Category: Theatre

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Full cast confirmed for Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman’s world premiere of twisted thriller The Psychic at York Theatre Royal

York Theatre Royal’s cast and creative team for Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s world premiere of The Psychic

THE full cast is in place for York Theatre Royal’s world premiere of The Psychic, a twisted thriller written and directed by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman.

Joining the already announced Frances Barber (as Rosa) and Eileen Walsh (Sheila Gold) are Megan Placito (Tara), Dave Hearn (Robert Hamm), Jaz Singh Deol (Deepak), Nikhita Lesler (Nisha) and East Yorkshire actor Charlie Blanshard (Mark).

After the international success of Ghost Stories, Dyson and Nyman return with a dark thriller that follows the story of popular TV psychic Sheila Gold. The production will open on May 6, preceded from April 29, and will run until May 23 with its combination of thrills, laughs and shocks.

The Psychic co-writers and co-directors Jeremy Dyson, left, and Andy Nyman

Sheila Gold loses a high-profile court case that brands her a charlatan, costing her not only her reputation, but also a fortune in legal fees. When a wealthy couple ask Sheila to conduct a séance to attempt to make contact with their late child, she senses an opportunity to bleed them for money.

What follows makes Sheila question everything she has ever believed and leads her on a journey into the darkest corners of her life.

Joining Dyson and  Nyman in the production team will be designer Rae Smith; illusion designer Chris Fisher; lighting designer Zoe Spurr; sound designer Nick Manning; video designer Duncan Mclean; casting director Arthur Carrington;  associate director Andy Room and design assistant Will Fricker.

The poster for York Theatre Royal’s world premiere of The Psychic

Award-winning Leeds-born writer and director Dyson’s writing credits include Ghost Stories, nominated for Olivier Award for Best Entertainment; The League Of Gentlemen Are Behind You, The League Of Gentlemen: A Local Show For Local People, nominated for Olivier Award for Best Entertainment, and The League Of Gentlemen.

His co-writing credits for television include Psychobitches, winner of Rose d’Or for Best TV Comedy and nominations for two British Comedy Awards; The Armstrong & Miller Show, BAFTA Award winner for Best Comedy; Billy Goat; Funland, nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Drama Serial and The League Of Gentlemen, winner of BAFTA Award for Best Comedy, Golden Rose of Montreux and RTS Award for Best Entertainment. Co-writing credits include Ghost Stories and The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse.

 Nyman is an award-winning actor, director and writer. As an actor, his theatre work includes The Producers(Menier Chocolate Factory/Garrick Theatre); Assassins; Terrible Advice(Menier Chocolate Factory); Fiddler On The Roof (Menier Chocolate Factory/Playhouse Theatre – Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical); Abigail’s Party (Menier Chocolate Factory/Wyndham’s Theatre); Hello, Dolly! (London Palladium) and Hangmen (Wyndham’s Theatre/Golden Theatre, New York City).

Charlie Blanshard: Appeared on the York stage in 2025 in his debut full-length play Jorvik and York company Next Door But One’s How To Be A Kid

He starred in Ghost Stories (Duke of York’s Theatre/Arts Theatre),  co-written and co-directed with Jeremy Dyson and later adapted into a film, in which he also starred.

His television credits include Hanna, Wanderlust, The Eichmann Show, Campus, Crooked House, Dead Set and Peaky Blinders. Among his film credits are Wicked: Part 1, Jungle Cruise, Judy, The Commuter, Death At A Funeral, Kick-Ass 2, Black Death, The Brothers Bloom, Severance and Shut Up & Shoot Me (Best Actor Award at the Cherbourg Film Festival).

Nyman has collaborated with Derren Brown for almost 20 years, co-writing and co-creating much of Brown’s early TV work. He has co-written and directed six of Brown’s stage shows, winning the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Derren Brown – Something Wicked This Way Comes and a New York Drama Desk Award for Best Unique Theatrical Event in 2017 for Derren Brown – Secret.

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

Mischief Theatre co-founder Dave Hearn: Last appeared on the York Theatre Royal stage in Original Theatre’s The Time Machine in March 2023

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Next To Normal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until April 4 ***

Andrew Isherwood’s cast in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Next To Normal: back row, from left, Ryan Richardson’s Dr Madden/DrFine, Matthew Warry’s Gabe, Dale Vaughan’s Dan, Niamh Rose’s Natalie and Fergus Green’s Henry; front, Monica Frost’s Diana. Picture: Emil Marczuk

BRIAN Yorkey and Tom Kitt’s 2009 triple Tony Award-winning American musical carries a content warning on the Theatre@41 website and noticeboards.

“Please note, that Next To Normalincludes depictions of various mental health conditions and disorders, including bipolar disorder, anxiety, and grief,” it reads. “The production also includes depictions and discussion of drug use, self-harm, death, and medical trauma.”

At the heart of this intimate exploration of family and illness, loss and grief is electroconvulsive therapy, but audiences are in for shock treatment too. Pick Me Up Theatre’s show is loud, very loud, sometimes too loud, and while loathe to call it an aural assault, the combination of a score operatic in dramatic scale, propelled by rock guitars as much as keyboards, and vexatious singing, where voices rise and rise and overlap, can become too much, too big.

Your senses take one heck of a bashing, nothing by comparison with grief-riven suburban American wife and mother Diana’s 16 years of manic depression, granted, but you might want to let out a scream, if it were not so indelicate to do so.

Imagine a union of Alanis Morissette’s Thank U and Greek tragedy, as intense as clenched teeth, as restless as waiting for test results, in a musical stronger on malady than melody, as too many modern American shows are.

Director Andrew Isherwood, on an award-winning hot streak, seeks to find a chink of light in the shroud of darkness, drawing on the sporadic shards of humour, particularly in Act One, but they tend to sit awkwardly, as jagged as broken glass, under the weight of Kitt’s oppressive, largely depressive music.

