Category: Theatre

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Taylor-made for panto stage from Emily’s scene-stealing impromptu debut at five

Emily Taylor: Lighting up the York Stage pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, in the transformation scene. Picture: Kirkpatrick Photography

EMILY Taylor was cut out for the stage from her first moment in the spotlight at the age of five.

Now the York dance tutor, regular dance captain and choreographer for myriad Grand Opera House pantomimes is starring in York Stage’s debut pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk.

She forms part of the all-action ensemble with Danielle Mullan and Matthew Ives in writer-director Nik Briggs’s production at the Covid-secure, socially distanced, beanstalk-staired Theatre @41 Monkgate.

Here Emily answers Charles Hutchinson’s scattergun questions on pantomimes past, present and future, heroes, villains and fairies, 2020 and 2021.

What was the first pantomime you ever saw and what do you recall of it?

“Cinderella at the Grand Opera House, York. Frazer Hines was Buttons and I was about five years old. We were seated in a box closest to the stage and in the song sheet, when they asked for children to go up on stage, my Dad lifted me over the edge so I could run up.

“We did I Am The Music Man and they kept me up as the last child to finish it by myself. That was my first ever panto experience and my first ever time on stage.” 

What was your first pantomime role?

“Grumpy the dwarf in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.”

What has been your favourite pantomime role?

“I’ve LOVED all of my years as a dancer. However, I think covering for Debbie McGee as Fairy in Beauty And The Beast when she was doing Strictly, and getting to work alongside the lovely Lynne McGranger, was a highlight. I really enjoy the acting part of things.”

Who have you not yet played in pantomime that you would love to play and why?

“I’d love to actually play the  Fairy for a full run, or at the other end of the scale, an evil queen/baddie role.” 

Who is your favourite pantomime performer and why?

“I’ve worked with so many people whose talent I admire and have learnt so much from watching how different people work. As a teenager, I worked with Michael Starke, as the Emperor of China, who was totally professional, hard working, and just a genuinely lovely person. Although, after this show, I feel like I may have some new favourites!”

This year’s pantomime will be an experience like no other…what are your expectations of performing a show in these strange circumstances?

“This year’s show is already filled with so much joy and appreciation from us all as a cast. I’m hoping the audience will share that joy with us – everyone will just be so happy to see live theatre again.

“The performance space is much more intimate here, which brings a whole new element to it.”

Emily Taylor in the York Stage pantomime slapstick scene with Alex Weatherhill’s Dame Nanna Trott. Picture: Kirkpatrick Photography


Which pantomime role should Boris Johnson play and why?

“Hmmmmm…maybe the Genie of the Ring. They often have a lot of power but are not quite sure how to use it in the best way. A difficult situation to be in!”

Who or what has been the villain of 2020?

“Covid-19.”

Who or what has been the fairy of 2020? 

“Nik Briggs. 100 per cent!!!!!”

How would you sum up 2020 in five words?

“Enlightening. Chance to re-evaluate priorities.”

What are your wishes for 2021?

“For Covid to be under control or, even better, be gone completely, so that I can give my Mum and Dad a hug! I also want to perform as much as possible if I can. 2020 has certainly cemented just how much I love the theatre.”

What are your hopes for the world of theatre in 2021?

“For theatre to return quickly and safely and things to get back to normal, but with a whole new level of appreciation, as soon as possible.”

York Stage presents Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, until January 3 2021.

Show times: December 15 and 16, 7pm; December 18, 7pm (sold out); December 19, 11am, 2pm (sold out) and 7pm; December 20, 11am, 1pm (sold out) and 6pm; December 21, 7pm; December 22, 2pm (sold out) and 7pm; December 23, 11am, 2pm (sold out) and 7pm; Christmas Eve, December 24, 11am, 1pm (sold out) and 5pm (sold out).

Boxing Day, December 26, 11am, 2pm (sold out) and 7pm; December 27, 11am, 1pm (sold out) and 6pm; December 28, 11am, 2pm (sold out) and 7pm; December 29 and 30, 2pm and 7pm; New Year’s Eve, December 31, 12 noon. 

Box office: online only at yorkstagepanto.com. Please note, audiences will be seated in household/support bubble groupings only. 

