Sandra Piques Eddy: “Brings a nimble soprano to Dinah in Trouble In Tahiti”. Picture: Richard H Smith
LEONARD Bernstein’s music is always dance-infused and largely dance-inspired, as we are powerfully reminded by this double bill of Trouble In Tahiti coupled with the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Bridging the two is ten minutes of poetry with percussion, in Halfway And Beyond, written and recited by Khadijah Ibrahiim. All of which offered the perfect opportunity for Opera North to rekindle its relationship with fellow Leeds company Phoenix Dance Theatre.
Matthew Eberhardt’s production of Tahiti, revived from 2017, keeps everything neatly in period – 1950s’ American suburbia – with Charles Edwards’s revolving sets replete with billboard life-style ads, complemented by the period outfits by Hannah Clark.
The relentless jocularity of the smooth ‘Greek chorus’ Trio of Laura Kelly-McInroy, Joseph Shovelton and Nicholas Butterfield, with their close-harmony advertising-style jingles, contrasts pungently with Sam and Dinah’s humourless marriage and failure to identify with son Junior.
Their American dream – all the latest household gadgets topped off with chlorophyll toothpaste – is turning sour. Sam may even be tempted to stray at work, with Kelly-McInroy quite the frisky secretary.
Quirijn de Lang’s clean, macho baritone neatly fits the slick all-American guy whose life is bound up with muscle-building and making deals. Sandra Piques Eddy brings a nimble soprano to Dinah, wondering why her perfect lifestyle is letting her down even as she yearns for the Technicolor escapism of the title film.
Quirijn de Lang as Sam and Sandra Piques Eddy as Dinah in Trouble In Tahiti. Picture: Richard H Smith
While Island Magic has all the fizz you would expect, it is her wistful There Is A Garden that really touches the heart. Anthony Hermus conducts with boundless energy but finds touches of nostalgia when needed.
Ibrahiim’s poem deals with belonging and alienation and gains a cutting edge from the accompanying percussion, which is spare but telling. Its topic makes an ideal transition between the opera and the dance; it also offers Phoenix Dance a good opportunity to warm up.
Bernstein’s nine Symphonic Dances are keenly reinterpreted in the choreography of Dane Hurst, who brings his own South African experience of apartheid to bear on the original Jerome Robbins dance style, all wide stances and swaying torsos.
The athleticism is breath-taking, but the passion and poignancy of conflict, Jets against Sharks in West Side Story, has fiery depth. The 11 dancers of Phoenix deliver stunning ensemble, which must owe a good deal to the orchestra’s innate feel for the music’s tortuous rhythms: Hermus’s enthusiasm shines through.
Now that the two companies are back together, let us hope to see something of these dancers in a full-length opera. That would really be something.
Now on tour to Newcastle, Salford and Nottingham until November 20.
The Battersea Poltergeist: From podcast to live show with the audience as Dr Watson to the host and experts’ Sherlock Holmes
WHAT is The Battersea Poltergeist? Tonight’s show at the Grand Opera House in York – always a great haunt for ghost stories – will answer that question.
Writer, journalist and 2:22: A Ghost Story playwright Danny Robins will be leading the investigation at 7.30pm as part of a nine-date tour in Halloween season as his hit podcast comes out to play with live audiences. In tow will be his resident experts, paranormal investigators Ciaran O’Keeffe and Evelyn Hollow.
Fronting this year’s BBC docu-drama podcast on “Britain’s strangest ever haunting” case, Robins told the terrifying true story of Shirley Hitchings, the focus of frenzied poltergeist activity in and around her family home at Number 63, Wycliffe Road, Battersea, London, from 1956 onwards, starting when she was 15.
The Hitchings’ poltergeist case went on to span 12 years, making national newspaper headlines with its story of strange noises, flying objects, exorcisms and ghostly communication at the now demolished house. An attempt was even made to contact the poltergeist on live prime-time TV on the BBC and it was discussed by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons.
“It’s a great story, a story that when I came across it, straightaway I knew it was special, and the real thrill is that it’s an ordinary family going through such an extraordinary experience,” says Danny.
The Battersea Poltergeist series duly became Apple’s number one drama podcast worldwide, as what began as an eight-part BBC Radio 4 series, featuring Toby Jones and Dafne Keen, turned into a genre-busting podcast phenomenon by notching up nearly three million streams and downloads.
After a bidding war, Hollywood horror specialists Blumhouse – makers of Insidious, Get Out and Paranormal Activity – have snapped up the rights for a TV adaptation, now actively in development with Robins as an executive producer.
“The podcast just caught a moment,” he says. “It’s about this family trapped in their house, and people connected with that, at a point when we were all becoming very claustrophobic in our houses.
“We’re living in these crazy, chaotic and, sadly, death-filled times, and I think we want ghost stories. We’re looking for answers. We’re hitting on those moments like you saw after the First World War, after the Second World War, these kinds of uncertain times, when people become interested in the paranormal. I think we’re seeing a very definite boom in interest in the paranormal and ghost stories.”
To some degree, says Danny, The Battersea Poltergeist – Live will be “like the podcast come to life” as it delves even deeper into the paranormal cold case of the poltergeist the Hitchings family nicknamed “Donald”.
“It’ll be me and the experts, Ciaran and Evelyn. Shirley will play a part in it too, either by video, as will be the case in York, or, fingers crossed, she’ll be there in the flesh for the London date, but she has diabetes now, so she has to be careful, especially with the Covid situation,” he reveals. “She’s elderly and we can’t take her around the whole country with us, but we’re really excited about her playing a role in each show.
“The show will be us talking about the case, but we’ll also have this amazing visual element. We’ll be able to use the big screen on stage to show a whole load of the evidence we have, photographs, newspaper cuttings and video of witnesses.”
The Battersea Poltergeist is an ongoing story. “We’re still getting chilling new evidence coming in,” says Danny. “I’ve got this incredible new pair of witnesses who have terrifying new stories and insights only just discovered. We’re going to share those stories for the first time on stage; totally new information that we’ve not been able to reveal in the podcast. Could they hold the final clues to solving this supernatural mystery?
