A scene from Gary Clarke’s Wasteland, heading for York Theatre Royal next month
THE search is on for singing pitmen to
take part in Gary Clarke’s Wasteland, a new dance event at York Theatre Royal
next month.
Four non-professional singers are being
sought to join the cast for the 7.30pm performances on March 27 and 28.
Wasteland was created to mark the 25th
anniversary of the demolition of Grimethorpe Colliery in South Yorkshire and 30
years since the rise of UK rave culture.
Now the Gary Clarke Company is seeking four singers aged over 40 with experience of singing in a group setting or community choir to play the roles of ex-coal miners.
No professional experience is necessary
but applicants should have experience of learning songs from memory and singing
in unison. The role will involve “some moving on and around the stage and
interacting with other members of the company”.
Down the mines: Another scene from Gary Clarke’s Wasteland
Singers will be supported throughout the process by musical director Steven Roberts, assistant musical director Charlie Rhodes, choreographer and artistic director Gary Clarke and company associate Alistair Goldsmith, who will work with everyone’s individual needs and abilities.
Each participant will receive a food
and travel allowance to help cover the cost of rehearsals and
performances.
For any enquiries or to register
interest, send an email to engagementgcc@gmail.com or call engagement manager Laura
Barber on 07391 621966.
Neil Abdy, who grew up in the mining
community of South Yorkshire and whose father was a miner, was one of the team
of volunteers who took part in a special preview at Cast Doncaster in
2018.
“Being given the opportunity to be part
of this excellent work was unbelievable,” he says. “Everyone made us feel
special and the friendship and camaraderie was excellent. I have a new spring
in my step. If you have the opportunity to take part, definitely give it a go.
It’s one of the best experiences you will ever have working with this wonderful
team.”
Tickets for Gary Clarke’s Wasteland are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Out of step with all around him: Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck in Joker
JOKER – Live In Concert will bring Todd
Phillips’s award-laden film to York Barbican with live orchestral accompaniment
of Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score on May 17 at 7.30pm.
Preceded by the world premiere at the Eventim
Apollo, London, on April 30, the international tour has further Yorkshire shows
at Hull Bonus Arena on May 16 and Sheffield City Hall on June 24.
Central to the emotional journey Joaquin
Phoenix’s character Arthur Fleck takes through Phillips’s film is Guðnadóttir’s
beautifully haunting, BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award- nominated
score.
The fusion of looming industrial
soundscapes with raw, emotive string-led melodies – led by a lone cello – creates a melancholic shroud
marked with moments of hope, unfolding gradually to become a fever pitch of
disquieting tension.
Phillips’s music will be brought to life by a full orchestra to build a “vivid, visceral and entirely new Joker viewing experience”.
The London premiere will be conducted by Jeff Atmajian, the conductor and orchestrator of the original soundtrack; Senbla’s Dave Mahoney will take over for the UK tour dates, including York Barbican.
The poster artwork for Joker – Live In Concert
Hildur Guðnadóttir, the first-ever solo female winner of the Golden Globe for Best Original Score, also won a Grammy for her score for HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl. “I’m thrilled to get to see and hear Joker in the cinema with a live orchestra,” she says.
“When we recorded the music, the
orchestra brought such depth and detailed attention to the performances that we
were all literally holding our breaths during most of the recording sessions.
It was a beautiful trip. I’m so happy to get to go there again and for an
audience to experience that too.”
Director Todd Phillips says: “I speak for the entire Joker team when I say how thrilled we are to be working with Senbla and Ollie Rosenblatt on Joker – Live In Concert. I think it’s a wonderful way for audiences to experience Hildur Guðnadóttir‘s haunting and immersive score, while bearing witness to Joaquin Phoenix’s descent into madness as Arthur.”
Joker already has won the Golden Globe, BAFTA and Critics’ Choice awards for Best Actor and Best Original Score and is nominated for 11 Academy Awards, more than any other film. Those nominations for the Oscars awards ceremony include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Music/Score.
Tickets for Joker – Live In Concert at York Barbican go on sale at Friday at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office; Hull, 0844 858 5025 or bonusarenahull.com; Sheffield, 0114 278 9789 or sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
Seth Lakeman: telling A Pilgrim’s Tale to mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower setting sail
DEVON folk musician Seth Lakeman heralds Friday’s release of his album A Pilgrim’s Tale with a tour that opens at Cast, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, tomorrow night (February 5).
