STRICTLY Come Dancing judge and dashing dancer Anton Du Beke glides into York Barbican next Tuesday in his new festive tour show, Christmas with Anton & Friends.
Anton, 58, will be joined as ever by elegant crooner Lance Ellington, a live band and a company of dancers to create an evening filled with song and dance with added Christmas dazzle.
“I’ve always dreamed of doing a big Christmas show as it’s the best time of the year, so this is a real treat for me,” says the king of the ballroom. “It’s the show I’ve always wanted to do with some old faces and some new!
“Don’t forget to bring your voices for a mega sing-a-long with some of my favourite Christmas songs. It’s going to be lots of fun and full of Christmas cheer.”
In the past few years, Anton has been appearing in pantomime over the winter months, making his debut as Buttons in Cinderella at Richmond Theatre in 2021-2022, followed by protagonist Jack in Jack & The Beanstalk at Churchill Theatre, Bromley, in 2022-23 and Smee alongside Paul Chuckle’s Starkey in Peter Pan at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking, in 2023-24. “Only goodies! I can only play goodies,” he says. “It’s fun but it’s a lot of time to spend away from my children.”
Hence his decision to launch Christmas With Anton & Friends, whose tour runs from November 24 to December 21, hot on the heels of his autumn terpsichorean travels in Showman: An Evening With Anton Du Beke.
The tour poster for Anton Du Beke’s Christmas show
He was still on that song, dance and chat tour when conducting this interview on November 19, on top of his Strictly judging commitments for the BBC.
“I’m on the road at the moment, and then we’ll do four weeks of the Christmas show,” he said at the time. “So we’ve been rehearsing the Christmas show in the day and doing the Showman show at night.”
Exit the Showman, enter the snow man. “I used to do Christmas shows at the Royal Albert Hall and loved it,” says Anton. “Now I’m doing this new tour. It’s all Christmas songs, and it’s going to be such fun. Lance Ellington is with me again, the band, and I’ve got my wonderful dancers and a female singer too.
“This one has been done with the team: Kelly Chow, our dance captain, has sort of put it together choreographically; my musical director, Clive Dunstall, has done all the arrangements, writing all this stuff while being on tour with me. It’s been quite the task but so exciting!
“There’ll be Christmas trees on stage and everyone in Christmas jumpers and hats. We’ll have a big medley at the end, about nine minutes long, starting with Mariah Carey [All I Want For Christmas Is You] and ending with Slade [Merry Xmas Everybody]. Six songs in all.”
The show will span Christmas classics to more contemporary numbers, from It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year to Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire. “There’s a lovely song called [Everybdody’s Waiting For] The Man With The Bag. It’s a classic, not that new, but rarely played…so Lance and I will be doing it as a duet,” says Anton.
“I’ve always dreamed of doing a big Christmas show as it’s the best time of the year,” says Anton Du Beke. Picture: Bev Comboy/Plank PR
Summing up the show, he says: “I love Christmas so much and everyone in the show is so looking forward to doing these shows. If you love Christmas as much as I do, you will have a great time.
“I love Christmas songs! My producer doesn’t entirely love them and my wardrobe mistress is much more into Halloween than Christmas, but I love Christmas much more than Halloween.”
Showman, now Christmas With Anton & Friends and Strictly, of course: Anton is busy, busy, busy. “Yes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Strictly is great because I don’t have to do anything now other than turn up, judge and leave! I’m not choreographing, like when I was one of the professional dancers. I just turn up on Saturdays and that’s lovely,” he says.
“I just feel like everyone else is doing the work and I do my bit with the other judges, and it’s a very exciting series this year. The standard is so good that I’m at the stage where I’m waiting for a mistake because you don’t expect someone to do something wrong.
“It’s difficult to say who’ll win. The great thing is that the winner is not decided by the judges but by the public.”
How does judging contrast with dancing with a celebrity partner each year? “I’m enjoying it enormously because I can make the joke that I now make the final every time!” says Anton.
Together again: Anton Du Beke and Giovanni Pernice will reunite for 2025 tour, visiting York Barbican on July 18. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk
“That’s the big thing: I’m now involved for the whole series, even if it’s only 25 seconds of chat per couple, not dancing. That’s the joy for me, always being involved, whereas I never wanted to be voted off when competing because I loved being in it.
“Not one of those couples would rather be out than in, regardless of the circumstances, even if they know a dance has not been great, because the best thing is to be in it. There’s no fun when you’re out.”
His 2025 diary is filling up. “Next year is working out already,” he says. “I’m doing the Strictly tour, January into February, then a spring tour, Anton: The Musicals, a celebration of big musicals with great numbers from the shows and a lovely combination of old and new.”
Look out too for Anton & Giovanni Together Again, The Live Tour, when Du Beke and Pernice play York Barbican on July 18 2025 at 7.30pm.
Anton Du Beke in Christmas With Anton & Friends, York Barbican, December 10, 7.30pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Robin Simpson’s Dame Dolly with the magnet of love in Aladdin at York Theatre Royal. Picture: SR Taylor Photography
THIS is York Theatre Royal’s fifth collaboration with regular pantomime award winners Evolution Productions. On Tuesday, a sixth was confirmed for next year when Sleeping Beauty will stir from December 2 2025 to January 4 2026 with Robin Simpson once more as the dotty dame and tickets on sale already.
The partnership is well grooved with tropes established in the writing of Evolution’s Paul Hendy and the casting and direction of Juliet Forster. Not only Simpson’s gregarious, teasing dame but also the presence of a CBeebies star each year; animals, whether live with Zeus the scene-stealing Border Collie last year or in rather more heavy-footed Welly the Elephant puppet form this time; plenty of set-piece spectacle and the obligatory ghost scene (here with the dame’s ghost gag bench).
A profusion of songs across the pop ages shares equal space with a love of putting the pun into punchlines and a preference for verbal wit over physical slapstick, although the latter still has its place.
There is, too, an awareness of changing times and sensitivities, so while we still have a Spirit of the Ring and Genie of the Lamp (both played by CBeebies’ ever-playful Evie Pickerill, chasing her tail breathlessly and singing heartily), now Widow Twankey’s Chinese laundry has made way for Dame Dolly’s Pun shop.
The decision to change ‘Abanazar’ to ‘Ivan Tobebooed’ may be rather more to do with Hendy’s love of a daft name than any PC correctness. Paul Hawkyard, returning to exuberant York villainy after a winter away doing panto in Dubai, had predicted as much at September’s press launch.
Hawkyard has such comic mischief about his burly, volcanic-voiced frame, whether playing Bottom in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mardy to Simpson’s Manky in their Ugly Sister double act in Cinderella, or now Ivan, you find yourself wanting to cheer as much as boo him.
Your reviewer would have liked to have seen more scenes with Simpson’s Dame Dolly in comic combat with and Hawkyard’s Ivan, given their rare stage chemistry, affirmed once more by their will-they-won’t-they-kiss shenanigans, but maybe the plot did not permit more of such golden moments.
The comedy is shared out between Pickerill’s double act, Simpson’s sassy, sometimes saucy Dame Dolly, Tommy Carmichael’s daft son Charlie and physical comedy specialist Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s PC World on his return to York after his dextrous turn as Inspector Fox in Around The World In 80 Days-ish this summer.
