Intertwined: Joe Layton’s Robbie and Hannah Sinclair Robinson’s Jess in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms. Picture: Scott Graham
RELATIONSHIP two-handers keep popping up on the York Stage in recent years, just as Normal People and One Day’s young lovers top the TV viewing charts.
First, in March 2022, came the multiple universes in Black Treacle Theatre’s York premiere of Nick Payne’s Constellations at Theatre@41, Monkgate, where each scene, such as the first meeting, the first date and breaking up, unfolds in several different ways, showing how nothing is necessarily ‘meant to be’, not least a crisis that could mean the end of their time together.
Next, in November that year, White Rose Theatre staged The Last Five Years, Jason Robert Brown’s sung-through American musical with the novel structure of struggling actress Cathy telling her side of the story from the end of the relationship backwards, while, at the other end of the stage, successful young novelist Jamie does so from the start forwards, as he lands a publishing deal at 23.
Now comes physical theatre specialists Frantic Assembly’s boy-meets-girl tale, or enervated man meets sparky younger woman, if you prefer, in the London company’s 30th anniversary show in a co-production with Curve, Leicester, Mayflower, Southampton and the Lyric, Hammersmith.
Payne and Brown’s works were both festooned with multiple awards. Anna Jordan’s Lost Atoms is at least their equal and could well be the best of the three in terms of capturing the essence of a life-changing relationship through physicality. When words fail, physical expression takes over, much like how discord in discourse leads to outbursts of singing in opera and musical theatre.
In this truly memorable memory play, the present keeps being interrupted, even elbowed aside, by recollections of a past that began with a chance meeting, sharing a mobile hotspot, in a cafe where Jessie (Hannah Sinclair Robinson) had temped for four years. So stop-starts a run of awkward dates with Robbie (Joe Layton), but gradually blossoming love too.
Is this the stuff of fairy tales, asks Jordan, or maybe of grimmer tales that avid researcher Jess bemoans have had their guts pulled out? Recollection by recollection, it becomes apparent that both protagonists/antagonists are remembering their version of the past in accounts that differ. Whose version should we trust, where does the truth lie and why do we need to re-write and embellish what has gone before – and to keep re-writing it every time we recall it? Maybe because the truth is too painful?
Do Jess and Robbie doubt each other or, increasingly, doubt themselves? Can there be a reliable witness in matters of the heart and do we ever really understand love?
For all the clash of present and past, symbolised by flashes of light and soundwaves, everything is played out in chronological order: love’s vicissitudes; connection and disconnection; Robbie’s preference for staying in, Jess’s need for night outs; parental relationships and pregnancy; infidelity and Robbie’s request of this reunion meeting.
Jordan’s text, as full of frank humour as much as heartbreak, is seductive and insightful in its own right as she explores how two people’s “perceptions of romantic love affected their experiences”, but works all the better for its symbiosis with Frantic’s theatrical house style. Or, as she puts it, “I am drawn to Frantic’s extraordinary ability not just to tell a story but to create feeling on stage.
“I’m always trying to find words for the things that seem impossible to describe, and I love to watch Frantic find language to describe these things through movement.”
Movement that, in the process, really lifts the impact of the language – and I do mean ‘lifts’. Scott Graham’s movement direction plays out on Andrzej Goulding set, dominated by a towering wall of filing cabinets that serves as a climbing frame for Layton’s Robbie and Sinclair Robinson’s Jessie to go clambering hither and thither, to almost dizzying effect at times, as they express a multitude of emotions from giddy joy to guttural pain, playful fun to vulnerable fall-outs, cautious start to implosive finale.
A floor drops out of the structure like a modern-day drawbridge, for sensual bedroom scenes and scrambling precipice friction alike. Drawers open, sometimes to be used as seats, more often for access to props, clothing, photos, mementoes of childhood and past pursuits that serve as welcome or unwelcome memory triggers and glowing light bulbs that set off new patterns of thoughts. Two armchairs complete the set, theatrically large to emphasise how their every reconfiguration carries significance.
Layton and Sinclair Robinson had worked together previously in Frantic’s Othello and Metamorphosis and that familiarity oozes through their kinetic, magnetic performances in Lost Atoms as, in Jordan’s words, they “recreate the extraordinary energy of falling in love, in a way that is recognisable and palpable for the audience.”
How right she is. Lost Atoms is a love story familiar in its course and feelings, but told in a thrillingly bold way, with feeling, energy and infinite hope from lessons learned.
Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
ANNA Soden was last seen on the York Theatre Royal stage as a pantomime cow.
An award-nominated bovine, no less, playing Dave The Talking Cow and Dave the Trumpet-playing Cow, to boot, in Jack And The Beanstalk in the winter of 2023-2024. And neither the back end of a panto cow, nor the front, but a full-on singing, dancing, chatterbox cow.
Now the York-raised, Brighton-based actor, comedian, musician and writer with ten million views for her comedy videos on TikTok and Instagram is returning to her home city to present her madcap debut comedy show, It Comes Out Your Bum, on night three of the new Old Paint Shop season of burlesque, comedy and live music in the Theatre Royal Studio.
Without further delay, let’s address the show title. “Anna’s brain is a bum – Come see all the nice things that come out of it!” reads the tagline on the Theatre Royal website. Cue an hour of songs, revenge and yes, “talking out your ass”.
Anna Soden as Dave The Talking Cow in Jack And The Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal in December 2023-January 2024: Nominated in Best Supporting Artist categoryat 2024 UK Pantomime Awards
Explain yourself, Anna. “Well, this show has been quite a long process,” she says. “Initially, as long ago as 2018, I thought, ‘why is no-one making a show about poo?’. So, I’ve been writing and re-writing it for years, starting off as a show about poo, then it became poo material, not gross, but really stupid toilet humour, which I love, and a musical fever dream too.”
A work-in-progress version of the show ran in the Wee Yurt at Hoots@Potterrow at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe, billed as: “Girls aren’t allowed to talk about poo. Even though we all do it! Is Anna sensitively exploring how we’ve managed to gender a universal body function? Or is she just talking about how she used to fancy Milo from the Tweenies and pretending to be the tiny nerdy man that lives in all the calculators in the world? Maybe both!”
The show has moved on again. “I had a chat with a comedian who said ‘you can’t call a show ‘Poo’ because there are so many rules to comedy’, but I’ve been doing so much stand-up comedy and so much new material has emerged since then for the show. It’s now a celebration of the weird stuff that comes out of my brain-bum!
“I think It Comes Out Your Bum is such a life-affirming title. It might put people off, but I don’t mind that. If you don’t feel the title’s not for you, I still don’t think that means it’s not a show for you. Maybe it’s just stubbornness on my part, but I just think it’s funny – and it sparks a lot of questions!”
“You have to find yourself funny because you have to spend so much time with yourself,” reasons comedian, writer, actress and writer Anna Soden
What’s more, “I enter the stage coming through a giant-sized bum made by Freddie Hayes [the York puppeteer and fellow comedic talent behind such shows as Potatohead and The Magic Lady}. It then just sits on stage and I make a bit of a joke about that.”
Anna’s progression into stand-up comedy has been a “natural step”, she says. “I was enjoying doing a lot of comedy stuff in my acting, though I was also writing serious plays [her adaptation of Five Children And IT and her folk musical Mad For Our Daughters], but I really enjoy stand-up as it scratches an itch that theatre doesn’t.
“Theatre makes you have to be earnest, and I respect that as a jobbing actor, whereas there are no rules to comedy, performing solo, which makes me a better jobbing actor because it keeps my naughtiness, my playfulness, alive – and as a jobbing actor, I’m happy to collaborate with others.”
