Playwright Nick Lane: Leading the Beginner’s Playwriting online course. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
SCARBOROUGH’S Stephen Joseph Theatre is moving its OutReach classes online from next week.
The first to do so will be the Beginner’s Playwriting course, running for five weeks from Tuesday, June 9, led at 11.30am each week by South Yorkshire playwright Nick Lane, who has written the SJT’s Christmas show for the past four years.
“Has lockdown got you feeling locked up? Have you had enough of seeing/posting pictures of homemade frittatas on Instagram? Are you looking for something creative to do before you watch the whole of Netflix again?” asks Nick, whose adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story The Sign Of Four played the SJT last spring.
“If you fancy trying your hand at playwriting, the SJT has got you covered with a course for first-time writers covering everything from character to dialogue to plot, through structure, editing and rewriting…which you can now do from your own home.
“You could even do it while watching Netflix and making a frittata.* The course is simple, it’s fun and it might just help you uncover a talent you didn’t know you had.”
Why did you put the asterisk after that “making a frittata” line, Nick? What’s the caveat? “It’s not recommended. Seriously, you might burn yourself.” Good point!
Rounders, the SJT youth theatre, will go online from Tuesday for five weeks, led by the SJT’s associate director for children and young people, Cheryl Govan, and associate director Chelsey Gillard.
They will deliver three free virtual sessions per week: on Tuesdays, for ages eight to 11; Wednesdays, for 15-plus; Thursdays, for 12 to 14 years, each from 4pm to 5pm.
Cheryl says: “For all our current members, we’ve not forgotten about you! Rounders will be moving online. It won’t be the same, but we can assure you it will be fun and a great chance to catch up with all your friends for some virtual Rounders nonsense. Make sure your parents check their emails: we’ll be in touch!”
For five weeks from June 10, from 11.30am to 1.30pm each Wednesday, fun and friendly Script Reading classes will explore the work of Restoration playwrights.
Participants will read aloud texts from the 17th century and work with SJT associate director Chelsey Gillard to look at the themes, stories, writing styles and historical context.
Digital copies of plays, including George Etheredge’s The Man Of Mode and Aphra Behn’s The Rover, will be provided and participants will be given a link to join each weekly session.
“I’m very excited that we will be exploring this unique era of playwriting that delighted audiences when theatres reopened after an 18-year ban [in 1660 at the start of Charles II’s reign],” says Chelsey.
“Theatre became a way to celebrate and reflect on society, so it’s the perfect inspiration as we wait to also re-open our doors.”
Script Surgeries in one-to-one sessions on Zoom will be available with professional literary consultant Suzy Graham-Adriani, who is best known for creating the National Theatre’s Connections programme.
She will read scripts in development to give individual, detailed feedback, exploring ways to take the script to the next draft and, if appropriate, ways to move it forward.
Suzy was responsible for commissioning and developing the first 100 plays and musicals from writers such as Alan Ayckbourn, Bryony Lavery, Mark Ravenhill, Dennis Kelly and Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.
Cheryl concludes: “We are, of course, really looking forward to re-opening the theatre and welcoming our community back to our popular classes. But until that’s possible, we hope that as many people as possible will join us online. We’ll be adding more soon.”
For more information on the online classes, go to: sjt.uk.com/getinvolved#classes. The Beginner’s Playwriting course costs £35 for all five sessions; Script Reading classes, £5 per week or £20 if you book all five; Script Surgeries, £100.
Leeds City Varieties Music Hall: Britain’s longest-running music hall
“HOWEVER daunting, I am certain we have a future. We must.”
This is the rallying call of Chris Blythe, chief executive officer of Leeds City Varieties as the Guinness World Record holder for Britain’s longest-running music hall turns 155 years old on Sunday (June 7).
On a day that should be marked with great celebration, instead the doors to the oldest theatre in Leeds remain closed under the Coronavirus lockdown.
This is the first time in its long and colourful history that the 19th century venue in Swan Street has ceased operation, other than in 2009 to 2011 when it underwent a £9 million restoration.
Now, alas, the future of Leeds City Varieties Music Hall is uncertain, but Mr Blythe trumpets the comedy, music and theatre venue’s importance. “The Varieties is a Leeds, if not a national, institution. A hidden gem with a warm Yorkshire welcome.
“Contributing to the vital cultural life of the city, City Varieties is a significant employer in the area, supporting many neighbouring bars and restaurants with a regular influx of theatregoers.
“While we’re all working towards and looking forward to the day that we can reopen our doors and welcome our audiences back, we must face facts: venues like ours will be the last to open.”
Knotty Ash comedian Ken Dodd (1927-2018) performed the last show before the 2009 refurbishment of Leeds City Varieties and the first after its reopening in 2011
Income generation will be limited for potentially months after other parts of the economy start to grow, suggests Mr Blythe. “The whole industry will need to take stock as investors and producers of our wonderful shows have also taken a massive hit,” he says.
“And when we do reopen – notice the emission of the word ‘if’ – the future is going to be much changed. Reserves will be exhausted, and patrons will have difficult choices to make with a financial recession and their own well-being and safety to consider.
