Category: Theatre

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REVIEW: John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers The Play, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday *****

The full cast in the finale to John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers The Play. Picture: Hugo Glendinning

WHEN Monty Python alumnus John Cleese opened Fawlty Towers The Play at London’s Apollo Theatre in May 2024, he was “more confident about it than almost anything I’ve ever done”.

After two sold-out West End seasons, a ten-month 39-venue UK tour was launched in September 2025, visiting Leeds Grand Theatre in early January and now the Grand Opera House in York this week.

“I know all the lines,” said the lady in the stalls row behind  your reviewer at Wednesday’s well-attended matinee. Such has been the permeation of the coastal hotel shenanigans of Cleese and Connie Booth’s beloved BBC sitcom, whose 50th anniversary was the trigger for Cleese to mount the stage show, directed with comedic elan by Caroline Jay Ranger.

Just as Eric Idle adapted the 1975 film Monty Python And The Holy Grail for the hit stage musical Monty Python’s Spamalot, so Cleese, now 86, is on to a winner with Fawlty Towers The Play. Hapless Spanish waiter Manuel may say “I know nothing”, but Cleese knows everything about how to transfer Basil and Sybil’s trials and tribulations from small screen to stage.

Whereas Idle affectionately subtitled Spamalot “A New Musical (Lovingly) Ripped Off From The Motion Picture”, Cleese has adapted three of the most cherished episodes – The Hotel Inspectors, Communication Problems and The Germans – to form two Acts, concluding the madcap proceedings with a new finale.

“The English do love a farce,” observed Cleese, whose play has the classic structure, physical silliness and comic verve of the works of Ben Travers, Brian Rix and Ray Cooney. He named Michael Frayn’s Noises Off and Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors too, and you will be laughing equally as frequently at Basil’s antics in Fawlty Towers live on stage.

There is an added factor here: familiarity, a feeling as comforting as a well worn pair of slippers or a favourite sofa or the sound of Dennis Wilson’s TV theme tune. That familiarity begins the moment you settle in your seat and take in Liz Ascroft’s open-plan set design of the hotel reception desk, the stairs to Mrs Richards’ first-floor bedroom, the dining room and the doors to the kitchen.

Above, to one side, stands a model of the frontage of Fawlty Towers, in the English Riviera town of Torquay. In the middle is a cut-out of the roof; to the other side is the  Fawlty Towers  sign – and yes, the order of the letters will be changed for Act Two in the tradition of the  TV series. The first word becomes ‘Flowery’; over to you to work out the second!

Ascroft’s design sticks faithfully to the British mid-Seventies, with its ghastly colour palette, and her costume design does likewise, from ill-fitting shiny suits for assorted men to Sybil’s trademark pink two-piece  The Malcolm Macdonald-style massive sideburns of Adam Elliott’s Mr Walt are a particular retro joy.

Elliott is part of a 17-strong cast – so rare to have such a large troupe for a tour these days – that is led by Danny Bayne as the deluded, crane-legged hotel proprietor Basil Fawlty and Mia Austen as his acerbic, haughty, exasperated but exasperating wife Sybil.

Cleese once described bolshy Basil as “rude but inefficient”, and Bayne’s characterisation captures that essence, relishing Fawlty’s irascibility, his propensity to ingratiate guests one moment, then treat them as a verbal punch bag the next.

Throughout, Bayne’s Basil finds Austen’s always right Sybil to be the bane of his frustrated life, and the more you watch his pratfalls, the more it strikes you how he is the opposite of many comedy favourites. 

We love Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin because they ultimately win, like Shakespeare’s clowning fools. Fawlty, by contrast, only worsens his situation, tripping himself up with every utterance and foiled plan, and he is all the funnier for that, sharing the loser status of Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder, albeit but without the intelligence and cunning to keep escaping.

Caroline Jay Ranger chalked up an earlier West End touring hit with the musical version of Only Fools And Horses that shared Fawlty Towers The Play’s sense of  celebration of a  British classic, while drawing performances from her cast that mirror the television versions but still bring new life to them too.

Especially so here from the veteran Paul Nicholas, still twinkling in marvellously mischievous comic form as the bumbling Major and Hemi Yerohem’s Barcelona waiter Manuel, the butt of so much Basil intemperance. Seeing such characters in the flesh adds still more to the comedic joy.

Joanne Clifton, swapping the song and dance of musical theatre for the straightest role here, is a delight as unflappable chamber maid Polly Sherman, echoing Connie Booth’s distinctive voice too. Jemma Churchill’s Mrs Richards, even grouchier than Basil, is the nightmare hotel guest personified, barking and snapping while refusing to turn up her hearing aid.

Look out too for the double-act cameos of Emily Winter and Dawn Buckland’s old ladies, Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby, and Greg Haiste’s Mr Hutchinson, Mrs Richards’ rival as Basil’s most irritating hotel guest.

Fawlty Towers The Play is fawltless: British comedy at its best, farcical and furious, utterly Seventies yet timeless too. Make a reservation, now.

John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers The Play, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Eileen Walsh and Megan Placito are thrilled by reaction to Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman’s twisted thriller The Psychic

Eileen Walsh’s TV psychic Sheila Gold in York Theatre Royal’s world premiere of Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman’s The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan

JEREMY Dyson and Andy Nyman’s world premiere of The Psychic is into its last week at York Theatre Royal, where lead actress Eileen Walsh and professional theatre newcomer Megan Placito have been enjoying every twist and turn of the writer-director duo’s psychological thriller.

Eileen is playing popular TV medium Sheila Gold, who 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. 

Joining her on that journey is Megan’s Tara, Sheila’s ambitious, resolute niece, who combines vulnerability and underdog defiance  with a determination to inherit her family’s fairground wisdom and tricks.

“I did a Zoom meeting with Jeremy and Andy two months before we started rehearsals after they’d seen my work and said, ‘Can we send you the script?’,” says Eileen. “I’d never done a play like this, but the lads were so enthusiastic about their subject, the magic and the jump scares that it was an easy ‘yes’ for me.”

Megan, who trained at ArtsEd, had appeared in the television series Father Brown, Casualty and Doctors and the films Peter Pan’s Neverland, Decode Me and The Salt Path, but not yet on stage when she was contacted by casting director Arthur Carrington.

“Jeremy and Andy had asked him, ‘can you find any girls from a showman background?’, and I was the first one they saw in January, after I was sent the script on my birthday in December – on the same day that my boyfriend bought me a book on witchcraft! It was like all these things were coming together,” says Megan.

“I’d done some indie films and the usual rites-of-passage TV shows, but I was desperate to do theatre, although Arts Ed was more focused on TV and film training, but all the performances that had captivated me had been on stage. Like seeing Eileen’s performance in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at the National [Theatre], playing John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth.”