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Pocklington Arts Centre to stream Magic Carpet Theatre’s clown show Magic Circus

Jon Marshall as the Ringmaster and Steve Collison as a clown in Magic Carpet Theatre’s Magic Circus

POCKLINGTON Arts Centre is to stream Magic Carpet Theatre’s show Magic Circus from December 19, available online for up to seven days.

Thanks to a grant of £4,100 from the East Yorkshire’s I Am Fund, via the HEY Smile Foundation, the Hull company performed both Magic Circus and The Wizard Of Castle Magic behind closed doors at PAC, filmed by Pocklington production company Digifish. 

Families accessing the People’s Pantry food banks in Pocklington, Market Weighton and Holme-on-Spalding-Moor will be the first to receive an exclusive free link to watch Magic Circus, or a free DVD copy of the show, before it is rolled out to other food banks across the East Riding. 

PAC director Janet Farmer says: “With our national reputation for presenting high-quality children’s theatre and workshops, we have really missed being able to offer our family theatre programme to our audiences this year, especially at a time when we would traditionally be enjoying the build-up to our popular pantomime. 

“So, we are delighted to be able to bring the magic and joy of live theatre to our younger audiences through the power of live streaming.” 

Janet continues: “The funding we have secured will enable us to develop an enhanced online presence, with the long-term aim being to see sustained arts engagement from younger generations during the pandemic and increased attendance at PAC events when we are eventually able to re-open our doors. We are extremely grateful to the I Am Fund and the HEY Smile Foundation for making this possible.  

“We hope the show will bring a bit of happiness and cheer to families after what has been an incredibly tough year and we think it makes for the perfect run-up to Christmas.”

PAC plans to release The Wizard Of Castle Magic in time for February half-term, and as part of the project too, PAC intends to offer online workshops next year. 

Magic Carpet Theatre are Pocklington Arts Centre favourites, noted for their circus skills, magic and audience participation, and have staged numerous sold-out events there.

“We hope the show will bring a bit of happiness and cheer to families after what has been an incredibly tough year,” says Pocklington Arts Centre director Janet Farmer

Directed by Jon Marshall with music by Geoff Hardisty and effects by Theatrical Pyrotechnics, the first online show, Magic Circus, is a fast-moving, colourful story that combines magical illusions, comedy, circus skills and puppets.

It tells the humorous tale of what happens to the ringmaster’s planned extravaganza after the artistes and elephants fail to arrive and everything has to be left in the hands of the clowns. Disaster!

Inevitably, they make a fantastically messy job of it as Magic Carpet Theatre take traditional circus and variety skills, dust them down and invest them with new life, moulding them into a mystifying hour-long play with a circus theme.

The second show, The Wizard Of Castle Magic, based on the traditional Sorcerer’s Apprentice tale, will enchant audiences aged three to 11 and their families with a script full of comedy, illusion and special theatrical effects. 

Heather Davidson, chair of the People’s Pantry for Pocklington, Market Weighton and Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, says: “We are delighted that our families will be among the first to get exclusive access to these shows. 

“It’s just really nice to offer them something else at Christmas other than a food parcel. While we are looking after the food parcel side of things, PAC is looking after the social side of things, which will hopefully bring a little bit of happiness to families that need it at this time of year.”

Magic Circus can be watched online for free on the Pocklington Arts Centre YouTube channel from 2.30pm on Saturday(19/12/2020).

The Wizard Of Castle Magic will be available to stream via YouTube from 2.30pm on Thursday, February 18 2021. 

Donations in support of Pocklington Arts Centre can be made at: justgiving.com/crowdfunding/magic-carpet-theatre

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Joseph Rowntree Theatre launches virtual bucket shake fundraiser with rewards

The Theatres Trust poster for the virtual bucket shake initiative

THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in York, is taking part in the Theatres Trust national initiative to raise funds via a virtual bucket shake this festive season.

Donations will help to replace income lost in the grip of the pandemic. The Haxby Road theatre is asking supporters to help the JoRo to make sure it can welcome visiting performers and audiences to shows in 2021 by donating to a virtual bucket and then claiming a reward on the Crowdfunder page.

Dan Shrimpton, chair of trustees, says: “We’re facing an enormous loss of income from ticket sales, merchandise and ice creams, as well as missing out on the opportunity for a traditional bucket collection. This is why we’d like to invite you to take part in a virtual bucket collection this panto season.”