“We will have to continue to operate with appropriate safety measure in place – careful consideration will need to be given to both staff and patron welfare, our cleaning regime, appropriate distancing measures and potentially a period of cashless transactions. The list goes on. But, however daunting, I am certain we have a future. We must.”
Noted for its intimate atmosphere and “brutally honest” audience, the City Varieties began life in 1865 as the “New Music Hall and Fashionable Lounge”: a room above a pub established by business entrepreneur Charles Thornton for the working people of Leeds to be entertained.
Its affluent sister venue, Leeds Grand Theatre, in Briggate, was meant only for the higher classes. Indeed a popular saying at the time was: “Wear your flat cap to the Varieties and your top hat to the Grand”.
In its early years, the City Varieties welcomed many weird and wonderful acts, such as the world-renowned escapologist Harry Houdini, singer, comedian and actress Marie Lloyd and Victorian music-hall socialite Lillie Langtry, the Jersey Lily, for whom it is rumoured Prince Edward would sneak into a private box to watch and court.
The City Varieties is probably best known for hosting the BBC’s The Good Old Days from 1953 to 1983, re-creating old-time music hall entertainment with audiences encouraged to dress in Victorian garb.
Produced by Barney Colehan and chaired by the alliterative Leonard Sachs, it starred Les Dawson, Barbara Windsor, Bruce Forsyth, Danny La Rue, Ken Dodd, Barry Cryer and many more besides.
A lad in a dress in Aladdin: a Leeds City Varieties Music Hall rock’n’roll pantomime
Albeit untelevised, The Good Old Days still runs today and the original series has enjoyed a re-run on BBC4.
In 2009, the City Varieties benefited from a £9million regeneration project, funded largely by Leeds City Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The work included demolition and reconstruction of the backstage areas, ceiling and plasterwork repairs, inspired by a 1900 design discovered during the restoration; new carpeting and seating throughout the auditorium, and the fitting of an external glass lift to improve access to the building.
Ken Dodd, the last act to perform before the 2009 closure, was the first act to grace the reopened music hall in 2011.
The City Varieties now presents live music, variety, comedy and National Theatre Live and delayed screenings, as well as the annual rock’n’roll pantomime that showcases actor/musicians in a break from traditional panto.
Since the 2011 re-launch, the venue has played host to Russell Crowe, Kerry Ellis, Boy George, Michael McIntyre, Sara Pascoe, John Bishop, Romesh Ranganathan, Phil Wang, Jack Whitehall et al.
Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Phillip officially opened the refurbished music hall in 2012 as part of their Diamond Jubilee tour.
Throughout the Coronavirus-enforced closure, the City Varieties is asking patrons, if financially viable, for donations to help support the company throughout this financially difficult period. For more details, go to cityvarieties.co.uk.
No Trucking on: Hull Truck Theatre extends shutdown until November
HULL Truck Theatre is extending its closure until November 2020 under the Covid-19 strictures that have cast all theatres into darkness since March.
The official statement reads: “We have been following Government and industry guidance and await further recommendations from these, as well as national health bodies, before reopening. We look forward to welcoming you back and will give audiences full details about all measures in place before we open our doors.
“We will be contacting everyone who has booked tickets for shows during the closure period and are working hard with our partners and visiting companies to reschedule the programme into 2021, so that audiences don’t miss out on the great entertainment that had been planned.
YORK actor, director and choreographer Sam Rippon has won a place at the Royal Academy of Music, London, to study for an MA in musical theatre from September.
For the past three years, he has been reading for a BSc in Government and History at the LSE (London School of Economics).
During that time, nevertheless, Sam, has kept his love of theatre aflame by performing and directing while president of the LSE Drama Society.
“A one-year prestigious and intensive MA course was an attractive option,” he says. “Musical theatre has been of immense importance to me ever since I first stepped on stage in York Stage Musicals’ production of Oliver! over a decade ago.
Sam Rippon takes to the stage for the first time in Oliver in 2009
“It has been an essential part of my life, but often a subordinate one, based in extra-curricular activities. The decision to go and undertake this course is motivated by a long-term desire to put musical theatre first in my life, and to build the skills, connections, and foundations necessary to enter a career in the theatrical world.”
Sam, from Heslington, had a choice to make. “I’d received offers from the Guildford School of Acting and Mountview [Academy of Theatre Arts] too, but chose the course at the Royal Academy for its prestige and first-class alumni network.
“I was humbled to receive offers from all three of the places I auditioned for, but RAM felt, from the first audition, like the place that I wanted to be, and which would suit my existing skill set.”
Sam, 22, first auditioned at the Royal Academy last December with a 15-minute presentation of his prepared performances, before being invited to recall in April. “As I was based in London at university, it was easy to make my way to the academy to audition, but little did I know that my recall would have to be from right in my living room,” he says.
Sam Rippon in the role of Marius in York Light Youth’s production of Les Miserables School Edition in November 2014
“Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, our recall was adjusted to be a video audition, for which I was required to record my performances, a video about myself and some skill-based work.