This year marks
400 years since The Mayflower ship departed these shores for the Americas.
Lakeman was raised and still lives on Dartmoor, within sight of the sea at Plymouth, from where the Puritans sailed on The Mayflower in 1620.
His album tells the epic and soulful tale of the
Pilgrim Fathers, and consequently,
the ten tour dates are routed in a trail of towns and
cities that, for various reasons, hold significance to the Mayflower journey.
Locations such as Immingham – where Separatists made a dangerous escape from England to Holland in their search for religious freedom – and Dartmouth, where the ship was anchored for repairs. Doncaster, Harwich, London and, of course, Plymouth feature too.
“If you’d never heard anything about The Mayflower and the birth of the modern USA, these words and music could be your primer,” says Seth, whose album is narrated by actor Paul McGann and features guest performers Cara Dillon, Benji Kirkpatrick, Ben Nicholls and Seth’s father, Geoff Lakeman.
The
Mayflower carried British and Dutch passengers with hopes of fresh settlement, who
were met by the Wampanoag first nation tribe on arrival. Bottling the spirit of
the 17th century pilgrimage, Lakeman has written and performed a
selection songs that shape a fictional narrative of the journey, informed by
research from text, such as the journals of William Bradford; conversations
with modern-day ancestors of the Wampanoag people at the Plymouth Plantation in
Massachusetts, and information sourced at the national heritage sites that
still exist in the UK.
The artwork for Seth Lakeman’s album A Pilgrim’s Tale
Chronicling
the voyage and early settlement in these songs, Lakeman has created a
drama that celebrates the history but does not lose sight of the journey’s
tribulations. It stays sensitive to important facets of the story; the
religious liberation that passengers were trying to achieve, the nefarious
deeds enacted on the Wampanoag, and the deaths that followed on both sides.
Lakeman
feels linked intrinsically to the story. “I didn’t have far to go for
inspiration,” he says. “The Mayflower Steps, on Plymouth’s cobbled
Barbican streets, are 20 minutes away from me.
“I fished
from this quay as a boy, sang songs on tall ships tied up here and played music
in just about every old sailors’ pub in this Elizabethan quarter.”
The
stories in the songs are told from a variety of perspectives, from personal
accounts, such as the opening number, Watch Out, detailing deadly premonitions
of a Wampanoag girl, to tales of the collective travellers in songs such as Pilgrim
Brother and Sailing Time, each marching at a hopeful cadence, reflecting their
early optimism.
In an
immersive tale of struggle, songs bring to life anew 17th century
characters: a crewman wrestling to control the ship; a pilgrim celebrating in
rapturous faith, or the solemn Wampanoag tribesmen forlornly surrendering to
the new way of life thrust on them.
Inspiration
for the project came when Lakeman was on tour in Robert Plant’s band and
paid a visit to the Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts to talk to the
Wampanoag that still reside in the area.
It did not take long for the songs to form on his return to England. “After I travelled home from the ‘New World’ to Plymouth, everything happened in a quite mystical way. The songs came together so speedily and with exactly the vibe I wanted, and we recorded in a very short time in my Crossways Studio at home on Dartmoor,” says Seth, who at present is hosting the BBC Radio 2 series Seth Lakeman’s Folk Map Of The British Isles on Saturday nights..
To
supplement the recordings, a between-song narration was written by the associate
director of Plymouth’s Theatre Royal, Nick Stimson, and read by Paul McGann,
who Lakeman was elated to have on board.
“As we
finished the album, another quite magical thing happened, when Paul agreed to
voice the narration between the tracks on the record. He pitched it perfectly,”
he says.
Released on BMG, the album track listing is: Watch Out; Pilgrim Brother; Westward Bound; A Pilgrim’s Warning; Sailing Time; The Great Iron Screw; Dear Isles Of England; Saints And Strangers; Foreign Man; Bury Nights; The Digging Song and Mayflower Waltz.
Tickets for Lakeman’s 7.30pm concert in Cast’s Main Space tomorrow (February 5) are on sale at castindoncaster.com or on 01302 303959.
Feel the chemistry Emma Lucia’s Girl and Daniel Healy’s Guy in Once , The Musical
Once, The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/York
THREE weeks
into rehearsals at Toynbee Hall in London’s East End, the media were invited to
a press day where director Peter Rowe and musical supervisor Ben Goddard put
their 16-strong cast through their paces in exhilarating fashion.
