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PLAY ON! Amanda Whittington takes fight for women’s football to dramatic climax in Mikron Theatre’s summer tour

Earning their stripes: Mikron Theatre Company’s poster for this summer’s tour of Amanda Whittington’s Atalanta Forever

MIKRON Theatre Company kick off their 2020 tour of Amanda Whittington’s new women’s football play, Atalanta Forever, on April 18.

Waiting in the wings is the Marsden company’s York performance at Scarcroft Allotments on June 2 at 6pm.

From the writer of Ladies Day, Ladies Day Down Under and Mighty Atoms for Hull Truck Theatre and Bollywood Jane for the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Atalanta Forever tells the story of pioneering women footballers in 1920.

In post-war Britain, women’s football is big news. Across the country, all-girl teams are pulling huge crowds in fund-raising games for wounded soldiers.

Huddersfield amateurs Ethel and Annie take a shot at the big time. Teammates at Atalanta AFC, they are soon tackling new football skills, mastering the offside rule and kicking back at the doubters.

This summer’s audiences are invited to “come and cheer for Atalanta as our plucky underdogs learn how to play the game, take on the legendary teams of the era and find the toughest opponent of all is the Football Association”.

Whittington’s play is based on the true story of one of three women’s football teams in Huddersfield in post-war Britain. As told through the lives of two young women, Atalanta Ladies Football Club was formed in 1920 to “provide games for the women of Huddersfield, to foster a sporting spirit, and a love of honour among its members”.

During the Great War, several women’s football teams had sprung up around the country, usually based in factories or munitions works, and proved a great success in raising money for hospitals, war widows and so on. 

The popularity of the women’s game may be measured by the estimated 25,000 crowd that packed Hillsborough, Sheffield, for the Huddersfield team’s next game with the Dick, Kerr Ladies FC of Preston on May 4, when they lost 4-0 to their much more experienced opponents.

In the wider football world, the growing popularity of women’s football was now causing concern. The FA even saw it as taking support away from the men’s game and on December 5, 1921, they banned women’s teams from using FA affiliated grounds.

Before folding in 1924, the pioneering Huddersfield Atalanta Ladies FC had raised more than £2,000 for various charities.

“I still feel the injustice and the sense of shame for wanting to do something I wasn’t meant to,” says playwright Amanda Whittington, recalling her own experiences of playing football

Writer and co-lyricist Whittington says of her new play: “I was an 11-year-old footballer in the 1980s, the only girl who played in the boys’ village tournament, and I vividly remember being ‘advised’ to stop because it wasn’t appropriate. 

“I still feel the injustice and the sense of shame for wanting to do something I wasn’t meant to. 

“It brings joy to my heart to see football’s now the biggest team sport for girls in Britain.  I wanted to write about the battle the women’s game has fought to survive and prosper – and perhaps to tell the 11-year-old me she was right?”

Atalanta Forever is directed by Mikron artistic director Marianne McNamara, who is joined in the production team by composer and co-lyricist Kieran Buckeridge, musical director Rebekah Hughes and designer Celia Perkins. Casting will be announced in the coming months.

Explaining why Mikron chose to tackle the subject of the fight for women’s football, McNamara says: “Women’s football is making a comeback and not before time. We are thrilled to pay homage to the trailblazing Huddersfield women that paved the way against all odds.

“Just like the great game itself, this will be an action-packed play of two halves, full of live music, fun and laughter with no plans for extra time!”

Mikron’s 49th year of touring will open at the National Football Museum, Manchester, on April 18 and then travel nationally by road and canal on a vintage narrowboat until October 24.

Atalanta Forever will be touring alongside Poppy Hollman’s new play, A Dog’s Tale, a celebration of canines past and present that explores the enduring love between people and their dogs.

As ever, Mikron will be putting on their shows in “places that other theatre companies wouldn’t dream of”, whether a play about growing-your-own veg, presented in  allotments; one about bees performed next to hives; another about chips in a fish and chips restaurant, as well as plays about hostelling in YHA youth hostels and the RNLI at several lifeboat stations around the UK.

For more information and tour dates and locations for Atalanta Forever, go to mikron.org.uk/shows/atalanta-forever.

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York Theatre Royal to co-produce world premiere of Alone In Berlin

Denis Otway, as Otto, Charlotte Emmerson, as Anna, and Joseph Marcell, as Inspector Escherich, in York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton’s Alone In Berlin. Picture: Geraint Lewis

REHEARSALS are under way for the York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton co-production of the world premiere of Alone In Berlin.

Charlotte Emmerson, Denis Conway and Joseph Marcell will lead an ensemble cast, directed by the Royal & Derngate artistic director, James Dacre, and rehearsed in Northampton, where the play will open next month before its York run from March 3 to 21.

Hans Fallada’s novel has been translated and adapted for the stage by Alistair Beaton. Furthermore, the premiere will feature illustrations 25 years in the making by graphic novelist Jason Lutes – from his book Berlin – who collaborates with designer Jonathan Fensom,video designerNina Dunn and lighting designer Charles Balfour. 

Cabaret singer Jessica Walker will perform original songs composed by Orlando Gough, complemented by composition and sound design by Donato Wharton.

