Category: Theatre

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REVIEW: Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, York Theatre Royal, until tomorrow *****

Last chance saloon for the lovelorn in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell. Pictures: Johan Persson

New Adventures in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, York Theatre Royal’s Haunted Season, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

THE last and only time the now knighted doyen of dandy dance Matthew Bourne was at York Theatre Royal, he vowed in a post-show Q&A that he would return, when possible, with another mid-scale touring show.

York had to wait 30 years for that first visit by the Londoner in March 2017, but this week his company is back, and so is Bourne, who agreed at short notice last night to do another question-and-answer session after tonight’s show. Do stay, o’ lucky ticket holder, because his words are as engrossing as his storytelling dance theatre shows.

After all, not a word is said in the world premiere of The Midnight Bell, but there is evocative 1930s’ music aplenty – dancers miming in character to the oh-so English Al Bowlly at the triple, Elisabeth Welch and Leslie A. “Hutch” Hutchinson’s male interpretation of George and Ira Gershwin’s The Man I Love – to complement Terry Davies’s nightlife score and Paul Groothuis’s superb sound design, ear-piercing tinnitus screeching, rain dancing on the roof, et al.

What’s more, inspired by the novels of Gaslight playwright Patrick Hamilton, Bourne’s storytelling through dance is so expressive that he creates a narrative language in visual form, where you find yourself drawn to each character’s path as seamlessly as that story moves from beautifully framed scene to beautifully framed scene on yet another wondrous set design by CharlesHutchPress’s favourite designer, Lez Brotherston, down to the ever-changing skyline that matches the mood of the scene.

Paris Fitzpatrick as Bob and Bryony Wood as Jenny Maple in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell

Even the Magritte-style multitude of suspended window frames, the ever-populated bed and the pub bar move with the graceful swish of choreography, and there is wit too: a red telephone box is represented by only the Telephone neon sign and the top of the box; the phone itself is pulled discreetly from the jacket of waiter Bob (Paris Fitzpatrick).

As for Brotherston’s costume designs, there would surely be no Wintour of discontent from Dame Anna. Lines, contours, hats, correspondent brogues, here is such elegance to meet Bourne’s eloquence in sensuous movement.

Bizarrely, a notice by the box office carrying myriad warnings of what lay in store included the sight of underwear, to go with the tinnitus sound, flashing lights, haze, cigarettes (of the non-nicotine variety) and more besides involving strangulation. Bourne could be spotted removing it at the interval, unhappy with the wording.

Well, it made a change from all those Covid notices and “feel free to wear masks” requests that pretty much everybody seems to be feeling free to ignore in theatres.

As for being alarmed by exposure to “underwear”, where would that leave designers for dance companies galore, let alone pop ingenue videos?

Anyway, your reviewer digresses, dear reader. The Midnight Bell, set in the pub of that name, the surrounding bedsitland, rooms to rent, gated park, members-only club and cinema seats of London, is billed as a “dance exploration of intoxicated tales from darkest Soho, delving into the underbelly of early 1930s’ London life”.

Forbidden love: Liam Mower’s Albert and Andrew Monaghan’s Frank in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell

Devised and directed by Bourne, he peoples the tavern with a lonely hearts’ club of drinkers and staff; troubled souls more at the unhappy hour, rather than happy hour, stage of intoxication.

All have a drink in one hand, slammed down on tables at the outset. All are looking for a refill as much of the heart as the glass, or at least some form of connection, but will they be sated or are they destined for the loneliness of the lovelorn?

What couplings will end up in that bed in cleverly overlapping storylines involving a young prostitute, Jenny (Bryony Wood), the waiter, the barmaid Ella (Bryony Harrison) and the oddball regular Mr Eccles (Reece Causton)?

Then there’s the bespectacled lonely spinster Miss Roach (Michela Meazza); the pickpocket cad Ernest Ralph Gorse (Glenn Graham); the out-of-work actress Netta Longdon (Daisy May Kemp), and the schizophrenic, tinnitus-troubled George Harvey Bone (thickly bearded, heavy-suited Richard Winsor).

The forbidden The Man I Love storyline entwines West End chorus boy Albert (Liam Mower) with new customer Frank (Andrew Monaghan), taking risks in that repressed era, captured in the Bourne’s best, serpentine choreography of another extraordinary show.

He calls these stories of requited and more often unrequited love in restlessly on-edge London “bitter comedies of longing, frustration, betrayal and redemption”. “Bitter comedies” is spot on, the humour being as dark as porter in this neon-lit world, but all life is here, sad, bad, mad, yet hopefully happy hereafter too, stamped with the exhilarating Bourne identity, panache and punch exercised in equal measure.