Megan met Jeremy and Andy at the Umbrella Rooms in Shaftsbury Avenue. “I was just wanting to rack their brains as I grew up in a travelling showman community in Chertsey in Surrey, who worked on fairgrounds,” she says.

“My mum is a showman and my father is a ‘joskin’ [a non-traveller], as she wanted to get out of the showman world, where, in a lot of the communities, there are pressures. But I had freedom, I went to a regular GCSE school, and when I said I wanted to be an actor, my mum said, ‘yeah, do it’. Showmanship is in my heart; it’s in my blood to perform.”

 Megan Placito’s Tara in The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan

At her first meeting with Jeremy and Andy, Megan was “asking them about the language in the play, and how they’d written about a matriarchal world  when it’s called ‘showman’ – though actually the community is run by the women.”

Eileen was drawn to Dyson and Nyman’s fascination with the powers of psychics. “The way the guys spoke about ‘reading people’ intrigued me,” she says.

“I’d just done a show called The Second Woman with an Australian company at Cork Opera House, when it was an opportunity to see how I could hold up for 24 hours, playing the same scene 100 times opposite 100 men, so I felt it was moving in the right direction for me to come out and talk with a live audience straightaway in The Psychic.

“It was not something scary for me to deal with, bringing the audience on a journey into the play through direct address.”

Eileen continues: “It’s really interesting to give people in the audience the chance to talk if they fill out the ‘share card’: they’ll share their stories, share eye contact with you, and it’s amazing how many people will share intimate details about themselves.

“I love the bravery that it takes for them to do that, standing up in front of the audience, who actually become the eighth character in the play.”

York Theatre Royal is running a 35 Live ticket offer for 18 to 35-year-olds, where they can acquire two tickets for £15 each. “People in that age group should see The Psychic because it’s on-trend with TikTok and Tarot card reading, and so many people are interested in spiritualism,  ‘the other’ and ‘manifesting’,” says Megan.

“I do think that people will enjoy that side of it: the question of whether any of it is real or unreal. There’s so much interest in ghost stories, and I love how it feels like a Victorian melodrama too.”

The Psychic, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The Psychic: York Theatre Royal is offering 35 Live ticket offer for 18 to 35-year-olds

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REVIEW: Inspired By Theatre in Spring Awakening, 20th Anniversary, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday ****

Leading light: Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s Melchior in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds

MIKHAIL Lim played Georg in York Stage Musicals’ northern premiere of Spring Awakening at the Vaudeville Theatre, Joseph Rowntree  School, York, in November 2010.

Roll forward  to May 19 2026 when his startling production of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s rock musical was launched with a 20th Anniversary Preview Event, 20 years to the day since the off-Broadway premiere opened at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City.

Entry came with a tote bag emblazoned with a lyric from the show. Inside were a notepad and pen (tools for the reviewers, received gratefully) and a Welcome note from Inspired By Theatre, the York company fast establishing a reputation for injecting thrilling new life into landmark musicals.

Spring Awakening director Mikhail Lim, right, in rehearsal with actor-musician JJ Thornton, who plays Hanschen. Picture: Tiggy-Jade

“What you are about to witness is a production that aims to honour the heart and spirit of Spring Awakening whilst bringing fresh and contemporary ideas to the piece through thrust staging, actor-musicianship, expressive movement and an intimate, visceral approach to storytelling,” the statement read, emphasising the desire to highlight the kinetic musical’s continued relevance two decades later.

Your reviewer would argue that Sheik and Sater’s raucous musical take on Frank Wedekind’s late-19th century play has taken on even more resonance in those 20 years. The original play’s controversial themes of rape, abortion, teenage suicide, gay first love and adolescent sexual discovery led to Spring Awakening being judged too scandalous to perform in Wedekind’s lifetime, with no public performances until November 1906.

Rianna Pearce’s Wendla, centre, with Maz Nachif’s Martha, left, and Skye Pickford’s Ilse in Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds

Wedekind was damning the lack of birds & bees tuition and protection provided both by hand-washing and wringing parents and teachers when faced by their young charges’ burgeoning sexual feelings and search for identity. Now, the world has gone the other way, in the era where social media and the dark web provides a tsunami of information, but teenagers can still feel overwhelmed.

Spring Awakening – such an apt title – is a devastating, dark musical of youthful yearning rubbing up against austere learning in the strict schooldays of 1891 Germany. Part play, part punk concert, it comes suited and booted with strong language (the best song is called Totally ****ed) and scenes of a sexual nature (staged with the involvement of intimacy co-ordinator Lina Glissman, by the way).

In a tale of sex & drudge & shock’n’roll, company founder Dan Crawfurd-Porter swaps directorial duties for the Hamlet-echoing role of piercingly bright, free-thinking, atheist, rebellious student Melchior, sharing centre stage with Rianna Louise’s awakening young flower Wendla and Eryn Grant’s tormented, workaholic, tragic Moritz.

Blow by blow account: JJ Thornton’s Hanschen and guitar-playing actor-musician Oskar Nuttall’s Ernst in Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds

Spring Awakening is above all a wake-up call to the damage that ignorance imposes on young people in a sexually repressive era, here represented by the multiple stultifying roles of the Adult Woman (Gemma McDonald) and Adult Men (Stefan Michaels). Righteous, religious, blinkered, they rule by book and sometimes by belt.

The combination of  Gi Vasey’s thrust set design, placing the audience close up, and musical director Jessica Viner’s band of keys, drum and string players, bolstered by guitar and piano/bass/Cajon-playing actor-musicians, gives even more intensity to the already heightened drama.

Vasey places a bare tree stump at the back, draped in ribbons, complemented by bare branches to either side. In the centre is a sand pit, framed in stones, that serves as school playground and field and transfers to a school room with the aid of chairs. The sand is of the shifting variety, in keeping with sense of seismic change, of matters going beyond balance and control.

Eryn Grant’s Moritz, centre, with JJ Thornton’s Hanschen, left, Oskar Nuttall’s Ernst, Lewis Jordan’s Georg and Kailum Farmery’s Otto. Picture: Mia Scudds

Freya McIntosh’s choreography matches the anger and frustration of the modern yet instantly timeless songs, breaking out of the formal lines and restrictive behaviour of the classroom for free, explosive expression, often with a microphone in the hand (a style of presentation later seen in Six The Musical).

Julie Fisher’s costume designs, with green school uniforms for the boys and a more diverse palette for the girls’ dresses, work well with Daniel Grey’s lighting design, and Will Nicholson’s sound design blends band and actor-musicians with clarity.

Eryn Grant is particularly impressive as the crushed Moritz, while Crawfurd-Porter’s Melchior has an edge to him, contrasting with the innocence of curiosity of Rianna Louise’s Wendla.