“With my theatrical head on, I want it to be a fun, spooky night out, particularly as these tour shows are falling around Halloween. It’ll be the full bells and whistles, the Woman In Black–style moments of darkness and screams and poltergeist sounds – and that makes it a delicious live experience on stage, where we can show things in a way we couldn’t in the podcast.”
Whether placing themselves in #Team Sceptic or #TeamBeliever, tonight’s audience members are invited to play their part as supernatural sleuths for the night, with the opportunity to put questions to Danny and the experts about the case in a question-and-answer session. “With the audience as our co-investigators, we can be Sherlock Holmes to their Dr Watson,” he says.
Is it necessary to have heard the podcast before coming tonight, Danny? “Absolutely not! Our starting point, whether you have heard about The Battersea Poltergeist or not, is to approach it with an open mind. Let’s explore together. Fundamentally, it’s a fun, if scary night, and there’s something special about sitting in a darkened theatre with a shiver going down your back,” he says.
“I feel this story is a mystery that keeps on giving. I’ve been examining the case for two years and I’m still learning more – as will the York audience!”
The Battersea Poltergeist radio series takes the form of a documentary drama. “One of the influences was Ghost In The Water, a 1982 BBC drama that purported to be a documentary, and our story was almost the opposite in that it’s a documentary that people thought must be a drama because it’s such an extraordinary story,” says Danny.
“There’s something really exciting about being on a ghost hunt, and on stage the haunting will unfold as I tell the story throughout the evening, with the opportunity to ask questions. Each night, I’m totally prepared that someone might have a brilliant brainwave that could solve the mystery!
“For anyone who is sceptical or thinks they’re not really interested, all I would say is we have stories from people who were living in the street at the same time.”
Where does Danny stand on sceptics? “The interesting thing with the podcast is that listeners were pretty much divided between sceptics and believers, and so it’s almost like an Agatha Christie locked-room drama,” he says.
“If you’re a believer or a sceptic, either way you think, ‘how can this case go on for 12 years; how did it go on for so long?’, as we look at the psychological side of it and at the impact of the elements in the story. People just love trying to solve a mystery.”
Analysing why the British are so drawn to ghost stories, Danny suggests: “It’s because we’re deeply frightened of death, and for us ghost stories are both a comfort and cause of anxiety, whereas other societies are better at processing death.
“The less that organised religion is part of our lives in Britain, the more that ghosts are part of our psyche, leading to a boom in intertest in ghost stories in drama, on screen and in books, and also a worrying rise in exorcism in Christian culture. There’s also a threat to our lives in the Covid climate, where we’re having to confront our mortality in ways we haven’t for decades.”
Should you be wondering what Shirley Hitchings will be contributing on video tonight, Danny says: “We filmed her on October 18, when I asked her series of questions culled from what people asked on social media. Hopefully, we may have Shirley on the phone too.”
2021 has been a remarkable year for Danny Robins, bringing not only the success of The Battersea Poltergeist podcast, but the August 3 to October 16 hit run of 2:22: A Ghost Story at the Noel Coward Theatre, London.
“I’d already started writing it quite a while before I began working on the Shirley Hitchings story,” he says. “It was a process that took about five years, and I’ve been obsessed with ghosts for all of my life.
“When I researched 2:22, I put out a question, asking if anyone had seen a ghost, and so many stories came in that I thought, ‘these stories should be told’, so that led to the Haunted podcast series, and then I was told this amazing story of The Battersea Poltergeist.”
Meanwhile, the writing of 2:22: A Ghost Story reached the finishing line, and a cast was sought by director Matthew Dunster. Step forward pop star Lily Allen for her West End debut in Robins’ contemporary haunted-house thriller.
“Landing Lily for the role of Jenny was amazing,” says Danny. “Out director just had an instinct that Lily would be good, and our casting director was working with Lily’s mum [theatre producer Alison Owen].
“We managed to get a script to Lily, who happened to be at that stage of thinking, ‘what should I do next?’, and she turned out to be a wonderful actress.”
The Battersea Poltergeist – Live, Grand Opera House, York, tonight (2/11/2021), 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 7615or at atgtickets.com/york. For a trailer, head to: youtu.be/jVi15MTkjeE
Danny Robins: Writer, journalist, creator of The Battersea Poltergeist podcast and playwright, whose 2021 debut West End play, 2:22: A Ghost Story, starred Lily Allen.
Co-created BBC Radio 4 sitcom Rudy’s Rare Records with Sir Lenny Henry, writing four series and adapting it into his first stage play, Rudy’s Rare Records, co-commissioned by Birmingham Rep and Hackney Empire, again starring Henry.
As a comedy writer, he created BBC series Young Dracula and We Are History and The Cold Swedish Winter for BBC Radio 4. His Haunted podcasts for Panoply explored real-life ghost stories; his new podcast series for BBC Sounds, Uncanny, launched on October 20, featuring real-life stories of ghost and UFO encounters.
Evelyn Hollow: Scottish writer and paranormal psychologist for TV shows and podcasts, who holds a Master of Research degree in Paranormal Psychology. Trained as a travel writer by Lonely Planet, she was a resident author at Esoterica Zine and occult columnist for Corvid Culture and has taught writing classes at everywhere from universities to arts festivals.
A former psychology lecturer, she now gives guest lectures on paranormal history and the quantum physics of anomalous phenomena.
Ciaran O’Keeffe: Applied psychology professor, who provides a sceptical voice to various paranormal TV and radio shows, such as Most Haunted, Ghost Adventurers, Celebrity Ghost Hunt Live, The Battersea Poltergeist and Haunted.
Associate head of school of human & social sciences at Buckinghamshire New University, responsible for programming several crime degrees: BSc (Hons) in criminological psychology, BSc (Hons) in psychology & criminology and MSc in applied forensic psychology.
Areas of expertise are parapsychology and investigative psychology, leading to involvement in many unusual projects: physiological effects of infrasound at the Royal Festival Hall; ghost investigation of Hampton Court Palace; exorcism training day; hostage negotiation simulations; lie detecting for the film Spy Game.
Working with Global Ghost Gang of researchers on the book Ghosted! Exploring The Haunting Reality Of Paranormal Encounters for publication in early 2022.