Set in 1940, Alone In Berlin portrays life in wartime Berlin in a vividly theatrical study of how paranoia can warp a society gripped by the fear of the night-time knock on the door.

Based on true events, the storyline follows a quietly courageous couple who stand up to the brutal reality of the Nazi regime. Through the smallest of acts, they defy Hitler’s rule, facing the gravest of consequences. 

This timely story of the moral power of personal resistance tracks Otto and Anna as they negotiate the insidious effects of absolute power on every aspect of daily life. When they decide to make a stand in their unique way, the Gestapo launch a terrifying hunt for the perpetrators.

Otto and Anna find themselves players in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the forces of the state: a game that will eventually lead them down through ever-narrowing circles of totalitarian hell.

Described by Italian Jewish chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor and writer Primo Levi as “the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis”, Alone In Berlin re-entered the bestseller list three years ago – almost unheard of for a 20th century literary classic – as its themes began to resonate across the world once more.

Although regularly adapted for stage productions across Europe, this York and Northampton co-production, presented in association with the Oxford Playhouse, will be the first time Fallada’s masterpiece has been seen on a British stage.

Dacre’s cast will be led by Denis Conway and Charlotte Emmerson as Otto and Anna Quangel and Joseph Marcell as Inspector Escherich. Conway played opposite Poldark leading man Aidan Turner in Michael Grandage’s The Lieutenant Of Inishmore and is known for his extensive work at Dublin’s Gate Theatre and on screen in Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes The Barley, John Crowley’sBrooklyn and Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

Emmerson’s many credits include title roles in Marianne Elliot’s Therese Raquin (National Theatre) and Laurie Sansom’s The Duchess Of Malfi (Royal & Derngate) and leads in Chekhov’s major plays in productions directed by Peter Stein, Lucy Bailey and Trevor Nunn.

Best known for playing Geoffrey Butler, the butler, in the 1990s’  television series The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, British actor and comedian Marcell was last seen at Royal & Derngate in King John, while his numerous credits for Shakespeare’s Globe include the title role in King Lear.

York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton co-produced Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge last year, directed by Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.

Tickets for the York run of Alone In Berlin are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.

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Brendan Cole calls time on big band song-and-dance shows but showman will return

Brendan Cole in Show Man, dancing its way to the Grand Opera House, York, next month

HEADING for York on February 25, ballroom dancer Brendan Cole’s Show Man will be his last big band production after ten years of touring five shows.

Just to be clear, the former Strictly Come Dancing star is not retiring but song-and-dance concert tours on such a theatrical scale will be consigned to the past after Live & Unjudged in 2010, 2011 and twice in 2012; Licence To Thrill in 2013 and 2014; A Night To Remember in 2015 and 2016; All Night Long in 2017 and 2018 and now Show Man in 2019 and 2020.

“This will be my last big band tour after touring for so many years,” says the 43-year-old New Zealander, who will be bringing Show Man to the Grand Opera House next month.

“I’ve loved every second of being on the stage with my friends, who have now become family. It’s time for something different and I’m honoured to be taking Show Man out for one last run.

Taking Show Man out for one last run: Brendan Cole launches the second leg of his 2019/2020 tour

“I’m so proud of this production and I’m going out on a high. If you love live music from one of the best touring bands and exciting and emotive dance, this is the show for you.”

Back on the road from February 19, Show Man draws its inspiration from the magic of theatre and the movies, combining Cole and his hand-picked championship dancers and eight-piece big band and singers with laughter and chat throughout.

Choreography will be high energy, up close and personal, complemented by the lighting and special effects. Expect a cheeky Charleston to Pencil Full Of Lead, a sexy Salsa to Despacito, music fromBeggin’ to Bublé, plus numbers from The Greatest Showman and La La Land.

‘I’m really excited to be bringing back Show Man, having toured this production early in 2019. This is my most exciting tour to date; it’s so dynamic and theatrical, much more so than any previous tour,” says Brendan, who you may remember lifted the very first Strictly Come Dancing glitterball trophy when partnering news presenter Natasha Kaplinsky in 2004.

” I’m particularly proud of Show Man because of its theatricality,” says Brendan Cole

“We have five male dancers, three female dancers, choirs, a violinist and brand new staging, which allows the choreography to be exciting and different; bigger and better lifts, some very strong theatrical numbers, as well as a new-look set. It really is something special. My aim is to wow the audience and give them everything they’d expect and much, much more.”

Why stop doing such big-scale shows now? “I’m giving myself options for the future,” says Brendan, who, by the way, spent the Christmas season in pantoland, playing the Spirit of the Ring in Aladdin at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking. “My days of playing Aladdin are over!” he quips. “I’m not hired for my looks!”

Back to Show Man being his last tour on the grand scale. “The thing is, with these big band tours, I’ve been doing it for ten years now; it takes a year to put each one together and I don’t have the time to do that anymore.

“Since I left Strictly at the end of 2017, I’m delighted to say I’ve been crazily busy. I’m involved in The X Factor, I’m doing some other TV shows. There’s a show that’s just been filmed for Channel 4, though I can’t go into detail yet!”

