Category: Theatre

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What’s in store at 2026 York Georgian Festival? Here are Aug 6 to 10’s highlights

York Georgian Ball: Festival highlight on Saturday at Grand Assembly Rooms

YORK Georgian Festival returns for its fourth year, filling the city with the sights and sounds of 18th century life from August 6 to 10.

Hosted by York Mansion House, the five-day festival programme ranges from free displays of dancing and military drills in St Helen’s Square to the splendour of the York Georgian Ball at the Grand Assembly Rooms, in Blake Street, and includes talks, tours, performances and workshops too at a variety of venues.

York Mansion House manager and curator Richard Pollitt says: “We’re looking forward to another fabulous festival, with a busy programme lined up exploring the fascinating history of this era. We’d like to thank all our partner attractions for supporting the festival once again.

“The popularity of the Georgian and Regency period shows no sign of slowing down with people finding so much joy in recreating the fashions and social occasions of the time, and we aim to bring some of that joy to the streets of York.

Author Terry Deary: Talk on Murder in the Georgian Theatre at York Mansion House on Thursday

“We’re hoping to see the city centre full of Georgian splendour over the weekend with so many people coming to York for the festival.”

The festival promenade will return for a second year on Saturday, starting from Clifford’s Tower at 11am and making its way through the city, via Coppergate and Parliament Street, to York Mansion House at 11.20am, led by red-coated members of Pulteney’s 13th Regiment of Foot, a group of military re-enactors. Anyone interested in dressing up in Georgian and Regency dress to join the promenade is invited to book a free place.

The Pulteney’s regiment will be demonstrating its drills on Saturday and Sunday at 12.15pm and 3.45pm in St Helen’s Square, complemented by displays of Georgian dancing by the Galliard Folk Dancers at 11.30am, 1.30pm and 3pm.

The regiment has stepped in to help the festival at the 11th hour, after the previously booked military group, His Majesty’s 33rd Regiment of Foot, cancelled through unforeseen circumstances.

Promenade through York: Passing through Coppergate en route from Clifford’s Tower to York Mansion House on Saturday morning

Visitors to the Mansion House can find out more about the uniform and kit of soldiers of the time in afternoon talks by the visiting redcoats on Saturday and Sunday at 2.30pm.

Richard says: “We’re very grateful to Pulteney’s for helping us out at such short notice and are looking forward to seeing them in action, leading our promenade and recreating military drills in front of the house in St Helen’s Square.”

Saturday’s evening highlight will be the Masquerade Ball, from 7pm to 11pm, traditionally an extravagant occasion when guests would wear elaborate fancy dress and masks to disguise their true identities. Live music will be provided by Eboracum Baroque with guidance from dance mistress Lottie from Dance The Past, all with the support of ASK Italian and York Gin.

The poster for No Priest But Love, the Church Conservation Trust’s fundraising event featuring Helena Whitbread and Angela Clare’s play about Anne Lister

Anyone wanting to prepare for the Masquerade Ball can take dancing lessons at The Guildhall on Friday and there will be free fan language workshops at York Mansion House, where you can learn how to send secret messages across the dance floor.

Talks and tours include the return of Horrible Histories author Terry Deary, who will explore Murder in the Georgian Theatre, at York Mansion House on Thursday from 6pm to 7pm; self-led and bookable festival tours of the Bar Convent; curators’ talks on fashion and dress at Fairfax House and York Castle Museum and an examination of how women were treated by the Georgian justice system in PhD researcher Tom Ellis’s talk Convict Women in York and Beyond at Barley Hall on Friday from 6.30pm to 8.30pm.

One of York’s most famous Georgian visitors, “Gentleman Jack” Anne Lister, will be the subject of Helena Whitbread and Angela Clare’s new play, No Priest But Love, at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, on Sunday at 4.30pm, preceded by a 2pm look around Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, where Anne Lister and Ann Walker celebrated their commitment made to each other on March 30 1834; a 2.30pm to 3.30pm talk by Angela Clare and a guided walk to Merchant Taylors’ from 3.30pm to 4pm.

On the concluding day, Monday, a series of talks at York Mansion House will include York St John University students launching a new edition of correspondence exchanged between writers Charles Ignatius Sancho, one of the first Black Britons known to have voted in a parliamentary election, and Laurence Sterne, vicar of St Michael’s, Coxwold, and author of Tristram Shandy, at 3.30pm. Further topics will be Georgian men’s shoes at 1.30pm and the campaign to abolish the slave trade at 5.30pm.

Find full listings and booking details at: www.yorkgeorgianfestival.co.uk.

Eboracum Baroque: Playing at Saturday’s Georgian Masquerade Ball at the Grand Assembly Rooms

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Trainspotting The Musical tour cancelled after poor box office. Grand Opera House ticket holders refunded for Nov no-show

Lewis Kidd’s Mark Renton in the London run of Trainspotting The Musical at Theatre Royal Haymarket. Picture: Matt Crockett, supplied by Neil Redding PR

TRAINSPOTTING The Musical has been derailed before setting off on a tour that would have disembarked at the Grand Opera House, York, in November.

“Closed” reads the notice on the GOH website after poor reviews of the London premiere and equally poor ticket sales nationwide, not least in Edinburgh, the setting for Irvine Welsh’s story, where the tour’s opening week at the Edinburgh Playhouse from October 19 to 24 had attracted only 19 per cent ticket sales, according to a Facebook post by performer and resident director Keiran Brown.

Tickets for the York run from November 10 to 14 will be refunded. Ticket holders are being contacted by their point of purchase.

The world premiere will continue its London debut at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until September 5, as planned. All tour details have been removed from the official website.

A statement from the production company says: “The forthcoming UK tour of Trainspotting The Musical, which was due to begin on 19 October, has been cancelled.