“So, my living room turned into a makeshift recording studio with my phone carefully balanced on top of a step ladder!”
Recording performances was not something Sam found particularly enjoyable. “Perhaps, as a stage performer, the thrill of what I do is that it is live and changes, even lightly, each time. Having to get one perfect take, that I was happy with, was not an easy thing to do!” he recalls.
“Final decisions were made following these video submissions, and I was informed of the outcome at the end of April.”
No lying: That’s Sam Rippon, right, as Pinocchio, in York Stage Musicals’ Shrek The Musical at the Grand Opera House, York, last autumn
Will Sam be able to begin in September, given the on-going Covid-19 scenario? “As far as we know, we’re being prepared for a September start as usual,” he says. “Given the smaller classes, it may well be possible to conduct teaching as normal – to an extent – but I guess we should await confirmation of this.”
Sam was seen most recently on the York stage in September 2019 as Pinocchio in York Stage Musicals’ Shrek The Musical and earlier last year as Rolf in York Stage Musicals’ The Sound Of Music, both at the Grand Opera House, where he also has worked front of house.
He had played Schlomo in the York Stage Experience summer school production of Fame at the same theatre in 2017.
At the LSE, he starred as Anthony in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street in 2019 and the multi role-playing Clown in The 39 Steps in 2018, as well as being the director and choreographer for Sister Act this year and Made In Dagenham in 2018.
“It is impossible to describe the extent to which York has had an impact on where I am today and hope to be in the future,” says Sam Rippon
“The 39 Steps was undoubtedly the most fun I have had on stage or in a rehearsal room,” says Sam. “Bringing so many different characters to life was not only the greatest joy but encouraged me to learn new accents and physical theatre skills that will stick with me.
“Playing Pinocchio last year was a highlight too. The entire Shrek company was oozing with talent and it was a privilege to perform with every one of them, but bringing to life such an iconic and fun character made the experience even more enjoyable.
“Working with Damien [Boston Spa director-choreographer Damien Poole] and the ever-professional York Stage team on this complex production was such a joy.”
York has had an “immeasurable” influence on Sam’s acting and musical skills. “The first show I watched was in York, my first venture on to a stage was in York, and my first classes were held here,” he says. “I was brought up here, and it is impossible to describe the extent to which the city has had an impact on where I am today and hope to be in the future.
“York is blessed to have so many fantastic amateur musical theatre companies, and I have personally been blessed to have performed in several of them.”
The stage awaits: Sam Rippon contemplates a career in theatre
Sam has indeed spread his talent widely in the city. “York Stage Musicals gave me the opportunity to step on stage for the first time in Oliver back in 2009; York Light Opera Company provided me with my first named part as Friedrich in The Sound Of Music in 2012, and York Light Youth have given me countless opportunities to develop new skills,” he says.
“Performing as Marius in Les Miserables in 2014 and Ugly in Honk! in 2015 remain some of the most formative experiences in my passion for musical theatre. This is not to mention York Stage Experience and York Musical Theatre Company, with whom I had further opportunities to develop new skills and make more friends.”
Sam considers himself “fortunate to have grown up in a city that has so much to offer with regards to theatre, and for that, I will be forever grateful”, he says.
“Crucial to my interest and passion too is my school, Archbishop Holgate’s, who have the most engaging and passionate music teachers, who taught me so much and gave me so many opportunities to develop.”
Looking ahead, to beyond his MA, Sam says: “I would love to turn this training into a career on stage. I understand and appreciate the difficulty in making this step in a competitive environment, probably exacerbated by current events, but that is where I want to be, and I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t going to give everything to make it happen.”
Such determination, such talent too, deserves to be rewarded.
James Knight and Jane Allanach in Next Door But One’s 2017 production of Any Mother Would, to be streamed on YouTube from tonight
NEXT Door But One, the York community arts collective, will stream its 2017 production of Any Mother Would in its YouTube premiere from 7pm tonight.
Written and directed by director Matt Harper-Hardcastle, the hour-long play will then be available online until September, both on YouTube and via the collective’s website, nextdoorbutone.co.uk.
“We’re taking a slightly National Theatre at Home approach to it,” says Matt. “If it’s good enough for the National Theatre in lockdown, then it’s good enough for us.
“It’s completely free to watch, but what we’ve done is set up a Go Funding page, almost as a Pay What You Think, for the YouTube streaming, and whatever we make from donations will make us stronger for the future.”
Any Mother Would marked Next Door But One’s shift into public performance in 2017, “making theatre out of the untold, poignant stories that had been shared with us and that we believe create the foundations of our community, so felt they needed taking to a larger stage.”
Next Door But One director Matt Harper-Hardcastle in rehearsal
This sold-out first venture into the public field featured as part of York Disability Pride 2017 and the Great Yorkshire Fringe 2018 festival.
Public performance is on hold in these Coronavirus-clouded times but, supported by public funding from Arts Council England, Next Door But One is able to continue workshops and performances through its Covid-19 response project, Distant Neighbours.
“We want to ensure that we can sustain our relationships with participants and audiences beyond this current pandemic and also support our freelance artists through this difficult time,” says Matt.