Armitt-Brewster’s officious officer rather out-stars the affable Carmichael, with better lines, better gags, funnier body movements too, but the children warm to Carmichael’s cheekiness and he plays his part alongside Armitt-Brewster and Simpson in the show’s best call-and-respond set-piece, as fractious as a rap battle when conducted with presses of a button to release a recorded line from a familiar pop hit to express their feelings.
The dame’s audience pick for humiliation, one Adam from the front row, plays his part in a headset in this scene and has an even bigger moment on stage earlier on when delivering a series of deliberately clunky punchlines in a joke shop routine with ‘Terry-Bull’ timing.
Fresh from playing Sonny in the UK tour of Grease, Sario Solomon is a delightfully ever-positive Aladdin, as uplifting as his carpet ride and singing like a dream too, and he is matched by Emily Tang’s Princess Jasmine, thoroughly modern in outlook in being drawn to the personality, not the bank balance.
Clear storytelling and good values (rather than heavy-handed moral messaging) are always strong features of creative director Juliet Forster’s direction, alongside the abundant humour, complemented by Hayley Del Harrison’s sparky, sparkling choreography.
Morgan Brind’s costumes stand out more than his set designs, especially the dame’s merry-go-round of ever-dafter attire. Look out too for one shop sign: Sherlock Combs, Barber, a cut above the norm.
Hendy’s script finds room for cutting observations on York’s parking and potholes and takes pot-shots at Hull and the Grand Opera House pantomime too, and never has he had more fun with a pun in a show where the second half surpasses the first, as should always be the case. All New Adventures Of Peter Pan and Jack And The Beanstalk were superior but there is still plenty to enjoy in Aladdin.
Aladdin runs at York Theatre Royal until January 5 2025. Box office:01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Velma Celli: Chestnuts toasted cabaret style at the Xmas Roast
YORK’S international drag diva deluxe, Velma Celli, hosts a fabulous evening of music, comedy and festive frolics in the Xmas Roast at Impossible York, St Helen’s Square, York, on Sunday at 6pm.
“Come and have yourself a merry Christmas,” says Velma, the Best Cabaret at Perth Fringeworld 2024 award-winning alter ego of West End musical actor and Atlantis Gay Cruises headline act Ian Stroughair, who promises “cabaret meets a partaaaaaay” with sing-alongs too.
“It’ll be a Xmas Roast with all my favourite chestnuts. Very exciting!” he says. “My costume is being made Chloe Moore, who made the black costume for my Show Queen! show at York Theatre in May. I asked her if she could now make one in red and it looks fabulous.”
Velma Celli in the Show Queen red dress designed by Chloe Moore
Recorded in Woodthorpe, York, with The Dandys’ Andy Firth – who also produced fellow York singer and good friend Jessica Steel’s 2022 album Higher Frequencies – it features piano arrangements by Scott Roberts of It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, The Christmas Song, Last Christmas, Joni Mitchell’s River and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
Looking ahead, Velma will be heading out on the road in 2025 for regional and West End dates. These include: March 14, Velma Celli’s God Save The Queens!, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarbough, tickets fromhttps://shorturl.at/JwAHA; March 15, Show Queen!, Skipton Town Hall, tickets from https://shorturl.at/MJVaO; March 29, Show Queen, The Welsh Millennium Centre, Cardiff, tickets from https://shorturl.at/Fv0LR; April 4, A Brief History Of Drag, The Playhouse, Sheffield , tickets from https://shorturl.at/hDDiv, and April 18, Show Queen!, The Beggars Theatre, Millom, Cumbria, tickets from https://shorturl.at/U4W9J.
Velma Celli’s Show Queen tour poster
Further shows follow on May 24, Show Queen!, Cowes Fringe, Cowes, Isle of Wight, tickets on sale in the New Year; May 23, Show Queen, The Stage Door, Southampton, tickets from https://thestagedoor.org.uk/product.php/950; June 2, Show Queen!, The Duchess Theatre, West End, London, tickets from https://shorturl.at/XbL27; June 13, A Brief History Of Drag!, Hull Truck Theatre, tickets from https://shorturl.at/2saW5, and June 20, Show Queen!, Dudley Town Hall, tickets from https://shorturl.at/rnCQX.
In 2024, for a fourth year, Velma participated in Yorktoberfest in the Clocktower Enclosure at York Racecourse, playing to 600 to 1,000 revellers at each party. “It’s chaos but it’s great fun,” says Ian.
Unlike in 2022 and 2023, however, he will not be hosting Castellana in the Sophia Gardens spiegeltent in Cardiff this Christmas season. “I travelled back and forth to Wales for two years for these Christmas shows but there’s only so long you can do five-hour commutes to Cardiff, so I’m not doing Castellana this year,” he reasons.
Ian Stroughair
Did you know?
IAN Stroughair will be performing at York’s Annual Community Carol Concert at York Barbican on December 15 at 2pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Isobel Staton’s beatific Mary in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s A Nativity for York. Picture: John Saunders
YORK Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s new interpretation of the Nativity moves on to St James the Deacon Church Hall, Acomb, tonight (5/12/2024) and tomorrow, then St Oswald’s Church Hall, Fulford, on Saturday.
This chimes with the need to move in a story set in a time of threat when a homeless couple and their newborn baby are driven from home by oppressors.
Past productions have taken place in the Spurriergate Centre in York city centre, but taking a community production out into the community is a potent way to spread the message, all the more so in a year when taking flight has regularly been in the headlines.
CharlesHutchPress attended the Saturday matinee at The Tithe Barn in Nether Poppleton, the most spartan of the three locations, with its bare brickwork and stone-flagged floor, and therefore the closest in spirit to the stable in Bethlehem, albeit bigger and warmer, once the mulled wine served on arrival settled in.
Minstrel/balladeer Jonathan Brockbank sets the tone on Early Music whistle and drum instruments, later accompanying the Angel Choir of Emily Hansen, Trisha Campbell, Val Burgess, Wilma Edwards and Julie Speedie and leading the closing carol, The Bells Of Paradise I Heard Them Ring, with audience participation to boot.
Director Paul Toy’s inspiration for his latest Nativity production was the 1609 prosecution of a troupe of Catholic actors for performing a play that ridiculed a Protestant minister. Based at Egton on the North York Moors, they had established a safe circuit of Catholic gentry households they could tour, but a spy had infiltrated the audience and reported them.
There will surely be no spying, no reporting in 2024, save of the reviewing variety, but Toy’s programme note warrants quoting. “As we are touring a version of the Plays for the first time, I was inspired to set the production as if the Mystery Plays had continued their suppression [banned for ‘Catholic content’ in 1568] but as an underground, illicit activity – depending on secrecy for support of these clandestine performances of a play promoting banned religious doctrine in a time of oppression, always vulnerable to the outside authorities.
“The actors’ interpretation of the plays is influenced by their experience as outsiders.” You can debate whether actors are “outsiders” in today’s world, but reduced arts funding and cuts in arts provision in schools and colleges point to that status returning.