Sometimes you can feel the magic in the air as early as that, sensing the chemistry between leads Daniel Healy and Emma Lucia and the bonding of the company of actor-musicians as they turned a rehearsal room into an Irish pub full of lusty singing and joyful playing.
You just knew the show was going to be good, but, glory be, it is even better than that. Having cherished John Carney’s micro-budgeted cult romantic Irish film starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova since 2007, yet aware that many still don’t know that charming movie, save maybe for its multi-award-winning song Falling Slowly, your reviewer urges you to fall immediately for this touring musical version. No time for slowness here.
Broadway, the West End and Dublin have all had a go at doing Once The Musical. Rowe and regular musical partner Goddard first united Scotsman Healy and Durham-born Lucia as Guy and Girl, jilted Dublin busker/vacuum cleaner repairman and immigrant Czech odd-jobs worker and musician, for shows in Ipswich and Hornchurch in 2018, and now they have found the perfect format for a touring version.
What a Guy: Daniel Healy in Once, The Musical
Designed by Libby Watson, the setting is an Irish pub, crammed with pictures and chattering life, where the cast rally the audience with songs familiar from The Pogues, Chieftains and Dubliners to set the Dublin craic.
Scenes are
played out against this backdrop, the musicians fading in and out of scenes,
sometimes acting like a Greek chorus as they lean in, in response to what is
unfolding between Healy’s Guy and Lucia’s Girl.
They are
first encountered as she watches him busking in the chill streets, singing to
his ex, now moved to New York, but still the subject of each pained song,
although he is on the cusp of giving up on those songs too.
Girl is open,
frank, funny for being so serious; Guy is taciturn, guarded, but the shared
love of music speaks volumes and she needs her vacuum cleaner mending. It duly arrives
as if out of thin air, shooting across the stage in one of the show’s many
humorous moments.
Big-hitting Falling Slowly is not held back. Instead, it forms their first song together in Billy’s unruly music shop, tentative at first as she picks out the piano lines, to accompany his singing, then joining in, their voices entwining and overlapping beautifully. Gradually, one by one, the musicians join in too: fiddle, guitars, mandolin, cello, squeezebox and more, in union, in sympathy.
Emma Lucia’s Girl saying hello to the piano – which musicians should always do, she says
Here, in a
nutshell, is why Once works wonders as a musical, being as much a celebration
of the power of music in Dublin’s fair city as a love story of ebb and flow,
rise and fall, surprise and revelation, over five all too short days.
The path of
love is never smooth, as we all know, but for those who have never seen Once,
it would be wrong to issue spoiler alerts of what ensues. Except to say, on the
way home you will want to discuss how the open-ended story might progress, if you
have any romantic bones in your body!
Healy and
Lucia are terrific leads: who would not fall for either of them?! His Guy is
generous, kind, a blue-eyed soul man of song and acoustic guitar playing; her Girl,
his new Czech mate, is feisty, fearless in the face of adversity in her adopted
city, and plays the piano exquisitely too.
Dan Bottomley’s
hapless, bandy-legged, hopelessly romantic, fiery Billy pickpockets plenty of
scenes and Ellen Chivers, last seen in York last summer in the Theatre Royal’s Swallows
& Amazons, is even better as wild-spirited Czech Reza.
From Enda Walsh’s witty, whimsical, love-struck script to Hansard and Irglova’s impassioned songs, you must see Once, a wonderful show that blows away weeks of panto wars and politics, to herald a new year of theatre in York. In fact, it is so enjoyable, you could go not once, but twice…and make sure to arrive early to see York buskers Rachel Makena, Florence Taylor, Owen Gibson and Peter Wookie taking turns pre-show and in the interval in the foyer bar.
Jools Holland: on tour for 32 autumn and winter dates
BOOGIE WOOGIE pianist Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
will be joined on tour for the first time by veteran singer Leo Sayer, as well
as original Squeeze compadre Chris Difford.
Both Sayer and Difford will perform at York Barbican on November 11,
Harrogate International Centre on November 27 and Leeds First Direct Arena on
the 32-date itinerary’s closing night, December 20. Sayer, but not Difford,
will be a guest at Holland’s Sheffield City Hall show on December 3.