“This means our artistic programme that connects with neuro-diverse children, adults with mental health problems, community groups of people with learning disabilities, and services supporting those who are experiencing grief, will continue.”
When confronted by the Coronavirus lockdown, “initially we looked at all the work we had planned between now and September,” says Matt. “Mainly we considered all the people we were already working with and how we could stay connected, having built up many relationships with community groups and organisations, such as Snappy, Camphill Village Trust and St Leonard’s Hospice.
James Knight and Jane Allanach in a scene from Next Door But One’s Any Mother Would
“With the heightened scenarios brought about in lockdown, we wanted to ensure we could keep it going, and have life after this time, and we felt it was important that people had opportunities for education, for involvement, for expression, for so much more than just entertainment, like learning about navigating through life at Camphill Village.
“We have already begun an online R&D [research and development] of our adaptation of The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, hosted our first Playback Theatre workshop over Zoom, and soon we’ll be able to offer a rehearsed reading of our latest play, written for May’s cancelled York’s Dead Good Festival.”
Next Door But One applied for an Arts Council emergency fund in in late-April, all tied up in a fortnight, and already Matt had contacted eight freelance theatre-makers to be involved in projects now to be conducted online and on Zoom.
“We know how hard hit the freelance cohort has been in lockdown, me included, so we’ve now been able to honour our contracts in a slightly different way,” he says.
“We’ve also been able to ring-fence the original money granted for the scratch performances and we can give work to our artists once more when we can do that.
Actor Anna Rogers and Matt Harper-Hardcastle in discussion in the rehearsal room
“Between now and September, we can keep people working, and after we received just under £6,000, we can do so much more than we first thought we would.”
Next Door But One also applied for Comic Relief funding towards next year’s work, receiving just under £5,000. “We put that application in at the same time, and this allows us to run another year’s work with Converge [at the University of York St John], doing our Discover Playback course.”
Discover Playback brings together performers and those with experiences of mental ill health, with the focus on learning, creativity and being artists together.
“We’re now going to be able to continue our work with Converge, in this mental health field, when otherwise those people would have had to face five months’ withdrawal from our services and their well-being might well have been affected so much that we might have had to start all over again from scratch,” says Matt.
“Instead, we’re working on our Discover Playback workshops through the summer and through the next academic year too.
“We can support those people we have worked with for three years when this work feels more important than ever,” says Matt Harper-Hardcastle
“The funding means that not only can we support our artists through this awful time, but also those people we have worked with for three years when this work feels more important than ever.”
As mentioned by Matt earlier, research and development work is continuing on The Firework-Maker’s Daughter on Zoom. “That brings its own wonderments and challenges when we can’t work in our usual ways with Snappy and York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre, but now we can record a Zoom version and podcast version and send them out to continue our work,” he says.
“The original plan was that we would be taking our scratch version to York Theatre Royal’s De Grey Rooms ballroom at the end of June, and to Snappy too, but that can’t happen.
“So now we’re doing the R&D workshops in a reduced form on Zoom, working with people with sensory needs and autism, and we’re having to look at different ways for these young people to interact with the screen.
“That’s why we’re making the video (Zoom) version, podcast version, and we’re looking at using Makaton, a version of sign language that uses key symbols, so it’s more of a visual aid.”
Next Door But One and Converge took part in Mental Health Awareness Week with the #DiscoverPlayback course @ConvergeYork
Matt continues: “We’re ploughing ahead with this, and a video and audio recording should be ready by July to send out to Snappy and to any parents who think it might be useful for their child.
“Our live performances combine a hybrid of participatory elements that we can now include in the recorded version, with worksheets, activity packs, drawing materials, the chance to do music within it, but now doing everything individually at home.”
Coming next from Next Door But One will be a rehearsed reading of a shortened version of Operation Hummingbird, a play Matt has written in the wake of publishing The Day The Alien Came, his book on his bereavement experience after losing his mother to cancer.
“I did a few book readings and author talks and lots of people said, ‘You should make this into a play’, but writing the book was a big feat in itself, so I’d never considered doing a play,” he says.
“But then I thought about making a piece for the Dead Good Festival, so I’ve taken a fictionalised story, looking at how grief and the feelings of grief change, starting with feelings of loss as a child and how that then changes, and how our memories of things change over time; what we hold on to; how what we think of as painful changes; how it becomes a discussion between our self now and our younger self.
“We haven’t fixed a date for the rehearsed reading yet, but hopefully it will be in July.”
Javier Torres as Dracula and Antoinette Brooks-Daw as Lucy in Northern Ballet’s 2019 production of David Nixon’s Dracula. Picture: Emma Kauldhar
NORTHERN Ballet’s Dracula will be shown on BBC Four on Sunday night in the television debut of artistic director David Nixon’s celebrated 2019 production.
After the 10pm screening, this adaptation of Bram Stoker’s gothic story will be available on BBC iPlayer throughout June as part of the Leeds company’s Pay As You Feel Digital in its 50th anniversary year.