Division and destruction in the actions of Herod are as much at play in A Nativity for York as the message of great joy and hope. Toy’s direction favours the minimalist, the focus falling on the delivery of text and human interaction, rather than a box of theatrical tricks, bells and whistles (except for Brockbank’s).
He has his cast omnipresent, sitting on the benches that line the barn walls when not in scenes, with a raised stage at one end to accommodate stable scenes and Herod’s edicts.
James Tyler’s Herod is both hot-headed and chilling, with Wilma Edwards’s viperous Counsellor urging him to ill action at every opportunity. By way of contrast, Helen Jarvis’s Angel Gabriel has a suitably radiant presence.
The chemistry of Nick Jones’s aged Joseph and Isobel Staton’s young Mary is crucial, and their combination of contrast and yet connection works well. Jones portrays Joseph’s disbelief, puzzlement, yet support with typical attention to detail from this experienced hand, who adds a second woodwind instrument on occasion too. Staton’s Mary is the essence of devoted duty, resolute and loving in all she does.
Michael Maybridge, Sally Maybridge and David Denbigh take on the shepherds’ roles with banter and wonderment, while the Kings – or Wise Men – are played by three Wise Women (Val Burgess, Emily Hansen and Janice Newton). At the play’s close too, when everyone else has left the stage, it is Mary who leads off Joseph.
Amid the starkness of design, one moment has particular resonance: in the soldiers’ slaughter of the innocents, each bairn’s death is signified by a cloak being turned from its black side to its red side. No image is more striking. Models of two cow’s heads in the manger were a rare but welcome artistic flourish.
The choice of music pays dividends for studious research. The Kyrie, for example, was written by Roman Catholic composer William Byrd for a recusant household while the folk carols are suffused with Catholic sensibility too: the outsider in Protestant times.
York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust presents A Nativity for York, St James the Deacon Church Hall, Acomb, December 5 and 6, 7.30pm, then St Oswald’s Church Hall, Fulford, December 7, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Suitable for adults and children aged 11 plus. Box office: 0333 666 3366, at ympst.co.uk/nativityticketsor on the door, subject to availability.Donations will be welcomed after each performance for the work of UNICEF.
Dani Harmer as Fairy Bon Bon on the Grand Opera House stage in Beauty And The Beast. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
BAFTA award-winning Dani Harmer will appear in Beauty And The Beast for a second time on a York stage from Saturday.
Best known for playing the title role in the CBBC series Tracy Beaker and its sequel Tracy Beaker Returns, from the age of 13, and later My Mum Tracy Beaker in 2021, Harmer will wave her wand as Fairy Bon Bon in UK Productions’ third pantomime season at the Grand Opera House.
In March 2015, she had played Beauty in two performance of the Easter pantomime at York Barbican, where she had taken the title role in Cinderella in December 2012, when she had to miss two shows that clashed with her commitments competing in BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing that season.
In the “craziest fortnight of my life”, Dani had to combine rehearsing each morning at the Barbican and spending each afternoon and evening at the University of York, practising routines with partner Vincent Simone, first for the semi-final, then three for the final: a tango, jive and show dance (Bohemian Rhapsody). “It’s been the best thing I have ever done,” she said at the time.
“I’m super excited to be back in my favourite panto of all time, Beauty And The Beast, which I’d be happy to do each year!” says Bracknell-born Dani, who appeared in the same role at Mansfield Palace Theatre last winter.
Beauty And The Beast principals and ensemble in rehearsals at Central Methodist Church, including Dani Harmer, second from right, back row
“For those that don’t know, I have always been completely obsessed with this story, so it’s a real joy for me to be bringing it to life on stage. And I adore playing the loveable and slightly bonkers Fairy Bon Bon, so cannot wait to put on my wings once more.
“And it’s even more exciting to be coming to the gorgeous city of York! I’m very, very happy to be here. I can’t think of a better place to be spending the Christmas period. So, bring on the Yorkshire puddings.”
Dani has a long history of performing in pantomime. “My first panto was when I was six, as a juvenile. I’m 35 now,” she says. “I went to theatre school from the age of six. It didn’t put me off! Most of what I learnt was on the job.
“I grew up on camera. Your teenage years can be your most difficult, but all my teenage days were spent on camera [filming Tracy Beaker] – and I’m very grateful that social media was not around then. I don’t know if I’d still be an actor now if it had been.”
Now she is waving her wand as Fairy Bon Bon for the second year running. “Playing Fairy, you can take the role two ways. You can be a Fairy Godmother, like a mother figure to a princess, or you can go the more non-traditional fairy route, where I’m loud and energetic and not quite sure what’s going to come out of my mouth!
Dani Harmer as Beauty in Beauty And The Beast at York Barbican in 2015
“So you can expect the unexpected with this show. You get the story but there are also twists and turns you won’t expect.”
The script comes from the pen of 2019 Great British Pantomime Award winner Jon Monie. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with him a few times,” says Dani. “He was my Buttons when I was Cinderella – I just adore that man.”
Dani will forever be associated with Tracy Beaker, the childhood role she resumed as an adult in My Mum Tracy Beaker. “We were one of the first shows to go back into the studio after the pandemic, having been postponed,” she recalls.
“Playing Tracy again was like wearing a nice, comfy pair of slippers. I loved playing her. I’m a fan, like everyone else, where I’m desperate to see where she goes next!”
What first made Tracy so popular, Dani? “I think she just came around at a good time when TV was male dominated and comedy was male dominated, where we grew up with the Chuckle Brothers – I was a fan – but along came this female-led series, just when Grange Hill had finished,” she says.
Beauty And The Beast cast members Phil Reid, Dani Harmer, Leon Craig and Phil Atkinson pose by Clifford’s Tower. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
“I was 13 years old and Jacqueline Wilson’s stories were just magical. You always found something to relate to – and the way the BBC adapted stories, they just nailed it in the scripts. It might make me feel old now but I love the stories and there’s a lot to be said for nostalgia.”
Dani recalls an eye-opening role that brought her to Yorkshire in 2013 to play timid, naive but maybe not-so-innocent Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show in 2013 at Leeds Grand Theatre. “She really does go through a transition, doesn’t she!” she says.
“It was such a joy to do because it couldn’t have been further from anything I’d done before, going from being a teenage lass on a TV show to being in my underwear on stage with a transvestite scientist seducing me!
“The producers took a leap of faith with me and my fans loved it! Rocky Horror fans will stick with you so I was really thankful that they loved it as they’ll tell you when they don’t rate you!”
UK Productions presents Beauty And The Beast at Grand Opera House, York, from December 7 to January 5 2025. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Meet the Grand Opera House pantomime stars: Phil Atkinson’s Hugo Pompidou, left, Jennifer Caldwell’s Belle, Dani Harmer’s Fairy Bon Bon, Leon Craig’s Polly La Plonk, Samuel Wyn-Morris’s Prince and Phil Reid’s Louis La Plonk
Quinn Richards in Be Amazing Arts’ promenade production of A Christmas Carol in Malton
’TIS the season for pantomime, festive exhibitions, ghost stories, a snow bear and an elf as Charles Hutchinson welcomes winter.
