Category: Music

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More Things To Do in York and beyond the spooks and ghouls of Halloween. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 43, from The York Press

York drag diva Velma Celli adding vocal oomph to oompah band The Bavarian Strollers in Yorktoberfest’s big top at York Racecourse

FROM a new female spin on ‘Curious Incident’ to Yorktoberfest in a circus big top, Halloween shows to Leo Sayer’s last tour, Charles Hutchinson finds ways to brighten up darker nights.  

Festival of the week: Jamboree Entertainment presents Yorktoberfest, Clocktower Enclosure, York Racecourse, today, 1pm to 5pm & 7pm to 11pm

FOR the first time, James Cundall’s Jamboree Entertainment is staging Yorktoberfest, York’s traditional Bavarian beer festival, inside a Big Top, launched last weekend by aerial artist Zoe Kulyk twisting and tumbling from the rooftop. 

Look out today for outrageous York drag diva Velma Celli’s powerhouse singing and quick-fire critique of the costumes on display, complemented by oompah band The Bavarian Strollers’ traditional drinking songs and disco classics. Tickets: www.ticketsource.co.uk/yorktoberfest and at the entrance, subject to availability.

Ghost event of the week: The York Ghost Merchants present Mischief Night Ghost Week Trail, York Mansion House, York, today to November 1, 10.30am to 5pm, last entry 4pm

GROWING up in York, the young Guy Fawkes was a mischief-maker who caused no end of havoc for his school masters, long before he set his sights on a more famous prize. Join ghostly headmaster John Pulleyn, who needs your help to keep the peace, before Guy forks out more misrule than the city can handle!

Follow the trail around York Mansion House, solving puzzles and clues as you go. Everyone who completes the trail puzzle book successfully will be entered into a draw to win a unique ghost designed by the Ghost Merchants and inspired by the Mansion House building.  Tickets: Available on the door on the day of visit (no online sales).

Troy Hawke: “Navigating conversational minefields” at York Barbican tonight

Comedy gig of the week: Troy Hawke, Never Stop, Never Change!, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm

TROY Hawke is the internet sensation creation of Michael Patrick “Milo” McCabe, the British television presenter, actor and stand-up character comedian. In Never Stop, Never Change!, angry security guards, barked compliments and crossed wires abound as Hawke navigates various conversational minefields, both online and in real life. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Freedom versus control : Sarah Belcher’s Deborah and Phil Corbitt’s Colin in the shifting sands of Alison Carr’s All At Sea at the SJT

Claustrophobic couple of the week: Stephen Joseph Theatre and Live Theatre, Newcastle, present All At Sea, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 31

MARIA Crocker directs Phil Corbitt and Sarah Belcher in All At Sea, Alison Carr’s new play inspired by the escapades of John and Anne Darwin in the early 2000s. Colin and Deborah are a couple with spiralling debt, a sky-high mortgage and seemingly nowhere to turn. Then Colin comes up with the idea of faking his own death in a canoeing accident in the North Sea for an insurance payout. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Alex Keenan’s Chris Boone and her dad, Joe McFadden’s Ed, in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

Reboot of the week: Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep present The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Grand Opera House, York, October 27 to 31, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

MELTING Pot and Birmingham Rep are touring a gender-swap reboot of Simon Stephens’s inventive adaptation of Mark Haddon’s compassionate novel, in which neurodivergent 15-year-old Chris Boone is now a female role, played by Alex Keenan and matinee alternate Imi Price.

Ned Bennett’s cast features Joe McFadden as dad Ed and Charlie Brooks as absentee mum Judy in the story of Chris becoming both detective and suspect when a neighbour’s dog is discovered killed, drawing her into a mystery that grows darker and more complex with every clue uncovered. Box office: atgtickets.co.uk/york.

Book talk of the week: A Way With Media presents John Lydon: I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right, Harrogate Theatre, October 27, 7.30pm

JOHN Lydon – aka Johnny Rotten – is a legend, an iconoclast, a revolutionary and a punk immortal, who changed the face of music, causing a political earthquake as frontman and lyricist of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd (PiL).

To coincide with A Way With Media’s special-edition boxed Flexi Bind Version of his I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right collection of random thoughts, life philosophies and personal anecdotes, Lydon, now 70, is undertaking a pyrotechnic, one-off tour to discuss how he sees life and to reflect on his extraordinary career, taking audience questions too. Sharing his thoughts, he could be wrong, he could be right. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.

Playing by the ghouls: Halloween In Concert at York Barbican

Graveyard smash of the week: Halloween In Concert, York Barbican, October 27, 7.30pm

IN a frighteningly good night of raves from beyond the grave, Halloween In Concert’s cast and band unleash a thrilling crescendo of all things Halloween. Expect big vocals and killer moves as the greatest spooky hits are resurrected, from Monster Mash, Highway To Hell, The Time Warp and Running Up That Hill to Hungry Like The Wolf, Maneater, Bat Out of Hell, She Wolf and Thriller. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

The Addams family in Wharfemede Productions’ The Addams Family Musical at Theatre@41, Monkgate. Picture: Simon Trow

Halloween family entertainment of the week: Wharfemede Productions in The Addams Family Musical, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 27 to 31, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

COMPANY co-founder Helen Spencer directs North Yorkshire company Wharfemede Productions in  Andrew Lippa, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice’s devilishly funny, deeply kooky comedy The Addams Family Musical.

When Wednesday Addams falls in love with a “normal” young man and invites his respectable parents to dinner, chaos, secrets and macabre mayhem ensue in this spooky celebration of family, love and embracing the wonderfully weird, replete with sharp comedy, dazzling dance numbers, a witty score and a nine-piece band. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Scrum down for former England prop forward Joe Marler’s probing questions at York Barbican on Wednesday

Live podcast tour of the week: Joe Marler Will See You Live, York Barbican, October 28, 8pm

SINCE retiring from Rugby Union in 2024, England prop forward Joe Marler has been pushed into the mainstream by his “Big Dog” theory, people-reading prowess and relentless Traitor hunting in the 2025 debut series of The Celebrity Traitors.

