The Domino effect as Ayckbourn’s hit audio play extends online run by a week to July 2

Alan Ayckbourn and Heather Stoney: Performing together for the first time in 56 years in Anno Domino. Picture:Tony Bartholomew

ALAN Ayckbourn’s debut audio play, Anno Domino, will run online for an extra week in response to huge demand from theatregoers worldwide.

Available exclusively on the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s website, at sjt.uk.com, Ayckbourn’s 84th premiere had a cut-off point of June 25 at 12 noon, but the deadline is being extended to July 2 at midday.

The extension was announced this morning after feedback suggested that plenty of theatre fans were still keen to listen to Ayckbourn, 81, and his wife, actress Heather Stoney, performing together for the first time in 56 years.

In one of his lighter pieces, charting the break-up of a long-established marriage and its domino effect on family and friends, Ayckbourn and Stoney play four characters each, aged 18 to mid-70s.

“We were just mucking about in our sitting room,” says former radio producer Ayckbourn, who wrote, directed and performed the lockdown play, as well as overseeing the sound effects at their Scarborough home.

The SJT’s artistic director, Paul Robinson, says of the extension: “So far, more than 12,500 people have heard Anno Domino, nearly 1,000 of them last weekend alone. That represents 31 complete sell-out performances in our Round auditorium, where Alan’s shows are usually premiered.

“People have listened in from all over the globe, including the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe.

This could have been the last time: Heather Stoney and Alan Ayckbourn in the 1964 production of Two For The Seesaw at the Rotherham Civic Theatre. Now, instead, they are performing together again in Ayckbourn’s 2020 audio play Anno Domino

“We’re keen to make it accessible to as many people as possible, so we’ve decided to extend the listening period by a week, but this really will be your last opportunity to hear it!”

Anno Domino proved particularly popular in the United States – where Ayckbourn’s plays are performed regularly in New York – after being reviewed favourably in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and featuring on Morning Edition, the nationwide flagship show of National Public Radio.

This summer, Ayckbourn should have been directing the world premiere of his 83rd play, Truth Will Out, ironically featuring a virulent computer virus, preceded by his revival of his 1976 comedy, Just Between Ourselves, “the one with the car”, that would have opened last Thursday until the Covid-19 pandemic intervened.

Instead, recording at their Scarborough home, Ayckbourn and Stoney acted together for the first time since performing in William Gibson’s American two-hander Two For The Seesaw at the Rotherham Civic Theatre in 1964: Ayckbourn’s exit stage left from treading the boards on a professional stage.

Stoney’s last full season as an actress was at the SJT in the 1985 repertory company that presented the world premiere of Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind.

Ayckbourn says of Anno Domino: “The inspiration came from the idea that all relationships ultimately, however resilient they appear to be, are built on sand! 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.”  

This SJT production, with a final audio mix by Paul Steer, marks the first time Ayckbourn has both directed and performed in one of his own plays: one of a multitude of reasons to tune in before noon on July 2. Make the most of the extension. No excuses.

Thought for the day…

Dark times: York Theatre Royal, exit stage left until further, more helpful notice from the Government’s Washing Hands department

THEATRES can “re-open” from July 4, but not for performances. That’s like saying pubs can re-open but not serve any beer.

Theatre’s future and indeed theatres’ futures are hanging by a thread. For once, take something other than the besmirching of Winston Churchill’s statue seriously, Prime Minister, not wiffle-waffle about “can re-open”.

Scarborough children take to the beach as Red Arrows for virtual Armed Forces Day

The young people’s Red Arrows on Scarborough’s South Bay beach in Animated Objects’ costumes. All pictures: Tony Bartholomew

SCARBOROUGH theatre company Animated Objects is taking part in this summer’s Scarborough Borough Council community outreach programme.

Artistic director Lee Threadgold’s company has created the costumes for children to dress as the young people’s Red Arrows for Scarborough’s virtual Armed Forces Day to mark this national event coming to the East Coast resort in June 2021.