“Intoxicated tales from darkest Soho, delving into the underbelly of early 1930s’ London life”, as explored by Matthew Bourne
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REVIEW: Mischief in The Play That Goes Wrong, on a cliff hanger until tomorrow

Clinging on to the wreckage of a performance: Leonard Cook, left, Gabriel Paul, Laura Kirman, Sean Carey and April Hughes in Mischief’s The Play That Goes Wrong

Mischief present The Play That Goes Wrong, as Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society mishandles Murder At Haversham Manor, at Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow

THE Play That Goes Wrong will be going wronger for a little longer at the Grand Opera House this week, and you must do anything to secure a ticket for this Mischievous misadventure. Well, short of committing murder at Haversham Manor, the scene of this hoot of a criminally good massacre of a detective thriller.

Amateur dramatics and thespian excess previously were the good-humoured subject of Michael Frayn’s gloriously chaotic Noises Off and the merry mayhem and sexual shenanigans of Alan Ayckbourn’s A Chorus Of Disapproval in 1982 and 1984 respectively. Great plays, timeless too, but distant days.

Then, more than three decades later, along came Mischief Theatre, or Mischief as these mischief makers now market their ever-expanding factory of affectionate spoofs, with Magic Goes Wrong and schools comedy Groan Ups as the latest additions.

The Play That Goes Wrong was the tumbling, crumbling template for the rest, conceived in 2008 by London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts graduates Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, with their dual fondness for improvised comedy and Michael Green’s lampooning guide to The Art Of Coarse Acting guide, rendered in perfectly timed physical farce and choreographed catastrophes with the double bluff of appearing to be off the cuff.

In a nutshell, the structure is in the play-within-a-play tradition: the under-funded, hapless Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society players and short-staffed production team are at full stretch and beyond as they strive to present Susie H.K. Brideswell’s whodunit Murder At Haversham Manor. The creative team is full of Beans, or rather, one Bean, director, designer, costume designer, prop maker etc, Chris Bean, lead actor to boot.

What could possibly go wrong? Everything, so much so that the director must wonder not so much whodunit but whydoit? For the players’ gamely persistence, much gratitude in the face of crisis after calamity, still more chaos after catastrophe.

When your reviewer says “everything goes wrong”, it could not go more right in going wrong because the consequences are comedy gold in the traditions of Fawlty Towers, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Morecambe & Wise’s little plays and the best of Berwick Kaler’s “ad-libbed” York pantomimes, as opposed to disastrous amateur theatre experiences of yore.

In fact, the more it goes wrong, the better, the funnier, the kamikaze comic chemistry becomes, and the more times you see the show, the better, the funnier, it becomes too. Remarkable!

Introduced by outwardly implacable “first-time director” Chris Bean (Tom Bulpett), the murder mystery finds Bean re-emerging as moustachioed, far-from-implacable Inspector Carter. Everyone is playing someone playing someone, or they are by the end when sound engineer Trevor (Yorkshireman Gabriel Paul) and crew member Annie (Laura Kirman) are pressed into emergency roles on stage.

In response to the need for expediency in Covid times, Mischief have picked a cast of The Play That Goes Wrong old hands, their past experience adding wonderfully to the ensemble interplay as somehow the show must go on, no matter how many mishaps befall actors and Nigel Hook’s set alike. Indeed, his Haversham Manor is a character in itself.

Revel in the delightfully observed send-ups of actor types too, especially Leonard Cook’s Robert, roaring his Stanislavky method-acting way through the uproarious role of Thomas Collymore.

April Hughes’s parody of a hammy actress with an out-of-control ego and an inappropriate range of B-movie mannerisms is gleeful; Edward Howells’ Dennis keeps all around him on edge with his unexpected mispronunciations of butler Perkins’ words.

Everyone is so spot on that scene stealing is impossible, but Tom Babbage is a scream as Max, a novice over-actor, with ridiculously exaggerated arm movements, playing more and more to the audience, rather than the script, and leaping, let alone stepping, out of character.

Sean Carey’s Jonathan has a momentum-building habit of turning up at the wrong moment amid the calamitous clatter of pratfalls, prop mishaps, misbehaving scenery and gravely serious yet dead funny acting as Mark Bell’s cast negotiates this minefield of an obstacle course so adroitly.

For tickets, hurry, hurry to atgtickets.com/york

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Harrowing horror of the headless horseman rides into the haunted York Theatre Royal

Bill Ward and Wendi Peters in a scene from The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, bound for York Theatre Royal next week

THE Headless Horseman is galloping apace towards York Theatre Royal for the Haunted Season.

Coronation Street alumni Wendi Peters and Bill Ward will lead the cast in Philip Meeks’s stage adaptation of Washington Irving’s The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, on tour in ever-spooky York from October 5 to 9, replete with illusions by Back To The Future Musical’s Filipe J Carvalho.