Definition of Poltergeist
An indestructible ghost or spirit of chaos, responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved.
The Young’uns in The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff. Picture: Pamela Raith
The Young’uns in The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff, York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm, 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
AT 17, the under-age Sean Cooney, David Eagle and Michael Hughes were drawn to the sound of singing in the back room of The Sun Inn in Stockton-on-Tees. They burst into song, harmony singers so natural that The Young’uns were born there and then.
Music had bypassed them at school, but they wondered why sea shanties, folk songs of real stories and home truths, had never been taught there.
In the 1930s, Johnny Longstaff left school at 14, suffered burns in an industrial injury in his first job at a smelting factory, and left Stockton at 15 in search of work. Told he was too young to join the Hunger March to London, he nevertheless followed its path, half a mile back, until he was discovered and allowed to take part, and then stayed in London.
By 17, he had already taken on Oswald Mosley’s Fascists – and the police – in the Battle of Cable Street and was on his way to the Pyrenees, against the rules, to train as part of the British Battalion of the International Brigade to join the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.
What the two paths share is a refusal to take No for an answer, to react to rejection, to find a way to make connections. The Young’uns have gone on to win a BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards three times; Johnny Longstaff’s story of working-class-hero political activism is the stuff of six hours of Imperial War Museum recordings, a Young’uns album and now a piece of gig theatre that burns with the same north-eastern fire that lit up Sting’s Tyneside shipbuilding musical The Last Ship.
There are four voices to this performance, first directed by Lorne Campbell in his days as artistic director at Northern Stage, Newcastle, as he brought a theatrical symmetry to Cooney’s songs while retaining the trio’s immediacy as always moving, sometimes humorous, storytellers in song.
The impassioned harmony singing, as beautiful as it is stirring and lyrical, is interwoven with their own storytelling and that fourth voice: extracts from those 1986 recordings in Longstaff’s Middlesbrough home that inspired Cooney’s songs.
Jack Rutter: Deputising for Michael Hughes at The Young’uns’ York Theatre Royal performances
What a potent combination it becomes: the songs make powerful statements on their own right, as with the political songwriting of Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello or Christie Moore, all the more so for the instinctive harmonies (imagine The Proclaimers with an extra voice), and then, even more resonant are the recollections of Johnny Longstaff, who has the last word, in song as his 1986 recording of The Valley Of Jarama takes over from The Young’uns live rendition.
In the absence of Michael Hughes, indisposed as he is now a full-time teacher on half-term leave, Huddersfield traditional singer Jack Rutter steps in to suffuse the harmonies, whether a cappella or augmented by keyboards, guitar or Eagle’s urgent accordion.
Campbell told The Young’uns, “don’t worry, you won’t have to act”, but nevertheless there is superb movement direction to this performance; much humour, especially from Eagle, and an awareness of how to tell the story to maximum effect, particularly from Cooney.
In an earlier life, The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff was performed with a backdrop of Johnny Longstaff, but Campbell called on Teesside animator Scott Turnbull to add his imagery to the already potent brew, and as Campbell promised, it takes the show to a heightened level by accompanying the songs and stories with a combination of beauty, industrial grit and even cartoon humour.
Towards the finale, Johnny Longstaff’s recordings have him talking with such conviction and humanity about the importance of the Spanish Republicans taking on General Franco, almost 50 years after he was there, going days without food, being served a family cat as his supper, living off oranges and being the endangered messenger at the front.
He met Churchill on his return at Westminster, who wondered if he would bring such dedication and zeal to fighting Nazism. At first, however, he was not allowed to serve in the Second World War, having gone against the Government’s neutral position by going to Spain. Once more, he would not take No for an answer.
Oh, for the honesty, the desire to make a difference, the guts and the quest for betterment for all to surge through today’s politicians. Post-war, Johnny settled for the quieter life as a civil servant, Labour voting to the last, but still full of that drive in his recordings. Thanks to his son, Duncan Longstaff, passing on a photograph and a list of Johnny’s achievements to The Young’Uns, his story is being championed loud and proud in song.
Three performances to go in York: make sure to be there; no excuses. Amid all the ghost talk of Halloween this week, and this show’s inclusion in the Theatre Royal’s Haunted Season, Johnny Longstaff is anything but a ghostly presence; his voice so full of life and belief as it reverberates down the years.
York Musical Theatre Company cast members Cat Foster, left, Henrietta Linnemann, John Haigh, Richard Bayton, Helen Spencer and Rachel Higgs dress the part for Hooray For Hollywood! at Nola in York
YORK Musical Theatre Company will offer escapism to Hollywood’s golden era after release from the pandemic lockdowns at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.
The classic American cinema of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s will be explored in song in the slick and sophisticated six-hander Hooray For Hollywood! from November 8 to 10.
Devised and directed by Paul Laidlaw, the piece was first staged at York Theatre Royal Studio in 2007, and now Laidlaw reignites his show with a cast of six – Richard Bayton, Cat Foster, John Haigh, Rachel Higgs, Henrietta Linnemann and Helen Spencer in a nostalgic, whirlwind journey through the sounds of a bygone era from the MGM, Warner Bros, RKO and Universal studios.
Richard Bayton, left, and John Haigh raise a glass to Hooray For Hollywood! at Nola
“Packed with a classic collection of love songs, torch songs and comic numbers, Hooray For Hollywood! covers iconic artists such as Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra to name just a few,” says Laidlaw, who recalls the premiere 14 years ago.
“We’ve actually performed the show at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre before, as well as at the York Theatre Royal Studio. As we head into our 120th year next year, it felt right to be a bit nostalgic and look back at some of our original pieces that audiences loved and revive them for new audiences.
“We loved performing The World Goes ’Round a few years ago and this show has a similar feel in that it’s a small cast and is fast paced and slick but will take the audience on a magical musical journey.”
Cocktail time for York Musical Theatre Company cast members Rachel Higgs, left, Henrietta Linnemann, Cat Foster and Helen Spencer at Nola
In the lead up to next month’s performances, Laidlaw’s cast members have been Puttin’ on the Ritz in a photo-shoot at the Nola jazz restaurant and bar in Lendal, designed to evoke the glitz and glamour of vintage Hollywood.
