Category: Theatre

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Badapple to return to live shows with eco-adventure Tales From The Great Wood

When Richard met Hetty: York actor Richard Kay with Hetty the hare in Badapple Theatre Company’s new eco-adventure, Tales From The Great Wood

BADAPPLE Theatre Company will return to live performances this summer with Tales From The Great Wood.

“This is a new short play for children and grandparents – and everyone else – to enjoy together that can be performed indoor or outdoor,” says writer-director Kate Bramley, founder of the Green Hammerton theatre-on-your-doorstep proponents, as she introduces her interactive storytelling eco-adventure.

“Listen! Can you hear the whispering in the trees? The Great Wood is full of stories. It’s a hot summer’s day, perfect for basking in the sun, but instead of resting, Hetty the hare is investigating because someone is missing.

“As she unravels a tall tale that stretches from end to end of The Great Wood, Hetty realises that every creature – no matter how small – can have a huge part to play in the world of the forest.”

Starring York actor Richard Kay, Danny Mellor and a host of puppets made by designer Catherine Dawn, this show for ages five to 95 will be performed at the Covid-secure Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, on July 2 and 3.

“We’ll also be playing Skipsea Village Hall on the Sunday, and we’re looking to do some outdoor performances too, such as at stately homes, with Annabelle Polito working on that for us at the moment,” says Kate.

“I’m trying to create a show that is ‘omni-everything’: suitable for outdoor spaces and for indoors, so it’s not only a play for all seasons, but a play for all eventualities.”

Badapple Theatre Company turned an empty grain store into a theatre/film studio to record the hit play Eddie And The Gold Tops

To add to the feeling of resurgence, Badapple Theatre Company is celebrating being awarded two grants to support its youth theatre classes, as well as the resumption of professional live shows this summer. 

Over lockdown, the North Yorkshire touring theatre company moved its youth theatre classes online, created a free Theatre On Your Desktop podcast series of online plays and even converted an empty grain store into a theatre/film studio to record two of its plays, Eddie And The Gold Tops and The Snow Dancer.

Now, the Local Fund Harrogate District, administered by Two Ridings Community Foundation, has provided £2,908 to cover Badapple’s core costs and ensure its community projects can continue through to August, such as its regular youth theatre sessions in the village.

“Meanwhile, Arts Council England has awarded £15,000 in financial support to commission new plays for the youth theatre and youth summer school and to ensure a return to professional live performance,” says Kate, Badapple’s artistic director.

“We’re delighted to be celebrating both of these grant awards. The two go hand in hand to keep us afloat with our community work right now and keep us moving forward with brand new shows for audiences this summer.”

Looking back on a 21st anniversary year spent under the Covid cloud, Kate says: “Arts Council England stepped in and bailed us out spectacularly, but we couldn’t monetise the online programme, beyond getting plenty of hits for the Christmas show, but certainly we couldn’t live off that.”

Badapple resumed live performances last September with Suffer Fools Gladly, actor Danny Mellor’s hour-long comedy about the perils and perks of always having to tell the truth, presented in Yorkshire private gardens, campsites and hall car parks.

Anastasia Benham and Danny Mellor in Mellor’s Suffer Fools Gladly when Badapple Theatre Company resumed live shows with outdoor performances last September

“We really hit lucky with Danny’s show, and we were really lucky with the September weather, except for the last show, when we needed a sturdy, stoic audience!” says Kate. “The shows were utterly Covid-safe too.”

Reflecting on how theatre companies responded to the Coronavirus crisis, Kate comments: “So many companies adapted to the social need, whether to run food banks or provide outdoor events, and that’s a good thing to come out of the arts world in pandemic times.

“There’s been less navel-gazing with a lot of good companies looking beyond their own agenda to think, ‘what do people need from us now?’.”

Looking ahead, Kate reveals: “December 2021 will see the rescheduling of our original eco-fable The Snow Dancer, the Christmas show that we were so lucky to present in a handful of performances at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in December 2020 between lockdowns.

“Our Christmas remit is always to play to children and grandparents, so that’s our agenda again, to bring those two generations back to seeing things together,” says Kate.

“May/June 2022 will finally – everything crossed! – see the long awaited and much- postponed premiere of my brand-new comedy Elephant Rock. This twice-postponed show is already funded by Arts Council England, so we’re excited to be programming venues for this event from now onwards.”

What happens in Elephant Rock? “From the great age of the steamers and through the heyday of the British seaside resorts, the old Palace dance hall stood proudly on the pier, attended by the greatest of all attractions, the Mechanical Elephant,” says Kate.

Danny Mellor and Anastasia Benham in Badapple Theatre Company’s The Snow Dancer, performed in a Covid-secure, socially distanced Joseph Rowntree Theatre in York last December

“But the relentless tides have chipped away at the coast and the mighty Elephant Rock that gave the headland its name seemingly walked off overnight. Join us for a night of comic capers from a family who are trying to keep the Palace doors on, and open, as they delve into a complicated family history of music hall owners spanning 100 years and 5,000 miles to the elephant-filled grasslands of Sri Lanka.”

At the heart of Badapple’s Arts Council funding bid was an emphasis on children, leading to a focus on commissioning new plays for the youth theatre and supporting the youth summer school.

“In the pandemic, children have not only lost a year’s work at school, but also a year of playing and social-skill building, when they’ve not been able to relax their bodies and lark about, instead being in a ‘straitjacket’ at home,” says Kate.

“They’ve been amazing in keeping to social distancing and in putting up with how they’ve had to be dressed.”

Kate continues: “That’s why it’s important for us to be exploratory in how we tell children’s stories and how we let them have fun now, so with that in mind, we’ve asked Richard Kay to write us a pantomime for our youth theatre.

“He’s written a couple of shows for us, Cinderella and a mash-up of Snow White and Babes In The Wood, so that there could be a big cast with plenty for them all to do.

“He understands how to write a pantomime that’s very funny but also entirely appropriate for Key 2 children, so we’re really excited about it.”

Richard Kay: Badapple Theatre Company actor and pantomime writer

Kay’s 2021 pantomime will feature young actors who have attended  Badapple youth theatre sessions on Zoom in lockdown. “We’re hoping of course that it will be the first chance for parents and wider audiences to see them on stage again,” says Kate.

“The children have worked so hard for a year, but apart from the odd vignette online, parents haven’t been able to see them perform or see the big strides they’ve made.

“We’re kind of in awe of how good spirited they’ve been in taking part in exactly the same way even though it’s just each of them in their own room, connecting online.

“For some of them, it’s been the making of them, with their confidence picking up when there’s no peer pressure about how they look or how they feel, and all of them keeping it high energy in an hour’s involvement.”

Kate adds: “For some, it’s given a greater depth to their performances because they’ve had no distractions, so that’s been the bonus, with them really thriving in the online environment, though we all agree that ‘live is best’.”

Even though the Government has decreed youth theatre sessions can be resumed indoors, Badapple’s young performers have wanted to do outdoor sessions. “It’s that thing of enjoying nature in a different way, improvising with the world around us, making playlets based on the garden settings around us,” Kate says.

“In the pandemic, children have not only lost a year’s work at school, but also a year of playing and social-skill building,” says Badapple Theatre Company artistic director Kate Bramley

Outdoor performance takes her back to Cornish youth. “When I grew up, the company I would see was Kneehigh, before they became the national name they are now, doing open-air shows.