Explosion of punk energy in the classroom, observed by Stefan Michaels’ Adult Man and Gemma McDonald’s Adult Woman in Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds

Skye Pickford’s Ilse, with her stillness of presence,  JJ Thornton’s Hanschen and Maz Nachif’s Martha catch the eye too,  performing in tandem with Oskar Nuttall’s Ernst, Lewis Jordan’s Georg, Kailum Farmey’s Otto, Ines Campos’s Thea and Greta Piasecka in a schoolroom cast that has uniformity but bags of individuality too.

Drawing so strikingly on German Expressionism and folkloric imagery, Mikhail Lim has delivered a shattering, alarming, agitated, impassioned Spring Awakening, reaffirming Inspired By Theatre as a major player, a welcome upstart, on York’s theatre scene.

Inspired By Theatre presents Spring Awakening, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Inspired By Theatre marking the 20th anniversary of Spring Awakening’s off-Broadway debut on May 19 2006. Picture: Mia Scudds

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 20, from Gazette & Herald

The full cast in John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers The Play, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Hugo Glendinning

FROM the hotel shenanigans of Fawlty Towers to the uplifting Yorkshire tale of Calendar Girls, Pixies’ 40th anniversary tour to Daniel Sloss’s bitter comic bite, Charles Hutchinson locates cultural hotspots aplenty.  

Don’t mention the war: John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers: The Play, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm today, tomorrow and Saturday matinees

FIFTY years since John Cleese and Connie Booth’s chaotic hotel sitcom graced British television screens,  Monty Python alumnus Cleese has adapted three vintage Fawlty Towers episodes for a stage play.

Following a sold-out West End season, Caroline Jay Ranger directs the 18-strong tour cast featuring  Danny Byrne’s calamitous Basil Fawlty, Mia Austen’s exasperated wife Sybil, Joanne Clifton’s stoical chamber maid Polly and Paul Nicholas’s bumbling Major. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Pixies: Making their York debut after 40 years tonight

Recommended but sold out already: Pixies: Pixies 40, Celebrating 40 Years, York Barbican, tonight, doors 7pm

PIXIES are playing York for the first time in their 40-year career, opening the 13-date British and European leg of the Pixies 40 tour at the Barbican, the only Yorkshire show. Celebrating four decades since their formation in Boston, Massachusetts, the American alt.rock band’s founding members, Black Francis, Joey Santiago and David Lovering, are joined by bassist Emma Richardson. Gans support.

Jerron Paxton: Singing the blues at NCEM tonight

The Crescent and Brudenell Presents present Jerron Paxton, National Centre for Early Music, York, tonight, 8pm

SOUTH Central Los Angeles-born singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jerron Paxton’s lived-in voice and California drawl underpin a stripped-down concoction of blues, ragtime, folk and old-time Black music styles that originated nearly a century ago, as heard on his latest album, Things Done Changed, released on Smithsonian Folkways in 2024.

“I write and sing about the culture I come from. It seems a bit neglected,” says New York-based Paxton, who plays guitar, banjo, piano and violin. As journalist Lynell George expresses in the liner notes: “It’s all there…you’ll discover context and background: the history of people and place and the come-what-may gamble of life-altering journeys.” Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Sandy Nicholson, front, left, Katie Melia and Alexa Chaplin in rehearsal for York Musical Theatre Company’s Calendar Girls The Musical

Yorkshire musical of the week: York Musical Theatre Company in Calendar Girls The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

KATHRYN Addison directs York Musical Theatre Company in Cheshire childhood friends Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s musical account of the true story of a Yorkshire group of ordinary Women’s Institute members doing something extraordinary after the death of a much-loved husband.

When they decide to make an artistic nude calendar for a cancer charity, upturning preconceptions is a dangerous business, leading to emotional and personal ramifications that no-one  could anticipate but bringing each woman unexpectedly into flower. Katie Melia’s Chris and Alexa Chaplin’s Annie lead the cast. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Dan Crawfurd-Porter in the role of Melchior in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

American musical of the week: Inspired By Theatre in Spring Awakening, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK company Inspired By Theatre marks the 20th anniversary of Spring Awakening’s  off-Broadway debut in New York City by staging Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s raw, explosive coming-of-age musical in the matching week.

Cutting straight to the heart of youth, desire, repression and rebellion in 1890s’ Germany, Mikhail Lim’s actor-musician production follows a group of young people navigating sex, love and identity in a society that refuses to educate or protect them, drawing on German Expressionism and folkloric imagery to boot. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

1812 Theatre Company’s poster for Goodnight Mister Tom at Helmsley Arts Centre

Ryedale play of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in Goodnight Mister Tom, Helmsley Arts Centre, tonight until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

JULIE Wilson directs Helmsley Arts Centre’s resident troupe, 1812 Theatre Company, in Goodnight Mister Tom. Adapted by David Wood from Michelle Magorian’s novel, the play is set during the Second World War, when  sad, young William Beech is evacuated to the idyllic English countryside and builds a remarkable and moving friendship with the elderly recluse Tom Oakley. All seems perfect until William is devastatingly summoned by his mother back to London. Box office: 01439 771700 or  helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Crumb of discomfort: Can castigated TV baking celebrity Petronella Parfait (Ellen Carnazza) mount a comeback in Badapple Theatre’s Crumbs? Picture: Karl Andre Photography

Bake-off of the week:  Badapple Theatre Company in Crumbs, York Theatre Royal Studio, today until Saturday, 7,45pm, plus 2.30pm Thursday & Friday and 2pm Saturday matinees

FORMER TV baking celebrity Petronella Parfait is out of a job and out of her depth, trying to reinvent herself in the cut-throat world of social influencers. Can she keep the lights – and the oven – on as her live comeback show descends into delicious disaster? Expect big laughs, bold flavours, live bread making and a tasty treat for the audience at the end of Kate Bramley’s play as Green Hammerton’s Badapple Theatre Company returns to the Theatre Royal Studio. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Daniel Sloss: Acidic comedy at York Barbican tomorrow

Snappiest show title of the week gig of the week: Daniel Sloss, Bitter, York Barbican, tomorrow, 8pm

ACERBIC Scottish wit Daniel Sloss likes to keep his titles brief. After Jigsaw, Dark, X, Socio, Hubris, Now and Can’t, Sloss is Bitter in his 13th  tour show, visiting York this weekend after playing 55 countries so far.

He has performed stand-up for more than half of his lifetime, sold out nine New York theatre seasons off-Broadway, appeared on the Conan show ten times on American television, broken Edinburgh Fringe box-office records and published his book Everyone You Hate Is Going To Die (Knopf/Penguin Random House) in 2021. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

The Wizard of York welcoming one and all to the magical WizardFest in York. Picture: The Story Of You

Magical event of the week: WizardFest, York, May 23 to 25

WIZARDFEST, York’s official Festival of Wizardry, waves its magic wand over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend as The Wizard of York conjures up spellbinding events, tours, trails, workshops, shows and fantastical food and drink.