This sparked his show format for Joe Marler Will See You Now, wherein Marler and his co-host and research assistant, comedian Jake Bhardwaj, apply acute observational skills to delve inside the mind of a celebrity guest with probing questions and unusual mind games. Who will be their guest in York? Find out on Wednesday night. Cue “ludicrous set-pieces and immersive audience participation”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Christopher Leslie in his haunting one-man adaptation of Jekyll & Hyde: Unbound at York Medical Society

Halloween solo show of the week: Christopher Leslie in Jekyll & Hyde: Unbound, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, October 27 to 30, 7.30pm

YORK writer, performer and Pop Yer Clogs Theatre company member Christopher Leslie presents his haunting one-man adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “bogey tale”, here re-titled Jekyll & Hyde: Unbound.

Lawyer Gabriel John Utterson, now living a sheltered, haunted  life, invites you into the Soho house once occupied by his former client, Doctor Henry Jekyll. Tonight, Utterson will speak at last, looking into the darkness of the human psyche and asking are we really who we appear to be? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Victoria Delaney’s Kat, left, Beryl Nain’s Ma and Clare Halliday’s Maudie in York Actors Collective’s The Strongbox

York premiere of the week: York Actors Collective in The Strongbox, York Theatre Royal Studio, October 29, 2.30pm & 7.45pm, October 30, 7.45pm, and October 31, 2pm

YORK Actors Collective presents Stephanie Jacob’s study of freedom and control The Strongbox,   in which a mother (Beryl Nairn’s Ma) and her daughter (Victoria Delaney’s Kat) keep a homeless woman (Clare Halliday’s Maudie) as a slave in their London home. Power shifts, however,  when the daughter becomes distracted by business and the mother falls ill.

“Three women learn how to live and survive by making their own rules, but at what cost?” asks director Angie Millard. “As Ma says, ‘ If you do and do and do and do to someone, can it be undone?’ That’s the question the play explores with honesty and some humour.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

“I am not retiring, just slowing the number of live shows down a little,” says Leo Sayer

The show must go on…for one last tour: Leo Sayer, Can’t Stop Loving You, York Barbican, October 30, 7.30pm

AFTER almost 60 years on the road, Leo Sayer, now 78, returns to the UK stage for “what could well be his final full UK tour”. “I love performing for my fans and look forward to doing so for many more years, but this will be the last time I play so many dates across the country. I am not retiring, just slowing the number of live shows down a little,” clarifies Sayer, in a year when he is releasing his autobiography and a career-spanning box set.

Cue The Show Must Go On, Thunder In My Heart, Moonlighting, One Man Band, When I Need You,  You Make Me Feel Like Dancing et al. Meanwhile, Brighton folk-rockers Levellers have sold out October 29’s York Barbican gig. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk. 

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Wharfemede Productions mark Halloween week with deeply kooky The Addams Family Musical at Theatre@41, Monkgate

Henrietta Linnemann‘s Morticia and Zander Fick’s Gomez Addams in Wharfemede Productions’ The Addams Family Musical. Picture: Simon Trow

WHAT better way for North Yorkshire company Wharfemede Productions to mark Halloween week than by staging The Addams Family Musical.

Running at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from October 27 to 31, artistic director Helen “Bells” Spencer’s production of this deeply kooky, definitely spooky American musical comedy follows award-winning productions of Little Women and A Little Night Music. “We look forward to seeing you at Halloween – if you dare!” she says.

Combining music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa with book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, The Addams Family Musical opens with Wednesday Addams (played by Abbie Law) falling in love with a “normal” young man and inviting his respectable parents to dinner, whereupon chaos, secrets and macabre mayhem ensue in a celebration of family, love and embracing the wonderfully weird.

“We are thrilled to return with a show full of heart, humour and Halloween spirit, performed during Halloween week itself, when audiences can expect the perfect seasonal treat packed with gothic glamour, mischievous fun and spectacular entertainment,” says Bells. 

Director Helen “Bells” Spencer” holding two of Nick Sephton’s 3D-printed masks for the Ancestors in Wharfemede Productions’ The Addams Family Musical. Picture: Simon Trow

“The Addams Family is darkly delightful, gloriously gothic and wickedly entertaining. Whether you’re a life-long fan of the Addams clan or discovering them for the first time, this is one family reunion you won’t want to miss!”

The success of the Netflix series Wednesday has stimulated renewed cultural interest in The Addams Family. “It had got into a nostalgic space, but by making it relevant to modern audiences, it’s led to the musical coming to the fore again,” says Bells.

Zander Fick, who will play Gomez Addams, concurs. “Wednesday has almost ground the family in more reality, whereas the old family was more of a caricature,” he says. “Now they seem to have a feeling of being eccentric but relatable.”

Helen first encountered the musical two years ago when her fiance, Nick Sephton, was cast as  Fester Addams in a production in Wetherby. Her early expectations of a “very panto show – and I hate panto” were confounded. “I thought I’d just be going along as the devoted partner, but I absolutely loved it. It was a really good musical,” she says.

Nick Sephton’s Uncle Fester in Wharfemede Productions’ The Addams Family Musical. Picture: Simon Trow

“Unfortunately, Nick tore the cruciate ligament in his knee when dancing on the graves of the Ancestors on the first night, and for the rest of the run he had to deliver his Uncle Fester from a large armchair at the side of the stage. He was gutted that he didn’t get the chance to do the part properly, but I thought, ‘actually I think we can make this show work.”

Now Nick will reprise his Uncle Fester in Wharfemede’s production. “People will be surprised by his Fester as he usually plays authority figures, like generals, but with Nick you’re genuinely moved by Fester’s ‘oddness’, and with Nick being autistic he’s identified with that, having felt different from other people through his autism.”

Zander comments: “A key message in the show is that it’s OK to be different, so Fester is really loved by his family, The show has more depth than just having kooky characters, so you can really empathise with them. The story presents a conflict with outsiders who are uncomfortable with them, but  the show celebrates that difference, celebrating what makes you you.”

The masked Ancestors in Wharfemede Productions’ The Addams Family Musical. Picture: Simon Trow

Helen rejoins: “The show says we are all unique. We’re all happier as human beings if we embrace our differences. Wharfemede was created by our wish to create a space where people can be themselves to make high-quality work. We have multiple people in the cast who are autistic or neurodivergent, and we always start rehearsal sessions with a check-in, asking if everyone feels comfortable in the space. That seems to work well.”