A retro-style illustration of the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, aptly an Art Deco building, by York artist Elliot Harrison (alias York 360), available as a greeting card and print as a reward in the virtual bucket shake

The virtual bucket shake has been launched in advance of the JoRo reopening this weekend for Oddsocks Productions’ A Christmas Carol on Saturday at 3pm and 7.30pm and the Steve Cassidy Band on Sunday at 7.30pm. For tickets, go to: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/

Supporters can access the Crowdfunder page at crowdfunder.co.uk/virtual-bucket-shake-for-joseph-rowntree-theatre. Rewards on offer include teddy bears, theatre tote bags and greetings cards and prints of the JoRo.

You also can be a theatre elf or a theatre angel for a small donation, with donors being acknowledged on the theatre’s website.

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Bah, Humbug to Covid. Nothing can stop Oddsocks bringing A Christmas Carol to Joseph Rowntree Theatre on Saturday

Ah, humbug…An unexpectedly sweet moment for Andy Barrow’s Scrooge in Oddsocks Productions’ A Christmas Carol

NO year can go by without jocund joshers Oddsocks Productions playing the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in York, not even a Covid-compromised year.

Sure enough, the madcap Derby company return on Saturday for 60 minutes of socially distanced, slapstick-heavy festive fun with their very fast-moving adaptation of a Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol.

Make that 120 minutes because there will be two performances, the first at 3pm, the second at 7.30pm.

“Experience the ghostly tale of greed and comeuppance from the safety of your own table for up to six,” comes the Oddsocks invitation.

“Has Scrooge had his last humbug? Will he join the festive carollers and get some figgy pudding? Will Tiny Tim warm his stone-cold heart?” they ask.

“Find out when Oddsocks serve up a Victorian feast of a family show in their own inimitable style using comedy, music and song.”

Oddsocks’ cracking crack at A Christmas Carol combines ghostly puppets from puppeteer Josh Elwell (CBeebies, Disney and The Jim Henson Company) with Oddsocks actor/director Andy Barrow as Scrooge and Joseph Maudsley (Ratty in Oddsocks’ The Wind In The Willows) as Bob Cratchit, also introducing Harrie Dobby to the Oddsocks family as Mrs Cratchit. 

Suitable for all from age seven upwards, A Christmas Carol will be performed without an interval but Humbug galore at the Covid-secure JoRo Theatre. Tickets are on sale at: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/all-shows/a-christmas-carol/1327# or on 01904 501935.

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First Martin Barrass loses one panto, now he loses another as outdoor show is off

Martin Barrass, attired in the late Bev Jones’s favourite colours of black and pink, is pictured publicising the now-cancelled Strictly Christmas Live In The Park

STRICTLY Xmas Live In The Park, with a singalong songsheet led by York pantomime perennial Martin Barrass, is off.

Organiser Lesley Jones confirmed the cancellation of Sunday’s open-air Bev Jones Music Company show at the Rowntree Park amphitheatre on Facebook.

“It is with huge sadness I have had to cancel the Xmas Concert on Sunday 13th. External circumstances forced the decision,” she revealed.

Charlotte Wood in the role of Silly Billy for Bev Jones Music Company’s Strictly Christmas Live In The Park

“However, we will be singing at Tesco, Askham Bar, on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th December from 1.30pm. Look out for our 2021 calendar. Thank you all as ever.”

In an earlier post, she wrote: “For many, many reasons we are beaten in this strangest of years! We must confess that we have taken the hardest decision to cancel our Strictly Live In The Park.

“You all know how I do always my best to give you the show I promise, but Covid, Tiers, illness, personal etc etc….force the decision.

The cast of Strictly Christmas Live In The Park, with Marin Barrass, front, centre, gathers for a socially distanced early rehearsal

“All ticket monies will be refunded in full. Roll on 2021. Keep in touch, join our Bev Jones Music Group page to find out what’s next.”

On November 29, Lesley had expressed excitement at the upcoming show’s progress. “Only two weeks to go! Tier 2 means we have the green light and we are good to go!” she posted

Strictly Xmas Live in The Park would have added up to a “3 in 1 Xmas experience” with Christmas songs through the decades, carols by candlelight and a one-of-a-kind, specially written pantomime,  Once Upon A Pud.