Wizardry fans can book for the Wizard Walk of York, Brick Magic LEGO workshop, Wizard Family Rave, Giant Bubble Show or Wicked at City Screen Picturehouse.  Expect owl appearances, dragons and the new Wizard Activity Zone on Parliament Street with wand making, face painting and more. Dress to impress for the free fancy dress parade from St Helen’s Square on Monday at 3pm. A digital map and full list of events with booking links can be found at wizardwalkofyork.com/wizardfest.

The Lightning Threads: Playing Ryedale Blues Club at Milton Rooms, Malton

Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents The Lightning Threads, Milton Rooms, Malton, May 28, 8pm

FORMED in 2019, The Lightning Threads are an energetic electronic blues-rock power trio from Sheffield, influenced by The Black Keys, Gary Clark Jr, Cream and The Doors. They feature face-melting guitars, groove-ridden basslines and a multi-instrumentalist drummer simultaneously playing keys. Box office: 01653 696240themiltonrooms.com.

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Badapple Theatre Company launches year as York Theatre Royal associate company with Crumbs – and live baking on stage

Ellen Carnazza as TV bakery queen Petronella Parfait in Crumbs, the Badapple Theatre Company play with live bread baking. Picture: Karl Andre

BADAPPLE Theatre Company is celebrating the start of its year as associate company at York Theatre Royal by staging cookery comedy drama Crumbs in the Studio from tomorrow to Saturday.

Under artistic director and writer Kate Bramley’s leadership, Badapple has been bringing original theatre to unusual locations in Yorkshire and far beyond since 1998, but straitened financial times have seen the Green Hammerton company take the decision to stage a solo show.

Starring the chameleon Ellen Carnazza, Bramley’s study of celebrity culture first toured last autumn and is now back on the road this spring with its turbulent tale of the ruthless exploits of former TV baking celebrity Petronella Parfait.

“Let go” from her high-profile TV show under dubious circumstances, Petronella is determined to re-style herself within the fast-paced and cut-throat world of social media influencers, but can she keep the lights on – as well as the oven – in the face of almost certain doom?

The four-day Theatre Royal run follows Badapple’s Theatre On Your Doorstep national tour of 22 rural venues, when North Yorkshire Council provided funding for five performances in “the most remote extremities of North Yorkshire: Clapham-cum Newby, “practically in Lancashire”; Appletreewick; Glusburn, near Keighley; Darley and West Burton, “at the top of the Yorkshire Dales”.

“It’s what we do, taking shows to villages like that, and not only did North Yorkshire Council put in a small amount of money, but also a massive amount of enthusiasm,” says Kate.

In signature Badapple style, Crumbs pushes the limits of live theatre performance with a joyous blend of comedy, clowning and bread baked live on stage.

“We’ve had so much fun touring this outrageous show,” says Kate. “It amazes me every time to see Ellen captivate audiences with the ruthless Petronella, and play five other supporting characters too, some at the same time, while baking bread in front of our very eyes.”

Kate is now spending two days a week at the Theatre Royal. “We’re so delighted to be invited to become associate company at York Theatre Royal this year,” she says. “It’s a real honour and comes as an amazing boost at a crucial time for Badapple, with the hope of some brighter days ahead.

“It’s why I’ve never cancelled a Badapple tour as I believe the sea will trickle over you and someone will step in.”

The proof is the new partnership, where, at the epicentre of Badapple’s year as associate company, Kate will be developing a new play in partnership with the Theatre Royal’s creative team.  

“I’ll be working on a script with the support of creative director Juliet Forster over the coming year, to be given a research and development showcase open to the public next March,” she says. “It’s so exciting as I’ve not done work exclusively for a theatre since 2003.

Flour power: Ellen Carnazza’s Petronella Parfait in Crumbs. Picture: Karl Andre

“The association with the Theatre Royal will be built around Badapple pushing into a couple of directions: one is partnerships with theatres; the other is continuing to do what we do in non-theatre spaces.”

Kate continues: “When the Theatre Royal announced it was looking for a new associate company, I went in with my pitch, knowing that we’re not the kind of company the Theatre Royal would usually support, as it’s normally about the building and growth of a company when its first starting out, as a lever to open up opportunities.

“I was hugely aware Badapple was not that company, as we’re long established, but the more I spoke to Juliet and her colleagues, I realised they felt they could help us make a step-change, one of many we’ve made in going back into theatres, but also in helping us on the administration side.

“That means we can access any aspect of the Theatre Royal’s expertise, while we can provide our expertise in rural touring and small-scale touring.”

Kate gives an example. “I’ve been talking with the Futureproof team [the Theatre Royal’s talent development and consultation programme for 18 to 26 year olds], which looks at the future strategy  of the Theatre Royal, discussing how the next generation of York theatre practitioners views the way ahead here,” she says.

“It’s exciting that I can offer my expertise and the Theatre Royal can do likewise for Badapple in a symbiotic relationship.”

There will be a practical benefit for Badapple too. “The Theatre Royal will provide rehearsal space for our tours coming up  in the autumn, at Christmas and next spring, as well as space for auditions and play development,” says Kate.

In the meantime, let’s see how the cook crumbles – or not! – in Crumbs. “I love Crumbs,” says Kate. “I heard myself saying to someone that it’s Badapple’s ‘fightback show’, and I have to say that Ellen is the hardest-working woman in theatre in that kitchen.

“I don’t know what more we could have done to create this show, so maybe it has an air of defiance after what Badapple’s been through [with a loss of funding].

“The hope is that we can move forward, not to be stuck in becoming known for one-person shows, though we’re very fortunate that there are some massive one-person shows doing so well, even transferring to Broadway.”

Step forward Jodie Comer (Prima Facie), Minnie Driver (Every Brilliant Thing), Rosamund Pike (Inter Alia), Cynthia Erivo (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and Daniel Radcliffe (Every Brilliant Thing). “It’s exciting that small-form theatre shows, one teller with a big story, are being more widely accepted by audiences,” says Kate.

“I’m not saying that theatre should depend on this, but in a positive way, there’s an environment where audiences are enjoying these shows and are thrilled by what can be achieved.

“But there’s a natural growth in the shows I’m planning for Badapple. Our autumn tour will be a reprise of Back To The Land Girls, touring as a two-hander, returning after 15 years. Our Christmas show will be a panto mash-up, Cinderella In Boots:  a mash-up that absolutely requires three actors and will be very silly.

Kate Bramley: Badapple Theatre Company artistic director and writer

“I’m really looking forward to it after Richard Kay’s Sleeping Beauty & The Beast mash-up sold out in 2024, and it’s going to be me writing it this time.”