Zander, who moved to York from South Africa in 2023, is enjoying those rehearsals as he prepares to play Gomez, the father of the family. “I’m loving him so much,” he says. “He’s so comfortable in who he is, so unapologetic about who he is, when quite often male characters in theatre tend to be moulded as reserved, guarded and always holding back, but Gomez is not like that at all. I can relate that to when I feel in a comfortable place, striving to be myself in that place. I always leave rehearsals feeling energised.

“We’ve had discussions about who Gomez is, as this naive, aloof child in a man’s body, but with a very healthy relationship with his wife, Morticia, so that’s been really interesting to explore.”

Helen has handled the design brief for this Gothic tale. “I want it to be as realistic and gritty as it can be within the realms of the Addams Family,” she says. “I didn’t want everything to be Halloween costumes, but instead with every character having an individual sense of themselves. So we discussed it with the actors, like Abbie Law wanting to wear a black velvet dress for Wednesday: a classic Wednesday look, but in velvet, which is something Abbie really wanted.”

The Addams family in Wharfemede Productions’ The Addams Family Musical: Abbie Law’s Wednesday, left, Matthew Warry’s Pugsley, Henrietta Linnemann‘s Morticia, Chris Gibson’s Lurch, Zander Fick’s Gomez, Nick Sephton’s Uncle Fester and Rosy Rowley’s Grandma. Picture: Simon Trow

Bells is particularly excited to be bringing elements of commedia dell’arte into Wharfemede’s interpretation of the show, not least in putting all the Ancestors in masks, created in 3D-printed form by Nick Sephton, to make them imposing in unison. 

“Having had the privilege of working with commedia companies in Trieste and Venice, I have long admired the genre’s physical storytelling, heightened characters and joyful theatricality,” she reasons.

“Those influences feel perfectly suited to the world of The Addams Family, and I look forward to blending them with the musical’s unique humour to create something that is both fresh and deeply entertaining.”

Wharfemede Productions presents The Addams Family Musical, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 27 to 31, 7:30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: www.tickets.41monkgate.co.uk

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REVIEW: Paul Rhodes’s verdict on An Evening With Kristin Hersh, National Centre for Early Music, York, October 17

Kristin Hersh on stage at St Margaret’s Church, the home of the National Centre for Early Music in York. Picture: Paul Rhodes

IT was a night of contrasts under a warm and still October sky. Outside, York city centre seemed intent on consuming itself. Inside the wonderful, sacred space of the National Centre for Early Music, a full house sat rapt, listening to Kristin Hersh perform her extraordinary songs.

Hersh has always occupied a musical world of her own. Drawing mostly on her two most recent albums, 2023’s Clear Pond Road and the newly released Sugar on Blackstone, alongside older solo and Throwing Muses material, she showed why she doesn’t need a band, even if you could imagine some songs gaining still greater power with a fuller sound.

This reviewer first saw Hersh in the late Noughties, heavily made up and seemingly gripped by stage fright. The contrast couldn’t have been greater. Playing solo, she has the wiry, lean frame of a runner, and she was relaxed, comfortable and wonderfully engaging.

Living a colourful life has always been an asset for Hersh. Her life becomes her songs. From her children catching fireflies in jars with Amish children to stepping on cockroaches, Hersh has a very distinctive way of turning experience into something unique.

Kristin Hersh acknowledging the crowd’s response at the NCEM. Picture: Paul Rhodes

Her stories between songs were funny, sometimes surreal, and added enormously to the evening. The rapport between audience and performer never felt forced.

With only an acoustic and electric guitar, Hersh coaxed a remarkable variety of sounds from her instruments so the tunes were never samey. Strumming, thrumming, buzzing and delicate fingerpicking sat alongside moments of lovely, spaghetti Western sparseness. Her distinctive voice could be fragile one moment, fierce and unsettling the next.

There were plenty of highlights, with Samson (from Sugar On Blackstone) the standout. The songs moved between quiet beauty and unpredictability, with the older material offering a reminder of Hersh’s longevity.

For all the power a full band might bring, there was something special about hearing these songs stripped back to their essentials, creating memories that will last far longer than a night on the tiles.

Review by Paul Rhodes

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, Oct 11

James Fountain: Soloist for Malcolm Arnold’s Trumpet Concerto

SUNDAY afternoon’s concert, the first of York Guildhall Orchestra’s new season, was dedicated to the memory of John Wallace, OBE and trumpeter extraordinaire, who died in January at the age of 76. His widow and daughter were in the audience.

The first half ended with Malcolm Arnold’s Trumpet Concerto, which Wallace had premiered in 1982, played here by James Fountain. The work is extremely compact. The opening fanfares of its Allegro energico lead into some very rapid passages which Fountain delivered with panache, while finding a comfortable legato for the second theme.

In this context, the slow movement took on a powerfully elegiac feel, the muted trumpet eerily supernatural. All that was blown away by the finale, which was exuberant and joyous, truly an evocation of the personality whose memory was being honoured.

The programme had opened with Walton’s Crown Imperial march, a homage to Elgar if ever there were. The orchestra, under its permanent conductor Simon Wright, took a mildly cautious approach, with the contrasting trio theme lacking quite the breadth its sweep implies,  but it concluded keenly enough.

Much Spanish music demands a special passion and the second of Falla’s two suites from his ballet The Three-Cornered Hat is no exception. The orchestra took the first dance to find its Iberian feet.

The second dance saw a profound change, perhaps inspired by the cor anglais’s little cadenza. The down-bowed syncopations were fiery and the concluding accelerando superbly taut. Tempo and rhythm in the frenetic finale received exactly the focus they needed, and its ending was properly strident.

The first movement of Walton’s First Symphony, Op 125 in B flat minor, opens and closes with a drum roll, which was a touch self-effacing at first here. Woodwinds predominated where we might have heard more from the strings, but it finished in grand style.

The ‘malicious’ scherzo (presto con malizia) was much edgier, largely due to its fearless syncopations introducing an element of the macabre which Wright seemed to relish.

Simmering anger underpinned the melancholy Andante at first, before it became more tranquil, leaving a need for resolution in the finale. This was primarily exciting for the brilliant focus in its two fugal passages, which emerged with the utmost clarity, spearheaded by the strings. This was YGO at its most determined: the best had been kept to the last.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 43, from Gazette & Herald

Teacher Miss Hedge (Katie Spencer) steps in between school bully Dean Paxton (Cain Branton), left, and dreamer Jamie New (Frankie Bounds) in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

FROM a couple all at sea at the SJT to Yorktoberfest in a circus big top,  a piratical twist on The Comedy Of Errors to Bison Hip’s blues, Charles Hutchinson recommends ways to stay cheerful.