In Irving’s infamous story, Hallowmas celebrations are fast approaching, when the residents of Sleepy Hollow spin tall tales of legends and unsightly entities. Who can tell truth from nightmare, however?

Enter Ichabod Crane into an eerie world of secrets and unsettling tradition as he arrives in Sleepy Hollow to become the town teacher. While quickly finding friendship with the town patriarch and his spirited daughter, his presence is not wholly welcome.

Not all is as it seems, for Ichabod Crane harbours his own dark secret. He is not in Sleepy Hollow by chance. When disturbing events overwhelm the small town, he finds himself swept up in a dangerous mystery that leaves him doubting his own sanity.

Director Jake Smith says: “Sleepy Hollowis undoubtedly one of the greatest horror stories ever written and a tour de force to stage. The story has at its heart the power of nomadic storytelling and gathering round the campfire for a good story. It’s an important story for now as we look at conversations around the identity of nations, communities and humankind throughout the world.

“This production has allowed an incredible ensemble of actors to viscerally and inventively bring the Hollow to life. It’s a piece that shines on our actors’ athleticism, which is really exciting as we look to theatre returning. We look forward to transporting the audience through a quest of logic and illusion, creating fear and defying expectation.”

Wendi Peters in rehearsal at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, for her role as Mariette in The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, on tour at York Theatre Royal from next Tuesday

For Philip Meeks, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow follows the 2017 premiere of Murder Margaret And Me into York Theatre Royal, where earlier his play about the dying embers of a pantomime dame, Twinkle, Little Star, ran in the Studio in April 2008.

“I’m a huge horror fan; the history of Gothic, the history of horror; if I was going to do an MA, it would be on the horror medium,” says Philip, who shares an agent and indeed an imagination with director Jake Smith.

“The agent lives in a caravan in Marsden Grotto, next to Mam’s house in South Shields. There was a project I was working on where it looked like the director was going to drop out and I said, ‘what about Jake doing it?’, as I’d heard good things about him.

“Now, I like to think of us as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee! He’s got this great visual energy as a director and the work he’s done has all been fantastic.

“We think very much alike and sometimes it’s hard to know who’s the 50-year-old [Meeks] and who’s the 30-year-old [Smith]!”

Playwright Philip Meeks: “Chipping in from the corner in rehearsals”

Smith, who stayed with Meeks when he was holding auditions, has been drawn to horror previously, doing a “sort of Hound Of The Baskervilles before the current plethora of productions of that story”. “He does a lot of writing too, and we have the same sense of humour, laughing a lot even when we shouldn’t,” says Philip.

“As a result, I’ve been in rehearsals a lot, with me as the Richard Osman figure on Pointless, chipping in from the corner.”

What drew Meeks and Smith to The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow? “It’s a piece that’s not really been done a lot before, probably because it’s a short piece , but it’s a story that people turn to in times of existential fear,” says Philip.

“It’s not about blood and gore; it’s about people in society, exploring human nature, thinking, ‘My god, how would I cope?’.

“It came to the fore in the late 1970s/1980s when there was the last horror boom because of the fear of nuclear war and the apocalypse, and in 2021 what we’re afraid of is the breakdown of society. The most popular form now is folk horror, and Washington Irving’s story was the first example of that.

“America was not the home of horror but they certainly explored it there, and Washington Irving really did explore it, writing at a time when narrative fiction was quite new.

“He was a journalist and a factual writer who dabbled in fiction, but he wrote his factual pieces very buoyantly with a great prose style, and that’s why his writing captured the imagination, because it was very accessible.”

Bill Ward in the rehearsal room for The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow

Meeks’s play is a “true act of adaptation, taking these characters and the story into a different medium”. “The legend is told to scare off Ichabod Crane, and we’ve kept that but we’re telling the story with a contemporary twist.

“I wanted to put a heart into it, using the device of a confidante for Ichabod, so I’ve created Mariette, played by Wendi Peters.”

Philip is hugely influenced by Hammer Horror, “even though people think of those films as being schlocky, especially with the Dracula franchise at the end”. “The story I’ve chosen to tell has a lot of elements from Hammer Horror, aside from its themes of corruption or belief or lack of belief.

“Ichabod only believes in science and technology; the rest believe in god knows what. The future is ichabod thinking he is God, so there’s the dawn of scientology.

“But with a monster you must bring an element of heart and humanity to them, like with Frankenstein’s monster.”  

The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow runs at York Theatre Royal from October 5 to 9, 7.30pm, plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

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More Things To Do in and around York as well as that belated Bond film you’ve been dying for. List No. 51, courtesy of The Press

Unhappy hour at The Midnight Bell tavern? Oh, but the joys of a new Matthew Bourne show visiting York Theatre Royal

DANCE at the double, Jekyll & Hyde, a quartet of short plays, sax music and Late Music, a Manic Monday and a Taylor-made gig are Charles Hutchinson’s pick of the early autumn harvest of live shows.