“Housed in the old congregational chapel on Lendal, the gold, mirrored decor of Nola was the perfect setting as the cast of six brushed up their white tie, tails and top hats – so to speak! – and posed with martini glasses in the 1920s’ Art Deco atmosphere,” says publicity officer Anna Mitchelson.
“Richard, Cat, John, Rachel, Henrietta and Helen are now deep into rehearsals for the show, learning intricate harmonies and weaving famous Hollywood melodies together in a unique and clever way.”
Tickets for the 7.30pm performances cost £15, £12 for age 18 and under, on 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
A scene from Quinneys in the making by University of Leeds theatre and performance students
CITY Screen, York, will play host to a special screening of Quinneys, Dr George Rodosthenous’s film adaptation of Horace Annesley Vachell’s long-dormant play, on November 24.
As part of the Year of the Dealer, an Arts & Humanities Research Council project organised by the University of Leeds and led by Dr Mark Westgarth, actors from the university’s theatre and performance programme have made the full-length feature film.
Quinneys is a comedy-drama of love, money, social climbing and fakes and forgeries set in the world of antique dealing. Written in 1915 by Vachell (1861-1955) and based on the real-life antique dealer Thomas Rohan (1860-1940), the original play tells the story of Joseph Quinney, a hard-nosed Yorkshire antique dealer, stubborn but endearing and keen to see his daughter marry well.
The stage play was hugely popular in its day with performances all over the world but it was last performed more than 70 years ago. This new film version is the first in almost 100 years.
Please note, the 5.30pm to 8.30pm event on November 24 is private and fully subscribed and will be preceded by a wine and canapes reception.
Emma Scott as Macbeth and Nell Frampton as The Lady in York Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth. Picture: John Saunders
York Shakespeare Project in Macbeth, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee; all sold out. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
SOMETHING wicked this way comes…eventually, delayed from March 2020 by lockdowns, rather than the notorious Macbeth curse per se.
Leo Doulton, “sometimes director, sometimes writer, repentant historian”, as his Twitter feed puts it, has persisted with his original vision of a “cyberpunk” Macbeth.
Eight cast members remain from the original unlucky-for-some 13, stopped in their tracks a week away from opening night last year; three have changed roles; five new additions have come on board, most notably Nell Frampton taking over from Amanda Dales as The Lady.
Frank Brogan’s Macduff. Picture: John Saunders
Crucially, however, Emma Scott’s Macbeth is still leading Doulton’s company, hurled into a dystopian, dizzying future as Doulton and his set and costume designer, Charley Ipsen, slice up Shakespeare’s dark, dreak tale of vaulting ambition, multiple murders and supernatural forces in new ways.
First of all, this is a shortened Macbeth, with no interval, no tedious, unfunny Porter scene, done and dusted in under two hours. Everything, everyone, is in a hurry; not once does Scott’s Macbeth sit down; nor do the guests at the dinner ruined for Macbeth by the ghost of Banquo (Clive Lyons). Instead, they stand, dotted around the perimeter of the John Cooper Studio’s rectangular black-box design.
Frampton’s The Lady is in a rush too, so much so, they trample loudly through several lines as they move around the fringes, imparting instructions in noisy boots. Tony Froud’s Ross and Frank Brogan’s gruff Yorkshireman Macduff are restless too, delivering a line, moving, delivering another, moving on again.
Nell Frampton’s The Lady. Picture: John Saunders
This sense of impermanence is deliberate, and maybe that is one reason why the walls are lined to the brim with swatches of wallpaper, rather than full rolls. Equally, this dissonant imagery is part of the cyberpunk mood board, just as the dried leaves around the ramps evoke Macbeth’s stultifying impact on nature’s course.
Doulton has responded to the pandemic, he says, by emphasising the uncertainty of the play’s inhabitants. “None of them, except perhaps the Witches, knows what’s going on,” he reasons. Hence a production that never stops moving in “an ever-changing world of illusory realities”.
In effect, all the world’s a stage here. The audience is seated around four ramps with a central dais that may or may not signify the Stone of Scone (but is not made of stone). Rarely is centre stage used as centre stage, except by the rightful king, Duncan (Elizabeth Elsworth).
Diana Wyatt as Second Witch. Picture: John Saunders
Scott’s Macbeth will as likely deliver a soliloquy from the up-lit recesses as from the epicentre; Frampton’s The Lady plots from the shadows; likewise, the discussions of Rhiannon Griffiths’s strategist Malcolm and Brogan’s exhausted Macduff are framed by the walls.
As for the spectral weird sisters, those midnight hags, the three Witches (Joy Warner, Diane Wyatt and Xandra Logan), they hover amid the parched twigs and branches on the mezzanine level, Macbeth never in touching distance, and they disappear from view as quickly as they enter.
The implication is that the once “worthy” Macbeth and The Lady know they will not be king and queen for the long haul, once their knives are out, hence that centre stage is so often barren.
Director Leo Doulton
On the one hand, this is an audacious directorial move by Doulton, but, on the other, you will likely have to move your head and body position more often than a learner driver negotiating that all-important three-point turn in their test but for much longer. The stage configuration is not the same as a theatre-in-the-round, where you become accustomed to not being able to see a face at all times. You may decide, on occasion, to sit and listen, rather than turning round.
In his interview, Doulton made the interesting point that Macbeth is not all about death, death, more death and the fear of death, although he did note: “It would be impossible to present Macbeth in the same way as when we started work on it before the pandemic. We’ve moved from a world where we fear quite specific things to one where we fear more pervasive, invisible ones, such as the pandemic and the climate crisis.”
Naming uncertainty, innocence and corruption’s constant presence as the themes and motifs that stood out in our new times, he suggested Shakespeare’s tragedy is “more concerned with the art of being human while alive and mortal: how to act, what legacy we’ll have, and how to understand a world far larger than us. Its deaths are from violence and the supernatural, not disease.”
Emma Scott’s Macbeth. Picture: John Saunders
In other words, this is not a Covid-clouded Macbeth, but one that in the absence of moral certainty and leadership, fears a longer damaging legacy, not least the impact of climate change, when there may no longer be trees to move from Birnam Wood to Dunsinane.