“Then, when I was with Cornwall Youth Theatre Company, there was always that thing of grand pageantry, so that outdoor theme has always been important to me, and I’m really happy to be building up youth theatre work that has an outdoor element to it,” says Kate.

“If this past year has given me anything to think about, if I’m to keep going for another 20 years, I would like to mix indoor and outdoor strands, as we’ve always been ecologically minded.

“For us, it’s always about storytelling and creating a storytelling experience that’s magical when people come together, and it’s just about finding different ways of doing that.”

Kate notes how Badapple’s philosophy chimes with Arts Council England’s thinking. “I don’t think we’ve done anything differently to gain funding. It’s the fact that the Arts Council’s Let Create strategy, handed out before lockdown, is much more in alignment with how we think about arts provision and productions, where they seek three strands: community involvement, excellence in artists and international pedigree,” she says.

“We’ve always felt our work is as valuable as everyone else’s, and we seem to be on a crest of a wave, having created a strategy that chimes with everyone. The Arts Council have done us so proud, intervening in a way where there are possibilities on so many different levels for us.

Children and tutors enjoying a Badapple Youth Theatre summer school session in pre-Covid times

“Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council have freed up funding too, ending up with us breaking even in the latest financial year, and I’ve never been so proud about that. We’re still trading, we’re still alive and kicking, with good projects to look forward to.”

Another plus point of the past year has been forging a partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York’s community-run theatre in Haxby Road, first for The Snow Dancer last December and now for Tales From The Great Wood in July.

“That’s something that would never happened without the pandemic, doing the socially distanced performances of The Snow Dancer after their board member Moira Tait hosted three shows of Suffer Fools Gladly in her garden,” says Kate.

“Now, we’re excited to premiere Tales From The Great Woods at the Rowntree Theatre, as it fits our ethos of taking shows to people that wouldn’t otherwise see it.

“They want us to do The Snow Dancer there again in this winter’s tour and we want to support them as much as possible, as we were bowled over by how they kitted out the theatre to be Covid-safe for last winter’s shows.”

Badapple Theatre Company presents Tales From The Great Wood, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 2, 7.30pm, and July 3, 11am, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 501935.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Mission Impossible! Velma Celli finds new wonderbar home for York drag residency

“It’s happening!” says Velma Celli as York cabaret star moves residency to Impossible, York, from May 21. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick Photography

YORK’S drag diva deluxe Velma Celli is on the move.

Out goes the Covid-suspended monthly camp cabaret Friday nights at The Basement, City Screen, York.

In comes a resplendent residency from May 21 at Impossible, York, Tokyo Industries’ new tea-room, cocktail bar, restaurant and speakeasy enterprise in the old Terry’s café in St Helen’s Café, latterly home to Carluccio’s restaurant.

“It’s happening!” says an excited Velma Celli, the exotic international drag alter-ego of musical actor Ian Stroughair, last seen on a York stage in December as the villainous Fleshius Creepius in York Stage’s debut pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, at Theatre @41, Monkgate.

How the other half lives: Exit alter-ego Velma Celli, enter Ian Stroughair, musical actor, playing Fleshius Creepius in York Stage’s pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk last winter. Picture: Kirkpatrick Photography

“Velma has a new residency!! My very first live gig at the utterly fabulous Impossible, York. May 21st.  Doors 7pm. Show 8pm! My very special guest is [York soul sister] Jessica Steel (obvs). More special West End guests to be announced! Grab those tickets as it will sell out!”

Tickets are on sale at https://www.ticketweb.uk/event/the-velma-celli-show-impossible-york-tickets/10900325, priced at £22 for VIP front cabaret table seats and £16.50 for reserved seating.

“Basically, it’s replacing the shows at The Basement, where we don’t know when it will reopen for shows under Covid guidance as it’s a small space,” says Ian, as he switches from the impossible to Impossible, York.

The debut poster for Velma Celli’s new residency

“I met the Impossible general manager, Stephanie [Powell], in December, meeting her between Jack And The Beanstalk shows, and then suddenly she knocked on the window saying, ‘I’ve been trying to contact you!’.

“And so the first Velma Celli Show there will be on May 21, up the stairs, in the fabulous Impossible Wonderbar setting overlooking the square, with more monthly shows to be announced later. This one will be fun, comedic, with stand-up, impressions, the usual mix of rock, pop and the blues, plus Jess and guests.”

The Velma Celli Show residency will not be Velma’s only gig in the first-floor Impossible Wonderbar. “On June 5, we’ll be holding the first Drag Brunch, with Velma, surprise guest drag queens, bottomless cocktails and brunch,” says Ian, looking forward to hosting the “ultimate diva brunch in homage to all the queens”, from Whitney to Tina Turner plus many more besides.

Brunch date: Velma Celli will be joined by guest drag queens at Impossible, York, on June 5

That day, there will be two 90-minute sittings, the first from 12 noon, the second from 2.30pm. Tickets June 5 are on sale via info@impossibleyork.com or on 01904 864410.

After being London based for so long – like so many musical performers – Ian first moved back to York for Lockdown 1 when the pandemic sent him home from a Velma Celli Australian tour, and he plans to settle back in his home city permanently from May, travelling to London for three days a week when necessary.

Streamed concerts, first from a Bishopthorpe kitchen and latterly from a riverside abode by the Ouse Bridge, have kept Velma Celli’s voice in spectacular working order, sometimes accompanied by soul-singing York hairdresser Jessica Steel, leading light of Big Ian Donaghy’s fundraising A Night To Remember shows at York Barbican and salon owner of Rock The Barnet in Boroughbridge Road.

West End star Ian has appeared in such musicals as Cats, Fame, Chicago and Rent – not forgetting a sassy cameo for Velma Celli on EastEnders – but had to forego a long run in Funny Girls in Blackpool last year, thwarted by Killjoy Covid.

Ian Stroughair: Musical actor, drag queen , pantomime star

The pandemic strictures put paid to his international travels too, but already he has had two Covid-19 vaccine jabs to enable Ian to plan a week’s travel to Mexico for a Velma Celli show in Cancun.

“Thank god for that because the next cruise is not until October. I lost all the cruise-ship shows last year, and I’d already lost five cruise bookings this year, when in one day I lost three more cruise bookings,” he reveals.

In the diary too is Velma Celli’s participation in The Love Season at York Theatre Royal, performing one of Velma’s regular cabaret shows, re-titled Love Is Love: A Brief Of History Of Drag specially for the May 29 occasion.

Joining Velma that night will be two guest acts, Jordan Fox, Ian’s co-star in Jack And The Beanstalk, and Jessica Steel, backing singers Kimberley Ensor and Grace Lancaster, musical director Ben Papworth, drummer Clark Howard and guitarist Al Morrison.

“I last performed there in Kes, when I was 14, exactly 24 years ago, and sadly I’ve never been back,” says Ian. “I’ve tried to do shows there but it’s never happened, so it’s great to be back now. I love what Tom [chief executive Tom Bird] is doing there.”

When the ships are down: As it stands, Velma Celli will not do a cruise gig until October

Ian has taken A Brief History Of Drag to New York and Australia and on a British tour, as well as staging performances in London and York. “I’ve been doing it for four years now on and off, and I’m so glad the Theatre Royal wants the show,” he says.

“I wrote it when I was stuck in Africa for a few weeks. I thought, ‘let’s write a show’ and it ended up being about how I got into drag and a celebration of the impact of drag in theatre, music, film and popular culture.”

Yet for all the flamboyance of the imposingly tall Velma Celli, for all of Ian’s love of performing, he has a surprising admission to make: “I don’t like fame and celebrity,” he says. “I repel it!”