Martin Barrass, Dame Berwick’s stalwart comic stooge, was already missing out on the Covid-cancelled Kaler comeback in Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House. Now he has to forego leading the pantomime section of Strictly Xmas Live In The Park on Sunday afternoon too.

What? No show? Alas not for Melissa Boyd’s Princess and Terry Ford’s villain in the pantomime section of Bev Jones Music Company’s Strictly Xmas In The Park

In the Covid-secure, socially distanced performance, Martin would have reactivated his first ever song-sheet in a York Theatre Royal panto – all about Yorkshire Puddings – as well as telling a few seasonal jokes.

Joining him in the festive concert’s panto sequence would have been Melissa Boyd’s Princess, Terry Ford’s villain and Charlotte Wood’s Silly Billy, plus a Dame, Fairy Godmother, Prince Charming and Jack Ass.

Favourite Christmas songs, such as Santa Baby, Jingle Bell Rock and Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?, and a visit from Father Christmas were in Sunday’s programme too. All audience members were to be temperature tested on arrival and placed into family private bubble areas.

Rehearsals were booked in for Rufforth Institute Hall, socially distanced and under a full Covid risk assessment. 

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Jordan Fox’s return to the stage as Jack is a dream true after anything but Beautiful year

“He’s just a dreamer, who wants to be up in the clouds,” says Jordan Fox of playing Jack. “I can get on board with that: I’m an actor; I can get lost in stories” Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

EVERYTHING should have been Beautiful for Jordan Fox in 2020.

“I was in the tour of Beautiful, the Carole King musical, at the start of the year, and then that got cancelled by the pandemic lockdown,” says the West End actor from West Yorkshire. “The tour had been such fun, but when I got back to London from Cardiff, I got the email to say ‘Don’t go to the next theatre’.”

Based in London for the past couple of years, starring in Kinky Boots and Friendsical, the Friends-parodying musical, Jordan has moved back to Yorkshire in lockdown.

Now he finds himself in the title role – Jack, not the allotment staple – in York Stage’s pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, from Friday at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York.

“Me and Nik [writer-director Nik Briggs] went to university together at Bretton Hall [the Grade 2 listed building on the Yorkshire Sculpture Park estate, near Wakefield]. It was like Hogwarts! I loved it!” says Jordan, who studied there from 2006 to 2009.

“I was in the first year when Nik was in the second year and we ended up doing some projects together and getting on really well.”

Now 32, Jordan says: “We’ve chatted a few times, but because he’s based in York and I’ve been in London we’ve kind of missed each other’s paths. So, it feels really lovely to be doing this panto.

“Nik messaged me and said, ‘I know you’re based in London but we’re looking for Yorkshire actors’, and I said, ‘well, I’m coming back, can I do it?’.”

Jordan was born in Bradford and grew up in Huddersfield and his family now lives in Holmfirth. “I’ve moved back home, living with my partner in Holmfirth, and if I get a West End show again, I’ll rent down there and keep the house up here,” he says.

He performed in Lawrence Batley Theatre pantomimes in Huddersfield in his childhood. “Then, in 2014-2015, I was Peter Pan in Peter Pan with Dean Gaffney as my Captain Hook, and now I’m doing Jack And The Beanstalk, so I’ve had a green theme to my pantos, it seems!”

Deep into tech week now for his role as Jack, Jordan says: “The great thing that Nik has done with the script is that he’s really massively acknowledged the present pandemic situation, with all the social distancing.

Feeling good to be back: Jordan Fox in an early rehearsal for York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

“We make lots of references: we can air-hug, play air guitar, without us breaking any rules. We’re using a traverse stage design too [with the audience seated in bubbles to either side], and we can really fill that space in a different way when, even though we can’t do traditional panto things, we can figure out new ways and it’s always nice to do that.”

Jordan is enjoying reacquainting himself with the pantomime world for a second time. “For me, there was a really big gap between doing it when I was young and then getting back into it for Peter Pan, and now it’s good to be doing it again,” he says.

“I love the simple fairy-tales, the silliness of it all, whereas normally [with musicals] you don’t ever have the free rein to do anything like that. With panto, if something goes wrong, it’s great to be able to include the audience in it.”