The Red Arrows made by Animated Objects Theatre Company for Scarborough Borough Council’s virtual Armed Forces Day celebrations

On Monday this week, the council launched its virtual celebration of the Armed forces with various events and films being aired on the Scarborough Armed Forces website, scarborougharmedforcesday.co.uk, and Facebook page, facebook.com/ScarboroughArmedForcesDay/.

Animated Objects Theatre Company is “a small company that delivers really big ideas”, specialising in large-scale events, outdoor theatre, giant artworks and performances.

Children in Red Arrows formation on Scarborough’s South Bay beach for the virtual Armed Forces Day

No press night tonight, but Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves is under discussion just between playwright and archivist

Alan Ayckbourn’s 1976 premiere of Just Between Ourselves at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough

TONIGHT should have been the press night for Emeritus director Alan Ayckbourn’s revival of his 1976 garage-and-garden dark comedy, Just Between Ourselves, at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre.

However, as with the no-longer upcoming world premiere of his 83rd play, Truth Will Out, the summer production of this rarely staged Seventies’ gem has been scuppered by the Coronavirus crisis that has led to the SJT being closed.

Instead, why not head to @ArchivingAlanA for Simon Murgatroyd’s exclusive new interview with the Scarborough playwright, who discusses his classic play and his thoughts on it now. Find it at archivingayckbourn.home.blog/?p=1100@Ayckbourn.

In “the one with the car”, set on four birthdays, Dennis thinks he is a master at DIY and a perfect husband but in reality he is neither. When he decides to sell his car, Neil turns up as a potential buyer, wanting it for his wife Pam’s birthday.

Alan Ayckbourn and Heather Stoney in their Scarborough garden. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

In Ayckbourn’s dissection of man’s inhumanity to woman, as two couples become unlikely friends, aided and abetted by Dennis’s meddling live-in mother, Marjorie, a collision course becomes inevitable.

Sheridan Morley said of the 1977 West End premiere: “I had the feeling I’d seen Uncle Vanya rewritten by and for the Marx Brothers.” Bernard Levin’s verdict in The Sunday Times proclaimed: “Ayckbourn has gained an immense reputation with a series of plays in which puppets dance most divertingly on their strings. Here he has cut the strings and then stuck the knife into the puppets.”

How frustrating there will be no SJT revival this summer, but make sure you do listen to Ayckbourn’s 84th premiere, his audio play for lockdown, Anno Domino, starring Ayckbourn himself and his wife Heather Stoney,

In one of his lighter pieces, charting the break-up of a long-established marriage and its domino effect on family and friends, Ayckbourn, 81, and Stoney play four characters each, aged 18 to mid-70s. “We were just mucking about in our sitting room,” says Ayckbourn of a world premiere available for free exclusively on the SJT’s website, sjt.uk.com, until noon on June 25. 


York Stage Musicals confirm The Hunchback Of Notre Dame premiere…and Shrek is back too

Oh, what a Knight: Chris Knight as Donkey in York Stage Musicals’ Shrek The Musical in September 2019. Shrek will return to the Grand Opera House in 2021

YORK Stage Musicals are to present The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in…2022.

“Theatres may be closed at the moment but that does not stop us planning for the future,” says artistic director Nik Briggs.

“We are honoured to be producing The Hunchback Of Notre Dame at the Grand Opera House in Autumn 2022. With lyrics by Wicked’s Stephen Schwartz and music by Aladdin’s Alan Menken, this is a very exciting project for us indeed.

“It was one where we were approached by the rights holders, like with Shrek The Musical.  We love that because we’re not in the rat race to get it, and it’s nice they value the work we do, especially with Disney, who have very strict regulations.”

The York Stage diary for 2021 is taking shape with Shrek The Musical confirmed for a return to the Grand Opera House next spring, over the Easter holidays, and rights secured for Elf next winter.

Jacob Husband, as Adam, front, Alex Weatherhill, as Bernadette, and Joe Wawrzyniak, as Tick, in York Stage Musicals’ Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Benedict Tomlinson

More shows are being lined up too, not least a new work from Alex Weatherhill, who starred as Bernadette in York Stage Musicals’ production of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, in September 2017.