When theatres had to close suddenly under Covid-19 restrictions, Northern Ballet was obliged to cancel the spring tour of the 2020 premiere of Kenneth Tindall’s Geisha after only one performance at Leeds Grand Theatre on March 14.
In response, the company pledged to “keep bringing world-class ballet to our audiences” through a Pay As You Feel Digital Season.
One performance and goodnight: Ayama Miyata as Aiko and Minju Kang as Okichi in Northern Ballet’s Geisha in March. Picture: Guy Farrow
To date, the season has been watched by more than 200,000 people, attracting donations of £20,000.
Northern Ballet’s latest statement reads: “The company is set to face a loss of over £1 million in box-office income due to Covid-19, which may impact its ability to continue to pay its workforce, many of whom are freelancers, as well as its ability to present new ballets.
“While theatres remain dark, the company aims to continue making its performances available online and on TV, encouraging audiences to donate when they watch, if they are able.”
Dracula was recorded at Leeds Playhouse on Hallowe’en 2019 and streamed live to more than 10,000 viewers in cinemas across Europe. Choreographed by Nixon, it stars Northern Ballet premier dancer Javier Torres in the title role.
Jonadette Carpio in EGO, one of Northern Ballet’s Pay As You Feel Digital Season shows. Picture: Emily Nuttall
Northern Ballet’s Pay As You Feel Digital Season also includes Amaury Lebrun’s For An Instant; Kenneth Tindall’s original dance film EGO; Mariana Rodrigues’s Little Red Riding Hood; highlights from Northern Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala and extended scenes from Northern Ballet repertoire, including Tindall’s Geisha.
Premièred in 2019, Lebrun’s For An Instant was part of Northern Ballet’s Three Short Ballets programme and had only seven performances in Leeds and Doncaster. The full ballet, created, by the French contemporary dance maker with Northern Ballet’s versatile performers, can be viewed online until June 7.
Highlights from Northern Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala,performed at Leeds Grand Theatre in January, include scenes from Tindall’s Casanova, with music by Kerry Muzzey,and Nixon’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
More will be released from this one-night-only spectacular, when Northern Ballet was joined by dancers from The Royal Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Leeds company Phoenix Dance Theatre and Scottish Ballet.
Zoom in the room: A rehearsal for The Flood for the York Radio Mystery Plays by the remote wonders of 2020 lockdown technology, with director Juliet Forster, top row, second from right, and Rosy Rowley (Mrs Noah), middle row, second from left
YORK Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York are collaborating to bring the York Mystery Plays to life on the airwaves next month.
Four instalments will be presented as audio versions on the Sunday Breakfast Show with Jonathan Cowap on successive weekends from June 7, the Sunday before Corpus Christi Day on June 11: the day since mediaeval times when the plays were performed on wagons on the city streets from dawn until dusk.
Working remotely from home, a cast of 19 community and professional actors has recorded the 15-minute instalments, Adam And Eve, The Flood Part 1, The Flood Part 2 and Moses And Pharaoh, under the direction of Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.
“The York Mystery Plays are part of the DNA of this city,” she says. “The longevity of these potent plays clearly demonstrates how vital the collective act of storytelling is, and how much we need to explore and reflect together on our experiences and understanding of the world.
“We’re determined to keep doing this in spite of the lockdown. So, these plays seem exactly the right choice to pick up, find a new way to create, communicate afresh and encourage one another.”
Juliet, incidentally, previously co-directed Anthony Minghella’s Two Planks And A Passion at the Theatre Royal in July 2011, a play set around a performance of the York Mystery Plays on Corpus Christi Day in midsummer 1392.
This time, she and husband Kelvin Goodspeed have adapted Mystery Play texts for the radio series, drawing on material dating back to the 1300s first resurrected after a long, long hiatus for the Festival of Britain in 1951.
Juliet Forster: York Theatre Royal artistic director and director of the 2020 York Radio Mystery Plays
The York Radio Mystery Plays now form part of York Theatre Royal’s Collective Acts, a programme of “creative community engagement” set up in response to the St Leonard’s Place building being closed under the Covid-19 strictures.
“When we went into lockdown, Tom [Bird, the Theatre Royal’s executive director] kept saying we ought to try to do something with the Mystery Plays, and I suggested that we should do radio plays,” recalls Juliet.
“But I’d never done a radio broadcast, so I contacted Radio York and said ‘let’s do this together’.”
Under the partnership that ensued, the Theatre Royal has chosen the texts, sourced the scripts, recruited the actors and provided the music, while BBC Radio York sound engineer Martin Grant has mixed the recordings, splicing them together into finished crafted instalments.
Ed Beesley has provided composition, sound design and foley artist effects. Madeleine Hudson, musical director of the York Theatre Royal Choir, has given the choir and cast songs to perform.
In choosing the plays, Juliet says: “The ones that make for the most fun are the ones around Noah’s flood, but they are also about a family in isolation for 40 days, maybe falling out with each other, so there are parallels with what’s happening now.
“Then there’s the positive ending, which would be good, and that sense of starting again, so it was the perfect choice.”