“We are very grateful to our cast, crew and creative team for their dedication to the production, but the current economic climate has resulted in lower than expected ticket sales. Ticketholders will be contacted by their point of purchase with full refund details. We apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment this may cause.”

The poster for the now-cancelled tour of Trainspotting The Musical

Presented by Phil McIntyre Live, the musical is written by Welsh, based on his 1993 debut novel that was turned into an iconoclastic film by Danny Boyle in 1996 with a script by Welsh, centred on rapscallion heroin addict Mark Renton and his dysfunctional circle of friends navigating the chaotic highs and brutal lows of addiction, poverty and aimlessness in Leith as they struggle to break free from smackhead self-destruction.

Directed and developed by Caroline Jay Ranger – who was at the helm of John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers The Play, whose tour played the Grand Opera House in May – the musical features music and lyrics by Stephen McGuinness and Welsh. Their score includes tracks associated with the original film alongside new material written for the stage.

Boyle’s Trainspotting was the highest-grossing UK film release of 1996, won the BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay and was later ranked in the British Film Institute list of the 100 greatest British films of the 20th century.

The 2026 musical carried the billing: “Thirty years on from the film that changed everything…this show is expected to transport you back to the Nineties”, declaring that  that “Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud, Tommy and Kelly, the industrial drug-crazed working-class heroes, are back”.

The Grand Opera House site website’s show details stated: “In 1996, CHOOSE LIFE sounded like a challenge. Thirty years on, the landscape has shifted, but the hunger hasn’t. Addiction hasn’t disappeared – it’s shifted. It’s quieter now, more embedded. Less needle, more screen. Less escape, more repetition. The same restless search for something to fill the space.

“The musical highlights the world we see changing around us, the obscene concentration of wealth, economic and political power in the hands of so few people. It addresses the modern culture of powerlessness. Art the singing-and-dancing Trojan horse that delivers direction and relevance.

Robbie Scott: Cast as Mark Renton for UK tour of Trainspotting: The Musical. Robbie, from Aberdeen, missed out on the West End opening after breaking his back in rehearsals and will miss out on the show altogether. Picture: Matt Crockett, supplied by Neil Redding PR

“This isn’t nostalgia, it’s closer than that. The past isn’t revisited – it lingers. The musical doesn’t tidy it. It sits with it. Listens to it. And lets it sing. New songs, classic songs, a musical like never before. Not for the easily confronted. It’s funny, loud, dynamic, and brings a dark dangerous energy never experienced before on the West End stage.”

In April, Welsh proclaimed: “I believe the musical has a bigger, loudly beating human heart than either the book or the film. People need to think about the world we’re living in, and we offer that inspection, but they also really need to sing their hearts out and laugh their heads off – it’s what being human is all about.”

On Monday morning, before the tour cancellation notice served later in the day, he revealed to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme listeners: “We are in difficult times and we’ve been looking at the numbers and sums. We knew it would be difficult to take a production of that scale on the road. We’ve got 30 cast members. Basically people just don’t have the money. It’s not a great time to be putting a new show on the road.”

Reflecting on the shellacking from West End critics, encapsulated in a one-star Guardian review, Welsh told Today presenter Amol Rajan: “I’m not the kind of writer that is loved by the critics. I tend to be a polarising force. I think it’s the way I go about these things and the way I write.”

Arifa Akbar’s verdict in the Guardian had lamented: “Sadly, the drug-addled escapades and illegal highs here look about as dangerous as a double-dose of Gaviscon.”  She deemed McGuinness and Welsh’s songs to be “forgettable at best, or best forgotten in the case of one with a country and western twang”, concluding that “it all seems so tame and commercial for this bunch of anti-capitalists. A bad trip indeed.”

The tour publicity ended: “There are no clean answers here. Only incredible music and flashes of clarity, humour, and the uneasy sense of recognition. CHOOSE LIFE.”

Alas, the tour producers have had to choose premature death instead.  

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More Things To Do in York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 31, from The York Press

The poster for York River Art Market’s 11th summer season. Illustration: Elliot Harrison (@York360)

YORK River Art Market’s return, Shakespeare sonnets on the tennis court, party bands at the double and a very happy comedian catch Charles Hutchinson’s eye as August arrives.

Open-air art event of the month: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, York, August 1 & 2, August 8 & 9 and August 15 & 16, 10am to 5.30pm

YORK River Art Market returns for its 11th year from today, bringing more than 30 artists from multiple disciplines each day to the Ouse riverside over three August weekends of free art and design market stalls.

Described as York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris, the event is now run by Caroline Turner, a professional potter and ceramics teacher at Clay Space York, in Walmgate, after founder and director Charlotte Dawson stepped down to focus on her teaching role as award leader for York College’s BA (Hons) 3D creative practice course.

Political drama of the week: Handbagged, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until August 29

MOIRA Buffini’s 2014 Olivier Award-winning play imagines what happened behind closed palace doors when two of the 20th century’s most powerful women, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, locked handbags. Meeting once a week for 11 years, one believed there was no such thing as society; the other committed her life to serving it.

Spanning 1979 to 1990, Handbagged asks if The Queen and the Iron Lady ever found common ground or did their stiff upper lips reign supreme? Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder directs the SJT cast of Pandora Clifford, Liz Garland, Alexandra Mathie, Deven Modha, Simon Darwen and Meriel Scholfield. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Coastal gigs of the week: Scarborough Open Air Theatre presents The Streets, A Grand Don’t Come For Free, today; Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Sunday, gates 6pm

FOR the first time, The Streets’ Mike Skinner is performing his landmark 2004 album A Grand Don’t Come For Free in full on tour. One of the most influential British records of the 21st century, the multi-platinum-selling chart topper delivered era-defining singles Dry Your Eyes, Fit But You Know It and Blinded By The Lights while taking a cinematic journey through the love, loss, chaos, heartbreak, hope and raw emotion of everyday life with poetic wit and honesty.