Leading a merry dance: Ryan Richardson’s Dr Madden in a clasp with Monica Frost’s Diana. Picture: Joanna Hird

We meet the family in Robert Readman’s dark design of the kitchen, with a stairway to the bedrooms on the mezzanine level above. Between pillars can be seen musical director James Robert Ball’s band, Ball pretty much out of view but playing as beautifully as ever on the keyboard, complemented by Helen Warry’s violin and synths, Georgia Johnson’s bass, Joel Fergusson’s drums, Catherine Strachan’s cello and  Neil Morgan’s itchy guitar.

Pent-up dad Dan (Dale Vaughan) is an architect trying to hold the increasingly flimsy domestic structure in place. Mum  Diana is always in a rush but going nowhere fast, talking in front of the children of nipping upstairs for sex, making sandwiches for packed lunches, but she is cutting them on the floor.  

“Happy Easter,” she says, when teenage daughter Natalie points out that the wall calendar remains on April from the year before. Nothing she says makes sense, says Dan, confiding in the audience as he breaks down theatre’s fourth wall.

Natalie (a suitably prickly Niamh Rose) is bright, but agitated, her behaviour gradually mirroring her mother, distant, even sour, when fellow student Henry (Fergus Green) will not be put off by her cold shoulder. Eyes are said to be the window to the soul, but both Rose and Green have a curtain of hair, in the manner of Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke’s Kevin & Perry.

Brother Gabe (Matthew Warry) flits in and out, always in his mum’s corner and ear but often at odds with his dad. His story is central to her decline, but it would be wrong to give away the full details here, as the revelation needs to be gradual.

Frost looks younger than she is playing, Rose older, which is initially disorientating, but the characterisation and mannerisms soon emphasise the age difference.

Monica Frost’s Diana, Matthew Warry’s Gabe and Dale Vaughan’s Dan in the kitchen in Next To Normal. Picture: Joanna Hird

Your reviewer may not be alone in not connecting with any of the family members, in part because of so much self-pitying song content, while Green’s stoner Henry is something of a saint for persisting in caring for Natalie.

If laughter is the best medicine, then Ryan Richardson has his moments as a brace of doctors, Dr Madden and Dr Fine. Note the names: Madden and Fine, specialists in dealing with mental illness and trying to make you feel fine. Richardson has a disarming manner, something of the night about him, but more Dr Frank-N-Furter than Dr Frankenstein, putting the scare into care, yet always seeking to be reassuring despite all the shortfalls and pitfalls  in Diana’s ECT treatment.

Next To Normal is pretty much a sung-through musical, with only the briefest bursts of dialogue leading to the next outburst in song. More to-and-fro talk, fewer stand-and-deliver songs, would have been a better balance, rounding out the characterisation more fully too, a deficiency that undermined the show publicity’s promise of “presenting the family’s story with love, sympathy and heart”. Alas, your reviewer did not feel any of those emotions being stirred.

“Next to normal” is not only how the dysfunctional family eventually settles on living but sums up this musical too: it is indeed next to normal – if the likes of Six, Legally Blonde, Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, Buddy and Calendar Girls pass as normal – in being so discomforting, disquieting, musically unnerving, mentally exhausting, as unflinching as Spring Awakening.

The performances are better than the show, Ball’s band pulling out all the strings, and Isherwood’s cast equally committed to going hell for leather when in collective song, especially in the high-stakes sparring of Vaughan and Warry. Tenderness has its place too, and those songs are more rewarding, especially when Frost’s Diana is at her most emotionally damaged.

“There will be light, there will be light, there will be light, there will be light,” concludes the closing song Light, an assertion that feels wholly unconvincing, like the restoration of order at the end of Macbeth.

Pick Me Up Theatre, Next To Normal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until April 4; 7.30pm nightly except Sunday; 2.30pm matinees, tomorrow, Sunday and next Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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Why 2: 22 A Ghost Story is more than jump scares for Natalie Casey on stage return in timely Danny Robbins supernatural thriller

Natalie Casey’s Lauren and James Bye’s Sam in Danny Robins’ 2:22 A Ghost Story, on tour at Grand Opera House, York, next week

THE numbers add up for metropolitan supernatural thriller 2:22 A Ghost Story. Seven West End seasons, 12 productions worldwide, one record-breaking UK and Ireland tour, now being followed by another.

Next stop, a return to the Grand Opera House, York, from March 31 to April 4 after a first spooking in Europe’s self-proclaimed “most haunted city” in May 2024.

From the imagination of The Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny podcaster, broadcaster and journalist Danny Robins comes the paranormal tale of teacher-on-maternity-leave Jenny (Three Little Birds’ Shvorne Marks) and always-right scientist Sam (EastEnders’ James Bye) hosting their first dinner party since becoming the latest “posh tw*ts” to move into a newly gentrified Greater London neighbourhood.

For several nights, Jenny has been disturbed at 2:22am precisely by the sound of someone moving around the house and a man’s voice crying, picked up via the baby monitor in daughter Phoebe’s bedroom. 

She is convinced the house is haunted, but Sam scoffs at the suggestion, sparking an argument with dinner guests Lauren (Natalie Casey), Sam’s best friend since university days, and her latest boyfriend, builder Ben (Grant Kilburn), a streetwise, working-class counter to the yuppie London intellectuals.

Can the dead really walk again? Belief and scepticism clash, but as the sudden sounds, screams and blinding lights multiply and the trendy wine  flows, they will stay up until 2:22am to discover the answer in Robins’ thriller of Hitchcockian elan.

Facing up to the supernatural: James Bye, left, Shvorne Marks, Natalie Casey and Grant Kilburn in 2:22 A Ghost Story

“The thing about this show is that it’s a phenomenon,” says cast member Natalie Casey, once of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. “I’ve never been involved in anything like it. MAGA [Make America Great Again] is a cult, but 2:22 is a phenomenon. I’ve never done a show before where people scream, they cry, and it grabs them by whatever they want to be grabbed by!

“I first auditioned for it many years ago, but didn’t get it and was very sad about that, but I think I must have stayed on their radar as I was asked to do this tour – though I hadn’t toured for a long time – and got very excited when I saw who else would be doing it.

“It’s reinvigorated my love of touring, and it’s been amazing meeting people around the country, where we know that this is a time when lots is going on to divide people, when in fact  all we want is to get on with our neighbours and just hug each other.”