Promenade festive experience of the week: Be Amazing Arts in A Christmas Carol, Malton’s streets and buildings, starting at Kemps Books, until December 23
MALTON theatre-makers Be Amazing Arts return for a fourth season of immersive A Christmas Carol performances “truly made for all the senses”, where Charles Dickens invites you to a reading of his latest work, transforming into Ebenezer Scrooge (Quinn Richards) for a promenade production, written by Roxanna Klimaszewska, with a cast featuring Katy Rattigan, Kirsty Woolf and David Lomond.
The ticket price includes a food platter from The Cook’s Place as revellers celebrate with the ghost of Christmas Present and a warm winter drink to toast to the goodwill of Christmas. Ticket advice: book promptly as past years’ shows sold out. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/beamazingarts/1275175.
Isobel Staton’s Mary in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s A Nativity for York. Picture: John Saunders
Christmas message of hope of the week: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust presents A Nativity for York, St James the Deacon Church Hall, Acomb, tomorrow and Friday, 7.30pm; St Oswald’s Church Hall, Fulford, Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
PAUL Toy’s community production recalls when the Mystery Plays were banned in the 17th century for being too Roman Catholic. Performers were forced to perform illegally in the houses of sympathisers, always looking out for establishment forces.
“Although A Nativity for York reflects the experience of those dedicated but frightened performers, the story itself mirrors the trouble many people are experiencing today: a homeless couple, seeking shelter, with their new-born child being forced to flee to another country, but there is news of great hope and joy,” says Toy. Box office: 0333 666 3366, ympst.co.uk/nativitytickets or on the door.
Wicked return: Paul Hawkyard takes to the dark side again as Abanazar in Aladdin at York Theatre Royal
Look who’s back: Aladdin, York Theatre Royal, until January 5 2025
PAUL Hawkyard’s villain returns to York after a winter away doing panto in Dubai to renew his Theatre Royal double act with Robin Simpson’s dame, playing bad-lad Abanazar to Simpson’s Dolly (not Widow Twankey, note) in the fifth collaboration between Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and Evolution Productions script writer Paul Hendy. Look out for CBeebies’ Evie Pickerill as the Spirit of the Ring. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Dani Harmer’s Fairy Bon Bon in Beauty And The Beast at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Changing of the old guard to the new: Beauty And The Beast, Grand Opera House, York, Saturday to January 5 2025
EXIT the Dame Berwick Kaler, Martin Barrass, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper and AJ Powell era. Enter Tracy Beaker star Dani Harmer as Fairy Bon Bon; Jennifer Caldwell, from SIX The Musical, as Belle; Samuel Wyn-Morris, from Les Miserable, as The Prince; comedian Phil Reid as Louis La Plonk; dame Leon Craig, from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, as his larger-than-life mum, Polly La Plonk; Phil Atkinson, from The Bodyguard, as dastardly Hugo Pompidou and David Alcock, from SAS Rogue Heroes, as Clement. George Ure directs 2019 Great British Pantomimes Award winner Jon Monie’s script. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
The principal players in Rowntree Players’ pantomime Mother Goose at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Let the egg puns get cracking: Rowntree Players in Mother Goose, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Saturday, 2pm and 7.30pm, Sunday, 2pm and 6pm; December 10 to 13, 7.30pm; December 14, 2pm and 7.30pm
MEET Jack (Gemma McDonald), head of hens at Chucklepatch Farm, with its newest addition to the coop, Priscilla the goose (Abbey Follansbee). Joined by mum Gertrude Gander (alias Mother Goose, Michael Cornell) and his sister Jill (Laura Castle), they head out on their panto adventure.
Frustrated with life on the farm and desperate for showbiz, Gertrude gives up the Wolds for the bright lights of Doncaster. However, ever-nasty landlord Demon Darkheart (Jamie McKeller, alias Dr Dorian Deathly from the Deathly Dark Tours ghost walk) and his assistant Bob (Laura McKeller) will stop at nothing to collect rent, but dishy farmer Kev, the King of Kale (Sarah Howlett) and Fairy Frittata (Holly Smith) will not let the dark side rule in a rollicking romp directed by co-writer Howard Ella. Tickets update: Down to last few tickets or limited availability for most performances on 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Tom Mordell’s Polaris the Snow Bear and Danny Mellor’s Sammy the Seal in Badapple Theatre Company’s Polaris The Snow Bear. Picture: Karl Andre
Children’s play of the week: Badapple Theatre Company in Polaris The Snow Bear, The Mount School, York, Saturday, 3pm and on tour in Yorkshire and beyond until January 5 2025
MEET Polaris, the travelling snow bear and star of Kate Bramley’s new family Christmas show for Green Hammerton’s Badapple Theatre Company. On his journey to find renowned naturalist Mr Hat-In-Burrow, many complicated and comedic adventures ensue as Polaris (Tom Mordell) tries to put everything right, saving the Polar world in time for Christmas with the help of reluctant sidekick Sammy the Seal (Danny Mellor). For Yorkshire dates and tickets, go to: badappletheatre.co.uk or 01423 331304.
Time to deliver: E(s)mereld(a) The Elf And Father Christmas at Milton Rooms, Malton
Festive family show of the week: Epic Adventure Parties present E(s)mereld(a) The Elf And Father Christmas, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 12 noon, 2pm and 3.30pm; Sunday, 10.30am, 12 noon, 2pm and 3.30pm
IN Malton company Epic Adventure Parties’ interactive show, E(s)mereld(a) The Elf And Father Christmas, the friendly Elf must sort out all the Christmas letters in time. She means well but alas she can become very muddled. Can your family help her?
Each show lasts around 20 minutes, to be followed by family visits to Father Christmas and a gift for every child. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/epicadventureparties.
Guy Masterson in his solo performance of A Christmas Carol, on tour at Kirk Theatre, Pickering
Solo ghost storyteller of the week: Guy Masterson in A Christmas Carol, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, December 11, 7.30pm
OLIVIER Award winner Guy Masterson, veteran of such solo works such as Under Milk Wood, Animal Farm and Shylock, presents his spellbinding take on Charles Dickens’s festive fable, adapted and directed by Nick Hennegan with original music by Robb Williams.
Noted for bringing multiple characters to life, Masterson conjures Scrooge, Marley, the Fezziwigs, the Cratchits, Tiny Tim et al in his dazzling, enchanting performance. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.
Isobel Staton’s Mary in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s A Nativity for York on dress rehearsal night at The Tithe Barn, Nether Poppleton. Picture: John Saunders
IT is time for pantomime, festive exhibitions, ghost stories, Elvis blues and a snow bear, as Charles Hutchinson welcomes winter.
Christmas message of hope of the week: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust presents A Nativity for York, The Tithe Barn, Nether Poppleton, York, today, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; St James the Deacon Church Hall, Acomb, December 5 and 6, 7.30pm; St Oswald’s Church Hall, Fulford, December 7, 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
PAUL Toy’s community production recalls when the Mystery Plays were banned in the 17th century for being too Roman Catholic. Performers were forced to perform illegally in the houses of sympathisers, always looking out for establishment forces.
