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Scrooge turns into grumpy Yorkshire farmer for Badapple Theatre Company’s take on A Christmas Carol on tour from tomorrow

Grumpy farmer? In Yorkshire? Meet James Lewis-Knight’s Farmer Scrooge in Badapple Theatre Company’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre

GREEN Hammerton company Badapple Theatre set off on their winter travels tomorrow with Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol, starring York actors James Lewis-Knight and Emily Chattle.

Billed as “classic Badapple: Dickens with a Yorkshire twist, puppets, songs and music by Jez Lowe and all the jokes we can handle at this time of year,” writer-director Kate Bramley’s new family show will play across Yorkshire as well as Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, Northumberland, Cumbria, County Durham and Oxfordshire.

Starting out at Tockwith Village Hall, near York, tomorrow at 7pm, Badapple’s tour van will take in 22 performances between December 1 and 30 as Bramley’s itinerant band of actors heads to venues on their Yorkshire doorstep and beyond with her comedy slant on Charles Dickens’s 180-year-old story, now set in and around Scrooge’s farm and bedroom in 1959.

“Have a good chuckle while the blustering, skin-flint farmer Ebeneezer Scrooge gets his comeuppance and is forced to see the error of his penny-pinching ways,” says Kate of a production that marks Badapple’s 25th anniversary of touring.

James will play Fred, Scrooge, Shep and Elvis, yes, Elvis; Emily’s multi-role playing will stretch to Ginger, Bert the feed man, Mrs Cratchitt, Niece (Josie), Marley, Belle, Mrs Feziweg, Mr Feziweg, assorted Cratchitts, Undertaker, Mrs Dilbert and Girl. (Please note, name spelling may diversify from other versions, whether Cratchit or Fezziwig).

Emily Chattle with the puppet of Mr Fezziwig in Badapple Theatre Company’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre

“Full of local stories and carols, puppets and mayhem, and original songs by Sony Award-winner Jez Lowe, plus a whacking great dose of seasonal bonhomie, this is a winter warmer to put a smile on everyone’s face this Christmas.”

Don’t take only Kate’s word for it. Clare Granger, High Sheriff of North Yorkshire, is a Badapple devotee. “It’s wonderful to spend a joyous evening with Badapple Theatre Company in a small rural village hall,” she says. “Kate Bramley is absolutely fulfilling her ambition to bring the arts into the community and the uplifting effect on the audience of what the theatre company does is palpable.”

Badapple’s mission is to venture out to the smallest and hardest-to-reach village halls and community venues to bring professional theatre to all. “We all know that isolation and loneliness are major issues in our rural communities and that maintaining good mental health is proving more and more of a challenge for the general population,” says the High Sheriff.

“It is hard to overestimate the positive benefits of getting out of the house and attending a joyful, inexpensive, communal event in your own locality. Badapple Theatre Company is providing just this experience.”

This year, James has appeared in York company Next Door But One’s tour of Operation Hummingbird, Matthew Harper-Hardcastle’s “humorous and uplifting exploration of grief, loss and noticing just how far you’ve come”, while Emily did the milk rounds in Badapple’s tour of Eddie And The Gold Tops, Bramley’s comedy of a milkman turning into the cream of Sixties pop stars.

James Lewis-Knight and Emily Chattle in a scene from BadappleTheatre Company’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre

Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol: Yorkshire dates

December 1: Tockwith Village Hall, 7pm. Box office: 01423 331304

December 2: Harpham & Lowthorpe Village Hall YO25 4QZ, 7.30pm. Box office:  07867 692616.

December 3: The Old Girls’ School, Sherburn in Elmet, LS25 6BL, 7pm. Box office:  01977 685178.

December 13: Bishop Monkton Village Hall, near Harrogate, HG3 3QG, 7.30pm. Box office: 01423 331304.

December 19: Green Hammerton Village Hall, near York, YO26 8AB, 7pm. Box office: 01423 331304.

December 20: Burton Fleming Village Hall, East Yorkshire, YO25 3LL, 6.30pm. Box

December 27: Sutton under Whitestonecliffe Village Hall, Hambleton, YO7 2PS, 4.30pm. Box office: 01423 331304.

December 29: East Cottingwith Village Hall, near York, YO42 2TL, 4pm. Box office:  07866 024009 or 07973 699145.

Emily Chattle with one of the puppets designed by Sam Edwards for Badapple’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre
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REVIEW: NE Theatre York in A Christmas Carol, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York ***

Chain reaction: Steve Tearle’s Jacob Marley spooks Kit Stroud’s Ebenezer Scrooge in NE Theatre York’s A Christmas Carol

NE Theatre York – or NE Musicals York as they were back then – staged the York premiere of this all-singing version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the JoRo in November 2018.

More Christmas advert season than Advent season on that occasion, but the show’s return heralds Advent’s arrival on Sunday, and the festive mood is already alive and noisy, like the crisp and sweet packet scrunching that accompanied Tuesday’s opening night.

Scrooge moan over, some things have changed since 2018, some have not. More on the changes later, but first: the cast numbers 60 once more; Steve Tearle is directing and playing the ghost of Jacob Marley in white suit and face paint again, and the Sold Out signs will be greeting theatregoers again and again on the street scene on the JoRo forecourt. No tickets left, not one.

A roll of thunder announces the arrival of Tearle’s Marley on a London set familiar to audiences who saw his production of Oliver!. Temporarily, north easterner Steve turns Brummie to make the obligatory mobile phone pronouncement but with the impish humour that will mark a frenetic, fantastical, phantasmagorical production into which he will throw everything, magical books, bouncing balls and kitchen sink included (metaphorically speaking).

Perri Ann Barley’s Ghost of Christmas Past

Look out too for the misbehaving chairs and bed in Scrooge’s house, leaping into the air as if propelled by the handiwork of ghosts.

Written by Beauty And The Beast and The Little Mermaid composer Alan Menken, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and book by Mike Ockrent and Lynn Ahrens, the musical began life as a film before being re-created for the Broadway stage, opening at Madison Square Garden.