Performing comedy could be a lonely experience, but Anna takes it in her stride. “The feeling of fear is not that deep,” she says. “If you bomb, it’s not an attack on you personally. It’s just that those people on that night didn’t find it funny. It’s not that deep!
Anna Soden in rehearsal for her adaptation of Five Children And IT
“I was very serious at drama school. I just wanted to do Ibsen plays, and I did that for two years, but you’ve got to have variety – and also I think I have an excellent sense of humour, so why wouldn’t I want to use that?! You have to find yourself funny because you have to spend so much time with yourself!”
After six successive years of pantomime commitments, Anna will be taking a break this winter. “I did have a couple of offers, including a big Georgian panto, and I’ve loved doing them, but I don’t want my year to revolve around panto,” she says.
“I’ve started being part of the Future Theatre Makers cohort of associate artists, where Chichester Festival Theatre is giving each of us theatre mentorship and then we each write and put on a show in 2027. We’re given funding to support our involvement, enough not to do a panto in a random town.
Anna had planned to do a month-long tour of It Comes Out Your Bum shows. “But then I got cast in Ian Jarvis’s play Steve And Stuff Forever at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, where I was for six weeks,” she says.
Anna Soden’s fairy with her fellow York Theatre Royal Travelling Pantomime cast members, Robin Simpson’s dame, Faye Campbell’s hero, Reuben Johnson’s villain and Josh Benson’s comic turn, in 2020
Robin Simpson’s dame, Anna Soden’s fairy, Faye Campbell’s hero and Reuben Johnson’s villain“It was a romantic play, where I played Steff, not a manic pixie dream-girl, but a spontaneous, free-spirited, heart-on-your-sleeve girl, whereas Steve was very serious and very sensible, planning everything. Classic rom-com!”
What should Saturday’s audience expect in It Comes Out Your Bum? “Don’t expect any narrative or any big meanings. It’s just an hour of ‘stupidness’; five minutes where I pretend to be a sausage; five minutes where I apologise to Andrew Lloyd Webber for what I said about him in my videos, and lots of songs.”
Anna Soden: It Comes Out Your Bum, The Old Paint Shop, York Theatre Royal Studio, Saturday (11/10/2025), 8pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
“Don’t expect any narrative or any big meanings. It’s just an hour of ‘stupidness’,” says Anna Soden of her hour-long comedy show It Comes Out Your Bum
Making a splash: Katie Leckey’s Darby and Ben Koch’s Taig in The Bogie Men in Griffonage Theatre’s FourTold showcase of Lady Augusta Gregory plays. Picture: John Stead
THIS is a landmark production by Griffonage Theatre, the York company that likes to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.
Certainly Lady Augusta Gregory’s plays would qualify as unfamiliar, but maybe it is not so strange that they are strangers to the British stage. They were, they are, Irish plays about Irish people for Irish actors and Irish audiences, presented predominantly at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and in America too but rarely crossing the Irish Sea.
Now, Katie Leckey, Northern Irish actor-director, University of York MA graduate and co-founder of Griffonage Theatre, is presenting her adaptation of four of the late-blooming County Galway playwright’s largely forgotten one-act plays, penned from 1903 to 1914 and never previously staged together over here.
This is a passion project for Leckey, a Lady Augusta enthusiast with plans to study the “criminally under-performed” plays of the Roxborough rural estate dramatist, folklorist and Abbey Theatre co-founder for a PhD. Theatre@41, sure to become increasingly experimental under Tom Bellerby’s directorship, is just the place to dust off her ladyship’s light comedies for reappraisal.
Grace Palma’s Mrs Tarpey and Ben Koch’s James Ryan in Lady Augusta Gregory’s one-act comedy drama Spreading The News. Picture: John Stead
The black-box theatre takes on a traverse configuration, the audience seated to either side of the combustible capers that unfold in Baile Aighneas, or “The Town of Dispute”, as Leckey terms it to reflect how each play is so disputatious.
As presented in the Fay Brothers’ house style at the Abbey Theatre, performances would focus on the storytelling, the voice, the lyrical Irish dialect. Leckey emphasises that too, but rather than “park and bark” theatre, she has favoured the injection of physicality, both in the presentation of that language and in the characterisation, now rooted as much in movement as meter.
You might see parallels with Dylan Thomas’s Welsh village Llareggub in Under Milk Wood; Leckey sees the plays as a “snapshot of a very strange rural Irish town: like Royston Vasey, home of The League Of Gentlemen, meeting Father Ted”.
The League Of Gentlemen is closest to the exaggerated comedic style here, where the comedy may be billed as light but is invariably darker and more heavy handed in performance. The audience laughter comes more from the physicality than Gregory’s often truculent dialogue, penned in Irish dialect but now performed in myriad accents.
Clash of coats: James Lee’s Mr Mineog and Katie Leckey’s Mr Hazel, newspaper editors writing each other off in Lady Augusta Gregory’s Coats. Picture: John Stead
What’s more, being convoluted and percussive in sentence structure, its loquacity can make it hard to follow. The tendency is for the playing to be so boisterous in pushing for the laughs that combative voices become cacophonous, but pumping up the volume is no guarantee to tickle the funny bone.
Blarney and bluster are the heartbeat of the four plays, first up the bustling market place of Spreading The News, where town gossip wreaks havoc, rumours spiral beyond control, apples and maybe blood is spilled, tongues wag and Leckey’s tricycle-riding magistrate is a law unto himself, imagination running roughshod over the truth.
Ben Koch’s James Ryan, spiralling around his walking stick, and Grace Palma’s bow-legged, bent-double Mrs Tarpey bring clowning personality to their roles.
Coats has the classic comedic structure of a mix-up: two coats being taken off, then the wrong one being put back on, with a piece of paper in the pocket of each coat now being in the possession of the wrong person.
Cheered to the rafters: Ben Koch’s Hyacinth Halvey in Lady Augusta Gregory’s Hyacinth Halvey at Theatre@41, Monkgate. Picture: John Stead
Caught in a war of words are two highly competitive newspaper editors, James Lee’s Mr Mineog and Leckey’s Mr Hazel, who have brought each other’s obituary notice to their club restaurant, where polite etiquette comes under ever greater threat as the heat and volume rises in the serpentine scheming.
Next stop, the post office, where Hyacinth Halvey (Ben Koch) has sent word he is coming to town. The young dandy’s reputation precedes him, sending the townsfolk into a frenzy, hanging on his every word on arrival, no matter what he says. Wilf Tomlinson’s preening James Quirke comes to the fore too as Koch’s Hyacinth takes everything in his stride.
Leckey and executive producer Jack Mackay’s company like their shows to stand at the intersection of the madcap and the macabre. Gregory tends more towards the madcap, although the macabre, or maybe the grotesque, nudges into Spreading The News and Hyacinth Halvey.
The climactic two-hander The Bogie Men could be a forerunner of fellow Irish playwright Samuel Beckett’s 1952 tragicomedy Waiting For Godot, with its chimney-sweep protagonists, Leckey’s Darby and Koch’s Taig, forging a double act in Vladimir and Estragon mode, in matching brace, shirts, trousers, boots and even battered hats at one point.
Helen Clarke-Neale’s Mrs Delane and James Lee’s Miss Joyce in Griffonage Theatre’s Hyacinth Halvey. Picture: John Stead
Rather than passing the time waiting for Godot, they find themselves at a coach stop, “almost indistinguishably similar” but soon finding mutual reasons to argue and fall out. Again, the volume is turned up as high as Spinal Tap’s “11”, but Koch and Leckey elicit the show’s most successful comic friction.