Bold and unapologetic musical of the week: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday; 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

TOM MacRae and Dan Gillespie’s Sheffield musical plays the Grand Opera House for the first time in Nik Briggs’s production for York Stage that restores the grit to both complement and counter the glitz in the uplifting underdog story of Jamie New (Frankie Bounds), a 16-year-old schoolboy from a Steel City council estate with big dreams and the courage to stand out when it would be easier to stay quiet.

Equipped with the strength to face the world head on, Jamie fights prejudice, finds his voice and discovers the freedom of stepping into the spotlight on his own terms. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Over-reaching strategy: Phil Corbitt’s Colin puts yet another plan to Sarah Belcher’s exhausted Deborah in Alison Carr’s All At Sea

Premiere of the week: Stephen Joseph Theatre and Live Theatre, Newcastle, present All At Sea, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 31

MARIA Crocker directs Phil Corbitt and Sarah Belcher in All At Sea, Alison Carr’s new play inspired by the real-life escapades of John and Anne Darwin in the early 2000s.

Colin and Deborah are a couple with spiralling debt, a sky-high mortgage and seemingly nowhere to turn. Then Colin comes up with the idea of faking his own death in a canoeing accident in the North Sea for an insurance payout. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope comes face to face with Charlie Russell’s Odysseus in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Greek tragedy twist of the week: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Odyssey: Her Story, York Theatre Royal, until October 31

BOOKER Prize winner Margaret Atwood revisits Homer’s The Odyssey in an exuberantly irreverent and darkly humorous retelling where she gives voice to Odysseus’s silenced wife, Penelope – still awaiting his return 20 years after the Trojan War – and her chorus of maids in a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge that exposes the truth behind the myth. Creative director Juliet Forster’s cast is led by Happy Valley and Riot Women star Amelia Bullmore. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Ben Reeves-Rowley and Harry Summers in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Company’s piratical The Comedy Of Errors

Shakespeare shake-up of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Comedy Of Errors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

KATIE Leckey and Emily Carhart co-direct York Shakespeare Project in “ an exciting take on Shakespeare’s shortest and possibly funniest play”, giving a piratical, gender-swapping twist to The Comedy Of Errors in a convergence of the original text with slapstick, farce and physical comedy and a “celebration of relationships of many kinds, platonic, familial and romantic”.

“The morally questionable, yet still comedic, nature of many (if not all) of the characters put us in mind of some of our favourite piratical anti-heroes,” they say. “We felt like the framing device of piracy gave us the chance to include slapstick violence between ‘masters and servants’ in a way that wouldn’t seem too brutal or alien to a modern audience.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

The poster for The Amy Winehouse Band’s Back To Black 20th Anniversary Tour

Going back to Back To Black: The Amy Winehouse Band, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7.30pm

AMY Winehouse’s original band, who played with her from the very start, are marking the 20th anniversary of her iconic second album, Back To Black, the one that brought her five awards at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Performing with Amy that evening, as these musicians had done since her earliest gigs in London pubs, was her band. 

Led by Amy’s long-time musical director and bass player, Dale Davis, The Amy Winehouse Band features members who both toured and recorded with her throughout her career. Tomorrow’s gig will be the first of more than 50 on the anniversary itinerary, taking in Hull City Hall on February 12, Sheffield City Hall, February 13, and Harrogate Royal Hall, February 14 2027. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Hudson & Hudson: Combining the magical and the marital at Helmsley Arts Centre

Magic show of the week: Hudson & Hudson Magicians: Married At First Sleight, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm

ORIGINALLY from Hull, husband-and-wife magicians Alan and Kat Hudson appeared separately on Britain’s Got Talent before eventually forming a double act. Ant & Dec had suggested they should work together while they were on the show, but they both said no at the time. Between them, they have appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, ITV’s The Next Great Magician and in the West End production Wonderville.

Married At First Sleight mixes magic, mind-reading, comedy and audience participation with the realities of being married to the person with whom you also rehearse, tour and perform. Cue marital banter alongside the tricks. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

York drag diva Velma Celli leading the Yorktoberfest celebrations in the Big Top with The Bavarian Strollers at York Racecourse

Festival of the week: Jamboree Entertainment presents Yorktoberfest, Clocktower Enclosure, York Racecourse, Friday, 7pm to 1pm; Saturday, 1pm to 5pm & 7pm to 11pm

FOR the first time, James Cundall’s Jamboree Entertainment is staging Yorktoberfest, York’s traditional Bavarian beer festival, inside a Big Top, launched last weekend by aerial artist Zoe Kulyk twisting and tumbling from the rooftop. 

Look out on Friday and Saturday for outrageous York drag diva Velma Celli’s powerhouse singing and quick-fire critique of the costumes on display and oompah band The Bavarian Strollers’ traditional drinking songs and disco classics. The Bavarian Bar and the Dog Haus serve up drinks and German-inspired food. Tickets: www.ticketsource.co.uk/yorktoberfest and at the entrance, subject to availability.

Bison Hip: A dose of the Glasgow blues at Ryedale Blues Club

Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents Bison Hip, Milton Rooms, Malton, October 29, 8pm

BISON Hip were formed by long-time friends Paul Sloway, Malcolm Button, Steven Radziwonik, John Gilmour Smith and Graeme Carswell during a lockdown Zoom call in 2020. “Maybe it was the mid-life crisis at play,” says vocalist Sloway.

“We wanted to take our love of blues and rock and mix it up with our experiences of life. Between us, we’ve been through so many things in life, ups and downs, some successes and plenty of failures, we wanted all that in the music. We needed to wrap it up in the DNA of our hometown, Glasgow, and hopefully that’s what we’ve achieved.” Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

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REVIEW: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, grit and polish until Saturday *****

Teacher Miss Hedge (Katie Spencer) steps in between school bully Dean Paxton (Cain Branton) and dreamer Jamie New (Frankie Bounds) in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

THIRD time, even luckier. After York Stage’s Teen Version at Theatre@41 in June 2023 and Pick Me Up Theatre’s Joseph Rowntree  Theatre run in July 2025, Sheffield musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is being re-made in York for the third time.