Original Sex Pistols members Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock are joined by vocalist Frank Turner on Sunday to mark “50 years of chaos and celebration” since the punk iconoclasts’ brace of Summer 1976 gigs at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall. The Stranglers and The Undertones are special guests. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Candlelit concert of the week: Ignite Concerts presents The Music of ABBA, York Minster, tonight, 7.30pm

VOCALIST Maggie Wakeling, from Channel 4’s Your Song and last summer’s Greatest Shows at York Minster, unites with a band and The Ebor Quartet string ensemble to perform the Seventies and Eighties’ hits of  ABBA.

Host Alistair Griffin will be inviting the audience to sing along to Dancing Queen, Waterloo, Mamma Mia, The Winner Takes It All et al at this concert by candlelight. Box office: 07966 959427 or https://igniteconcertsyork.com/events/the-music-of-abba-at-york-minster/.

Paul Smith: Radiating comic warmth twice in a week at York Barbican

York comedy gigs of the week: Hot Water Comedy Club presents Paul Smith, Happy, York Barbican, today and August 5, 7.30pm

PAUL Smith, resident MC and compere of Liverpool’s Hot Water Comedy Club, is heading to York for two nights in his biggest, boldest tour show, Happy: fearless stand-up at full throttle, brimful of observations, true stories and audience interaction. Pulling tales from  real life, Smith finds joy in the chaos, laughter in the everyday and comedy in absolutely everything. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Oscar Langford, left, and James Robert Ball in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets: What The Deuce? at Holy Trinity Churchyard. Picture: John Saunders

New balls please: York Shakespeare Project presents 2026 Summer Sonnets: What The Deuce?, Holy Trinity Churchyard, Goodramgate, York, August 7 to 15, except August 11, 6pm & 7.30pm, plus 4.30pm Saturday shows

SUMMER at the Goodramgate Lawn Tennis Club finds four doubles teams competing for the chance to play in a Wimbledon amateur tournament, whereupon partnerships and rivalries lead to sabotage and break point. Who has the advantage? Who is at fault? Will the score be love?

Expect further tennis puns aplenty as Rosy Rowley directs Stuart Green’s script that asks a new collection of ten characters to play out this new sporting and unsporting situation where each finds a way to share a Shakespeare sonnet. Taking part will be James Robert Ball, Oscar Langford, Helen Clarke, Sarah McKeagney, Stuart Lindsay, Alexa Williams, Jamie McKeller, Alan Sharp, Christine Bramwell and Effie Warboys. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

New York Brass Band’s James Lancaster: Knees-up with Hyde Family Jam at York Barbican

Mash-up of the week: The Crescent presents New York Brass Band & Hyde Family Jam, York Barbican, August 7, 8pm

TWO of York’s biggest, bounciest musical party troupes collide at York Barbican for a co-headline show with a difference. Promoter Joe Coates has decided the four-piece Hyde Family Jam will be on stage first, followed by an eight-piece line up of New York Brass Band, each playing a 40-minute set before rampant folk-rock meets New Orleans brass head on in a collaborative finale of these street urchins’ biggest hits. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

A wedding dress on display at St Helen’s Church

Wonderful wedding dress exhibition of the week: St Helen’s Church, Sheriff Hutton, near York, August 8 and 9, 11am to 3pm

STEP back in time for a spectacular display of wedding dresses from every decade since the 1920s at St Helen’s Church. Stroll through a century of wedding style with elegant “going away” outfits,mother-of-the-bride ensembles and men’s morning suits, as well as shoes, hats, bouquets and treasured keepsakes.

“Last year’s exhibition was atremendous success,” says Jill Donaldson Hodges. “Visitors were captivated by the changing styles, the intricate design and the delicate fabrics that have shaped wedding fashion for over a century. So why not come along and take a trip down memory lane, or get some ideas for an upcoming event?” Admission is free. The Bluebell Cafe will be open on both days, serving homemade cakes and refreshments.

York Stage’s poster for Raise Your Voice: MTI Broadway Junior Revue at the JoRo

Musical theatre celebration of the week: York Stage presents brings Raise Your Voice: MTI Broadway Junior Revue, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 7, 7.30pm, and August 8, 2pm and 4pm

THIS uplifting showcase by the next generation of performers features iconic songs from Broadway Junior favourites, showcased by a talented young York Stage cast ready to sing out and shine as they take centre stage with confidence, courage and nascent star quality. Cue big numbers, heartfelt moments and personality aplenty. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 31, from Gazette & Herald, from July 29 onwards

Christina Bianco’s June Carter Cash and Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny Cash in The Ballad Of Johnny & June. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

JOHNNY and June’s country musical, The Queen and Margaret Thatcher’s handbag clashes, a rare Blueflies gig and The Streets’ masterpiece in full perk up Charles Hutchinson for the week ahead.

Musical of the week: The Ballad Of Johnny & June, The Johnny Cash Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees on July 29 & 30 and August 1

THIS thrilling musical from Jersey Boys director Des McAnuff celebrates the love, music and mayhem of country music couple Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. Electrifying chemistry marks the performances of  Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny and Christina Bianco’s June in a story observed through the eyes of Ryan O’Donnell’s John Carter Cash, their son. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents The Blueflies, Milton Rooms, Malton, July 30, 8pm

ENDURING and beloved York blues and funk band The Blueflies – Miles Gilderdale, guitar and vocals, Gavin Ewing, bass and co-songwriter, and Paul Stipetic , drums – perform only rarely these days. Expect a night packed with outstanding musicianship, ace songs and the kind of atmosphere that only a combo with 40 years of musical muscle memory can create. Booking in advance is recommended on 01653 696240 or at themiltonrooms.com.