Helen Clarke-Neale, Emily Carhart and Peter Hopwood add to the ensemble’s colourful characterisation, while James Lee cos-plays mischievously as Mrs Tully and Miss Joyce.
Joined by Leckey’s lusty vocals for Irish pub songs in the interval, Ayse Kaban-Bowers delights with her fiery fiddle when playing between plays.
Truth be told, FourTold is unlikely to spark a nationwide rush to rediscover Lady Augusta Gregory’s obscure curiosities, but Leckey’s enthusiasm is matched by a cast determined to re-light their fire in explosive fashion.
Griffonage Theatre presents FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Griffonage Theatre’s poster for this week’s quadruple bill of Lady Augusta Gregory comediesat Theatre@41, Monkgate
Sleeping Beauty cast members, left to right, Tommy Carmichael, Jennie Dale, Robin Simpson, Aoife Kenny, Sophie Flora and Chris Morgan outside York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick Photography
THE York Theatre Royal pantomime cast for Sleeping Beauty has met up for the first time.
In attendance too at the costumed press launch were the regular production team of director Juliet Forster, the Theatre Royal creative director; writer Paul Hendy, artistic director of panto partners Evolution Productions, and choreographer Hayley Del Harrison.
Dressing up for the occasion were Robin Simpson, returning for his sixth year as dame, easy to spot in polka dots as Nurse Nellie; fellow returnee Tommy Carmichael, on daft lad duty as Jangles; CBeebies’ star Jennie Dale, making her very first visit to York ahead of playing Fairy Moonbeam, and Irish-Jamaican actress Aoife Kenny, likewise setting foot in York for the first time, in readiness for her title role (also known as Aurora).
Present too for the photoshoot were ensemble cast members Sophie Flora and Chris Morgan – who will be joined in the show by returnees Charlotte Wood and Christopher Morgan-Shillingford. Turning up the heat in a demonstration on stage was fire act Kris Madden, the bright spark who will be the panto’s variety turn.
He is the fire starter: Kris Madden, the specialist fire act, warms up for his variety turn in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick Photography
Absent on the day, on account of performing commitments elsewhere, but also confirmed for their Theatre Royal pantomime debuts were West End actress Jocasta Almgill, from East Yorkshire, as wicked fairy Carabosse, and Scott Goncalves, a name familiar to York audiences from his days in York Orchard Musical Theatre Company, Pick Me Up Theatre and York Light Opera Company.
“We’re very excited that Scott will be playing our prince, Prince Michael of Moravia,” said Juliet. “He did a couple of York Light Opera shows here and was one of our young Lancelots when we did The Legend Of King Arthur [July 2013], when Anna Soden and Laura Soper, both now professionals too, were also the cast too. Scott went off to drama school and has been doing musical theatre shows.”
Jennie, from Brighton, has made a habit of playing the fairy in panto, “though I did play the Witch in Hansel & Gretel and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, which I absolutely loved, but other than that I’ve always been a goodie,” she said, before heading off to Bradford to rehearse and record this winter’s CBeebies’ pantomime, Cinderella.
“The fairy is a bit of a safety net for children because, when they see me, they know everything will be OK,” says Sleeping Beauty’s Fairy Moonbeam, played by CBeebies star Jennie Dale, PIcture: Charlie Kirkpatrick Photography
“Funnily enough, the character I’m known for on CBeebies is a baddie. I play Captain Captain in Swashbuckle, though I also have my own series called Jennie’s Fitness In Five, five minutes of attempting to get children to do some exercises, where it all goes wrong!
“But in panto I love how the fairy has an important thread that’s carried throughout the performance, explaining to the children what’s going on, but also with lovely humour. She’s a bit of a safety net for children because, when they see me, they know everything will be OK.”
Sleeping Beauty will run from December 2 to January 4 2026. Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The Old Paint Shop, pictured on its inaugural night on October 5 2024, returns to York Theatre Royal Studio tomorrow
THIS autumn, York Theatre Royal Studio is being transformed once again into cabaret club The Old Paint Shop for a season of comedy, live music, burlesque and more, featuring Paint Shop favourites and exciting new acts.
Seating will be cabaret club style and unreserved, offering an intimate theatrical experience where audience members are encouraged to grab a drink at the bar, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Evolution Of Fishermen: Opening new season tomorrow. Picture: Luke Ryan Photography
Evolution Of Fishermen, October 9, 8pm
EVOLUTION Of Fishermen are a contemporary folk band, brought together by a mutual love of storytelling, harmony and original folk songs. Since forming in 2021, they have played Green Note, O2 Academy Islington, Old Blue Last in London and The Crescent in York, plus festival appearances at Wilderness, Deershed, Gate To Southwell, LOOP fest & Sam Lee’s The NEST stage at Medicine Festival.
Nun better than Freida Nipples in the company of The Exhibitionists. Picture: Fake Trash Studio
Freida Nipples presents The Exhibitionists, October 10, 8pm
JOIN York’s international award-winning burlesque artiste Freida Nipples as she welcomes some of her favourite and most fabulous performance artists from across the UK. From burlesque to drag and beyond, be sure to expect the unexpected.
Anna Soden: Talking out of her ass in brain wave of a debut comedy show
Anna Soden: It Comes Out Your Bum, October 11, 8pm
ANNA Soden’s brain is a bum. “Come see all the nice things that come out of it,” says the York-raised, Brighton-based comedian, actor and award-nominated York Theatre Royal pantomime cow.
It Comes Out Your Bum is Anna’s madcap debut comedy hour, full of songs, revenge and talking out your ass. This 2025 Komedia New Comedian semi-finalist has featured on Absolute Radio, iHeart Radio and BBC Upload and attracted more than 11million views on TikTok/Instagram.
Fool(ish) Improv: Talking cobblers
Fool(ish) Improv: Cobbled Together, October 11, 8pm
FOOL(ISH) are delighted to deliver a new kind of improv gig as they return to York Theatre Royal. Inspired by York’s most famous street [Shambles], Cobbled Together is a show where the audience brings its own stories and memories of York to pave the way for some freshly ground comedy.
“All things local are about to get a little bit more ludicrous” say Fool(ish). “Join us for a spontaneous and ‘shambolic’ comedy where everything is made up… apart from the bits that happen to be true!”
Kiki Deville: Amusing tales to heartfelt confessions. Picture: Veronica Vee Marx
An Evening with Kiki Deville, October 17, 8pm
COMBINING a big voice, big humour and an even bigger heart, award-winning cabaret diva Kiki DeVille presents a dazzling night of storytelling, sharp wit and unforgettable moments.
From amusing tales to heartfelt confessions, Kiki serves it all, seasoned with her signature sass and a splash of vintage glam. Expect wonderful songs, side-splitting stories and perhaps a visit from glamorous guests along the way.
The Jazzville Quartet’s singer Raquel Alvaro
The Jazzville Quartet, October 18, 8pm
JOIN York jazz combo The Jazzville Quartet for a joyful celebration of Latin favourites (some sung in the original Portuguese), swing classics and haunting jazz ballads, led fabulous Portuguese jazz songbird Raquel Alvaro.
Accompanying Raquel will be piano maestro, arranger and composer Alec Robinson, saxophone legend Jon Taylor and double bass player Tim Murgatroyd.