“There’s that moment I really enjoy, when a dance has just finished, and there’s a hush, as if the audience are almost in a state of trance…,” says Brendan Cole

For now, the focus is on enjoying the second leg of Show Man shows. “It was Katie Bland who came up with the Show Man title, because it’s a show with all the different aspects of dance, taking it on a more theatrical slant and movie influenced too, such as The Greatest Showman and Dirty Dancing.

“Katie said, ‘you are ‘the showman’, and after seeing The Great Showman, I knew I had to include it in the show.”

Not only will there be a big band, but also a choir at the Grand Opera House. “We use local singers, anyone from 12 years old to young adults, and they range in number from 12 to 27 each night,” says Brendan.

Looking back over ten years of shows, “My favourite was my first, Live & Unjudged, when it was very raw,” he recalls. “But I’m particularly proud of Show Man because of its theatricality.”

My aim is to wow the audience and give them everything they’d expect and much, much more,” says Brendan Cole

What comes next for Brendan, the showman dancer? “Something much more intimate,” he says, “One of the things I’ve tried to do is make Show Man more intimate, but that’s a hard thing to do in a big band show.

“But I have no plans for the next move yet, because I’d like some time out as it’s gruelling, taking hours and hours to put the content together and then the company together for a show like Show Man. I want to take some time out with my family.”

Such is his love of dance shows and dancing itself, Brendan will be back. “It’s the magic of it. Creating a story between two people in a dance. That little bit of magic for two and a half, three, minutes. It’s storytelling without words, and as people watch, they create their own stories,” he says.

“It’s the waltzes that I really love. There’s a real beauty to them. Then there’s that moment I really enjoy, when a dance has just finished, and there’s a hush, as if the audience are almost in a state of trance…”

…And, there, in a nutshell, is why Show Man will be a chapter, rather than the closing chapter, in Brendan Cole’s dance story. He has a vision beyond 2020.

Brendan Cole, Show Man, Grand Opera House, York, February 25, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/York

Copyright of The Press, York

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Could you ever fall for a goat? Let Pick Me Up’s next show take that question further

Mick Liversidge, back left, Bryan Bounds, back right, Susannah Baines and Will Fealy in the rehearsal room for Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?

YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre will stage the northern UK premiere of Edward Albee’s emotional rollercoaster of an American play, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, next month.

World-famous New York architect Martin Gray has it all: fame, fortune, a happy marriage to Stevie, and a wonderful son, Billy, but he is hiding a BIG secret. Everything changes when he admits to his best friend, Ross, that he is having an affair with…a goat.

Bryan Bounds, left, Mick Liversidge and Will Fealy in rehearsal for The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?

The Goat caused controversy but was a hit with audiences when it opened on Broadway in 2002, going on to win the Tony Award for Best Play, 40 years after Albee took home the same award for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? 

The tone switches between laugh-out-loud comedy and full-blown tragedy as Stevie, Billy and Ross struggle to deal with Martin’s revelation.

Albee said: “The play is about love and loss, the limits of our tolerance and who, indeed, we really are. All I ask of an audience is that they leave their prejudices in the cloakroom … and later — at home — imagine themselves as being in the predicament the play examines and coming up with useful, if not necessarily comfortable, responses.”

Pick Me Up Theatre cast members Bryan Bounds, left, Will Fealy and Susannah Baines. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

​Directed by Mark Hird and produced and designed by Robert Readman, Pick Me Up’s production features Bryan Bounds as Martin; Susannah Baines as Stevie; Mick Liversidge as Ross and Will Fealy, a student at CAPA College, the creative and performing arts college in Wakefield, as Billy.

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, will run at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41Monkgate, York, from February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly. Box office: 01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com. Please note: this play contains adult themes and strong language; suggested minimum age of 15.

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Look who’s coming to Selby Town Hall’s biggest ever spring season…

Be prepared for Lucy Porter: she is playing Selby Town Hall on June 6

SELBY Town Hall’s spring season will be its biggest ever with 27 live shows between February and the start of June, plus a trio of Edinburgh Fringe previews in July.

“There’s the usual mix of folk, Americana, stand-up, pop, rock, theatre and more with chart-toppers, cult indie royalty, a Grammy winner, the radio voice who guided my teenage pop dreams, a primetime impersonator tinkling the ivories and even a 13-piece orchestra,” says Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones.

“We had a good end to 2019 with a surprise listing in the Guardian as one of the UK’s best tiny venues and that seems to have spilled over into 2020 with strong early sales. It’s full steam ahead.”

The programme’s headline stars include punk princess, actor, television presenter and Top Ten hit maker Toyah with her stripped-back Acoustic, Up Close & Personal show on February 21; Mark Radcliffe: Loser?, a solo show of words and songs from the BBC6 Music and Radio 2 presenter, on April 2, and impersonator Alistair McGowan, in his new-found guise as a classical pianist, in The Piano Show on May 22.

Guitarist Gordon Giltrap’s re-scheduled date is confirmed for February 29; cult Eighties’ indie icon, John Peel favourite, Scouse maverick and The Mighty Wah! frontman Pete Wylie presents a duo show of hits and stories on March 14, and Dire Straits founding member David Knopfler, now plying his trade as a singer-songwriter, performs with Harry Bogdanovs on May 27.

