The art beat of YORKshire
FIND out in Episode 88 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car as culture podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson reflect on polymath Grayson Perry’s final night of his tour into the normal world.
Under discussion too are Record Store Day; Father John Misty’s love-hate divide and bad lad René Magritte.
To listen, head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10525896
GAVIN & Stacey star Mathew Horne has performed on a York stage only once before, appearing in The Catherine Tate Show Live show at York Barbican.
“We started the tour there. It must be five years ago,” he recalls, ahead of being joined by Keith Allen and Ian Bartholomew in Jamie Glover’s touring production of Harold Pinter’s fractious family drama The Homecoming at York Theatre Royal from May 16 to 21.
“I know York very well from going on school trips from my hometown of Nottingham, though I don’t know the Theatre Royal itself, but I’m assured by our director that it’s beautiful with very good audiences.”
Mathew initially had hoped to be touring opposite Allen in another Pinter work, The Caretaker, rather than The Homecoming, his bleakly humorous exploration of family and relationships, premiered in the West End in 1965 before winning four Tony Awards on Broadway in 1967, including Best Play.
“Really the whole seed of the idea came from myself and director Jamie Glover, an actor-director colleague and friend of mine,” says Mathew.
“We had wanted to do a play for a while, and Keith had done an episode of Agatha Raisin [the Sky One series in which Horne plays Roy Silver]. I’ve known him for 15 years, and he came on and did a guest part.
“Just after that, I did a film called Bolan Shoes with Timothy Spall, which will be out at the end of this year. I got talking to him about the last play he’d done, The Caretaker, and I thought, ‘hang on, I’d love to play Aston in that with Keith as the Caretaker’.”
Mathew duly took the idea to Glover, with the aim of mounting a production at the Theatre Royal, Bath. “But the rights weren’t available,” he recalls. “However, we could do The Homecoming, because it was offered to us by Harold Pinter’s estate.
“I thought, ‘that’s going to be a problem because Keith has done it twice already, the last time seven years ago.”
Indeed, Allen had played university professor Teddy at the National Theatre in 1997 and chauffeur Sam at London’s Trafalgar Studios in 2015. “I called him anyway, and Keith said he’d always wanted to play Max [retired butcher, brutal patriarch and Teddy’s father], which slightly blindsided me, but I was delighted.”
In Pinter’s coruscating play, university professor Teddy returns from America in 1965 with his wife Ruth to find his find his elderly father, uncle and brothers still living at their childhood home in North London, whereupon life becomes a barely camouflaged battle for power and sexual supremacy fought out with taut verbal brutality.
Amid the men’s struggle for power and one-upmanship, who will emerge victorious in this misogynistic cauldron: the poised and elegant Ruth or her husband’s dysfunctional family?
Mathew takes the role of Lenny, Teddy’s enigmatic brother. “He’s a pimp and a bit of a chip off the old block in terms of his father,” he says. “He’s a working-class boy with aspirations above his station and on the surface he appears to be a charming and amiable man but there’s a deep-seated resentment and menace about him.
“He’s a character that I always wanted to play so it felt like a no-brainer. It’s the danger and menace that’s innate in him which attracted me to the role because it’s not something I’m generally allowed to play on television or in films.
“A character with real danger and menace is something I can’t recall having done, so that’s every reason to play him.”
In a nutshell, Lenny is an enigma in a typical Pinter puzzle. “This play is particularly a puzzle because it’s a game: a struggle for power involving both a familial power play and a gender power play,” says Mathew. “Most puzzles have answers but Pinter wanted ambiguity, and that’s why people are puzzled, because you laugh when morally and ethically you feel you shouldn’t.
“Pinter is holding up a mirror to society but he does that in a very visceral way because he makes you question your own moral ethics. That’s why The Homecoming is deeply complex and deeply challenging, at times hysterically funny, but at other times sickeningly vile. That’s what theatre should do: ask you questions and challenge you.”
How do actors respond to facing a play with a puzzle at its heart? “Working out that puzzle, as actors we have to make choices and decide answers ourselves, but how we play it is to Pinter’s intentions,” says Mathew.
“There are ambiguities, and so it’s up to the audience to each decide what they think, but it’s not that we don’t have to make choices, but ambiguity is innate to the play.
“I’ve made all sorts of choices about Lenny, his background and his intentions, but how the audience reads that is none of my business. Sometimes there’s pure laughter, sometimes uncomfortable laughter, and you might even hear someone in the audience go ‘OK…’, which is really thrilling.”
Keith Allen reckons Jamie Glover’s direction has led to this production being the most humorous of his three encounters with The Homecoming. “I do concur with Keith on that,” says Mathew. “It was important for me in my early discussions with Jamie that we went down the humorous line because I’d seen the 2015 production, which was more bleak and went down the nasty path.
“We feel the only way to redeem some of these characters is to go for the comedy. It was written as a comedy, a deep, deep black comedy and it should be funny. Having seen a production that didn’t lean into that comedy, we felt we had to do that – and Keith feels this production is the closest to what Pinter would have wanted.
“You can’t control laughter, but if The Homecoming makes you laugh and then question why, it’s really exciting.”
“Puzzle” is not the only “P” word associated with Pinter. So too is the importance of “the Pause”. “The pauses mean as much as the words, and that’s how we approached it in rehearsals, really working on the silences, the pauses and the ellipses,” says Mathew.