Tickets for Holland’s 24th autumn and winter tour will go on sale at 10am on Friday (February 7) via Ticketmaster, See Tickets, Ticketline and Stargreen, as well as the venues.
Leo Sayer: touring with Jools Holland’s orchestra for the first time in 2020
Joining
jaunty Jools too will be two long-term participants, gospel, blues and soul
singer Ruby Turner, who has written songs with Holland, and original Squeeze
drummer Gilson Lavis. Regular vocalist Louise Marshall will be there each show
too.
Sayer,
71, who became an Australian citizen in 2009 after moving to Sydney, New South
Wales, in 2005, charted in the Top Ten with all of his first seven hits between
1973 and 1978: The Show Must Go On, One Man Band, Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance),
Moonlighting, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, the chart-topping When I Need You and
How Much Love.
Further
success followed with I Can’t Stop Loving You (Though I Try) and More Than I
Can Say in 1978, Have You Ever Been In Love in 1982 and Thunder In My Heart,
contributing vocals to Meck’s number one in 2006.
Chris Difford: Squeezing in autumn and winter dates with Jools Holland
Difford, Holland’s fellow Squeeze co-founder, has worked through the
years with Glen Tilbrook, also writing with Elton John, Paul Carrack, Lisa
Stansfield, Bryan Ferry, Helen Shapiro, Elvis Costello and Holland too, who
calls him “the John Lennon of London, the John Betjeman of Blackheath and the Alain
Delon of Deptford”.
Holland and his orchestra have performed previously with Eddi Reader, Lulu,
Joss Stone, Fine Young Cannibals’ Roland Gift, Spice Girl Melanie
C and Marc Almond. For his 2020 tour, UB40 featuring Ali and Astro will join him for
three November gigs in Guildford and London.
Jools is recording his next album, whose focus will be on piano
stylings, duets and collaborations with top instrumentalists, for autumn
release.
Tickets for York Barbican, where Holland last played on October 31 2019, will be on sale on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office; Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Leeds, firstdirectarena.com; Sheffield, 0114 278 9789 or sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
YORK Guildhall
Orchestra will celebrate its 40th anniversary with a
special York Barbican concert on February 15.
Almost 40 years to the day from when the orchestra was founded by John Hastie and played in a “one-off” in the York Guildhall in February 1980, the anniversary will be marked with a 7.30pm programme of works and composers from that first concert.
Who
could have foretold the amazing journey, reputation, critical acclaim and
popularity of the Guildhall group that has developed in the intervening years?
The anniversary concert will
begin with the first piece the orchestra played in 1980: Ravel’s Mother Goose
Suite (Mere L’Oye), a showpiece for glorious orchestral tunes featuring the
talents of the wind section.
This will be followed by
the return of soloist Jamie Walton, founder of the North York Moors Chamber
Music Festival, for Elgar’s evergreen Cello Concerto. A celebratory
orchestral work by John Hastie will open the second half that will conclude with
Brahms’s Symphony No 2 (Symphony In Norahms).
This finale will call on
the whole orchestra to do what it loves doing best: play a luxurious, full
orchestral work of the Romantic period of classical music.
Tickets cost £6.30 to £17.55 on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Kaiser Chiefs: striding out for Dalby Forest on June 26
KAISER Chiefs are to return to Dalby Forest, near
Pickering, for a Forest Live open-air gig on June 26.
The Leeds band played there previously in 2016, and once more Forestry England’s conservation projects will benefit from the concert takings, as they will from Will Young and James Morrison’s Dalby double-header on June 27.
Tickets go on sale from 9am on Friday (February 7)
on 03000 680400 or at forestryengland.uk/music.
Frontman Ricky Wilson says: “We’re chuffed to be
playing a home-county gig in Dalby Forest this summer. We last played there in
2016 as part of Forest Live series and it’s an amazing location to perform deep
in the woods, so we hope you can join us on this escapade.”
Chief hits Oh My God, I Predict A Riot, Everyday I
Love You Less And Less, the chart-topping Ruby and Never Miss A Beat will be
complemented by album selections off Employment; Yours Truly, Angry Mob; Off
With Their Heads; The Future Is Medieval; Education, Education, Education; Stay
Together and last July’s Duck.
