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More Things To Do in York and beyond as new beetle invasion blazes a trail. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 32, from The Press, York

The Delma Tomlin sculpture in the York Trailblazers trail of tansy beetle artworks

TRAILBLAZERS in beetle form, Georgian festivities, colliery band dramas, and riverside art take Charles Hutchinson in different directions in the week ahead.

Trail of the week: York Trailblazers, around York city centre, August 1 to September 30

FACT of the day: the river Ouse has the largest population of tansy beetles in the United Kingdom. Now sculptures of these insects form a new trail, York Trailblazers, a celebration of York’s unsung heroes mounted by York Civic Trust and Make It York with National Lottery Heritage Fund support.

Nominated by the public and community groups, the Trailblazers project highlights remarkable individuals who have made a difference to people’s lives either locally or globally. 

Author Terry Deary: Introducing his new novel at the York Georgian Festival this evening

Festival of the week: York Georgian Festival, today to Sunday

THE second York Georgian Festival opens tomorrow, when Horrible Histories author Terry Deary’s 6pm showcase of his new novel, A History Of Britain In Ten Enemies, will be an early highlight. 

Tours, talks and fascinating hidden Georgian gems will be at the heart of the festival. The first York Georgian Ball will be held at the Grand Assembly Rooms (now home to the ASK Italian restaurant) on Saturday at 7pm. Look out for Mad Alice’s Rogues Gallery Tour around the city at 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. For the full programme and tickets, head to: yorkgeorgianfestival.co.uk.

Brass band blues: A scene from Brassed Off at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough

Play of the week outside York: Brassed Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tomorrow (2/8/2024) to August 31 

ADAPTED for the stage by Paul Allen from the 1996 screenplay by York filmmaker Mark Herman, Brassed Off takes to the stage in a co-production by Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre and Bolton’s Octagon Theatre, directed by Liz Stevenson.

The setting is 1994, ten years after the miners’ strike, when the tight-knit mining community of Grimley, Yorkshire, is fighting to keep the colliery open. Once the uncertainty around the pit’s future becomes too much for the pit band members, loyalty is tested, pressure mounts and the community begins to break apart. Can the band find a way to play on? Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Yard Act: Leeds art rock band play in their backyard on Saturday. Picture: Phoebe Fox

Leeds gig of the week: Yard Act, Here’s Our Utopia, Leeds Millennium Square, August 3, doors 6pm; 10.30pm finish

LEEDS art rock band Yard Act play their biggest gig yet on home turf at Leeds Millennium Square this weekend in the wake of the March release of second album Where’s My Utopia?.

Co-produced by James Smith’s indie quartet and Gorillaz member Remi Kabaka Jr, the album peaked at number four, following the number two success and Mercury Prize shortlisting of 2022 debut The Overload. Support acts will be English Teacher, Fat Dog and Ultimate Thunder. Box office: 0113 376 0318 or millsqleeds.com/whatson-event/yard-act/.

Laura Joy’s poster design for the 2024 York River Art Market weekends. She will be participating in all six days. Check out her work at laurajoydesign.co.uk

York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris: York River Art Market, August 3 and 4; August 10 and 10; August 17 and 18, 10am to 5pm

ORGANISED by jewellery designer and York College art tutor Charlotte Dawson, York River Art Market returns to the riverbank at Dame Judi Dench Walk for a ninth summer season from this weekend.

Up to 30 artists and makers per day will be exhibiting ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, T-shirts, shaving products and more. “We care that each of the six events are never the same, so we host a different variety of creatives at each one,” says Charlotte. Admission is free.

Richard Hudson’s Unwind: On show at Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden. Picture: Celestine Dubruel

Exhibition of the week: Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden, Kirkgate, Thirsk, open Wednesdays to Saturdays, 11am to 5pm, last entry 4pm

THIRSK Hall Sculpture Garden showcases modern and contemporary sculptures in 20 acres of walled gardens and parkland at the grade II-listed town house, complemented by artwork in Gallery One and The Orangery.

Artists on show include Farnoush Amini, Kenneth Armitage, Tere Chad, Tim Ellis, Laura Ford, Richard Hudson, Jeff Lowe, Gerald Laing, Michael Lyons, Trory Menage, Zak Ové, Tim Pomeroy, William Tucker, Austin Wright and Emily Young. To find out more about the 2024 exhibition, visit willoughnygerrish.com. Tickets: thirskhall.com/sculpture-garden.

Chris Hagyard, pictured in Guys And Dolls mode, will sing in Bev Jones Music Company’s One Night Of Broadway Hits

Musical revue of the week: Steve Coates and Bev Jones Music Company present One Night Of Broadway Hits, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 3, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

BEV Jones Music Company performs hits from 26 musicals, including Guys And Dolls, in an unashamedly traditional fashion under the musical direction of James Rodgers.

His band is joined in this moving, lively and at times funny show by vocalists Chris Hagyard, Annabel Van Griethuysen, Anthony Pengelly, Ruth McNeil, Sally Lewis, Stephen Wilson, Geoff Walker and producer Lesley Jones, back on stage for this show, wearing a silver cat suit unseen since 2010, when she played Vera in Stepping Out. Box office: 01904 501395 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Hurry up Harry: The Three Inch Fools cast for The Secret Diary Of Henry VIII at Helmsley Walled Garden

Ryedale play of the week: The Three Inch Fools in The Secret Diary Of Henry VIII, Helmsley Walled Garden, August 6, 7pm; gates 6pm

THE Three Inch Fools, founded by the Cumbrian Hyde brothers, producer James and writer, composer and director Stephen, present an essential guide on how to keep your head in the Tudor Court in a new comical take on Henry VIII and his six-pack of infamous wives.

Unexpectedly thrust into the limelight, Henry must navigate the ups and downs of courtly life, all while fighting the French yet again and re-writing religious doctrine. Bring chairs, blankets, picnics, but not umbrellas. Park in the Cleveland Way car park. Box office: 01439 771700, helmsleyarts.co.uk or threeinchfools.com.