Contemplating the shows ahead, Kate says: “Back To The Land Girls was very popular but it hasn’t been out on tour for a long time, so a lot of people haven’t seen it, and I’ll be doing a bit of re-writing to make it more contemporary for the new tour.

“Then we’ll have our crazy Christmas explosion of panto fun, which hopefully will bring us back to where we were two years ago.”

Next spring’s tour will be A Lady About Town. “It’s a play about suffrage and women aged over 21 getting the vote, as we have the 100th anniversary coming up in 2028,” says Kate. “One of the characters is a newspaper columnist and the other is a suffragette activist. They have different ideas about how to achieve the end game, maybe leading to direct action or not.

“It strikes me that now the same thing is happening with climate change and  fuel protests in Ireland. There is that dilemma whether violence, in some way or other, becomes the only route to perceived change.”

Looking ahead to the joint project with York Theatre Royal, Kate says: “I’m working on a play called Mama da Vinci, about the relationship between Leonardo and his mother just before he left for Florence to be an apprentice at the age of 15.

“I’ve been doing a lot of reading around this subject, about the theory of who his mother was, as he lived between his mother’s house and his grandfather’s house as he was an illegitimate child.

“I’m really fascinated by the time before he was 15, building up a portfolio as a young boy growing up in rural Italy, with all these neuro-divergent talents that made him a polymath. He was hundreds of years ahead of what he could materialise. He was already a genius as a teenager, reaching across so many disciplines – and I have a teenage son who constantly surprises me!”

Kate continues: “His mother fears she may never see him again after releasing him to the world to be a genius, so it will be a play as much about being a parent as her son being a genius. That’s where I hope the play will have modern relevance.

“My gut instinct is she was very important to Leonardo from the start…but this is all from my imagination, which means I can explore the humanity, the characters behind the story, not just the factual events.”

Badapple’s link-up with York Theatre Royal is a “total game-changer” for Kate. “To be honest, I can’t quite believe it. I now pinch myself that I’m working here two days a week, whether hot-desking or sitting in the cafe,” she says.

“This is the first time in 25 years that I’m working on a play that doesn’t have a commercial deadline. Normally I have a deadline to write to order, though I could never have done that without partnerships with audiences, but it’s nice to be different with this project, to be able to work on something a little more esoteric.”

Badapple Theatre Company in Crumbs, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow (20/5/2026) to Saturday, 7.45pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Friday and 2pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Also: North Stainley Village Hall, near Ripon, June 25, 7.30pm. Box office: 01765 635236.

Badapple Theatre’s poster for Kate Bramley’s baking play Crumbs

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REVIEW: Next Door But One in My Mad Mum, York Explore Library & Archives, May 13 and 14 and schools tour ****

Sophie Maybury’s Harper and Sean Cameron’s Andy dancing in condiment costumes in My Mad Mum. Pictures: James Drury

CONSIDER this statistic: 3.7 million under-18s in the United Kingdom have a parent who struggles with a mental illness. That’s one in three children in every UK classroom.

For too many of them, it feels like a secret they have to carry alone, hence their plight is invisible: hidden in plain sight, leaving them to deal with unique challenges at school and at home.

Our Time Charity, the only British charity dedicated to improving the outcomes for children growing up in these circumstances, has teamed up with York community arts collective Next Door But One for a second time, following up 2025’s How To Be A Kid with a schools tour of Ant Stones’ two-hander My Mad Mum, topped off by two public 5.30pm performances at York Explore.

Sophie Maybury’s new teacher, Miss Knowles, and Sean Cameron’s “scary” head of behaviour, Mr Fletcher, in My Mad Mum

The school shows, which began last week for 3,000 York and North Yorkshire secondary pupils, are ccompanied by discussions on the subject of mental health, identity and being a young carer for a parent.

Next Door But One specialises in raising awareness of often unspoken topics, a brief encapsulated in My Mad Mum, Stones’s deeply affecting story of GCSE pupil Andy (Sean Cameron) and Harper (fellow Leeds Conservatoire graduate Sophie Maybury), the new girl at school.

Billed as a “fast-paced, fun and fearless collision of real friendships, messy families and surviving the stuff no-one warns you about as a teenager”, this hour-long drama serves up their conversations with direct-address frankness, yet both pupils are cramped by a carapace of self-protection.

My Mad Mum director Kate Veysey, left, in the rehearsal room with assistant director dramaturg Matthew Harper-Hardcastle and company manager Jane Williamson

Andy is already the subject of “looks, whispers, rumours” of his “mad mum”, whose “health improvements never last”. He shares everything with new soul mate Harper but is unable to tell his teacher, Miss Knowles (Maybury’s colourfully attired second character), of the real reason why he has been late to school three times this week.

Recently qualified, enthusiastic, but with much to learn, her inexperience leads her to respond by rote, sentencing him to detention, rather than investigating further, and it must be hoped that one of the consequences of this play’s exposure of children suffering in silence is a greater understanding, a willingness to dig deeper, to look beneath the surface.

Harper, by contrast, does not reveal her own situation to school poetry champion Andy, instead attributing her father’s need to move to being in the military. She wants to be there to support Andy, rather than burden him with the truth of her “mad dad”, whose doctors are “always holding something back”. 

Sophie Maybury’s Harper and Sean Cameron’s Andy in a playful moment in My Mad Mum

When the revelation comes, it is a shattering moment, portrayed with intense emotional impact by Cameron’s initially wounded Andy and Maybury’s caring Harper.

They share a love of dance moves, one expressed throughout in Bailey Dowler’s carefree movement direction, culminating in the joyful finale of their heightened bond, Andy in a Tomato Ketchup costume, Harper in Yellow Mustard, each topped off by a cone (as if for squeezing).

For all the seriousness of the play’s topic, Stones and director Kate Veysey bring out the humour too, whether in those condiment costumes; a “Mustard/must admit” pun; Harper still writing with a fountain pen or Cameron’s portrayal of the frankly scary head of behaviour, Mr Fletcher.

Catherine Chapman’s fold-out set design turns into a house door for Seam Cameron’s Andy to express frustration with Sophie Maybury’s Harper

Catherine Chapman’s set design is minimalist but all the more effective for that economy: two chairs, one yellow, the other grey, matching the contrasting colours of a fold-up framework that can turn into a bus stop, a slide, a school room, a doorway or a house front.

Stones, Veysey and Cameron and Maybury, in their NDB1 debuts, combine with similarly striking effect in an eye-opening, heartfelt, deeply caring piece of theatre in the cause of social change.

Next Door But One presents My Mad Mum at York Explore, May 13 and 14, 5.30pm, and on schools’ tour.