This one is the best yet, wholly justifying Nik Briggs’s decision to revisit Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells’ musical after directing the York premiere in 2023. “When the full version became available I knew I had to bring it to the Grand Opera House,” he said, promising a “truly beautiful, bold and gritty new production, capturing the electricity, humour and heart that has made ‘Jamie’ a modern British classic”.

Electricity. Tick. Humour. Tick. Heart. Tick, tick, ticker. They are all here in abundance in a production driven by Briggs’s thrilling direction, bold and beautiful performances and A J Powell’s choreography, full of punch and panache. What lifts it even higher, to five- star status, is Briggs’s costume and especially set design.

In a story so fast moving, where Jamie’s life is always on the edge of being out of control, where he wants to run before he can strut in heels, Briggs’s revolving stage is the perfect way to encapsulate the commotion. It enables the next scene to be set up out of sight, in transitions from Mayfield School classroom to Jamie’s house; classroom to Victor’s Secret clothes shop; a street bench to Jamie’s house; outside Legs Eleven nightclub to inside.

Nik Briggs: Director-designer of York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

There is no need for stage hands to be in view, save to push the merry-go-round for the next triangular stage to lock into place. It is so quick and efficient that the only things not to be on the move are the hands of the classroom clock. Then again, time waits for no man, or rather teenage boy in this case.

After Ryan Addyman, at the age of 17 in 2023, and Harvey Stephens, at 15 in 2025, now 16-year-old Sheffield council estate schoolboy Jamie New is played by Huby professional actor Frankie Bounds, who is fully ten years older than Harvey at 25, but still boyish of frame, cherubic in his cheekiness and lithe of limb to complement boundless mischievous energy and singing skills honed by his training in both opera and musical theatre.

Inspired by the Firecracker documentary Jamie: Drag Queen At 16, composer Gillespie Sells (from Horsham pop practitioners The Feeling) and writer/lyricist MacRae draw on an original idea by co-writer Jonathan Butterell for the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen in this classic teen rebel story.

Withering wit, northern nous and sassy social awareness all pepper their unflinching account of societal and classroom attitudes towards gender, bigotry, bullying, homophobia, absentee fathers and the right to self-expression. Nine years on from the Sheffield Crucible premiere, post-Covid strictures and the rise of right-wing intolerance, ‘Jamie’ hits home all the harder.

Mum Margaret New (Joanne Theaker), left, and friend Ray (Julie-Ann Smith) organising the 16th birthday party for Jamie (Frankie Bounds) in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Significantly, every Jamie putdown of loathsome, self-loathing school bully Dean Paxton (Cain Branton) is met with cheers, cheers that grew even louder to greet Bounds’ exit from the Stage Door after Saturday’s matinee. Likewise, Jamie’s best friend, assured York Stage debutante Roxanne Hall’s Priti Pasha, the Muslim student destined to study Medicine at Cambridge, puts dunderhead Dean in his place too. This bravura musical not only celebrates difference but what a difference for the better it makes too.

Among the Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School, a typical northern comprehensive classroom of hope-filled, yet cynical and unruly 16-year-olds, Bounds’ Jamie is a restless Yorkshire dreamer in need of escape. He wants to be a performer, not the fork lift driver his  career advisor suggests.

Breaking rules and hearts alike, this lippy kid in lip gloss is outwardly confident but he is naive and vulnerable too, wounded by the barbs of  his stay-away father (Adam Thompson) and discouraged by his narrow-minded  teacher Miss Hedge (Katie Spencer).

The grit promised by Briggs is delivered through the kitchen-sink drama frankness not only of blinkered teacher and bigoted father but also of Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever-supportive mum Margaret (Joanne Theaker, whose rendition of heartfelt ballad He’s My Boy is the Act Two show-stopper).

Class act: Frankie Bounds in his glittering yet shattering performance as teenager Jamie New at the heart of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

High quality is guaranteed by the presence of both Theaker and Julie-Ann Smith’s Ray, who brings a sharp tongue and kind heart to every domestic drama. Together they form a formidably forthright duo taking on both authority and convention.

To go with the grit, here comes the glitz and bravado of dress-shop boss Hugo/veteran drag act Loco Chanelle (Grant McIntyre) and the drag-queen veterans Sandra Bollock (Thompson’s second role),  Tray Sophisticay (George Cornell, reprising his Teen Version role) and Laika Virgin (the thoroughly fabulous Stu Hutchinson), in Sheffield’s answer to The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

Supporting roles and ensemble cast are in fine form too, as is Jessica Viner’s band, where James Lolley’s trumpet is particularly potent. Briggs has hit new heights in his director-designer double whammy, bringing out the best in his cast, boosted by Powell’s fabulous choreography, where even the cans on a schoolroom table dance in rhythm.

York Stage presents Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus  2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Year 11 pupils, led by Frankie Bounds’ Jamie New in red nail varnish, turn the classroom into a dancefloor of defiance in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

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NCEM secures three years of John Feldberg Foundation funding for Baroque Around The Books at Explore York and beyond

The Portrait Players: Playing four Baroque Around The Books concerts in York on November 7 and 8

THE National Centre for Early Music, York, is to receive a three-year funding package from the John Feldberg Foundation to ensure the continuation of the Baroque Around The Books community concert series that will expand into the East Riding Libraries too.

Baroque Around the Books presents free, informal and accessible performances in York’s community libraries, bringing high-quality Early Music to audiences across the city in a familiar community setting. Funding is now in place until the end of 2028.

Since 2024, Baroque Around The Books has featured musicians of the highest calibre who also perform on stage at the National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate.

Taking part so far have been Dowland’s Foundry, featuring  lutenist Sam Brown and tenor Daniel Thomson, setting Shakespeare to music by Elizabethan composers; Intesa, European musicians Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti, who combine the sound of the viol with the voice, and Flutes and Frets, who performed at the first series in March 2024.

Dowland’s Foundry lutenist Sam Brown with audience members at Baroque Around The Books. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

The concerts have played to enthusiastic audiences and become an important part of the libraries’ work, providing both a community cultural experience and a development opportunity for the NCEM’s emerging ensembles to learn new skills in engaging with audiences in a celebration and discovery of Early Music.