“These are the three areas where actors are supposed to be quiet, but because it’s Pinter, they all mean something different to each of the other characters. So we worked on that; what they meant to each character, and there was only one where we couldn’t think why it was there, or what the character [saying that speech] or the other characters were thinking, but we’ve still made it work!”
How highly does Mathew rate The Homecoming among Pinter’s works? “It is his best play, simple as that,” he contends. “It’s poetic and it’s like a piece of classical music. It’s an immaculate work in terms of the writing and there’s no fat on the meat in this play. It’s deft.”
As for the play’s resonance in 2021, Mathew says: “The exploration of masculinity, male toxicity and the patriarchy is very much bubbling away throughout and that feels particularly relevant now with war happening in Europe and with the ultimate despotic patriarch at the helm.”
Presented by Theatre Royal Bath Productions, The Homecoming runs at York Theatre Royal, May 16 to 21, 7.30pm; plus 2pm Thursday matinee; 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Copyright Of The Press, York
THE world-premiere stage adaptation of Dan Brown’s thriller The Da Vinci Code will NOT be playing the Grand Opera House, York, from May 30 to June 4 after all.
Blame theatre’s perennial enemy – “unforeseen circumstances”- for the cancellation. “Grand Opera House, York, is sorry for any inconvenience,” the Cumberland Street theatre’s statement concludes.
Directed by Luke Sheppard, who was at the helm of the award-winning West End musical & Juliet, the debut tour was in the diary for January 10 to November 12.
However, the producers have decided: “Due to the current challenges of touring, we have made the difficult decision to conclude The Da Vinci Code earlier than expected. We are extremely proud of the work done by the cast and creative team who made this wonderful show, and we hope that it will be seen again before long.
“We apologise for any disappointment caused and ask that audiences continue to support theatre as the industry continues to recover.”
When announcing the tour, producer Simon Friend had said: “We have a truly stellar cast and creative team bringing The Da Vinci Code to life on stage for the first time, and with Dan Brown’s full endorsement of the show and the talented director Luke Sheppard at the helm, we’re confident that we’ll please devoted fans as well as newcomers to this magnificent story.”
Should you need a quick refresher course on what now will not be unfolding in Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel’s stage adaptation in York, the curator of the Louvre, in Paris, has been brutally murdered. Alongside his body is a series of baffling codes.
Professor Robert Langdon and fellow cryptologist Sophie Neveu attempt to solve the riddles, leading to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and beyond as they delve deep into the vault of history. In a breathless race through the streets of Europe, Langdon and Neveu must decipher the labyrinthine code before a shocking historical secret is lost forever.
Director Sheppard said of the stage adaptation: “Cracking The Da Vinci Code open for the stage reveals an epic thriller steeped in theatrical potential, rich in suspense and surprising at every turn.
“Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel’s brilliant adaptation leaps off the page and demands us to push the limits of our imagination, creating a production that champions dynamic theatrical storytelling and places the audience up close in the heat of this gripping mystery.”
In York, Coronation Street star Chris Harper would have played Robert Langdon alongside Danny John-Jules as Sir Leigh Teabing, Hannah Rose Caton, in her British stage debut as Sophie Neveu, and Joshua Lacey as Silas.
The Grand Opera House is contacting ticket holders.
GREAT Yorkshire Fringe festival favourites Morgan & West present their new show Unbelievable Science at York Theatre Royal on Saturday afternoon.
After a decade of magic shows for young and old alike, their time-travelling conjuring act is well established on the UK touring circuit, but these spiffing chaps hide a dark secret beneath their prestidigitatory prowess.
Rhys Morgan and Robert West are Oxford graduates with degrees in physics and chemistry and fully qualified secondary school teachers to boot.
Unbelievable Science combines the duo’s trademark showmanship and silliness with genuine scientific knowledge and a lifelong love of learning to create a fun science extravaganza for all ages.
After their nomination for a Primary Times Children’s Choice Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, science communicators Morgan & West are taking the show all over England, where audiences will experience captivating chemistry, phenomenal physics and bonkers biology.
Fires, explosions, lightning on stage, optical illusions, mass audience experiments and 3D shadow puppets await all those “wily enough to come along to be intrigued by science”.
“In the age of ‘so-called experts’, we felt it was time to bring families together to marvel and wonder at what science and nature has to offer us all, provoking questions and discussions as to how things work and what regular people themselves can learn from it,” say Morgan & West.
“It’s time to throw out the jargon and make everything plain, simple, clear and enormously exciting.”
Tickets to see these Penn & Teller: Fool Us winners on May 7 at 2.30pm are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
SEEKING Divine inspiration? Here comes Charles Hutchinson with his guide to what’s hot, from topical comedy to charming songwriters, a steamy thriller to intense jazz.
Charmer of the week: The Divine Comedy, York Barbican, tonight, 7.45pm
THE Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon plays York this weekend for the first time since the Irish chamber-pop leprechaun’s Minster concert in May 2011.
Hannon will be showcasing his 2022 compilation, Charmed Life – The Best Of The Divine Comedy, marking the completion of the 51-year-old songwriter, musical score composer and cricket enthusiast’s third decade as a recording artist
“I’ve been luckier than most,” Hannon says. “I get to sing songs to people for a living and they almost always applaud.” Hence that Charmed Life title. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Outdoor dance vibes of the long weekend: Dance Dance Dance, A Damn Big Dance Party, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Sunday, 6pm to 11pm
HEADPHONES on as At The Mill plays host to a three-channel Silent Disco with a bunch of very cool guest DJs, a live set from Flatcap Carnival and the pizza oven fired up for orders.