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Make a date with Katie and Alexa’s Chris and Annie in York Musical Theatre Company’s Calendar Girls The Musical

Katie Melia’s Chris, centre, and Alexa Chaplin’s Annie, right, in rehearsal with Sandy Nicholson’s Jessie in York Musical Theatre Company’s Calendar Girls The Musical

KATHYRN Addison is directing York Musical Theatre Company in Cheshire childhood friends Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s musical account of a thoroughly Yorkshire true story, Calendar Girls, from Wednesday to Saturday at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.

After the death of a much-loved husband, aYorkshire Dales group of Women’s Institute ordinary women decides to do an extraordinary thing. Led by Katie Melia’s Chris and Alexa Chaplin’s Annie, the friends vow to make an artistic nude calendar for a cancer charity, but discover that upturning preconceptions is a dangerous business, leading to emotional and personal ramifications that no-one could anticipate.

Yet their bold front brings each woman unexpectedly into flower in a tale that became a global phenomenon, spawning a million copycat calendars, Nigel Cole’s 2003 record-breaking film, Tim Firth’s stage play and Firth and Barlow’s musical (premiered  under the title The Girls at Leeds Grand Theatre in November 2015).

Matching Chris and Annie’s friendship, Katie and Alexa have been friends since 2010. “We met when appearing in York Light Opera Company’s Crazy For You,” says Katie.

“We last worked together in Disenchanted, doing it for the second time last October,” says Alexa. “That time it was for Steve Coates Music Productions, which was cast and directed by Katie. We both played the same parts that we did for Pick Me Up Theatre  [Katie’s Snow White and Alexa’s Cinderella] and got two of the original Princesses back, having first done it with Robert Readman in 2016. We’ve done such shows as Little Shop Of Horrors and Oliver!, and Calendar Girls must be about our seventh show together.”

Calendar Girls The Musical director Kathryn Addison

It turns out that Katie and Alexa are no strangers to a state of deshabille on stage. “We did Gypsy with Robert for Pick Me Up as two of the three strippers,” recalls Katie. “Neither of us had very much on in that one.”

Alexa was “very keen” to do Calendar Girls. Katie was “umming and  ahhing”. “But only because it’s my 40th birthday on the Sunday after the show finishes, but when I realised who was going to be doing it, I thought, ‘I can’t miss out as it’s an amazing show with amazing people in it, like Alexa’.”

Addison’s cast also will feature Katie’s husband, who has stepped in to replace Ryan Stocks in the role of Annie’s husband, John Clarke. “That’s brilliant because they’ve been friends for 16 years,” says Katie, whose husband in Calendar Girls, Rod, will be played by Jack Hooper.

“It does help in this show because they’re such long-standing friendships, and we have to build something authentic and believable,” says Alexa.

Analysing her character Chris, Katie says: “She’s the more happy-go-lucky and feisty of the two, and she’s definitely Annie’s right-hand woman, keeping her grounded. She’s there as her relief, her support, her friend, with everything that Annie’s going through with losing her husband.

Alexa Chaplin’s Annie, front, in the rehearsal room for Kathryn Addison’s production

“You also see the vulnerable side of Chris through the struggles of her son, where she wants him to be everything she isn’t, but feels she is losing control of him because he’s being led astray by this rebellious girl when he’s on the path to be head boy.”

Assessing Annie’s character, Alexa says: “It’s a really emotional role. This is the most real character I’ve ever played and the most touching, and that’s quite a responsibility, but it’s also a fantastic stage role and I’ve been really enjoying the acting challenge of Annie being more of an introvert than Katie’s Chris, where she responds to Chris’s energy and humour. They’re quite a counterpart to each other, and above all Annie has to carry the show’s emotional load.”

Alexa lost a close friend to cancer. “But even without that, I’m moved sentimentally and empathetically by the music, so I find it very moving, because the script and lyrics are so well written,” she says.

“In the face of something tragic, you do still have to go to the supermarket and cook meals. It’s brilliantly observed [by Tim Firth] with ordinary life motoring on, amid the tragedy, with all the undercutting of emotion with wry quips being so Yorkshire.”

Katie adds: “John will make a quip at the most emotional moment, which is so relatable because that’s how we react to loss or pre-emptive loss.”

York Musical Theatre Company’s cast for Calendar Girls The Musical. Peter Melia will be replacing Ryan Stocks in the role of John Clarke

At the epicentre of Calendar Girls is the photo-shoot for the nude calendar. “I had a wobble a few weeks ago because of the reality of what’s required. You agree to do the show, knowing you will have to strip, then rehearsing in a dressing gown, but you’re aware there’ll be no clothing beneath that dressing gown when you get on stage!

“You also know that Chris is the one who champions doing the calendar and she’s the one who won’t be protected by props. I’ll just have some strategically placed ‘bunting’. I have to walk to the front of the stage, which I’d forgotten , so when it was all laid out to me, I thought, ‘I can’t do this’.  At which point [husband] Peter said, ‘you signed up for it, it’s too late to back out now’!

“The thing is, the audience will not be judging on body type. It’s all about female empowerment.”

Alexa’s Annie will be “comfortably hidden behind watering cans and pot plants”. “Working together, it’s about thinking about sight lines and making everyone feel comfortable with the props and the solidarity of all doing it together: that teamwork and moral support,” she says.

York Musical Theatre Company’s line-up of Women’s Institute members for the Calendar Girls calendar

Katie adds: “We’ll be responsible for each other’s props for the photo shoot, so we’ve run the scene many times, thinking about ‘bigger buns’ or whatever. It’s not salacious or about ‘being sexy’. It’s about real women getting their kit off for a good cause – and we’ll have safety in numbers, where you can cover your ‘major modesty’!”

“And thankfully, unlike the original Calendar Girls, we will not be in the papers,” notes Alexa.

Addison’s directorial style will see Calendar Girls being ‘stripped back’ too, like a Yorkshire dry stone wall. “”It feels even more real because there’ll be no ‘jazz hands’,” says Katie.

York Musical Theatre Company in Calendar Girls The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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Inspired By Theatre to stage bravura 20th anniversary production of adolescent drama Spring Awakening at Theatre@41

Rianna Louise’s Wendla in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

INSPIRED By Theatre will mark the 20th anniversary of Spring Awakening’s May 19 off-Broadway debut at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City with a typically bold actor-musician production at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from May 20 to 23.

Continuing the York company’s modus operandi of presenting bravura interpretations of established works, Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s Tony Award-winning rock musical will be directed by Mikhail Lim, 15 years after he appeared in York Stage Musicals’ northern premiere at the Vaudeville Theatre, Joseph Rowntree School, York.

Following artistic director Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s ambitious staging of Jesus Christ Superstar in February, Lim picks up the reins for one of the most powerful and emotionally raw musicals of the modern era.

Spring Awakening director Mikhail Lim, right, working on the guitar in rehearsal with cast member JJ Thornton (who will play Hanschen). Picture: Tiggy-Jade

“Spring Awakening came out when I was almost exactly the age of the characters,” says Mikhail. “It completely opened my eyes to different forms of musical storytelling and the kind of contemporary theatre I fell in love with.