Korn-ucopia of heavy metal hits at Scarborough Open Air Theatre on August 8

Coastal gig of the week: Korn, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 8, gates 6pm

FORMED in California in 1993, Korn continue to push the limits of alt. rock and heavy metal after 40 million album sales, two Grammy awards and countless tours. Expect to hear such anthems as Blind, Falling Away From Me, Here To Stay, Freak On A Leash, Twisted Transistor, Make Me Bad and Did My Time as their European tour arrives in Yorkshire. Support acts will be Wargasm and Loathe. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/korn.

Riley Catherall: Playing Pig & Pastry, York, on a tour that takes the Australian singer-songwriter to Nayland, Kirton in Lindsay, High Wycombe and Stockholm, Uddevalla and Oland in Sweden

Introducing: Riley Catherall, Pig & Pastry, Bishopthorpe Road, York, August 8. Doors: 7.30pm for 8pm start

MELBOURNE singer-songwriter Riley Catherall’s graceful trajectory into the Australian alt-country world has not gone unnoticed. So much so that he will be playing in York on Thursday, promising songs of poetic sincerity from his June 14 sophomore album The Light, The Beautiful Liar and his 2021 debut When I Go, a record focused on leaving, losing love and finding somewhere to settle down. Box office: wegottickets.com/event/624233/.

Anastacia: Playing York Barbican next May on her Not That Kind 25th Anniversary Tour

Gig announcement of the week: Anastacia, Not That Kind 25th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, May 4 2025

CHICAGO singer-songwriter Anastacia will play York Barbican as the only Yorkshire concert of the 13-date British and Irish leg of her Not That Kind tour next year, marking the 25th anniversary of her debut album.

“I didn’t get to do a tour for my first album, which makes this all the more special,” says Anastacia. “I can’t believe it’s been 25 years since Not That Kind; we will be sure to celebrate in true Anastacia style. It’ll be one big anniversary party. I can’t wait to see you all there !” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/anastacia-2025/.

In Focus: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, near York, August 9 and 10

Actress, vocalist and accordion player Natalia Tena fronts Molotov Jukebox at The Magpies Festival, backed by Balkan fiddle, Latin trumpet and a pounding rhythm section, on Friday

RUN by transatlantic folk band The Magpies, The Magpies Festival is rooted in the trio’s native Yorkshire, where they first met. Now in its fourth year, the 2024 event will be headlined on Friday on the main stage by bi-lingual six-piece Molotov Jukebox at 10pm, preceded by Chris While & Julie Matthews, 6pm, and Jim Moray, 8pm.

Friday’s Brass Castle Stage bill features Em Risley, 5pm; Taff Rapids Stringband, 7pm; The Turbans, 9pm, and Easingwold musician Gary Stewart’s Graceland, 11pm.

Saturday’s main stage bill will be topped by Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys at 10pm, preceded by Charm Of Finches, 12 noon, The Often Herd, 2pm, Jesca Hoop, 4pm, The Magpies, 6pm, and Nati (formerly known as Nati Dreddd), 8pm. Saturday’s Brass Castle Stage line-up comprises Painted Sky, 1pm; Suntou Susso, 3pm; Northern Resonance, 5pm; Awkward Family Portraits, 7pm, and Marvara, 9pm.

Festival organisers The Magpies

The all-female The Magpies – Bella Gaffney (singer, songwriter, guitarist and banjo player), fellow founder Holly Brandon (fiddle player and tunesmith) and Ellie Gowers (guitarist, singer and songwriter) – are set on championing gender equality in the music industry, achieving gender parity in both line-up and staff, as well as providing a safe and comfortable environment for female musicians and festival goers.

Festival director Holly Brandon says: “We are so excited to put on The Magpies Festival. We’ve been over the moon at the response to the festival, from the incredible performances from world-class folk musicians to the high-energy spirit that our attendees brought along. It’s felt like a whole new feel to a folk festival.”

Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk/tickets.

Sam Kellly & The Lost Boys: To be found at The Magpies Festival at Sutton Park on Saturday
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Dame Judi Dench to return home to York for I Remember It Well in conversation with Gyles Brandreth at Grand Opera House

The poster for Dame Judi Dench and Gyles Brandreth’s night of stories, sonnets and surprises at the Grand Opera House, York, on October 10

DAME Judi Dench is heading home to York for one night only in a special performance at the Grand Opera House on October 10.

Stage, film and television actress Dame Judi, 89, will be joined on stage at 7.30pm by television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author, publisher and former Conservative MP for the City of Chester Gyles Brandreth.

Together they will present their sell-out West End and Royal Albert Hall show, I Remember It Well with Judi Dench & Gyles Brandreth. Tickets go on general sale at 10am on August 2 at atgtickets.com/york, preceded by ATG+ members 24 hours earlier.

Dame Judi joins her friend Gyles on a roller-coaster trip down memory lane as they explore the story of her extraordinary life, from her childhood in Heworth, York, in the 1930s to her latest Oscar nomination – for Best Supporting actress in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast – in  2022. Expect moments from Shakespeare and anecdotes aplenty – stories, sonnets and surprises – in a “two-hour party of lifetime”.

Educated at The Mount School, and later briefly at the York School of Art, Dame Judi played a “forgetful angel” in the 1951 York Mystery Plays, staged by the St Mary’s Abbey ruins in the York Museum Gardens in the first revival since their suppression in 1569.

This was followed by her roles as a “young man in white clothing” in the 1954 production and the Virgin Mary in 1957, after completing her studies at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art. That year she made her professional theatrical debut as Ophelia in Hamlet at the Old Vic, London.

Her stage and screen career has taken in the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre; the television series A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By; the role of M in the James Bond franchise from 1995’s GoldenEye to M’s death in 2012’s Skyfall, and an Oscar win, among eight nominations from 1997 to 2022, for Best Supporting Actress in Shakespeare In Love in 1998.