Me and my mum: Arabella Weir in her debut stand-up show

On the comedy front, The Fast Show star turned bestselling author Arabella Weir plays the smallest date on her first ever stand-up tour, the confessional Does My Mum Loom Big In This?, on February 28; Paul Sinha, one-time Grand Opera House, York, pantomime villain, comic and quiz sensation from The Chase, performs Hazy Little Thing Called Love on March 21; and Jo Caulfield discusses unreasonable neighbours, call centres, snobby ghosts, prosecco drinkers, being married forever and rude children in Voodoo Doll on May 1.

BBC New Comedy Award winner, To Hull And Back sitcom writer and Hull native Lucy Beaumont spins surreal anecdotes about bubble wrap, boxing, boobs and believing in UFOs or not in Space Mam, her return to live stand-up after a four-year hiatus, on April 17.

Always space for Hull humorist Lucy Beaumont

“The season also includes one of the biggest successes from last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, comedy duo Max & Ivan, on February 7,” says Chris. “Their show Commitment was named the fourth best comedy performance of 2019 by the Guardian and has just been listed as one of the comedy highlights of 2020 by The Times.

“There’ll be more laughs from BBC Radio 4 favourite Lucy Porter in Be Prepared, her show on how ‘life turned out to be slightly more complicated than Brown Owl let on’, on June 6; classically moulded British eccentric Tim FitzHIgham in Pittancer Of Selby on April 8, and Nineties’ comedy pin-up turned philosophical raconteur Rob Newman in Rob Newman’s Philosophy Show: Work In Progress on May 16.

Rob Newman: philosophical work in progress

“Rob will be trying out material for the next series of his award-winning BBC Radio 4 stand-up philosophy programme Total Eclipse Of Descartes.”

Jones always has a strong hand of American folk and roots music acts each season. “This spring is no different with performances from Grammy-winning Californian bluegrass icon Laurie Lewis and her band The Right Hands on May 21; singer-songwriters Bronwynne Brent and Rachel Baiman on March 6 and May 28 respectively and the sunshine melodies and harmonies of Illinois indie-Americana quintet The Way Down Wanderers on April 10,” he says.

Tim FitzHigham and Duncan Walsh Atkins in their Flanders & Swann show

Selby Town Council commemorates the 75th anniversary of VE Day with a concert in Selby Abbey by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band on May 9, preceded by Tim FitzHigham and Duncan Walsh Atkins’s Flanders & Swann show, At The Drop Of A Hippopotamus, on May 8 at Selby Town Hall.

The venue plays host to its first ever orchestral performance when a 13-piece ensemble from the Northern Chamber Orchestra plays on April 7, with cellist, baritone and actor Matthew Sharp as the host.

Yorkston Thorne Khan, pictured right to left, playing Selby Town Hall in March

“As well as being our biggest ever programme of events, this spring season is also one of our most eclectic,” says Chris. “I’m particularly excited to welcome one of the most inventive and cool acts on the folk scene right now, Yorkston Thorne Khan, on March 20, when they promote their new album Navarasa: Nine Emotions.

“They mix an incredible array of sounds, from Scottish traditional to Indian classical, and are signed to the same label as Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand!

“We’re also delighted to open up the season on February 1 with a rare show for a great folk-rock supergroup, The Sandy Denny Project, brought together by Fotheringay MkII’s PJ Wright and The Poozies’ Sally Barker to celebrate one of Britain’s greatest ever singers.”

Nashville singer-songwriter Rachel Baiman

Further dates for the diary are Celtic band The Tannahill Weavers, with their ballads and lullabies on St Valentine’s Day, February 14, guitar duo Ezio on March 5; and Martin Turner: Ex Wishbone Ash, performing his former band’s 1971 album Pilgrimage in its entirety on March 28.

Reform Theatre present Midsommer, playwright David Greig and singer-songwriter Gordon McIntyre’s collaborative piece about two mid-30s, messed-up strangers – failing car salesman/poet Bob and divorce lawyer Helena – embarking on a lost weekend of debauchery, bridge-burning, car chases, wedding bust-ups, midnight trysts and hungover self-loathing, on April 25.

Key signing for Selby Town Hall: impressionist turned piano man Alistair McGowan

Edinburgh Fringe comedy previews with two comics each night will be held on July 11, 18 and 25, with tickets going on sale in the spring.

This season’s National Theatre Live screenings will be Cyrano de Bergerac, starring James McAvoy, on February 20, and Lucy Kirkwood’s bold new thriller The Welkin, starring Maxine Peake and Ria Zmitrowicz, on June 4.

Pete Wylie: singing Story Of The Blues and telling stories at Selby Town Hall on March 14

“From comedy to rock, bluegrass to theatre, orchestral to music hall and much, much more, there’s a huge array to choose from at Selby Town Hall this spring season,” concludes Chris.

Tickets are on sale on 01757 708449, at selbytownhall.co.uk or in person from the town hall.