“Alex came to see us in Tim Firth’s The Flint Street Nativity and Steel Magnolias and said he wanted to do something for us, and we’re delighted as he writes the summer show at the Bridlington Spa,” says Nik.

Shrek The Musical will bring York Stage full circle, being the last show the company staged at the Grand Opera House before the Coronavirus pandemic shut down theatres and the first to be mounted by YSM once the Cumberland Street theatre re-opens.

As for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Nik says: “It’s a show we’ve always wanted to look at doing because it’s never been done in the West End, only in America, so it will be nice to bring it to York.”

Indeed it will but, after his tour de force as Shrek in Shrek The Musical last September, will Nik be playing the Hunchback? “Definitely not,” he insists. That Autumn 2022 slot still leaves plenty of time to change his mind, however.

Joseph Rowntree Theatre is Up On The Roof to launch fundraising campaign

Singers and musicians recording Up On The Roof remotely for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre’s Raise The Roof campaign

THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in York, is launching a song on You Tube to help raise £5,000 towards vital roof repairs.

At a time when the future is looking bleak for many theatres in the Coronavirus crisis, York’s community theatre in Haxby Road is determined to buck the trend of depressing news by using lockdown as a chance to further its expansion plans.

Launching the online video this week kick-starts Raise The Roof, the JoRo’s fundraising campaign with a £90,000 target.

Aptly, the choice of song is a cover of The Drifters’ hit Up On The Roof, written in 1962 by Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

Jess Douglas: Arranger, pianist, co-organiser

The video has been produced, arranged and performed by York performers who call the Art Deco building their theatrical home, many of them also counting themselves among the JoRo’s army of volunteers.  Put together during lockdown via socially distanced media, it can be viewed at youtu.be/IPsw4VQcMsg.

Stage manager Ollie Nash and Jessica Douglas, a regular musical director of shows at the JoRo, have brought together a team of singers and musicians to create the video. “It’s been a real challenge under lockdown conditions,” says Ollie. “In the week leading up to its release, I spent 30 hours pulling all the bits together for the final edit.”

Arranged by Jessica and mixed and edited by Ollie, Up On The Roof is performed by Abigail Atkinson, Chris Gibson, Helen Singhateh, Jennie Wogan, Nick Sephton, Paul Blenkiron, Ruth McCartney, Sandy Nicholson and Susan Blenkiron. Backing them in the recording are Jessica Douglas, piano, Clark Howard, drums, Georgia Johnson, bass, Damien Sweeting, guitar, and Emily Jones and Tom Marlow, violin.

Graham Mitchell, the JoRo’s fundraising and events director, says: “We’ve had great fun putting this video together.  The fact that so many of our performing and volunteering community came together ‘virtually’ to produce it shows just how much the future success of the theatre means to them.”

Ollie Nash: Spent 30 hours “pulling all the bits together for the final video edit”

Against a backdrop of growing fears over the future for many arts venues across the country, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre believes it is in a “particularly strong position”.

How come? Because the charity that runs it owns the building and the theatre is operated entirely by more than 170 unpaid volunteers.

Dan Shrimpton, chair of the board of trustees, says: “We’re using this period of enforced closure to look after and improve the fabric of the building.  The roof repairs need to be completed before we can move on with our major plans to expand the building. 

“The new insulation and solar panels will significantly reduce our operating costs and also the impact we have on the environment. The expansion plans will make our venue even greener and more accessible.”

A peck on the cheek of a teenage Judi Dench from a cheeky young chap at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre is a favourite anecdote among theatre volunteers

The roof has stood the test of time, not needing any major work since the theatre was built 85 years ago.  The Raise The Roof appeal is not the first time it has appeared in a news article, however. In 2012, the Daily Telegraph published the story of a teenage Judi Dench coming down from the roof after watching the sunset with a group of friends. 

One brave young man took the opportunity to sneak a quick kiss on the way down the ladder!  Dame Judi does not remember the name of the cheeky chap, but it is a favourite anecdote among the theatre’s volunteers.