Intoxicated tales from darkest Soho: Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, York Theatre Royal, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

CHOREOGRAPHER and storyteller in dance Matthew Bourne’s new show for New Adventures explores the underbelly of 1930s’ London life, where ordinary people emerge from cheap boarding houses nightly to pour out their passions hopes and dreams in the bars of fog-bound Soho and Fitzrovia.

Inside The Midnight Bell, one particularly lonely-hearts club gathers to play out lovelorn affairs of the heart; bitter comedies of longing, frustration, betrayal and redemption.

Inspired by novelist Patrick Hamilton, Bourne’s dance theatre show will challenge and reveal the darker reaches of the human heart. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

Hands down (by your sides) if you can’t wait for the return of Riverdance

The other dance event of the week: Riverdance: The New 25th Anniversary Show, York Barbican, tomorrow to Sunday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

TWENTY-FIVE years on, composer Bill Whelan has re-recorded his mesmerising soundtrack while producer Moya Doherty and director John McColgan have completely reimagined the Irish  and international dance show with innovative and spectacular lighting, projection, stage and costume designs. 

The 25th Anniversary show catapults Riverdance into the 21st century and will “completely immerse you in the extraordinary and elemental power of its music and dance”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Blackeyed Theatre in Nick Lane’s take on Jekyll & Hyde, on tour at Stephen Joseph Theatre

Play of the week outside York: Blackeyed Theatre in The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde , Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight until Saturday

NICK Lane’s adaptation of Jekyll & Hyde draws inspiration from his own journey. Injured by a car accident when he was 26 that permanently damaged his neck and back, he imagines Jekyll as a physically weakened man who discovers a cure for his ailments; a cure that also unearths the darkest corners of his psyche.

“I wondered, if someone offered me a potion that was guaranteed to make me feel the way I did before the accident, but with the side effect that I’d become ruthless and horrible – would I drink it?” ponders Lane.

Combining ensemble storytelling, physical theatre, movement and a new musical score by Tristan Parkes, Lane remains true to the spirit and themes of the original novella while adding a major female character, Eleanor. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.

Caught Short? No photos, so here is the poster artwork for RhymeNReason Put On Shorts, up and running at Theatre@41

Short run of the week: RhymeNReason Put On Shorts, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm

WHAT was Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with Jimmy Savile? Why did a Yorkshire pensioner try to smuggle a fruit cake through Australian customs? What really happened on day three in the Garden of Eden? How should a perfect murder end in a real cliff hanger? 

Questions, questions, all these questions, will be answered in funny, thought-provoking short plays by Yorkshire writers David Allison, Steve Brennen, Lisa Holdsworth and Graham Rollason. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Sax Forte: Lunchtime concert at St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel

The good sax guide: Sax Forte, Friday Concerts, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, York, tomorrow, 12.30m

YORK saxophone quartet Sax Forte – Chris Hayes, Keith Schooling, Jane Parkin and David Badcock – open York Unitarians’ new season of Friday Concerts with an afternoon programme of English and French music.

Introducing themselves, Sax Forte say: “Chris plays soprano sax because he likes showing off; Keith plays alto sax because he tries to keep up with Chris; Jane plays baritone because she’s got the strongest shoulders; David knows his place (with apologies to The Two Ronnies and John Cleese)!”

The saxophone was not invented until the mid-19th century, but Sax Forte will be playing earlier classical and baroque pieces, trad folk tunes and later 19th and 20th works for sax quartet.

Conductor Simon Wright: Bringing together York Guildhall Orchestra and Leeds Festival Chorus next month

Classic comeback: York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, October 16, 7.30pm

YORK Guildhall Orchestra return to the concert stage on October 16 after the pandemic hiatus with a programme of operatic favourites, conducted by Simon Wright.

The York musicians will be joined by Leeds Festival Chorus and two soloists, soprano Jenny Stafford, and tenor Oliver Johnston, to perform overtures, arias and choruses by Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Rossini, Mozart, Puccini and Verdi. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Late Music…now: Gemini, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, Saturday, 7.30pm

YORK’S Late Music programme of contemporary music returns from pandemic lockdown with Gemini on Saturday night.

First performances will be given of Gemini’s commission of Sadie Harrison’s Fire In Song and Morag Galloway’s It’s Getting Hot In Here, complemented by Peter Maxwell Davies’s Economies Of Scale and works by York composer Steve Crowther and Philip Grange. Box office: latemusic.org or on the door.

Reflection and reaction: Manic Street Preachers showcase new album Ultra Vivid Lament at York Barbican

Not just another Manic Monday: Manic Street Preachers, York Barbican, Monday, 8pm

WELSH rock band Manic Street Preachers play York on Monday, with a second Yorkshire gig at Leeds O2 Academy on October 7.