Tickets for Velma Celli’s 8pm show on May 29 at York Theatre Royal are on sale at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568. For the latest Velma Celli trailer, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a005o6eGZWI. Hit it!

Love is the drag: Velma Celli’s celebration of the art of the drag queen
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Alan Ayckbourn returns to his rehearsal room for the first time in 19 months

Alan Ayckbourn in the garden of his Scarborough home in May 2020 during the first lockdown. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

ON Tuesday, playwright Alan Ayckbourn returned to his empty, dark, silent rehearsal room next door for the first time since September 2019.

After months and months of work, restlessness but no live play, the Scarborough knight is back where he feels most at home: directing a new Ayckbourn work, The Girl Next Door, from the rehearsal studio in his Longwestgate abode.

“My spirit in lockdown had begun to pall, especially in this one, as I’ve had no springboard for my work,” he says. “Like everyone else, I decided to keep busy at all costs: I wrote play after play, four actually, but they just lay there, unexplored, neglected, unfulfilled, because I had no feedback from actors or audiences of course, so I couldn’t move forward.

“I was parked on the runway, seeing where I might fly off to next.” The permission for take-off has now been granted: The Girl Next Door, 82-year-old Sir Alan’s 85th premiere, will open in The Round at his beloved Stephen Joseph Theatre, where he is Director Emeritus after 37 years as artistic director from 1972 to 2009.

“I wrote it back in spring 2020. I like to think of it as a lockdown love story,” he says of his touching, tender and humorous reflection on the ability of love to rise above adversity and reach across the years.

Sir Alan, who turned 82 on April 12, had experienced the frustration of his 2020 world premiere of Truth Will Out, ironically a prescient play about a virus, albeit of the computer variety, being knocked into the long grass by the first lockdown as the SJT lay dormant from March 17.

For all his unstinting productivity – not only the four plays but also audio-stream recordings of the previously unproduced Anno Domino and a Christmas revival of his ghost play Haunting Julia – Sir Alan has been itching to intereact with actors again.

“Just go for it,” he said as he anticipated Tuesday’s first session. “I’ve been counting down the days to when we start rehearsals just after the Bank Holiday.

“All I can say is, we will be ready! The theatre has been terrific in that respect, so supportive; the play being confirmed for the summer in January; one production meeting; auditions on Zoom, even if the reality with Zoom is there’s always a beat between what they say and what you hear, so it just sounds flat. All we need now is for Boris to panic.”

Panic not. Let’s stay positive and eagerly await The Girl Next Door, a play Sir Alan set about writing as soon as he finished work on Anno Domino in early May and completed by late-May in the best Ayckbourn tradition of quick work.

The Stephen Joseph Theatre poster artwork for Alan Ayckbourn’s June world premiere of his 85th play, The Girl Next Door

The play is a four-hander, as Ayckbourn adapted to Covid times when large casts are not viable for the foreseeable future in this new age of social bubbles, and the setting is two neighbouring houses on the same London street during August 2020.

“But all is not as it seems,” he says. It never is in a play by a playwright who loves playing with time. Here he populates one house with actor Rob Hathaway, 60, and his sister, Alex, 62, a government financial advisor. In the other are the Tindles, soldier Alf, 26, and wife Lily, 24.

“The opening image is Rob seeing the young woman putting washing on the line and in his mind he’s thinking, ‘she has no right to be there’ because the couple who live next door have chosen to go away to their house in the country in lockdown.”

Without giving too much away, past is meeting present, drawing on Sir Alan’s own childhood experiences in London in the Second World War.

“I felt that spirit of optimism as I wrote it because the country needs a bit of optimism right now,” he says. “The last thing anyone wants to watch is someone saying ‘there’s no more hope, folks’.

“So writing the play, it was my life meeting me coming back, because my first memories were of lockdown in wartime, sheltering under the beds, waiting for the bombs to drop. Now we’re sheltering at home, waiting for the germs to land.

“It’s interesting that the parallels are there, though I don’t want to rub them in, so all I can say is, ‘don’t worry, folks, we’ve been here before; the world won’t end’, though many feared it was in wartime.”

Ayckbourn was born in April 1939. “So I have these images of being on my mother’s lap down in the tube station, not wanting to wake her up, and she not wanting to disturb me,” he says.

“I remember the shelters that were great for children, and you could play under the kitchen table, so it was quite a time – and then there was my Mickey Mouse gas mark, with the big mouse ears, which they gave out to children as standard issue. They were like something Stephen King would have been proud of.”

Ayckbourn enjoys playing with the two eras separated by 80 years. “It’s fun to do; there’s a sort of selective release of information where the art is to make the audience feel secure, with a level playing field, but then you hopefully stay slightly ahead of them, trying to get them to second guess you!” he says.

Alan Ayckbourn’s The Girl Next Door will run at a socially distanced, Covid-secure Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from June 4 to July 3. Box office: sjt.uk.com.

Copyright of The Press, York

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More Things To Do in York and beyond and on the home front in loosened lockdown. List No. 32, courtesy of The Press, York

Love letters straight to your art from York Theatre Royal’s reopening show, Love Bites

THE Downing Street briefing on Step 3 of the roadmap rollout is just around the tantalising corner. Charles Hutchinson highlights the rising tide of upcoming shows, ongoing festivals and exhibitions and online options.

Love story of the month: The Love Season: Love Bites, York Theatre Royal, May 17 and 18

YORK Theatre Royal reopens with two nights of Love Bites, both a love letter to live performance by York artists and a celebration of the creative talent across the city.

More than 200 artists from a variety of art forms applied for £1,000 love-letter commissions to be staged on May 17 – the first day theatres can reopen under Step 3 of the Government’s lockdown loosening – and May 18. The 22 short pieces will be performed each socially distanced night, introduced by broadcaster Harry Gration.

“We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’!” says director Juliet Forster. Prompt booking is advised at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.

Ruth Rogers: Violinist performing at Ryedale Festival’s online Spring Festival on RyeStream

Online festival of the week: Ryedale Festival’s Spring Festival, running until May 8

TOMORROW night will see the fast-rising combo The Immy Churchill Trio toast the arrival of spring with Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year, a late-night session of jazz standards from the Great American Songbook online from Helmsley Arts Centre at 9pm.

Finishing the festival at Castle Howard with The Lark Ascending on May 8 at 3pm, the virtuosic London Mozart Players and violinist Ruth Rogers will perform Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending and Vivaldi’s Spring from The Four Seasons.

The Spring Festival season will be available to view on RyeStream until the end of May.

Are you going for Scarborough air? York artist Malcolm Ludvigsen painting on the bracing seafront at the East Coast resort

Exhibition launch of the week in York: Malcolm Ludvigsen’s Art, Village Gallery, York

PROLIFIC York plein-air artist Malcolm Ludvigsen is the focus of Village Gallery’s first new exhibition of 2021 in Colliergate, York.

Erstwhile maths professor Ludvigsen spends much of his time on the beaches and headlands of Yorkshire, fascinated endlessly by the sea and sky.

The show of Ludvigsen oil paintings will run until Saturday, June 19 with Covid-secure, socially distanced measures in place. Opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.

Not a spoiler alert: Irish humorist Ed Byrne will play York for the first time since his Spoiler Alert tour in 2018

Comedy gig announcement of the week in York: Live At The Theatre Royal Comedy Night, York Theatre Royal, July 1

THIS will be Ed Byrne’s night in York when the observational Southern Irish comedian headlines an all-star bill.