Its driving force is the modern musical score under Scott Phillips’s enthusiastic direction,  but the dialogue fizzes along too – everything is home and hosed by 9.30pm – with Tearle’s Marley as host, ghost and timekeeper.

Changes afoot? The familiar tale of miserable, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemptive journey through Christmas Eve night still takes the form of encounters with Ghosts of the Past, Present and Yet To Be but Tearle has fortified the circus setting first evoked in 2018, while Melissa Boyd’s choreography nods to both 1856 and modern moves for ensemble numbers.

Once more the ghosts are first seen in their real-world guises as a lamplighter (Perri Ann Barley), Ring Master (Chris Hagyard, taking the circus theme further than James O’Neil’s charity show barker of 2018), and an Old Hag (John Mulholland).

Chris Hagyard’s Ghost of Christmas Present

Tearle loves theatricality, spectacle in particular, and here he quite surpasses himself by having Marley wreathed in 100 metres of white fabric, stretched like waves across the stage as he urges Kit Stroud’s grouchy Scrooge to learn the error of his ways before it is too late. Marley’s trademark chains are more like a rapper’s bling adornments by comparison.

Graduating from his 2018 role as Young Ebenezer, Stroud’s Scrooge is mean of voice and demeanour at the outset, his lead performance being alive to both the humour and inhumanity the part demands.

Shocked by what he learns of himself, his Scrooge is pained by the recollections of his younger self, when guided by Perri Ann Barley’s Ghost Of Christmas Past with her coat of lights leading the way.

Ockrent and Ahrens’s book weaves one departure from Dickens’s novella into the plot: the story of Scrooge’s father, John William Scrooge, being sentenced to a debtors’ prison while his horrified wife’s family look on as they sing God Bless Us, Everyone.

Cowering into a ball, Stroud’s Scrooge screams “Mother” (as played by Rebecca Jackson), the stuff of a psychological thriller to counter the pantomimic comedy mayhem that subsequently permeates Mr Fezziwig’s Annual Christmas Ball.

John Mulholland’s Ghost of Christmas Yet To Be

Hagyard, out of luck in October when Bev Jones Company’s Guys And Dolls had to be called off, puts that frustration behind him in a terrific performance,  pulling strings as Ring Master cum Ghost of Christmas Present.

Greg Roberts’s clown-wigged Mr Fezziwig and Ali Butler-Hind’s Mrs Fezziwig enjoy themselves too in that first-half climax, while Kristian Barley’s Bob Cratchit and Alice Atang’s Tiny Tim maximise their moments too.

Mulholland’s Ghost of Christmas Yet To Be transforms from Old Hag to flame-maned heavy metal frontman, the shock of the new steering Stroud’s alarmed Scrooge towards the dawn of realisation and change.

Visually arresting, largely playful rather than psychological, A Christmas Carol is a typically vibrant, helter-skelter Tearle production, where the singing and musicianship is of varied quality, the dancing and acting being more assured by comparison.

NE Theatre York in A Christmas Carol, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday; 7.30pm nightly and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. SOLD OUT. Box office for returns only: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Shrek The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ***

Brandon Lee Sears’ Donkey, Antony Lawrence’s Shrek and Joanne Clifton’s Princess Fiona en route to Duloc in Shrek The Musical

IN August 2014, Yorkshire had the honour of staging the British regional premiere of DreamWorks Theatricals’ Shrek The Musical at Leeds Grand Theatre, when 2023 Strictly Come Dancing quarter finalist Nigel Harman was the director, incidentally.

Now the latest tour plays York, with co-directors Samuel Holmes and Nick Winston at the helm and 2016 Strictly champion Joanne Clifton playing the Grand Opera House for the fourth time, after The Rocky Horror Show in 2019, preceded by Flashdance and Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2017, here revelling in the role of Princess Fiona.

Nik Briggs’s presence in Monday night’s audience was a reminder that Shrek The Musical has turned this theatre green once before: he played the not-so-jolly ogre in York Stage’s production in 2019.

Holmes and choreographer Winston oversee a 2023-2024 touring production big on video, sound and lighting design, bigger still on big numbers, and biggest of all on big, big love. All that and a particularly towering Shrek as played by the lovably lumpen, grumpy Antony Lawrence.

You will surely know the iconoclastic story and characters from the first DreamWorks animated Shrek film in 2001, but the book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire and persistently perky music by Jeanine Tesori were new to the 2008 musical.

Their songs, more forceful than overtly melodic, match the bright and bouncy tone of the trademark irreverent humour that adds playful send-ups of The Lion King and Les Miserables to the original film template of satirising and redefining the fairytale pecking order established by Grimm and Disney.

Joanne Clifton’s Princess Fiona and the Pied Piper’s tap-dancing rats performing Morning Person in Shrek The Musical

Hence the presence of myriad fairytale characters, in the manner of Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods, all in rebellious mood, from Georgie Buckland’s Gingy, who takes the biscuit, to Scotty Armstrong’s Big Bad Wolf, Mark D’arcy’s Pinocchio to Jonathan David Dudley’s Pied Piper.

All have their moments in song and dance, less so in dialogue, dominated instead by the big four of Lawrence’s Shrek, Clifton’s Princess Fiona, Brandon Lee Sears’ Donkey and James Gillan’s foppish Lord Farquaad.

Not forgetting a terrific turn by blues-belting Cherece Richards as the power-vocal front of the love-sick Dragon, hot on guarding Princess Fiona in the tower (as well as a second role as the Wicked Witch).

Early days in her professional career after leaving the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts this summer, keep an eye and ear on this BA Musical Theatre 2023 graduate, who more than makes the grade in Shrek, even with a huge dragon puppet design by Jimmy Grimes behind her.

Shrek The Musical’s naturally solitary, swamp-dwelling Shrek is even ruder, definitely windier, than his film version, still irascible, still wary, but nevertheless teaming up with Sears’ irrepressible Donkey to extract Clifton’s temperamental, bored, probably bipolar Princess Fiona from her tower to deliver her to Lord Farquaad for her fairytale nuptials.