To launch the Raise the Roof campaign, the JoRo has set up a Just Giving page and is encouraging people to donate “even just the amount of a takeaway coffee”.  Go to: justgiving.com/campaign/Raise-the-Roof.

The Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in Haxby Road, York

Did you know?

THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre was built by the Joseph Rowntree Village Trustees as a place for recreation and education for the benefit of Rowntree employees and the York community. 

Seebohm Rowntree opened the Haxby Road theatre in 1935. It remains a vital community asset, run entirely by volunteers for the people of York. A board of 13 trustees and 170 volunteers give 17,000 hours of volunteering time every year. 

Last year, the JoRo put on more than 135 performances, staged by 35 York groups and several professional touring companies.

Theatres, cinemas and concert venues are still closed, but Lockdown is easing. Here are More Things To Do on days in and days out, courtesy of The Press, York. LIST No.8

Can’t wait to get out, like these sled dog racers in Dalby Forest from Tony Batholomew’s online exhibition Forest 100: A Year In The Life? If so, read on…

METRE by metre, Downing Street daily briefing by catch-you-by-surprise Downing Street daily briefing, we are moving closer to the beginning of the end of the 10 Things To See Next Week In York shutdown.

However, there is still no theatre, concert venue or cinema re-opening for the foreseeable future, although cinemas are making plans to do so in July. Watch this ever-shifting space.

In the meantime, amid the loosened-lockdown dawn of summer, when football and horse racing are back, albeit with no crowds, and beaches are back, but too crowded, the search continues for entertainment, enlightenment and exercise at home and farther afield.  

From behind his door, increasingly ajar, CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.

Drive-In Cinema parks up in York next month, but unlike in this poster, viewers will have to stay in, not on, their cars throughout each screening

Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema, Knavesmire, York, July 3 to 5

STATIC cinemas, no, but Boris Johnson’s Government has given the green light to drive-in cinemas with social distancing rules in place.

North Easterners Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema have been quick off the mark to announce a Drive-In Saturday (one for David Bowie fans), and a Friday and Sunday too, from July 3 to 5.

Interaction between staff and customers will be kept to a minimum, with cars parked two metres apart and those attending expected to remain within their vehicles for the duration of the screenings on LED screens with the sound transmitted to car radios.

Four screenings a day are in store, with the film line-up taking in The Jungle Book, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, Frozen 2, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Greatest Showman, A Star Is Born, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction and Joker. Tickets can be booked at dukescinema.epizy.com.

Oh, and if theatres are still closed come December, would there be any takers for a drive-in pantomime?

Rosy Rowley: Reprising her role in the 2012 York Mystery Plays as Mrs Noah in the York Radio Mystery Plays

York Radio Mystery Plays, on BBC Radio York, Sunday mornings throughout June

YORK Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York are collaborating to bring the York Mystery Plays to life on the airwaves on the Sunday Breakfast Show with Jonathan Cowap.

Working remotely from home, a cast of 19 community and professional actors has recorded four 15-minute instalments under the direction of Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.

After Adam And Eve and The Flood Part 1, the series continues with The Flood Part 2 this weekend and Moses And Pharaoh on June 28. Hear the earlier ones at bbc.co.uk/sounds.

York In Flood, 2019, taken by Museum Gardens, from Katherine-of-Yorkshire’s exhibition at Village Gallery, York 

Galleries re-opening…

NO, not the big ones yet, such as York Art Gallery, but among those to announce the re-opening of doors in York this week are Simon Main’s Village Gallery, in Colliergate, and Ann Petherick’s Kentmere House Gallery, in Scarcroft Hill.

Village Gallery is presenting a photographic show by Instagrammer Katherine-of-Yorkshire until August 2. “Katherine regularly posts photographs on Instagram, mainly of York, and usually in black and white, using the camera on her phone to take the photos,” Simon says.

“She manages to convey a deep feeling of peace, even when documenting the major floods in York that happen all too regularly, as well as showing a different perspective of well-known places.”