Organiser Alexander Flanagan Wright says: “We got Joshua Pulleyn coming. We got Bolshee taking over a channel. We got Sarah Rorke blasting out some Northern Soul vibes. Tom Figgins is metaphorically spinning a track or two.
“Paul Smith has some new punk and old-school hip hop heading your way. Abbi Ollive has a solid hour of girl power. And I’m lining up a lot of Chemical Brothers, Prodigy and Beyoncé as I can. Come dance. It’s gotta be mega. There’s a handful of tickets left at atthemill.org.”
Homecoming of the week: Beth McCarthy, The Crescent, York, Monday, doors 7.30pm
BETH McCarthy, now living in London, heads home to play her first York gig since March 2019.
Singer-songwriter Beth has been buoyed by the online response to her singles and videos, drawing 4.8 million likes and 300,000 followers on TikTok and attracting 465,000 monthly listeners and nine million plays of her She Gets The Flowers on Spotify. Box office: myticket.co.uk/artists/beth-mccarthy.
Comedy gigs of the week: Stewart Lee, Snowflake/Tornado, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Thursday, 7.30pm
DELAYED by lockdowns, Stewart Lee finally brings Snowflake/Tornado – a double bill of two 60-minute sets, back-to-back nightly – to York with new material for 2022.
Heavily rewritten in the light of two pandemic-enforced dormant years, Snowflake looks at how the Covid/Brexit era has influenced the culture war between lovely snowflakes and horrible people.
Tornado questions Lee’s position in the comedy marketplace after Netflix mistakenly listed his show as “reports of sharks falling from the skies are on the rise again. Nobody on the Eastern Seaboard is safe.” Good luck trying to acquire a ticket on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Psychological thriller of the week: Fatal Attraction, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm matinees, Wednesday and Saturday
JAMES Dearden, screenwriter for Adrian Lyne’s 1987 “bunny boiler” American psycho thriller, has written a new stage version of Fatal Attraction for 21st century audiences, mobile phones et al.
The plot remains the same: happily married New York attorney Dan Gallagher (Oliver Farnworth) has a night on the town with editor Alex Forrest (Susie Amy) that boils up into passion.
Dan returns home to wife Beth (Louise Redknapp), trying to forget what happened, but Alex has only one rule: you play fair with her and she’ll play fair with you. If not…! Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Smile of the week: Marti Pellow, Greatest Hits Tour, York Barbican, Tuesday, 7.30pm
LET Marti Pellow introduce his Greatest Hits Tour show. “It’s about finally being able to come together to celebrate love, life, and remember those we may have lost along the way. Most of all, it’s about enjoyment and celebrating the here and now. Get your dancing shoes on: it’s time to party with Marti.”
Expect songs from his Wet Wet Wet and solo catalogues up to 2021’s Stargazer album, cover versions too, plus reflective chat as he sits on the edge of the stage. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jazz gig of the week: Trish Clowes: My Iris, National Centre for Early Music, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
SAXOPHONIST Trish Clowes leads her jazz band My Iris in their York debut, providing pianist Ross Stanley, guitarist Chris Montague and drummer James Maddren with a high-intensity platform for individual expression and improvisation.
Driving grooves and lingering melodic lines combine as they “seamlessly morph between earthy restlessness and futuristic dreamscapes”. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Indoor dance show of the week: Terpsichoring Dance Company in Me, Myself And Misha, York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm
TERPSICHORING Dance Company’s Me, Myself & Misha is a heartfelt, autobiographical 40-minute show devised and performed by award-winning dance artist Ana Silverio, who explores the physical and emotional journey, full of challenges and joys, that one woman undertakes to become a mother.
Universal themes of pregnancy and labour are presented, using a mix of physical theatre and dance alongside an original and moving musical score. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Fundraiser alert: Yorkraine, for DEC Ukraine Appeal, Grand Opera House, York, May 24, 7.30pm
YORKRAINE’s benefit concert combines four of York’s finest cover bands, The Supermodels, The Mothers, The Y Street Band and Sister Madly, plus acoustic slots from Alex Victoria and Mal Fry and guest speakers.
The evening of pop and rock classics from the past six decades will raise funds for the British Red Cross DEC appeal to aid Ukrainian refugees who find themselves in dire circumstances. All artists, hosts, sound tech and crew have donated their time free of charge. Box office: atgtickets.com/York.
Gig announcement of the week: Gary Barlow, A Different Stage, Grand Opera House, York, June 10 and 11
TAKE That legend, singer, songwriter, composer, producer, talent show judge and author Gary Barlow is adding a theatrical one-man show to his repertoire.
“I’ve done shows where it has just been me and a keyboard,” says Barlow. “I’ve done shows where I sit and talk to people. I’ve done shows where I’ve performed as part of a group.
“But this one, well, it’s like all of those, but none of them. When I walk out this time, well, it’s going to be a very different stage altogether.” Now the bad news: tickets went on sale at 9.30am yesterday and sold out by 10am, but Pray there could yet be a silver lining…
TWO Big Egos In A Small Car culture podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson take their hat off to Barry in Episode 86 as the Australian comedy chameleon plays his first show in three years at the age of 88 at York’s Grand Opera House.