Lawrence’s Shrek makes being glum a joy, his warts-and-all unconventional hero experiencing the highs and lows, the frictions and fallouts of buddy movie relationships with Sears’ jive-talking, ever-excitable Donkey, a hoofer with hooves and a Little Richard meets Prince lip.

Swamp invaders: Antony Lawrence’s Shrek in argumentative mood with Cherece Richards’ Wicked Witch and the fairytale folk in Shrek The Musical

Lawrence’s big Scottish fella warms to Clifton’s equally unconventional Princess Fiona: her favourite role, she says, one that testifies to the creed of being who you want to be, rather than living up to other people’s expectations. Clifton is the triple threat writ large: stirring singer, swish dancer and humorous actress.

The show’s humour works on two levels: sometimes pantomimic for children, especially in the fairytale characters and in its love of raucous burps and bottom burps in Shrek and Fiona’s unbeatable party-piece duet, I Think I Got You Beat.

At other times, adult, smart and savvy, such as the observation that if you look grotesque, your life is “Kafka-esque”. Then stir in that British favourite, high camp, in the fruity form of Gillan’s big-headed but diminutive Lord Farquaad, with his curtain of silken hair, Shakespearean airs and Kylie hot pants.

Philip Witcomb’s set and costume designs echo pantomime; Winston’s choreography is full of individual swagger and ensemble electricity, and if the singing is often better than the songs, Shrek The Musical’s return to York, with its big, bright wonderful fairy world, fits the festive mood of shows at this time of year.

In the words of the closing I’m A Believer, if you thought love was only true in fairy tales, Lawrence and Clifton make it a good starting place.

Shrek The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Everything’s gone green: Brandon Lee Sears’ Donkey, Joanne Clifton’s Princess Fiona and Antony Lawrence’s Shrek strut their stuff in the finale to Shrek The Musical
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NE Theatre York to go to the circus in Steve Tearle’s “very different” staging of A Christmas Carol musical at JoRo Theatre

Kit Stroud’s Ebenezer Scrooge in NE Theatre York’s A Christmas Carol

NE Theatre York revisit Alan Menken’s musical take on Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from tomorrow to Saturday.

“We first performed this version of the show in 2018, when it was such a fantastic experience and so successful that it’s been our most requested show to perform again,” says director Steve Tearle. “We were even asked if we could tour with the show.”

In Dickens’s harrowing yet redemptive tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean man with a dislike for mankind, he will be clanking his chains for a second time as Scrooge’s late business partner Jacob Marley. “I’ve only played Marley in A Christmas Carol as he’s such a brilliant character that it’s a joy to play,” he reasons.

Director Steve Tearle and lead actor Kit Stroud in rehearsal for A Christmas Carol

“Five years ago, we staged it very differently to our new production. While still referencing the traditional dance moves of 1856, we’ve added a lot more contemporary moves into the show.

“Marley’s appearance will be very different, using 100 metres of fabric, plus we’re adding a circus. On top of that, the audience experience will start outside: as they walk up to the theatre, they will be treated to a typical London street in 1856.

“Once inside the auditorium, they’ll see we’re using a very similar set to our award-winning Oliver! as both Dickens stories are set in exactly the same place and time.”

John Mulholland’s Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Be in NE Theatre York’s A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol features music by Alan Menken, best known for such Disney musicals as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty And The Beast and Newsies, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and book by Mike Ockrent and Ahrens.

From 1994 to 2003, the show was staged annually at New York City’s Theatre at Madison Square, where Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, Jim Dale, The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Frank Langella were among those to play Scrooge.

The London run in 2020 featured Brian Conley as Scrooge and now Kit Stroud takes the role for NE Theatre York as the miser is visited by the ghost of his former partner, Tearle’s Marley, who died seven years previously.

Ghosts galore: clockwise, Chris Hagyard’s Ghost of Christmas Past, John Mulholland’s Ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Be, Perri Ann Barley’s Ghost of Christmas Present and Steve Tearle’s Jacob Marley

“Scrooge is a very challenging role as he only leaves the stage for a couple of moments in Act One; he is on stage for the rest of the time, and we’re delighted to have Kit playing him,” says Steve. 

Marley forewarns Scrooge to expect a visit from three ghosts – the Ghost of Christmas Past (Perri Ann Barley), the Ghost of Christmas Present (Chris Hagyard) and the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Be (John Mulholland) – who urge him to mend his ways if he is to avoid the horrible consequences of treating people badly.

“With more than 60 people in the cast, this show will be a true Christmas spectacular featuring  hilarious comedy characters such as Mr and Mrs Fezziwig (Ali Butler Hind and Greg Roberts) in a festive musical story that will definitely kickstart your Christmas,” says Steve.

Greg Roberts and Ali Butler Hind as Mr and Mrs Fezziwig

“It’s going to be magical, with books that light up, ghosts that appear out of nowhere and time travel, which is always exciting, and the ending, when Scrooge becomes good, is such a heartwarming moment.” 

Any newcomers to look out for in the company? “Rebecca Jackson, who plays Scrooge’s Mother as we are transported to the past,” highlights Steve. “She has a beautiful stand-out song.”

Naming his favourite character, he picks Tiny Tim, to be played by Alice Atang. “She brings such innocence to the role, and when she sings her solo song, it’s so touching.”

NE Theatre York in A Christmas Carol, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, November 28 to December 2, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Tickets update: last few tickets still available for Friday and Saturday night; the rest, sold out. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

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NE Theatre York ensemble members in rehearsal for A Christmas Carol
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James Swanton has more than Dickensian ghost stories on his Christmas plate as BBC appearance as bag of bones awaits

James Swanton: Ghost Stories for Christmas returns to York Medical Society

GOTHIC York York actor James Swanton is reviving his Dickensian Ghost Stories for Christmas trilogy at York Medical Society, Stonegate, from tomorrow.