Nevertheless, Doulton and Ipsen have fun with the cyberpunk setting, serving up blue drinks, having blue rather than red blood, and staging the fight scenes in a stylised, no-contact manner, while Neil Wood’s menacing lighting captures both light and shade.
As for Scott’s Macbeth: at times, she is as much Hamlet as Macbeth, young, poetic, burdened; more worrier than warrior.
Aesthetica Short Film Festival: York’s trendiest fest returns
YORK’S annual short film festival keeps growing longer as Charles Hutchinson surveys a week ahead of multiple choices.
Festival of the week and beyond: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, from Tuesday
THE 11th edition of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival runs in York from November 2 to 7 and online from November 2 to 30 in a new hybrid format that combines in-person events and the virtual platform.
ASFF 2021 offers six carefully curated film programmes, such as animation, drama, family friendly and dance, along with industry sessions and marketplace, masterclasses, guest screenings, the VR Lab, social events and an awards ceremony in this showcase for a new wave of cinematic talent. Full details can be found at asff.co.uk.
They Cud be so good for you: Leeds band pop over to York tonight
Heritage gig of the week: Mr H presents Cud, plus Percy, The Crescent, York, tonight, 7.30pm
HERE’S the history bit: Leeds art students form band in 1985, create cult indie-pop and funk sensation, tour with the Pixies and record sessions with John Peel.
Emerging from the same art/design cauldron that produced fellow Leeds legends Soft Cell, Scritti Politti and The Mekons, Cud were the pre-Britpop answer to sad-eyed shoegaze, reckons promoter Tim Hornsby. Here come Carl Puttnam and co with the still infectious indie rock of Rich And Strange and Purple Love Balloon. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
David Baddiel: Taking on the trolls
Comedy gig of the week: David Baddiel, Trolls: Not The Dolls, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 7.30pm
IN his follow-up to My Family: Not The Sitcom and Euro 2020 return to number one with Three Lions, comedian David Baddiel turns his quizzical gaze to trolls: “the terrible people who spend all day insulting and abusing strangers for no other reason than to fill the huge gaps in their souls”.
Baddiel tells stories of the dark, dreadful and absurd cyber-paths that interacting with trolls has led him down. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
Shobna Gulati’s Ray and Layton Williams’s Jamie New in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Leeds Grand Theatre
Musical of the week: Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Leeds Grand Theatre, Tuesday to Saturday.
EVERYBODY’S talking about Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, but stop talking and start rushing to the box office as tickets are hotter than a climate-changed world amid COP26 fever.
Jamie New, 16, lives on a Sheffield council estate, where he doesn’t fit it in and is terrified of the future, but he will be a sensation in this award-winning musical, “specially updated for the times we live in”.
Layton Williams reprises his West End role, starring alongside Shane Richie and Shobna Gulati. Box office: 0844 848 2700 or at leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Heather Watts’s Queen of the Night and Alexandra Mather’s Pamina in York Opera’s The Magic Flute. Picture: John Saunders
Nights at the opera: York Opera in The Magic Flute, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 7.15pm; Saturday (6/11/2021), 4pm
YORK Opera returns to York Theatre Royal after a pandemic-enforced two-year gap with Mozart’s The Magic Flute, sung in English to orchestral accompaniment.
The story follows Prince Tamino (Hamish Brown) on his quest to rescue Pamina (Alexandra Mather) from the grasp of her mother, the evil Queen of the Night (Heather Watts), and return with her to the world of light presided over by Sarastro (Mark Simmonds), the High Priest of Isis and Osiris.
David Valsamidis makes his York Opera debut as Papageno, the Queen of the Night’s bird catcher; John Soper is the stage director; Derek Chivers, the musical director. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Feat of Peake: Tim Peake discusses the life of a British astronaut at York Barbican
In space, no-one can hear you scream, but at York Barbican they can hear you talk: Tim Peake, My Journey To Space, Tuesday, 7.30pm
IN December 2015, Tim Peake became the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station to conduct a spacewalk while orbiting Earth.
Back on terra firma, he is on his first British tour, sharing his passion for aviation, exploration and adventure as he brings unprecedented access, photographs and fresh footage to his guide to life in space, from European Space Agency astronaut training to launch, spacewalk to re-entry.
Peake will be revealing the secrets, the science and the everyday wonders of how and why humans journey into space. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
The Battersea Poltergeist: From podcast to night terrors at the Grand Opera House, York
Fright night of the week: The Battersea Poltergeist – Live, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
FROM a BBC Radio 4 series, The Battersea Poltergeist became a multi-million, genre-busting download phenomenon, mixing documentary and drama to tell the terrifying true story of the 1956 haunting of the Hitchings family at 63 Wycliffe Road, London, at the hands of a poltergeist they nicknamed Donald.
Now, The Battersea Poltergeist goes live as writer, playwright and journalist Danny Robins, the show’s creator, and his podcast guest experts delve deeper into this paranormal cold case, bringing the investigation to life on stage, sharing exclusive footage of Shirley Hitchings and other witnesses and revealing chilling new evidence. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
Off into the sunset: Clannad bid farewell on rearranged 2021 tour
Long goodbye of the week: Clannad: In A Lifetime, The Farewell Tour, York Barbican, Wednesday, 8pm
CLANNAD were booked to play York Barbican on March 10, but you-know-what intervened, delaying Moya Brennan and co’s Farewell Tour to the autumn.
The tour takes its name from the career-spanning March 2020 anthology In A Lifetime, drawn from 16 studio albums since 1970 that fuse elements of traditional Irish music with more contemporary folk, new age and rock. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Duncan Honeybourne: Lockdown piano soundbites at Late Music concert
York Late Music at the double:Duncan Honeybourne, 1pm to 2pm; Elysian Singers, 7.30pm to 9.30pm, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, York, November 6
IN the afternoon, Duncan Honeybourne presents pieces from his collection Contemporary Piano Soundbites: Composers In Lockdown 2020, after commissioning more than 30 piano miniatures from distinguished senior figures and emerging composers alike. Works by John Casken, John McLeod, David Power, David Lancaster, Sadie Harrison and Adam Gorb feature.