Open by appointment only until further notice, Kentmere House is displaying A Life In Colour, Work from the Studio of Jack Hellewell, 1920-2000, including unframed pieces never seen before, to mark Hellewell’s centenary. 

North York Moors, by Jack Hellewell, at the re-opened Kentmere House Gallery, York

Mother Shipton’s Pixie Village Trail, Knaresborough

HAVE you ever dreamt of stepping into an utterly enchanted realm, deep in the captivating woodland, filled with fairy rings and secret doorways, where pixies are waiting to play?

If so, at Mother Shipton’s you can tread carefully through the land of the woodland people and keep your eyes peeled as you follow the trail to see their tiny houses.

Visitors will be provided with a trail sheet to explore the natural woodland at their own pace. Please note, open to pre-booked car admissions only, this Pixie Village event will not include any confined spaces and the actors will not be interacting with visitors, in order to reduce large gatherings of crowds and physical contact.

Shed Seven: Rearranging two big outdoors concerts in Yorkshire for their 2021 diary

Seek out the good news

NO York Festival with Madness, Westlife and Lionel Richie at York Sports Club from tomorrow until Sunday. No revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves opening at the SJT tonight for a summer run. No Ronan Keating: Twenty Twenty gig at York Barbican tomorrow.

However, one festival is going ahead, albeit in revised online form, namely the York Early Music Festival, from July 9 to 11, with York countertenor Iestyn Davies’s concert with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny as the stand-out.

Keating’s Twenty Twenty show will now be in Twenty Twenty One, on January 13 to be precise. Meanwhile, York’s Britpop alumni Shed Seven have re-arranged two 2020 outdoor concerts for next year, now playing Doncaster Racecourse post-racing on May 15 2021, rather than August 15 this summer, and headlining an all-Yorkshire bill at the Piece Hall, Halifax, on June 26 2021, instead of the same date this year.

The artwork for Bob Dylan’s new album, Rough And Rowdy, out tomorrow

And what about…

79-YEAR-OLD Bob Dylan’s first album of original songs in eight years, Rough And Rowdy Ways, out tomorrow, on Columbia.  Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher and Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks’s solo debut A Quickening as further album recommendations. Spike Lee’s new Vietnam War film, Da 5 Bloods, streaming on Netflix. The Salisbury Poisonings, on BBC iPlayer, York actor Mark Addy among the cast. Talking Heads, Alan Bennett’s isolation monologues re-visited in Covid-19 times with two new additions, on BBC One from Tuesday.

Gardens at National Trust properties re-opening, such as Beningbrough Hall; bookings only. Val and Emma Carr’s Stanley & Ramona dinky coffee house, in Bishopthorpe Road, serving up coffee and cake again, hurrah.

Walks through the rhododendrons at Forestry England’s Wheldrake Wood and watching out for the tiny toads and frogs at the RSPB’s Fairburn Ings. Tony Bartholomew’s Forest 100: A Year In The Life online exhibition of Dalby Forest from spring 2019 to spring 2020 at forestryengland.uk

York countertenor Iestyn Davies: Performing at the revised 2020 York Early Music Festival on July 9. Picture: Benjamin Ealovega

Copyright of The Press, York

Nigel Slater’s Toast pops up online as animated radio play, Walnut Whips and all

Nigel, meet Nigel: Cookery writer Nigel Slater with Giles Cooper, who played his younger self on stage and will do so again in next month’s radio play and animated film. Picture: Simon Annand

NIGEL Slater’s childhood memoir, Toast, is popping up again, this time online as a radio play and animated film with a recipe card from the cookery writer, from July 1 to 31.

For the full flavour to flood out, to match the interactive, sensory nature of the 2019 stage play, where the smell of food added to the pleasure, “new ways for audiences to feel, hear, smell and taste” Toast will be part of the broadcast experience.

This innovative response to lockdown times is being brought to the air by the Lawrence Batley Theatre, in Huddersfield, “rising to the forefront to make a difference during this cultural shift for a second time in a bid to raise money for the theatre industry when it faces ongoing struggles”.