Soon to appear in the BBC Christmas ghost story Lot No. 249 too, he will be presenting hour-long solo renditions of A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and The Haunted Man, before transferring to the Charles Dickens Museum, located at the author’s only London home to survive, 48 Doughty Street.

“I’m starting and finishing my run in York a little earlier than usual,” says James. “Mainly because there’s been such demand for the shows in London, 21 shows there from December 13 to 23, so the York run of ten feels fairly relaxed by comparison.

“York’s winding alleyways and tumbledown buildings are so beautifully suited to Dickens that it would have been inconceivable to strike it from my schedule. There really couldn’t be a more fitting venue than York Medical Society.

“Accordingly, I’ll be giving six performances of A Christmas Carol – you can never have too much of it, particularly with this year being its 180th anniversary – and two showings apiece of The Chimes and The Haunted Man, both lesser known but fascinating follow-ups.”

All three stories are richly rewarding, says James: “They brim with Dickens’s eye for capturing the weird, the strange and the odd, from human eccentricities to full-blown phantoms. Dickens’s anger at social injustice also aligns sharply with our own – and of course, there’s a lot to be angry about at the moment.

James Swanton in The Haunted Man. Picture: Alex Hyndman

“But beyond anything, these stories are masterful exercises in theatrical storytelling, with a real sense of joy emerging from the Victorian gloom.”

When did James first encounter A Christmas Carol? “I have a feeling that my first exposure was watching the rather exquisite Richard Williams animation from 1971, though I have no way of proving this. A particularly frightening Marley in that one,” he says. “The Muppet masterpiece won’t have been far behind. Two particularly musical Marleys in that one.”

Picking a favourite screen version of A Christmas Carol, James plumps for: “Alastair Sim’s Scrooge from 1951. The screenplay’s unusually sophisticated – and has the hubris to invent reams of credible Dickens! – but Sim himself is the reason it’s a cut above, because he was primarily a comic actor (and a comic actor of genius).

“It’s tempting to get an ageing Shakespearean titan to play Scrooge, but I think this misses the point of Scrooge, who’s hilarious even at his most wicked. He’s not King Lear – except to character actors!

“In more recent years, the one-man films starring Simon Callow and Jefferson Mays have thoroughly gripped me.”

Assessing why Dickens’s story still so popular after 180 Christmases, James says: “It’s that fool-proof structure that’s protected the material across constant (indeed, ongoing) reinterpretations. Provided you stick with the basic five acts – Past, Present and Yet To Come, as bordered by Scrooge’s before and after – you can play around with the details.

“York’s winding alleyways and tumbledown buildings are so beautifully suited to Dickens that it would have been inconceivable to strike it from my schedule,” says James Swanton. Picture: Jtu Photography

“For all their merits, both The Chimes and The Haunted Man lose their hold on the memory by this structure’s omission.”

Since last December’s run of Ghost Stories for Christmas, James has been hard at work on various filming jobs. “It’s been my year for Christmas ghost stories!” he says. “At the start of 2023, I made two short films, The Dead Of Winter and To Fire You Come At Last, that were indebted to the BBC’s legendary M. R. James adaptations from the 1970s.

“The Dead Of Winter was done in Farnham in January. I’m playing a rough sleeper who becomes a ghostly form of embodied conscience. To Fire You Come At Last was filmed in the wilds of Shropshire in March. I play an alcohol-ravaged wastrel who – along with three equally reluctant men – must  carry the coffin of the Squire’s son down the corpse road to the graveyard.

“It’s in black and white and feels like something out of [Samuel] Beckett; the best part I’ve had in years. Both films have been doing the festival rounds, and I know that at least one of them will be getting a physical release before too long.”

A few months ago, League Of Gentlemen alumnus Mark Gatiss asked James to play the ghost in Lot No. 249, his retelling of an Arthur Conan Doyle short story, as part of a cast led by Kit Harington and Freddie Fox.

Television viewers will see James as what the BBC press release calls a “horrifying bag of bones”.  Although the precise broadcast time is still to be announced, “this BBC Ghost Story for Christmas coincides very nicely with my ongoing commitment to Dickens’s slightly earlier Victorian Gothic,” says James. “Based on the past few years, I suspect it’ll go out on either December 23 or Christmas Eve itself.

James Swanton, left, and Mark Gattis rehearsing The Quatermass Experiment. Picture: Sonia Sanchez Lopez

“Obsessed with the Gothic as I am, it was a dream fulfilled to become a part of this great tradition. I’d just performed with Gatiss in a stage production of The Quatermass Experiment. He’s steeped in Conan Doyle, and his adaptation is at once gratifyingly faithful and wickedly surprising.

“I’m encased in particularly ghoulish make-up by Dave Elsey, who won the Oscar for The Wolfman. And I do the most dreadful things to Kit Harington! I’m tremendously excited about it all.”

James points out further opportunities to see him at work this Christmas.  “As well as Lot No. 249, my one-man film of The Haunted Man will be streamed by the Dickens Museum again on December 11,” he says. “And my on-and-off colleagues, the York Ghost Merchants, in Shambles, might have a few announcements of their own to come.”

More immediately, James has strategic advice for securing tickets for Ghost Stories for Christmas. “Early on is best. Most of my A Christmas Carol showings are crammed into the first week, and there are seats left for all of them,” he says.

“For reasons that remain unclear, November 30 has been a conspicuously slow seller, so I’ll be gladdened if people book for that! The second performances of both The Chimes and The Haunted Man have all but sold out (as of this moment, a single seat remains for each), but tickets can be procured for their first outings.

“With tickets being only £15 each, this could be the perfect way to kick off your festive celebrations. In any case, I look forward to gathering people together for some heart-warming storytelling:  traditional to the bones, but speaking to us just as powerfully as it did 180 years ago.”

What’s coming up for James in 2024? “So far, absolutely nothing!” he says. “My tendency has always been to develop pre-show rather than post-show blues, though, so I don’t find this too daunting. I’ll be glad of a slight rest, and perhaps a chance to read Victorian literature instead of act it.”