“Being part of the northern premiere in York 15 years ago [in November 2010] was incredibly special. Now, on the 20th anniversary of the original off-Broadway production, it feels extraordinary to be returning to this piece as a director. In many ways, it feels like fate.”

Mikhail adds: “This show has been in pre-production since November 2024, after we acquired the rights. We’ve waited until the right time, with the right crew, the right cast, at the perfect  time, and that time has arrived.”

Maz Nachif’s Martha in Spring Awakening. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

Based on Frank Wedekind’s 1906 play, Spring Awakening follows a group of late-19th century teenagers in a small German village, navigating the confusion, curiosity and turmoil of adolescence in a rigid and repressive society at odds with their awakening sexuality.

As these young people search for answers about sex, identity and self-expression, their world collides with an oppressive culture imposed by teachers and parents determined to silence them.

In a show whose themes including sexual assault, suicide, abortion and physical abuse, Crawfurd-Porter swaps directorial duties for playing Melchior opposite Rianna Louise’s Wendla.

Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s Melchior in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

“We’ve known each other for pretty much three years, starting out as cast mates, then Dan directed me and now I’m directing Dan, so we have this symbiotic relationship,” says Mikhail. “It comes from having similar tastes in artistry, and along with choreographer Freya McIntosh, we instinctively understand what kind of theatre we want to do.”

Dan says: “After the demands of directing Jesus Christ Superstar, I looked to Mikhail to fill my shoes for  Spring Awakening, but then the temptation to audition for Melchior was too much.”

Why? “First of all, I love the show, and how unique it is, so, the chance to perform in it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” says Dan. “It requires young actors, which I’m not going to be able to play at some point, and it’s a role that resonates with me.

Eryn Grant’s Moritz in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

“It’s not unique to me, as most will struggle with that journey from adolescence to adulthood: the whole thing of puberty and sex and the pressure to be successful, making much more of it then you do when you’re older – and this captures all that so well.”

Rianna says: “Spring Awakening is my favourite show, though I’ve never seen it live. I was part of that online generation that really got into it through YouTube as it was such a cult success. I love how it’s so truthful about what it talks about and I love Wendla’s character. It’s a poignant story of sex and relationships but also of women’s reproductive health, which is still an interesting subject.”

Combining Sheik’s music with Sater’s book and lyrics, the show blends alternative rock, folk and punk influences with a deeply human coming-of-age story. Scenes unfold with grounded realism before erupting into powerful musical numbers that reveal the characters’ inner thoughts and emotions.

Skye Pickford’s Ilse in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

Mikhail will be using a cast of 13, a size that requires every performer to play a vital role in bringing the story to life, as he explains: “This show demands performers who can truly act through song and move with real emotional honesty. We’ve assembled a phenomenal company of performers who bring enormous passion and skill to the stage.”

Movement and physical storytelling will play a central role in the production. McIntosh’s choreography blends contemporary dance with expressive theatrical movement, creating moments that feel less like traditional choreography and more like living visual art unfolding on stage. The show’s band will form part of the storytelling, with a mixture of professional musicians and actor-musicians creating a dynamic on-stage musical presence.

Mikhail’s production will take place in the John Cooper Studio at Theatre@41, creating an intimate and immersive environment where audiences are placed close to the action. “The black-box setting allows the production to feel particularly visceral,” he says.

Maz Nachif’s Martha, left, Greta Piasecka’s Anna, Rianna Louise’s Wendla, Skye Pickford’s Ilse and Ines Campos’s Thea in a poster for Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening

“Performing in a smaller space is both a challenge and a gift. It allows every moment, every sound and every visual detail to be felt up close. The result is something incredibly immediate and powerful.”

Inspired By Theatre will draw visual inspiration from German Expressionism and folkloric imagery to create a haunting and symbolic world that sits between realism and surrealism as old-fashioned values are refracted through a 21st century lens in an exploration of sex, puberty, coming of age and a yearning for a more progressive future.

Inspired By Theatre presents Spring Awakening, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 20 to 23, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

 Stefan Michaels’ Adult Man and Gemma McDonald’s Adult Woman in an Inspired By Theatre poster for Spring Awakening

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Kelly Munro-Fawcett takes up venue director’s post at Pocklington Arts Centre

Kelly Munro-Fawcett: Taking up the venue director’s post at Pocklington Arts Centre

KELLY Munro-Fawcett is settling in as Pocklington Arts Centre’s venue director, marking an exciting new chapter for the East Yorkshire cultural hub.

Taking over from Angela Stone, who held the post from October 2022 to January 2026 before returning to her native Scotland, Kelly brings a wealth of experience across performance, producing and creative health.

Beginning her career as an actress, playing such Shakespearean roles as Juliet in Romeo & Juliet and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she then founded RedBobble Arts, a socially engaged theatre company known for mounting touring productions and delivering impactful work in communities.

Latterly, she held the role of senior project manager at Hoot Creative Arts, a creative health organisation based at Bates Mill, Huddersfield.

Stepping into the leadership of Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC), Kelly vows to build on the  strong foundations and deep community roots established when the former Ritz Cinema and Penny Arcadia Museum opened as a 200-seat multi-purpose arts and entertainment venue in 2000.

“I’m absolutely delighted to be joining Pocklington Arts Centre,” says Kelly, 42, who lives in Leeds. “Live performance has always been very close to my heart, and this venue is something truly special. It’s not only known for the quality of its artistic programme, but also for the role it plays at the centre of the community.”

PAC combines live music, comedy, theatre and exhibitions with a community programme of creative activities designed to support health and wellbeing.

“What really drew me to this role is the unique balance Pocklington Arts Centre holds,” says Kelly. “It is both a destination for world-class performance and a welcoming civic space shaped by its community. That legacy, developed for over 20 years by Janet Farmer and then Angela Stone, is something I have deep respect for and I’m committed to carrying forward.”

Kelly, who took up her post last month, will be working with a team of dedicated staff and more than 50 volunteers as Pocklington Arts Centre continues to play a vital role in the market town’s cultural and social life.

Looking ahead, her focus will be on sustaining PAC’s high-quality programme while ensuring the venue’s long-term resilience and relevance.

“My priority is to maintain the quality of the programme audiences know and love, while also strengthening the organisation for the future,” she says. “That includes growing audiences, particularly as more families make Pocklington their home, and continuing to expand opportunities for people to engage creatively.

“There’s a real sense of care and commitment here, and I’m looking forward to working with the team, volunteers and the wider community to shape what comes next.”

“My style of working is collaborative,” says Kelly Munro-Fawcett. Picture: Rachael Munro-Fawcett

Kelly is beginning a period of engagement with staff, volunteers and stakeholders as she develops plans for PAC’s future.

