky at the time.”
Why has Rocky Horror endured, both on screen and stage? “Because it’s good,” says Patricia. Is it that simple? “Yes, of course. The music’s wonderful.”
“It’s a rock’n’roll show, you know, and rock’n’roll never gets old,” says Barry. “It’s for everybody, sexually; hetero, trans, bi,” says Nell. “Don’t dream it, be it. Well, it’s got great songs. The characters are great.
The poster artwork for The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour
It looks fantastic – and it whizzes along. It’s a celebration of all types of sexuality. It’s a musical that does liberate people and there is no other musical I think that affects people like that and embraces every sexuality and encourages people to be who you are and love every bit of it.”
Nell is revelling in the audience interaction. “It really is a party of everyone getting together. We dress up, they dress up, and we all have a hoedown – and I do encourage the audience to think beforehand what question they would really love to have us answer because we might be the very key to unlock something they’ve always wondered about,” she says.
“But they should also dig in the back of their closet and find that feather boa from maybe 30 years ago,” says Barry, who likes to give a prize to whoever asks the best question.
There is still time to put on your thinking cap, York. “We always get the question, ‘who is sleeping with who?’”, says Barry. So, not that one.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour 2026, York Barbican, tomorrow (26/4/2026), 7pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Courtney Marie Andrews: Completing hat-trick of Pocklington appearances on May 21. Picture: Wyndham Garnett
NEWSFLASH: 24/4/2026
VALENTINE’S day for Courtney Marie Andrews at All Saints Church, Pocklington, is OFF. The no-show is attributed to “unforeseen circumstances”, says Hurricane Promotions promoter James Duffy.
“She has just been announced as tour support for Glen Hansard across Europe,” he adds. That tour will take in Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom, May 20, Albert Hall, Manchester, May 22, and Roundhouse, London, May 23, on either side of what would have been Courtney Marie’s third appearance in Pocklington.
VALENTINE’S day falls on May 21 at All Saints Church, Pocklington, when Phoenix, Arizona singer, songwriter, poet, musician and artist Courtney Marie Andrews promotes her new album.
“Valentine is a record in pursuit of love,” says Grammy nominee Courtney Marie, 35. Love, however is “a lot more than I gave it credit for. It’s built over years, it’s built with trust; with changes, it becomes something new and unrecognizable, the deeper you go”.
Released in January, Valentine is her most sonically explorative record: she plays flute, high-strung guitars and myriad synths, while drawing heavy inspiration from her art outside music.
Courtney Marie is a vivid poet and an accomplished painter, and across Valentine you can feel these disciplines interwoven, everything feeding the beauty and clarity of everything else.
Written at the junction of intense endings and beginnings in her life, Valentine demands more of those we love and reveals a stronger, wiser and more clear-eyed Courtney Marie in the process. The album is both lush and elemental, precise in its construction but rich with sonic and lyrical layers. In love and on Valentine, there is no quarter for empty gestures.
From her first recordings in 2008 to 2016’s breakthrough, Honest Life, 2020’s Grammy-nominated Old Flowers to her ninth studio album, Loose Future, Courtney Marie has challenged herself, finding new interplays of folk and Americana.
“As a songwriter, you can make the same record over and over again, and I’m not interested in that,” she says. “I make records to stand alone and stand apart from each other.”
Co-produced with Jerry Bernhardt and recorded almost entirely to tape, Valentine features complete in-studio performances. “We thought a lot about Lee Hazlewood, about Big Star’s Third and Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk,” says Courtney Marie.
“I was in one of the darkest periods of my life, and songs were the only way I could reckon with it. I felt cursed, and the only mental cure felt like songwriting and painting.”
The near-death of a loved one loomed over everything, and while that person eventually recovered from both sickness and psychosis, Courtney Marie was more sure that death was coming, rather than recovery.
Her grief was acute, volatile. The decline coincided with a new romance, but rather than lift her up, the two emotional poles seemed to bleed into each other to sow doubt, trouble, even obsession.
“I was grappling with what I felt sure was death, and with the end of that relationship, while I was also grappling with something new but quite unstable,” she says. “Here was this new relationship evolving alongside the collapse of another.”
The result was a feeling of “limerence, but a somehow empowered limerence,” she says: consuming and fierce, piled high with insecurity and fantasy, and filling every inch of a space she feared was hollowing out.
The poster artwork for Courtney Marie Andrews’ All Saints Church concert in Pocklington
It was painful, she says, and not far off from the pain of grief, but through her own exploration of music and art, Courtney Marie found a way to grow stronger inside this feeling. “I didn’t want to slink into my pain; I wanted to embrace it, own it,” she explains.
The songs that emerged are devotional in their lyrics but defiant in their energy: a high-wire balance that permeates Valentine, typified by lead single Everyone Wants To Feel Like You Do with its indictment of the type of man who feels he can move through the world whatever way he wants without consequence.
Here, Courtney Marie’s singing is classic honey-and-vinegar, sounding sweet but carrying a sting. “It’s this funny double-edged thing because you do want to feel like that person, but you’re not sure if you should, because it’s a person so disconnected, without a care in the world or a care for other people,” she says.
“I played the guitar solo like I didn’t care in that song. I thought ‘I’m just gonna play it like I don’t give a s**t what anyone else is doing.’”
Little Picture Of A Butterfly is another example, one where the reclamation of power in the lyrics (“Soulmates what a pretty thought/but either you do, or you do not”) mirrors the same in the music. “It’s such a trad song in a lot of ways but we added flute, we added organ and all these Brian Wilson harmonies,” she says.
Keeper is the only co-written song on Valentine, one whose back story reads like a short film. “I was at dinner with a dear friend [singer-songwriter Kate York] , and I was really going through it. I asked her if I’m a keeper, and we both just started crying,” recalls Courtney Marie. “We wrote the song then and there, line by line over dinner. I went home and put a melody over it after.”
As she releases her tenth studio set, only now is she appreciating the centrality of her power as a singer. “Historically my favourite artists weren’t looked at as singers. They were looked at as writers,” she says. “And I sort of dissociated myself from singing; I chose to use it when it behoved me, but I wasn’t connected with it.”
However, the more interdisciplinary her work became, the more that belief seemed to dissolve. “Singing is another stroke. The most direct line to your heart. Everything is colour, texture. The way you sing can change everything, for both you and the people listening,” she says.
In rejecting the objectification of love, the love filled with gestures and objects instead of trust, mess, and growth, Courtney Marie has delivered her most beautiful and loving album to date.
Come May 21, at 7.30pm, Courtney Marie will be completing a hat-trick of Pocklington appearances. She had been booked to follow up her December 2018 debut at Pocklington Arts Centre on June 17 2020, but the pandemic restrictions put paid to that show and its rearranged date of June 17 2021. Third time lucky, she finally returned on June 19 2022.
Promoted by Hurricane Promotions, tickets for Courtney Marie’s Valentine’s night in Pock are on sale at £25 via courtneymarieandrews.com.
Question: What is “limerence”?
Answer:The involuntary state of intense romantic infatuation, obsession and emotional dependency on another person (the “limerent object”). The term was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 1979, defining a feeling that differs from love by being focused primarily on the uncertainty of reciprocation, often causing obsessive thinking, idealisation and emotional volatility, ranging from ecstasy to despair.