James Swanton presents Ghost Stories for Christmas at York Medical Society, Stonegate, York:  A Christmas Carol, November 27, 28 and 30, then December 1, 5 and 6; The Haunted Man, November 29 and December 7; The Chimes, December 4 and 11. All performances start at 7pm and last approximately one hour. Box office: 01904 623568 or www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond the second star to the right. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 48 for 2023, from The Press, York

Christmas In Neverland at Castle Howard

’TIS the season for Dickens shows to begin, from solo shows to a musical, and to venture into Neverland too as Charles Hutchinson gets his festive skates on.

Fantastical adventure of the week and beyond: Christmas In Neverland, Castle Howard, near York, extended until January 7

CASTLE Howard is transformed with floristry, installations, props, soundscapes and projections to create an enchanting festive experience inspired by J M Barrie’s Peter Pan in Charlotte Lloyd Webber Event Design’s sixth magical installations inside the 300-year-old country house.

Look out for the Darling children’s London bedroom, Mermaid’s Lagoon, Captain Hook’s Cabin and the Jolly Roger as the design team prioritises sustainability and recycled materials, such as paper and glass, and teams up with Leeds theatre company Imitating The Dog, whose immersive projections and soundscapes feature for the first time. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.    

Nunkie Theatre Company’s artwork for Casting The Runes

Thriller of the week: Nunkie Theatre Company in Casting The Runes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday (26/11/2023), 7.30pm

M R James wrote his ghost stories to perform to friends in the years leading up to the First World War. Today they have lost none of their power to terrify and amuse in the hands of Nunkie Theatre Company, presenting two tales in a one-man show.

Casting The Runes’ story of the unforgettable Mr Karswell, magic lanternist, occult historian and scourge of academics, is partnered by James’s most neglected masterpiece, The Residence At Whitminster, wherein a dark shadow looms over the precinct of a peaceful English church. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Who am I? The answer is Bridget Christie, feeling the heat at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Natasha Pszenicki

Comedy gig of the week: Bridget Christie: Who Am I?, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday (26/11/2023), 7.30pm

BRIDGET Christie is hot, but not in a good way, she says, in her menopause comedy, where she is confused, furious, sweaty and annoyed by everything. At 52, she leaks blood, sweats, thinks Chris Rock is the same person as The Rock and cannot ride the motorbike she bought to combat her mid-life crisis because of early osteoarthritis in her hips and RSI in her wrist.

In Who Am I? Christie wonders why there are so many films, made by men, about young women discovering their sexuality, but none about middle-aged women forgetting theirs. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

James Swanton: Presenting Ghost Stories For Christmas at York Medical Society

Dickens of a good storyteller: James Swanton’s Ghost Stories For Christmas, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, select dates from November 27 to December 11, 7pm

SOON to be seen in Lot No. 249, Mark Gatiss’s retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Christmas ghost story for the BBC, gothic York storyteller and actor James Swanton revives his seasonal Charles Dickens trilogy: A Christmas Carol (six performances), on the book’s 180th anniversary, The Haunted Man and The Chimes (two each).

“‘All three stories are richly rewarding,” says James. “They brim with Dickens’s eye for capturing the weird, the strange and the odd, from human eccentricities to full blown phantoms. Dickens’s anger at social injustice also aligns sharply with our own – and of course, there’s a lot to be angry about at the moment.” Box office and performance details: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Joanne Clifton’s Princess Fiona in Shrek The Musical at Grand Opera House, York

American musical of the week: Shrek The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinee

LEAVE winter troubles far, far away to join the musical adventure as ogre Shrek (Antony Lawrence) and his buddy Donkey (Brandon Lee Sears) endeavour to complete their quest to defeat the dragon and save Princess Fiona (2016 Strictly champ Joanne Clifton). Look out for James Gillan’s Lord Farquaad too.

Based on the first animated Shrek film, DreamWorks’ musical features such David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori songs as Big Bright Beautiful World and I Know It’s Today alongside Neil Diamond’s climactic I’m A Believer. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Kit Stroud as Ebenezer Scrooge in NE Theatre York’s A Christmas Carol

Festive musical of the week: NE Theatre York in A Christmas Carol, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

STEVE Tearle first staged Alan Menken’s musical version of Charles Dickens’s heart-warming story A Christmas Carol for NE Musicals five years ago. Once more he will combine directing a cast of 60 with playing the chain-clanking Jacob Marley.

Kit Stroud plays Ebenezer Scrooge, whose deep dislike of mankind is interrupted on Christmas Eve by three ghosts who, one by one, warn him of the consequences of the suffering he has caused. Will he join them, or will he mend his ways? Tickets update: all but the first two performances have sold out; last few tickets for Tuesday and Wednesday, 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Mark Farrelly in Jarman at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Solo play of the week: Mark Farrelly’s Jarman, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm

MARK Farrelly, the writer-performer behind Quention Crisp: Naked Hope and Howerd’s End, turns his attention to Derek Jarman, iconoclastic filmmaker, painter, Prospect Cottage gardener, gay rights activist and writer.

“His influence remains as strong as it was on the day AIDS killed him in 1994, but his story, one of the most extraordinary lives ever lived, has never been told. Until now,” says Farrelly, whose passionate, daring reminder of the courage it takes to truly live when alive takes Jarman from Dungeness to deepest, brightest Soho. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Paul Weller: Returning to York Barbican next spring

Gig announcement of the week: Paul Weller, York Barbican, April 17 2024

THE Modfather Paul Weller will head back to York Barbican next spring after kicking off 2024 with a long-awaited January return to Japan and a trip to Australia, highlighted by three nights at the Sydney Opera House. He last performed at the Barbican in April 2022.