Neil Delamere: If it ain’t broke it, should he fix it at Pocklington Arts Centre? Not the seat, presumably

Tall tales of the week: Neil Delamere, Reinventing The Neil, Pocklington Arts Centre, July 30, 7.30pm

COMEDIC adventurer Neil Delamere returns with a new stand-up show, packed with tall tales and humorous stories. Join The Blame Game panellist and Celebrity Chase contestant as he ponders the eternal question: if it ain’t broke, should he fix it? Box office: 01759 or 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk. 

Stanley Chow’s poster illustration for The Songs of Joni Mitchell at The Citadel, York

Interpreters of the week: The Songs of Joni Mitchell, with Jesca Hoop & Lail Arad, The Citadel, York, Friday, doors 7pm, show 7.45pm

JESCA Hoop & Lail Arad, acclaimed singer-songwriters in their own right, perform intimate interpretations of their favourite Joni Mitchell songs, accompanied by Richard Sears on piano and special guest Naima Bock. Hoop presented Legend: The Joni Mitchell Story, the award-winning six-part BBC radio documentary and podcast on the Canadian singer-songwriter. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

 Liz Garland, left, and Meriel Scholfield in rehearsal for the Stephen Joseph Theatre production of Handbagged. Picture: Tony Bartholomew 

Political drama of the week: Handbagged, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Friday to August 29

MOIRA Buffini’s 2014 Olivier Award-winning play imagines what happened behind closed palace doors when two of the 20th century’s most powerful women, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, locked handbags. Meeting once a week for 11 years, one believed there was no such thing as society; the other committed her life to serving it.

Spanning 1979 to 1990, Handbagged asks if The Queen and the Iron Lady ever found common ground or did their stiff upper lips reign supreme? Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder directs the SJT cast of Pandora Clifford, Liz Garland, Alexandra Mathie, Deven Modha, Simon Darwen and Meriel Scholfield. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Four Forty Theatre: Breakneck character changes and mischief-making in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare show of the week: Four Forty Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Friday, 7.30pm

FOUR Forty Theatre (or 440 Theatre, as their website uses both names) tackle Shakespeare’s romantic romp of a chaotic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with their trademark irreverence, wit and theatrical ingenuity, directed by Dominic Gee-Burch, formerly of fellow high-speed Shakespeare humorists Oddsocks Productions.

Lovers are enchanted, fairies feud and a troupe of hapless players rehearse their way into disaster, all in a single moonlit night. Inventive staging, breakneck character changes and playful dismantling of tradition mark out Four Forty Theatre’s mischief-making take on Shakespeare’s best-loved comedy: part affectionate homage, part riotous reinvention. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Saxophonist Snake Davis and guitarist Gareth Moulton: Best buddies’ bonding session at Helmsley Arts Centre

Duo of the week: Snake Davis with Gareth Moulton, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm

THE Snake Davis and Gareth Moulton duo is back on the road, featuring saxophonist-to-the-stars Davis and Manchester-born, Macclesfield-based  singer-songwriter and guitarist Moulton, his best buddy, with the promise of new material and a new album.

Davis has performed with Paul McCartney, James Brown, Tina Turner, The Eurythmics and Amy Winehouse and has featured on more than 400 recordings by 60 artists, including Lisa Stansfield’s Change, M-People’s Search For A Hero and Take That’s Million Love Songs. Moulton is lead guitarist with Cutting Crew and “moonlighting” singer and guitarist with Wang Chung and has recorded and toured with Heather Small, Jim Diamond, Paul Young and Go West. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Mike Skinner of The Streets: Playing A Grand Don’t Come For Free in full at Scarborough Open Air Theatre

Coastal gigs of the week: Scarborough Open Air Theatre presents The Streets, A Grand Don’t Come For Free, Saturday; Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Sunday, gates 6pm

FOR the first time, The Streets’ Mike Skinner is performing his landmark 2004 album A Grand Don’t Come For Free in full on tour. One of the most influential British records of the 21st century, the multi-platinum-selling chart topper delivered era-defining singles Dry Your Eyes, Fit But You Know It and Blinded By The Lights while taking a cinematic journey through the love, loss, chaos, heartbreak, hope and raw emotion of everyday life with poetic wit and honesty.

Original Sex Pistols members Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock are joined by vocalist Frank Turner on Sunday to mark “50 years of chaos and celebration” since the punk iconoclasts’ brace of Summer 1976 gigs at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall. The Stranglers and The Undertones are special guests. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Paul Smith: Radiating comic warmth twice in a week at York Barbican

York comedy gigs of the week: Hot Water Comedy Club presents Paul Smith, Happy, York Barbican, Saturday and August 5, 7.30pm

PAUL Smith, resident MC and compere of Liverpool’s Hot Water Comedy Club, is heading to York for two nights in his biggest, boldest tour show, Happy: fearless stand-up at full throttle, brimful of observations, true stories and audience interaction. Pulling tales from  real life, Smith finds joy in the chaos, laughter in the everyday and comedy in absolutely everything. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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When The Queen met Mrs Thatcher each week for 11 years, what was said? Let Handbagged imagine the power play at SJT

Hangbagged director Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder working with cast member Simon Darwen. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

THEY met once a week for 11 years. One believed there was no such thing as society. The other committed her life to serving it.

On stage at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from tonight until August 29, Moira Buffini’s comedy Handbagged imagines what happened behind closed palace doors when two of the world’s most powerful women, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, clashed.

Spanning 1979 to 1990, this Olivier Award-winning 2014 play asks if HM The Queen and her PM, the Iron Lady, ever found common ground or did their stiff upper lips reign supreme?

The SJT revival is in the hands of director Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder, whose later father, Andrew Pinder, served as the UK’s e-Envoy from 2000 to 2004 under Prime Minister Tony Blair,  receiving his CBE from The Queen in 2004.