Their autumn itinerary is showcasing this month’s release of their 14th studio album, The Ultra Vivid Lament: “both reflection and reaction; a record that gazes in isolation across a cluttered room, fogged by often painful memories, to focus on an open window framing a gleaming vista of land melting into sea and endless sky,” say the Manics.  Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

From Queen to Outsider: Roget Taylor in concert at York Barbican

The inside track on the outsider:  Roger Taylor, Outsider Tour, York Barbican, Tuesday, 7pm

QUEEN drummer Roger Taylor plays York Barbican as the only Yorkshire show of this autumn’s Outsider tour in support of his new album of that name, out tomorrow.

“This is my modest tour,” he says. “I just want it to be lots of fun, very good musically, and I want everybody to enjoy it. I’m really looking forward to it. Will I be playing Queen songs too? Absolutely!” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Go wild in the country: The Shires look forward to returning yet again to the East Yorkshire market town of Pocklington next January

Gig announcement of the week outside York: The Shires, Pocklington Arts Centre, January 26 2022

THE Shires, Britain’s best-selling country music act, will bring their 2022 intimate acoustic tour to their regular haunt of Pocklington  next January.

“Wembley Stadium, MEN Arena, Grand Ole Opry are all amazing, but Pocklington will always be a special place for us,” say Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes, who are working on their fifth album. Box office: 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

We’ve been expecting you, Mr Bond…for a long time

Oh, and just one other thing….

BOND, James Bond. Yes, after all those false dawns in the accursed Covid lockdowns, the perpetually postponed final curtain for Daniel Craig’s 007 opens today when it really is time for No Time To Die to live or die at last. Shaken or stirred, thrilled or deflated, you decide.

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Imitating The Dog tell Dracula: The Untold Story, via Mina Harker in 1965 London

She did it her way: Mina Harker recounts her version of events in Imitating The Dog’s Dracula: The Untold Story

IMITATING The Dog directors Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks are staging their production of Dracula: The Untold Story as a live graphic novel.

Their new high-tech hybrid play is inspired by Bram Stoker’s classic gothic horror novel but, in an interesting twist, is told from the perspective of Mina Harker: “in many ways an archetypal late-Victorian woman in the book, but a modern heroine –  some might even say vigilante – on stage,” they suggest.

Running at Leeds Playhouse until October 9 at the outset of a tour to November 13, the co-production with the Playhouse combines cutting-edge digital technology with live performance.

Leeds company Imitating The Dog have made this theatre technique their own, not least in Night Of The Living Dead – Remix,  their 2020 co-production with Leeds Playhouse wherein they lovingly recreated George A Romero’s cult zombie film frame-by-frame live on stage. 

Graphic novels have always influenced Imitating The Dog’s work, where the pulp narratives of detective, sci-fi and horror fiction has provided rich source material for their big screen projections and live camera work.

For Dracula: The Untold Story, they also are utilising the latest face recognition technology to create live, large-scale graphic novel layouts that switch seamlessly between 2D and 3D as the pages turn and the three-strong cast explores – and updates – the classic yarn.  

No longer a 19th century gothic tale, Imitating The Dog’s brash, vivid and fast-moving play is set in Sixties’ London, with pared-back dialogue and bursts of action that will “grab audiences by the throat and not let go”. 

Head back to New Year’s Eve, 1965, London, England. Just before midnight, as revellers celebrate the beginning of another year, a young woman enters Marylebone Police Station and confesses to a brutal murder.  

She claims to be Mina Harker, the last living survivor of the intrepid group that witnessed Count Dracula’s destruction 70 years before. But Mina Harker has not been seen since 1901.  And if she was alive, she would be ninety years old.

As Mina confesses to events that are much more terrifying than in the original, she retells the events of Bram Stoker’s classic novel. She claims it is the true story. The untold story. And she must tell it now, before sunrise, before it’s too late, before…October 9, if you want to see it in Leeds. 

Tickets are on sale on 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.

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As Billie Marten plays a not-so-secret gig, podcasters Chalmers and Hutch discuss the rise of the Ripon singer-songwriter…

Billie Marten: Ripon singer-songwriter in full bloom on third album Flora Fauna and at secret Harrogate gig with a full band. PIcture: Katie Silvester

WHAT else do culture vultures Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson cram into Episode 57 of Two Big Egis In A Small Car?

How about Blade Runner and where next for billionaires in space?

What’s going on with Covid passports and arts venues?

What can the arts expect from novel Tory Culture supremo Nadine Dorries?

What is the future for album covers?

What was CH’s verdict on Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad And Me at York Theatre Royal, The Woman In Black at the reopened Grand Opera House, York, and the pie-laden Waitress at Leeds Grand Theatre?