Queer Spaces: Imagining a better world through a queer lens
Queer Spaces: Climate Pride, October 22, 7pm
THIS one-off night of sparkling new stories imagines a better world through a queer lens. Written and performed by York LGBTQIA artists trying out new work for the first time, Queer Spaces is presented by Roots in association with York Theatre Royal and the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
Pianist Karl Mullen: Everything from Chopin to Oasis, via Led Zeppelin and Les Dawson
Karl Mullen, October 23, 8pm
KARL Mullen is a familiar sight to York visitors as the busker with an upright piano playing outside York Minster, jazz fixture at The Phoenix Inn, in George Street, and Pub Piano Champion at the Leeds Piano Competition.
Mullen has a huge repertoire and specialises in virtuosic arrangements of material from The Great American Songbook, classic pop and rock, boogie-woogie and blues. Expect a highly entertaining mix of everything from Chopin to Oasis, via Led Zeppelin and Les Dawson, delivered with a large dose of humour and stories.
Jazz singer and pianist Nicki Allan
The Nicki Allan Quartet, October 24, 8pm
LEEDS jazz outfit The Nicki Allan Quartet are headed by jazz singer and pianist Nicki Allan, whose vocal style blends wholesome blues sound with soulful jazz and a hint of R&B. Together, the quartet plays a lively and varied set of up-tempo music with a fresh, modern sound interwoven with bold improvisation, scat and a deliciously driving feel.
The Isolation Creations: Hosting The Haunted Haus Of Games
The Haunted Haus Of Games with The Isolation Creations, October 25, 8pm
EYES down for a full Haus of spooky shenanigans as drag queen comedians The Isolation Creations return to York Theatre Royal with their Halloween show, full of ghosts and ghoulies!
Join Jamie Honeybourne and Alan Gibbons for an evening of bingo, laughter, games, surprises and cheesy prizes. “Dress in your best spooky fancy dress and you might go home with a trick and a treat,” they say.
Tickets for The Old Paint Shop are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Griffonage Theatre: Theatre at the intersection of the madcap and the macabre
IRISH village tales, love’s vicissitudes, folk and ceilidh nights and ghost & goblin storytelling bring autumn cheer to Charles Hutchinson.
Time to discover: Griffonage Theatre in FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
YORK devotees of the madcap, the macabre and making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, Griffonage Theatre transport audiences to the quirky rural town of Baile Aighneas – The Town of Dispute – for FourTold, a quartet of comedies by early 20th century Irish playwright Lady Augusta Gregory, never presented together in the UK until now under Northern Irish director Katie Leckey.
Encounter the bustling market and all its gossip in Spreading The News; the restaurant where newspaper editors wine, dine and mix up their Coats; the post office, where the splendid Hyacinth Halvey has sent word he is coming to town, and the bus stop where strangers such as The Bogie Men can quickly become friends! Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Scott Graham
Relationship drama of the week: Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
FRANTIC Assembly follow up York Theatre Royal visits of Othello and Metamorphosis with their 30th anniversary production, a two-hander memory play by Anna Jordan, directed by physical theatre specialist Scott Graham.
Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson play Robbie and Jess, whose chance meeting, disastrous dates and extraordinary transformative love is the stuff of fairy tales. Or is it? Lost Atoms is a wild ride through a life-changing relationship, or Robbie and Jess’s clashing recollections as they relive the beats of connection, the moments of loss, but are their stories the same and can their memories be trusted? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie: Pure entertainment at York Barbican
Oh, lucky you gig of the week: Lightning Seeds, Tomorrow’s Here Today, 35 Years Greatest Hits Tour, York Barbican, tomorrow, 8pm
NOW in his 36th year of leading Liverpool’s Lightning Seeds, Ian Broudie heads to York on his extended Tomorrow’s Here Today tour. Cue Pure, The Life Of Riley, Change, Lucky You, Sense, All I Want, Sugar Coated Iceberg, You Showed Me, Emily Smiles, Three Lions et al. Casino support. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jack Fry’s Quasimodo and Ayana Beatrice Poblete’s Esmerelda in Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ The Hunchback Of Notre Dame
Musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 10, 11 and 14 to 18, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
BLACK Sheep Theatre Productions bring a cast of five leads, seven ensemble actors and a 23-strong choir to the York company’s larger-than-life staging of Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz’s musical rooted in Disney’s 1996 musical film and Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel.
Combining powerful themes of love, acceptance and the nature of good and evil with a sweeping score, Matthew Peter Clare’s show will be “like nothing you’ve seen before”. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Alex Mitchell: Headlining the Funny Fridays comedy bill at Patch at Bonding Warehouse, York
Comedy gig of the week: Funny Fridays, Patch at Bonding Warehouse, Terry Avenue, York, Friday, 7.30pm
BRITAIN’S Got Talent star Alex Mitchell headlines October’s Funny Fridays bill at Patch, hosted by promoter and comedy turn Katie Lingo. On the bill too will be Pheebs Stephenson, Jacob Kohn, Lorna Green and Jimmy Johnson.
“As this year’s event falls on World Mental Health Day, we’re raising money for Samaritans with bucket collections, ticket proceeds and a raffle. I’m a volunteer at the York branch and see first-hand the incredible work they do.” Tickets: eventbrite.co.uk or on the door.
Suthering’s Julu Irvine and and Heg Brignall: Playing Helmsley Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: Suthering, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
ADVOCATES for the LGBTQ+ community and for the rights of women and other marginalised people, Tavistock folk duo Suthering’s Julu Irvine and and Heg Brignall weave harmonies through their original songs, paired with gentle guitar and emotive piano arrangements.
Known for their chemistry, storytelling and humour on stage, they intertwine their messages about the state of our climate, social conscience, the importance of community and connecting with nature, while championing female characters, creating new narratives for women and unearthing the female heroines of the folk tradition, as heard on their second album, 2024’s Leave A Light On. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Ceilidh of the week: Jackhare Ceilidh Band, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 7.30pm
RYEDALE Dog Rescue presents the Jackhare Ceilidh Band in an evening of traditional English dance music this weekend. Doors open at 7pm and the Studio Bar will be open. Tickets must be pre-booked by emailing fundraising@ryedaledogrescue.org.uk, phoning 01653 697548, texting 07843 971973 or messaging on the Ryedale Dog Rescue Facebook page.
Robin Simpson: Storyteller and York Theatre Royal pantomime dame
Spooky entertainment of the week: Robin Simpson’s Magic, Monsters And Mayhem!, Rise at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, October 12, doors 4pm
YORK Theatre Royal pantomime dame Robin Simpson – soon to give his Nurse Nellie in Sleeping Beauty this winter – celebrates witches, wizards, ghosts and goblins in his storytelling show.
“The audience is in charge in this interactive performance, ideal for fans of spooky stories and silly songs,” says Robin. “The show is perfect for Years 5 and upwards, but smaller siblings and their grown-ups are very welcome too.” Tickets: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.
Beverley Knight: Stories and songs at York Barbican. Picture: Lewis Shaw
Concert announcement of the week: Beverly Knight, Born To Perform, York Barbican, June 20 2026
QUEEN of British soul Beverley Knight will share stories from her life on stage, as well as performing her biggest hits, musical theatre favourites and cherished songs that have inspired her.
“I’m excited to get back on the road but with a different kind of show that folk are used to with me,” says Wolverhampton-born Beverley, 52. “Born To Perform is me taking you on a journey through my life on both music and theatre stages, using my memories and of course my songs. I’m stripping back my sound so the audience can lean in a little closer and really hear my soul.” Tickets go on sale on Friday at 10am at https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/beverley-knight-2026.