“He was going to turn it down because of his working-class Yorkshire  roots [he was born in Sheffield] and being a dyed-in-the-wool Labour voter – we grew up never watching The Queen’s Christmas message on TV – but everyone else talked him into it because I wanted to go to Buckingham Palace!” recalls Hannah.

“We just got to stand at the back while Dad got his honour from The Queen, with a proper handshake and a bow, but I do remember us being driven through the palace gates, having our photos taken like we were important.”

Hannah has now come into rather closer contact with The Queen, at least theatrically, in being at the helm of Handbagged, with its two versions of Elizabeth II, Meriel Scholfield’s Q, the older monarch, and Liz Garland’s Liz,  her younger self, playing opposite Alexandra Mathie’s T and Pandora Clifford’s Mags.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be directingHandbagged at the SJT this summer, working with this brilliant company of actors to bring to life some of the most prominent figures from recent history,” says Hannah.

Pandora Clifford, left, and Alexandra Mathie in the SJT rehearsal room. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

“Presenting Handbagged in the Round is so exciting, engaging in an immediate dialogue with our audience, and bringing them face to face with two of the most powerful women of the 20th century.”

Hannah knew SJT artistic director Paul Robinson in his time in the same post at Theatre503, when she was first starting out as Box Of Tricks’ joint artistic director and co-founder, and had worked with Amy Fisher, now the SJT’s head of producing, at Box Of Tricks (where Amy is a board member).

After talking to Paul about freelance work, he came back with the suggestion of Hannah directing Handbagged in the summer season and liked her ideas on how to stage it. Amy was a useful source too on how to make a play speak to the SJT audience, one steeped in the comedies of Sir Alan Ayckbourn since 1959.

“They’re a lovely audience, where they’re so invested in having a good time and care so much about their theatre and want to have pride in it,” says Hannah.

Ayckbourn’s 92nd play, The Trial Of Romeo Oscar, a futuristic drama exploring what it means to be human in 2194, will open six days after Handbagged concludes its look-back at the recent past.

“I’m surprised that we’ve not seen more versions of Margaret Thatcher on stage because she’s such a fascinating character,  and even though The Queen has left us too, we are still caught up in how she represented us,” says Hannah. “Margaret Thatcher had a similar impact on our psyche: for some people, she was the utmost villain; for others, she was a real inspiration.”

Analysing Handbagged’s theatrical style, Hannah says: “The show is very interesting because it is so meta-theatrical and theatrically literate, dipping into the notion of storytelling and the art of telling the truth. They [The Queens and PM] may say ‘I’m not  a fan of theatre’, but they both enjoyed theatre, they both loved music and went to musical theatre, and they understood the value of art, so there’s a lot to learn about them that way.

“I don’t think they would have been unhappy about being the subject of a play when language was so important to both of them, given how much they had to communicate with words, and with the gaps in between; the nuances that go with that, when there’s so much in between the lines.”

Liz Garland, left, and Meriel Scholfield in rehearsal for the Stephen Joseph Theatre production of Handbagged. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

In the distinction between politician and monarch, Mrs T could be frank, where The Queen could not. “You can’t fault Margaret Thatcher for her force of vision, when she could have been more collaborative. You don’t have that force now, when politicians try to prevaricate about a subject, where you can’t be certain about what they think,” says Hannah.

“For The Queen, it was a hard role because she repressed so much and had to be in control of what she said.”

Margaret Thatcher’s 1993 book, The Downing Street Years, all 900-plus pages of it, was invaluable to constructing her character in Handbagged. “Whereas The Queen is a much trickier proposition, where we want to know what she was like behind her public appearances, what she was like behind closed doors, because people were so loyal to her, so it’s difficult to get a sense of that voice,” says Hannah,

“But there’s something enjoyable about knowing you can never have the ‘true’ voice but you can bring playfulness and irreverence to it. As a piece of theatre, Handbagged enters a contract with the audience where we suspend disbelief and you’re given licence to say it’s as much about interpretation as it is about what you’re seeing, and with these two women that’s even more enjoyable.”

Hannah grew up in a “very anti-Thatcher household, and not fans of the Royal Family either”, but in working on Handbagged, she has developed “respect for just how much Margaret Thatcher had to deal with the patriarchy – respect for both of them, in  fact.”

“It was so much more difficult for them than if they had been men, particularly for Margaret Thatcher, living in a strict religious community, going to church four times on Sundays, as the daughter of a Methodist lay preacher,” she says.

“She had this sharp, sparky brain that she couldn’t use at first, but she kept fighting to use it, and you have to have respect for that, just as I developed an admiration for Denis Thatcher, how they really supported each other in a loving relationship and were an example of a loving marriage that worked. That’s been a realisation for me.”

Handbagged runs at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight until August 29. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

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REVIEW: The Ballad Of Johnny & June, The Johnny Cash Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny Cash and Christina Bianco’s June Carter Cash duetting in The Ballad Of Johnny & June, on fire at Grand Opera House, York, this week. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

ONE comment stood out in Drama Desk Award nominee Christina Bianco’s interview with CharlesHutchPress ahead of her return to York to play June Carter Cash in The Ballad Of Johnny & June.

“The film [James Mangold’s 2005 biopic Walk The Line] is only about 60 per cent accurate, whereas it’s so special that this show comes from the family,” she said.

The Johnny Cash Musical is directed and co-authored by Jersey Boys director (in tandem with Robert Cary), but the key voice belongs to Johnny and June’s only son, story consultant John Carter Cash, whose books Anchored In Love: An Intimate Portrait of June Carter Cash and House of Cash: The Legacies of My Father, Johnny Cash, inform the script so richly.

What’s more, Ryan O’Donnell’s John Carter Cash narrates the musical, breaking down the fourth wall to engage in informal, home-spun conversation with the Stallls, full of homilies on the thorn pricks of love and marriage as he reflects on the truths behind “country music’s greatest romance”.  