Voice of an Angel: Christie Barnes recording her role remotely from home for Adam And Eve, the opening instalment of the York Radio Mystery Plays
The Flood, Parts 1 and 2 were picked initially for a spring pilot show, but then the BBC decided to build a series around the Corpus Christi Day tradition in June, and so two more plays were added: Adam And Eve and Moses And Pharaoh.
“I’d already started working on Adam And Eve and thought about doing a Nativity play, but in our conversations with Radio York, they then talked about wanting to keep the series going, with the possibility of four Nativity plays at Christmas and four for Easter based around the Crucifixion,” says Juliet.
“So I thought, ‘I’ll stick with Old Testament stories’, and I’d done the Moses and Pharaoh story for The Missing Mysteries with the York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre in 2012.
“It’s a play about a desire for freedom to get out, which again relates to now: that need to breathe, to get to the other side, but there’s also that moment where they dare not go out, where they stay behind closed doors, so that really is like now. That feeling of living in fear.”
As for Adam And Eve, again the Genesis story is a resonant one. “They were living in this paradise but then lost it, facing hardship and their own mortality, which we’re all facing now,” says Juliet.
“That sense of not knowing paradise is what you have until it’s gone; also that role of being guardians but always wanting that little bit more, when instead we need to be more environmentally friendly.”
In keeping with Covid-19 social-distancing rules, the production required the actors to record their lines on a smart phone from home, having done collective rehearsals for each play over the Zoom conference call app.
Rory Mulvihill experiments with recording the role of Satan in the shower of his Naburn home, by torchlight, with the script stuck to the wall
Among the cast are Rory Mulvihill and Rosy Rowley, Rory reprising his role as Satan from the York Millennium Mystery Plays in York Minster in 2000, this time in Adam And Eve; Rosy returning to Mrs Noah in The Flood, a role she first played in the 2012 York Mystery Plays in the Museum Gardens.
Rory experimented with recording in his shower as his sound booth in his Naburn home. “I Blu-Tacked my script on the wall and had to use torchlight because I couldn’t have the extractor fan on, but when Juliet heard the recordings, she said it was a tinny noise, so she rejected them!
“I had to do them at my desk in the end, with Julia saying it didn’t matter if there was birdsong!”
“Choosing the right time and location for the recordings was a challenge,” says Rosy. “Living in a busy street and having teenagers in my house, I ended up rehearsing in the garden shed and having to record at two in the morning in my bedroom in the attic.
“It was lonely having to record on your own with no voice to respond to, so you had to imagine how someone would have said a line.”
Hear the results from June 7. Note that in addition to the broadcasts on Jonathan Cowap’s Sunday show, the radio plays can be heard on BBC Sounds at bbc.co.uk/sounds.
Rory Mulvihill as Fagin and Jonny Holbek as Bill Sikes in York Light Opera Company’s February production of Oliver! at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Tom Arber
AFTER 60 unbroken years, York Light Opera Company will NOT perform at York Theatre Royal in 2021.
The decision has been taken in response to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding when, how and in what form theatres will re-open as the Government conducts a phased easing of Covid-19 lockdown measures, with theatres expected to be at the back of the queue.
“We said, ‘let’s just bite the bullet’ and so we’ve scrapped our February 2021 show,” says leading player Rory Mulvihill, a York Light member for more than 35 years. “Given the present situation surrounding theatres, I’d be very surprised if we weren’t vindicated.”
Reviewing the situation: “We said, ‘let’s just bite the bullet’,” says Rory Mulvihill after York Light decided the show must not go on in 2021 in these Covid-19 times. Picture: Anthony Robling
Rory led the York Light cast as light-fingered gang boss Fagin in the late-February 2020 production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!. “We’re celebrating 60 consecutive years at the Theatre Royal this year and we were able to do that show, when this [Coronavirus] tsunami was coming but was still on the horizon,” he says.
York Light’s next show, Ali Kirkham’s June production of Kander and Ebb’s Chicago at Theatre @41 Monkgate, has been “cancelled until further notice”.
Alan Ayckbourn and Heather Stoney in their Scarborough garden. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Review: Alan Ayckbourn’s Anno Domino, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, online at sjt.uk.com until 12 noon on June 25.
HERE is a sentence your reviewer never thought he would write. 81-year-old Alan Ayckbourn is playing an 18 year old in his new audio play.
Such is the impact of life in lockdown limbo, when the Corona crisis put paid to this summer’s Stephen Joseph Theatre premiere of the director emeritus’s 83rd play, Truth Will Out.
As chance would have it, that now mothballed play portends the impact of another type of virus, “a virulent computer virus that brings the country to a standstill, in a doomsday scenario piece, perhaps not too cheering in these darker days,” as Ayckbourn reflected.
“Still, I nearly predicted it correctly – I just got the wrong virus,” he said. Ayckbourn and SJT artistic director Paul Robinson promptly hatched a plan for an alternative AA premiere, one that could be recorded at home and aired exclusively on the Scarborough theatre’s website for free.