Six film BAFTAs, three television BAFTAs, two Golden Globes, two Screen Actors’ Guild awards, seven Oliviers, one Tony award and three Evening Standard Theatre awards have come her way too.

Here in York, Dame Judi received receive the honour of Millennium Person of the Present award at York Mansion House in 2000, was made an Honorary Freeman of the City of York in 2002 and has had a riverside walkway, Dame Judi Dench Walk, named after her.

On the theatre front, although Dami Judi will be appearing at the Grand Opera House this autumn, she is a patron of York Theatre Royal.

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York Georgian Festival: what’s coming up from today to Saturday for fans of the era?

York Georgian Festival: for fans of fans and the period alike

THE second York Georgian Festival runs from today to Sunday, buoyed by an “overwhelming turnout” and VisitYork Tourism Awards nomination for last August’s inaugural event.

Day one’s highlight, Horrible Histories author Terry Deary’s 6pm showcase of his new book, A History Of Britain In Ten Enemies, has sold out.

In response to much demand, the festival will host the first York Georgian Ball at the Grand Assembly Rooms, now home to the ASK Italian restaurant, in Blake Street, on Saturday at 7pm. This ballroom played host to dances and dinners in the 18th and 19th centuries, and now guests will be dressed in their finest as they country-dance under the chandeliers this weekend.

Further festival highlights will be tours, talks and the chance to discover hidden Georgian gems across the city.

Festival creator Sarah White, events and marketing manager for York Mansion House, says: “I am delighted to be working with some of the most beautiful museums, venues and minds in York to bring this festival to life. We want to showcase the impact of this time period on the modern day, and we also want to dance the night away.”

Many events are pre-book only. For tickets, go to: yorkgeorgianfestival.co.uk.

The festival programme

Terry Deary: Introducing his new book this evening

Thursday

10am:  Behind the Scenes Curator Tour, at Fairfax House.

10am to 3pm (pre-bookable tours available): Tours and Tea for Charity at York Medical Society, 23 Stonegate.

10am to 5pm (last admission 4pm): Discover the “illegal chapel” at Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre.

10.30am to 5pm (last admission 4pm): Hobs Go Georgian, a fun family trail at York Mansion House.  Free with admission.

11.30am: 18th century cooking demonstration, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

11.30am: Blood, Guts and Bedlam Tour, from York Medical Society.

2.30pm: Dressing a Georgian Lady, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

4pm: Rogues Gallery Tour with Mad Alice, around the city.

6pm: Terry Deary previews his new book, A History of Britain in Ten Enemies. SOLD OUT.

7pm: Mad Alice History Talk and Gin Tasting, at Impossible York bar.

Friday

10am to 5pm (last admission 4pm): Discover the “illegal chapel” at Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre.

10am to 3pm (pre-bookable tours available): Tours and Tea for Charity at York Medical Society, 23 Stonegate.

10.30am: Georgian Dance Class at the Guildhall.

10.30am to 5pm (last admission 4pm): Hobs Go Georgian: a fun family trail at York Mansion House. Free with admission.

11.30am: 18th century cooking demonstration, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

11.30am: Blood, Guys and Bedlam Tour, from York Medical Society.

2.30pm: Fan language, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

4pm: Rogues Gallery Tour, with Mad Alice, around the city.

7.30pm: Bridgerton by Candlelight, Ignite Concerts. SOLD OUT.

Saturday

10am to 5pm (last admission 4pm): Discover the “illegal chapel” at Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre.

10.30am to 5pm (last admission 4pm): Hobs Go Georgian, a fun family trail at York Mansion House. Free with admission.

11am: Regency Rejigged dance performance, St Helen’s Square.

11.30am: 18th century cooking demonstration, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

2pm: Regency Rejigged dance performance, St Helen’s Square.

2pm: Anatomy of a Ball, Barley Hall Coffee Shop.

2.30pm:  Dressing a Georgian Lady, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

3pm: Regency Rejigged dance performance, St Helen’s Square.

4pm: The Raree Show of The Fox Trap’t, Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate. SOLD OUT.

4pm: The Rogues Gallery Tour, with Mad Alice, around the city.

5pm: Family Walking Tour: A Day in the Life of Jane Ewbank, with York Georgian Society, starting from St Helen’s Square.

7pm: The York Georgian Ball, at Grand Assembly Rooms.

Sunday

10.30am to 1pm:  Hobs Go Georgian: a fun family trail at York Mansion House. Free with admission.

11am: Regency Rejigged dance performance, St Helen’s Square.

11.30am: 18th century cooking demonstration, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

1pm: Uncovering The Parrot: A Forgotten Women-Led Satirical Periodical of the 18th Century at York Mansion House. SOLD OUT. York Mansion House will be closed temporarily from 12.30pm to 2.20pm to accommodate this ticketed event.

2pm: Regency Rejigged dance performance, St Helen’s Square.

2.30pm: Fan language, York Mansion House. Free with admission.

4pm: Rogues Gallery Tour, with Mad Alice, around the city.

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York Shakespeare Project invites you to a secret wedding at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, as Summer Sonnets return

York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Summer Sonnets at Holy Trinity Church

YORK Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets return to the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York from August 9 to 17.

“After attracting a record audience of more than 600 people to the show last year in the Bar Convent gardens, we are delighted again to be offering a taste of Shakespeare that is both entertaining and accessible,” says YSP chair Tony Froud, who is directing the sonnet season for a second year.

Holy Trinity last hosted YSP’s Sit-Down Sonnets in September 2020, under social distancing restrictions during the Covid pandemic.

Writer Josie Campbell

“This year we plan to take full advantage of the historic and beautiful setting”, says Tony. “Many people will know the church as the site of the blessing of the relationship of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Ann Walker [at Easter 1834] and we are building this year’s show around that famous event” [now marked by a York Civic Trust rainbow plaque with the wording “took sacrament here to seal her union”).