“Although A Nativity for York reflects the experience of those dedicated but frightened performers, the story itself mirrors the trouble many people are experiencing today: a homeless couple, seeking shelter, with their new-born child being forced to flee to another country, but there is news of great hope and joy.” Box office: 0333 666 3366, ympst.co.uk/nativitytickets or on the door.
Rob Cotterill as The Mad Hatter in Pop Yer Clogs Theatre’s Alice In Wonderland
Through the rabbit hole: Pop Yer Clogs Theatre in Alice In Wonderland, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, today at 2.30pm and 7.30pm
FOLLOW young Alice on her adventures underground as she navigates her way through an imperfect and unfamiliar world. Discover a place where absurdity is the norm, logic is turned on its head and animals can talk in York company Pop Yer Clogs Theatre’s flamboyant staging for age five upwards.
Join her as she encounters many weird, wonderful and colourful characters, from the Queen of Hearts to the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter. Answers to riddles are non-existent, tales lack morals and injustice looms large in this Lewis Carroll tale, full of fantasy, imagination and fun, where every time is “tea-time” and nothing is ever really as it seems. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Wicked return: Paul Hawkyard’s Abanazar in York Theatre Royal’s Aladdin
Look who’s back: Aladdin, York Theatre Royal, December 3 to January 5 2025
PAUL Hawkyard’s villain returns to York after a winter away doing panto in Dubai to renew his Theatre Royal double act with Robin Simpson’s dame, playing bad-lad Abanazar to Simpson’s Dolly (not Widow Twankey, note) in the fifth collaboration between Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and Evolution Productions script writer Paul Hendy. Look out for CBeebies’ Evie Pickerill as the Spirit of the Ring. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Dani Harmer’s Fairy Bon Bon in Beauty And The Beast at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Changing of the old guard to the new: Beauty And The Beast, Grand Opera House, York, December 7 to January 5 2025
EXIT the Dame Berwick Kaler, Martin Barrass, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper and AJ Powell era. Enter Tracy Beaker star Dani Harmer as Fairy Bon Bon; Jennifer Caldwell, from SIX The Musical, as Belle; Samuel Wyn-Morris, from Les Miserable, as The Prince; comedian Phil Reid as Louis La Plonk; dame Leon Craig, from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, as his larger-than-life mum, Polly La Plonk; Phil Atkinson, from The Bodyguard, as dastardly Hugo Pompidou and David Alcock, from SAS Rogue Heroes, as Clement. George Ure directs 2019 Great British Pantomimes Award winner Jon Monie’s script. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
James Swanton: Christmas ghost stories from the pen of Charles Dickens
Storyteller of the week: James Swanton presents Ghost Stories for Christmas, York Medical Society lecture hall, until December 5, 7pm
YORK actor James Swanton returns to York Medical Society to tell Charles Dickens’s Ghost Stories for Christmas. “Each of them brims with Dickens’s genius for the weird, which ranges from human eccentricities to full-blown phantoms,” he says of his hour-long shows. “Dickens’s anger at social injustice also aligns sharply with our own – and in this age of rising austerity and fascism, we’re feeling the bite more than ever,” he says.
December 5’s performance of The Haunted Man has sold out; hurry, hurry to acquire tickets for A Christmas Carol on December 2, 3 or 4. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
R M Lloyd Parry: MR James Project storyteller
More ghosts in York: Nunkie Theatre Company, Count Magnus, Two Ghost Stories by M R James, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
THE ghost stories of M R James amuse and terrify as powerfully today as they did when first written more than a century ago. Nunkie Theatre Company brings two of these spine-chillers to life in R M Lloyd Parry’s thrilling one-man show.
In Count Magnus a travel-writer’s over-inquisitiveness leads to a diabolical chase from darkest Sweden to rural Essex. Denmark is the setting for Number 13, where a hotel room with the famously unlucky number conceals a ghastly, baffling secret. Tickets update: SOLD OUT.
Tom Mordell’s Polaris the Snow Bear and Danny Mellor’s Sammy the Seal in Badapple Theatre Company’s Polaris The Snow Bear. Picture: Karl Andre
Children’s show of the week: Badapple Theatre Company in Polaris The Snow Bear, The Mount School, York, December 7, 3pm, and on tour in Yorkshire and beyond until January 5 2025
MEET Polaris, the travelling snow bear and star of Kate Bramley’s new family Christmas show for Green Hammerton’s Badapple Theatre Company. On his journey to find renowned naturalist Mr Hat-In-Burrow, many complicated and comedic adventures ensue as Polaris (Tom Mordell) tries to put everything right, saving the Polar world in time for Christmas with the help of reluctant sidekick Sammy the Seal (Danny Mellor).
Further Yorkshire dates include: tonight, 7pm, Kilham Village Hall; December 1, 7pm, Old Girls’ School, Sherburn in Elmet; December 3, 7pm, Green Hammerton Village Hall; December 11, 7.30pm, Bishop Monkton Village Hall; December 17, 6pm, The Cholmeley Hall, Brandsby; December 28, 2pm, Ampleforth Village Hall, and December 30, 4.30pm, East Cottingwith Village Hall. Full details and tickets: badappletheatre.co.uk or 01423 331304.
Gifts of Christmas on display at the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre
Christmas exhibition of the week: Gifts Of Christmas, Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, Blossom Street, York, until December 19, open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday; last admission 4pm
BAR Convent is sparkling with a dazzling tree decorations and new exhibition on this year’s festive theme of Gifts of Christmas. On show is a collection of digital art inspired by Viborg, where heritage intersects with cutting-edge technology, while young creatives from Blueberry Academy, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, St George’s RC Primary and York College (ESOL students) are exploring the theme too. Glass cabinets showcase pop-punk tributes to the Book of Kells and the works of William Blake. Tickets: barconvent.co.uk.
1812 Theatre Company’s poster for Pinocchio at Helmsley Arts Centre
1812 pantomime for 2024: 1812 Theatre Company in Pinocchio, Helmsley Arts Centre, 2.30pm matinees, December 7, 8, 14 and 15; 7.30pm evening shows, December 7, 10 to 14
HELMSLEY Arts Centre artistic director Natasha Jones directs 1812 Theatre Company in Tom Whalley’s version of Pinocchio. Geppetto (Oliver Clive), an old toy maker, always longed for a son of his own. One starry night, helped by the Blue Fairy (Nicky Hollins) and a cheeky little Jiminy Cricket (Millie Neighbour), his wish comes true and his latest puppet, Pinocchio (Esme Schofield), comes to life.
However, the magical puppet catches the eye of evil showman Stromboli (Ben Coughlan). Aided by Dame Mamma Mia (Martin Vander Weyer) and her hapless son Lampwick (Joe Gregory) from the pizzeria, will Pinocchio learn in time what it takes to be a “real boy”? Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
One Knight with you: Steve Knight in his Elvis Christmas Special at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York
To avoid a Blue Christmas, book now: Elvis Christmas Special, Tribute by Steve Knight, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, December 22,7.30pm
STEVE Knight embodies the spirit and energy of Elvis Presley as he brings a Christmas flavour to his tribute act that has played Las Vegas to London. Presented by Wryley Music, he combines spot-on vocals with a dynamic stage presence and an uncanny resemblance to the King of Rock’n’Roll. Backed by a full band, he takes a festive journey through Elvis’s greatest hits. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
In Focus: Jo Walton’s exhibition, Steel, Copper, Rust, Gold, Verdigris, Wax, at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York
Jo Walton setting up her exhibition at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb. Behind her is one of her artworks and graffiti artist Sam Porter’s wall painting of an Eastern Bluebird. “The bluebird is beautiful, though some people think it’s a Kingfisher, which is crazy, isn’t it!”