How does it feel to face up to the questions for the revived People We Love exhibition, soon to return to York Minster.

To find the answers, listen to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/9226087

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RhymeNReason ask questions aplenty in Yorkshire short plays at Theatre@41

The artwork for RhymeNReason’s Put On Shorts at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

WHAT was Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with Jimmy Savile? Why did a Yorkshire pensioner try to smuggle a fruit cake through Australian customs? What really happened on day three in the Garden of Eden? How should a perfect murder end in a real cliff hanger?  

Questions, questions, all these questions, will be answered at the RhymeNReason Put On Shorts four-day run at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from tomorrow (29/9/2021).

These funny, thought-provoking short plays by Yorkshire writers David Allison, Steve Brennen, Lisa Holdsworth and Graham Rollason were first performed in Leeds, as part of Slung Low Shorts or Leeds Pub Theatre/Leeds Literature Festival, and at York Theatre Royal Studio at Script Yorkshire’s Page To Stage competition.

“They thoroughly deserve another airing,” says Theatre@41 chair Alan Park. “What better way to mark the beginning of live theatre being back to normal? That is a rhetorical question. Answers on postcards are not required.”

Tickets for the 7.30pm performances on September 29 to October 2 are on sale at tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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REVIEW: : Rowntree Players in Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web, ends tomorrow

Jake Botterell as Oliver Costello in Rowntree Players’ modern-day account of Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web

Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web, Rowntree Players, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm, 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

AGATHA Christie wrote Spider’s Web at the request of its star turn, Margaret Lockwood, during West End rehearsals for Witness For The Prosecution.

Now, director Howard Ella has “re-written” Christie’s 1954 murder mystery for Rowntree Players’ return to the stage after the pandemic hiatus.

More accurately, he has updated Christie’s manor-house setting of Copplestone Court to 2021, with cultural references to Harry Syles, Daniel Radcliffe and the local Aldi, a Nike bag and trainers for dodgy Oliver Costello and a photographic portrait of lady of the house Clarissa Hailsham-Brown, rather than an austere oil painting.

At the same time, a butler in formal attire, a rather old-school child with hair clips, a protective guardian, an eccentric gardener and games of bridge evoke the earlier era, while Graham Smith’s Hugo Birch appears to be dressed for a shooting party.

There are worse crimes – often in a Christie story – than tampering with a text, and Ella’s decision is born as much out of necessity as in the spirit of fun that pervades Agatha’s second most-performed play.

Ella’s production ends up with a foot in both camps, rather than in no man’s land, as do his cast’s accents, but the dialogue stubbornly betrays its Fifties’ roots, like that tell-tale tramline of black in bleached blonde hair.

In the absence of programme notes and indeed a programme – another concession to Covid times, with only a cast list available – Ella explained his reasoning afterwards in response to a late-night CharlesHutchPress email question: “Was there a reason for the modern setting? Was it to do with costume non-availability after the Rowntree Players’ store fire?”

Martyn Hunter’s permanently concerned guardian, Sir Rowland Delahaye

“It was less about the store fire but more about Covid and costumes and control,” Ella responded. “Both from a costume and a propping point of view. Very dull but a necessary evil in these times.     

“It actually was a decision when we thought we could perform in early 2021. But it pushed and pushed.   

“I like the idea of playing it contemporary, although, of course, the challenge sits in balancing that against how faithful you should be to the original dialogue.”

So that clears that up. Now, to the play, wherein diplomat’s wife Clarissa (Gemma McDonald) is spinning tales of adventure and stepdaughter Pippa (Katelyn Banks) is permanently hungry and restless but tired.

Guardian Sir Rowland Delahaye (Martyn Hunter), fellow old sport Hugo Birch (Smith) and young buck Jeremy Warrender (Andrew Roberts) are passing the time, trying to identity different glasses of port in a taste test, waiting for dinner at the nearby golf club, although Warrender looks strangely interested in trying locate a drawer in the desk.

Craig Kirby’s sonorous, stone-faced butler, Elgin, is doing what impenetrable butlers used to do; Jeannette Hunter’s perky, if mysterious, Mildred Peake keeps traipsing in from the garden.

Clarissa’s husband, the something-hush-hush-at-the-Foreign-Office Henry (Rory Mulvihill), has to pop out to a meeting. In pops Jake Botterell’s malevolent Oliver Costello, up to no good with a vow to take Pippa away to her flaky mother.

Spinning stories like a spider’s web: Gemma McDonald’s Clarissa Hailsham-Brown

Suddenly, there’s murder on the drawing-room floor, but whodunit and how does far-fetched fantasist Clarissa cover it up? Desperate to dispose of the body before Henry arrives with a very important politician, she enlists the help/hindrance of her house guests .