Plus Graham unexpectedly encounters Chinese artist Ai Weiwei at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Echo & The Bunnymen and Groove Armada’s Leeds O2 Academy gigs, and Harrogate gallery curator Andrew Stewart RIP.
To listen, go to https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10479340
Magic Goes Wrong, by Mischief/Penn & Teller, York Theatre Royal, tonight at 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; Sunday; 2.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age guide: 11+
IN a nutshell, Magic Goes Wrong, show goes right. Cue packed houses, just as there were for Mischief’s The Play That Goes Wrong (twice) and The Comedy About A Bank Robbery on past York visits, taking in both the Theatre Royal and Grand Opera House.
If those calamitous, chaotic comedies were essentially English in character, for Magic Goes Wrong, Olivier Award-winning Mischief writers Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields have gone international by teaming up with deconstructionist American magicians Penn & Teller.
Off to Las Vegas headed the Mischief triumvirate to match their verbal and physical comedy skills and instinct for catastrophic comedic structure with Penn Jillette and Teller’s magical sleight of hand.
The result is a show big on set pieces and spectacle, with the rhythm and flow of a speciality act bill or a circus and the cliff-edge drama of the audience knowing that if anything can go wrong, it will, but still being surprised by how it does just when you think you are one step ahead.
In the play within the magic show, a hapless gang of magicians is staging an evening of grand illusion billed on a malfunctioning archway of lights as the Disaster In Magic Charity Fundraiser. In Mischief tradition, mayhem ensues as acts flounder, flounce or or fall out, accidents spiral beyond control and so does the ever-elusive fundraising target.
All the while, in the Mischief house style, all the acts take everything very seriously, the more so with every calamity, faces determinedly kept straight even when in panic or pain, as they try to stay as serene as a swan on water while paddling not so elegantly beneath the surface – and unlike observing a swan, we can see that frantic paddling: the perfect recipe for comedy.
Running the charity fundraiser is Sam Hill’s master of ceremonies Sophisticato, son of late, great magician The Great Sophisticato, who took perverse pleasure in refusing to pass on his skills or props. Embitterment is never far from the breaking through the oily façade.
Ruining ill-fated Sophisticato’s desire for a smooth-flowing night are what befalls not only himself but also Valerie Cutko’s statuesque Eugenia, Rory Fairbairn’s hapless Mind Mangler, Kiefer Moriarty’s The Blade, with his lust for endangering himself, and the sparring German act Spitzmauz (Jocelyn Prah) and Bar (Chloe Tannenbaum), capricious as cats as they constantly seek to outdo or undermine each other.
Smashing down theatre’s “fourth wall”, audience participation plays a big part, with a cameraman filming audience members as they partake in the Mind Mangler’s inept mind games.
Pick your own favourite among the magic acts, maybe Prah’s wunderbar Spitzmauz, maybe Hill’s exasperated, thwarted, on-a-knife-edge MC, Sophisticato, but most probably Beverley-born Fairbairn’s Mind Mangler, the mentalist magician going out of his mind, initially vainglorious, inducing mockery, but gradually turning the audience to his side with cheers, maybe his ultimate mind game.
Allied to Penn & Teller’s penchant for the wow factor, the Mischief makers apply the ‘ow!’ factor, in the comic tradition of “no pain, no gain”. Magic Goes Wrong covers so many comedy bases under Adam Meggido’s direction, from downright silliness to upright characters; from physical danger to slapstick; from fast farce to slow-build momentum; from friction between the players to metatheatre.
The more you experience each character, amid the rising desperation, the funnier they become, in the tradition of Michael Crawford’s Frank Spencer or John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty.
Then wave the wand of magic over the mishaps, pratfalls and power struggles, and abracadabra, delusion and illusion combine to glorious comic effect. Amid the calamitous carnage, there are still “how-did-they-do-that?” magical moments, quickly followed by a give-away ‘reveal’ for the bigger laugh.
Whereas celebrity-led fundraising telethons go so slickly, this Disaster Magic night could not be more contrasting, but what comic relief for anyone who finds those over-excited, tearful telethons a turn-off.
Keep an eye on the misbehaving Disaster In Magic Charity Fundraiser arch in Will Bowen’s hi-tech set design, spelling out new words from those letters as the lights go out in yet another font for comedy where one word sums up this fabulous, fun, funny show: MAGIC.
What if you don’t like magic? You will love Magic Goes Wrong.
Please note: Magic Goes Wrong co-creators Penn & Teller do not appear on stage.
FIRST Susie Amy played the cheated wife’s role in the 2022 theatre tour of James Dearden’s Fatal Attraction.
Now, for the second leg, she has switched from Beth to “the other woman”, the Hitchcockian bunny boiler Alex Forrest, still playing opposite Coronation Street soap star favourite Oliver Farnworth, but now joined by Eternal singer, television presenter, actress, 2016 Strictly Come Dancing runner-up and fashion influencer Louise Redknapp as the tour rolls into York next Tuesday for its final week at the Grand Opera House.
“I played Beth for eight weeks from January, and it was great playing her with Kym Marsh as Alex,” says Susie. “But the way it’s worked out, it’s been nice to have the rare chance to play both female leads in the same play and see things from different perspectives – and I’ve really enjoyed working with Louise too.”