Joining headliner Ed will be Mock The Week’s whip-smart wordsmith Rhys James and Have I Got News For You panellist-in-lockdown Maisie Adam, hosted by “compere-beyond-compare” Arthur Smith, the veteran gloomy weather-faced comedian and presenter from Bermondsey, London.

Tickets are on sale at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk and on 01904 62356.

Cuppa and a couple of gigs at Pocklington Arts Centre for Omid Djalili in July

Comedy gig announcement of the week outside York: Omid Djalili, Pocklington Arts Centre, July 22, at the double

POCKLINGTON Arts Centre has confirmed its first live shows since Tom Rosenthal’s Manhood comedy gig on March 14 last year.

British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili will perform twice on Thursday, July 22. Significantly too, those 7pm and 9pm performances will be without social-distancing measures, but full of provocative, intelligent cultural observations.

Djalili, 55, originally had been booked for July’s now-cancelled Platform Festival at the Old Station, Pocklington.

Dancing Dan: Dancing On Ice star Dan Whiston glides into Rawcliffe Country Park in August

Get your skates on: Cinderella On Ice, Rawcliffe Country Park, York, August 17 to 22

DANCING On Ice three-time champion Dan Whiston will lead the company for Cinderella On Ice, a show fuelled by high-speed ice-skating and aerial feats.

“I cannot wait to get back on the ice and for the crowds to witness this amazing show after such a troubled past 12 months of lockdowns,” says Whiston. “We hope to both wow and amaze.”

Fairytale On Ice’s ice-palace production will be performed by “some of the world’s most elite entertainers and skilled skaters after thousands of auditions”. Tickets for the 4.30pm matinees and 7.30pm evening performances are on sale at fairytaleonice.com.

Seven UP: Shed Seven’s Shedcember tour to climax with two nights at Leeds O2 Academy

The return of the York heroes: Shed Seven, Shedcember tour

SHED Seven will close their 2021 Shedcember tour with two nights at Leeds O2 Academy on December 20 and 21.

The York band’s 18-date itinerary will take in further Yorkshire shows at Sheffield O2 Academy on November 30 and Hull City Hall on December 1, but not a home-city gig, alas.

The Sheds’ concerts are billed as Another Night, Another Town – The Greatest Hits Live – a nod of acknowledgement in the direction of last December’s 21-track live double album. Tickets are selling very fast at shedseven.com, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk.

Senegal and Wales combine in the Pocklington-bound music-making of Seckou Keita and Catrin Finch

On the move: Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita, Pocklington Arts Centre

WELSH harpist Catrin Finch and Sengalese kora player Seckou Keita will now play Pocklington on May 21 2022.

The 7.30pm concert has been rescheduled from June 10 2021 for the usual Covid reasons. All original tickets remain valid; further tickets go on sale from 10am tomorrow (7/5/2021) at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Finch and Keita will be showcasing songs from their next album, as yet untitled and set for release next year. 

Rapper and beatboxer Testament testifying in Orpheus In The Record Shop

And what about?

AS lockdown’s gradual, grinding release continues to make an impact on live performance, Leeds company Opera North will seek to entertain viewers at home. Check out Orpheus In The Record Shop, available for free at: bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000vbtx/lights-up-orpheus-in-the-record-shop.

Inspired by the ancient Greek myth, rapper and playwright Testament fuses spoken word and beatboxing with a cinematic score performed by the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North.

Originally performed during Connecting Voices at Leeds Playhouse, it has been reworked for film by Alex Ramseyer-Bache and Playhouse artistic director James Brining as part of the BBC Lights Up season.

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Meet the 22 artists putting the Love Bites into York Theatre Royal’s May reopening

THE Love Season will soon set hearts pulsing at York Theatre Royal, where the Step 3 reopening will make its mark with Love Bites: a love letter to live performance and a toast to the city’s creative talent.

More than 200 artists from a variety of art forms applied for £1,000 love-letter commissions to be staged on May 17 – the first day that theatres can reopen after restrictions are lifted – and May 18.

The 22 short pieces selected will be performed each night at 8pm under the overall direction of Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, who says: “Love Bites is really a love letter to live performance, put together by York artists. It’s a celebration of what we have been missing for over a year now: the chance to come together under one roof and share our stories and experiences. 

“There was no one single theatre production that felt enough to mark the reopening of theatres, the lifting of restrictions, so we decided that we needed multiple ones.”

Shortlisting from 200-plus proposals was both extremely difficult and inspiring, according to Juliet. “There are so many talented, inventive, creative people in York – we could have filled the night several times over,” she says. 

“The selection of short pieces that you will see on our stage represent a wide range of voices, artforms and approaches to the theme of love, created by both well-established artists and those who are newer to the scene. We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’.”

Hosted by York  broadcaster Harry Gration, Love Bites will herald the start of The Love Season, wherein Ralph Fiennes will present T S Eliot’s Four Quartets, Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh will perform husband Ian Kershaw’s one-woman show The Greatest Play In The History Of The World…and perma-cycling Shakespeare enthusiasts The HandleBards will ride riotously through Romeo & Juliet.

The Love Bites line-up

Vanessa Simmons: Reverie

Vanessa is a composer, pianist and piano teacher who lives just outside York, drawing inspiration from the countryside. Reverie is the retelling of a dream that captures falling in love, the soaring emotions of being in love and remembering a love that is lost.

“It’s a rejoicing of the beauty, sorrow and power of real love in musical form, using some elements of the classic piano sonata with added impressionist colours and tones,” says Vanessa. “Reverie is a journey, one that is universal and timeless.” 

James Lewis-Knight: Staying Connected

James is an actor and the artistic director of Clown Space, a York company specialising in clowning, mask work and physical theatre. “As a clown, I’ve missed the joy that comes from connecting with a live audience and I can’t wait to find that again with Staying Connected,” he says.

Richard Kay

Richard Kay: For The Love Of Singing

Richard is an actor and writer, creating shows for festivals and attractions, such as the York Maze, as well as writing, directing and performing for Badapple Theatre, the Green Hammerton “theatre on your doorstep” company.

Over the past year, he has led four choirs over Zoom and has composed new music, as well as creating “virtual choir” tracks. 

Kitty Greenbrown, Robert Powell, Ben Pugh: The Angels Of Lendal Bridge

Kitty, Robert and Ben are a York trio of artist-producers. The ubiquitous Ben is a creative practitioner with more than 25 years’ experience in working across disciplines, not least for the Covid digital age. Robert has published four collections of poetry, an artist’s book and two short films. Kitty – also known as Katie – is a spoken-word performance poet interested in telling stories and collaborating with artists and musicians.

Story Craft Theatre’s Janet-Emily Bruce and Cassie Vallance

Story Craft Theatre: She Can Go Anywhere

Story Craft Theatre is a children’s theatre company created in York by Cassie Vallance and Janet-Emily Bruce. After setting up in 2018, they have hosted parties, events and classes throughout the UK. Partnerships have been forged with the National Trust, Goose of Harrogate, Rural Arts in Thirsk, Castle Howard, Rowntree Park in York and York Theatre Royal. 

Bridget Foreman: 5 Minute Call

Bridget has written more than 30 plays, ranging from one-person shows to large-scale community productions. Among recent works are Clay Fever for York Theatre Royal, Surprise Ending for York company Riding Lights, and York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre’s co-production of Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes. Her new play, My Place, will tour…sometime soon! She also lectures in playwriting at the University of York.