Kaiser Chiefs previously took to the Yorkshire
great outdoors to play York Racecourse in July 2016 and Scarborough Open Air
Theatre in May 2017.
From December 2018 to March 2019, they brought a
new meaning to Pop Art when curating When All Is Quiet: Kaiser Chiefs In Conversation
With York Art Gallery. Exploring the boundaries between art and music in this
experimental exhibition, they used their position as pop musicians to rethink
sound as an art medium.
Did you know?
More than 1.9 million people have attended Forest Live concerts in the past 19 years. Ticket-sale income goes towards Forestry England looking after the nation’s forests sustainably, helping to create beautiful places for people to enjoy, wildlife to flourish and trees to grow.
Pussycat Dolls: prepare for Doll Domination at York Racecourse in July
REVIVED
American girl group Pussycat Dolls will perform York Racecourse’s first 2020 Music
Showcase Weekend show after the evening race card on July 24.
Eighties’
soul-pop icon Rick Astley was confirmed already for the weekend, signed up to
play after the afternoon racing on the Knavesmire course on July 25.
Pussycat Dolls sold more than 54 million records in a run of hits from 2003 to 2010 and returned to the live platform after a nine-year hiatus at last year’s final of The X Factor: Celebrity: familiar territory for band member Nicole Scherzinger, a long-standing judge on the ITV talent show.
Scherzinger is joined in the Pussycat song-and-dance line-up by Ashley Roberts, Kimberly Wyatt, Jessica Sutta and Carmit Bachar. Expect them to sing the chart-topping Don’t Cha and Stickwitu, Beep, Buttons, I Don’t Need A Man, When I Grow Up, Whatcha Think About That and more besides, all coupled with dance routines.
Rick Astley: July 25 concert at York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend
James Brennan, head of marketing and sponsorship at York Racecourse, said: “Announcements don’t come much bigger than being able to say that Pussycat Dolls will be bringing their Doll Domination to York Racecourse for a special Friday night performance to open the Music Showcase Weekend.
“Performances on a Friday evening have always had a special atmosphere with the excitement of the stars on the turf and the stars on the stage combining to make this an event to put in your diary now.”
To book, visit yorkracecourse.co.uk; no booking fee applies and car parking will be free. On the race track that evening, the European Breeders Fund Lyric York Stakes will be the centrepiece of a six-race card.
One York race-day concert is yet to be announced: the Summer Music Saturday on June 27. Watch this space.
Fflur Wyn as Susanna and Phillip Rhodes as Figaro in Opera North’s The Marriage Of Figaro. All pictures:. Robert Workman
Opera North in The Marriage Of Figaro, Leeds Grand Theatre, February 1 ****
Further Leeds performances on February 8, 14, 19, 22, 26 and 29, then on tour . More details at operanorth.co.uk. Leeds box office: 0844 848 2700 or at leedsgrandtheatre.com
IT is strange how operatic revivals can vary so much from their originals, even when the same director is on hand to oversee them. Jo Davies’s production of Mozart’s opera buffa dates from January 2015. That is before the Me Too movement really took off in October 2017, when the treatment of women in Hollywood began to come under the microscope.
Its repercussions on this show are fascinating. The two leading men, Count Almaviva and Figaro himself, are by far the most charismatic here. That is partly down to the singers involved. But it also reflects the relative hardness of their ladies, the Countess and Susanna.
These men are having their very manhood challenged, even as they attempt their various conquests. It could help to explain why Quirijn de Lang’s relentlessly dim-witted Count (though the singer himself is clearly quite the opposite) comes across as a failed Don Giovanni, never quite achieving those desired notches on his cane. The man is libidinous beyond belief. Even at the end you wonder how long he can possibly remain faithful to his wife. He nevertheless sings with plenty of self-belief.
Heather Lowe as Cherubino
The New Zealand baritone Phillip Rhodes relaxes into the title role immediately, despite taking it on for the first time. The part could have been made for him. His Figaro retains unclouded optimism in the face of every setback, helped by warm, clear tone and a pair of eyebrows that crinkle with mirth at every excuse.
Opposite him, Fflur Wyn, also new to her role as Susanna, is a calculating creature – the gardener Antonio’s social-climbing niece – rather than a playful minx. Her soprano is light and clean, her diction less so. Nor is clarity Máire Flavin’s strong point as the Countess. Her first aria was too tense to excite sympathy, her second showed what might have been, with fluent control. But she moves beautifully and always has the moral high ground over her wayward husband.