The changeover could not have been quicker. “I finished on the Saturday as Beth and started as Alex the next Tuesday after rehearsing the role while playing Beth in the evening,” she says.
“I only had the odd couple of hours here and there, but I did a lot of work on my own with Rachel Heyburn, our assistant director, and I knew the project very well by then, knowing the feel of the piece.”
A household name since her sparkling days as glamour model Chardonnay Lane-Pascoe in ITV’s trashy hit melodrama Footballers’ Wives from 2002 to 2004, Susie, 41, joined the Fatal Attraction cast for the stage resurrection of an American psychological thriller never forgotten from Adrian Lyne’s 1987 movie, the one with Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer.
Beth, you may recall, is the wife of New York attorney Dan Gallagher (Farnworth), their marriage ever so happy until he meets hotshot editor Alex Forrest on a night out that ends up in enflamed passion. Dan returns home, tries to forget his “mistake”, but Alex has different ideas. She has one rule: you play fair with her, and she’ll play fair with you.
So far, so familiar, from Dearden’s original film screenplay, but the tour is presenting his new stage version of a stylish, sinister, steamy thriller that asks: what happens when desire becomes deadly?
“The film was set in 1987; the play is set today with mobile phones,” says Susie. “The writer has been in the rehearsal room, sharing his vision with us, honouring the original but modernising it too, which is important because we think so differently now.
“Whereas Alex would have been called a ‘bunny boiler’ back then, now there’s more emphasis on understanding mental health, so though it’s the same story, now we look at things differently, especially in relation to mental wellbeing.
“Now, we relate more to Alex’s desperate loneliness. Here, a man has come along and shown her interest that she’s really bought into, before he goes back into his family world, and she can’t accept that.”
Alex is placed in a difficult situation, says Susie. “Dan has gone back to the people he’s fairly happy with, and that has left Alex unhappy, which is a not-unfamiliar position – and now we see her side of the story through the eyes of having a better awareness of mental health issues.
“Dan is arrogant. His wife has quit her better-paid job to look after their children, and he’s used to getting his way. Though he genuinely connects with Alex, he wants to forget her, hoping she will never see him again.
“He doesn’t treat Alex well but, at the same time, you shouldn’t stalk someone, though Dan should not have given false hope to her, and Beth ends up very much betrayed. Beth had really trusted him in a relationship where she thought they respected each other.”
By contrast with the “bunny boiler” jibes thrown at Alex in the film, theatre audiences have been giving Susie’s 2022 Alex a fairer hearing. “To be honest, it’s nice to be getting a mixed reaction, because it’s normal for people to think differently; some people have sympathy for Dan, some for Beth, some for Alex,” she says. “Maybe it all depends on our own experiences in life.
“Then you also have to consider that there are some people who have never seen the film, mostly young people, and they may look at it differently to how people did in 1987.”
Putting Susie on the spot, does she prefer playing Beth or Alex? “Alex,” she says. “Just because, as an actor, it’s a such a great rollercoaster of a ride every performance, playing this independent, sassy, sexy woman, who would catch a man’s eye in a really empowered way, but as the play progresses, her mental health fails her and she starts to turn.”
Fatal Attraction boils over at Grand Opera House, York, May 3 to 7, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees, Wednesday and Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/York or on 0844 871 7615.
Copyright of The Press, York
AT the heart of the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s Bronte Festival is the SJT and New Vic Theatre’s co-production of Jane Eyre, adapted by Chris Bush, a Sheffield playwright with a York past drawn to Charlotte Bronte’s revolutionary spirit.
In the wake of the 2022 tour of Kirsty Smith and Kat Rose-Martin’s Jane Hair, re-imagining the Bronte sisters as modern-day Haworth hairdressers and Anne as a political blogger, Bush shows rather more “respect, but not reverence” in her nimble adaptation, eschewing a narrator in favour of letting Zoe Waterman’s cast of actor-musicians crack on with telling the story with a purposeful stride to rival Suranne Jones’s Anne Lister in Gentleman Jack.
Bush had first been offered Emily’s Wuthering Heights, but she was happier to accept the second invitation of sibling Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. “I’m just really drawn to Jane both as a character and a figure,” she reasoned. “I love her determination to take control of her destiny.”
Bush’s Jane Eyre, as characterised by Eleanor Sutton with her scraped-back hair, is a no-nonsense, unbending Yorkshire woman of exacting standards, passionate and impatient, no respecter of authority but resolute in observing her own moral code.
From orphaned childhood, she is in a hurry, on a mission, so much so that Bush suddenly stops a play so quick out of the traps that she decides it needs a refresher course in one of those “not reverent” insertions from the Bush playbook of playwriting.
Somewhat against the grain of a Bronia Housman design aesthetic that conveys Bronte’s harsh world by favouring minimalism to keep the scene-changing to a minimum, the pace to the maximum and Nao Nagai’s lighting to the fore, much emphasis is placed Simon Slater’s compositions and sound design rooted in “19th century pop hits” in the spirit of a folk musical or a Brecht and Weill play with music.
They serve the purpose of propelling a story of complexity yet clarity forward, or providing time to catch breath, but their profusion is counter-productive, ultimately slowing down this all-action, vibrant Jane Eyre, by contrast with Sally Cookson’s exhilarating, breathless production for the Bristol Old Vic/National Theatre that toured York and Leeds in 2017.