Claire Spooner and Richard Stephenson: Mise en aby-me

Passionate about theatre and costume, Claire works creatively across several arts sectors as a freelance life model, milliner, costumier for York Theatre Royal and occasional background artist for film and television. In each role, Claire explores and develops ways to tell a story through the human form.

Richard is a professional illustrator, painter, storyteller and music writer living in Leeds. He works predominantly in ink and considers himself more of an image maker, always searching creatively for the next happy accident. 

Gus Gowland: The Streets Of York

Gus is a musical theatre writer/composer based in York. For his first musical, Pieces Of String (Mercury Theatre, Colchester 2018), he won The Stage Debut Award for Best Composer/Lyricist. Other projects include Subway: an audio short, Copyright Christmas at the Barbican, London, and an upcoming EP of original songs, In Motion.

Hannah Davies: Love Song To Spring

Hannah is a York writer, theatre-maker and multi slam-winning poet. She is associate artist at Say Owt, York’s spoken-word night, and artistic director of Common Ground Theatre and teaches playwriting at the University of York.

Hannah Davies

Ashleigh J Mills: In Progress

Ashleigh [they/them] is a black, non-binary and unapologetically autistic creator. Politically and poetically minded, their work seeks to explore and digest their lived experience of life on the margins. They believe that within resistance lies creation. They are a work in progress.

Alice Boddy and Leanne Hope: A Love Letter To Female Friendship

Alice and Leanne trained together at the Northern Ballet School, worked together on cruise ships and have spent the past year creating/dancing in their living rooms/kitchen. Through their love letter, they hope to depict the power of female friendship – something they have relied on so heavily in pandemic times. 

Erika Noda: Ai

After graduating from East 15 Acting School, this Japanese English actor, from York, co-founded a theatre company that specialised in creating shows and workshops for children with complex needs. Ai is Erika’s first solo writing project; a semi-autobiographical account of what it can be like growing up dual heritage.  

Elena Skoreyko Wagner, James Cave and Bethan Ellis: Magic

Elena Skoreyko Wagner is a York illustrator and papercut artist, soon to take part in York Open Studios 2021. Her work seeks to find magic and uncover meaning in the mundane. York composer and singer James Cave sings in the York Minster choir and Gavin Bryars Ensemble. Bethan Ellis is a writer and editor; she works at University of York.

Butshilo Nleya: Ekhaya, Love Them Both? 

Butshilo is a Zimbabwean playwright, now living in York, whose work centres on place, home and the multiplicity of cultures. Since 2002, he has worked in Africa, Europe and the USA, using words, music and dance to explore the language of cultures, migration, identity and diversity.

Fladam (Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter): Love Bytes

York musical comedy duo’s heartfelt and humorous songs tackle the topical with witty wordplay, memorable melodies and a dash of the Carry On! Original songwriting guaranteed to make you smile.

Harri Marshall: I Often Think Of You

Harri is a deaf director based in York, who received training from the Young Vic, Regional Theatre Young Directors Scheme and the Bristol Old Vic. She has an affinity for contemporary theatre, including new writing, adaptation and verbatim theatre, and has directed nine shows. She is an advocate for D/deaf and disabled creatives and is a self-proclaimed proactive busy-body!

Luella Rebbeck, Jamie Marshall-White and Isla Bowles: The Art Of Losing 

Luella, Jamie and Isla are three emerging dance artists, studying dance full time at CAPA College, Wakefield, alongside creating their own dance films and works. The Art Of Losing portrays the loving relationships between them and what it means to have contact with one another. 

Paul Birch: Lost For Words

Writer/director Paul is artistic director of Out Of Character, a York company comprised of artists with experience of mental illness. Terence Stamp, Richard O’Brien and George Lazenby have been kind enough to speak his words in performance. In real life, his own words often fail him. 

Harri Marshall

Hannah Wintie-Hawkins: In The Beginning

Born and raised in York, Hannah moved to London to train professionally in dance. She then progressed her performance career and returned to York in 2016 to set up an independent dance organisation, York Dance Space. She now works as a dance artist and movement director in the city and across the UK.

Tom Nightingale: Elaine

Tom is a musician, performance writer and actor. “My motivation is a therapeutic outlet, in order to make sense of the life I’ve experienced, and my challenge is to shape my creations into something objectively understandable to the general public,” he says. 

One of his projects, Nightingales Game. Pretend To Be Like Me, was staged at Tang Hall Smart as a play in the community. He is “very excited” to be able to perform his song Elaine, written for his wife. 

Maurice Crichton: Where Are We Now, You and I? 

Maurice is an active member of York’s amateur theatre community, both on stage and as an organiser. Credits include: The Duchess Of Malfi, The Seagull (York Theatre Royal Studio); Colder Than Here (York Cemetery Chapel/St Nicks environment centre); Antony And Cleopatra (Theatre @41, Monkgate). During the pandemic, he produced York Shakespeare Project’s  Sit-down Sonnets in the churchyard at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate.

Toby Gordon: O Tell Me The Truth About Love by W H Auden

York actor Toby trained at LAMDA. Theatre credits include Two Planks & A Passion and As You Like It (York Theatre Royal and TakeOver), The Great Gatsby (Guild Of Misrule), The York Mystery Plays (York Minster, both as Satan and Jesus) and Antigone (Barbican, London).

Tickets cost Pay What You Feel at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.

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Dancing On Ice’s Dan Whiston to skate across Rawcliffe Country Park in Cinderella

Dan Whiston: Getting his skates on for Cinderella On Ice

DANCING On Ice three-time champion Dan Whiston will lead the company for Cinderella On Ice at Rawcliffe Country Park, York, from August 17 to 22.

“I cannot wait to get back on the ice and for the crowds to witness this amazing show after such a troubled past 12 months of lockdowns,” says Whiston, who partnered Emmerdale and The Syndicate star Gaynor Faye, Coronation Street’s Hayley Tamaddon and bronze medal-winning Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle to victories on the ITV show in 2006, 2010 and 2013 respectively.

“We hope to both wow and amaze,” he promises of the Fairytale On Ice production that will play to family audiences at seven locations with “some of the world’s most elite entertainers and skilled skaters after thousands of auditions”.

The touring show draw audiences into the magical world of Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, Prince Charming and the wicked sisters through a combination of high-speed ice-skating, music and visuals. Expect “breath-taking aerial feats, expertly choreographed routines and an enchanting storyline”.

Whiston, who has taken on the new role of Dancing On Ice’s associate creative director, will get his skates back on from August 3 to October 31 on the Cinderella On Ice tour, presented by the producers of Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White On Ice.

Tickets for the 4.30pm matinees and 7.30pm evening performances in the Fairtyale On Ice ice palace are on sale at fairytaleonice.com.

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REVIEW: Live theatre at last in a York pub garden after a long winter of disconnection

Mandy Newby: Stand-out turn in Weirdo in Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios. Picture: James Drury

Review: Next Door But One in Yorkshire Trios, The Gillygate pub, Gillygate, York, April 23 and 24 2021

LIVE theatre has returned to York. Yes, you read that right.

For the first time since York Stage brought a Covid-enforced early end to their pantomime run of Jack And The Beanstalk on December 30 at Theatre @41, Monkgate, actors have taken to a York stage for two nights of pub theatre…in the spring open air.

Where once a tent would suffice for shows by Alexander Flanagan Wright’s company, now The Gillygate publican Brian Furey has installed a wooden-framed outdoor performance area in the beer garden.