Enter the detective, in this particular case Mark McDonald’s heavily-bearded, somewhat heavy-handed Inspector Lord, a wry, if blunter, instrument of interrogation than Christie’s Poirot, assisted by the frank Constable Jones (Sara Howlett, lovely Welsh accent et al).

Christie revels in a “conscious parody of the detective thriller”, leavening all the familiar tropes with knowing humour, while still tightening the suspense ever tauter, albeit over a long stretch of nearly three hours, replete with dropped clues and plot contrivances aplenty.

Add drug addiction, ham sandwiches, invisible ink, a very valuable rare stamp, a secret drawer, a hidden doorway and an unusual corner-turn for a second stage entrance, and Ella oversees a spirited production full of heightened drama, humorous confrontations and murky mystery.

Hunter, Mulvihill, Smith and Kirby are the ballast; Hunter is comedy gold; McDonald and Howlett form a resourceful double act; Roberts could have escaped from a Noel Coward comedy, and the menacing Botterell and precocious Banks bring freshness to the Players’ ranks.

In the lead role, Gemma McDonald’s Clarissa is full of fun and games, but has a few hiccups with her mountain of intricately-spun lines that hopefully will not repeat on her tonight and tomorrow.

Suffused with surprises, some new to Christie’s story, this modern-day yet retro Spider’s Web makes for an enjoyable evening’s entanglement.

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The Killer Question: will YOU be watching Just Some Theatre’s dark comedy thriller?

In the chair tonight: Just Some Theatre in rehearsal for The Killer Question

WHAT is The Killer Question? The answer will come on Saturday when Silence Of The Lambs meets Last Of The Summer Wine in Just Some Theatre’s dark comedy thriller at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.

In the latest touring show from the Manchester company behind 2013’s Coward and 2017’s The Doppelgang, former game show champion Walter Crump lives for murder.

It was even his specialist subject on the nerve-shredding general knowledge quiz show The Chair, but did his obsession with death ultimately lead to his own? Inspector Black certainly believes so, and now Crump’s dopey widow, Margaret, finds herself in the chair, accused of her husband’s murder. 

However, as shocking details emerge concerning the events leading to Walter’s final head-to-head, it soon transpires that what started out as an open-and-shut case has turned into another game altogether: one of the cat and mouse variety, with more than one deadly twist in the tale. 

Will Inspector Black solve the mystery? Will Margaret be home in time for Countryfile? Who will prove to be the ultimate victim of The Chair? Questions, so many questions, but there will be one more: which actor will play which character? Saturday’s audience in the John Cooper Studio will decide.

Just Some Theatre’s poster for Saturday’s performance of The Killer Question at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Those actors in question in Dave Payne’s 95-minute thriller will be University of Central Lancashire alumni Peter Stone, Jake Urry and Jordan Moore, now settled into an autumn tour of Alex Tole’s production from September 18 to November 4.

“In 2019, we did a script call-out and received over 300 scripts,” recalls Peter. “We worked our way through them all – it took a very long time! – and then The Killer Question script turned up and we thought, ‘it’s brilliant, but it’s way out of our casting bracket’ because it features an elderly couple in their 70s and a retiring policeman.

“We’re all in our 30s, so it’s obviously a big stretch, but then we thought, ‘if we were to do it in a League Of Gentlemen style, then it would suit us. It turned out Dave wrote it after seeing an episode of Inside No. 9 [the BBC Two dark comedy series created by League Of Gentlemen’s Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton].”

Playwright Payne, “a fantastic Midlands-based writer and producer for BBC Radio 4’s The Archers”, brings “a lot of humour and style from that show”, as well as from his sketch-writing for the CBBC comedy Class Dismissed, to Just Some Theatre’s biggest project to date, working with director Alex Tole for the first time.

“When it came to choosing who we should each play, we all liked them all, and I rather foolishly said, ‘why don’t we all play all of them, with the audience getting to decide who we play each night?’.

“We all agreed, and that now gives the start a game-show feel, a quiz show-feel, where we give a brief introduction to ourselves and the characters, thought we don’t give too much away, and then the audience have to hold up a programme, with one face per page, to cast their votes for that night’s roles.

Just Some Theatre coming to grips with Dave Payne’s comedy thriller The Killer Question in the rehearsal room

“Because they’re three very archetypal characters, we each bring something different to them, but they’re all very loveable, though we do each have the same favourite! We all love playing Margaret.

“The other day I had to drive around Manchester dressed as Margaret – and yes, I did get some funny looks!”

After breaking down the fourth wall with that informal start, Just Some Theatre’s cast then “well and truly build it up again” for the mystery thriller. “That’s one of the challenges. It requires us to perform in two different styles,” says Peter.

Just Some Theatre will be making their Theatre@41 debut. “Alan Park, from the York theatre, saw the show on the Lowry theatre website, and said to us, ‘hey, it looks great, would you bring it over here?’,” recalls Peter.