After sold-out seasons at La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego, California, and  the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Canada, Christopher Ryan Grant has crossed the Big Pond to play Johnny Cash on tour, joined by UK-based New Yorker Bianco, whose acting, singing and impersonating skills were last seen in York as the multi-voiced LV in Jim Cartwright’s tragic-comedy The Rise Of Little Voice at the Theatre Royal in July 2022.

Not that she delivers an impersonation of June here. “I feel a great responsibility to present her as accurately as possible, without doing an impression,” she told CharlesHutchPress. Her performance is all the more truthful for focusing on emotional depth, her June in full bloom in the face of Johnny’s hurricane, while her singing grows ever stronger, the more  the show progresses.

The subtitle may be The Johnny Cash Musical, but McAnuff and Cary’s show gives equal time to Johnny and June, even if Ryan’s swarthy, black-eyed Johnny is the last to arrive on stage, the Man in Black held back for maximum impact.

Grant looks the part, physically imposing, moving with a swagger, crystallised in the way he holds his guitar, and then there is that deep-as-a-well Arkansas voice: the rolling thunder of his basso profundo, suited equally to warmth, flirting, righteous fire and darkness in songs that address sorrow, fickle morality and redemption with room for humour too (typified by A Boy Named Sue).

As many as 33 songs feature, some sung by O’Donnell’s affable John in storytelling mode, others by characters denoted as Man and Woman 1, 2 and 3, playing wives, husbands, members of Cash’s Tennessee Three and more besides. Anne Marie Wojna is particularly striking as Johnny’s wife Vivian, who inspired I Walk The Line, rooted in his vow not to stray or consume pills.

As O’Donnell’s narrator reveals, those vows were broken. Cash is drawn to pills & alcohol, as much as to June, although the veracity of how they first met is played out three ways by the show’s end, because Johnny and June may be unreliable witnesses, and so John Carter Cash lets us play judge and jury.

This warts’n’all musical, like Jersey Boys before it, features such career landmarks as Ring Of Fire (with Johnny challenging June’s claim of writing his biggest hit), his Folsom Prison and San Quentin concerts, his television specials and his late-career revival with Trent Reznor’s Hurt.

There is no mention of the cotton farmers’ son’s four years in the American Air Force, nor of  producer Rick Rubin’s key contribution to his American Recordings late renaissance, but the tragic death of his brother and Sam Phillips’ early influence at Sun Records do feature, while the typeface on the list of locations and city names above Robert Brill’s wood-dominated set design mirrors the American Recordings album covers.

Throughout, the ‘ballad’ of Johnny & June plays out as a love affair that damaged but fed each other, as son John asks June to admit to her prescription drug habit in later years and Grant’s Johnny has to address his demons, encapsulated in his soul-baring rendition of Hurt.

Connagh Tonkinson’s band is terrific throughout, especially Morgan Rees’s trumpet, while  Byron Easley’s delightfully diverse choreography, Sarafina Bush’s costumes, Peter Fitzgerald’s sound design and Sean Nieuwenhuis’s projections all add to the sound and fury signifying everything in the volatile yet boundless love of Johnny and June.

The Ballad Of Johnny & June runs at Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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York Theatre Royal to co-produce Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman in first alliance with Glasgow Citizens Theatre in 2027

The poster image for York Theatre Royal’s co-production of Death Of A Salesman with Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Picture: FEAST

YORK Theatre Royal will present a major new revival of Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman as the centrepiece of the new season.

In a first for the St Leonard’s Place theatre, the production will be co-produced with Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre.

Directed by Citizens Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill, Death Of A Salesman will open at York Theatre Royal on March 2 2027, preceded by previews from February 24, and will run until March 27 before transferring to Glasgow from April 7 to May 1 2027.

Richard Grassie’s image for Emma Rice Company’s revival of Tristant & Yseult

Miller’s heartbreaking story of the pursuit of wealth and popularity remains devastatingly relevant today. After 34 years on the road, Willy Loman returns home exhausted, having sacrificed everything in pursuit of success and recognition. Yet the American Dream seems always just out of reach.

When his career falters and the debts mount, Willy is lost in memories of the past as his family tries desperately to reconcile the man they love with the tragic consequences of his delusions.

In another co-production, York Theatre Royal will continue its creative collaboration with the Emma Rice Company and Nottingham Playhouse in a revival of Kneehigh and Emma Rice’s Tristan & Yseult. Last seen on stage in 2017,the production will be staged at York Theatre Royal from April 6 to 17 as part of a nationwide UK tour.

The artwork for John Godber’s new play This Is The Life, touring York Theatre Royal next January

Paul Crewes, York Theatre Royal’s chief executive officer, says: “We’re very excited about this upcoming season. Most notably, in a first for us, we will be working with our friends at Citizens Theatre in Glasgow on Arthur Miller’s modern classic Death Of A Salesman, directed by the fabulous Dominic Hill. This is a wonderful collaboration with a great theatre.

“Spring 2027 will also see us co-producing again with the Emma Rice Company and Nottingham Playhouse on a revival of Tristan & Yseult. I have such fond memories of originally producing this show with Emma when we were both at Kneehigh alongside Mike Shepherd. I can’t wait for York audiences to have the chance to finally see this production that successfully toured the world for many years.”

Paul continues: “These productions join the line-up of our other produced work already on sale, including our revival of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad later this year with Amelia Bullmore as Penelope, our Youth Theatre production of Wendy And Peter Pan and the highlight of the festive season, our panto Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

The Penelopiad: Directed by York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster this autumn

“Our dance programme also continues to be one of the most exciting in the north of England, with the return of London City Ballet, the world premiere of the latest show from Carlos Acosta and the Acosta Danza Company and Ben Duke’s Lost Dog coming to York for the first time. I hope we have given audiences plenty to look forward to with a range of classics, new work and family favourites on our stage.”