Socially distanced tables with allocated seating and an outdoor bar were complemented by Covid-secure measures: pub staff in face masks to take and deliver drink and food orders; Next Doors But One organisers in black and red masks designed in company livery; the programme in e-programme mode, available online only.

Next Door But One, the York community arts collective directed by Matt Harper-Hardcastle, with input from associate and project manager Kate Veysey and creative producer El Stannage, originally hoped to present Yorkshire Trios: 15 Local Creatives, 5 Short Performances, 1 City, inside The Gillygate in early January until Lockdown 3 put a red pen through those plans.

Instead, backed by Arts Council England funding, NDB1 kept the creatives busy with two months of online professional skill- development sessions and mentoring until the Step 2 reopening of pubs’ outdoor hospitality provided the opportunity to perform.

Project manager Kate Veysey, Next Door But One director Matt Harper-Hardcastle and creative producer El Stannage at the Friday night performance of Yorkshire Trios

A day’s warm weather added to the weekend mood as the Friday audience settled in. Behind them were those who were only here for the beer, but rather than putting up a To Beer Or Not To Beer dividing line, and asking anyone to pipe down, everyone just raised a glass to being allowed to gather in a pub garden after the long winter’s hibernation.

Today, Next Door But One have issued a Let Us Know What You Thought email, asking attendees for Audience Feedback by “sparing a few minutes to complete our short survey so we can build and improve on the event”.

CharlesHutchPress is happy to oblige in the analysis of an evening “themed around Moments Yet To Happen, wherein trios of actors, directors and writers brought theatre-starved York a fistful of short stories of laughter, strength, dreams and everything in between: an optimistic carousel operator; a neighbour with a secret; a poet inviting us into her world; a Jane McDonald fan on a soapbox, and a delivery driver full of wanderlust;.

Taking part were the quintet of trios: actor Miles Kinsley, director Nicolette Hobson and writer, Anna Johnston, staging One More Time We Go; Christie Barnes, Fiona Baistow and Jenna Drury, unmasking Kelly Unmasked; Mandy Newby, Joe Feeney and Dan Norman presenting Weirdo; Emily Chattle, Libby Pearson and Lydia Crosland, making a point in Motormouth, and Nicki Davy, Becky Lennon and Rachel Price, asking And How Are Your Goats Keeping?.

On Friday night, one actor, Nicki Davy, from Leeds, had to be elsewhere (for acting work reasons, hurrah), meaning we missed out on answering the goat welfare question.

The poster for Yorkshire Trios at The Gillygate pub as live theatre sparked into life again

Anyway, here is the survey. Question 1: What did you think of the quality of the performances you saw? Rate from 1 for Poor to 5 for Excellent.

One play, Weirdo, was indeed excellent in darkly humorous, unpredictable, intriguing writing by Norman (the discovery of Yorkshire Trios), offbeat direction by Cosmic Collective Theatre’s Brighton-bound Feeney and deadpan execution by Mandy Newby, the most experienced actor on view, as the weird woman with the even weirder smell emanating from her home.

Kingsley, newly back north from completing his training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, had the difficult task of opening the show, not as the warm-up act but straight in at the deep end, side on under a flat cap, in Johnston’s lingering memory play, One More Time We Go, that demanded more assertiveness in performance under Hobson’s direction.

The most resonant piece in Covid times was Kelly Unmasked, Drury’s study of a woman, newly diagnosed in her 30s as autistic, trying to come to her own terms with a lockdown being experienced by unaware, socially distanced others all around her. It was stressful, as much as distressing watching Barnes’s on-the-wire poet Kelly, when director Baistow needed to extract more variety in her acting tropes.

Friday night ended with Abba dance moves, Jane McDonald cheerleading, a very northern no-nonsense feminist ultra and a soapbox that just didn’t quite wash. Not Macbeth’s tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, so much as a torrid tale told by a “Motormouth” devoid of self-awareness and an off-switch, signifying not enough, for all the energy of writer Crosland, director Pearson and actor Chattle.

In a nutshell, this was a night that swung erratically between 2 and 5 on the scorecard, but with consistently good-quality sound and lighting.

Kinsley amiss: Miles KInsley needed more assertiveness in his show-opening performance. Picture: James Drury

Question 2. Did you enjoy the performances being outdoors in a pub setting? Rate from 1 for Not At All to 5 for Very Much.

Yes and no. It was good to feel alive again in the company of actors, but noises off from the tables at the back, while entirely tolerable under present circumstances of outdoors being the only place to drink right now, would be distracting at future performances if the beer garden is to become a garden of artistic delights. So, 3 out of five for now.

Question 3: Do you feel the bitesize performance pieces suited the pub setting? Again, 1 for Not At All; 5 for Very Much.

Yes, because, like the next round, there was always another one coming down the line pretty pronto. That said, the original idea of promenade performances around the interior of the pub would have worked that much better. So, another 3 out of 5.

Question 4: How did you find the quality of the food and drink available during the performance. Same score grades.

Excellent, attentive service. Genial welcomes from Brian and Matt. White wine for the ladies went down very well. Blackcurrant cordial for the teetotal reviewer was totally entente cordial indeed. Didn’t nibble, so no quibble on that score. 5/5

Poet cornered: Christie Barnes as Kelly in Kelly Unmasked. Picture: James Drury

How did you find the COVID safety measures put in place for the performance? Same score grades.

As with last summer’s Park Bench Theatre at Rowntree Park, last autumn’s socially distanced shows in The Round at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, York Stage’s pantomime at Theatre @41, Monkgate, and York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime, the Covid-safety measures were meticulously carried out. 

As before, the message to the Government is, yes, the arts needs your support, but you should trust the arts to run events with the utmost professionalism, whatever the circumstances. The Gillygate, 5/5. The Government: could do better.

Would you be interested in attending a similar performance to Yorkshire Trios in the future?

Outdoors? Yes, but with the provisos mentioned above. Indoors, yes. The Gillygate has always been a good home to theatre.

As for the content, there is promise here and further opportunities should be encouraged.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your experience that might help us shape future events?

This review has run to 1,207 words already. Enough said, surely?!

Plenty to say for herself: Emily Chattle’s Motormouth in Yorkshire Trios at The Gillygate pub beer garden. Picture: James Drury
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When Pocklington Arts Centre was home to Penny Arcadia…Jon Marshall tells all online

Jon Marshall, of Magic Carpet Theatre and the Inner Magic Circle, who presents tonight’s live online talk on the history of the building now known as Pocklington Arts Centre

FROM Penny Arcadia To Pocklington Arts Centre, the story behind the historic Market Place venue, will be told by magician and performer Jon Marshall in a Zoom event this evening (May 4).

Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) has been staging events for more than 20 years, but should you be wondering what the Grade II listed building was once used for and how it came to be the arts hub it is today, Jon has the answers. 

Tales of fire-eaters, magicians and amusements all will feature in the 7.30pm illustrated talk as Jon, director and performer with Hull company Magic Carpet Theatre, takes his audience on a trip down memory lane, delving into the origins of the building formerly known as Oak House, dating back to the 1700s. 

“The talk promises to be a fascinating and entertaining online event unveiling the story behind the building, from doctor’s house, cinema and museum housing Europe’s largest collection of amusement machines, to East Yorkshire’s premier arts venue,” says PAC director Janet Farmer. 

Marshall, a member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star, promises a fascinating and entertaining evening, replete with tales of former owners of the building Jon and Pat Gresham.