As for playing Jack, Jordan says: “As I’ve read him, he’s northern, probably sounding like I did before going to London! I’ll be letting my Yorkshire heritage take over.

“He’s just a dreamer, who wants to be up in the clouds. I can get on board with that: I’m an actor; I can get lost in stories! Jack is simplistic in his ideals, not weighed down by anything. Instead of the norms of adulthood, he’s still letting himself dream, which we can all connect with.”

Dreams have been put on hold in Covid-19 2020. “It was so disorientating when Beautiful stopped. A lot of actors, when we’re not working in shows, work in bars, teach kids, do gigs, basically anything where there’s a crowd, but because everything stopped, it was an anxiety-ridden couple of months,” says Jordan.

“It felt like the world falling from beneath you, but luckily I had some savings, and I started doing some ‘assisting engineering’ work, basically handing people tools.”

Then came Nik’s invitation to climb a beanstalk in a York theatre. “This is a dream come true and I’m so happy to be here,” says Jordan. “It’s been so frustrating for the theatre world this year, when it seems like the Government doesn’t make the effort to go and get someone like [theatre producer] Cameron Mackintosh to ‘tell us what we should be doing’.”

Treading the boards once more at last, Jordan says: “When you come to a show, you never leave the theatre the same person as when you arrived, and that’s what we’ve all been missing.”

Dare to dream, like Jack, like Jordan, of better times ahead. In the meantime, enjoy the uplift, the joy, the daftness, of pantomime.

York Stage presents Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, from December 11 to January 3; show times, Monday to Saturday, 2pm and 7pm; Sundays, 1pm and 6pm; Christmas Eve, 12 noon and 5pm; New Year’s Eve, 12 noon. Box office: online only at yorkstagepanto.com. Please note, audiences will be seated in household/support bubble groupings only. 

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Livvy returns home to cast her spell over York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk panto

Livvy Evans: Returning to her home city to wave her wand as Fairy Mary in York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

MARCH 17, London. York-born musical actress Livvy Evans is one day away from the opening of her West End role in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical at the Aldwych Theatre.

“After two weeks of tech rehearsals, we were getting ready to open, but instead we got called in to say the theatre would be closing immediately,” she recalls, now sitting in a different theatre, back in the home city she left 13 years ago, as she prepares to play Fairy Mary in York Stage’s socially distanced, Covid-secure Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre @ 41 Monkgate, York.

Livvy went from Simply The Best to simply the worst of times, as the Coronavirus pandemic left the West End deserted for month after month. “Initially, we expected to go back after a few weeks, but at the last meeting we had with the company managers they told us ticket sales were being taken off for January and February and now, as with most shows, they’re aiming for a spring reopening,” she says. In other words, at least a year of gathering cobwebs will have passed.

In her professional career, Livvy has been “lucky enough to pretty much go from theatre job to theatre job” in such shows as Soho Cinders, Motown at the Shaftesbury Theatre and UK tours of Sister Act and Ghost: The Musical. “When I have had a time where I haven’t worked, I’ve done nannying support in special needs, and I get a lot from it; it’s much more fulfilling than working in restaurants,” she says.

“But right now there just aren’t the jobs available for actors that they might otherwise tend to do in the quiet times, such as teaching or working in bars,” she adds, on top of the blow of no furlough pay. “And we’re being asked to go back for less pay and fewer shows when we do re-start.”

Glory be that Nik Briggs came a’calling, offering Livvy the chance to join his Jack And The Beanstalk company for the panto season. “It must have been the beginning of September, and at that point it still hadn’t been confirmed that Tina wouldn’t be opening this year,” Livvy recalls.

“So, I could only say ‘hopefully’, and I’d need to get permission from the Tina company, so it all took a long time. But once we knew Tina wouldn’t be opening, I said to Nik, ‘I’d love to do it’. I’ve been a professional for many years, but since leaving for London, I’ve never done a professional show in York. Leeds, yes, Bradford, yes, but not York.”

Brought up in Huntington, Livvy moved south to train in musical theatre on a full scholarship at Arts Educational, in Chiswick, London, in 2008. “I normally only spend four or five days in York, but this year it’ll be six weeks, which will be lovely,” she says.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played Fairy before, and the only panto princess I’ve done was Jasmine in Aladdin at the Grand Opera House in 2006 with Syd Little and Michael Starke, who I then did Sister Act with. I remember he used to call me his ‘little Peking duck, his little dumpling’ in the panto!”