Former radio producer Ayckbourn duly unlocked a shelved piece of writing from its own lockdown for a new lease of life as the equivalent of a radio drama that marks the first time he has written, directed and performed in one of his plays. Not to mention parade his foley artist skills for sound effects, Anno Domino rose-pruning secateurs et al.
Heather Stoney and Alan Ayckbourn in Two For The Seesaw at Rotherham Civic Theatre in 1964
Ayckbourn last appeared on a professional cast list in the 1964 Rotherham Civic Theatre programme for Two For The Seesaw. Sharing the stage in William Gibson’s American two-hander was Heather Stoney. “We were both totally unsuitable,” he recalled of taking on roles broken in by Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft.
Still in his twenties, Ayckbourn played a middle-aged Nebraskan businessman; Stoney, a young Jewish dancer from the Bronx. Fifty-six years since that exit stage left, Ayckbourn now plays four characters ranging in age from 18 to mid-70s, and so too does Stoney, his wife.
Billed by Ayckbourn as “altogether lighter and more optimistic” than Truth Will Out but still with “dark corners”, and introduced on the audio recording by Robinson as “huge fun”, Anno Domino charts the break-up of a long-established marriage and the domino effect that has on family and friends.
“The inspiration came from the idea that all relationships ultimately, however resilient they appear to be, are built on sand!” says Ayckbourn, from the land of sand, Scarborough. “And it only takes one couple to break up abruptly to take us all by surprise, then all of a sudden everyone is questioning their own unshakeable relationship.”
He divides Anno Domino into two acts, the 56-minute Preparations and 48-minute Repercussions. Those Preparations are for successful West Sussex architect Sam and reasonably successful lawyer Milly Martin’s silver wedding anniversary party, where we learn they will be making a big revelation.
The Stephen Joseph Theatre artwork for Alan Ayckbourn’s audio play Anno Domino
At the hotel party will be Sam’s parents, gruff retired criminal lawyer Ben, set in his wary ways, prone to forgetting to put on his trousers these days, “staggering on to the finishing line” with his brusque wife Ella, the play’s “darkest corner”.
There too will be Ben and Ella’s daughter Martha, a nursery-school teacher blighted by phobias and a troubled past, now six weeks into her relationship with garage mechanic Craig, a dour, kind-hearted Yorkshireman from Heckmondwike, after depressing “waste of space” poet Sefton left her.
Martha’s taciturn teen son Raymond, or Raz as he insists on being called, will eventually turn up too to, phone in hand, cheeky eye on young waitress Cinny.
The big revelation – the break-up announcement, brought on by boredom with each other – triggers the Repercussions of Act 2, where the dark corners are ultimately turned..
The best scenes, in interchanges with advice-seeking, out-of-his-depth Craig and later Martha, centre on the domineering, blinkered Ella, Ayckbourn once more writing so brilliantly for his female characters, recalling Woman In Mind. “Because I know men,” says Ella, who has the dismissive manner of a Lady Bracknell, when in fact she does not know men at all.
The poster artwork for Alan Ayckbourn’s virus play Truth Will Out, the SJT summer production scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic strictures
Ayckbourn, in that playing-things-down way of his, described making the play with Stoney as “just mucking about in our sitting room”, but it is an utter joy to hear them performing and, more to the point, performing together, with their natural chemistry, moving from voice to voice, the recording given a final mix of pleasing clarity by Paul Steer. There is pleasure too in visualising the characters from those voices.
Ayckbourn’s tone may be “lighter”, from an S&M/M&S in-joke with the listener to the pronunciation of fuchsia, but the barb is still there too with digs at cynical, untrustworthy, ruthless, amoral lawyers and an authorial comment on the negative perception of “light on their feet” people in the arts. Yet again, he has found more to say about love too.
“Ah well, life goes on, I suppose, life goes on, doesn’t it,” says Ben, at the play’s close. It does indeed, and there may yet be life anew for Truth Will Out.
“I do hope it won’t get lost or forgotten,” said Ayckbourn in last week’s interview. “The SJT have agreed that this was merely a postponement. Shame to lose it as it’s a lot of fun. Watch this space, as they say.”
In the meantime, tune in to Anno Domino, an Ayckbourn rose in full bloom but with very prickly thorns too.
A rehearsal on Zoom for the York Radio Mystery Plays
YORK Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York are collaborating in lockdown to bring the York Mystery Plays to life on the airwaves next month.
Four instalments will be presented as audio versions on the Sunday Breakfast Show with Jonathan Cowap on successive weekends from June 7, the Sunday before Corpus Christi Day on June 11: the day since mediaeval times when the plays were performed on wagons on the city streets from dawn until dusk.
Working remotely from home, a cast of 19 community and professional actors has recorded the instalments, Adam And Eve, The Flood Part 1, The Flood Part 2 and Moses And Pharaoh, under the direction of Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.
Juliet, incidentally, previously co-directed Anthony Minghella’s Two Planks And A Passion at the Theatre Royal in July 2011, a play set around a performance of the York Mystery Plays on Corpus Christi Day in midsummer 1392.