In 2023, Weller has played around Europe, performed a handful of Forest Live shows and had a special guest slot to Blur at Wembley Stadium. Next spring’s 14-date tour also takes in Sheffield City Hall on April 11. Tickets go on sale from Friday, December 1 at 10am at ticketmaster.co.uk, seetickets.com, gigantic.com and paulweller.com.

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Joanne Clifton revels in unconventional Princess Fiona in Shrek The Musical on her Grand Opera House return from Monday

“It’s my favourite role I’ve ever done,” says Joanne Clifton of playing P:rincess Fiona in Shrek The Musical

JOANNE Clifton loves the Grand Opera House, York, and not only for theatrical reasons.

“I’ve done three musicals there but it’s also where I signed off on my first house in Dressing Room 2,” says the 2016 Strictly Come Dancing champion.

From Monday, Joanne returns to the Cumberland Street theatre to play Princess Fiona alongside Antony Lawrence’s Shrek, James Gillan’s Lord Farquaad and Brandon Lee Sears’ Donkey in Sam Holmes and Nick Winston’s “Shrektacular” 2023-2024 touring production of David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeannie Tesori’s musical.

“We’re on the road from the end of July to April next year: a long tour, I know, but it’s my favourite role I’ve ever done, so I’m happy to do it as long as possible,” says the 2013 World Ballroom Showdance champion, who turned 40 on October 26.

Splashdance! Joanne Clifton as welder and dancer Alex Owens in the iconic scene in Flashdance at the Grand Opera House in November 2017

“Fiona’s someone I really relate to. I know she’s a cartoon character, but if ever there was a princess I should play, it would be Fiona, as I’m not your typical princess. Maybe that’s because I’m from Grimsby.

“I’m never going to be the same as Cameron Diaz [who voiced Fiona in the Shrek films]. I’m told I’m more feisty. I shout a lot, especially at Shrek in my first few scenes where I want him to rescue me right now from the tower.”

Joanne loved the original Shrek animated film that spawned this official Dreamworks  Theatricals musical. “Everyone knows the film, and how the film wasn’t the same as other cartoon films,” she says. “It’s a feelgood, funny musical, and of course it’s for kids but there are lots of jokes for adults too that go over kids’ heads.

“There are some important messages behind it too: be who you want to be, rather than living up to other people’s expectations. Princess Fiona starts out trying to be  like how people expect a princess to be but ends up fighting and burping, falling for an ogre and getting on with a donkey!”

Fab-u-lous! Joanne Clifton as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Grand Opera House in February 2017

Summing up the humour, Joanne says: “It’s a very, very funny show, especially Lord Farquaad, and all that trumping that Shrek does and Fiona does. The kids absolutely love that! So there’s adult humour and toilet humour – at the end of the day trumps are just funny!”

Nick Winston’s choreography includes a big tap number for the former Strictly winner at the opening to Act Two. “I’m tap dancing with loads of rats as I’ve met the Pied Piper, who’s being followed by all these rats,” she says. “Especially as I’m 40 now, it’s one of the most demanding parts of the show – apart from the quick chase with the ogre at the end – because I’m singing, then I’m tap dancing and then have to finish by singing these big notes.”

The song in question is Morning Person. “I’m absolutely not a morning person!” says Joanne. “I’m very much an evening person. I’ll stay up until 2am, and if I could, I’d stay in bed all day.”

Nevertheless, the weekly performance schedule demands plenty of matinees. “We’ve recently done two weeks where we’ve had ‘double doubles’, matinees and evening shows on Wednesday and Thursday and then two shows on Saturday too. Sometimes we do eight shows in five days, but we just have to make it fun, and this cast is really good fun.

Shocked in pink: Joanne Clifton’s prim and proper Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show at the Grand Opera House in June 2019

“On those matinee days, we’ll get breakfast, do the show, where we’re all buzzing after doing I’m A Believer at the end, and then everyone’s in the green room, having fun, some cast members doing jigsaws, and we have a Lego club too.”

Neil Diamond’s I’m A Believer – best known for The Monkees’ 1966 hit version – is joined by original songs aplenty in the musical. “There are extra bits to the story too that make it better,” says Joanne. “Like my first song, I Know It’s Today, where Fiona goes through the stages of her life in the tower, from the age of seven, reading books, then teenage Fiona, older and brasher, and then I come on as Fiona as she is now, going out of her mind stuck in the tower.”

Joanne will be appearing in an American musical for the fourth time at the Grand Opera House after playing prim and proper college student Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show in June 2019 and starring twice in 2017, first as demure Kansas flapper girl Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie in February, then combustible Pittsburgh steel mill welder Alex Owens in Flashdance in November.

“It’s one of my favourite theatres,” she says. “I love old, traditional theatres, and York has such happy memories for me.”

Shrek The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, November 27 to December 2, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york

Copyright of The Press, York

“Be who you want to be, rather than living up to other people’s expectation,” urges Joanne Clifton, in reaction to playing convention-busting Princess Fiona in Shrek The Musical
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More Things To Do in York and beyond from November 18. Here’s holidaying Hutch’s List No. 47 for 2023, from The Press, York

Who’s next as the death count rises in Lucy Bailey’s production of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Manuel Harlan

AND then there were thrillers, music, spoken word and comedy gigs, a cricket legend show and smooth crooner tribute for Charles Hutchinson to recommend.  

Thriller of the week: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Grand Opera House, York, November 22 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

AFTER Pick Me Up Theatre’s September staging at Theatre@41, Monkgate, here comes Lucy Bailey’s “genuinely terrifying” touring production of Agatha Christie’s best-selling 1939 crime novel, starring, among others, Andrew Lancel as William Blore, David Yelland as Judge Wargrave and Sophie Walter as Vera Claythorne.  

Ten strangers – eight guests and a butler and his housekeeper wife – are lured to a solitary mansion off the coast of Devon. When a storm cuts them off from the mainland, the true reason for their presence on Soldier Island becomes horribly clear. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Spanish sarcasm of the week: Ignacio Lopez, YO1 Live Lounge, York Barbican, November 18, 8pm

SPANISH export Ignacio Lopez, from Live At The Apollo, The Now Show and Stand-Up Sesh, scrutinises his immigrant upbringing and family tree in a show about clashing cultures and never fitting in. 