“It fitted us perfectly because we needed one more date to complete the tour and we needed one in that area. York was perfect; we’ve always wanted to perform there.

“Theatre@41, being in a former church hall, will really lend itself to the grandiose, slightly off-kilter world we’re creating.”

Just Some Theatre working on a scene for The Killer Question

Like so many theatre companies, Just Some Theatre have had to skate their way through the cracks and crevices of these pandemic times, receiving an Emergency Response Grant from Arts Council to cover costs for six months.

“That meant we could look at how we were working and how we could employ others to work with us, and so we employed 50 creatives for a Forward Dialogue project: 11 writers; ten scripts; ten directors, and a sea of actors, working online as part of that first wave of Zoom theatre,” says Peter.

“The final piece that ‘won’ the event, was called Happy!, written by Charlotte Souter and directed by Amy Burns Walker, a familiar name to York theatre audiences.  They created something truly unique that was really fabulous to see, with one actor ‘passing’ the same prop via the camera to the other actor ‘receiving it’. Brilliant!”

Ironically, just before the Covid cloud descended, Just Some Theatre had been touring a post-apocalyptic comedy about The Four Horsemen, who teamed up to create their own little virus. “Then Covid killed off that tour halfway through, just as we were about to start doing some shows for Cheshire Rural Arts Touring, after doing our urban dates. By that stage, if someone coughed, everyone fell silent, though the show was supposed to be a comedy.”  

Tickets for Saturday’s 7.30pm performance of Just Some Theatre’s The Killer Question cost £12 at tickets.41monkgate.co.uk/events/.

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Yorkshire’s Got Talent goes live on Sunday in fundraiser for Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Ed Atkin, winner of last year’s Yorkshire’s Got Talent competition, who will perform at Sunday’s showcase

YORKSHIRE’S Got Talent – Live! is NOT a contest, more a celebration of the best of the White Rose’s young dance, comedy and music performers, at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, on Sunday.

“This weekend’s show isn’t actually a competition,” explains Nathan Lodge. “The competition happened in 2020 throughout lockdown and concluded last September last year with Edward (Ed) Atkin as the overall winner.

“During the online contest, the group on Facebook reached more than 4,000 followers and the final public vote for the winner had 1,378 votes.” 

The competition was brought to life by York theatre student Hannah Wakelam, who wanted to raise money for the JoRo, where she first cut her performing teeth.

Nathan Lodge: One of the judges for last year’s contest, who will sing at Sunday’s show

“There were three judges throughout the process,” says Nathan, a West End regular and cruise-ship vocal captain, from York.  “Alongside me were Amelia Urukako, owner of Upstage Academy in Ripon, and Laura Pick, from Wakefield, who’s playing Elphaba in Wicked in the West End, all of us hailing from Yorkshire.”

The overall winner was decided by a combination of the judges, a public vote and a panel of theatre industry experts: Rachel Tucker, Kerry Ellis, Natalie Paris, Matthew Croke, Nicolas McClean and Paul Taylor-Mills.

“We promised the contestants who made the top 13 – the top ten plus three judges’ wildcards – that they could do a live show, so a year later, with a couple of date changes thanks to Covid!, we’re fulfilling our promise!”

2020 contestant Sam Rippon: In Sunday’s line-up for Yorkshire’s Got Talent – Live

Yorkshire’s Got Talent – Live features eight of the top ten acts from the competition: winner Ed Atkin, fellow finalists Fladam (Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter) and Jordan Wright, plus contestants Sam Rippon, Daisy Winbolt-Robertson, Harvey Stevens, Florence Taylor and Richard Bayton.

“The evening will feature an eclectic mix of musical theatre, opera, comedy and dance, and we promise a thoroughly entertaining show, bursting with joie de vivre, from these stars of the future,” says Nathan.

The event will be hosted by Jordan Langford, from Scarborough, who will sing too. He had a career in musical theatre before becoming a theatre creative and is soon to study for an MA in contemporary directing practice at Rose Bruford College, London. 

Hannah Wakelam: York theatre student set up last year’s Yorkshire’s Got Talent contest to raise funds for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

“Sadly, Laura Pick has a Sunday matinee schedule now in Wicked, post-Covid reopening, so she’s unable to perform with us but wishes she could,” says Nathan. “We’ll miss her!

“I’ll be performing in the evening, including singing a duet with winner Ed Atkin, who was my wildcard act to join the top ten of the competition. Just before the pandemic, I was the vocal captain performing on board M/S Color Fantasy.”

The band will be led by musical director Matthew Peter Clare on an evening when everyone will be giving their services for free. “Nobody is getting paid,” says Nathan. “Instead, all the profits from Sunday’s fundraiser will go to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre to add to the total raised by the competition last year.”

Tickets for the 7pm show are on sale on 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.