Like Cookson, Waterman has employed a multi role-playing cast, save for Sutton’s ever-resourceful, clever and fiery Jane Eyre and Sam Jenkins-Shaw’s restless, troubled Rochester, whose burgeoning chemistry climaxes in a beautiful, moving finale.
There is much to enjoy in the ensemble interplay of Tomi Ogbaro, Nia Gandhi, Zoe West and Sarah Groarke’s constant changes of character or returning with instrument in hand, the fleet-footed flow being aided by Will Tuckett’s movement direction.
Bush’s way with words elicits passion, shards of wit, nuggety northern nous, poetic darkness and light too, and amid the proto-feminist zeal, she highlights the mistreatment and lack of understanding of Bertha, the “mad woman in the attic”.
By having Sutton transform from Jane into Bertha with a loosening of her hair and a change of body shape, Bush makes a link between the two women, one whose free spirit cannot be contained despite the rigid class structure, the other forcibly restrained with terrible consequences.
Should you miss this week’s 7.30pm performances, tomorrow’s 1.30pm matinee or Saturday’s 2.30pm show, a second chance to breathe in this fresh Jane Eyre comes at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, from May 4 to 28. For more details of the SJT’s Bronte Festival, including Stute Theatre’s I Am No Bird in The McCarthy, today until Saturday, head to: sjt.uk.com.
KATE Bush has never played York but here comes An Evening Without Kate Bush, Sarah- Louise Young’s show for uber-fans and newcomers alike, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, on Thursday night.
Made by actress, writer, director and international cabaret performer Young with theatre-maker Russell Lucas, this “chaotic cabaret cult” is as much about fandom and mythology as a celebration of Bush’s five decades of ground-breaking music, from the chart-topping Wuthering Heights at the age of 19 in 1978 to the 22-night run of her three-act Before The Dawn show at Hammersmith Apollo in 2014.
“My big brother’s first cerebral and physical crush was Kate Bush, and I do remember dancing madly to Wuthering Heights when I was four and a half, with four older brothers around me,” says Sarah-Louise.
“Hounds Of Love was my Kate Bush album, and I was a big fan of her videos; their theatricality was part of my genesis as a performer.”
Young and Lucas had first made a show together ten years ago, Julie Madly Deeply, in celebration of stage and screen actress Julie Andrews. “We wanted to make another show because we’d started to explore fans and fandom in the Julie show, and with Kate not performing for more than 30 years, we started thinking about doing a show focusing on Kate and her fans,” recalls Sarah Louise.
“Then suddenly she announced the Before The Dawn concerts, so we put it on ice. We both had tickets but had to give them away as we’d been invited to perform a three-week run of Julie Madly Deeply at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto.
“But the idea was still very hot and we thought, ‘let’s just make it’, coming up with the idea of wanting to make a piece of fan art about how Kate Bush might make a piece about her fans, with us creating a show we could perform out of suitcases.”
The resulting show is in the spirit of Kate Bush “but never trying to imitate her”, one where people often come out afterwards with their mouths open, saying “it’s not what I expected at all”…or asking Sarah-Louise if she does yoga exercises. The answer is No.
Kate Bush once said, “it’s not important to me that people understand me”. Indeed Sarah-Louise quotes a line from Graeme Thomson’s 2010 biography, Under The Ivy , that says “some people have found her easier to parody than to understand”, but An Evening Without Kate Bush is definitely not in that camp.
Rather than a parody, it is a deep dive seeking a deeper understanding of her music and mythology. “We nod to tribute shows, but then take a journey down the worm hole to show the flip side, the B-side, of Kate, where she keeps evolving and regenerating,” says Sarah-Louise.
What emerges is a “Chaotic Cabaret Cult”, as Young and Lucas define the show. “We came up with that phrase after we spent a lot of time at the start thinking about the audience experience, what they’ll get out of the show, and will it be fun for us?” says Sarah-Louise.
“I want chaos! ‘Cult’ was an ambitious idea, but it has turned into that, and cabaret, for me, encompasses all theatre genres, especially after the two years we’ve just had. The show is never the same twice.”
Each night is a transformative experience for Sarah-Louise. “I get spat out at the other end of the show,” she says,
Choosing songs was “immensely difficulty”, so much so that “we put it out on social media, asking people to tell us what songs they wouldn’t forgive us for not including”. “But we also didn’t want to make a show where they were all from the early era,” says Sarah-Louise. “And we had to look at what backing tracks were available, so we’ve done Hammer Horror and James And The Cold Gun afresh.”
She acknowledges that “for some people, Kate’s music is a quasi-religious experience”. “We learned a lot from our Julie Madly Deeply show, where people bring their childhood memories to it; their love of The Sound Of Music and Mary Poppins, and that was very helpful in creating this show,” says Sarah-Louise.
“It was important that I was a fan but also a theatre-maker who could step away from that, so that the show works for both super-fans and those who aren’t.
“It’s a celebration of fans and their experiences, made from a place of respect because I was aware that people wanted their love to be respected and affirmed. They love her epic themes, and that is what art should do: give us a portal to understand ourselves.”
An Evening Without Kate Bush takes on a different life each night: “There’s another show going on that’s not in my control,” says Sarah-Louise. “People bring their history and their love; how lucky I am to have those experiences in the room.”
One review has called it “a bonkers triumph”. “I’m very, very happy with that! Those two words – ‘bonkers triumph’ – work so well together because it is in part a clown show that allows that side of Kate to come through, as well as showing respect.”