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Caravan Guys ponder toxic masculinity in savage satire How To Beat Up Your Dad

The naked truth: Theo Mason Wood and Albert Haddenham in How To Beat Up Your Dad. Pictures: Mollie Gallagher

CARAVAN Guys Theatre Company’s darkly comic tale of “toxic masculinity”, How To Beat Up Your Dad (The Musical), is taking to the road.

First stop for this debut show – first performed in its entirety at The Arts Barge Riverside Festival in York last July – will be at Slung Low’s home at The Holbeck Theatre, in Leeds, on February 9.

On stage at 5pm will be Albert Haddenham and York actor, musician and writer Theo Mason Wood, son of York playwright Mike Kenny and stage and screen actress Barbara Marten.

First making his mark on the York music scene with Bonnie Milnes in the darkly humorous The Lungs and Gwen, Theo graduated from the drama and theatre arts degree course at Goldsmiths, University of London, three summers ago.

Now comes Caravan Guys’ savagely satirical tale of one young man’s journey through manhood, taking him from being a meek teenager looking for the secret, to losing his virginity, to becoming a young man stealing Yakults™, searching for happiness and finally standing up to his own dad with his fists.

Please note, this show is a “free-form piece of dark comedy about the damaging and violent nature of masculinity and doesn’t actually give any instructions on beating up your own dad”. Instead, as told through a cocktail of performance, spoken word, music and storytelling, humour and hubris, How To Beat Up Your Dad is a comedy about masculinity and all the wrong ways to solve your problems.

Here Theo steps out of the caravan to answer Charles Hutchinson’s questions.

Who are the Caravan Guys and why is the company so called, Theo?

“Caravan Guys is myself, Theo Mason Wood, and Albert Haddenham, of Bridlington, a charismatic sausage/multi-instrumentalist with the best sense of humour and big strong hands.

“We are the draughty corridor between hilarity and horror,” says Theo Mason Wood, pictured on the run behind Albert Haddenham,

“We met about 14 months ago and immediately found that we found the same things funny. On New Year’s night last year, we drunkenly swore to make something together and that’s how How To Beat Up Your Dad (The Musical) was born.

“People do awful things, really weird awful things and Caravan Guys want to show you why and make you laugh at them. We are the draughty corridor between hilarity and horror. We are the unknown stain on the caravan floor and the reason it’s going cheaply.”

What was the inspiration for the show?

“The absurdity of masculinity. The script was originally a short story I wrote; I compiled some real stories of extreme and absurd situations that I and other men I know have been in and then applied them all to one character. I find myself constantly amazed by the lengths men will go to assert themselves. It’s shocking and often unpleasant but also really funny.”

Where do you stand on masculinity? Some say men are becoming emasculated, such as in the way they are portrayed in adverts and increasingly on TV. On the other hand, your play highlights “the damaging and violent nature of masculinity”. Discuss…

“Although the phrase gets used a lot, I really do think that masculinity is spectacularly fragile. As a culture, we’re all becoming more aware of this, so the cracks in the macho façade are growing bigger and bigger, and I think we’re all a lot more able to see it for what it is.

“The play shows how sexism and homophobia are often just defences against feeling emasculated. These tropes of masculinity say a lot more about the individual’s sense of self than it does about the groups they are attacking.

“As men, we have been taught that sadness, anxiety and vulnerability are not valid emotions; to cry is to be weak and to be weak is to not be masculine. Therefore, often men will push outwards when experiencing these feelings, they will turn it into rage, aggression and violence.”

“Many men don’t have the correct tools to deal with their emotions and will lash out because anger is seen as masculine while sadness isn’t ,” says Theo Mason Wood

How is that reflected in your play?

“This is what I mean when I say the play is about the damaging and violent nature of masculinity, I mean that many men don’t have the correct tools to deal with their emotions and will lash out because anger is seen as masculine while sadness isn’t. “Although this all sounds very serious – which it is – our show is largely a comedy and we aim to create a space where we can all laugh at the strange things men do to protect themselves from feeling small.”

Explain the provocative choice of show title…

“This is not a musical, nor is it a guide on how to beat up your dad. I don’t know your dad, he might be really hard.

“Our hero, Amon, has a lot of emotional issues tied up in his experiences with his Dad when he was a child. The show starts with Amon as a pre-teen upset because he hasn’t been allowed to come to his own dad’s wedding.

“The play then follows Amon into adulthood and becoming ‘a man’ via some pretty terrible experiences. Finally, he wants to confront his father and get some closure but the man he returns home to isn’t the alpha male he grew up in fear of. Now he does meditation and has started wearing beads.”

What do you love about dark comedy? Your songs with Bonnie Milnes in The Lungs and Gwen occupied that terrain too.

“I think comedy is a brilliant vehicle for making a point without boring people. Serious issues can be very serious and often no fun to talk about.

“Comedy allows people to enjoy thinking and learning; comedy makes things that are hard to swallow much much easier to swallow. Personally, I’d rather have a laugh than a scowl but that doesn’t have to mean the content of discussion can’t be an important one.”

There’s nudity in the show…why?!

“People are paying whatever they want to for a ticket, so I want them to feel they’ve got their money’s worth.”