For the evening concert, Elysian Singers director Sam Laughton has devised a programme of choral music where a contemporary work is paired with an earlier piece based on words from the same poet or source, such as Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Rachmaninov’s settings of All-Night Vigil. Box office: latemusic.org.
Too late! Beth Hart’s York Barbican gig on Sunday has sold out
Recommended but sold out already
FEMALE Gothic, tonight and tomorrow, and Nightwalkers storytellers Jan Blake and TUUP, Saturday, both at York Theatre Royal Studio; York band The Howl & The Hum, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, Saturday and Sunday; American singer-songwriter Beth Hart, York Barbican, Sunday.
The Young’uns Michael Hughes, David Eagle and Sean Cooney performing The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff. Picture: Pamela Raith
MAY 2015. Teesside folk trio The Young’uns have just concluded a gig in Somerset when up comes Duncan Longstaff with two pieces of paper.
On one is a black-and-white picture of a man. “This is my dad,” he says. On the other is a list of achievements that reads like a litany of defining moments of early 20th century working-class struggle. “This is what he did,” he explains.
Duncan hoped the Stockton-on-Tees vocal, accordion, guitar and keyboard group might write a song about his father. One song? They duly wrote 17, whereupon a show about Johnny Longstaff was born.
From tonight to Saturday, The Young’uns – Sean Cooney, David Eagle and Michael Hughes – perform a theatrical version of The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff at York Theatre Royal, the show now featuring songs from the original album alongside new material and animation.
Young’un Sean Cooney recalls the May 2015 night that spawned their musical celebration of northern working-class activism. “It was really special. Duncan Longstaff, who was in his late-60s/early 70s, had heard us on the radio and knew we were from the north-east, from Stockton-on-Tees, Johnny’s hometown.
“He had this lovely photograph of his dad, this scruffy-looking lad, and as he was aware we wrote songs about real people, with a north-east flavour, he thought we might get one song out of it.
“But it turned out there were six hours of recordings of Johnny at the Imperial War Museum, and once we’d made time to listen to them properly, we realised we had something really special that could never be just one song.”
The resulting show, the true story of The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff, is billed as a “timely, touching and often hilarious musical adventure, following the footsteps of a working-class hero who chose not to look the other way when the world needed his help”.
The Young’uns singing an a cappella number in The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff. Picture: Pamela Raith
Johnny’s journey took him at 15 from poverty and unemployment in Stockton, through the Hunger Marches of the 1930s, the mass trespass movement and the Battle of Cable Street, to fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
That journey is recorded not only on tape but also in writing. “Duncan kept bombarding us with stuff: Johnny had written his memoirs, but they’d never been published, and suddenly there were these 600 pages, left at my front door,” recalls Sean.
“Then he lent us Johnny’s books, with corrections that he’d written down the side when he didn’t agree with the accounts of what had gone on.
“With all these resources, we thought we’d love to use Johnny’s voice from the recordings and tell his story through song.”
The Young’uns drew inspiration from the ground-breaking BBC Radio Ballads documentaries produced by folk musician Ewan MacColl and Charles Parker in the late 1950s for the BBC Home Service. “They pretty much put working-class voices on the radio, with Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl writing songs to go with those voices,” says Sean.
“For our show, the songs and story are very much interwoven with Johnny’s voice. You’ll hear Johnny talking and then we’ll break into song, and there’s a special sequence at the finale, with our voices, Johnny’s voice, a little bit of narration…and then Johnny singing.
“At the end of those six hours of recordings at the Imperial War Museum, you hear him breaking into song. He’s singing The Valley Of Jarama [also known as El Valle del Jarama], and for those people who know about the Spanish Civil War, that was the song that was always being sung.”
The Young’uns first envisaged The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff as a radio series, “but then came the touring opportunity to put together something new for the road, with a promoter arranging dates for us for March 2018,” recalls Sean.
“We thought, ‘yes, let’s take it on the road’, but as we sat in the pub at Sheffield railway station [Sean lives in Sheffield] in May 2017, I was thinking, ‘we’ve only done three months’ work on it so far, we’ve only got ten months to go’, and we still didn’t know if we’d just do the songs, with us introducing them, or whether we’d use Johnny’s voice.
The Young’uns incorporate Scott Turnbull’s animation in their theatrical performances of The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff. Picture: Pamela Raith
“That’s when we came up with the idea of doing the show as ‘gig theatre’ with a backdrop image of Johnny behind us. It felt exciting and trepidatious at the same time, but the reaction we got was so great that what was originally going to be a side project, diverging from our main work, became much more than that.”
The album recording ensued and then came a show in Toronto where “we became really pally with the team there, and they said, ‘Have you heard of Lorne Campbell at Northern Stage’, as they’d worked with Lorne on Sting’s shipbuilding musical, The Last Ship, so they had a connection with him,” says Sean.
The Young’uns met up with artistic director Campbell in September 2019. “We knew we had a show that was so personal and special to us, and we wondered, ‘what would they want to do with Johnny, with us?’, but Lorne was great, saying he just wanted to heighten it, to bring it to bigger audiences,” says Sean.
“The key, he said, was to ‘make you as comfortable as you can be, and no, you won’t have to act’. Because the backbone of the show is Johnny’s voice and the songs, we’d never thought about the visuals, but Loren brought in an animator, Scott Turnbull, from Teesside, and now these beautiful images are built into the songs and there’s a lot of movement in the show too.”
From tonight, Johnny’s voice and Sean’s songs will unite and resonate anew. “We never strive to make links with today, but it’s clearly obvious,” says Sean. “He was fighting for the future in the 1930s, and the biggest parallel now is the fight to deal with climate change.”
Like The Young’uns, Johnny was a young’un when he started out on his adventures. “He was 15 when he walked from Stockton to London; 17 when he crossed the Pyrenees, but though they’re now seen as huge politically charged events, when Johnny lived through them, he didn’t grab that significance,” says Sean.
“He went on the Hunger March to look for work, and when he was told he was too young at 15, he followed them in secret until he was discovered, and they then said he could join.