Livvy will be performing with York Stage for the first time. “Strangely, I never did a York Stage Musicals show when I was young, but I did a lot of the summer school youth projects with Simon Barry at the Grand Opera House, doing my first professional job in Aladdin on the back of playing Audrey in Little Shop Of Horrors,” she recalls.

“I liked being put in with the older group for York Musical Theatre Company shows, working with Paul Laidlaw and Jim Welsman – and I loved playing little Kate Mullins in the British premiere of Titanic: The Musical for that company.”

As opening night of Jack And The Beanstalk approaches fast on Friday, Livvy says:  “It’s great to be in York, especially at this time of year, back in the house I grew up in, and I’ve never been so excited to be playing the Fairy, spreading joy to everyone, although she’s a no-nonsense fairy! As everyone keeps saying, I’m going to be the talk of my niece’s playground!”

York Stage presents Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, from December 11 to January 3; show times, Monday to Saturday, 2pm and 7pm; Sundays, 1pm and 6pm; Christmas Eve, 12 noon and 5pm; New Year’s Eve, 12 noon. Box office: online only at yorkstagepanto.com. Please note, audiences will be seated in household/support bubble groupings only. 

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REVIEW: Theatre Royal’s travelling show for the people rescues the essence of panto

Switched on at all times: Robin Simpson’s joke-generation dame lights up York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime. All pictures: Ant Robling

REVIEW: York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, New Earswick Folk Hall, York, 5/12/2020

NO Rolling Stones show goes by without rock’n’roll’s greatest paleontological survivor, Keith Richards, leaning into his microphone to mumble: “It’s good to be here…it’s good to be anywhere”.

Lo and behold, “It’s great to be here…it’s kind of great to be anywhere,” says York Theatre Royal Travelling Pantomime’s comic turn, Josh “Just Joshing” Benson, at the outset of Saturday evening’s Covid-secure, socially distanced, temperature-tested, bubble-seated pantomime.

How right he is. Saturday was day four of the new dawn of the York Theatre Royal pantomime, the  first after 40 years in the wildness of the Dame Berwick Kaler era. Until Covid-19 became the joyless new villain, out to destroy the land of theatre, Cinderella was to have marked the transition from Kaler capers to a new partnership with regular Great British Pantomime Award winners Evolution Productions.

On his knees but not for long: York Theatre Royal’s inexhaustible pantomime comic turn Josh Benson

When invitations to the ball turned to cinders, chief executive Tom Bird, creative director Juliet Forster and Evolution writer-director Paul Hendy decided to tear up the script and compose three new ones instead to take the panto to the people.

Hence it is indeed great to be here, there and everywhere, because, while the Theatre Royal main stage awaits resuscitation in 2021, the Travelling Pantomime will definitely be pitching up at 16 of York’s 21 wards, possibly more if Covid-safe passage can yet be guaranteed to others. At least four more shows are being lined up for after Christmas and a recording of the second-night preview will be made available for streaming soon too.

On Saturday, New Earswick Folk Hall was transformed into a theatre for the first time, creating an impromptu stage with Hannah Sibai’s red-curtained, green-framed travelling theatre frontage and a traditional pantomime backdrop.

It’s all about the bass: York Theatre Royal’s multi-tasking fairy, singing captain and musician Anna Soden

Everything is slimmed down – a cast of five, no ensemble, no live band, no interval, no panto cow, but less just means being more inventive and cramming so much into what we are told will be an hour but stretches gladly well beyond.

Edinburgh Fringe shows work to tight running times, and quality, not quantity, rules here too. To Paul Hendy, that means bottling up the “the essence of panto” and right now, in Covid-19 2020, that essence is Joy.

Once we are introduced not just to Just Josh’s rubber-bodied comic, but also Robin Simpson’s classic dame, Faye Campbell’s modern hero, super-tall Reuben Johnson’s villain and Anna Soden’s trumpet/guitar/bass-playing fairy, we must vote for our choice of show: Dick Whittington, Jack And The Beanstalk or Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Seven dwarves, note; there is a knock-out joke a’coming.