This year’s concerts will be performed by the all-female British ensemble The Portrait Players, bringing 17th and 18th century music to modern audiences, as they will be too at the York Early Music Christmas Festival when performing  À la Venue de Noël: As Christmas Approaches at Bedern Hall, Bedern, on December 6 at 2pm.

For Baroque Around The Books, Emilia Agajew, harp, Miriam Nohl, viola da gamba, Claire Ward, soprano, and Kristiina Watt, theorbo and soprano, will visit Acomb Explore (11am) and  Clifton Explore (2pm) on December 7, then Tang Hall Explore (11am) and York Explore (2pm) on December  8, to share the music and poetry of 17th century women in a programme entitled The New Lyre. Entry is free with no booking required.

Welcoming the funding for this NCEM cultural wellbeing initiative, NCEM executive director Cherry Fricker said: “We are very grateful to the John Feldberg Foundation for providing the funding to deliver this wonderful community experience in partnership with Explore York Libraries and Archives.

Intesa’s Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti performing at Baroque Around The Books. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

“This three-year support enables the National Centre for Early Music to continue sharing the extraordinary array of talent within the UK’s vibrant Early Music scene with communities across York, while reinforcing our ongoing commitment to supporting, encouraging and nurturing the skills of emerging artists in the UK and beyond.”

The John Feldberg Foundation said: “The foundation is delighted to be part of this innovative and ground-breaking project, which gives everyone the chance to experience the excitement of Early Music in their local community library.”

Dave Fleming, creative producer for Explore York, said: “Baroque Around The Books demonstrates the vital role libraries play as community and cultural spaces. These performances bring high-quality live music into welcoming, accessible settings, creating memorable experiences for our communities.

“One of the joys of the programme is seeing people call in to borrow a book and leave having discovered an exceptional live performance. We’re delighted that this successful partnership will continue for another three years.”

Intesa’s Lucine Musaelian entertaining a child at Baroque Around The Books. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

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More Things To Do in York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 42, from The York Press

In the spotlight: Frankie Bounds’ Jamie New, front, in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

FROM added grit in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie to a piratical twist on The Comedy Of Errors, Brandon Flowers in full bloom at York Barbican to drag diva Velma Celli rocking out, Charles Hutchinson spots pearls aplenty.

Bold and unapologetic musical of the week: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, until October 24; 7.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinees and 4pm Sunday

TOM MacRae and Dan Gillespie’s Sheffield musical plays the Grand Opera House for the first time in Nik Briggs’s production for York Stage that restores the grit to both complement and counter the glitz in the uplifting underdog story of Jamie New (Frankie Bounds), a 16-year-old schoolboy from a Steel City council estate with big dreams and the courage to stand out when it would be easier to stay quiet.

Equipped with the strength to face the world head on, Jamie fights prejudice, finds his voice and discovers the freedom of stepping into the spotlight on his own terms. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope comes face to face with Charlie Russell’s Odysseus in The Penelopiad. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Greek tragedy twist of the week: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Odyssey: Her Story, York Theatre Royal, until October 31

BOOKER Prize winner Margaret Atwood revisits Homer’s The Odyssey in an exuberantly irreverent and darkly humorous retelling where she gives voice to Odysseus’s silenced wife, Penelope – still awaiting his return 20 years after the Trojan War – and her chorus of maids in a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge that exposes the truth behind the myth. Creative director Juliet Forster’s cast is led by Happy Valley and Riot Women star Amelia Bullmore. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Kristin Hersh: Queen of the alternative scene

Recommended but sold out already: An Evening With Kristin Hersh, National Centre for Early Music, York, tonight,7.30pm

OVER  three decades, Atlanta, Georgia singer, songwriter and guitarist  Kristin Hersh, 60, has been heralded queen of the alternative scene with Throwing Muses, 50Foot Wave and on her own, releasing her latest 12th solo album, Sugar On Blackstone, on Fire Records on September 18. Recorded at Stable Sound Studio in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, with Steve Rizzo, it features Rob Ahlers on drums and Pete Harvey on cello.

Since signing to Fire Records in 2018, the prolific Hersh has released tenth studio album Possible Dust Clouds, Throwing Muses’  Sun Racket in 2020, 50Foot Wave’s Black Pearl in 2022, her book Seeing Sideways in 2022 and self-produced 11th solo album, the cinematic road trip and personal vignettes of Clear Pond Road, in September 2023.

Velma Celli: Drag diva delights…including a tribute to Dolly Parton RIP

Drag delights of the week: The Velma Celli Show, with special guest Jessica Steel and guitarists Stuart Allan and Olly Chilton, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 6pm

YORK vocal drag act deluxe and international cabaret superstar Velma Cell moves to a new location for her camp, spectacular song and comedy home-city performances. “My last two shows at York Theatre Royal – Snow Queen and Rock Queen – had been among my favourites, so this one will be a mixture of Snow Queen and Rock Queen and musical theatre material,” says Velma’s creator, actor and West End star Ian Stroughair.

 “The first set will be musical theatre favourites, songs from my career in West End musicals – Cats, Fame, Chicago and Rent – and an homage to Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. In the second set we’ll rock out with York. There’ll be songs by David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Bryan Adams, Bonnie Tyler, Guns N’ Roses, Roxette, Alanis Morissette, Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game – and I’ll do a Dolly Parton section too. There has to be!” Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Imperial Classical Ballet in Swan Lake

Ballet of the week: Imperial Classical Ballet presents Swan Lake, York Barbican, October 19, 7.30pm

IMPERIAL Classical Ballet  performs Swan Lake, the powerful tale of Princess Odette, cursed to live as a swan by day and a woman by night. When Prince Siegfried discovers her under the moonlight, he vows to break the spell, yet the evil sorcerer Rothbart and his daughter Odile plot a deception that threatens them both.

From the haunting beauty of the lakeside scenes to the electrifying Black Swan pas de deux, Swan Lake is a visual delight, performed to Tchaikovsky’s soaring score, played live by an orchestra. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Brandon Flowers: In full bloom at York Barbican. Picture: Chris Phelps

Gig of the week: Brandon Flowers, York Barbican, October 21, 7.30pm

THE Killers’ frontman, Brandon Flowers, plays York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue on his nine-date UK and Ireland tour, promoting Thrasher, his third solo album and first since 2015, which peaked at number three on release in August.