Welcoming her to Pocklington, town council deputy clerk Claire Findlay, says: “Having spent time with Kelly, I am confident that she and the wider team will build on past successes and steer our amazing arts centre into a bright and secure future.”

Kelly, who was appointed by the town council after undergoing three interviews, says: “My style of working is collaborative. It’s about partnerships, and the more minds you have on a project, the better the outcome.

“What I’ve been doing in five weeks in post is building up my ideas of what might be needed, and for the direction of travel, but I can’t begin to do that until I’ve met the local community: audience members; participants in the community; Friends of Pocklington Arts Centre, which has 500 members; Pocklington Town Council and those behind Pocklington’s bid to be the first UK Town of Culture in 2028.

“I’m also reaching out to people who’ve come to PAC in the past. It’s about respecting what worked previously, what do they want see more of, because ultimately we’re a creative community hub as well as being an award-winning live venue.”

Discussions have taken place already with the Godber family over staging a fourth Christmas show written by John’s daughter Elizabeth and directed by Jane Thornton, and now formal approval is awaited from PAC’s principal funding body, Pocklington Town Council.

Originally from Birmingham and raised in Nottingham, Kelly moved north to study at Arden School of Theatre, Manchester, graduating with first class honours. “I originally wanted to go to Manchester Metropolitan University – like Julie Walters – but Arden turned out to be great because they trained you not only as an actor but also to have a social conscience, because they taught you that art reflects the country you live in,” she says.

“They also taught us how to make our own theatre, which was an incredible opportunity – and the three founding members of RedBobble all came from Arden when we formed the company in 2011 to focus on live performance, community engagement and neuro-diverse empowerment.”

Kelly draws on her ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder] in her working practice. “It gives you the ability to see the bigger picture, like spotting patterns and trends, to bring together people or concepts or a multi-disciplinary arts team,” she says.

“It also helps to make me creative; it gives you empathy, with the ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes and to be super-focused. If I’m passionate about something, I won’t stop; I’ll forget to have lunch.

“Having ADHD makes me really keen to support people to achieve their full potential, and that’s why I’m so passionate about the live shows and community programme at PAC.”

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Strictly champ Joanne Clifton swaps musical theatre’s song and dance for playing Polly in John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers

Joanne Clifton’s Polly stands behind the hotel reception desk with Fawlty Towers The Play writer John Cleese, the original Basil Fawlty

AFTER appearing in four American musicals at the Grand Opera House, Joanne Clifton is switching to a classic British sitcom on her fifth appearance at the York theatre from May 19 to 23.

The 2016 Strictly Come Dancing champion is on tour in Fawlty Towers The Play, playing unflappable chamber maid Polly in John Cleese’s stage adaptation, marking the 50th anniversary of the chaotic capers, escapades and close shaves in a Torquay seaside hotel that spanned 12 beloved episodes on the BBC.

Lincolnshire-born Joanne, 42, starred previously at the Cumberland Street theatre as demure Kansas flapper girl Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie in February 2017; combustible Pittsburgh steel mill welder Alex Owens in Flashdance in November 2017; prim and proper college student Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show in June 2019 and feisty, convention-busting Princess Fiona in Shrek The Musical in November 2023.

“It’s one of my favourite theatres,” she says. “I love old, traditional theatres, and York has such happy memories for me. It’s one of my favourite places to go on tour – and it’s also where I signed off on my first house in Dressing Room 2.”

“I didn’t realise just how popular it is,” says Joanne Clifton of the impact of Fawlty Towers The Play, featuring three episodes from the beloved television series

Joanne is thoroughly enjoying her Fawlty experience. “I absolutely love the show,” says the 2013 World Ballroom Showdance champion. “Fawlty Towers was my West End debut, having always toured since 2017. I’ve only ever toured! It felt very strange, as it was a play as well [rather than a musical]. I never thought my West End debut would be a play, with no dancing, but I’m happy and honoured to be doing this show.”

The West End run at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue, sold out and the tour has been following suit, not least at Leeds Grand Theatre in January. “The response has been amazing, selling out theatres up and down the UK, so it shows how loved the TV series was, and how many fans there are, after 50 years. I didn’t realise just how popular it is,” says Joanne.

“It could have been a massive risk, thinking you’ll never beat the original, a show so iconic that you don’t need to see the play, but it’s so well cast, and as the TV series was filmed in the studio, it feels almost like you are watching our show on set too.”

Cleese’s play brings together three of the most iconic episodes, Communication Problems, The Hotel Inspectors and The Germans, with Joanne taking on the role played by Cleese’s co-writer, Connie Booth. “Connie is American and had quite a strange accent in Fawlty Towers that I had to study really well because of it being this mid-Atlantic/British accent with a strange way of saying certain words,” she says.

The full cast in John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers The Play, on tour at Grand Opera House, York, from tomorrow

“Polly is the one who holds it together at the hotel: she’s not the funny one, not the outrageous one, not  the massive personality one, but she’s the glue , defending Basil, trying to get him out of difficult situations with Sybil.”

How has she approached playing Polly? “Well, it’s a tricky one, with something as iconic as this, you have to give the audience something they already love, as they know this character so well, but I’m not Connie Booth, as only she can do it as good as her, so we try to keep it as close to that as possible – and no dancing, no samba!

“Being a live theatre show, if anything goes wrong, we just have to deal with it, whereas you could re-shoot it in the TV studio. If it does go wrong, we just have to keep it in character.”

She is full of praise for both “such an incredible show” and her fellow cast members, led by Danny Bayne’s Basil Fawlty, Mia Austen’s Sybil, Hemi Yeroham’s Spanish waiter Manuel and Paul Nicholas’s bumbling Major. “I’ve been doing the show since last May, and there are moments when I stand at the side of the stage watching  as it’s so funny,” says Joanne. “We’ve become really close as a cast, with our rituals backstage, and we all have each other’s back.”

Joanne Clifton: Making her fifth appearance at the Grand Opera House

She will be on tour until August 1. What next? “I’m doing a short tour, marking the tenth anniversary of winning Strictly with Ore Oduba. It’ll be a week-long tour that we’re calling 10 – Champions Reignited, at the end of August,” she says. 

“Ten years on, multiple musicals and plays later and finally we’re coming together again ! I cannot wait! Using the words we said to each other ten years ago, let’s just go out there, have the most fun possible, and show everyone just what we can do! “

Featuring song, dance and tales in a “celebration of elite performance, defining moments and the stories  behind champions who continue to inspire audiences on stage”, the tour originally was scheduled to visit Leeds Grand Theatre on August 23, but that night’s performance now will be at  the Tyne Theatre & Opera House, Newcastle.

John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers The Play, Grand Opera House, York, May 19 to 23, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.