Hitting the Jack-pot: Faye Campbell’s super hero in Jack And The Beanstalk

Jack won out on Saturday: Josh becoming, well, Josh, with the daftest streak of blond in his hair since Kevin Petersen pummelled 158 against Australia with a skunk plonked on his bonce in 2005. He is a lovably daft ball of energy, cheeky but not saucy, and if he kept his magic tricks up his sleeve this time, what an asset for the future.

Simpson, on loan from Huddersfield’s  Lawrence Batley Theatre, is the penniless but pun-full, mirthful Dame Trott, reaching for both a cuppa and the gin; Johnson, all in black with a dash of red to match his Russian accent, is a Flesh Creep with an amusingly dismissive air and a mischievous hint of Borat.

Campbell’s Jack must fight the old prejudices against girls being fit for purpose for heroic tasks while keeping the name Jack. Soden’s rapping, funky, blue and pink-haired Fairy is more likely to hit the bass line than wave a wand, as flashy as her lit-up boots.

Kill-joy: Reuben Johnson’s Flesh Creep in Jack And The Beanstalk

Juliet Forster directs with momentum, brio and thrills rather than frills, complemented by Hayley Del Harrison’s fun, compact choreography and musical director James Harrison’s rapid-fire bursts of high-energy songs.

Yes, there is a beanstalk and a Giant called Pundemic. Above all, York Theatre Royal have hit the jackpot with Paul Hendy’s script-writing prowess, love of a double-act routine and a knowingly contrived, convoluted path to a pay-off line.

He handles the pandemic crisis with a success rate to make the Government jealous, throwing in topical references galore with witty, often unpredictable Pandemime punchlines, but nothing insensitive in such traumatic times.

Writer Paul Hendy: Bottling the essence of pantomime, labelled with joy

A magazine title slapstick to-and-fro between Benson and Simpson is already a contender for panto scene of the year, and if there are jokes for adults, Hendy favours a Gilbert O’Sullivan song title, rather than adult material or in-jokes.

Pantomime 1, Pandemic 0, the Travelling Pantomime triumphs on its already sold-out run to December 23. Hendy will be back next winter for the full Evolution to roll out; Benson is due to return to the Victoria Theatre panto in Halifax next Christmas, alas, but his Theatre Royal day will surely come, even if he can’t magic his way out of that one.

Review by Charles Hutchinson

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Milton Rooms in Malton relaunches donations appeal to boost funds

MIlton Rooms, Malton: Seeking donations via Go Fund Me

VACCINATIONS to fight coronavirus are around the corner, but the focus at the Milton Rooms in Malton is on another form of help: donations.

The Market Place community and entertainment venue has spent a large part of 2020 closed under lockdown restrictions, with only a limited reopening in September and October for several socially distanced events.

The Milton Rooms is a charitable trust run by a board of trustees and operated by volunteers, who have spent much of lockdown giving the venue a spruce-up and planning the programme of events for when restrictions are lifted.

Faced by little income coming in, help from the community is needed to meet the considerable costs of keeping the building running, not least insurance and utility bills.

Hence the Milton Rooms has relaunched its Go Fund Me appeal to help in that task until running a full programme of events for the benefit of the community can be resumed. Visit gofundme.com/f/the-milton-rooms-charity to donate.

Chairman Ray King says: “It costs a significant amount to maintain the Milton Rooms, and during the Covid-19 emergency we’ve been unable to run a full programme of events and those we have been able to run have been with a limited audience.

“So, we’re asking our local community to help support us. I do realise how difficult it is for everyone at the moment but all help would be welcomed.”

Venue manager Lisa Rich says: “We were delighted to re-open our doors in September, following nearly six months of closure and received amazing feedback from our audiences. 

“We welcomed back some familiar faces with Ryedale Blues Club and Craft & Chat and worked within our community to assist local groups in being able to restart their events safely within our venue.

“However, at the beginning of November, we had to sadly close our doors once more and now we have the new tier [Tier 2] system in place for probably some time. The Milton Rooms is a vital community hub and we are asking for support to help us to survive this most challenging of times. 

“We look forward to welcoming our audiences and users back in the very near future and are working on a diverse and dynamic programme of events for when we’re able to reopen fully.”