Fans can look forward to hearing songs from Thrasher, played live for the first time, alongside highlights from his British chart-topping solo albums, 2010’s Flamingo and 2015’s The Desired Effect, as well as beloved tracks from The Killers’ catalogue. No support. Ticket update: Sold out; for returns only, go to https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/brandon-flowers.

Pirate reboot ahoy: York Shakespeare Project in The Comedy Of Errors. Picture: John Stead

Shakespeare shake-up of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Comedy Of Errors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 21 to 24, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

KATIE Leckey and Emily Carhart co-direct York Shakespeare Project in “ an exciting take on Shakespeare’s shortest and possibly funniest play”, giving a piratical, gender-swapping twist to The Comedy Of Errors in a convergence of the original text with slapstick, farce and physical comedy and a “celebration of relationships of many kinds, platonic, familial and romantic”.

“The morally questionable, yet still comedic, nature of many (if not all) of the characters put us in mind of some of our favourite piratical anti-heroes,” they say. “We felt like the framing device of piracy gave us the chance to include slapstick violence between ‘masters and servants’ in a way that wouldn’t seem too brutal or alien to a modern audience.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

The poster for the Amy Winehouse Band’s Back To Black 20th Anniversary Tour, visiting York Barbican

Going back to Back To Black: The Amy Winehouse Band, York Barbican, October 22, 7.30pm

AMY Winehouse’s original band, who played with her from the very start, are marking the 20th anniversary of her iconic second album, Back To Black, the one that brought her five awards at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Performing with Amy that evening, as these musicians had done since her earliest gigs in London pubs, was her band. 

Led by Amy’s long-time musical director and bass player, Dale Davis, The Amy Winehouse Band features members who both toured and recorded with her throughout her career. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

A Fate Worse Than Death: Premiering at Everyman Harrogate on Thursday

In Focus: Film premiere of the week: A Fate Worse Than Death, Everyman Harrogate, Harrogate, October 22, 7.30pm

AFTER three years of production, Abraham Fieldsend will premiere his feature film A Fate Worse Than Death at Everyman Harrogate on Thursday.

Made in North and West Yorkshire for £12,000, this 70-minute psychological horror-drama was produced independently by Wayside Trinity, using primarily local cast, crew and locations.

Written by co-producers Zachary Fieldsend, Steve Jones-Robertson and Abraham Fieldsend, the story explores the effects of grief through a couple struggling to cope with the loss of their child. As the mother’s debilitating headaches intensify, they are forced to confront the possibility that the darkness consuming their home is more than grief alone.

A Fate Worse Than Death’s production team

“A bold title, a tragic story, a horrifying series of events, A Fate Worse Than Death promises to be a horror film of different forms, assaulting your comfort, scarring your emotions, and engaging your mind when the credits roll,” says Fieldsend. “Our first foray into the world of feature film-making will be sure to shock even the most hardened horror fans.”

The cast comprises Susan Fieldsend as Elizabeth; Lyndsey Craine, Doctor Kent; Jake Fireman, Group Therapy Speaker; Kay Gartland, Doctor Armstrong; Martin Turner, Keith; Evan “T-Rex” Singleton,  Paramedic 1; Zachary Fieldsend, Paramedic 2; Natalie Fieldsend, Pyschologists’ Receptionist (voice); Neil Fieldsend, Unnamed Doctor; Mike Blackburn, The Figure and Burn Victim, and Matthew Chan, James’s Work Colleague.

Thursday’s running order will be: 7:30pm, complimentary drink on arrival; 8pm, short introduction in Screen 2; 8:15pm, film screening; 9.3pm, screening ends, followed by drinks and a chance to mingle in the bar area.

For more details, go to: https://www.everymancinema.com/venues-list/x0x9k-everyman-harrogate/.

The poster for A Fate Worse Than Death

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York author and musician Miles Salter goes behind-the-scenes to investigate the tragedy that rocked The Pretenders

York author Miles Salter holding a copy of his investigative rock biography A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 ahead of the book launch and signing session at Topping & Company on November 10

YORK author, journalist, songwriter, band leader, podcaster, storyteller, festival organiser and poet Miles Salter will launch his new book, A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, at Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York, on November 10 at 7pm.

“I hope you will join me as I talk to poet and author John Goodby about The Pretenders and their remarkable, strange, dark, sad tale,” says Miles, introducing his no-holds barred account of ego, bust-ups and drug usage that forms his  first narrative non-fiction work and first book since 2020.

As long ago as December 1991, Miles wrote and recorded the song Voice Of A Dead Man at Old Dairy Studios in York. “It was all about rock stars who were no longer with us: Freddie Mercury, who had died the previous month, Roy Orbison, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and it also mentioned Pete Farndon, so I was aware of the Pretenders’ story already, but then I became really interested in it.”

Thirty-five years later, A Dangerous Band is the result. “It tells the compelling true story of The Pretenders, one of New Wave’s most exciting bands,” says Miles. “Chrissie Hynde arrived in London from America in 1973. Tucked under  her  arm were the three albums she most treasured.

“She wrote for the NME [New Musical Express] and fell in with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood via Sex, the provocatively named shop they ran on King’s Road. She hung out with The Sex Pistols and The Clash. After numerous near-misses, she formed The Pretenders in 1978 with three young men from Hereford: guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers.”

Within 18 months they had released “one of THE great albums of the era”, as Miles bills 1980’s “incredibly aggressive” Pretenders, whose chart-topping single Brass In Pocket launched the band to international success and fame.

Chrissie Hynde: Lead singer of The Pretenders

“But tragedy ensued: by mid-1983 both Farndon and Honeyman-Scott were dead from drug abuse, dying within ten months of each other,” says Miles. “Beginning in February 2025, and drawing on previously recorded interviews , including one with Martin Chambers, I spent 18 months writing and researching the book, returning to Honeyman-Scott and Farndon’s home city, interviewing band members, romantic connections, family members, friends, record company staff and music journalists.”

In his three poetry collections, Miles writes of garden gnomes, strange neighbours,  a bloke who shouts at the moon, a Brummie vampire, global catastrophe and near-death experiences, so what drew him to the story of The Pretenders, with its “rise of Chrissie Hynde from Akron outsider to London rock royalty, the sonic genius of their self-titled debut and the chaotic drug-fuelled spiral that tragically cut short the lives of James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon”?