York ghost storyteller James Swanton: Returning to York Medical Society for a second season of The Signal-Man performances. Picture: Jtu Photography
AFTER a sell-out run last Halloween, gothic York actor James Swanton is reviving his solo production of Charles Dickens’s The Signal-Man from October 16 to 28.
A familiar face from Inside No. 9 and The First Omen, he will give ten performances of his solo show at York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, before transferring to the Charles Dickens Museum in London.
Each performance will incorporate a second Dickens’s ghost story, The Trial For Murder, and the show will run as a partner event with the York Ghost Merchants, in Shambles, whose annual Ghost Week celebrations will take over the city from October 25 to November 2.
“Last year, I was shocked when every performance of The Signal-Man sold out more than a month in advance,” says James. “I think that had a lot to do with the wild popularity of the York Ghost Merchants! I’ve therefore scheduled twice as many performances this Halloween.”
All but one performance – October 21 – has sold out already, matching the popularity of his annual performances of Dickens’s Christmas ghost stories, A Christmas Carol, The Haunted Man and The Chimes since 2018.
“The Signal-Man ranks among the most famous ghost stories of all time – subtle and mysterious, but gradually building to a devastating conclusion,” says James Swanton
Here James discusses Dickens’s storytelling prowess with CharlesHutchPress
If at first you succeed, do The Signal-Man again, but what might differ from last Halloween?
“This year, I’m relieved to have had first-hand experience of the show actually working in performance! That should make everything more collected and confident, though I hope without losing the quiet mesmeric charge. It’s a strikingly different energy to most Dickens, which is where the M. R. James comparisons come in.”
What makes York Medical Society such an ideal setting?
“I enjoy a black-box theatre space, but it’s difficult to beat the immersive feel of antique wood panelling, latticed windows and an open fireplace. The room in which I’m performing puts me in mind of the tavern in Barnaby Rudge. Perfect for relating ghostly tales!”
What form does the partnership with York Ghost Merchants take?
“It’s mainly about connection and community; the Ghost Merchants are always giving back to York. Those who are in the city for Ghost Week may stumble on my storytelling thanks to the Merchants – and in turn, my shows may tip them off to things going on elsewhere.
“I feel this is one story that works far better when spoken out loud than read in private,” says James Swanton of The Signal-Man
“We’ve been collaborating since early 2020 – pre-pandemic! – when I gave a rendition of M. R. James’s Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book at their Shambles premises. Each ticket included a tie-in yellow-eyed ghost, patterned after the demon in the story. Highly collectable now, I’d imagine.”
How does The Signal-Man differ from Dickens‘s Christmas ghost stories?
“It’s a rather darker show, ranking among the most famous ghost stories of all time – subtle and mysterious, but gradually building to a devastating conclusion.
“I’ve now performed it everywhere from Gad’s Hill – the country house at which Dickens died in 1870 – to a Category C prison. Everywhere it holds audiences riveted. I first gave The Signal-Man with the York Ghost Merchants as one of their online streams during the pandemic, so it’s fitting to be collaborating with them again.”
Without giving away the ending, what happens in The Signal-Man and why does it suit live performance?
“In short form, a wandering gentleman befriends a lonely signal-man on an isolated stretch of railway. He there hears about the signal-man’s uncanny supernatural experiences.
“I feel this is one story that works far better when spoken out loud than read in private. Simon Callow agreed with me after he recorded it as an audio drama.
“Dickens is essentially the character actor’s Shakespeare,” says James
“Even so, I’d recommend that people familiarise themselves with the text in advance. The final revelation takes some digesting, not unlike the ending of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. But once the core idea sinks in, it’s forever burned into the memory.”
Likewise, what happens in The Trial For Murder and why does it suit live performance?
“A city gentleman does jury service at the Old Bailey and begins to catch sight of an unsettling figure whose face is ‘the colour of impure wax’. People don’t generally know this story – it also goes by the unhelpful title ‘To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt’ – so there’s a vital element of surprise.
“After all, a courtroom is itself a type of theatre, and this narrative’s structure is deliberate, verging on procedural, which contrasts well with the shocks.
“The Trial For Murder is less well known [than The Signal-Man] – and in my opinion, something of a neglected classic. Like The Signal-Man, it feels imbued with the spirit of M. R. James. So many of Dickens’s ghosts are family-friendly – just think of A Christmas Carol and how well it lends itself to the Muppets! None of that with these tales. Keep your children away.”
The poster for James Swanton’s double bill of ghost stories for Halloween at York Medical Society
How come you performed The Signal-Man at a Category C prison?
“This came about after an approach from A. G. Smith, who’s highly regarded as a ghostly storyteller through his touring work with Weeping Bank. The prison offered that rare thing: an audience who not only wanted but needed to be told a story.
“They were among the best I’ve ever had; certainly the most attentive. I’m sure they understood the signal-man’s feelings of entrapment in ways I can’t begin to imagine.”
What keeps drawing you back to Dickens?
“His invented people are irresistible; Dickens is essentially the character actor’s Shakespeare. That said, his narration interests me more and more with the passage of time. And there’s rather a lot of that in these two pieces! The eye-catching grotesques melt away and the storyteller takes centre stage.”
James Swanton (in the mirror) and Julia Garner in the film poster for Apartment 7A
What else is coming up for you? Any filming commitments?
“There’s the odd project in the offing, though nothing nailed down. I’ve been continuing my association with Hammer Films this month. They put me back into Christopher Lee’s Creature make-up for last week’s premiere of their restored Curse Of Frankenstein, where I was honoured to shake hands with 90-year-old cast member Melvyn Hayes. Young Frankenstein himself!
“I’ll also be guesting at Manchester’s Festival of Fantastic Films closer to Halloween. But most of the year is now blocked out with stage work, including my return to York Medical Society in the last week of November with A Christmas Carol and The Haunted Man. Tickets are now on sale.”
And finally, James, why should audiences see The Signal-Man?
“Come to The Signal-Man if you want to experience old-fashioned theatrical storytelling in the pricelessly atmospheric setting of York Medical Society. Roger Clarke, esteemed author of A Natural History Of Ghosts, has been good enough to call me ‘the best interpreter of Charles Dickens’s ghost stories alive’. I’ll be doing my chilling best to live up to that praise.”
James Swanton presents The Signal-Man, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, October 16 to 28, 7pm, except October 27 and 28 at 5.30pm and 7.30pm.Tickets are on sale too forCharles Dickens’s Ghost Stories, The Haunted Man, November 24 and 27, 7pm; A Christmas Carol, November 25 and 28, 7pm; November 30, 2pm and 6pm.Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
James Swanton in ghost story-telling mode at York Medical Society
James Swanton on York’s history of trains and ghosts and Dickens’s railway links
“YORK is as much a city of trains as ghosts. The National Railway Museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the opening of its refurbished Station Hall.
“It’s also been an interesting year for Dickens’s links with the railways. 2025 marks 160 years since the Staplehurst accident – a horrifying train crash from which Dickens was lucky to escape with his life.
“It’s this trauma that inspired him to write The Signal-Man, which might also be considered the last story that Dickens completed. All that followed were collaborative works and an unfinished novel.
“Incredibly, Dickens died on the fifth anniversary of the Staplehurst crash. Given that The Signal-Man is so much about our inability to escape our fates, that feels eerily significant.
“I was pleased when the Charles Dickens Museum commissioned me to create a show based on the incident in June. We gave it a sensational title: Killing Dickens!”
James Swanton working with Mark Gatiss. Picture: Sonchia Lopez
Did you know?