In a field of their own:: Albert Haddenham, front, and Theo Mason Wood contemplate masculinity in How To Beat Up Your Dad

One reviewer called The Caravan Guys’ comedy style “punk, a bit scary, Berkoff, brave”, How would you define it?

“We blur the lines between fiction and reality: the story tells one narrative, of masculinity and how trauma is inherited and shared, how victims become perpetrators. As we shift between characters and ourselves we tell another, deeper and darker narrative about us as men: our competitiveness, our need to dominate, to show off, to win the play.

“Our  work is raucous and violent. It is completely free form. We drag the audience through styles, times, places and people to show all the insidious ways masculinity gets its claws in.”

What else are you up to, Theo?

“Currently I perform comedy music under the title Jean Penne and I’ll soon be releasing a small book of short stories.

“Meanwhile, me and Albert are going to continue to try and become the Simon and Garfunkel of dark comedy. After selling out a number of shows in Manchester and London, we look forward to bringing the explosive How To Beat Up Your Dad to Leeds and Bristol in February, the Brighton Fringe in May and Cambridge in July.

“We’ll then take the show to the Edinburgh Fringe and the rest of the world (Bridlington) and then get cracking on the next play.”

Caravan Guys Theatre Company in How To Beat Up Your Dad (The Musical), at Slung Low’s The Holbeck Theatre, Leeds, February 9, 5pm. Box office: via slunglow.org, at quaytickets.com or on 0843 208 0500. Please note, this is a Pay What You Decide After The Show performance.

Interview copyright of The Press, York, from July 23 2019

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New writer, new director, new direction and no Berwick for next Theatre Royal panto

The final curtain: Berwick Kaler’s final wave on the night he retired after 40 years as York Theatre Royal’s dame on February 2 2019

TEN KEY POINTS FROM YORK THEATRE ROYAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TOM BIRD’S BBC RADIO YORK INTERVIEW WITH ADAM TOMLINSON THIS AFTERNOON

1. A new writer and director, with a new direction, will be appointed to make a “spectacular, fabulous, really York” Theatre Royal pantomime for 2020-2021.

2. Yes, it will still be a pantomime, not a winter show.

3. No, Berwick Kaler will not be involved as writer, co-director or dame.

4. Audience figures have declined for 11 years, from as high as 54,190 for Dick Turpin in 2008 to 30,000 so far (with two weeks to go) for Sleeping Beauty. Those “collapsing” figures have to be checked and reversed by attracting a new audience as well as retaining the regular theatregoers.

5. The current contract practice with the regular players, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper, Martin Barrass and A J Powell,  is an unspoken agreement of a return for the next show, but Mr Bird wanted to be clear with those performers that this time this would not be the case. No-one is guaranteed an automatic contract renewal and no-one is on a long contract.

6. No regrets at the “halfway house” of retaining retired dame Berwick Kaler as writer and co-director for Sleeping Beauty as a chance to showcase the talents of the “amazing” cast regulars in a way audiences had not seen before, and “to some extent” this had happened. However, from ticket launch day onwards, some people had said ‘No, I’m not going to go.”

7. Refuting Berwick Kaler’s charges of “cheap sets, cheap costumes” for Sleeping Beauty, Mr Bird said the overall pantomime budget had increased. The designer [Anthony Lamble] was new, but the set and costume expenditure was the same as it was for The Grand Old Dame Of York last winter.

8. The new director and writer will need to have free rein for next winter’s pantomime, and if they were told they had to have certain actors, that would not be free rein. It should be a free shot, a state of autonomy, without any ties restricting them.

9. Could there be a U-turn, given that 1,400 people have signed an online petition to bring back Berwick? No.

Berwick had created something extraordinary over 40 years, but this is how life works: the panto needs a re-boot, one where “you don’t have to be in the club to come”.

10. The 2020-2021 pantomime will be announced at a launch on February 3.

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THE LAST WORD. Will Berwick Kaler ever play York Theatre Royal’s panto dame again? No.

Dame Berwick Kaler’s final wave at the end of his 40 years of pantomimes at York Theatre Royal on February 2 2019. All pictures: Anthony Robling

“Things have not gone well and it’s not the fault of the cast. The sets do not do what the script requires.” Dame Berwick Kaler, The Press, York, January 9.

IT should not have come to this, and yet it was inevitable. Berwick Kaler told the full house on the last night of his 40-year damehood on February 2 last year that he would be “back like a shot” if the Theatre Royal came a’calling.

Now, in a move without consultation with those above him to match the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in the very same week, and always a law unto himself, he has used the pages of The Press newspaper to tell the Theatre Royal to “take me back”, backed by long-serving principal girl Suzy Cooper.

“I made the biggest mistake saying I was going to retire,” said Dame Berwick. “I want to jump out of my suit and perform.”

Let’s remember that the dame called time; he was not pushed into retirement, and a 40th anniversary show gave Britain’s longest-serving dame a right royal and loyal send-off in The Grand Old Dame Of York.

The knives are out…but from Berwick Kaler and Suzy Cooper in The Press, and not A J Powell in Edward Scissorhands mode in Sleeping Beauty.