The Summer Sonnets show has been scripted by Josie Campbell, who performed for YSP on the Rose Theatre’s Shakespeare Wagon in 2019 at the Eye of York.

Sharing her time between Yorkshire and Dubai, Josie is a professional actor/director and co-founder of Little Britches Theatre Company. In 2021 she toured Yorkshire with a pop-up production of Shakespeare’s Will, a one woman show about Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife.

Summer Sonnets director Tony Froud

For Summer Sonnets, Josie has come up with an entertaining plot, taking full advantage of the church’s setting and rich history. “I have thoroughly enjoyed writing a Sonnets show, which includes Anne Lister, one of Yorkshire’s most uncompromising and resilient women”, she says.

Audiences are “invited to a secret wedding in Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, in the heart of York”, where they will “meet the church’s most famous couple while enjoying a complimentary drink. As they witness the happy event, they may start to wonder: is everything quite what it seems?”

Debutant York Shakespeare Project sonneteer Grace Scott in rehearsal. Picture: John Saunders

“As ever, the show features a wide variety of colourful characters, each speaking in everyday English until they shift into their 14 lines of verse from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets to reveal the heart of their story,” says Tony.

“It’s a lovely experience. You can sip your complimentary drink on a summer’s evening in a delightful setting. Very often, the characters slip into a sonnet and the audience hardly notices that the language has become Shakespearean. And you should look forward to a surprise or two!”

2024 marks the tenth anniversary of YSP’s first show built around Shakespeare’s sonnets in the form of 2014’s Sonnet Walks, wherein groups of audience members met assorted characters as they walked through the streets of York.

Liam Godfrey: Making his Summer Sonnets debut. Picture: John Saunders

“Sadly, I never saw the Walks, but there’s an advantage in having a single setting where characters can meet, start a story and then reappear to complete it,” says Josie.

Tony’s cast is a blend of actors new* to the YSP Sonnets and seasoned sonneteers: Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley*; Liam Godfrey*; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska*; Alexandra Logan*; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott*; Effie Warboys*; Helen Wilson and Tony Froud himself.

York Shakespeare Project in Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, August 9 to 17, except August 12, 6pm and 7.30pm, plus 4.30pm on August 10 and 17. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/. Tickets: £10; £5, age 14 to 17; two under-14s per adult. The price includes a free drink.

Regular York Shakespeare Project sonneteer Helen Wilson in rehearsal. Picture: John Saunders
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Psychologist Cheish Merryweather puts murder under the microscope in crime talk with psychopath test at Junction Goole

Cheish Merryweather: Research psychologist and psychopathy expert

DO you reckon you could get away with murder? According to research psychologist and psychopathy expert Cheish Merryweather, many people do.

Discover why in her new true crime talk, Murder: Staged, featuring a live psychopath test, at Junction Goole on October 4.

“The ‘CSI effect’ has created a new type of killer, one that is forensically aware and is out to mislead an investigation,” says Cheish, who has been seen and heard on the BBC.

“Murder: Staged will explore the lies embedded in crime scenes and share the expertise from those who dig deep for the truth”

The poster for Cheish Merryweather’s Murder: Staged tour, visiting Junction Goole on October 4

Cheish’s two-hour talk (plus a 20-minute interval) will include in-depth forensics, reconstructed real-life crime scene walk-throughs and a deep dive into cases that have not been seen on stage live before.

“The live psychopath test will be a good indication of who we really should be keeping a close eye on,” says Cheish.

Cheish Merryweather, presents Murder: Staged, Junction Goole, Paradise Place, Goole, October 4, 7.30pm. Age recommendation: 16+. Box office: junctiongoole.co.uk/events/murder-staged/.

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REVIEW: NETheatre York in West Side Story, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York ***

In black and white: Back row: Rebecca Jackson’s Maria, Finlay Butler’s Tony and Kit Stroud’s Riff; front, Kristian Barley’s Bernardo and Maia Beatrice’s Anita in NETheatre York’s West Side Story. Picture: NETheatre York

CREATIVE director Steve Tearle first saw West Side Story at the age of nine. Within two years he was performing in The Sound Of Music at the Sunderland Empire, whereupon a life-long love of musical theatre was born.

Yet he desisted from directing Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s 1950s’ musical. “I was always comparing what I could achieve with that amazing film,” he says, but then he attended a Broadway production in 2019 that changed his mind.

Here comes his different take, “not as ‘dancey’, not as polished, but very raw, very emotional, focusing on the acting”. In a nutshell, NETheatre York’s production would be built more on movement than choreography, although Melisa Boyd is still credited as choreographer, rather than movement director, working in tandem with Tearle.

After Rebecca Jackson’s Maria and Finlay Butler’s Tony cross without noticing each other in a sliding doors moment, the physical performance style is established in a long sequence without dialogue that opens the over-long first act, distilling the chaos and friction between two Upper West Side working-class gangs in New York:  the Polish-Irish Catholics, The Jets, and their Puerta Rican rivals, The Sharks.

All are wearing variations on black and white streetwear, as sharp as in the era of 2Tone Ska, but here designed to be timeless, representing all eras from the 1950s to the present day to emphasise the continuing resonance of a tragic teenage romance rooted in Shakespeare’s ill-fated, star-crossed tale of forbidden love, Romeo & Juliet.

Kit Stroud’s Riff and The Jets in NETheatre York’s West Side Story

The black-and-white uniformity is also designed to reinforce common humanity beneath the codes of a turf war, here delineated by The Jets moving in a jive style, The Sharks more fluid in their stride.

Black and white defines Tearle’s set design and lighting too: even the three mobile scaffolding towers that facilitate much climbing and clambering, not least for Maria and Tony’s balcony scenes, are decorated that way, matched by the bold-typed projections that chart the story’s calamitous rush from 5.34pm on Friday evening to 2.31am on Sunday morning on a countdown clock. The New York skyline is depicted in monochrome too.