From Penny Arcadia To Pocklington Arts Centre: Jon Marshall’s online audience will hear tales of the Gresham family, who once owned the historic venue. Pictured are the late Pat and Jon Gresham with their son Maxwell

“They were larger-than-life local characters, cinema proprietors and museum curators,” he says. “All will be revealed about the exploits and colourful adventures of Jon, who was once a magician, fire-eater, pantomime promoter and sideshow showman.

“The audience will also hear about Pat, who was determined that when the Penny Arcadia closed, the building should not become yet another retail unit but instead should provide entertainment and a service to the people of Pocklington and the surrounding area. 

“I had the privilege of knowing the Gresham family for over 50 years from the mid-1960s, so participants will be able to see many previously unpublished photographs and images from over the years.”

Marshall’s company Magic Carpet Theatre are regular performers at PAC and last October they recorded two shows there for streaming for free on PAC’s YouTube channel: Magic Circus from January 7 to 21 and The Wizard Of Castle Magic from February 18 to March 4, both with financial assistance from the I Am Fund and Smile Foundation.

Now comes From Penny Arcadia To Pocklington Arts Centre. “When I moved into area, I’d already met Jon, and then got to know Jon and Pat really well. They became great family friends,” says Marshall.

Director Jon Marshall as the Ringmaster, showing his frustration with Steve Collison’s Clown in Magic Carpet Theatre’s Magic Circus

“The Pocklington Arts Centre building goes back to the 1700s, and it opened as a cinema in the 1930s. Jon bought the Ritz Cinema in 1981 and that’s when he started putting his collection of amusement machines in there.

“They lived in Westwood House, North Dalton, a big old house and grounds that Jon and Pat did up and lived there for some time. After Jon died, Pat continued to run the building, and she was determined it should not be turned into shops despite receiving various offers.”

Encouraged by Pocklington Town Council, Pat ran Penny Arcadia until 1996, when the last event was a September display of Jon Gresham’s magical props.

“It was a totally unique enterprise, collecting arcade music machines, which is a huge part of our culture,” says Marshall. “Jon’s interest had been sparked by being given a music box by Pat and he went on to become president of the British Music Box Society.

“At that time, the country was going into decimalisation and that meant many, many penny-operated music machines became redundant overnight, and that was perfect for Jon, who drove around the country as pier arcades were throwing them off the piers.

The late Jon Gresham with assorted penny arcade machines

“Some were acquired for free, some he paid for, and he amassed one of Europe’s largest collections. Much of it is still together in a collection, and no, not in America.”

After Jon died, Pat kept them in the outbuildings of Westwood House, for use at the Penny Arcadia. “She was a very astute businesswoman, continuing to run Penny Arcadia very well and Beverley Playhouse too, putting on such live shows as children’s theatre and plays,” says Marshall.

Tonight’s Zoom show will tap into the nostalgia emanating from the Gresham story. “Jon and Pat were huge characters in their own right with big personalities. He was a public schoolboy, who went to Oundle School, and his father ran a timber importers’ business in Hull with sawmills in Brough and Sheffield,” he says.

“Jon was destined to go into the family business, and though he didn’t do National Service for medical reasons, he said he wouldn’t be able to work for the family for at least two years as he should have been doing National Service, and so instead he trained as Europe’s youngest fire-eater, calling himself ‘Jon Gresham from Copenhagen’, as he thought being Scandinavian would add something to the act – and he was blond.

“He toured Europe but then his father said it was ‘now or never’ for him to join the timber business. He did so, but he’d made many great friends touring Europe, and so he also started to promote pantomimes in Harrogate, Scarborough and on the coast, such as Cinderella and Aladdin, appearing as a fire-eating genie in the shows, while working for the family.”

Jon Gresham was a “real dynamo”, in Marshall’s appraisal. “As well as all this going on, he’d do his fire-eating at music halls and on variety bills, and he could appear at fairgrounds, blowing fire in air outside the fairground to attract people inside to see the shows,” he says.

Jon Gresham: Billed as “The world’s youngest fire-eater from Copenhagen”

“He really got a taste for it and decided to open his own sideshow in 1956, The Robot Show, staged in one of the Corrigans’ buildings, as he knew the fairground family well and had become a friend.”

Jon Gresham continued to run the family business as managing director, Monday to Friday, but at weekends he was a sideshow showman and proprietor, spreading his time between 12 sites, among them Rhyl, Porthcawl, Great Yarmouth, Dreamland at Margate and Hull Fair.

From the Smallest Ironing Lady in the Country to the Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, Gresham’s sideshows were often elaborate, as well as curious. Annual accounts show he would have at least two girls, a manager and box-office manager per site.

Before marrying Jon Gresham, Pat had been an interior designer and colour consultant. “He used her skills for decorating the sideshows and the Penny Arcadia,” says Marshall.

“Pat also designed and decorated the captain and crew’s quarters for trawlers at Hull, when it was unheard of for a woman to do that.

The Headless Lady: One of Jon Gresham’s live illusion sideshows

“If a girl in the shows was suddenly taken away by the police, somebody had to take her place, so Pat always kept alert. ‘I never knew if I was going to be legless in Margate or headless in Scarborough,’ she once said.”

The Greshams travelled by pantechnicon van, an old vehicle painted purple and known affectionately as “Gertrude”. “The season would run from Whitsun to September, and they would tour their live illusion sideshows throughout that period,” says Marshall.

“The sideshows ran until 1969, when the problem was the resistance to prices going up from six pence and a shilling, but there was another problem too: the crowds going to the seaside resorts were declining in the face of the rise in package holidays, so you now had to rely on footfall on the day.

“It was all by chance, if people were walking by in the daytime or in the evening after the meal at the digs. He would send out the Headless Lady to pique their interest. By then two thirds of the business was on Sundays; Saturday was change-over day, and Sunday was the peak day, running from 10am to 10pm.”

Showman Marshall has since restored some of the sideshows to take them out to festivals to entertain new audiences. “Normally I’d be doing it from April/May to September, but alas we’ve not been out since Derby Feste in September 2019, though we’re hoping we may be able to go out again in 2022,” he says.

Jon and Pat Gresham with their daughter Lindsey at Penny Arcadia, now Pocklington Arts Centre

Marshall’s decision to revive sideshows began with a conversation at a dinner with Pat Gresham. “We thought, ‘wouldn’t it be fun to restore a sideshow for a Magic Circle dinner?’,” he recalls.

“We found the gaudy frontispiece to The Flash with slogans and the picture to entice people in: ‘It’s not the show that gets the dough. It’s The Flash that gets the cash’, it said, and we were off and running.”

Jon Gresham’s sideshows had been in storage from 1969 to 2004 in outbuildings at Westwood House. “They’d been moved around, there’d been pigeons and rats, and nothing was in any order or visible, frankly.

“So, it was out with the rubber gloves to start a detective hunt, and that’s when we found The Flash frontispiece and, by a stroke of luck, the goldfish bowl, alas with cracks in it, from the Girl in the Goldfish Bowl.

“They’re like the ones you see in cartons, and they’re hard to find now, but luckily with some acrylic we’ve been able to mend it and make it watertight.”

The late Pat Gresham. “She was an enormous help to us in our research, as the Greshams never threw anything away in terms of records,” says John Marshall

Marshall has restored seven shows in all now, comparing the experience of finding the Gresham show stock to British archaeologist Howard Carter locating King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. “Because they had been painted in the 1950s with layers of varnish to protect against the sea salt, we had very little restoration to do,” he says.