Already, the West Yorkshire theatre has mounted an online adaptation of The Understudy, Henry Filloux-Bennett’s adaptation of David Nicholls’ 2005 novel. Starring Stephen Fry, it reached international audiences in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Kuwait, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and the United States, as well as in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Working in partnership with The Lowry, Salford, LBT’s Toast will feature the original West End cast, led by Giles Cooper, a close friend of Slater, who will be recording his lines in his London home, where Slater lived when he began writing his award-winning autobiography.

Cooper also played Slater in Toast’s national tour that visited York Theatre Royal last November. Now he reprises the role once more, re-joining, albeit remotely, his London co-stars Lizzie Muncey as Mum, Stephen Ventura as Dad,Marie Lawrence as Joan and Jake Ferretti as Josh, under the direction of Jonnie Riordan again. 

The poster for Nigel Slater’s Toast

Filloux-Bennett’s two-hour adaptation of Slater’s autobiography vividly re-creates his childhood through the tastes and smells he shares with his mother, culminating in the young Nigel’s escape to London. From making the perfect sherry trifle, through the playground politics of sweets, the rigid rules of restaurant dining, and a domestic war over cakes, this tale of love, loss and toast is “A Play About Growing Up. With Food”. 

The cast and creative team involved in Toast are taking part completely in isolation, with the actors’ lines, recorded at home, being brought to life by the sound design team of Alexandra Faye Braithwaite, Annie May Fletcher and Sophie Galpin. 

Commenting on the LBT’s upcoming broadcast, Slater says: “Toast has already had a life as a book, a film and a stage production and I am thrilled to see it in its latest format as an animated radio play.

“To bring the play to such a wide audience is a brilliant idea from the Lawrence Batley Theatre and The Lowry and working with so many of the original production team and cast again has been an absolute joy.”

Writer Filloux-Bennett says: “I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to bring Toast back to this new virtual stage. We were completely blown away by the response the play had from audiences across the country, and we’re so excited that people who weren’t able to catch the play before now can, and that for those who enjoyed it on stage we can bring the story – and the Walnut Whips – back again.”

For more information on how to listen to Toast or watch the animated film next month, go to thelbt.org. Tickets cost £10 to £16 at thelbt.org/shows/nigel-slaters-toast-2/, with those booking for the higher price receiving a package of goodies, including a programme, Nigel Slater recipe card and two Walnut Whips, “so you can have a heart-warming and stomach-filling evening from your front room”. 

The LBY website says: “You will receive an email with a link to the play and recipe card three days prior to the date that you have booked to watch the performance.  If you have selected to receive a programme, recipe card and Walnut Whips, then you will receive these through the post prior to your performance date.”

Here is Charles Hutchinson’s review of Toast from last November

Nigel Slater’s Toast, York Theatre Royal, November 19 to 23 2019 *****

Giles Cooper in his stage role as Nigel Slater in Toast last year

HERE is the challenge facing director Jonnie Riordan. “Think about how long it takes to actually make a piece of toast, and then how do you do that on stage when you’re trying to keep the audience engaged?” he says.

It brings a new meaning to pop-up theatre in York after the summer Elizabeth version at Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, and Riordan and writer Henry Filloux-Bennett have made a wonderful job of adapting cookery writer Nigel Slater’s coming-of-age memoir for the stage.

Like Jonathan Watkins for Matt Haig’s Reasons To Stay Alive, on tour at the Theatre Royal only two weeks ago, Riordan is both director and choreographer. However, whereas Watkins’s show took time to find its footing on a somewhat strange-looking set – was it a crater or a cracked cloud egg? – Toast is sure footed, even light on its feet from the start.

Nigel, our narrator, guides us through his story like Slater’s lovely writing leads you through his recipes and epicurean thoughts in his mellifluous books. Played by the delightful Giles Cooper in schoolboy tank top and short trousers, Nigel is nine and already drawn to the one cookery book in the Slaters’ Wolverhampton home: Marguerite Patten’s ground-breaking Cookery In Colour, a full-colour Sixties’ bolt out of the cordon bleu after the grey gravy of before.