Tearle only breaks the night with colour – to borrow a Richard Ashcroft song title – in moments of heightened drama or tragedy, first used when Maia Beatrice’s Anita decorates Maria’s new dress with a red band, echoing the red coat in Steven Spielberg’s otherwise B&W Schindler’s List. Later, the columns of bright white light will turn bloodshed-red.

If a musical is built on a triptych of music, story and choreography, Tearle’s production is stronger on its musicality and storytelling than movement: the ensemble motion in commotion needs more zip, more dynamism, more attack and anger, more heat too, although Riff and The Jets finger-click into the right gear in Cool.  

Tearle’s “focus on the acting, the characterisation” pays off, however, in the heart-stopping performances of Jackson’s Maria and Butler’s Tony. From Puerto Rican accent to beautiful singing voice and deportment, Jackson is a terrific young talent, one to watch, leading I Feel Pretty so delightedly and delightfully. Butler, lithe and full of stage presence, sings movingly too, especially in Maria.

Steve Tearle’s Doc and Finlay Butler’s Tony in West Side Story

Kristian Barley’s Bernardo and Kit Stroud’s kilted Riff exude macho menace as hot-headed rival gang leaders, ever ready for a rumble, Scott Barnes amuses in a camp cameo as gym party chaperone Mr Glad Hand and Erik Jensen’s Lieutenant Schrank is suitably no-nonsense.

Beatrice’s abrasive Anita and Jackson’s Maria combine in the show’s outstanding number, A Boy Like That/I Have A Love, while Tearle’s Jewish drug store boss Doc – the older, outsider voice of reason, bewilderment and despair – takes over the singing of Somewhere (a song originally given to Consuelo on Broadway), giving it added adult heft.

Look out too for Melissa Boyd’s volatile Rosalia, Alice Atang’s athletic Natalia, Zachary Pickersgill’s plucky Snowboy and Erin Greenley’s tomboy Anybodys, along with Steve Perry’s vengeful Chino.

Defining West Side Story as “a play with music, rather than as a music”, Tearle has followed up a similarly focused Fiddler On The Roof by “stripping back” his latest production, restricting the cast to 35, keeping the stage pretty much bare, save for the scaffolding towers, a neon sign for Doc’s store, eight chairs and a bed. The lighting ups its game, a dazzling component in capturing the moments of conflict and conflagration.

Not all the blocking works well, the tinsel curtain cutting off heads in one scene, and the movement is sometimes heavy footed, but we are seeing a new, character-driven side to Tearle’s direction this year, more grit, less glitter. Coming next: Elf The Musical, from November 26 to 30, when the (Christmas) glitter will no doubt resurface!

NE Theatre York in West Side Story, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 2.30pm and 7.30pm today. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrownteetheatre.co.uk.

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More Things To Do in York & beyond the Proms, whatever the pomp & circumstance. Hutch’s List No. 31, from The Press

Jane Burnell: Buxton Opera soprano performing at tomorrow’s York Proms in York Museum Gardens

IN search of high-summer highlights, Charles Hutchinson finds Proms fireworks, outdoor cinema singalongs, a mad woodland king and comedy on the coast.

Musical picnic of the week: York Proms, York Museum Gardens, York, Sunday, general admission, 5.30pm; main stage concert, 7.45pm to 10.30pm

TICKETS are close to selling out for the York Proms,  tomorrow’s picnic concert under the stars organised as ever by York soprano Rebecca Newman. 

Conducted by Ben Crick, the orchestra will be joined by tenor Joshua Baxter and soprano Jane Burnell, both at present performing with Buxton Opera, for a programme of classical classics, operatic arias and film music, topped off with the flag-waving proms finale, decorated with a fireworks display. Box office: 01904 909487 or yorkproms.com.

Hoglets Theatre’s puppet of Badger for Gemma Curry’s new show, The Badger And The Coins, at York Explore & Archive today

Children’s show of the week: Hoglets Theatre in The Badger And The Coins, York Explore Library and Archive, Library Square, York, today, 11am to 11.45am

GEMMA Curry’s York company Hoglets Theatre presents The Badger And The Coins, an original play about love, courage and the belief that even the most unexpected companions can bring magic into our world, suitable for pre-school and primary school children.

Based on a Japanese folk tale, the story of an old man rescuing a mysterious Badger and triggering an amazing journey is powered by original songs, outrageous characters, beautiful hand-made puppets and Hoglets’ trademark energy and creativity. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/exploreyorklibrariesandarchives/1288717.

Cinema in the open air at Castle Howard this weekend, from Disney to Abba, Spielberg to Cruise. Picture: Castle Howard Estate

Outdoor film event of the week: Adventure Cinema at Castle Howard, near Malton, today and tomorrow

PACK a picnic for Castle Howard’s open-air outdoor cinema experience on a giant screen this weekend, presented in tandem with Adventure Cinema. This afternoon features a Sing-A-Long Edition of Disney’s Frozen (PG) at 1.30pm (gates 12 noon).

An Abba disco precedes Mamma Mia! Outdoor Cinema Extrabbaganza, this evening’s all-singing, all-dancing double bill of Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia Here We Go Again at 6.30pm (gates 5pm). Tomorrow comprises Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler’s The Gruffalo/Stick Man (U) at 11am (gates 10am), Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur blockbuster Jurassic Park (PG) at 3pm (gates 1.30pm) and Tony Scott’s Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise, at 8pm (gate 6.30pm). Box office: adventurecinema.co.uk/venues/castle-howard.

Barn Owl, by Bryn Parry CBE, in the Sculpture In The Landscape exhibition at the Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park, The Hutts, Grewelthorpe. Picture: Celestine Dubruel

Exhibition of the week: Sculpture In The Landscape, Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park, The Hutts, Grewelthorpe, near Ripon, until November 3

THE 2024 Sculpture In The Landscape exhibition showcases 60 works for sale by artists across the United Kingdom, complementing the permanent sculptures on show at the Himalayan Garden.