JAMES Swanton often appears on film as all manner of demons and monsters. Last year, he was seen in Apartment 7A, Tarot, The First Omen and the final series of Inside No. 9.
He also has a keen interest in the history of screen horror. “Many people first encounter The Signal-Man through the 1976 Ghost Story For Christmas starring Denholm Elliott,” he says.
“In 2023, I became a part of the BBC’s modern Ghost Stories For Christmas tradition – playing the Mummy in Mark Gatiss’s Lot No. 249, chasing poor Kit Harington down those country roads at night – so I’d like to think I’m well placed to present such terrors on stage.
“Recently, I was reunited with Lot No. 249’s make-up man, the Oscar- winning Dave Elsey, to re-create Christopher Lee’s Creature from The Curse Of Frankenstein, in aid of a documentary on the new Blu-ray release. At last, I can say I’ve been employed by Hammer Films!
“I’d stop short of saying I’m now Christopher Lee’s representative on Earth, but it was certainly a singular honour.”
Roy Chubby Brown: No offence, but it’s simply comedy, reckons Britain’s stalwart potty-mouthed joker at York Barbican
FROM sacre bleu comedy to a French silent film, Graham Nash and Al Stewart on vintage form to Grayson Perry on good and evil, love’s vicissitudes to the Hunchback musical, October is brewing up a storm of culture, reports Charles Hutchinson.
Blue humour of the week: Roy Chubby Brown, It’s Simply Comedy, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm
GRANGETOWN gag veteran Roy Chubby Brown, now 80, forewarns: “Not meant to offend, it’s simply a comedy tour”. After more than 50 years of spicy one-liners and putdowns, he continues to tackle the subjects of sex, celebrities, politics and British culture with a high profanity count and contempt for political correctness. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Gemma Curry in Hoglets Theatre’s The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale at York Theatre Royal Studio
Children’s show of the week: Hoglets Theatre in The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale, York Theatre Royal Studio, today, 11am and 2pm
FRESH from an award-winning Edinburgh Fringe run, York company Hoglets Theatre invite primary-age children and families to an exciting adventure packed with beautiful handmade puppets, sea creatures, original songs and audience interaction aplenty.
Performed, crafted and directed by Gemma Curry, The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale celebrates friendship, difference and the beauty of being yourself in Andy Curry’s tale of Whale singing his heart out into the deep blue sea, but nobody singing back until…a mysterious voice echoes through the waves, whereupon Whale embarks on an unforgettable adventure. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Graham Nash: Sixty years of song at York Barbican. Picture: Ralf Louis
Vintage gigs of the week: Graham Nash, An Evening Of Songs And Stories, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm; Al Stewart, The Farewell Tour, York Barbican, October 7, 7.45pm
GRAHAM Nash, 83-year-old two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Grammy award winner, performs songs spanning his 60-year career fromThe Hollies to Crosby, Stills andNash, CSNY (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) to his solo career, joined by Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), Adam Minkoff(bass, drums, guitars and vocals) and Zach Djanikian (guitars, mandolin, drums and vocals). Long-time friend Peter Asher supports.
The poster for Al Stewart’s farewell tour, visiting York Barbican on Tuesday
Glasgow-born folk-rock singer-songwriter Al Stewart marks his 80th birthday (born 5/9/1945) with his UK farewell tour. After relocating to Chandler Arizona from Los Angeles, his home for the past 45 years, he is winding down his touring schedule with his long-running time band The Empty Pockets. Time for the last Year Of The Cat. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jonny Best: Leading Frame Ensemble’s improvised score for The Divine Voyager at the NCEM. Picture: Chris Payne
Film event of the week: Northern Silents presents The Divine Voyager with Frame Ensemble, National Centre for Early Music, York, Monday, 7.30pm
FRAME Ensemble’s spontaneous musicians Jonny Best (piano), Susannah Simmons (violin), Liz Hanks (cello) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion) accompany Julien Duvivier’s lushly photographed, beautifully poetic 1929 French silent film The Divine Voyage with an improvised live score.
In a tale of faith and hope, rapacious businessman Claude Ferjac sends his ship, La Cordillere, on a long trading journey, knowing it is likely to sink after poor repairs. An entire village of sailors, desperate to support their families, has no choice but to set sail. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
James Lee, left, Helen Clarke, front, Wilf Tomlinson, back, and Katie Leckey rehearsing for Griffonage Theatre’s FourTold. Picture: John Stead
Time to discover: Griffonage Theatre in FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
YORK devotees of the madcap, the macabre and making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, Griffonage Theatre transport audiences to the quirky rural town of Baile Aighneas – The Town of Dispute – for FourTold, a quartet of comedies by early 20th century Irish playwright Lady Augusta Gregory, never presented together in the UK until now under Northern Irish director Katie Leckey.
Encounter the bustling market and all its gossip in Spreading The News; the restaurant where newspaper editors wine, dine and mix up their Coats; the post office, where the splendid Hyacinth Halvey has sent word he is coming to town, and the bus stop where strangers such as The Bogie Men can quickly become friends! Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Hannah Sinclair Robinson’s Jess and Joe Layton’s Robbie in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms, on tour at York Theatre Royal next week. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Relationship drama of the week: Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, October 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
FRANTIC Assembly follow up York Theatre Royal visits of Othello and Metamorphosis with their 30th anniversary production, a two-hander memory play by Anna Jordan, directed by physical theatre specialist Scott Graham.
Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson play Robbie and Jess, whose chance meeting, disastrous dates and extraordinary transformative love is the stuff of fairy tales. Or is it? Lost Atoms is a wild ride through a life-changing relationship, or Robbie and Jess’s clashing recollections as they relive the beats of connection, the moments of loss, but are their stories the same and can their memories be trusted? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Grayson Perry: “Finding out if you really are thoroughly good or maybe quite evil, but in a fun way” at the Grand Opera House
Question of the week: Grayson Perry: Are You Good?, Grand Opera House, October 7, 7.30pm
AFTER A Show For Normal People And A Show All About You, artist, iconoclast, television presenter and Knight Bachelor Grayson Perry asks Are You Good? A question that he thinks is “fundamental to our humanity”.
“In this show I will be helping you, the audience, find out if you really are thoroughly good or maybe quite evil, but in a fun way,” says Sir Grayson. “I always start out with the assumption that people are born good and then life happens. So, let’s pull back the curtain and see where your morals truly lie.” Add audience participation and silly songs, and expect to come out with core values completely in tatters. “Is it more important to be good or to be right? It’s time to update what is a virtue and what is a sin. No biggie.” Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie: Pure entertainment at York Barbican on Thursday
Oh, lucky you gig of the week: Lightning Seeds, Tomorrow’s Here Today, 35 Years Greatest Hits Tour, York Barbican, October 9, 8pm
NOW in his 36th year of leading Liverpool’s Lightning Seeds, Ian Broudie heads to York on his extended Tomorrow’s Here Today tour. Cue Pure, The Life Of Riley, Change, Lucky You, Sense, All I Want, Sugar Coated Iceberg, You Showed Me, Emily Smiles, Three Lions et al. Casino support. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jack Fry’s Quasimodo and Ayana Beatrice Poblete at Black Sheep Theatre Productions’s Selby Abbey photoshoot for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, opening next week at the JoRo
Musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 10, 11 and 14 to 18, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
BLACK Sheep Theatre Productions bring a cast of five leads, seven ensemble actors and a 23-strong choir to the York company’s larger-than-life staging of Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz’s musical rooted in Disney’s 1996 musical film and Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel.