Analysing why 2:22 is more than a supernatural thriller, Natalie says: “It’s very richly layered. On the surface it’s about the jump scares, but it’s also a play about fear, longing and our refusal as human beings to let things go when we need to.

“To be able to deliver that message to people in the dark of a theatre, where they can feel real emotions together, is an amazing feeling to get as an actor. As dark as our times are, I can feel we want better, we want more, and theatre is a magical part of that.”

Natalie’s character, Lauren, comes from California. “So I’m doing a slight ‘Valley girl’ accent – I’m good at American accents as they infect every part of our lives,” she says. “I’m playing someone who’s completely unlike me, but that’s the chameleon quality of acting, where my dream is to be in Star Trek. I’d love to play a Klingon!”

New house, old friends: James Bye’s Sam, left, and Shvorne Marks’s Jenny, right, welcome Natalie Casey’s Lauren and Grant Kilburn’s Ben for dinner in 2:22 A Ghost Story

Actress, presenter, narrator and singer Natalie feels very lucky to be on stage with James Bye, Shvorne Marks and Grant Kilburn. “It’s very easy to ramp up the tension when you have actors so committed to doing that, and immediately the house becomes very claustrophobic: that feeling of walls closing on you,” she says.

Throughout, the clock is on the move. “There is the symbolism of time, how it will inevitably pass, whether we like it or not, and how it will reveal too, whether we want it to or not,” says Natalie.

Does she believe in the supernatural? “I’m not a believer, I’m a ‘man of science’. I’ve never experienced what could be classed as ‘supernatural’ or felt it, but I also know that science takes a long time to catch up, so I would never say that anyone who has had a supernatural experience is wrong. It’s just that we’ve not  yet reached the point where we can explain it,” says Natalie. “In an infinite world with infinite possibilities, there are infinite explanations.

“It’s part of our collective psyche, that obsession with what is just beyond our periphery; our need to reach out to what is just beyond our understanding. We will always look to give meaning to our world.”

Summing up 2:22 A Ghost Story, she says. “It might look like a simple piece of theatre with two couples sitting around a dinner party table, but it turns into a play about love and loss, mourning and yearning for a different life. This play will be watched for decades. This play will never die. Oh, the irony.”  

2:22 A Ghost Story, Grand Opera House, York, March 31 to April 4, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Black Sheep Theatre puts justice on trial in Parade at Joseph Rowntree Theatre amid religious intolerance and racial tension

Dan Poppitt, Charlie Clarke and Molly Whitehouse in rehearsal for Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Parade

MURDER in myriad forms is making its way on to North Yorkshire’s stages this spring, whether Tigerslane Studios’ real-true-crime courtroom drama Murder Trial Tonight IV: Death Of A Landlord at York Barbican last Sunday or Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s madcap musical whodunit Murder For Two, “putting the laughter into manslaughter” at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from Saturday.

Next comes York company Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ staging of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s stirring Tony Award-winning musical Parade, first performed in 1998 and now more topical than ever in its exploration of love and hope against the odds, set against a backdrop of religious intolerance, political injustice and rising racial tension.

The tragic true story of the trial and lynching of  a man wrongly accused of murder will be brought to life anew at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from April 1 to 4.

The setting is 1913, when Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew living in Georgia, is put on trial for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, a factory worker under his employ. Already guilty in the eyes of everyone around him, his only defenders are a governor with a conscience and his assimilated Jewish wife, who finds the strength and love to become his greatest champion when the world seems against you and receiving a fair trial might prove impossible.

Director/musical director  Matthew Peter Clare welcomes the chance to put Parade on parade. “It was due to be done in Leeds but that production got pulled because of Covid,” he says. “It’s not been done in York for at least a decade, and it’s fantastic for us to get hold of the rights, but it is an upsetting piece.

“It’s set in Marietta, near Atlanta, Georgia, post the race riots there, but pre the Great Depression and it’s based on a real-life trial of Leo Frank, who worked in middle management as a superintendent in a pencil factory.

“When one of the employees, Mary Phagan, is murdered, instead of doing a proper investigation, they arrest the nearest Jewish guy – whereas the the nearest black guy is let off because of the race riots, when politically it now wasn’t seen to be right to prosecute a black man.

“So they go with prosecuting Leo Frank, with all the prejudices  of the public heavily influencing the trial with the attitude of ‘he’s Jewish, so get rid.’”

Parade chimes with Black Sheep’s policy of presenting “theatre with a point  that encourages audience reflection”. “This is a show that, like our productions of Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens and Falsettos, is pushing the concept of ‘other’ to the front and shows the impact of moving against the ‘other’ at a time of racial prejudice,” says Matthew.

Playing the role of Leo Frank will be Black Sheep regular Dan Poppitt. “With regard to Leo, we said from very early on in rehearsals that he was not raised in Atlanta, unlike his wife Lucille, but from Brooklyn, and only moved there when offered a job by Lucille’s uncle, so Leo is seen as a Jewish man first, whereas Lucille is seen as Georgian first, Jewish second,” he says

“These are the nuances that we wanted to promote: the significance of his Jewish heritage and how that leads to prejudice.”

Dan has been particularly keen to be authentic in his portrayal. “Like having to learn Hebrew,” he says. “I’ve studied it phonetically to make sure that the dialogue is pronounced accurately.

Eloise Schneck rehearsing her role as Mary Phagan in Parade

“It’s a case of speaking it properly and with clear intention and how it should be delivered in society at that time.”

Molly Whitehouse is playing Leo’s wife Lucille, an assimilated Jewish woman, which means she “adopts the language, dress and secular cultural habits of the majority population”.

“I’m a northerner first and had a very secular upbringing,” she says. “That regional identity that you draw so much pride from, especially as a queer, working-class woman, can put you on the edge of the community.

“In Lucille’s case, she is already so close to the border of what’s acceptable in Georgia.”

Charlie Clarke has four roles in Parade, two on stage, as Mrs Phagan and Sally Slaton, and two off, as assistant director and choreographer. “I don’t do things by halves!” she says. “Luckily with Matthew directing and being the musical director too, I can spread what I do.