An Evening Without Kate Bush, but with Sarah-Louise Young, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday (28/4/2022), 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
HERE is the official syndicated interview with Sarah-Louise Young for even more insight into An Evening Without Kate Bush, a show heading out on tour after a three-week London season.
What attracted you to Kate Bush as the possible subject for the show?
“I’ve aways loved Kate Bush’s music and as a child of the ’70s and 80s remember that first appearance on Top Of The Pops and all those amazing videos and songs which followed. Plus my brother fancied her a bit, so her music was always floating through the house.
“Kate Bush is a true icon: her music is unique, spanning nearly five decades, winning countless awards and selling millions of records, but the woman herself is something of an enigma.
“Not performing live for over 30 years between her 1979 Tour Of Life and 2014’s Before The Dawn at the Hammersmith Apollo, she spoke to us through her recorded music.
“In her physical absence, her fans created their own community: ‘The Fish People’. They are at the heart of An Evening Without Kate Bush.
“We wanted to celebrate them through her music. That was the starting point of making the show.”
Do you try to impersonate Kate in the show?
“I never set out to impersonate her – I mean who could? – but it’s amazing how many people tell me I sound like her though. A few fans thought I was miming at the start of the show!”
How hard is it to sing in Kate’s extraordinary vocal range?
“It’s definitely a vocally athletic workout! She sang them all live back in 1979, apart from Hammer Horror – a song we do in the two-act touring version of An Evening Without Kate Bush – so there’s no excuse not to do the same.
“What you hear on the albums is months of intricate layering of harmonies and different instruments, so it’s a more raw sound on stage, of course.
“I perform all the songs in their original keys, and I think part of it is that she chose such specific phrasing and wrote such intricate melodies, hearing them instantly hot-wires you back to the original.”
How did you prepare the movement aspect of your show?
“I spent one day working with the amazing Tom Jackson Greaves, who is a director and choreographer. We watched a lot of her videos and noted down some of her choices.
“We explored those in our session; again, never trying to ‘be’ her, more tap into her spirit. Quite by accident, the nicknames we came up with for her moves (‘The Pulse’, ‘The Champagne Whipcrack’, for example) found their way into the show.
“That’s often how it happens with devised work: you become a sponge for every impulse and they jostle around your head during the making process until they either find a home or float off into the ether.
“With the costumes too, my brilliant co-creator, Russell Lucas, and I tried to evoke her, not copy her. We rub shoulders with themes: she uses a lot of nature and bird imagery in her work, hence the feathery headdress.
“The cleaner’s outfit for This Woman’s Work is as much a nod to the cleaner’s story we mention at the start of the show, as it is to her TV special appearance where Kate sang Army Dreamers dressed as a cleaner or archetypal vintage housewife. That’s one for the super-fans.
“We did of course watch a lot of footage, interviews, videos, everything we could find, to get to know her journey as an artist and also how the world around her changed.
“Her early interviews are so uncomfortable. She is often being asked truly banal or overtly sexualised questions. She is so polite and accommodating but it’s great to see her later on in her career take the reins and shut down lines of enquiry that show the interviewers have no idea what they’re talking about.
“I also read the brilliant biography by Graeme Thomson called Under The Ivy. It’s the best music biography I’ve ever read and really lets you into her creative process.”
Do you need to know Kate’s music and be a super-fan to enjoy An Evening Without Kate Bush?
“Absolutely not. It’s one of the biggest compliments the show has received. Of course, if you are a super-fan, you’ll hear lots of the songs you know and love plus some little hidden gems for those in-the-know.
“But none of that is at the expense of the audience members who have perhaps come along with a fan friend or just out of curiosity. We elevate and celebrate everyone and when someone tells me after the show that they didn’t know her work but will be going home to listen to her music, then I’m thrilled.”
Your show encourages interaction. How does that work?
“It’s as interactive as you want it to be. I’ve been working in cabaret for over 20 years and my primary aim is that the audience have a good time. It’s great to be challenged and surprised, but I want them to feel safe. That’s really important to me.
“The invitation to participate starts small, a wave of a hand or a howl in the dark. I’m always really careful with any audience interaction to choose people who want to participate. There’s no enforced joining in; just gentle encouragement.
“I find that people self-select pretty easily. If someone doesn’t want to play, their body language communicates that. So far, I’ve never chosen anyone who didn’t want to be asked and I’ve had people come up to me after the show and fling their arms around me with gratitude.
“There’s a lovely moment where I invite a couple to dance together. During our Edinburgh Fringe run, we had a mum and her son come and dance, which reduced the whole room to tears, and in London, a couple who’d recently broken up but wanted to stay friends joined us on stage: they sought me out afterwards to say thank you. Our audiences have been brilliant. There is always so much love in the room.
“Russell Lucas and I were inspired by Kate Bush flashmobs and events like The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, which have sprung up around the world, from Sydney, Australia to Folkestone, Kent. We’ve taken fans’ stories and paid tribute to them on stage. You’ll enjoy the songs you know and love but put through the lens of the fans’ story.
After the opening song, And Dream Of Sheep, you say, “She’s not here but you are”! How would you feel if the real Kate Bush were in the audience? Would you want to know in advance?
“We would absolutely LOVE it if she came to see the show, although she’d have to wear a disguise as I think the audience would capsize if they knew she was in.