Dominic Hill, artistic director of Citizens Theatre, says: “I am delighted to be directing a new production of this brilliant Arthur Miller play that is one of the most influential works of the 20th century.

Lost Dog’s Juliet & Romeo, playing York Theatre Royal on November 20 and 21. Picture: Paul Blakemore

“It could not be more timely in the age of Donald Trump’s politics of greed and toxic masculinity. But Death Of A Salesman is also an ordinary working man’s story, as a family tries to wrestle with living up to expectation and forging their own path. I can’t wait to see the reaction from audiences in York and Glasgow to this new production.”

Other highlights include the UK premiere of Acosta Danza’s Cuban Baroque, in collaboration with York Theatre Royal, running from October 1 to 3. The visiting programme also includes the UK premiere of London City Ballet: Firebird – A Mixed Bill ( co-produced by York Theatre Royal, London City Ballet and Opera De Vichy) on September 18 and 19.

In a new touring production starring Jane Asher and Samantha Womack from November 10 to 14, Daisy Goodwin’s By Royal Appointment tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II’s life behind-the-scenes. Lost Dog’s dance-theatre duet Juliet And Romeo flips the story of Romeo And Juliet on its head, blending dance, comedy and theatre on November 20 and 21.

The poster artwork for By Royal Appointment, booked into York Theatre Royal for November 10 to 14

York Theatre Royal will welcome back a variety of York and Yorkshire companies in the upcoming season in the Studio, including York Actors Collective in The Strongbox (October 28 to 31) and Story Craft Theatre’s festive production of The Enormous Christmas Pudding (December 16 to 24).  

Wakefield’s John Godber Company will return with John Godber’s new play,  This Is The Life, from January 27 to 30 in the Main House, where York Light Opera Company will perform the Dolly Parton musical, 9 To 5 – The Musical, from February 4 to 13.

For the full programme and tickets, go to: https://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/. Box office: 01904 623568.

Acosta Danza in Carlos Acosta’s Cuban Baroque, part of the dance programme at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Johan Persson
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Emma Rice Company announces cast for first revival of Tristan & Yseult since 2017. York Theatre Royal awaits next April

Emma Rice: Directing revival of Tristan & Yseult

THE EMMA Rice Company has announced the cast for the 2026-2027 revival of Emma Rice’s Tristan & Yseult, booked into York Theatre Royal for April 6 to 17 next year.

First produced in 2003 and last seen on stage in 2017, now the new production will be co-produced by York Theatre Royal and Nottingham Playhouse and will preview at Theatre Royal, Bath, from September 11.

John Leader and Nandi Bhebhe will lead the cast as Tristan and Yseult, joined by Matthew Churcher (Frocin), Tom Fox(Morholt and Brangian), Jack Heydon(Love Spotter), Stephanie Hockley (Whitehands), Edward Rowe(King Mark) and Nigel Sudarkasa (Love Spotter).

In the band will be Pat Moran, Stu Barker, Harry Miller, Philippa Hogg and, as alternate for the New York run, Mary Johnson.

John Leader: Cast as Tristan in Emma Rice Company’s Tristan & Yseult

Staged originally by Cornish company Kneehigh and Emma Rice, Tristan & Yseult opened in the open air at Restormel Castle in Cornwall and Rufford Abbey in Nottinghamshire. In 2004, it played cliff-side Minack Theatre, in Porthcurno, Cornwall, before being re-imagined as an indoor production for the Cottesloe at the National Theatre in 2005. Now, the new UK tour marks the first time Tristan & Yseulthas been performed to audiences since 2017.

Written by Anna Maria Murphy and Carl Grose and adapted and directed by Rice, the show will be staged by a creative team featuring Stu Barker (composer), Simon Baker (sound designer), Malcolm Rippeth (lighting designer) and Etta Murfitt (choreographer & intimacy coordinator). Bill Mitchelll’s original set and costume design is refreshed by Vicki Mortimer.

One of the most influential theatre productions of the 21st century, Tristan & Yseult’s “poem to love and its madness” is returning for the first time in ten years, offering a rare chance to encounter a modern masterpiece fresh and live on stage.

Visceral, playful and heartbreakingly beautiful, Rice’s internationally celebrated production blends myth, music, movement and storytelling. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Nandi Bhebhe: Cast as Yseult in Emma Rice Company’s Tristan & Yseult

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1,300 discounted £15 tickets released for upcoming shows as York Theatre Royal launches scheme for age 16 to 30

The Penelopiad: One of the shows in the new free membership scheme for £15 tickets for young theatregoers at York Theatre Royal

YORK Theatre Royal is launching a new free membership scheme for 16 to 30-year-olds to provide the opportunity to enjoy the best seats in the house for only £15.

They can book two tickets (one for themselves, one for a friend or family member of any age) for a variety of Theatre Royal main-house productions.

Shows on offer include such Theatre Royal in-house dramas as Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman; world-class dance performances in London City Ballet’s Firebird and Acosta Danza’s Cuban Baroque; musical offerings from York Light Opera Company, including 9 To 5 The Musical, and much more besides.  

16-30 YTR Members also will acquire access to invitations to exclusive membership events and monthly £15 Club newsletters to keep up to date when new shows are added.

For each production included in the discount scheme, 100 £15 tickets will be released, available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Signing up is free and membership can be added at https://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/support-us/memberships/16-30/ or via calling the Theatre Royal box office on 01904 623568. More details on the shows can be found on www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/whats-on/

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Full cast and creative team announced for The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal

The cast for York Theatre Royals’ revival of The Penelopiad

AMID the summer buzz over Christopher Nolan’s film account of The Odyssey, the full cast and creative team is in place for York Theatre Royal’s autumn revival of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad.