From within the cream and brown Sixties’ kitchen of Libby Watson’s design, Cooper’s Nigel likes to orchestrate all the storytelling, stepping in and out of a scene to converse with the audience, but such is the skill of Filloux-Bennett’s writing that the events of his young life have a habit of pulling the rug from under him. At one point, his mother stops him in his tracks and tells him to re-trace his steps to relate the true, darker version of events.

Attention to detail: Giles Cooper’s Nigel Slater seeks culinary perfection in Toast

There is abundant humour, absolutely true to Slater’s own tone in his books, but the darkness has to break through too, given what happened to Slater in his childhood and teenage years.

His love of food is omnipresent, and yes, we see toast popping up in real time and later Nigel making mushrooms on toast with a chef’s flair and precision in one so young. We enjoy the culinary sensations, and when Nigel is regaling us with the delights of sweets – amid his father’s insistence that certain sweets are for boys, others for girls – bags of sweets are passed around the audience. The real Nigel Slater had a bag by his feet as he sat in the dress circle, by the way!

Food is at the heart of Toast, glorious food and not so glorious food in the case of Nigel’s father’s first attempt at making spaghetti bolognaise, mountains of “sick-smelling” Parmesan dust et al. Part of the joy here  is having our own recollections of mishaps around our own kitchen tables.

Through food too, we see the difference between Nigel’s relationship with his Mum (Katy Federman), pretty much tied to the apron strings, such is their bond, and his abusive Dad (Blair Plant, back at his old Theatre Royal stamping ground).

Into the story comes the dreadful Joan (Samantha Hopkins) and assorted characters played by Stefan Edwards, as the first stirrings of Nigel’s sexuality play out.

Brilliant performances, a superb choice of soundtrack from La Mer to Dusty, and a finale as warm and toasty as toast make Toast a five-star treat, both measured and deeply flavoured like a Nigel Slater recipe.

Review copyright of The Press, York

After the green light for Blue Light and co’s Bag The Bug for the NHS, now comes the red light with 13,757 wash bags in the bag

The Blue Light Theatre Company’s pantomime costume maker, Christine Friend, turning her hand to sewing wash bags for NHS frontline workers

CHRISTINE Friend normally would be making costumes for The Blue Light Theatre Company’s pantomime in York. For the past eight weeks, she has been turning her skills instead to sewing for frontline workers in the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

She is among a group of volunteers from York, Harrogate and Knaresborough that has come together via Facebook to make uniform wash bags out of anything from pillowcases to old duvet covers.

Now the Facebook group Bag The Bug is being wound up because many of the sewers and supporters are going back to work today, having made a total of 13,757 wash bags to donate to care homes, NHS staff, GP surgeries, ambulance stations and hospitals.

“They’ve been making the bags for all our Blue Light Theatre NHS friends and their colleagues and I think it’s amazing they’ve reached that total in only eight weeks,” says Christine’s husband, Mark, actor and publicist for Blue Light Theatre, a company made up of paramedics, ambulance dispatchers, York Hospital staff and members of York’s theatre scene.

Joanne Halliwell and her daughter Abbey, who set up the Bag The Bug group for York, Harrogate and Knaresborough

“The idea is that after a shift, frontline workers can remove their uniform at work, put it straight into the bag, then close it tight and pop it into their washing machine when they get home to prevent cross-contamination.”

The Facebook group Bag The Bug – Covid 19 – York, Harrogate & Knaresborough was set up two months ago by Joanne Halliwell and her daughter Abbey. “They were wanting something to do during lockdown and found a group called Bag The Bug, based in the north west, who were making the bags for NHS staff in Bolton,” says Mark.

“They decided to make some bags too and after talking to the group’s coordinator, they set up a group locally.”

Adrian Deligny: One of the frontline workers who has received a Bag The Bug wash bag

They had an immediate response, from people asking for the bags, others offering to donate material, sew, help to coordinate Bag The Bug and drive for the group.