She and husband Kelvin Goodspeed have adapted Mystery Play texts for the radio series, drawing on material dating back to the 1300s first resurrected after a long, long hiatus for the Festival of Britain in 1951.
Ed Beesley, who would have been working on Juliet’s postponed production of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, has provided composition, sound design and foley artist effects.
Juliet Forster: York Theatre Royal associate director and director of the York Radio Mystery Plays
Madeleine Hudson, musical director of the York Theatre Royal Choir, has given the choir and cast songs to perform.
“The York Mystery Plays are part of the DNA of this city,” says Juliet. “They belong to the people of York and have brought people together to create, perform, watch, laugh and cry since the 14th century.
“The longevity of these potent plays clearly demonstrates how vital the collective act of storytelling is and has always been to human beings, and how much we need to explore and reflect together on our experiences and understanding of the world.
“We’re determined to keep doing this in spite of the Coronavirus lockdown. So, these plays seem exactly the right choice to pick up, find a new way to create, communicate afresh and encourage one another with.”
Under the partnership between the Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York, the sourcing of the scripts, recruitment of actors and provision of music has been done by the theatre.
In keeping with the social-distancing rules, the production required the actors to record their lines on a smart phone from home, having done collective rehearsals for each play over the Zoom conference call app.
Juliet then selected the recordings to be sent to BBC Radio York sound engineer Martin Grant for mixing and splicing together into finished crafted instalments.
BBC Radio York’s acting editor, Anna Evans, says: “It’s a privilege to work with York Theatre Royal and members of the city’s community to retain the tradition of the York Mystery Plays. During such uncertain times, it’s important that we can help maintain this cultural experience in a different way and I am so proud of what the teams have achieved in such difficult times.”
The York Radio Mystery Plays form part of York Theatre Royal’s Collective Acts, a programme of “creative community engagement” taking place while the St Leonard’s Place building is closed under the Covid-19 strictures.
Special thanks are extended to the York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust and the Guild of Media Arts for supporting this project.
In addition to the broadcasts on Jonathan Cowap’s Sunday show, the York Radio Mystery Plays can be heard on BBC Sounds at bbc.co.uk/sounds.
Christie Barnes recording her part as Angel in Adam And Eve
The cast for Adam And Eve is:
God: Paul Stonehouse
Eve: Taj Atwal
Adam: Kane Hutchinson
Satan: Rory Mulvihill
Angel: Christie Barnes
The Flood Parts 1 & 2:
God: Paul Stonehouse
Noah: Mark Holgate
Noah’s wife: Rosy Rowley
1st Son: Joe Feeney
2nd Son: Stan Gaskell
3rd Son: Matthew Dangerfield
1st Daughter: Charlotte Wood
2nd Daughter: Fiona Baistow
3rd Daughter: Taj Atwal
Moses And Pharaoh:
Pharaoh: Paul Mason
1st Counsellor: Maurice Crichton
2nd Counsellor: Claire Norman
Moses: Andrew Squires
God: Paul Stonehouse
1st Youth: Christie Barnes
2nd Youth: Oliver Joseph Brooke
1st Egyptian: Matt Simpson
2nd Egyptian: Rachel Price
Rory Mulvihill experiments with recording his role as Satan in his shower cubicle by torchlight with his script stuck to the wall
Actors
Paul Stonehouse (God): Credits include Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, Blenheim Palace.
Rory Mulvihill (Satan): Credits include many leading roles for York Light Opera Company in more than 35 years as a member; a long association as a performer in the York Cycle of Mystery Plays; York Theatre Royal community productions including Two Planks And A Passion, In Fog And Falling Snow and Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes.
Christie Barnes (Angel): A core member of Out Of Character Theatre Company. Recently performed in Less Than Human and A View From The Bridge at York Theatre Royal, directed by Juliet Forster.
Andrew Squires (Moses). Actor and musician based in York, recently at York Theatre Royal in A View From The Bridge. Other theatre credits include: Uneasy Dreamers at Greenwich Theatre, Mr Brown’s Directions at Burton Constable, Time Out Of Mind at Greenwich Theatre, Democracy Of Oaks at The Fan Museum, London.
Mark Holgate (Noah). Credits include Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, York
Rosy Rowley (Noah’s wife). Reprising the role of Noah’s Wife from the 2012 production of the York Mystery Plays. Other credits include Blood + Chocolate, In Fog And Falling Snow, Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes,York Theatre Royal.
Joe Feeney (1st Son). Credits include Heaven’s Gate, Cosmic Collective Theatre.
Charlotte Wood (1st Daughter). Credits include For the Fallen, Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes, In Fog And Falling Snow, York Theatre Royal; Kiss Me Kate, Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company.
Maurice Crichton (1st Councillor). Came to York as a student, qualifying as a solicitor in the city. He has been performing in amateur productions here for ten years, mostly with York Shakespeare Project and York Settlement Community Players.
He has strong links with the York Mystery Plays and played Pilate in The York Mystery Plays, 2012, Herod in York Minster Mystery Plays, 2016, and Soldier 1 in The Crucifixion on the Butchers’ wagon in 2018. He is secretary of the York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust.