Sharing his biggest failures with a globe-trotting story of music, comedy and admin cock-ups, exotic outsider comedian Ignacio skewers Britain and Spain with an armada of stand-up sarcasm, silliness and songs. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Simon Brodkin: Screwed Up revelations from prankster at Grand Opera House, York

Comedy times two at Grand Opera House, York: Simon Brodkin, Screwed Up, November 18, 8pm; Lucy Beaumont, The Trouble & Strife, November 19, 8pm

THE most viewed British comedian of all time on TikTok, notorious prankster and Lee Nelson creator Simon Brodkin rips into celebrity culture, social media, the police, Putin, Prince Andrew and Jesus in his new stand-up show, Screwed Up. Nothing is off limits, from his mental health to his five arrests and his family.

An award-winning stand-up (and actress) before she met Leeds comedian and now husband Jon Richardson, Hull-born Lucy Beaumont lets slip on her rollercoaster world through a surrealist lens. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Not just cricket: Henry Blofeld discusses “flannelled fools” and much besides at York Theatre Royal

Chat show of the week: An Audience With Henry Blofeld, York Theatre Royal, November 20, 7.30pm

TEST Match Special alumnus Henry Blofeld, 84, will discuss rather more than the art of cricket commentary. “If you think you’re going to learn how to play a forward defensive, you’ll be sadly disappointed,” he forewarns.

Instead, expect his colourful life story in a tongue-in-cheek show, full of after-dinner anecdotes and meandering digressions where Blowers pokes fun at himself and his TMS gaffes and his subjects veer from intergalactic travel to horticulture to mountaineering. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The Trials Of Cato: Twisting folk into new shapes at Pocklington Arts Centre

Folk gig of the week: The Trials Of Cato, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm

2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winners The Trials Of Cato pay homage to the folk tradition while twisting old bones into something febrile and modern, combining stomping tunes and captivating stories.

Formed in Beirut, Lebanon, the Welsh/English band have been based in Britain since 2016, releasing the albums Hide And Hair in 2018 and Gog Magog, named after the mythical giant of Arthurian legend and a Cambridgeshire hilltop, last year. Mandolin player and vocalist Polly Bolton has joined the trio after leaving The Magpies. Support act will be Annie Dressner, once of New York City, now of Cambridgeshire. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk

Jess Gardham: On Navigators Art & Performance’s Basement Sessions bill at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York

Underground movement of the week: Navigators Art & Performance, The Basement Sessions, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, November 25, doors, 7pm

YORK creative hub Navigators Art & Performance launches the Basement Sessions series of Music, Spoken Word and Comedy – Live, Local and Loud! with a bill of performers from the York area and “a few surprises up the sleeve”.

In the line-up are punk/post-punk/alt. rock/indie band What Fresh Hell, playing their farewell gig; pop, soul and acoustic singer-songwriter Jess Gardham; comedian John Pease; performance artist Carrieanne Vivianette, exploring the legacies of radical women through voice, movement and improvisation, and jazz-turned-punk Battle of the Bands finalists Attacker TV. Box office: bit.ly/nav-base-1 or on the door.

Stepping out of the shadow: Atila Huyesin celebrates the music of Nat King Cole at the NCEM, York

Tribute show of the week: Atila Huseyin in King For A Day: The Nat King Cole Story, National Centre for Early Music, York, November 26, 7pm

ATILA Huseyin combines live music, narration and projected archive images and footage in his concert celebration of one the 20th century’s greatest vocalists and entertainers, Nat King Cole. of the Twentieth Century: Nat King Cole.

Accompanied by world-class musicians, Huseyin performs such favourites as Nature Boy, Unforgettable and When I Fall in Love alongside stylish reworkings of his lesser-known gems. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Chris McCausland: Warming up at Selby Town Hall for a year of travels on his 2024 Yonks! tour

Looking ahead: Chris McCausland, Yonks!, Grand Opera House, York, November 10 2024

LIVERPUDLIAN comedian Chris McCausland will follow up his 140-date Speaky Blinder tour with 104 shows on his Yonks! travels in January to May and September to December 2024. Why Yonks? “I’ve been called an ‘overnight success’, even though I’ve been doing this for yonks,” he reasons after more than two decades on the stand-up circuit.

This year, McCausland, 46, has hosted his own travel series, Wonders Of The World I Can’t See, on Channel 4. His Work In Progress show at Selby Town Hall on Wednesday (8pm) has sold out. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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REVIEW: Paul Rhodes’s verdict on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Grand Opera House, York **** 

Lucy Bailey’s cast in And Then There Were None, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Manuel Harlan

A WELL-TOLD story doesn’t lose its power to capture the imagination. Agatha Christie’s work continues to be enjoyed decades later. Times change, our love of a good murder mystery does not. While the original venue for the play was bombed out during the Second World War, this York performance looked sold out and deservedly so.

And Then There Were None is the story of ten strangers, lured to an island by various deceits in order to reveal their past sins and receive their comeuppance. The opening scenes play out leisurely, perhaps too leisurely, as we are introduced to the locked-down guests. In lesser hands, these characters could easily come across as dated clichés, but the longer they live, the more depths we see.

Blessed with director Lucy Bailey at the helm and a top-flight cast, you are in for an enjoyable tense evening. Bailey has wisely not deconstructed Christie’s bomb-proof plot. The updates are mostly to bring depth and nuance. Modern tastes are thrown a bone with a slow-motion sequence here, a memory there.

Most of the deaths thankfully still take place off stage and the social order remains implacably fixed. The same-sex kiss between Lucy Tregear as George Rogers (updating the original male butler) and Jane Pinchbeck (Nicola May-Taylor) drew gasps in Cambridge but barely raise an eyebrow in York.