“When we were making it, we always knew we wanted it to be something she would approve of – so it’s been created with love, respect and a hefty does of joyful eccentricity!
“Friends of hers have seen it and loved it, and in Chichester I had the great privilege of meeting one of her original Tour Of Life backing singers, Glenys Groves.
“She was so enthusiastic about the piece and is still in touch with Kate, so you never know…we might yet have an evening WITH Kate Bush one of these days!”
Your show focuses on Kate’s fans worldwide. Who are the most bizarre you came across?
“Kate Bush’s fans are really friendly and open! People have shared so many incredible and personal stories with me: there’s the man who proposed to his wife to The Kick Inside; the young lad who found the courage to come out to his parents after listening to Wow, and the couple who chose Don’t Give Up as the first dance at their wedding.
“We’ve been touring a two-act version of this show around the country, with even more costume changes, so I’m able to weave some of these new stories into the next night’s performance.
“We’ve also heard from fans who went to see every single Tour Of Life date, have tattoos of her lyrics on their arms, and folk who come to the show dressed as her.
Does the show change each night depending on the audience’s reactions?
“No two shows are the same and I love that. It keeps it fresh and alive.
I ask the audience what their favourite songs are or what’s brought them to the theatre and then weave their stories into the evening’s entertainment.
“We call it a ‘chaotic cabaret cult’ and it really is! It’s playful, anarchic, touching, hot and sweaty and full of music and laughter.
“Imagine if Kate Bush made a tribute show about her fans and you come close to capturing the spirit of An Evening Without Kate Bush. Even if you just howl with the hounds or wave a hand in the air, you are still part of the experience.
“I love hearing people’s stories and I always come out into the foyer afterwards to chat to anyone who wants to stay and talk. The audience really make this show.”
How difficult was it to decide which songs to include?
“It was a massive challenge as there are many across such a huge time span. Inevitably there are lots from her early albums. The Kick Inside and Hounds Of Love are a lot of people’s favourites and first experience of her work.
“When we were making the show, we ran a poll on social media to see what songs people wouldn’t forgive us for not including! But we still had to leave some out. I adore Deeper Understanding and Under The Ivy, for example, but if we put them all in, it would be longer than The Ring Cycle!
“We take well-known songs like This Woman’s Work and Cloudbusting and give them a twist. So, if you come to see An Evening Without Kate Bush, you might find yourself suddenly singing backing vocals or slow dancing with your partner at the school disco.
“If you speak Russian, you might enjoy joining in with my version of Babooshka! The longer touring version allows us to include some surprises like her cover of Sexual Healing and a little slice of Pi.
Do you have a favourite moment in the show?
“I love the moment, usually about half way through Don’t Give Up, when the couple dancing on stage have realised they basically get to hug for six minutes and after some expected clowning about, just start to relax and enjoy the opportunity to be close.
“The audience is often singing with me and it’s a lovely moment of coming together. At the end of the song, I thank them and guide them carefully to their seats and they often say a big thank you or lean in for a hug.
“I guess my favourite parts are when something spontaneous or unexpected happens as a result of some audience interaction. They keep me on my toes and anything unique to that gathering of people reminds them and me that this night, this configuration of people, will never happen again. It’s special. I like theatre which is made with love and danger; that excites me.”
What’s your favourite costume in the show?
“The feathered headdress I’m wearing in the poster is very special. We found that in Denmark and it was the first piece of costume we bought.
“The whole show is made from scratch, so I hand-made my Vileda super-mop costume, and the Snowflake headdress I wear at the top of Act Two took me about two solid days to stitch, so I love to because it was such a triumph of experience over skill in the making.”
Why is Kate so intriguing to so many people after all the decades?
“Her fans have travelled with her and as she has evolved as an artist, she has become the soundtrack to their lives. That’s my oven-ready hypothesis. I also think she influenced so many other artists that the whole music scene is steeped in her musical juices, as it were.
“She was one of the first people to experiment with the Fairlight, she mastered complex sampling of vocals, including the Trio Bulgarka from Hungary, and if you read the list of pop royalty lining up to play a couple of bars on her albums, everyone wants to work with her.
“She never shied away from writing about the largeness of life either, epic themes, the loneliness of love, the wonder of creation, the sensuality of being human.
“Her albums are somewhere you can climb inside and dream in. She’s one of us and yet totally Other. She’s a tea-drinking mum and an Ivy Glad Goddess.”
If you could ask Kater one thing, what would it be?
“‘Please would you come and see our show?’. I feel like she’s said what she needs to say in her music. Perhaps I’d just ask her if she’d like a cup of tea and we’d see what happens next.”
This woman’s work: Who is Sarah-Louise Young?
Actress, writer, director and international cabaret performer. She has appeared in London’s West End with Julie Madly Deeply, Fascinating Aïda, La Soirée and Olivier-winning improvised musical group The Showstoppers.
Named one of Time Out’s Top Ten Cabaret Acts and voted Best Musical Variety Act in the London Cabaret Awards, she has been nominated for an Offie too and awarded The Stage Award for Acting. She is one half of writing and performing duo Roulston & Young, at present creating a new musical, Maxa, The Most Assassinated Woman In The World.
She directed Mark Farrelly in Jarman and Paulus in Looking For Me Friend, The Music Of Victoria Wood and has directed Russell Lucas in his solo show The Bobby Kennedy Experience.