Among the care workers to receive a bag was Adrian Deligny, who said: “The uniform bag is an excellent idea in order to help stop the spread of the virus at home.

“Before this, I was putting everything in a bin bag, which wasn’t the best. It is important that during these difficult times everybody is united. This project has shown an unparalleled demonstration of solidarity and generosity. My wife and I are extremely grateful.”

Organisations requiring bags had to contact Joanne Halliwell via the group’s Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/groups/240401817107890/ or by emailing bagthebugyhk@gmail.com

York on Flood alert…for second instalment of Radio Mystery Plays on Sunday morning

Director Juliet Forster, second from right, top row, in a Zoom rehearsal for The Flood, part of this summer’s York Radio Mystery Plays

TODAY is Corpus Christi Day, the day when the York Mystery Plays were first performed on wagons on the city streets from dawn until dusk in mediaeval times.

The Covid-19 pandemic scuppered any chance of a wagon production this summer, however, so instead the 2020 Mystery Plays are taking to the airwaves.

Instalment two of the four-part series will be aired on the Sunday Breakfast Show with Jonathan Cowap on BBC Radio York, partners to York Theatre Royal in this debut audio collaboration.

The York Radio Mystery Plays 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.

“The York Mystery Plays are part of the DNA of this city,” says director Juliet Forster, whose production began last weekend with Adam And Eve. “In lockdown, 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 writer 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.

Working remotely from home, a cast of 19 community and professional actors has recorded the 15-minute instalments that continue with The Flood Part 1 on June 14, The Flood Part 2 on June 21 and Moses And Pharaoh on June 28.

“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. 

“Making these radio plays in lockdown has probably been the most challenging thing I’ve ever worked on,” says director Juliet Forster

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.”

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 choosing the cast, Juliet says: “I knew I wanted to involve a mixture of professional and non-professional actors from York, and straightaway I thought of casting Paul Stonehouse as God. He’d been in Two Planks And A Passion and had gone on to gain a professional contract for radio plays for the BBC.

A scene from Two Planks And A Passion, co-directed by Juliet Forster at York Theatre Royal in July 2011

“I knew Mark Holgate from directing him in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the first year of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in York. He has a lovely Yorkshire voice and I knew he’d turned part of his house into a mini-sound studio to do voiceover work.

“I cast him as Noah, and the next role that came into my head was Rosy Rowley for Mrs Noah. She was so amusing in that role in the 2012 Mystery Plays and she brings such an instinctive intelligence to the text.

“I ended up with a cast where I’d worked with almost all of them before, thinking how they all might fit in.”

One exception was Taj Atwal, a recommendation by Tom Bird. “She grew up in York, played Rita in Rita, Sue And Bob Too at the Theatre Royal in November 2017 and was back self-isolating in the city, so she’s playing Eve in Adam And Eve and 3rd Daughter in The Flood instalments,” says Juliet.

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.

“It might depend on the day of the week you ask me, but I would say that making these radio plays in lockdown has probably been the most challenging thing I’ve ever worked on,” says Juliet.

“Normally, when I’m in a rehearsal room, I like to guide, but not be too instructive, not telling them exactly what to do; it’s more flexible that way, whereas with this project, there was no chance to do that as we were all rehearsing in isolation, gathering on Zoom, rather than in a room.

“When it came to the recordings, done alone at home, on a number of occasions, I would send a note by email or phone them to say ‘could you re-do that line with more of this or more sense of that?’.

“On top of that, I had to get my head around each play, thinking about how they needed to be adapted for radio recordings and what did I want I want to get out of the project. All the actors have been so generous, knowing how difficult it would be to do a production in these circumstances, so it’s been a real challenge but also really exciting.”

So much so, Juliet would welcome the opportunity to do further Mystery Plays radio recordings. “But first we’ll see what the response is to the first series…” she says.

That series rolls on this weekend. If you missed Adam And Eve, would you believe it, in addition to the early-morning broadcasts on Jonathan Cowap’s Sunday show, the radio plays can be heard on BBC Sounds at bbc.co.uk/sounds.