Fully fit after his double heart bypass, Dame Berwick has “retired” but, unlike Elvis,  not left the building, writing the script for Sleeping Beauty and co-directing the show with Matt Aston, purveyor of the past three rock’n’roll pantomimes at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall in Leeds.

Like the dame, many a boxer later decides he has made a mistake by retiring, but then makes a bigger one by returning, having lost his punch or, in Berwick’s case, his punchlines.

The splash story in The Press amounts to an act of mutiny by Berwick Kaler and Suzy Cooper, openly taking on the management and the board with a series of criticisms that have been refuted swiftly by executive director Tom Bird. In doing so, they are in essence saying “Back us or sack us” and calling on the public, “our audience”, to support their case.

Berwick may have been in for a shock when The Press’s invitation to Have Your Say on whether he should be back on stage next winter evoked such responses as: “No. Big ego.” “Time for completely new blood.” “Time to move on, Berwick”. “Definitely not.” “Stay retired Berwick. The pantomime has run its course.” Or, in the words of Farmer Tom: “Time to have a completely fresh start. The Kaler days were legendary but they’re gone. New blood needed.”

What the Kaler-Cooper outburst has done is bring the debate out into the open, just as was the intention of the headline in the charleshutchpress.co.uk review:  “Sleeping Beauty awakes at York Theatre Royal but should Dame Berwick era be put to bed?”

A picture of innocence: Suzy Cooper as the young Princess Beauty, with her cuddly toy, in Sleeping Beauty

At the request of the rest of the “Not Famous But Famous Five in York”, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper, Martin Barrass and AJ Powell, Berwick was taken on once more as writer and co-director, also appearing in the brace of films and voicing, aptly, a skeleton. The effect, however, was like Banquo’s Ghost haunting this halfway house of a show.

And now, within the bubble of self-preservation, Berwick wants to be back, Suzy wants him back. However, while a bad workman blames his tools, as the saying goes, this particular workman, Berwick, blamed someone else’s tools – the “cheap sets and cheap costumes” – for “things not going well” for Sleeping Beauty. It is true Anthony Lamble’s designs did not match the spectacular heights of predecessor Mark Walters, but that slur is a cheap, inaccurate shot, and although he is right that Sleeping Beauty’s failings are “not the fault of the cast”, what of his own tools as writer and co-director?

Berwick is deluded in believing the script was not at fault either, and it is no secret that the new, experimental Aston-Kaler directorial partnership did not gel, alas.

Where does York Theatre Royal go next? Bird and board cannot answer only to the needs and wishes of Berwick, Suzy and their “loyal audience”. There is a wider audience to consider; those who do not go to a Dame Berwick pantomime, but would like to see in this new decade with a new beginning for the Theatre Royal’s winter show.

In particular, a show for the next generation of theatre-goers, children, who are noticeably outnumbered by adults at the Kaler brand of chaotic meta-panto, in contrast to the audience profile of pantomimes across the country.

David Leonard as Evil Diva in Sleeping Beauty, but will the greatest villain in pantoland return to York Theatre Royal next winter?

The CharlesHutchPress review of Sleeping Beauty on December 12 ended by pondering the Theatre Royal’s vision for 2020. “Are the days of this brand of pantomime behind you?”, it asked, “because the patented but weary “same old rubbish” won’t suffice next year.

“This is no laughing matter, and here are the options,” it went on. “Bring back Dame Berwick full on, working from the inside, not the outside, with all that goes with that; or freshen up the panto in a different way, or find a new vehicle to utilise the talents of Leonard, Cooper, Barrass and Powell. Many a theatre has moved on from pantomime, whether Leeds Playhouse, the Stephen Joseph Theatre or Hull Truck, and still found a winter winner. We await the Bird call…”.

The future of the Kaler pantomime is uncertain, says Suzy, who fears the axe, but the future of pantomime at York Theatre Royal is not uncertain. Will the Theatre Royal “take Berwick back” into the panto fold on stage? No. No player is bigger than the club, as the football world is fond of saying, and to continue the football analogy, Berwick and Suzy have scored an own goal in going to The Press.

If Berwick, now 73, really does want to “jump out of my suit and perform”, then how about doing so in plays for the veteran stage of acting: Lear in King Lear, Prospero in The Tempest or Sir in Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser with Martin Barrass as his Norman?

Come early February, we shall know the answer to the pantomime conundrum. Is it too outrageous to suggest that if it came to a choice between who is now more invaluable to the Theatre Royal panto, it would be the villainous David Leonard, not the mutinous Dame Berwick?

Charles Hutchinson

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Once in a lifetime opportunity! Grand Opera House offers £5 student tickets for musical

Alex Hill, left, Beth Scott, Jami Richards and Laura Castle with £5 student tickets for Once The Musical at the Grand Opera House. Picture: David Harrison

THE Grand Opera House, York, is teaming up with City of York Council to offer anyone aged 26 and under £5 tickets for the Broadway and West End show Once The Musical.

Running from February 3 to 8, the show is based on the 2007 Irish indie hit film, telling the uplifting yet yearning story of two lost souls – a Dublin street busker and a Czech musician – who unexpectedly fall in love.