“As choreographer and assistant director, we’ve spoken about how each actor has to give each character their own identity, like Reggie Challenor playing two characters [Jim Conley and Newt Lee] who are the complete antithesis of each other.

“We’ve also discussed how, first of all, they’re all representing real people on stage and how they must make sure that’s pushed through in their performances – and the cast have been really receptive to that.

“We have to ensure we tell the story with truth because, before it’s a musical, it’s a true story.”

Dan rejoins: “I think, especially with a stage show, it’s very easy to forget they’re real characters, but every single person in the show was a real person with a life from before the show’s story began.”

The design will be “incredibly minimalist,” says Matthew. “The blocks we used in Falsettos will be used again, but in a different way, not to evoke houses but the red hills of Georgia. They’re being utilised either as part of the choreography or they’re serving as the landscape.”

Should you be wondering, Parade is so named because the story opens and closes on the day of the Marietta parade for the Confederates’ Memorial Day. “So that’s the framing device, celebrating Georgian identity, but unfortunately there’s a dark underside to that identity, where it prevails, being regardless of the truth in this trial,” says Matthew.

Black Sheep Theatre Productions in Parade, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 1 to 4, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

Who’s in the cast for Parade?

Dan Poppitt as Leo Frank; Molly Whitehouse, Lucille Frank; Reggie Challenor, Jim Conley/Newt Lee; Eloise Schneck, Mary Phagan; Oskar Nuttall, Frankie Epps/Young Soldier; Mark Simmonds, Governor Slaton/Old Slaton; Charlie Clarke, Mrs Phagan/Sally Slaton; Pauline Tomlin, Minnie McKnight; Jack Hooper, Hugh Dorsey; Richard Bayton, Britt Craig; Georgina Burt, Iola Stover;  David Copley Martin, Judge Roan; Jack James Fry, Luther Rosser/Officer Ivey; Sophia Razak, Essie, and Sarah Rudd, Monteen.

Who’s in the production team?

Director and musical director: Matthew Peter Clare; assistant director & choreographer: Charlie Clarke; assistant choreographer& welfare officer: Jack James Fry; costumier: Molly Whitehouse; sound designer: Ollie Nash; lighting designer: Adam Kirkwood; stage managers: Megan Bostock & Steve Hibbs.

Coming next from Black Sheep Theatre Productions

They did the monster match: Dan Poppitt’s Alan and Molly Whitehouse’s Minnie in Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ poster for Love At First Bite

JOSH Woodgate will direct Dan Poppitt and Molly Whitehouse’s seductive new work Love At First Bite at Theatre@41, Monkgate, from June 4 to 6.

“Dating can be hell, but what if one of them was a creature of the night?” ponder the co-writers.

What happens? Alan and Minnie meet at a speed-dating night. A spark flickers. Dates follow. Laughter lingers.

“Yet beneath the rhythms of a familiar rom-com, something waits in the dark,” say Poppitt and Whitehouse, who will play the lovers. “One of them is a vampire — but the secret shifts. Each night, the actors trade fangs, and the audience is left to wonder who is hunter, who is prey.”

Blending sharp-fanged wit with a brush of gothic shadow, Love At First Bite toys with romance, rewrites folklore and invites audiences to consider what it means to love…and to hunger!

Woodgate’s production will mark Black Sheep’s return to Theatre@41, Monkgate, after last year’s staging of The Tempest and The Inner Selves. Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday matinee are on sale at tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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Emmerdale bad lad Tom Lister to play Captain Hook in Grand Opera House panto The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan

Tom Lister’s Captain Hook in the poster for The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan: The Return Of Captain Hook

EMMERDALE star Tom Lister is Hooking up with the Grand Opera House to make his York pantomime debut in The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan: The Return Of Captain Hook from December 5 to January 3 2027.

Stage and screen actor Lister, 47, best known for his eight years as bad lad Carl King in the Yorkshire soap from 2004 to 2012, will be in villainous mode anew as Captain Hook, performing alongside the already confirmed comedic returnee Jimmy Bryant as Smee in the UK Productions show.

Born Thomas Brown in Ingleton, Yorkshireman Lister took his mother’s maiden name when turning professional. Since graduating from Birmingham School of Acting in 2001, he has played Harry Wainwright in Heartbeat and Rob Ingram in The Bill, as well as appearing in Doctors and Hollyoaks and taking on the guise of jazz pianist Jamie Cullum on Stars In Their Eyes.

On leaving Emmerdale in October 2012, he played Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Sundreland Empire that winter and has since branched out into musical theatre as Grimes in the world premiere of Water Babies at Curve, Leicester, in April 2014, subsequently appearing as Wild Bill Hickoc in the 2014 UK tour of Calamity Jane, as well as in 42nd Street in the West End and Legally Blonde The Musical.

He will be on familiar panto terrain once more as Captain Hook this winter, having won the Best Villain prize at the inaugural Great British Pantomime Awards in 2017 for his performance in Peter Pan in the 2016-2017 season at the Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage.

“I’m so excited to be sailing into York this Christmas as Captain Hook,” says Tom. “He’s a role I love, and I swear he gets more wicked and mischievous every year I play him!

“As a Yorkshireman, York is very close to my heart, and I can’t wait to spend Christmas in this beautiful city. I am really looking forward to teaming up with Jimmy Bryant to bring all of the festive magic and mayhem of panto. So come aboard and join us, or you’ll be walking the plank.”

Producer Martin Dodd adds: “We’re delighted that the wonderfully charismatic Tom Lister will be appearing as the deliciously devilish Captain Hook in this year’s pantomime.  Tom brings real star quality to Neverland. Paired with the brilliantly funny Jimmy Bryant as Smee, audiences can expect a perfect storm of comedy, adventure and just a touch of villainous charm.”