The lower orders are well represented. It comes as no surprise to discover that Heather Lowe, the tousle-haired Cherubino, is a trained dancer. She is exceptionally nimble as well as vocally adept, not least as girl-plays-boy-playing girl.
Jonathan Best makes a diffident old fogey of Bartolo, well partnered by Gaynor Keeble’s earthy Marcellina. Joseph Shovelton is back with his oily Basilio, as is Jeremy Peaker’s rubicund Antonio. Alexandra Oomens is the peppy Barbarina. Even Warren Gillespie’s Curzio makes a mark, here as a censer-swinging priest. Real incense too.
Quirijn de Lang as Count Almaviva and Máire Flavin as Countess Almaviva
Antony Hermus makes his first appearance in the pit since being appointed Principal Guest Conductor. He is a mixed blessing. His rigid, hyperactive baton ensures taut ensemble, but allows his woodwinds little flexibility; the strength of his accents regularly swamps the singers’ words in ensemble. On the other hand, conducting from the harpsichord, his recitatives flow idiomatically.
Leslie Travers’s mobile set shows both the downstairs and the upstairs of this society, the former doubling as the outside of the house for the garden scene. Peeling wallpaper and rickety staircases speak of genteel poverty. Gabrielle Dalton’s socially-layered costumes could be from almost any era.
In the wake of Me Too, we should expect certain aspects of the comedy to be soft-pedalled. But there is plenty of amusement at the expense of the men. And that is as it should be.
Five Minutes in the 1980s, when they were four, before they became six, although they were never five! From left to right: Nigel Dennis, Sean Rochester, Mark Pearson and Chris Turnbull. Matthew “Duck” Hardy and Paul Shelbourne joined later.
A BAND called Five Minutes had their 15 minutes in York in the late 1980s. Now they are re-uniting for a one-off gig at the Victoria Vaults, in Nunnery Lane, on February 29.
The reason? “The singer and youngest member of the band still living here will be the last of us to turn 50 in February and in his words, ‘Let’s do it before one of us dies’,” reveals trumpet player Matthew “Duck” Hardy, now 50 and a professional musician.
“Our last gig was in January 1989 and most of us haven’t seen each other for 30 years. Now we want to get as many people from York’s late ‘80s music scene down to the gig for a huge reunion.”
In the soul and funk line-up on February 29 will be Hardy; business development manager Chris Turnbull, newly turned 50 next month, on vocals and guitar; IT consultant Sean Rochester, 53, on bass; cinema owner Nigel Dennis, 52, on drums, and retired police officer turned Criminology MSc mature student Mark Pearson, 52, on saxophone.
Not there, but there by the wonder of a video link, will be ex-pat trombonist and urban dog trainer Paul Shelbourne, 49, from his home in Brisbane.
“We’ll be playing original, danceable, driving Northern Soul-esque music with hard- hitting catchy brass riffs and a couple of covers thrown in near the end,” says Matthew, .introducing a set list featuring The Party; Smile; Sequels; Merry-go-round; Bridge In Time; Happy Home; Casanova; Could It Be; This Innocent Kiss; Only A Fool; Soul On Fire; Cornflake Packet; Time Will Tell; B Derdela; All The Daughters and Heatwave.
Back in their day, Five Minutes played York Arts Centre and Harry’s Bar, in Micklegate; Temple Hall, York campus of the College of Ripon and York St John; Central Hall, University of York; the Gimcrack pub (now flats), in Fulford Road, and Bretton Hall (now the Yorkshire Sculpture Park), near Wakefield.
Come February 29, Five Minutes will be back in action for rather more than five minutes, preceded by a DJ set by Rocky from Sweatbox, but why were/are they called Five Minutes?
“I’ve absolutely no idea why, as it started off as a four-piece and ended up as a six-piece!” says Matthew. “When Paul joined, the Evening Press photographer took a photo of us in the courtyard of Ye Olde Starre Inn, on Stonegate, and the paper did a write-up under the headline ‘Six appeal for Five Minutes’.”
What’s in a name?
Five Minutes start their set or encore with the instrumental B Derdela, so named after saxophonist Mark Pearson asked how singer Chris Turnbull wanted him to play the sax line. Chris gave him the note and the rhythm: B…derdela!