Combining powerful themes of love, acceptance and the nature of good and evil with a sweeping score, Matthew Peter Clare’s show will be “like nothing you’ve seen before”. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Joe Layton’s Robbie and Hannah Sinclair Robinson’s Jess opening up the cabinet of memories in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Tristram Kenton
IT starts with a chance meeting, sharing a mobile hotspot, followed by some disastrous dates, but then an extraordinary transformative love ensues. This is the stuff of fairy tales, surely? Or is it?
Welcome to Lost Atoms, Frantic Assembly’s 30th anniversary production, on tour at York Theatre Royal from October 7 to 11, under the direction of physical theatre specialist Scott Graham, who was at the helm of the London company’s earlier York visits with Othello and Metamorphosis.
Written by Anna Jordan, who has credits for Succession and Killing Eve episodes as well as Frantic Assembly’s Unreturning, Lost Atoms takes Jess (Hannah Sinclair Robinson) and Robbie (Joe Layton) on a wild ride through a life-changing relationship.
Frantic Assembly director Scott Graham in the rehearsal room for Lost Atoms. Picture: Ben Hewis
Or, or more pointedly, through Jess and Robbie’s recollection of how they scaled the soaring highs and crushing lows as they relive the beats of connection, the moments of loss – but are their stories the same and can their memories be trusted?
By turns humorous and heartbreaking, Lost Atoms’ timeless story explores how love shapes our lives and how we remember it as two people plunge deep into their shared pasts and propel themselves into multiple futures, risking it all.
Welcome back to York, Hannah, who, like Coronation Street alumnus Joe, appeared in Metamorphosis and Othello, as Grete and Bianca in her case; the Chief Clerk and Iago in his.
“My first experience of Frantic Assembly was when I did a three-year performing arts course at Bath Spa [University], where we researched the company for a devising module,” recalls Hannah. “My tutor was a big fan, and I first saw a Frantic Assembly in Othello at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, which was an incredible show.
“We’ve had a massive hand in character development and offering a character’s insight on a scene, which was such a privilege,” says Hannah Sinclair Robinson, pictured in rehearsal for Lost Atoms. Picture: Ben Hewis
“I have a dance background and I loved how their work married my two favourite things, acting and dancing, so it really inspired me. Then, when I did the tenth anniversary tour of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, I hadn’t realised that Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham had done the movement direction.
“So when I heard that Frantic Assembly would be doing Othello again, I contacted them to say I’d seen it in 2014 and loved it, and ‘please can I have an audition?’! And the rest is history, working with them ever since. It’s been like a dream come true.”
Now comes Lost Atoms, a performance that is all the more physical, the more intense, for being a two-hander. “It’s been very intensive, rehearsing for five weeks with Scott,” says Hannah. “It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because there’s no respite, no breaks, you’re both on there all the time.
“The physical element is one of the biggest things for Frantic Assembly, using movement to express things that are unsaid; things you can’t say but can express with movement.
“Working with Scott in rehearsals, we did a couple of weeks of ‘table work’, going through the script, settling on your character’s intentions, and then we used Frantic Assembly’s building blocks, creating movements based around the theme, putting them together with Joe [Layton] after starting with six small movements.”
“The gift we give is that there is hope,” says Hannah of Lost Atoms’ journey through love’s ups and downs. Picture: Scott Graham
Describing Lost Atoms’ structure, Hannah says: “It’s a play about love and memory, as a couple come together to relive their past history with different motives for meeting up and with their differing perspectives: how we remember things differently – and that depends on how we want to remember things and how we want to be remembered.”
Hannah and Joe have been involved in the gestation of Lost Atoms since taking part in three weeks of research-and-development sessions. “We started maybe late last year, and the first week was with Anna, the writer, as well as Scott,” she says. “We’ve had a massive hand in character development and offering a character’s insight on a scene, which was such a privilege.
“As an actor, you draw on your own experiences, accessing different emotions. For Lost Atoms, we could share experiences of love, both platonic and romantic and familial too. It was a really safe space to do that, so it feels like our fingerprints are all over the show.”
Hannah and Joe performing together previously has been an advantage when working on Lost Atoms. “Because it’s a two-hander and it’s so intense, it’s really important that you have that trust. Joe is a brilliant actor and friend and we trust each other totally,” she says, as the partnership blossoms in performance at Curve, Leicester, where the production opened on September 22.
“Because it’s a two-hander and it’s so intense, it’s really important that you have that trust. Joe is a brilliant actor and friend and we trust each other totally,” says Hannah. Picture: Scott Graham
“After five weeks in the rehearsal room, it comes to the point where you need to put it in front of an audience, because there’s both humour and heartbreak and you’ve got to find the points where the humour lands.
“Also, because it’s so physical and intense, you need to learn how to open it up to share with people, and you have to learn the rhythm of the performance too.”
Ultimately, for all its candour about love being strange, Lost Atoms has a hopeful tone. “It doesn’t necessarily come in the package you might expect, but we hope to leave people with that feeling of hope, even within the heartbreak of the relationship,” says Hannah. “The gift we give is that there is hope.”
Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, October 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Griffonage Theatre director Katie Leckey in rehearsal for FourTold, next week’s focus on Irish playwright Lady Augusta Gregory at Theatre@41, Monkgate. Picture: John Stead
CHANCES are high that you will never have heard of Lady Augusta Gregory, but why not?
“Because she fell out of favour in her native Ireland,” says Griffonage Theatre co-founder and director Katie Leckey, introducing the neglected playwright from rural Roxborough, County Galway, whose work will be reactivated in FourTold, the York company’s quadruple bill of one-act comedies at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York from October 6 to 10.
Here are the facts: Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager, who co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, with William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn.
“She was very popular in the early 20th century, in America too, and she was especially popular in own lifetime [Augusta died on May 22 1932, aged 80]. She was still being performed regularly until the mid-1950s,” says Katie. “But her plays died out mainly because they were mostly performed at Abbey Theatre, which she’d helped to create.
“What these plays were at the time was commercial theatre, light comedies. Irish plays written for Irish people, performed by Irish actors.
James Lee in the rehearsal room for Griffonage Theatre’s FourTold. Picture: John Stead
“Only one of the plays we’re doing has been toured anywhere near recently, and even that was 25 years ago, when two productions were done in England, but Coats has never been performed in the UK.”
Until now…when Griffonage Theatre, the York company with University of York roots and a flair for the madcap and macabre, will feature Coats in FourTold, an “evening of captivating storytelling, complete with a live band, performed in an intimate setting that makes you feel right at home, wherever that may be”.
FourTold will transport next week’s audiences to the quirky rural town of Baile Aighneas, or “The Town of Dispute,” as Katie calls it. “The town boasts many splendid features, as presented in the four plays: the bustling market – and all its gossip – in Spreading The News!; the restaurant where two well-to-do newspaper editors wine, dine and mix up theirCoats; the post office, where the splendid Hyacinth Halvey has sent word he’s coming to town, and the…er, coach stop…where strangers like The Bogie Men can quickly become friends!” she says.
Lady Augusta is a passion project for Northern Irish actor, director and sound designer Katie, forming part of her now completed MA theatre studies at the University of York. “I did The Bogie Men for a closed, invitation-only exam piece, when it had never been performed in England before,” she says.
“Even in Ireland its performance record is tenuous! Only one performance in 1903. Hyacinth Halvey wasn’t done over here either, so our production marks the first time these four plays will be performed together in Great Britain.
Script in hand: Katie Leckey in rehearsal for FourTold. Picture: John Stead
“She didn’t start writing until her 40s and then wrote more than 60 plays, in the decades preceding the Irish Civil War – and novels too, translating Irish myths into English. She was a crazy lady! The best!