Visitors are invited to explore the intricate sculptures set against verdant landscapes. From monumental installations to delicate works of art, each piece offers a perspective on the intersection of creativity and nature. Normal garden entry applies. Tickets: 01765 658009 or himalayangarden.com

Adderstone in the trees: Music, mystery and magic in the woodland company of Mad Sweeney, the Irish king, at the Forest of Flowers, Huby

Woodland folk event of the week: Sweeney Untethered by Adderstone, Forest of Flowers, Home Farm, Tollerton Road, Huby, York, tomorrow (28/7/2024), 1.30pm to 4pm

ADDERSTONE, the storytelling alt-folk duo of Cath Heinemeyer and Gemma McDermott, present Sweeney Untethered, the tale of a 7th century Irish king who went mad, as told and sung on a caper through the wild woods and meadows of the Forest of Flowers with refreshments after the 1.5-mile walk.

The music, mystery and magic-infused performance will immerse the audience in story and surroundings alike as Heinemeyer and McDermott take in the wildflowers, ponds, woodland and wildlife. Bookings: forestofflowers.co.uk/event-details.

The View: Returning to the concert platform after five-year hiatus

Return of the week: The View, The Crescent, York, August 2, 7.30pm

RESCHEDULED from June 15, Under The Influence presents Dundee indie-rock returnees The View in a night of Hats Off To Buskers classics, from Same Jeans to Wasted Little DJs and Superstar Tradesma, plus material from their first album in eight years.

Recorded with Grammy Award-winning producer Youth at Space Mountain, Granada, Exorcism Of Youth was released last August on Cooking Vinyl. Five years on from their departing gig at Dundee’s Caird Hall, original members Kyle Falconer (vocals/guitar), Kieran Webster (bass/vocals) and Pete Reilly (guitar) are back on the road. Box office: thecrescentyork.com. music, mystery and magic!

Bill Bailey: Comedy in the Scarborough sea air on August 2

Coastal gig of the week: Bill Bailey, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 2; gates open at 6pm

COMEDIAN, actor, musician, presenter, Never Mind The Buzzcocks team captain, Black Books sitcom star and 2020 Strictly Come Dancing champion Bill Bailey heads to the East Coast with his surrealist fusion of stories, poetry and wordplay that takes aim at the modern world’s absurdities, as aired in his Thoughtifier arena tour.

A veteran of the UK festival circuit, with appearances at Latitude, Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, Sonisphere and the Eden Project, Bailey will have his array of weird and wonderful instruments on tap too for playful pastiches of Tom Waits, Kraftwerk et al. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Chris Hagyard, pictured in Guys And Dolls mode, will be taking part in One Night Of Broadway Hits at the JoRo

Musical revue of the week: Steve Coates and Bev Jones Music Company present One Night Of Broadway Hits, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 3, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

BEV Jones Music Company performs hits from 26 musicals, including Guys And Dolls, in an unashamedly traditional fashion under the musical direction of James Rodgers.

His band is joined in this moving, lively and at times funny show by vocalists Chris Hagyard, Annabel Van Griethuysen, Anthony Pengelly, Ruth McNeil, Sally Lewis, Stephen Wilson, Geoff Walker and producer Lesley Jones, back on stage for this show, wearing a silver cat suit unseen since 2010, when she played Vera in Stepping Out. Box office: 01904 501395 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Chrissie Hynde: The great Pretender, leading her band at York Barbican this autumn. Picture: Vi Price

Gig announcement of the week: The Pretenders, York Barbican, October 31

THE Pretenders are extending their sold-out British tour, adding a new date in York, in the wake of releasing Relentless, their 14th UK Top 40 entry and highest-charting record in 23 years, last September.

Fronted as ever by Chrissie Hynde, 72, the band is joining Foo Fighters on their American tour in July and August. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/the-pretenders/.

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REVIEW: Around The World In 80 Days-ish, York Theatre Royal, roll up, roll up, until August 3 ****

David Abécassis’s Clown, left, Maria Gray’s Acrobat, Kiefer Moriarty’s Ringmaster, Ambika Sharma’s Trick Rider and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower in Around The World In 80 Days-ish at York Theayre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

THIS circus has left town twice before, in 2021 after 23 days and 2023 after only three for a national tour, but all the stops are pulled out for the big top’s return under a new-ish name, Around The World In 80 Days-ish.

This time, at the height of the circus summer season, creative director Juliet Forster’s dandy adaptation has a bonus to go with the bonanza: a circus school for five to 11-year-olds to learn the tricks of the trade in a one-hour pre-show workshop. All the thrill of learning a skill with aerial artiste Maria Gray as well as the fun of the fair that follows.

At Thursday’s matinee, participating children take their seats, or rather they grab red-and-white striped cushions to sit on the “grass” newly “grown” to create a lawn from the stage-front to the stalls seating. White fencing acts as a perimeter, but not as a boundary as it turns out post-interval, when one young chap starts chipping in with a running commentary as David Abécassis’s servant Passepartout and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s spiv London detective Fix conduct an increasingly drunken conversation on a see-saw, where everything is in the balance.

Not a loose cannon: Maria Gray’s resolute record-breaking travel writer Nellie Bly. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Already a comic high-point of adroit manoeuvres and verbal fencing from past productions, it now has a new juggling ingredient: how to negotiate the scene while being “accosted” by the world’s young heckler. “He’s a baddie,” the boy helpfully advises. Fix in a fix? Not here, where the Edinburgh Fringe-bound Armitt-Brewster, actor, dancer, singer and physical comedian, handles the unexpected competition for attention with Chaplin-esque elan in tandem with the eyebrow-raising-Abécassis.

Armitt-Brewster, who will be appearing in his Skedaddle Theatre show A Brief Case Of Crazy next month, is typical of Forster’s canny casting for a globe-travelling tale that demands physical elasticity, verbal vigour and, yes, circus skills in a play within a circus show. Likewise the ursine, Abécassis, so at ease with his Lecoq-trained clownery, bonhomie and French accent.  