Three Covid-secure, socially distanced events will be going ahead in December. Both performances of Magical Quests North’s festive children’s show, Emerald The Elf And Father Christmas, on December 13 at 10.30am and 12 noon, have sold out.

Tickets are still available, however, for Taphouse Burnout’s 7.30pm acoustic concert on December 19 and Dickens – The Man Who Invented Christmas?’’, a fun look at the history of Christmas customs and how Charles Dickens influenced modern-day festivities on the afternoon of December 20.

For tickets, go to: themiltonrooms.com/events. For enquiries on hiring the Milton Rooms, email info@themiltonrooms.com.

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REVIEW: The Seven Deadly Sins, Opera North at Leeds Playhouse, livestream, November 21 to 23

Dancer Shelley Eva Haden’s Anna II and mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta’s Anna I in Gary Clarke’s Opera North production of The Seven Deadly Sins. Picture: Tristram Kenton

TWO weeks before this Gary Clarke production of Weill’s ballet chanté was due to go into rehearsal, the second Lockdown was announced, making the planned live performance – in a double bill with Acis And Galatea– an impossibility.

So, Acis was quickly dropped and a new physically distanced livestream became the order of the day. Without the normal lead-times, this was a tall order. Clarke rapidly conceived Anna (Anna I, the singer and Anna II, the dancer) and her family as German immigrants fleeing Hitler and thus displaced from the start.

George Johnson-Leigh’s set, imagined as an abandoned film studio, assigned a separate dais or “box” for each sin, with the family displaced into the no-man’s land between the boxes every time the two Annas changed city.

A large Hollywood sign at the back of the set thus pointed the contrast between that promised land, still booming in the 1930s, and the privations of the Depression – and, of course, current stringencies.

The contrast between the two Annas was not quite as strong as it might have been, partly because their roles were filled by two equally fetching performers. Canadian mezzo Wallis Giunta’s Anna I, supposedly the thinker and practical half of her personality, seemed to be enjoying, almost revelling, in the travelogue.

“Wallis Giunta is an actress of many hues and, when her tone is as focused as this, irresistible”. Picture: Tristram Kenton

Whereas a deeper pain was etched into the features of dancer Shelley Eva Haden’s Anna II, as she learnt to moderate her wilfulness to suit the paying customers on their tour.

But the paradox at the heart of this morality tale, about what you need to do to accumulate wealth, could not have been clearer: “Conquer your weaker self to conquer the world”, in Michael Feingold’s translation, sung under a shower of dollar bills. Only the temptations themselves might have been writ larger, although that would be hard to envisage in present conditions.

Giunta was on top form, forthright, even bossy, when need be but able to mine a deep nostalgia in the epilogue. She is an actress of many hues and, when her tone is as focused as this, irresistible.

Haden was no less versatile and utterly tireless. To Clarke’s choreography, she ranged the whole spectrum of dance, from the extravagance of Busby Berkeley (in a splendid, giant-sized feather headdress) in Anger, to Pavlova’s tutu-clad Dying Swan immediately afterwards in Gluttony.

She reached a manic peak parodying punk anarchist dancer Valeska Gert. Her brief spoken interjections were pleasingly clear.

Nicholas Butterfield as Brother and Dean Robinson as Mother in Opera North’s The Seven Deadly Sins. Picture: Tristram Kenton

The family quartet – tenors Nicholas Butterfield and Stuart Laing, baritone Dean Robinson and bass Campbell Russell – carried off their solo work as well as they blended, notably in the Sloth motet and the prayerful strictures of Lust. The ending was suitably ambivalent.

James Holmes, editor of the critical edition of Weill’s orchestral works and former Head of Music at this company, could not have been a better choice as conductor. The differentiation in styles was masterly and the playing, by 15 instruments in a reduced version by H K Gruber and Christian Muthspiel, had a succulent clarity.

It was just a pity that the low camera angles precluded much sight of the orchestra, although it was on stage. This is a minor reservation in the face of such an admirable achievement against near-impossible odds.

Finally, my special thanks to two patient members of the press office, Elizabeth Simmonds and Rowland Thomas, for bailing me out of a technological nightmare. Bring back live performance …                                                                                   

Review by Martin Dreyer

https://ondemand.operanorth.co.uk/productions/the-seven-deadly-sins-2020/.