WHEN Rogues Atelier artist, interior designer, upholsterer and Bluebird Bakery curator of exhibitions Jo Walton asked poet Nicky Kippax to put words to images she had sent her, she responded with “The heft of a cliff and a gathering of sea fret”. Spot on, Nicky.
Into the eighth month of recovery from breaking her right leg, Jo is exhibiting predominantly large works that utilise steel, copper, rust, gold, verdigris and wax in Nicky’s bakery, cafe and community centre, in Acomb Road, Acomb, York, whose interior she designed in 2021.
Jo has curated exhibitions in the bakery by Mark Ibson, Rosie Bramley, Liz Foster, Carolyn Coles, Rob Burton and Robin Grover-Jacques, but not shown her own work there until now. Why? “I have my own space [at Rogues Atelier] too, and I’ve also been juggling with the availability of other artists,” she reasons.
Jo’s creative year has been shaped by her leg break. “I was visiting Mark Ibson’s gallery at the old blacksmith’s in Bishop Wilton, when I walked around the back with my daughter and I just fell over. That was at the end of April, just after York Open Studios,” she says.
“I’m only just walking OK now. I’ve still got a slight limp. I had to have a pin put through my ankle, and a plate inserted too, as well splints. Everything in my life came to a complete standstill. All the work and holiday plans stopped, though I did manage to get a couple of paintings done for North Yorkshire Open Studios, going round on my “scooter” to get them completed.”
Earlier in the year, Jo had done an upholstery re-fit upstairs at Ambiente Tapas, in Goodramgate, York, and designed the interior for the new Bluebird Bakery in Butcher Row, Beverley.
For her Acomb exhibition and winter shows at Rogues Atelier, Jo “has been able to work properly at full tilt since September, mainly making smaller pieces”. “But I also had to catch up on so many upholstery orders, delivering what I’d promised but I’d had to put off while I recuperated.
“At Bluebird Bakery, there’ll be big works, all 80cms by 80cms, while all the smaller pieces will be on show at Rogues Atelier, when we do our winter open studios shows along with PICA Studios today [November 30] and tomorrow [10am to 5pm both days], then December 7 [10am to 5pm] and December 8 [11am to 5pm].”
Looking ahead to 2025, Jo will be exhibiting at Pyramid Gallery, in Stonegate, York, in July after being offered a solo show by owner and curator Terry Brett. The exhibition will combine Jo’s big artworks with ceramic vases and vessels and dried metal arrangements to evoke how all the pieces would complement each other in a home setting.
Prompted by putting Nicky Kippax’s poetry on the walls by her artworks in the past, “I’m planning to incorporate her words in the paintings, which I’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” says Jo. “It was the sort of work that first attracted me as an art college student in Harrogate and then at Bradford University.”
As Neil Young once sang, rust never sleeps, certainly not in Jo Walton’s art.
Jo Walton, Steel, Copper, Rust, Gold, Verdigris, Wax, on show at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, until January 23 2025
Jo Walton: back story
Jo Walton, at Rogues Atelier Art Studio, on the get-around “scooter” that enabled her to complete works for her North Yorkshire Open Studios exhibition after breaking her right leg in a fall
GRADUATED from Bradford University with degree in Fine Art in 2005. Founded community arts centre in Walmgate, York, and delivered community art projects at York Art Gallery.
In 2012, she founded Rogues Atelier Art Studio in Fossgate, York, where she creates abstract land/sea/colour-scapes focusing on horizons, using gold, silver, copper, metal leaf, oil paint and wax, playing with oxidation – rust, verdigris – on plastered wooden panels.
Her work is inspired by extensive travel, sailing in her twenties and delivering yachts, preceded by her childhood years living in Australia.
Jo participates regularly in York Open Studios, Staithes Art and Heritage Festival, Saltaire Open Village and, more recently, in North Yorkshire Open Studios. She has held solo exhibitions at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, and has been commissioned to curate exhibitions there.
Jo is known for her industrial-styled commercial interiors, designing for bars and shops. She designed and project-managed The Angel On The Green, Bishopthorpe Road, and Bluebird Bakery, in Acomb Road, Acomb, Shambles Market, York, Kirkgate Market, Leeds, and Butcher Row, Beverley.
A note on rust in Jo Walton’s work
Jo Walton’s artwork on show at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb
THE method to preserve and prevent further rusting of the metal plate has been researched, tried and tested by Jo for more than 12 years, to the point where she is certain of its durability. The first successful pieces are in her home, where she reports no change.
“I’ve been fascinated by rust forever,” she says. “Growing up in Australia with the red dust and the searing heat burning everything, I was fascinated by rusted metals and especially by the colours they gave off: those absolutely beautiful colours.
“Then I got rust spots on my jeans that wouldn’t come out. I thought, ‘there might be something in this’, so I looked at printing with rust, which took a while to work out. People liked them, and once I began printing onto metal plate, people loved them – especially men.
“What I’m playing with in my works is the shine of the gold through the matt of the paint. I’m using oil paints, whereas the classic iconic art used egg tempera. It’s painted on to gold metal leaf, so it’s textured, painted black and then polished.
“When I went to Bradford University, my first instinct was to paint almost in the iconic style, but it was the time of Tracey Emin and the Young British Artists, which was a sad time to go to university to study Fine Art if you wanted to do traditional techniques, like I did!
“They were all into modern art, but if I’d stuck to my feelings about the traditions of art, I would never have done the rust works!”
Tom Mordell’s Polaris the Snow Bear and Danny Mellor’s Sammy the Seal in Badapple Theatre Company’s Polaris The Snow Bear. Picture: Karl Andre
MEET Polaris, the travelling snow bear and star of a new family Christmas show by Green Hammerton’s Badapple Theatre Company that opens tonight.
Polaris is on the longest journey of his life: to find the great Mr. Hat-In-Burrow, a renowned human naturalist who – legend says – has the key to saving the Polar world.
When he arrives unexpectedly by iceberg in a small village in the North of England, Polaris does not receive the warm welcome he expected! Many complicated and comedic adventures ensue as he tries to put everything right in time for Christmas with the help of his reluctant sidekick, Sammy the Seal.
Tom Mordell
Written and directed by Badapple director Kate Bramley, this festive tall tale for all ages five upwards, as well as the young at heart, will tour to small village halls throughout Yorkshire and then nationwide from November 29 to January 5 2025 with a cast of Tom Mordell as Polaris (and other roles) and company favourite Danny Mellor as Sammy the Seal (and other roles too). Jez Lowe’s songs and Catherine Dawn’s design completes the snow-dusted picture.
For the past 26 years, Badapple have performed original shows in the smallest and hardest-to-reach rural venues nationwide, bringing theatre and music “to your doorstep”.