We begin amid the bunting and lights of Verne’s Circus, where Kiefer Moriarty’s punctilious, flustered Irish Ringmaster is striving to pull the story’s strings with the aid/hindrance of his company of Abécassis’s Clown, Gray’s Acrobat, Ambika Sharma’s Trick Rider and Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower.

In the balance: David Abécassis’s Passepartout, left, and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s detective Fix mid-negotiation in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Together they will tell the tale of Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days, wherein Moriarty’s upright, uptight, unflustered, unscrupulous, ever-punctual, tea-drinking Victorian English gent Phileas Fogg will strike a wager with his starchy, sceptical Reform Club cronies – represented by moustaches on sticks – that he can traverse the world in that time.

There will be a distraction, not that talkative little lad by the fence, but the rather more persistent New York World reporter Nellie Bly, who, spoiler alert, outdid the fictional Fogg by crossing the globe in only 72 days, setting off from New York on her 25,000-mile journey on November 14 1889.

Feminist, fearless, and full of wonder in her elegant travelogue prose, she is but one feather in the cap of the multi-role-playing Maria Gray, who pulls off American, North Eastern, Scottish, Welsh and Hull accents, as well spinning shapes in her solo aerial routine (recalling her role as Cobweb in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Eye Of York).

Kiefer Moriarty in a clowning scene in Around The Wold In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Nellie manages to wind up Moriarty’s exasperated Ringmaster and Fogg alike in her interjections, conducted at a different pace to the ever-racing Fogg as the revolving signage announces each new destination.

 Writer-director Forster wastes no time in pricking the balloon that Fogg travelled in such a form of transportation. Only in screen versions, not the book. Imagination and ingenuity against the odds will play their part, as they do in Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps, playing across town at the Grand Opera House this week, and in Mischief’s “Go Wrong” roster of calamitous comedies.

Props and costumes, as well as dexterity and clowning, combine in conveying an elephant, a train, a trading vessel, whatever, in spectacular, often unexpected ways, peaking with slow-motion bridge collapse denoted by ladders in slow motion.

Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Fogg may be in a rush but the first act ironically is a little slow. Not so the superior second act, where the verbal to-and-fro becomes quicker and funnier and the circus acrobatics and physical set-pieces pile up under Asha Jennings-Grant’s movement direction. Edwin Gray’s sound design excels too, especially in an explosive scene, and Sara Perks’s designs and costumes are a vision.

Why, there is even romance in the slow-burning relationship of old-stick Fogg and Sharma’s Indian princess Aouda, who amusingly challenges stereotypes in a piece of metatheatre in keeping with Forster’s feminist vibe.

Around The World In 80 Days-ish, York Theatre Royal, July 27, 2.30pm, 7.30pm; July 29, 2pm; July 30, 5.30pm; July 31, 7pm; August 1, 2pm, 7pm; August 2, 6.30pm; August 3, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

In suspense: Maria Gray’s Acrobat in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
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REVIEW: The 39 Steps, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Safeena Ladha, left, Eugene McCoy, Tom Byrne and Maddie Rice in a scene from The 39 Steps. Picture: Mark Senior

FIERY Angel’s spiffing touring production of The 39 Steps is back on the road after eight years, although Patrick Barlow’s rollercoaster ride through John Buchan’s tale of murder, suspense and intrigue and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller is never far from a Yorkshire stage.

In that touring hiatus, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre has staged it twice (in 2018 and 2023) and Harri Marshall directed York Settlement Community Players at Theatre@41, Monkgate, in November 2021.

Yet not everyone has strapped in previously for Barlow’s delirious, dextrous delight of a comic misadventure. “Brilliant theatre,” kept coming a voice from the dress-circle row behind, experiencing its ingenuity for the first time at Wednesday’s matinee.

Eugene McCoy, left, Safeena Ladha and Tom Byrne in Fiery Angel’s touring production of The 39 Steps. Picture: Mark Senior

Mischief Theatre have a had a field day since the 2012 premiere of The Play That Goes Wrong, with clever, chaotic comedy rooted in mishaps, clowning pratfalls and exquisite comic timing. Yet Barlow’s play – and indeed North Yorkshire company North Country Theatre’s original 1996 concept by Simon Corble & Nobby Dimon that inspired it – pre-dates the Go Wrong brand, debuting at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in June 2005.

It has gone right ever since, especially under the direction of Maria Aitken in Fiery Angel’s tours, and now in the hands of 2024 tour director Nicola Samer, still true to the Aitken template but not exactly. The same, but Samer, as it were.

Tom Byrne, familiar to The Crown devotees from playing Prince Andrew aged 22 to 32 in the Netflix series, now turns his hand to another posh chap, the unflappable Richard Hannay in a helter-skelter play that hitches the storytelling of Buchan to the thrills, spills and daring set-pieces of Hitchcock’s thriller and then entrusts 139 roles to a cast of only four, most of them shared between Eugene McCoy’s Clown 1 and Maddie Rice’s Clown 2.

Tom Byrne: From Prince Andrew in The Crown to Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps

In the ennui of August 1935, Byrne’s lanky Hannay is in an emotional stew in his lonely, rented Portland Place pad, slumped in his leather armchair, pencil-slim moustache downturned, contemplating ending it all, in desperate need of… well, love, as it turns out later.

More immediately, this dashing, clipped and proper fellow must “find something to do…something mindless and trivial. Something utterly pointless. Something – I know! A West End show! That should do the trick!”

Barlow instantly establishes the “meta-theatre” of a play that revels in the possibilities and limitations of theatre, even in self-deprecation at what naysayers consider its ridiculousness, its bloated self-importance, as well as its wonder.

On the run: Tom Byrne’s Richard Hannay seeeks to escape the constabulary in The 39 Steps. Picture: Mark Senior

Hannay heads to the London Palladium for some excitement, but not the kind of excitement that ensues. The gun-firing, mysterious German fräulein in the box opposite him, Annabella Schmidt (Safeena Ladha), demands he must take her home, only to drop dead in his lap, knifed in the back.