The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan: The Return of Captain Hook will run at the Grand Opera House, York, from December 5 to January 3 2027. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Grease is the word of the week for Ryedale Youth Theatre at Milton Rooms from April 1

Beth Steel’s Sandy and Jonathan Stockill’s Danny in Ryedale Youth Theatre’s Grease The Musical

RYEDALE Youth Theatre heads back to the summer of 1959 at Rydell High to follow the epic love story of Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowksi in Grease The Musical at the Milton Rooms, Malton, from April 1 to 4.

Here come the T-Birds and Pink Ladies, hot rods and timeless songs, such as Summer Nights, We Go Together and Greased Lightning in a show with book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey and songs from the 1978 film by arrangement with Robert Stigwood.

Formed in 1991, the main purpose of Ryedale Youth Theatre is to train young people, aged eight to 18, in the Ryedale and York areas in all aspects of the performing arts and in particular musical theatre, both on stage and behind the scenes.

Each Easter, Ryedale Youth Theatre welcomes up to 70 young people to participate in a theatre production, an enriching experience that inspires creativity, teamwork and confidence at an organisation run by dedicated volunteers that relies heavily on the generosity of supporters to fund such productions.

Ryedale Youth Theatre lads in leather in Grease The Musical

Next week, the focus falls on Grease, the American musical that opened on February 5 1971 in Chicago, in a damp, draughty former trolley barn called the Kingston Mines Theatre. On a $171 budget , a non-professional cast of 18 actors played the first of its scheduled “four performances only” to a full house of 120 seats.

Almost immediately, the show was extended…then again and again and again. The rest, as they say, is history.

A year later, on St Valentine’s Day, February 14 1972, the musical romantic comedy opened in New York. Within six months, a national tour crossed the United States and Canada. Then a company opened in Australia.

The first London production premiered at the New London Theatre with a young, unknown Richard Gere as Danny Zuko (the role assumed eventually by co-producer Paul Nicholas). Soon the foreign productions, touring companies and stock and amateur groups seemed to span the globe.

The success of Randal Kleiser’s 1978 motion picture starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John  in 1978 resulted in a new legion of Grease fanatics. Forty-eight years later, the musical continues to play to packed houses.

Ryedale Youth Theatre’s Pink Ladies cast members in Grease The Musical

“Grease doesn’t have a message,” says Ryedale Youth Theatre chair Barbara Wood. “It gives you a flavour of being a teenager in the ’50s – when rock’n’roll and putting grease on your hair were the most important things in life. If people come along to the show and take it on that level, then we’ll give them a party.

“In fact, if you come out of the theatre feeling that you’ve been to the best party in town, then we’ll know that we’re getting it right. A party of the best kind. It was fun then, but it’s just as much fun now!

“What Grease is really all about – more than anything else – is having fun. So, just sit back, kick off your blue suede shoes, and relax. Have a ball! Grease is, after all, a celebration.”

Ryedale Youth Theatre presents  Grease The Musical, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 1 to 4, 7.15pm plus 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: yourboxoffice.co.uk.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 12, from Gazette & Herald

Dale Vaughan, front, with Monica Frost and Matthew Warry, in a scene from Pick Me Up Theatre’s Next To Normal. Picture: Joanna Hird

A DYSFUNCTIONAL American family musical, a spirited band of newsboys, a madcap murder mystery and a bakery burlesque night confirm variety is the spice of Charles Hutchinson’s arts life.

American musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Next To Normal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight to April 4, 7.30pm except Sunday and Monday; 2.30pm matinees, Saturday, Sunday and April 4

ANDREW Isherwood directs York company Pick Me Up Theatre in Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt’s Tony Award-winning musical exploration of family and illness, loss and grief as a suburban American household copes with crisis and mental illness.

Dad is an architect; Mom rushes to pack lunches and pour cereal; their daughter and son are bright, wise-cracking teens but their lives are anything but normal, because Mom has been battling manic depression for 16 years.Next To Normal presents their story with love, sympathy and heart. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Freida Nipples: Baps & Buns on board a baguette at Rise@Bluebird Bakery

Cabaret of the week: Freida Nipples presents Baps & Buns Burlesque, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Friday, 8pm, doors 7pm

YORK’S queen of burlesque, Freida Nipples, swaps teas for tease as she turns the bakery cafe into a cabaret joint for a night of fun, frolics and freedom of expression in all shapes and sizes.

On the fabulously zesty menu will be Donna Divine, Ezme Pump, Callum Robshaw and Freida herself, hosted by Harvey Rose. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.

Tribute show of the week: The Supermodels, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Saturday, 7.30pm

BACK by popular demand, The Supermodels return to Pickering with hits aplenty from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, from The Who to Led Zeppelin, Abba to A-ha Abba, ELO to Queen, Erasure to Oasis. The show is “guaranteed to put a smile on your face”, but book promptly because a sell-out is predicted. Box office:  01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.

The Snake Davis Trio: Jazz, soul, tales and banter at Helmsley Arts Centre

Jazz gig of the week: The Snake Davis Trio, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

SAXOPHONIST to the stars Snake Davis teams up with his best buddies, trumpet player Johnny Thirkell and guitarist Mark Creswell, for a night of gorgeously mellow musicianship infused with jazz, soul and pop. Expect beautiful tunes, fascinating tales and bags of banter. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Lucy Keirl in rehearsal for Murder For Two at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Whodunit of the week: Murder For Two, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Saturday to April 18

JOE Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s fast-paced musical whodunit is a madcap murder mystery with a twist, performed by two actors, Tom Babbage and Lucy Kierl , who play 13 characters between them, plus the piano, as they put the laughter into manslaughter.

When famous novelist Arthur Whitney is found dead at his birthday party, it is time to call in the detectives, but they are out of town. Enter Officer Marcus Moscowicz, a neighbourhood cop who dreams of climbing the ranks. Here is his chance to prove his super sleuthing skills and solve the crime before the real detective arrives. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

The clock is ticking: James Bye, left, Shvorne Marks, Natalie Casey and Grant Kilburn in 2:22 A Ghost Story, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York

Supernatural thriller of the week: 2:22 A Ghost Story, Grand Opera House, York, March 30 to April 4, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

“THERE’S something in our house. I hear it every night. At the same time,” says Jenny, who believes her new home is haunted, but her husband Sam is having none of it. Whereupon they argue with their first dinner guests, old friend Lauren and new partner Ben. Can the dead really walk again? Belief and scepticism clash, but something feels strange and frightening and is moving closer. Only by staying up until 2:22 will they know the answer.