“From the North Yorkshire team that delivered The Mice Who Ate Christmas, The Elves And The Carpenter and The Snow Dancer, expect a classic Badapple family show with the usual comedy, puppets, songs, mayhem and a touch of snowy wonder!” says Kate. “It’s perfect for grandparents and grandchildren to enjoy together as Polaris and sidekick Sammy seek to save the Polar world – and Christmas itself.”
Danny Mellor
The tour will take in 26 venues, as far afield as Lancashire, Cumbria, County Durham, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Herefordshire and Shropshire, as well as North, East and South Yorkshire.. All venue and ticket details can be found at: https://www.badappletheatre.co.uk/show/polaris-the-snow-bear/ or by telephoning 01423 331304.
Yorkshire dates include:
November 29, 7pm: Tockwith Village Hall, box office, 01423 331304.
November 30, 7pm: Kilham Village Hall, 07354 301119.
December 1, 7pm: Old Girls’ School, Sherburn in Elmet, 01977 685178.
December 3, 7pm: Green Hammerton Village Hall, 01423 331304.
December 7, 3pm: The Mount School, York, 01423 331304/badappletheatre.co.uk.
Badapple’s tour poster for Polaris The Snow Bear
December 11, 7.30pm: Bishop Monkton Village Hall, 01423 331304.
December 17, 6pm: The Cholmeley Hall, Brandsby, 01347 889898.
December 28, 2pm: Ampleforth Village Hall, 07549 775971.
December 30, 4.30pm: East Cottingwith Village Hall, 07866 024009.
Did you know? Badapple’s travels in 2024 with The Regalettes
EARLIER this year, Badapple Theatre Company mounted spring and autumn tours of director Kate Bramley’s 1930s’-inspired comedy The Regalettes, the first from April 24 to June 7 with a Yorkshire cast of Ellie Pawsey and Rhiannon Canoville-Ord; the second from September 26 to November 17 with Pip Cook and fellow York actress Nell Baker plus ‘cinema’ visuals and new twists.
In The Regalettes, Celebrity and rural life clash head on when a new movie premières at the tiny Regal cinema in the fictional Yorkshire village of Bottledale in Bramley’s play set in the 1930s, the cinema decade that spans Hitchcock noir and classic Technicolor showstoppers.
Ellie Pawsey’s The Falcon in Badapple’s The Regalettes. Picture: Karl Andre
Comedy and intrigue ensue as the intrepid heroines Hilda and Annie suddenly find themselves at the heart of a very silly mystery. Cue film sequences, music, songs and clowning in Bramley’s story that looks at the contrast for young women between isolated village life and the perceived glamour of the movies.
Bramley revealed how the idea for the play came about. “I’m a big film noir fan; it’s so stylish and elegant, and so well written – and the 1930s was a huge boom time for Hollywood and famous UK film makers as well.”
Rhiannon Canoville-Ord as Mademoiselle Escargot in The Regalettes. Picture: Karl Andre
Away from Hollywood, the decade was far from magical for many, with the Great Depression taking hold. “For ordinary working people, the 1930s was a time of increasing financial hardship which seemed a world away from the glamour of a movie set,” Kate noted.
“I suppose I thought there were some parallels to our modern-day experiences, but as ever it’s a comedy, and we just had a lot of fun piecing together a ‘what if’ mini-mystery that turns normal rural life upside down for our heroines.”
Nell Baker
The first tour set off in the wake of Badapple securing £28,381 grant funding from Arts Council England and £800 from East Riding Council. “Badapple is immensely grateful for this generous funding, which enables ours original brand of live theatre to reach rural locations across the country,” said Kate.
Later explaining how the 18-date second tour differed from the first, she said: “Bringing in a new cast has given the whole show a new lease of life. I have re-written some of the show and, alongside our new assistant director Connie Peel, we added some new visual twists and turns to the narrative, as well as our production team augmenting the overall design and style. We are always refining and creating and looking to make every tour be the best it can be.”
Isobel Staton’s Mary in rehearsal for York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s A Nativity for York. Picture: John Saunders
YORK Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s new and unique interpretation of the Nativity, dramatising events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays, opens at The Tithe Barn, Nether Poppleton, York, tonight.
Directed once more by Paul Toy, the hour-long touring community production is set in a time of threat when a homeless couple and their newborn baby are driven from home by oppressors.
Likewise, this production is on the move, following up today and tomorrow’s Poppleton performances with visits to St James the Deacon Church Hall, Acomb, on December 5 and 6, then St Oswald’s Church Hall, Fulford, on December 7.
Toy’s vision for his staging is “that of an underground, secret activity; clandestine performances of a play promoting banned religious doctrine in a time of oppression”.
Manuda Fernando (Herod’s son), left, Wilma Edwards (Counsellor), James Tyler (Herod) and Tricia Campbell (Counsellor) in the rehearsal room. Picture: John Saunders
Bringing the Christmas story of events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ to York neighbourhoods, Toy’s production recalls a time in the 17th century when the Mystery Plays were banned for being too Roman Catholic. Performers were forced to perform illegally in the houses of sympathisers, always looking out for establishment forces.
Paul says: “Although A Nativity for York reflects the experience of those dedicated but frightened performers, the story itself mirrors the trouble many people are experiencing today: a homeless couple, seeking shelter with their new-born child, being forced to flee to another country, leaving behind scenes of unimaginable horror. While it mirrors both history and our current world situation, there is news of great hope and joy.”
Supporters Trust chair Linda Terry adds: “The trust is delighted to be touring the production around three of York’s suburbs. Our aim is to give people the chance to see a performance from one of York’s great cultural traditions on their doorstep. The hour-long performance of words and music promises to both challenge and delight the audience.”
Traditionally, The Nativity performances celebrate the birth of Jesus into the life of humankind. “Beloved when performed by young children, this story is not a simple tale of unmitigated joy,” says Paul. “It is a cold, cruel world that the baby arrives in. People are subjugated by an occupying power, and some are doomed to pay a price of unimaginable suffering. But the birth also gives optimism and the hope of a better future.
Nick Jones’s Joseph rehearsing a scene for A Nativity for York. Picture: John Saunders
“In our production, we re-create the experiences of those who aimed to keep the story of the Mystery Plays alive at a time when they were banned because their Catholic content was unacceptable to Protestant rulers.
“A band of actors from Egton on the North York Moors kept the flame burning with secret performances in the houses of Catholic landowners – one step ahead of the authorities. Now, join us for an hour when we bring to life that team of fear, of punishment, of homelessness, but also a time of great hope and joy.”
York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust presents A Nativity for York, The Tithe Barn, Nether Poppleton, York, November 29, 7.30pm, and November 30, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; St James the Deacon Church Hall, Acomb, December 5 and 6, 7.30pm; St Oswald’s Church Hall, Fulford, December 7, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Suitable for adults and children aged 11 plus. Box office: 0333 666 3366 or https://ympst.co.uk/nativityticketsand on the door (cash or card), subject to availability.
York Mystery Plays: back story
WRITTEN in medieval times, 48 plays, once performed in the streets by the city’s Guilds, tell the Biblical story from Creation to Judgement Day, including the life of Jesus Christ.