“The story was a gift to a writer,” says Miles. “Every time I thought ‘this can’t get any stranger’, something else came up. The more I talked to people, the stranger it became, the darker and darker it became.  A story of totally living that rock’n’roll life but to their detriment as it cost them their lives.”

Miles found the writing experience “emotional”. “It’s just such a sad story. I wept often as I wrote. People told me how funny and charming and likeable Jimmy and Pete were, and they both died in the most appalling ways. I sent some of it to Lyn Honeyman Scott (sister of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott) and she said the same thing: ‘It’s desperately sad’.

“In terms of telling a story, I got lucky.  Every time I thought things couldn’t get weirder, something more shocking emerged. It’s a real-life tragedy packed with all the elements of a compelling story.”

York author Miles Salter and the cover artwork for his book A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, published by Winter & May on November 1

That story has a Faustian element, suggests Miles. “They made a deal with the devil. It’s a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Chrissie Hynde wrote in one of her later lyrics, ‘what’s the price of fame?’. I think that sums up the book. It’s a question that has haunted her.”

Salter’s meticulous research uncovers the personal lives, conflicts and rivalries behind the hits, while exploring Hynde’s driven yet complex personality and the childhood trauma that shaped three of the band members.

“The book makes some pertinent observations about the psychology of creatives, showing how fame can destroy even the most talented,” says Miles of his behind-the-scenes look at the cost of success that weaves John Lydon, Sid Vicious, Ray Davies, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Lowe and music executive Seymour Stein, as well as McLaren and Westwood, into the tale.

“I learned that Pete Farndon felt nothing when Brass In Pocket went to number one,” says Miles. “It just felt anti-climactic, after watching footage of The Beatles at Shea Stadium and thinking that was the life he wanted.”

Miles did not interview Chrissie Hynde. “People kept asking, ‘have you spoken with Chrissie’, but the Pretenders’ story is not just about her, it’s about band members, brothers, sisters, family, friends, the whole community affected by Pete and James’s deaths.”

Book launch: A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 author Miles Salter, in conversation with poet john Goodby, followed by signing session, Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York,  November 10, 7pm (doors 6.30pm). Tickets cost £17.95, including hardback book or £5 “if you just want to come and listen”.  To book, go to: https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/york/miles-salter-the-pretenders/.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North, Eugene Onegin, Leeds Grand Theatre, until October 29 and on tour until November 21

Verity Wingate as Tatyana in Opera North’s Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop

IMAGINE, if you will, a black-tie party, with long dresses and lots of fizz, taking place in the cramped space between two sets of bleachers in a gymnasium, where the paint is peeling off all the doors.

Then again, the same setting has earlier accommodated a young girl writing a letter to her putative lover, scribbling with a ball-point pen in a ring-bound notebook, from which she tears off a page to send.

These scenes may not sound like the stuff of opera, but they are taken directly from Opera North’s new Eugene Onegin, a co-production with Irish National Opera and with Opera Queensland, whose artistic director Patrick Nolan leads this production. They are respectively the ball in Act 3, Scene 1 and Tatyana’s Letter Scene, Act 1, Scene 2.

Tchaikovsky’s setting of Shilovsky’s libretto, in turn derived from Pushkin’s verse novel, inhabits both a country estate and St Petersburg in the 1820s. The current production is set in the 1980s, before and after the time of Gorbachev’s perestroika. In the spirit of glasnost – greater openness – we must seek an explanation.

John Brancy’s Eugene Onegin and Joshua Bloom’s Prince Gremin in Opera North’s Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop

The creatives involved, primarily Nolan, along with set designer Leslie Travers and costume designer Elizabeth Gadsby, begin their production in a small rural community in 1980, as it prepares its contribution to that summer’s Olympics in Moscow, in a gymnasium festooned with portraits of Lenin. It closes in 1991 as the new Russian Federation supplants the collapsed Soviet Union.

While admitting that the correlation between this period and the 1820s is not exact, the group expresses a “desire to bring a contemporary energy to the piece.” It is not immediately apparent that Tchaikovsky’s original lacked energy. Nor is the raw human emotion of that time any less forceful than it was in the 1980s. Indeed general director Laura Canning highlights Tatyana’s resilience as “straight out of Austen”.

While this drab setting may be visually unappetising, there are some musical compensations. Verity Wingate, one of six principals Opera North debutants, makes a properly vulnerable teenage Tatyana.

Although she started uneasily on this opening night, she suddenly found a higher gear for her Letter Scene, which is very much the touchstone of the role. She also achieves a smooth transformation into society’s upper reaches, so that her ultimate rejection of Onegin carries moral weight.

Jingwen Cai as Olga with members of the Chorus of Opera North as villagers in Eugene Onedin. Picture: James Glossop

He is John Brancy, another debutant, whose haughty demeanour is matched by a clean-cut baritone that speaks of self-assurance linked to insensitivity. His friend and ultimate foe, Lensky, is a less appealing figure in Caspar Singh’s hands. While he paces his pre-duel aria delicately, there is also a disturbing unevenness in his focus, now forward, now back, so that the voice comes and goes.

Jingwen Cai is a sparky Olga, Tatyana’s younger sister, full of mischief. Hannah Mason is charming as their mother, Madame Larina, and Claire Pascoe makes a personality of Filipyevna, both amply justifying their elevation from the chorus. So too does Simon Grange as Zaretsky. Florian Panzieri makes pleasingly light work of Triquet’s aria. Joshua Bloom’s dry bass as Prince Gremin lacks aristocratic authority.

The chorus projects with its customary vigour but looks uncomfortable with some of the 1980s vibe that Maxim Braham’s choreography is presumably intended to convey, not helped by casual dress. Even the orchestra under Garry Walker was less than compact in Act 1, but was in impressive stride thereafter on this occasion, as doubtless it will be throughout the run.

Opera North, Eugene Onegin, Leeds Grand Theatre, until November 29. Box office: operanorth.co.uk. Sung in Russian with English subtitles.

Review by Martin Dreyer, Leeds Grand Theatre, 9/10/2026

John Brancy’s Eugene Onegin, front left, in a punch-up with Caspar Singh’s Lensky as Chorus of Opera North members look on. Picture: James Glossop

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