James Bye, Shvorne Marks, Natalie Casey and Grant Kilburn perform Uncannyand The Battersea Poltergeist podcaster Danny Robbins’s supernatural thriller, the Best New Play winner at the 2022 WhatsOnStage Awards, on its return to York. As secrets emerge and ghosts may or may not appear, dare you discover the truth? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Black Sheep Theatre Productions on Parade in the rehearsal room for next week’s musical at the JoRo

The other American musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions in Parade, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 1 to 4, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

PRESENTED by York company Black Sheep Theatre Productions under the direction of Matthew Peter Clare, Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s stirring Tony Award-winning musical explores love and hope against the odds, set against a backdrop of political injustice and rising racial tension. 

Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew, is put on trial for murder, but when the world seems against you, receiving a fair trial might prove impossible. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Beth Steel’s Sandy and Jonathan Stockill’s Danny in Ryedale Youth Theatre’s production of Grease The Musical

You’re the one that they want: Ryedale Youth Theatre in Grease The Musical, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 1 to 4, 7.15pm plus 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees

EACH Easter, Ryedale Youth Theatre welcomes up to 70 young people to participate in a theatre production. This time the show will be Grease, featuring book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey and songs from the 1978 film by arrangement with Robert Stigwood.

Ryedale Youth Theatre heads back to the summer of 1959 at Rydell High to follow the epic love story of Danny and Sandy.  Here come the T-Birds and Pink Ladies, hot rods and timeless songs, such as Summer Nights, We Go Together and Greased Lightning. Box office: yourboxoffice.co.uk.

In Focus: Be Amazing Arts in Disney’s Newsies Jr, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

Be Amazing Arts’ cast for Disney’s Newsies Jr, this week’s production at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York

YORK audiences are invited to seize the day this week as Malton company Be Amazing Arts brings the high-energy, crowd-pleasing musical Disney’s Newsies Jr to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre.

This spectacular youth production features a cast of 60 young performers from the Ryedale and York area, aged seven to 18, who will share the unforgettable music, dynamic choreography and inspiring story after months of dedicated rehearsals.

Written by  Harvey Fierstein (book), Alan Menken (book) and Jack Feldman (lyrics), Disney’s Newsies The Musical was adapted from the 1992 film, premiering at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Milburn, New Jersey, before hitting Broadway in 2012.

Packed with moving numbers, bold dance routines and a powerful message of courage and unity, Newsies Jr follows a spirited band of newsboys as they fight for what is right against New York City’s powerful newspaper publishers.

In the news: Be Amazing Arts cast members rehearsing for Disney’s Newsies Jr

Promising to be an uplifting theatrical experience for audiences of all ages, the production will showcases not only the performers’ talent but also their commitment, teamwork and passion for live theatre.

Be Amazing Arts specialises in providing young people with the opportunity to work in a professional theatre environment while developing industry skills both on and off the stage. From performance and technical theatre to teamwork and discipline, participants gain invaluable experience that builds confidence and creativity in a supportive yet professional setting.

Creative director Roxanna Klimaszewska says: “Our cast has worked incredibly hard to bring this show to life. Their energy, dedication and enthusiasm have been inspiring. We cannot wait for the people of York to see what these amazing young performers have achieved.

“Be Amazing Arts strives to inspire the next generation, keeping at the heart of everything they do, making work with, for or by young creatives.”

Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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York performance poet Stu Freestone to launch debut collection The Lights That Blur Between at The Crescent on Monday

Stu Freestone: Poet, performer and cheesemonger

YORK spoken-word poet, performer and cheesemonger Stu Freestone will launch his debut poetry collection, The Lights That Blur Between, at The Crescent on March 30.

A co-founder and associate artist of Say Owt, York’s “collective of gobby northern poets” since  2014, he writes in a playful style founded in everyday moments in works that walk the line between between grit and gentleness.

Or as Barmby Moor surrealist comedian Rob Auton puts it: “There’s so much momentum in Stu’s words. The images sprint into your head and your brain is a better place for it.”

 Drawing from family stories, kitchen tables, pub corners and stages across the country, his poetry “celebrates ordinary lives with extraordinary care,” says Stu. “Blending conversational humour with emotional honesty, the writing explores love, loss, resilience, and the quiet lights that carry us through.”

The Lights That Blur Between has been written over more than a decade, shaped on stage and finally brought together “somewhere between a notebook, a pint and a deep breath”.

“The collection explores  the nostalgia of adolescence, relationships and grief, and the ongoing work of processing life, as well as the occasional – and necessary – detours into the comedic themes of condiment addiction, festival trips gone wrong, cheesemonger battle raps and the perils of ‘after work’ drinking,” says Stu, summarising his “honest portrayal of life experiences”.

The cover artwork for Stu Freestone’s The Lights That Blur Between. The sea, its vastness and restorative powers, feature emotively in his writing

Freestone has performed across the UK, including multiple runs at the Edinburgh Fringe, and was shortlisted for Best Spoken Word Performer at the Saboteur Awards in 2015. He has shared stages with internationally renowned artists such as Shane Koyczan, Hollie McNish, Sage Francis, B. Dolan, Dizrael, and Harry Baker and has recorded live sessions for BBC Introducing and BBC Upload.

Now comes his debut book launch, promising an evening of powerful performance and heartfelt storytelling, including two sets from Stu, one accompanied by a band featuring guitarist (and shoemaker) Simone Focarelli, accordionist Ben Crosthwaite and drummer Joe Douglas, plus support slots from York performance poet and political satirist Sarah Armitage and emotive Grantham singer-songwriter Adam Leeson.

“It’s amazing really,” says Stu, reflecting on the book’s completion. “It’s been a journey since 2012-2013 to now, where I’ve always thought I should have done it before, but the writing wouldn’t be same.