York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust is a registered charity, a group of volunteers aiming to keep the story of the York Mystery Plays alive.
Who is in the cast?
The Shepherds, David Denbigh, left, Michael Maybridge and Sally Maybridge in rehearsal for A Nativity for York
Balladeer/Minstrel: Jonathan Brockbank Symeon/Soldier I: David Lancaster Anna/Counsellor II: Clare Halliday The Angel Gabriel: Helen Jarvis Mary: Isobel Staton Elizabeth/Counsellor I: Wilma Edwards Joseph: Nick Jones Neighbour II/Maidservant/Angel: Trisha Campbell King I/Neighbour I: Val Burgess King II/Mother I: Emily Hansen King III: Madusha Fernando/Janice Newton Shepherd I: Michael Maybridge Shepherd II/Mother II: Sally Maybridge Shepherd III/Soldier II: David Denbigh Herod: James Tyler Filius/Herod’s Son: Manuda Fernando Messenger: Oliver Howard Star Angel: Julie Speedie Angel Choir: Emily Hansen, Trisha Campbell, Val Burgess, Wilma Edwards and Julie Speedie
Finlay Butler’s Buddy the elf and Steve Tearle’s Santa in NE Theatre York’s Elf The Musical
STEVE Tearle knows how to sell a show, this time promising audiences “an opportunity to see Elf like never before with a fantastic video wall and lots of amazing special effects”.
The result? A sold-out run of six performances at the JoRo, where your reviewer was accommodated at the last minute in the only remaining house seat. Thank you, JoRo management, for being so helpful.
Elf The Musical was last staged in York in the equivalent week three years ago by York Stage at the Grand Opera House, where director-designer Nik Briggs dressed his stage with big snowflakes, open North Pole skyline, bustling Macy’s store, finale snow machine et al, as he drew inspiration from Radio City Music Hall.
Tearle instead put his trust in technology and human/elf chemistry, utilising video backdrops of constantly changing snowscapes, spinning festive candy canes and the interiors of Macy’s Department Store and Greenway Press, a children’s book publishing company in New York City’s Empire State Building, first seen in all its towering, vertigo-inducing magnificence.
Family discussions in the Hobbs household: Perri Ann Barley’s Emily, James O’Neill’s Walter and James Roberts’s Michael
It would spoil the visual delights in store to mention more than that, but Tearle uses the tools with a showman’s flourish, tapping into his inner PT Barnum that never lies far beneath the surface.
But is it really theatre, you ask? Is it in some way cheating to let the science, rather than the art, do the work? Not today when theatre embraces all possibilities to modernise the artform while sustaining the magic.
What’s more, everything else about Tearle’s community theatre-making is rooted in old-fashioned theatre values: a glossy programme, a big cast, with children aplenty cutting their teeth; 15 players, yes, 15, in Joe Allen’s orchestra; costumes galore, and Tearle himself in actor-manager mode, overseeing his production in the genial guise of storyteller Santa. Scatting extra lines like a jazz singer, he gives resurgent York City an unexpected mention far from the North Pole.
He is not the santa of attention, however! That central figure is Finlay Butler’s skateboarding Buddy, with Butler’s enthusiasm for playing Buddy – “one of the greatest experiences of my life!” he says – being a match for Buddy’s ebullience for life.
Finlay Butler’s Buddy enthuses in his unconventional way over Maia Stroud’s Jovie in Elf The Musical
Elf The Musical retains the jokes and the naïve charm of the 2003 Will Ferrell film in its playful, New York-witty, even wise book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin, then adds all the song-and-dance razzmatazz of a Broadway musical, with music by Matthew Sklar big on winter brass and lyrics by Chad Beguelin full of smart humour, bold statements and big sentiments.
Tearle’s green-coated Santa introduces the story of how orphan boy Buddy crawls into Santa’s sack and ends up being brought up among all the elf toy makers on a sugar-rich diet with two visits a day to the North Pole dentist.
When Buddy learns that he is not an elf after all, despite being so elfish in his thinking, off to New York he must go – in Tearle’s video variation of a pantomime transformation scene – to try to find his real father, children’s publishing-house manager Walter Hobbs (James O’Neill), who never knew he had a son from a long-ago relationship.
Stressed-out Walter is now married to long-suffering Emily (Perri Ann Barley), with a son, Michael (James Roberts, sharing the role with Zachary Stoney). In their house, no-one believes in Santa but Buddy will work his way into their lives – work, not worm – with his idiot-savant gentle air, kindness and positivity.
The hills are alive with candy canes as Finlay Butler’s Buddy makes his journey from the North Pole to New York via NE Theatre York’s video projections
Butler’s performance is as buoyant as a bubble, as bouncy as Tigger, as cheerful as a robin’s hop on a Christmas card. Who could not love him, this bundle of joy, love, cheek and unguarded desire to please? After Adam Sowter’s Mr Poppy in Pick Up Theatre’s ongoing Nativity! The Musical at the Grand Opera House, here is another agile comedic actor who would be wholly suited to turning his hand to daft-lad duty in panto. He sings expressively too, especially in World’s Greatest Dad and The Story Of Buddy The Elf.
Barley’s warm-hearted Emily and Roberts’s excitable Michael have two lovely duets, I’ll Believe In You and There Is A Santa Claus, while O’Neill impresses in his transformative role, gradually defrosting from treasonable to reasonable.
Ali-Butler-Hind’s scatty receptionist Deb and Kit Stroud’s hyperactive Manager maximise their cameos, topped by Stephen Perry’s intemperate publishing boss Mr Greenway with his preposterous suggestions for book changes.
Maia Beatrice, or Maia Stroud as she is now called in the programme, is well cast as Macy’s store worker Jovie, Buddy’s slow-burn love interest, whose initial New York cynicism is chipped away by his persistent enthusiasm as he corrects everyone’s misconceptions over Santa, the North Pole and Christmas.
It’ll be all white on the night (apart from the Santas!) in NE Theatre York’s Elf The Musical
A rising talent of the York stage with a cracking singing voice, full of emotion and range, and a sense of stillness in the moment not always present in an actor’s skill set, her performance has depth, standing out amid the amusing caricatures. No song is better sung than her Never Fall In Love.
Joe Allen’s well-drilled orchestra brings out the fizz and the fun in Sklar’s emotive songs, and if the dancing is less precise, it has all the sugar-rush energy of Buddy in Melissa Boyd’s choreography. Her best routine is for the Santa setpiece Nobody Cares About Santa, where the jaded, boozed-up post-shift Santas leap up and down in turn, topped off by a burst of tap-dancing.
Tearle has decked the stage front with twinkling foliage: a typical touch from NETheatre’s creative director with a designer’s flair who embraces the “true joy of Christmas” as heartily as Buddy and his one-man national elf service.
His stage bursts with colour and life, regulation reds and greens aplenty and one scene where everyone is dressed in white. What a spectacle. Buddy has a word for it: Sparklejollytwinklejingley.
NE Theatre York in Elf The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, Haxby Road, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. SOLD OUT. Tickets update: for returns only, ring 01904 501935.