This is an ensemble piece and now mid-tour is operating at its peak. Once the thrilling machinery of murder is running, each comes to the fore. Movement director Ayse Tashkiran has cleverly arranged the characters’ comings and goings so that each is both inquisitor and “inquisited” upon.

Joseph Beatie as adventurer Philip Lombard keeps his head more than others, and his performance is commendably textured. Bob Barrett, once the rumpled doctor Sacha Levy in Holby City, is again a rumpled doctor. He clearly relishes his character’s dark night of the soul after the interval.

David Yelland is more debonair than ice as Judge Wargrave; suavely seeking to control proceedings as he once did in court; hiding his steel beneath an impeccably unruffled exterior. He could have made mincemeat of General MacKenzie, played with refreshing humanity and without bombast by Jeffery Kissoon.

The female members of the cast struck different notes; Treagar brings both resolve and enough drunken tenderness to her butler, while Katy Stephens is a formidably trenchant force as religious Emily Brent. The minor roles remain more one dimensional: callow, nervy or late with the milk as the plot demands.

Mike Britton’s set functions on a number of levels, a concave beach/sky in the background to represent Soldier Island, minimalist furniture (ageless but for the rug) and employing layers (both physical and psychological) seen through see through curtains. Bailey makes good, if sparing use of these layers to give us flashbacks into what ails the characters. The audience are the faces watching safely in the dark.

The suspense becomes irresistible. It’s hard to imagine a modern thriller without Christie’s contributions to the final twist and this one does not disappoint, pulling no punches.

This is a play where the characters watch each other closely. There is no let-up in the second act. Chris Davey’s lighting becomes more stark; up lit to really accentuate the faces and their claustrophobia. The red lighting for the scene reminiscent of A Midsummer’s Night Dream is effective, but the tableau itself is drawn in too broad strokes. The sound from Elizabeth Purnell is gentle, distant and understated – quietly drawing you in.

Without giving too much away, Andrew Lancel’s William Blore and Sophie Walter’s Vera Claythorne really stand out as the play rolls mercilessly on. Retired police inspector Blore is a very welcome guest, with many of the best lines, most of the laughs, and the biscuits. Lancel performs with assured timing and a depth and subtlety to his gradual breakdown.

You really don’t know what to believe about Vera Claythorne, thanks to Walter’s ability to convince you of anything she pleases. By turns modern and strong, damaged and vulnerable, Walter is arguably the most, perhaps only, sympathetic character. Or is that Christie playing tricks again? Guilty or not, her performance is unmissable.

Low numbers of tickets remain for the rest of this week’s run, but time is running out to work out whodunnit. Performances: tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm, 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york. Age guidance: 12 plus.

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Andrew Lancel takes closer inspection of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None on Grand Opera House return

Andrew Lancel’s retired Inspector William Blore in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Manuel Harlan

ANDREW Lancel returns to the Grand Opera House stage in York next week in Lucy Bailey’s “genuinely terrifying” touring production of Agatha Christie’s most successful thriller And Then There Were None.

“I think I first played there [in October 2014] in The Small Hand, a Susan Hill play produced by Bill Kenwright, the first of 14 I did with Bill, who became a great friend,” says Andrew. “He meant so much to me.”

Andrew, best known for his villainous role as Frank Foster in Coronation Street, has since appeared at the Grand Opera House as a jury member in Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men in December 2014 and manager Brian Epstein in Cilla The Musical in January 2018.

Now he is eight weeks into the first leg of a nationwide tour that will take a break after the York run before resuming from January to April 2024 and later travelling all over the world. “It’s been doing very well,” he says. “We’re rammed in every town, with standing ovations after every performance. Agatha Christie plays are going to last as long as Shakespeare will be done. She’s a genre in herself.”

Christie’s stage version of her best-selling 1939 crime novel revolves around ten strangers – eight guests, a butler and housekeeper – being lured to a solitary mansion off the coast of Devon. When a storm cuts them off from the mainland, the true reason for their presence on Soldier Island becomes horribly clear. One death at a time.

“People are getting bumped off. I don’t recommend anyone going near the stage!” jokes Andrew. “It’s a very timely production, with that thing of strangers going off to an island together. Look at TV shows, people going off to places and being eliminated one by one.

“In the hands of Lucy Bailey, who’s the reason I’m doing this show, she brings layers and textures of theatricality and darkness to this good old-fashioned thriller that starts very traditionally but then goes to another level. It’s shocking, but there’s also humour and the familiar characteristics of Agatha Christie.”

Christie has written more than one ending to And Then There Were None, but Andrew will not reveal the outcome in Bailey’s “reinvention for the 21st century”, except to say: “It’s very true to the novel, but what people are going to see at the Grand Opera House, as they are seeing up and down the country, is something unique, shocking. Our base line is the novel…but I ain’t gonna give anything away!”

Andrew continues: “Even if you know the play, you’ll see it in a new light in the way Lucy has done it. Its appeal spans the generations and it’s great to see some schools coming to it as their first piece of theatre. You hope they will pick up the Christie novels and come back to the theatre.”

Andrew plays William Blore, the retired police inspector summoned to Soldier Island, as it turns out, to answer belatedly to the crime of gaining promotion for himself by sending an innocent man named Landor to a penal colony, where he died.

“There are many sides to Blore. Everyone arrives on the island, lured there by an invitation where their curiosity and greed has got the better of them, but with a history of guilt in a crime for reasons that are revealed one by one,” he says.

“But Blore starts from a  very different place [of authority] and it’s fascinating to see him gradually breaking down. Learning everyone’s back story is so revealing.

“The 1939 setting means the shadow of war hangs over them too, and it’s incredible what a harbinger this play is, given what’s going on around us now.”

Andrew is “really enjoying” playing Blore in Bailey’s production. “It’s a very physical part and a very physical play, from fights to montages to almost dances,” he says.

The death toll keeps rising, “but it’s very much an ensemble piece, and without giving too much away, they are there throughout”. Another intriguing reason to dive into the murk of And Then There Were None but be aware that tickets are selling fast.

Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday (21/11/2023) to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.