“Because she wrote so prolifically, I’ve taken an eclectic mix from 1903 to 1914, picking plays I liked – though I could have chosen any four because they’re so good.
“They’re tiny, tiny pieces, almost like sketches: Spreading The News! is 20-25 minutes; Coats, a rip-roaring 15 minutes; Hyacinth Halvey, 35 minutes, The Bogie Men, 25. Though she did also write Graina, a tragedy, a big epic tale, nothing like these plays, that the Abbey Theatre revived a year ago. She could do the whole scope.”
Katie has decided not to ‘Anglicise’ the plays “because they were written in the Irish dialect, where she listened to people on her estate in the tiny village of Gort,” she says. “I’ve been there. It’s a lovely part of the world.
“She would listen to the labourers, servants and villagers because she was very philanthropic. The dialect would die out in her lifetime. It was born out of English having to be learned because of colonisation and was spoken by villagers who didn’t speak English well and were uneducated. It’s known as Hiberno English, but more specifically it was specifically KIltartanese because Gort is in and around Kiltartan.
James Lee, left, Helen Clarke=Neale , front, Wilf Tomlinson, back, and Katie Leckey rehearsing for Griffonage Theatre’s FourTold. Picture: John Stead
“The fascinating thing is that I’ve found it very similar to the Northern Irish dialect, born out of the English and the Scots coming over, so it’s similar to my own upbringing. It feels familiar to me, and rather than having Irish accents in the show, I want to do an homage to this Irish dialect, like the villagers would have had to learn.”
Katie continues: “The language is beautiful! They say things that you would never say; it’s still in English but the words are in a really fascinating order. It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn – and I had to learn both roles in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter last year!”
Katie’s cast of eight will be mirroring the performance manner of the Fay Brothers at the Abbey Theatre, while expanding on its confines. “They trained actors in a very specific style that was expressly for Irish actors, mostly based on the voice,” she says. “They focused on line delivery and rhythm, so there wasn’t much movement in the pieces – and that’s another reason her plays died out outside southern Ireland. They never even broke out into Northern Ireland.
“The other reason she died out? She’s a woman, whereas WB Yeats’s work has always been done. But we all know everyone loves an Irish accent, and just as the Fay Brothers focused on the lyrical and the voice, so I’m doing that too because it should be preserved, but I’m also focusing on the physicality of the language and the individual characters, because the characters are nuts – such as the butcher who sells unwholesome meat!
“The plays are a snapshot of a very strange rural Irish town: like Royston Vasey, home of The League Of Gentlemen, meeting Father Ted.”
Katie hopes to do a PhD on Lady Augusta. “I’m applying for it here because you can do a PhD through practice at the University of York,” she says. “I’d love to take her work out of being performed in the Fay Brothers style.
Making an entrance: Katie Leckey’s Magistrate rides on to the Theatre@41, Monkgate stage in the opening Lady Augusta Gregory play, Spreading The News, as James Lee’s Mrs Tully looks on. Picture: John Stead
“Her life was quite politically scandalous as she married a Unionist Anglo-Irish landowner, and had an affair with an Irish Republican. At some point she ran for the Irish Senate [the Seanad Éireann] but didn’t win.
“There’s no theatrical scholarship of her work, though there are biographies of her life story and you can read her letters and some studies of the myths around her work, but no studies of her theatrical work, which I think is criminal.”
Does Lady Augusta have a statue, Katie? “One, at Trinity College in Dublin. W B Yeats has more!” she says. To mark St Brigid’s Day, in February 2023, Trinity College installed four new sculptures in its Old Library to honour the scholarship of four trailblazing women: scientist Rosalind Franklin, mathematician Ada Lovelace, women’s right advocate Mary Wollstonecraft and folklorist, dramatist and theatre-founder Augusta Gregory.
Katie’s cast plays 22 characters between them in her multi-role-playing production. “We have a double task: to make plays that are not familiar feel more familiar, and when her plays are already strange, how do we present them in a familiar style? That’s a big challenge, especially when they’re all wee pieces, almost like sketches,” she says.
“What we’ve done is call on what we’ve done before [productions of Poe In Pitch Black, Patrick Hamilton’s Rope and Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Winter] and call on everyone’s suggestions in rehearsals.
Ben Koch’s Taig and Katie Leckey’s Darby, the chimney sweeps, in The Bogie Men. Picture: John Stead
“Her plays have a very melodramatic, very specific style, one that I’ve never seen on stage, which is why I’m so fascinated by her writing. They’re very stylised, almost like being in a courtroom at points; very joyful in tone and full of very much larger-than-life characters.
“When the plays were put on at The Abbey Theatre, the performances were bare with no theatrical spectacle, just people talking, which hopefully I’ve retained but there now needs to be physicality to supplement the dialogue, which is why I’ve put in slapstick. That’s what I learned from doing The Bogie Men for my Masters, so I’ve tried to extrapolate that to the extreme!”
Describing Lady Augusta’s theatrical tropes, Katie says: “Each of the plays has a dispute or misunderstanding at its centre: the classic comedy sketch set-up with either a minor misunderstanding or a massive argument – and she’s very good at writing massive fall-outs. A lot of the comedy comes from schadenfreude, especially in Coats.”
To capture that abundant friction, Katie has settled on a “thrust-plus” set, created by production designer Wilf Tomlinson. “It’s a traverse stage [with the audience placed either side] but it also goes half way round the balcony as well, so it’s almost in the round too but not quite! I’ve not really set it in any specific time or place, in the Town of Dispute but with modern references such as Rubik’s Cubes, yo-yos and a tricycle. All very playful, for comic effect.”
One final thought from Katie: “I have a sneaky feeling Samuel Beckett must have read The Bogie Men because there are very strange Beckettian tones to it,” she says, in a nod to sparring chimney sweeps Darby and Taig being forerunners of Waiting For Godot’s clownish Vladimir and Estragon
Griffonage Theatre presents FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Did you know?
LADY Augusta Gregory acted on stage only once. “She said she would never do it again as she didn’t like the feel of the greasepaint, but she would often be there at performances of her plays, floating around the theatre,” says Katie.
Griffonage Theatre’s poster for FourTold, starring Katie Leckey as The Magistrate, Mr Hazel and Darby; Ben Koch as James Ryan, Hyacinth Halvey and Taig; Wilf Tomlinson as Shawn Early and James Quirke; Emily Carhart as Mrs Fallon and Jo Muldoon; Helen Clarke as Bartley Fallon and Mrs Delane; Grace Palma as Mrs Tarpey and Phoebe Farrell; James Lee as Mrs Tully, Mr Mineog and Miss Joyce and Peter Hopwood as Jack Smith
Griffonage Theatre: the back story
YORK theatre company with University of York origins, devoted to the madcap and the macabre, eliciting humour from the darkness. “We aim to make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange,” vows the company motto.
Founded in 2022, Fourtold is Griffonage Theatre’s fourth production, after the devised Poe In Pitch Black, Patrick Hamilton’s Rope, and Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. “We can be found, lurking in shadows, smiling deviously, at https://www.griffonage.uk/,” says Katie.
The crew for FourTold comprises: director and sound designer, Katie Leckey; assistant director, Miles John; lighting designer and technical stage manager, Leo McCall; set designer, Wilf Tomlinson; stage manager, Zoe Deacy-Clarke; marketing manager, Jamie Williams; executive producer, Jack Mackay.
York companyGriffonage Theatre in debut production Poe In Pitch Black