“I’ve had a lot more experiences to collate into my writing, so there are more meaningful tendencies to what I want to write about: whether nostalgia or re-living that nostalgia, or resilience or getting over grief: things I had not experienced back then. So it’s ‘me on a page’ on 100 pages and it’s nice to have that proof in my hand, in the book, which is very different to having it on my laptop.”

Stu’s poetry differs in print from live performance too. “There’s a massive contrast because I was very aware of how to transpose it to the page, and where it would need an edit to a make it more book-friendly,” he says.

“There are pieces that have evolved for the page or been written expressly for the page. There is therapy here, from both the reader’s perspective and mine, where I feel I’m confiding in them amid the grief of everyday life, when there are things that don’t get spoken about in the spoken-word performance environment.

Stu Freestone’s self-portrait from The Lights That Blur Between as he looks at himself in the mirror

“The book is basically saying we’re all the same in how we grow through memories, reflecting on those nostalgic moments but then contrasting that with the everyday processes of normal life: the things that others don’t see.”

The book is divided into four sections: adolescent reflection, mental health, then comedic works that “try to find the light in life” and finally,  our relationship with loss, encapsulated in Before The Lights Go Out and the closing poem, title work The Lights That Blur Between.

“We try to get through loss with courage and empathy, where we can grow from our memories, but inevitably we walk through these lines between ‘breaking’ and ‘becoming’,” says Stu.

“I lost a friend, Nick,to suicide two years ago and wrote Before The Lights Go Out as an ode to our home town of Grantham and then the desperate bleakness of him no longer being there. The only thing I can take peace from is he achieved what he need to achieve, which sounds very dark, when he felt help was not an option.

“I’m 40 now, and to have lost as many people as I have in my close circle is very unlucky, so it’s an interesting place for me to try to find the perspective on that. I’ve done that through processing and writing, and I’ve written poems that aren’t in the book that are angry, but the ones in there that mean most to me are testament to trying to find positivity, for men to know that it’s OK to talk. That’s why we’ll be fund-raising for CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably charity.”

Stu’s trademark playful positivity surges through two poems in particular, Bliss, his hymn to York, his home since York St John University days in 2005, and Heed The Cheese, a nod to his other life running The Cheese Trader in Grape Lane. “I wanted to write a ‘univocalic’ poem, where every word uses only one specific vowel, so it had to be ‘E’ for cheese!” he reasons.

It strikes the only cheesy note in the book.

York Literature Festival and Say Owt present Stu Freestone, The Lights That Blur Between: book launch, The Crescent, York, March 30, doors 7pm. Box office: yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk or https://thecrescentyork.com/events/say-owt-stu-freestone-book-launch/.

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REVIEW: The Secret Garden The Musical, York Theatre Royal, until April 4 ****

Catrin Mai Edwards’ Martha, left, Estella Evans’ Mary Lennox and Dexter Pulling’s Colin in York Theatre Royal’s production of The Secret Garden The Musical. Picture: Marc Brenner

THIS production marks two homecomings: the return of the 1991 Broadway musical to its Yorkshire moorland roots in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 children’s novel, together with John Doyle’s re-acquaintance with York Theatre Royal after 29 years.

The Scotsman had put actor-musician shows at the heart of his York artistic directorship from 1993 to 1997 before going on to win Tony Awards on Broadway when transferring the artform to the United States.

Now, when his cast members fold away the dust sheets at Misselthwaite Manor, they are not only reviving Hodgson’s story but the actor-musician template too, one where all the players are omnipresent on stage, instruments in hand, rather than garden tools, always on the move as if on a merry-go-round.

Doyle and co-scenic designer David L Arsenault further enhance the sense of a ghost story or memory play by populating the stage with trunks and suitcases, in part to reflect 11-year-old orphan Mary Lennox’s arrival at her uncle’s haunted house from India, where her parents have died from cholera.

Haunting presence: Joanna Hickman’s Lily with Henry Jenkinson’s Archibald Craven. left, and Andre Refig’s Neville in The Secret Garden The Musical. Picture: Marc Brenner

Visually, although the moors are depicted on the base of the drapes, the walled garden of the title remains a secret. We never see its regeneration in the form of flowers or foliage; instead seeds are pulled out of trunks or petals fall from above.

The large key, discovered by  Mary (Estella Evans, sharing the role with Poppy Jason), must unlock our imagination to create the mysterious yet now magical garden, dormant since the death of Lily (Joanna Hickman), whose fall from a tree had induced her son Colin’s birth, her life curtailed in childbirth.

Marsha Norman and Carly’s sister Lucy Simon’s musical condenses Hodgson’s story into 90 unbroken minutes, and in doing so turns the spotlight rather more on the struggling adults than young Mary’s own spiritual growth, nurtured in tandem with her rejuvenation of bed-ridden Colin (Dexter Pulling, splitting performances with Cristian Buttaci).

The lack of garden matches that shift in focus: we see plenty of the Theatre Royal’s bare black-painted bricks and stone walls, an austere backdrop that adds to the claustrophobia of omnipresent loss that Mary’s uncle Archibald (Henry Jenkinson) imposes on all around him in the grip of grief that leaves him listless and unable to carry out any functions.

His equally stultifying younger brother, doctor Neville (Andre Refig), feels burdened with the need to step in, overseeing Colin’s highly restrictive treatment, ordering Mary to attend school and assuming control in the face of Archibald’s incapacity.  In song too, they have a heft reminiscent of opera, and Jenkinson, in particular, sings with devastating impact.

John Doyle’s cast on the set design of cloths, trunks, suitcases and mosaic flooring in Misselthwaite Manor. Picture: Marc Brenner

Floating between both worlds is Hickman’s Lily, who moves in dream-like slow motion by comparison with all around, adding to her ghostly presence. Her singing is sublime throughout, and her performance is the embodiment of Doyle’s belief in the power of actor-musicianship to lift the music-making from underneath (in an orchestra pit) to within the performer.

Hickman, the outstanding performer here, becomes one with her cello, inseparable and heartbreaking – even more so than Jenkinson when at the piano – and this is the apotheosis of Doyle’s performance style and indeed the personification of musical supervisor Catherine Jayes’ gorgeous, deeply moving orchestrations.