“He went on the Cable Street march because he’d met a Jewish refugee. He didn’t understand Fascism’s doctrines; he just wanted to make human connections.”
At 17, The Young’uns made their under-age way into singing in the back of The Sun Inn pub in Stockton for the first time. “We stood up and sang unaccompanied, and it just felt natural,” Sean says. “As we were 40 years younger than anyone else there, we got called ‘The Young’uns’, and unfortunately the name stuck, but we realised we had a voice and it connected with people.
The Young’uns with an image of Johnny Longstaff behind them. Picture: Pamela Raith
“It felt welcoming, it felt ordinary, because as a kid I couldn’t access music at school, where it felt like it was for someone else, for other people, as I couldn’t play an instrument.
“But once we discovered that world of folk music, where everyone is encouraged – big voice, little voice, in tune, out of tune – this group of people who met in the back room of a pub, sharing songs and stories – wondered why we had never been taught this at school.
“Learning sea shanties that everyone could sing, we found the audience singing along with us, and from that moment, we wanted to keep doing it.”
Twenty-one years down the line, with three BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards to their name, The Young’uns are not so young’uns at 36, but their return to the stage after the pandemic lockdowns has had the same exhilarating impact on them. “For so many people in our world, it’s been incredibly emotional to get back out there,” says Sean.
Even more so, when spreading The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff. “In many ways there’s potential for people, when they see a show poster or hear a story of Johnny, to pigeonhole it in our divided land, but we want to stress the humanity in that story and in what other people did in the 1930s.
“Johnny became a member of the Labour Party, but in the Spanish Civil War, people came from different backgrounds to fight Fascism, from public schools too.
“When people hear Johnny’s voice, there’s great respect for that voice and what he’s saying. It’s a different kind of story, that’s not well known, but…”
…thanks to Duncan Longstaff’s two pieces of paper, The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff is now being sung loud and proud.
The Young’uns in The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff, York Theatre Royal, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.Further Yorkshire concerts by The Young’uns: Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax, December 11, 7.30pm; The Greystones, Sheffield, December 12, 3pm and 8pm; The Coliseum Centre, Whitby, December 17, 7.30pm. Box office: Halifax, squarechapel.co.uk; Sheffield, ents24.com/sheffield-events; Whitby, eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-younguns.
Chrystal E. Williams in the title role in Opera North’s Carmen. Picture: Tristram Kenton
OPERA North was riding high coming into this new Edward Dick production.
Buoyant through lockdown with multiple streamed events via its own digital platform ON Demand, its backstage efforts were centred on a huge Music Works development.
The outcome of this is the new Howard Opera Centre, named after its principal benefactor Dr Keith Howard, who contributed some 60 per cent of the £18.5 million cost. It will house management and rehearsal studios for the company itself, while providing educational spaces for youngsters to explore their potential.
Within months, a new bar and restaurant with public access will open next to the Howard Assembly Room (now freed exclusively for smaller-scale events), the result of imaginative enclosure of a former Victorian street.
Camila Titinger as Micaëla and Erin Caves as Don Joséin Opera North’s Carmen. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Sadly, all this excitement did not generate a Carmen to do it justice. It is a besetting sin of Carmen producers that they feel the need to re-interpret Bizet, not to say Mérimée, in tune with modern attitudes.
This runs a serious risk of dumbing down, even presumption: this show’s Carmen, Chrystal E. Williams, was quoted in the programme as declaring that “it would be easy just to do a conventional Carmen”, as if convention were a dirty word – or easy.
It is hard to portray an incorrigible man-eater as a saint, albeit one who is the figment of solely male imaginations. Indeed, after Opera North’s last attempt at the work, Daniel Kramer’s brutalist affair ten years ago, no-one would have been surprised if the company had played this one straight down the middle.
Instead, what we have is a good night out, but with little relevance to the original. Time and place are not identified in Colin Richmond’s sets, but we can tell that this is a border town. Since the smugglers are dealing in drugs, we have every reason to assume that we are on the United States-Mexico border.
Phillip Rhodes as Escamillo with members of the Chorus of Opera North. Picture: Tristram Kenton
The action opens in a bordello masquerading as a night-club, whose clientele is mainly in uniform, doubtless drawn by the illuminated ‘GIRLS’ on scaffolding dominating the scenario. Not exactly an advertisement for women’s lib, especially given female staff sashaying around in flimsy underwear, to the designs of Laura Hopkins.
If these girls are smoking anything, it is coke, not cigarettes. Still, it has to be said, the ladies of the chorus bravely put their best foot forward; if they feel uncomfortable, it certainly does not show.
Immediately noticeable is the sparkling form of the orchestra, with Garry Walker at the helm for the first time as music director, a year later than planned. Theirs is much the most positive contribution to the evening.
Walker keeps rhythms consistently crisp but is equally alive to atmosphere: nerve-jangling chromatics in the card scene, for example, and velvet horns in Micaela’s song a little later. His tenure is off to a cracking start.
Nando Messias as Lillas Pastia: “Makes several androgynous incursions during the second half”. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Neither of the principal pair is vocally quick out of the blocks and he has to gentle them into the fray. Williams is lowered on a swing onto the night-club stage, to be embroiled at once in a fan-dance: it is an eye-catching entrance, in keeping with her charm.
When the stage swivels and we see the ‘real’ Carmen – at her make-up table, wig removed, cuddling what we assume is her daughter – her mezzo, although still light, begins to bite. But it is not until Act 3 that we hear what might have been: genuine passion.
The same applies to Don José. Erin Caves only joined the cast five days ahead of curtain-up, Covid having effectively removed two previous candidates. His safely surly opening is understandable, but does little to convince of his interest in Carmen or offer any reason for her pursuit of him.
If there is any electricity at their first encounter, it is low-voltage, like Caves’ tenor. It is only when his bile is up, much later, that he finds real resonance. His eventual throttling of Carmen prolongs her agony unjustifiably.