“Pat was an enormous help to us in our research, as the Greshams never threw anything away in terms of records. Jon left his memoirs and there’s a biography with a chapter by Pat [who died in 2019] and a contribution by Professor Eddie Dawes, the Yorkshire magician and biochemist [who founded the University of Hull’s biochemistry department].

“I’ve written a chapter on the Penny Arcadia and on Jon’s straitjacket, which went to an escapologist called Danny Hunt, and his fire-eating equipment, which is still being used by Tom Cockerill, who has re-created the act for the International Brotherhood of Magicians Convention, performing the original acts with that original equipment.”

The biography, Jon Gresham: The Life And Adventures Of A Sideshow Showman, is available on Amazon and eBay and from Pocklington Arts Centre too, and more information on the revived sideshows can be found at sideshowillusions.com, with details soon to be added on the 2022 season.

Tickets for tonight’s Zoom illustrated talk cost £5 at:  ticketing.eu.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=5c398sshg8x6xjr7k9mw32dvr8

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Chatty art podcast duo Chalmers & Hutch hit Two Big Egos In A Small Car episode 40

Film director Oliver Stone, snazzy blue glasses and all, discusses his film JFK, politics, more politics, his upcoming documentary and yet more politics in an online interview for Harrogate Film Festival

NO Stone unturned as Two Big Egos In A Small Car podcasters Chalmers and Hutch hit Episode 40 with thoughts on Harrogate Film Festival, Oliver Stone & JFK; Jagger & Grohl’s Slade-meets-Sham 69 lockdown knockdown single Eazy Sleazy; bye-bye Bay City Roller Les McKeown & Jim Steinman RIP; jazz & happiness; no Covid insurance government support, no Deer Shed Festival in 2021 & what next for the summer festival season? Oh, and the return of pub theatre…outdoors in York.

Here’s the link:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/8421143-episode-40-oliver-stone-and-jfk-at-30-mick-jagger-and-dave-grohl-does-jazz-equal-happiness-les-mckeown-and-jim-steinman-new-gigs-and-plays-announced

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Feel the love as York Theatre Royal marks May reopening with season from the heart

Love letter to theatre: The reopening season at York Theatre Royal

MUCH ado about nothing but love is promised when York Theatre Royal reopens with two nights of letters from the heart from May 17.

Love Bites will turn the spotlight on the creativity of artists from in and around York, whether poets, performers, singers, dancers or digital artists, who have been commissioned to write love letters celebrating the return to live performances after the easing of the Government’s pandemic restrictions.

More names will be announced nearer the time for the 8pm performances on May 17 and 18, but confirmed already from 200 proposals are Alice Boddy and Leanne Hope’s piece, A Love Letter To Female Friendship, and Japanese-English actor Erika Noda’s semi-autobiographical account of growing up dual heritage, entitled Ai.

Magic trio: writer Bethan Ellis, illustrator Elena Skoreyko Wagner and composer James Cave

Contributing too will be the Magic combination of illustrator and papercut artist Elena Skoreyko Wagner, composer and York Minster choir member James Cave and writer and editor Bethan Ellis, finding magic and meaning in the mundane, and York-based Zimbabwean playwright Butshilo Nleya, who combines words, music and dance in works centred on place, home and the multiplicity of cultures, this time presenting Ekhaya, Love Them Both?.

Juliet Forster, the Theatre Royal’s creative director, says: “Love Bites is really a love letter to live performance, put together by York artists. It’s a celebration of what we have been missing for over a year now: the chance to come together under one roof and share our stories and experiences. There was no one single theatre production that felt enough to mark the reopening of theatres, the lifting of restrictions, so we decided that we needed multiple ones.”

Selecting 20 commissions from more than 200 proposals was “extremely difficult, but really inspiring too,” she reveals. “There are so many talented, inventive, creative people in York – we could have filled the night several times over. The selection of short pieces that you will see on our stage represent a wide range of voices, artforms and approaches to the theme of love, created by both well-established artists and those who are newer to the scene,” she says.

“We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’,” says York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster

“Love Bites will explore the idea of love letters, dedicated to people, places, things, actions, occupations and much, much more in a multitude of ways, all presented in five-minute specially commissioned bite-sized chunks. We hope Love Bites will turn out to be ‘a many-splendored thing’”.

After these two nights introduced by Look North alumnus Harry Gration with a Pay What You Feel ticket policy, The Love Season’s focus on human connection, the live experience and a sense of togetherness will embrace solo shows by stage and screen luminary Ralph Fiennes [Four Quartets} and Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh [The Greatest Play In The History Of The World…]; a new Ben Brown political drama about writer Graham Greene and spy Kim Philby, A Splinter Of Ice,  and Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, transposed to 1940s’ Hong Kong by writer Amy Ng and director Dadiow Lin.

Performances will be presented to socially distanced audiences, adhering to the latest Government and industry Covid-19 guidelines to ensure the safety of staff and audiences with a reduced capacity of 344, but should Step 4 of the roadmap roll-out go ahead as planned on June 21, there is scope for more seats to go on sale for shows later in the season. Over to you, Mr Johnson.

“We’re so chuffed to have Ralph Fiennes coming to York. We can’t believe it,” says Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird

Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird says: “The last thing we want to do, given our mission and the trouble in keeping theatre alive, is to put up more barriers to people coming, but we have to be Covid-safe, and that’s the bottom line. We did it for the Travelling Pantomime we took around York wards, and we will do it again from May 17.’”

The number one talking point is Ralph Fiennes’s Theatre Royal debut, in six performances from July 26 to 31, directing himself in the world-premiere tour of T S Eliot’s Four Quartets: a solo theatre adaptation of Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages and Little Giddings, a set of poems first published together in 1943 on the themes of time, nature and the elements, faith and spirituality, war and mortality.

Tom says: “The link to bring the show here is James Dacre, artistic director of Northampton’s Royal & Derngate Theatres, who co-produced A View From The Bridge with the Theatre Royal in 2019.

Ralph Fiennes rehearsing T S Eliot’s Four Quartets

“He’s co-producing this tour, helping Ralph put the show together. Ralph is rehearsing in London, opening at the Theatre Royal, Bath, from May 25 and then touring. We’re so chuffed to have Ralph coming to York. We can’t believe it!

“We’re thrilled that Ralph’s show became a possibility for us, and it’s a huge credit to him to recognise the need to support theatre around the country at this time.

“Let’s say it, it’s rare for an actor of his profile and standing to do a regional tour, but he’s seen that he can help to save some incredibly important producing houses, like this one, by doing a tour – and it’s not an act of charity; it’s an important and really exciting piece of work.”

“It’s a huge credit to him to recognise the need to support theatre around the country at this time,” says Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird

Tom is delighted by Fiennes’s choice of material too. “There’s a massive tradition of actors doing Eliot poems, like Fiona Shaw doing The Waste Land,” he says. “They lend themselves to performance, and it’s really telling that Ralph has chosen to take Four Quartets on tour at this moment because they’re rooted in life and death; the past and the future; human relationships and a love of place.

“For that reason, it fits into our programme for a season built around love, connection and being rooted in a place. As an American coming to England, Eliot was trying to root himself here by looking for his ancestors in Somerset.”

For full details of The Love Season, go to: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Tickets can be booked at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; on 01904 623568, Monday to Saturday, 12 noon to 3pm, and in person, Thursday to Saturday, 12 noon to 3pm.

Ready for love at York Theatre Royal

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