Joining the already announced Amelia Bullmore in the leading role of Penelope will be Nell Baker (Laertes), Danielle Bird (Eurycleia), Olivia Burton-Laws (Naiad Mother), Theatre Royal pantomime alumna Faye Campbell (Melantho), Pena Iiyambo (Helen), Kat Johns-Burke (Antonius), Syakira  Moeladi (Telemachus) and Charlie Russell (Odysseus).

Directed by Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, the production will open on October 14, with previews from October 10, and will run until October 31.

“Margaret Atwood is such a phenomenal writer – she’s clever, witty, subversive and her insights into human dynamics are acutely well observed,” says Juliet. “The Penelopiad is a funny, moving, fast-paced, visual feast, a classical tale told through a contemporary lens. The epic, heroic story of The Odyssey will never look the same again! I am thrilled we will be staging it here at York Theatre Royal, and I can’t wait to get started on the show.” 

The Penelopiad writer Margaret Atwood. Picture: Luis Mora, 2020

Adapted for the stage by Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood from her 2005 novella, The Penelopiad’s feminist retelling of The Odyssey reimagines Homer’s epic through the eyes of Penelope and her chorus of maids.  

Atwood, author of the modern feminist classic The Handmaid’s Tale, presents a powerful, irreverent and darkly humorous retelling that unpicks one of the oldest of myths.  Immortalised as the devoted and faithful wife to the glorious Odysseus, Penelope waits 20 years for her husband to return from the Trojan War, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again. Now it is time to hear the story of those left behind. 

Reimagining this ancient tale, Atwood gives voice to the silenced Penelope and her maids. Wandering the underworld, Penelope spins a different kind of thread: her side of the story – a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge. 

 Forster, director of such York Theatre Royal productions as Little Women and Around The World In 80 Days-ish!, will deliver an exuberant and witty retelling that questions the version of events we think we know and exposes the truth behind the myth.

Juliet Forster: Director of York Theatre Royal’s production of The Penelopiad

Juliet says: “It has been such a joy to meet so many brilliant women over the last couple of months, and what a phenomenally talented cast and creative team we have lined up for The Penelopiad. It is clear just how strongly this story resonates with people today, and I am looking forward to a rehearsal room buzzing with excitement and creativity. 

“Margaret Atwood’s powerful script is so rich with wit and humour as she unveils a new feminist perspective on the familiar Odyssey myth. The show is interwoven with songs and exuberant movement and we hope to offer audiences an entirely different way of understanding the story of Penelope and her maids – and most importantly a great night out.”   

Amelia Bullmore will return to the stage to star as Penelope, having last trod the boards in the 2018 revival of Annie Baker’s 2009 play Circle Mirror Transformation at HOME, Manchester.

Amelia says:“I’m thrilled I’m going to be working at York Theatre Royal – such a beautiful theatre – on this fantastic play. The Penelopiad manages to be funny, dark, moving and provocative by turns. And it’s Margaret Atwood, so the writing is uniquely brilliant. I think audiences will love how playful it is and how directly it connects with them.”

Amelia Bullmore: Cast as Penelope in The Penelopiad

Welcoming her to York, Juliet says: “It is wonderful to have Amelia on board to lead the cast for The Penelopiad. Penelope is such a fascinating and complex character in Margaret Atwood’s retelling and I know Amelia will do her justice! I can’t wait to work with her to bring this compelling story to the stage for York audiences.”

Joining Forster in the all-female creative team will be designer Sara Perks, lighting designer Alexandra Stafford, composer, musical director and sound designer Kate Marlais, movement director Michelle Edwards and casting director Ellie Collyer-Bristow.

To ensure as many people as possible can enjoy the show, the first preview on October 10 will be offered on a ‘Pay What You Choose’ basis, allowing audiences to pay as little or as much as they wish. 

The York Theatre Royal Choir will present special foyer performances for audiences on October 10 and press night, October 14, before the 7.30pm shows start.  

Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

York Theatre Royal’s poster for The Penelopiad. Concept: Émilie Chen. Photography: Camilla Greenwell

Did you know?


MARGARET Atwood’s The Penelopiad premiered at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, in July 2007 in a co-production between the Royal Shakespeare Company and Canada’s National Arts Centre. York Theatre Royal’s production marks the first major UK revival since that original staging. 

Amelia Bullmore: back story

THEATRE credits include Circle Mirror Transformation (HOME Manchester); A Christmas Carol (Noël Coward Theatre); The Norman Conquests (The Old Vic and Circle in the Square Theatre, New York); The Crucible (Sheffield Crucible); Really Old, Like Forty Five (National Theatre); Road and The Queen And I (Leicester Haymarket, Royal Court Theatre and UK tour).

Also, The Thickness Of Skin (Royal Court Theatre); A View From The Bridge, Romeo And Juliet (Royal Exchange Theatre and UK Tour); All My Sons and How The Other Half Loves (Cheltenham Everyman); Be-Bop-A-Lula (Liverpool Playhouse and UK tour); The Red Balloon (Contact Theatre); The Threepenny Opera (Birmingham Rep);  Major Barbara and Sweet Bird Of Youth (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow);The Way Of The World (Wilton’s Musical Hall) and Ladies In The Lift (Red Stockings Theatre Company.)

Her television credits include Riot Women; The Buccaneers; Happy Valley; Gentleman Jack; Scott & Bailey (as series regular DCI Gill Murray and co-writer); Twenty Twelve; The Crown; Vienna Blood; I’m Alan Partridge; Jam; Big Train; State Of Play; Ashes To Ashes; The Jetty; Marble Hall Murders;The Larkins and Coronation Street (as series regular Steph Barnes).

Her films include Mrs Dalloway, Festival, The Truth, Endgame and What We Did On Our Holiday.

She is an acclaimed writer for TV, radio and stage. Her play Di And Viv And Rose premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London before transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End.