The need for light amid the grave shade finds reward in Mary’s relationships with the caring Martha (Catrin Mai Edwards), gardener Ben (Steve Simmonds), young Dickon (Elliot Mackenzie), and especially in her sparring with spoilt, initially insufferable Colin that brings much needed humour.

Mary’s bewilderment at the Yorkshire accent elicits the loudest laugh, and more of this Them and Us banter would have been welcome, whereas the clash is more often one of wills, whether with Ann Marcuson’s teacher Mrs Winthrop or Refig’s Neville.

Elizabeth Marsh, on her return to York Theatre Royal, in the role of Mrs Medlock. Picture: Marc Brenner

Returning to the Theatre Royal, where she had been part of Doyle’s company for his first York actor-musician show, Moll Flanders, Elizabeth Marsh serves a dual role, primarily as stern head housekeeper Mrs Wedlock  but also as a symbolic robin, guardian of the “secret” guardian, whose perky presence is represented by constant chirping on flute or whistle: a lovely, uplifting touch.

There is something of an (Indian) elephant in the room. Not so much Dickon being played by an adult (the kindly MacKenzie  in roll-up jeans and braces), nor Hickman’s Lily wearing white boots in the Dr Martens style, because artistic licence, directorial whim and costume designer Gabrielle Dalton’s mood board  must be allowed to play their part.

More so, why is Mary Lennox in modern clothes with a rucksack on her back (rather than the Indian clothing of the book at the start)? Is this to play to the school groups on GCSE study duty; is Mary reading a book and then stepping into the story? Is it to make  Mary even more of an outsider, the alien arriving in Yorkshire? The book she carries is a photo album of relatives, so that rules that theory out; the other explanations go down cul-de-sacs too.

It was a diverting talking point afterwards in the foyer and no suggestion has satisfied your reviewer’s curiosity yet. Further answers on a proverbial postcard are welcome.

York Theatre Royal presents The Secret Garden The Musical, until April 4, 7.30pm (except Sundays and Mondays), plus 2pm, March 26 and April 2; 2.30pm, March  28 and April 4; 6.30pm, tonight and March 30. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Joanna Hickman’s Lily and Dexter Pulling’s Colin in a scene from The Secret Garden The Musical. In the background are Steve Simmonds’ Ben and Elizabeth Marsh’s Mrs Medlock. Picture: Marc Brenner

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REVIEW: Celestine Dubruel’s verdict on Murder Trial Tonight IV: Death Of A Landlord, York Barbican, March 22

Tigerslane Studios’ cast for Murder Trial Tonight IV, Death Of A Landlord

I WAS really looking forward to this show—perhaps more accurately, this re-trial of a real-life court case—and it didn’t disappoint.

From the moment we entered, Sunday afternoon’s sold-out audience was cast as the jury in the trial of reclusive tenant Tre Bennet, accused of the brutal stabbing of his landlord, Victor Sloane. The only eyewitness: Sloane’s young daughter.

Presented under the direction of Gareth Watts, the stage was starkly arranged as a courtroom, complete with witness box, dock and judge’s bench, while the prosecution and defence occupied opposite sides as a cast of 11 played out Steve Cummings’ script.

When we were asked to stand for the judge’s entrance (Karren Winchester’s Her Honour Judge Amanda Livingstone KC ), the theatrical illusion snapped seamlessly into something far more immersive: participation.

The prosecution’s opening statement (by Alex Kapila’s Ms Victoria Pelham KC) was commanding, laying out what initially seemed like a compelling case. Witness statements, months of unpaid rent, and a description of a Black man in a yellow jacket—identified by the child—combined with blood found on the defendant’s door, all pointed toward Tre (Alpha Kamara).

We were also told that he suffered from schizophrenia, a detail framed to suggest a potential for violent outbursts. Add to this a recent confrontation between Tre and the landlord involving his mother, and the prosecution’s narrative appeared convincing. At this stage, the outlook for Tre Bennet felt bleak.

However, the defence lawyer (Ian Houghton’s Mr Miles Cavendish KC) methodically dismantled this certainty. The yellow jacket, central to the eyewitness account, was shown to be outdated—photographic evidence taken years earlier, with the garment long since discarded. The blood on the door was given a far more mundane explanation: an accidental injury sustained by the landlord while carrying out repairs. Gradually, the cracks in the prosecution’s case began to widen.

The emotional core of the piece came through the testimony of Tre’s mother (Karlina Grace-Paseda’s Dolores Bennet). Her account—detailing her escape from Sierra Leone to build a life in England with her young son—was deeply affecting.

Through her words, and those of Tre’s music teacher (Jason Deer’s Jason Scott), we were introduced to a very different portrait: a gentle, gifted young man shaped by hardship and subjected to racist abuse, yet defined by kindness and creativity. Importantly, the defence also challenged assumptions around mental illness, reminding us that the proportion of people with schizophrenia who commit violent crimes is extremely small.

What makes Death Of A Landlord so powerful is its insistence on confronting bias – both within the justice system and within ourselves. The production subtly raises the issue of racial profiling, prompting us to question whether the investigation may have been too quick to focus on a suspect who “fits the bill,” rather than exploring alternative possibilities.

The balance of the case is its greatest strength. Just when you feel certain, a new detail unsettles your confidence. The writing is sharp and meticulously structured, and the performances are so naturalistic that the boundary between theatre and reality all but disappears. As jurors, the weight of responsibility becomes palpable; the fear of reaching the wrong verdict lingers throughout.

Adapted from a true story, Tigerslane Studios’ production culminates in a modern twist: the audience delivers its verdict – guilty or not guilty – via smartphone using a QR code. Only then is the real-life outcome revealed on a large screen.

It’s a striking and sobering conclusion, leaving you not only reflecting on the case, but on your own judgement – and on this occasion, 84 per cent of York’s jury turned out to be wrong in their verdict.

This is immersive theatre at its most thought-provoking: gripping, unsettling, and impossible to forget.

Celestine Dubruel, theatrical judge and jury member