Charting their relationship across five short days, big changes happen to both of them in little ways in this romantic musical drama. Celebrated for its original score, including the Academy Award-winning song Falling Slowly, Once is a spell-binding story of hopes and dreams.

Directed  by Peter Rowe, with musical direction by regular accomplice Ben Goddard, Once The Musical has embarked on its first major British tour after Broadway and West End productions, leading to a Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album, eight Tony Awards and an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music.

To book £5 tickets, go to atgtickets.com/sho…/once/grand-opera-house-york/ Code: ONCE5. Proof of age must be shown when collecting tickets.

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“Well looks like you put the nail in our coffin. Cheers for that.” So, what exactly was Charles Hutchinson’s verdict on the first post-Dame Berwick pantomime at York Theatre Royal?

Giving him the bird: David Leonard’s Evil Diva in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. All pictures: Robling Photography

Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, until January 25 2020. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

UNLESS you have been asleep for 100 years, you will know Sleeping Beauty is the first York Theatre Royal pantomime since Berwick Kaler hung up his big boots after 40 years as Britain’s longest-serving dame.

Unlike Elvis, however, Kaler has not left the building. Now 73, he is still taking care of business, writing the script; co-directing with Leeds City Varieties rock’n’roll pantomime alumnus Matt Aston; appearing in two film sequences and in doll’s head form for baby Beauty, and providing sporadic voice-overs too. In other words, there is still a Kaler on the loose.

Slice-up: A J Powell’s ever-changing modes transform him into Edward Scissorhands

“You have given me a purpose to life,” he told his adoring panto public as he waved goodbye through the final curtain on February 2 this year. “I’m not going anywhere. If this theatre needs me, I’ll be back like a shot.”

Executive director Tom Bird and co decided they did need him for the first pantomime of the post-dame, post Damian Cruden directorship era. Britain’s best villain, David Leonard, perennially bouncy sidekick Martin Barrass, ageless principal girl Suzy Cooper and chameleon Brummie A J Powell said they needed him too, to write the script.

And so Berwick was back like a shot, ticket sales have passed the 30,000 mark, but how do you fill the black hole, the tornado wreaking havoc, the master adlibber, the smasher of theatre’s fourth wall that is the Kaler dame?

All rise: Martin Barrass’s down-to-earth Queen Aradne with Jack Lansbury’s King and newcomer Howie Michaels’ Funky the Flunky in Sleeping Beauty

This is the elephant in the room, a role more usually taken by Barrass in one of his animal acts. In fact, a better comparison is Banquo’s ghost, haunting this halfway house of a panto.

Sleeping Beauty retains the Kaler template, from Babbies And Bairns theme tune opening to Hope You’ll Return Next Year finale to convoluted plot, via disappointingly unfunny films (one with Berwick and Harry Gration) and a futile slosh scene.

As there ain’t no-one like Berwick’s dame, the remaining panto gang of four spread out their familiar traits without ever filling the gap. Thankfully, there’s no rest for the wicked, and so David Leonard is still fab-u-lous, with a dash of dame, or more truthfully waspish drag queen, about his Evil Diva, and his character switch with Powell’s ever-so-nice Darth Vader is the show’s one coup de theatre.

Principal girl, cuddly toy: Suzy Cooper’s Princess Beauty

Suzy Cooper’s Princess Beauty goes from St Trinian’s schoolgirl with a cuddly toy to leading song-and-dance routines, searching forlornly for better material, especially in a year when she has excelled as Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare Rose Theatre’s Macbeth at Blenheim Palace.

Without his buddy Berwick to bounce off, Martin Barrass is in no man’s land – or even no mam’s land – as Queen Ariadne, not a dame, nor a queen, one with only one good (Bile Beans) costume and only one innovation, a nod to Eric Morecambe, to go with the old Barrass tropes.

Musical theatre newcomer Howie Michaels’s Funky the Flunky, big voice, big stage presence, fares well, and Jack Lansbury’s King/Tarquin Farquhar, dance captain Danielle Mullan and the ensemble work their panto socks off in frankly difficult circumstances, their reward coming in the stand-out Teenage Dirtbag routine, Grace Harrington’s best choreography..

Beauty and the beastly: Suzy Cooper with vainglorious villain David Leonard

Was it a mere coincidence that new designer Anthony Lamble’s sets lacked the sparkle of old, just as the comedy lacked the spark, surprise, timing, topicality and magical mayhem of the peak Kaler years?

Last night (December 11) felt awkward, uncomfortable, indulgent. Bird and the board have to ask: “Are the days of this brand of pantomime behind you?”, because the patented but weary “same old rubbish” won’t suffice next year.

This is no laughing matter, and here are the options. Bring back Dame Berwick full on, working from the inside, not the outside, with all that goes with that; freshen up the panto in a different way, or find a new vehicle to utilise the talents of Leonard, Cooper, Barrass and Powell. Many a theatre has moved on from pantomime, whether Leeds Playhouse, the Stephen Joseph Theatre or Hull Truck, and still found a winter winner. We await the Bird call…

Charles Hutchinson

Copyright of The Press, York