Erin Caves as Don José and Chrystal E. Williams as Carmen. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Phillip Rhodes’ Escamillo arrives on an electrically-powered bucking bronco, a cowboy not a toreador; there is no hint of the bull-ring. The swagger of his ‘Toreador’ song certainly raises the vocal temperature but thereafter gradually dissipates, lessening the likelihood that he would offer José any real threat. So when José chases him across the scaffolding that now stands in for a mountain fortress, we are entitled to wonder what all the fuss is about.
Camila Titinger gives an engaging Micaela, whose aria is a touch short on warmth; she is mistakenly encouraged to make much of her pregnancy. Amy Freston’s Frasquita and Helen Évora’s Mercedes are tirelessly flighty, raising everyone’s spirits, while the spivvy smugglers of Dean Robinson and Stuart Laing bring an element of light relief. Matthew Stiff is a firm if stolid Zuniga.
With the Lillas Pastia of Nando Messias making several androgynous incursions during the second half, there is no end to the mixed messages of this ill-focused production. Thank heaven we have five children who know exactly what they have to do, working with a chorus that does its level best to sound persuasive. But the saving grace is the orchestra – focused on unvarnished Bizet.
Martin Dreyer
Further performances onOctober 26 and 28, then on tour until November 19, returning to Leeds in February 2022.
Hannah Victoria’s Princess and the pea in Tutti Frutti’s The Princess And The Pea
The Princess And The Pea, Tutti Frutti, York Theatre Royal Studio, 6pm this evening, then on tour. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
SINCE Covid’s cloak turned theatres dark, York Theatre Royal’s dormant Studio could have been added to York playwright Mike Kenny’s Museum of Forgotten Things.
Thankfully, after being used for storage and rehearsals, the Studio has been re-awakened for performances anew, albeit with a capacity reduced from 100 to 71. Out goes seating to the sides; in comes a head-on stage configuration.
A masked-up CharlesHutchPress took up a front-row seat at a morning performance full of excited Badger Hill Primary School children. How lovely to be part of such an occasion full of happy, enchanted faces.
This show is a revival of Leeds children’s theatre company Tutti Frutti’s colour-suffused, playful staging of Mike Kenny’s updated adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s story, set in a place where what you see is not what it seems: the aforementioned Museum of Forgotten Things.
Sophia Hatfield in The Princess And The Pea at York Theatre Royal Studio
In his trademark way of bringing fresh perspectives to familiar stories, he refracts Andersen’s tale of The Princess And The Pea through the status of princesses today, against a backdrop that has moved on again even from the 2014 premiere, in our world of celebrity royals, social-media influencers, selfies and preening Love Island and Kardashian saturation coverage.
“Princesses seem to be back with us as a cultural phenomenon,” Kenny writes in his programme note. “The assumption is generally that a ‘real’ princess is very sensitive and high maintenance. If you read Andersen’s original, you can’t quite tell if he’s supporting or actually taking the mickey out of this attitude”.
Kenny creates a framework where three narrator-curators at the museum, a mother, son and their trainee, delve into the mystery of how a little green pea ended up there in a magical hour of storytelling, songs and silliness.
Bossy-boots Mother (Sophia Hatfield) becomes Queen; layabout Son (Mckenzie Alexander) transforms into the Prince and eager Trainee (Hannah Victoria) will emerge as the Princess of the title.
The “other” princesses in The Princess And The Pea, as sent up by Hannah Victoria, Sophia Hatfield and Mckenzie Alexander
All three raid the museum drawers to play “every type of princess you could imagine” in a send-up of 21st century reality TV types (and maybe even York hen parties) as the spoilt, work-shy, silver-spoon-in-his-mouth Prince is instructed by the Queen to conduct his search for the “real Princess” he should marry.
Kenny’s play follows the Prince’s passage from birth, his privileged, demand-everything, spend-spend-spend progress to this point being denoted by numbered props, whether in a suitcase lining, on an umbrella or inside a hat that also turns into a cake-mixing bowl.
Devotees of Peter Greenaway’s cult 1988 film Drowning By Numbers will recall a similar numerical conceit reaping dividends.
Anyway, back to the storyline. Kenny notes how Andersen reveals nothing about the Princess, beyond her taking the “pea test” to prove she is a real princess, and he duly gives her a story about “what it means to be ‘real’”, rather than a Disney-glossy princess.
On song: a musical number for Sophia Hatfield, Hannah Victoria and Mckenzie Alexander
Rather than pretty dresses, tantrums and tiaras, Victoria’s Princess has worked in a kitchen, is blown in by the winds and is left standing in the rain until the wastrel Prince – with all staff laid off – has to answer the door himself.
Kenny, very much the people’s playwright, revels in keeping it real, not royal, with delightful mischief in his storytelling as he mirrors Andersen and the Shrek films in his irreverence towards royalty.
He has fun at the expense of Alexander’s callow Prince for being devoid of social graces and practical know-how, but tellingly he rewards him for toughening up when needs must, and likewise he sends up the Queen’s blinkered, old-school ways and haughty airs for being out of date.
Further pleasures come from Kenny raiding the cupboard of familiar fairytale characters and now forgotten things, from Goldilocks’s porridge spoon to Cinderella’s glittering glass slippers.
Playwright Mike Kenny: “Revels in keeping it real, not royal”
Harris’s cast of actor-musicians thrives on Kenny’s fast-moving sense of fun and games, constant scene and character changes and cheeky humour, allied to his storytelling prowess.
Alexander, a natural for the silly-billy daft lad in pantomime, instantly bonds with the audience with his wide-eyed playing and he loves the chance to be a princess too; Victoria makes for a grounded, streetwise Princess and Hatfield is both fun yet more serious as the older hand in the company.
They team up joyfully for Christella Litras’s compositions too, singing characterfully as well as contributing violin, accordion, saxophone and more to complement Litras’s keyboards.
So much to enjoy here, topped off by Catherine Chapman’s designs, where the stage colours of blue and green, pink and orange, yellow and gold are matched by the actors’ attire. Look out for such clever details as cupboard drawers turning into suitcases – as well as the numbers popping up on myriad objects.
At the finale, the curators change the museum name from Forgotten to Remembered Things. Your reviewer loved this show in 2014; happy to report, it is now even better than first remembered.
Frank Brogan’s Macduff. Picture: John Saunders