Hanney takes flight – or rather a train ride – to Scotland, now murder suspect number one, in urgent need of crucial information to extricate himself from such accusations.

Policemen, secret agents, a farmer, a mysterious professor and assorted women stand in his way, delicered with breathless speed, breathtaking brilliance and comedic brio by the loose-limbed McCoy and the nimble Rice, the first woman to play Clown 2 in a Fiery Angel tour.

Tom Byrne’s Richard Hannay: In need of “something mindless and trivial. Something utterly pointless” in the opening scene to The 39 Steps. A night at the theatre awaits. Picture: Mark Senior

What’s more, as well as evoking Charlie Chaplin and even Samuel Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting For Godot, both are in cross-dressing mode, equally as likely to play a woman or a man, whatever a scene demands, Rice even performing two roles at once, turning back and forth in a half-and-half costume.  

Ladha multi-tasks too, reappearing as an alluring, feisty femme fatale and a shy but obligingly helpful farmer’s wife.

Byrne’s handsome hero lets the darker side of Hannay poke through the surface, but the theatrical sleight of hand prevails, not least in the bargain-basement re-enactment of Hitchcock’s familiar scenes, topped off by a North By North West shadow-play spoof.

The Fiery Angel tour poster for The 39 Steps

The second act slows a tad, but Barlow’s witty, period-pastiche dialogue keeps you on the edge, either suspenseful or in fear of another pardonably terrible pun. All the while, Samer’s cast must battle against the odds, improvising props and scenery, whether with stepladders for a bridge, or chairs for a car, moving the furniture on and off, and defiantly keeping their head above water, even when a ringing phone or dry-ice Scottish mist is miscued.

As the thrilling twists and turns of this Hitchcock homage somehow go off without a hitch, Byrne, Ladha, McCoy and Rice make a fabulous four, never missing a step in the cause of  comedy.

Fiery Angel presents The 39 Steps, Grand Opera House, York, cutting a dash until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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York company Riding Lights appoints Paul Birch as artistic director and Oliver Brown as executive director at Friargate Theatre

Leading lights: Riding Lights’ new executive director Oliver Brown, left, and artistic director Paul Birch outside Friargate Theatre in York

RIDING Lights Theatre Company today announces the appointment of its new artistic director, Paul Birch, and executive director, Oliver Brown.

They will serve as joint chief executive officer of the national touring theatre company, based at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York.

Playwright, sketch writer, improv comedy trailblazer and theatre director Paul Birchrejoins the company as artistic director after holding early roles as its youth theatre director and associate director of education and community.

He succeeds Paul Burbridge, co-founder of the Christian theatre company and artistic director since its foundation in 1977, who died after a short illness in April 2023.

As a freelance writer-director, his work has been produced in many theatres nationwide, expanding into audio dramas and a practice focused on improvisation, collaborating with improvisers from all over the world.

Paul has developed a track record of applied theatre-making and was artistic director of Out Of Character, a York company comprising artists with lived experience of mental illness, for eight years.

 “I’ve had the privilege of working with Riding Lights for over 20 years. Paul Burbridge was a great mentor to me and offered me many early opportunities in acting, writing and directing,” he says. His influence and inspirational teaching in theatre-making has had a profound and lasting impact on my work.

“The creativity of Riding Lights has always been about making work with and for all kinds of people in all kinds of places; often those hardest to reach. I’m looking forward to finding new artistic ways to create powerful and joyful theatre in that spirit.”

Riding Lights’ new executive director, Oliver Brown, left, and artistic director Paul Birch in the black-box studio theatre at Friargate Theatre, York

Oliver Brown FRSA, at present associate director at Riding Lights,takes up the post of executive director after holding senior leadership roles in production and operations at venues including Hull Truck Theatre and CAST in Doncaster. He is the elected vice-chair and trustee director of the Association of British Theatre Technicians.

His first encounter with Riding Lights was in 1999, when the teenage Oliver knocked on the door of Friargate Theatre, soon after it opened, asking for a technical work placement. Over the subsequent decades, he has worked as a freelance technical and stage manager for the company on many occasions.

“After being a part of Riding Lights for nearly 25 years, I am delighted to be joining the company once again as executive director, having spent my summers at its annual residential summer school, my early years up a ladder amongst the lights in Friargate Theatre, and out on national tours,” he says.

“Along with Paul, I am looking forward to Riding Lights’ 50th anniversary in 2027 and planning for the future.

“I am passionate about communicating faith and social justice issues through theatre and community work – a tradition in which Riding Lights is a leader, and one in which I will be honoured to play a part as we develop the evolving vision of Riding Lights.”

Riding LightsTheatre Companyhas been making and touring theatre informed by a Christian faith for 47 years, making it one of Great Britain’s most productive and long-serving independent theatre companies. Its productions have been seen across the world, from the United States of America, through Europe, to Israel and Palestine.

John Emmett, chair of the board of directors, says: “I am delighted that Paul and Ollie have agreed to join Riding Lights. Both of them have a long association with the company and understand well Paul Burbridge’s remarkable legacy. I am confident that they will build on this in fresh and exciting ways to create theatre which entertains, challenges and inspires.”

Friargate Theatre has announced an autumn season of theatre, stand-up and improv comedy, storytelling, music, film and family shows that opens on September 5. For full details and bookings, head to: friargatetheatre.co.uk. Box office: 01904 613000.

Riding Lights is in rehearsal for Cups On A String, a new play by York playwright Bridget Foreman, directed by David Gilbert for an eight-week autumn tour across the UK, to be staged in partnership with Transforming Lives for Good, a charity that brings hope and a future to struggling children.

The brochure cover artwork for Friargate Theatre’s autumn return

Riding Lights: the back story

RIDING Lights Theatre Company was founded in 1977 by Paul Burbridge, Murray Watts and Nigel Forde and has been based in York ever since.

Riding Lights opened Friargate Theatre, in Lower Friargate, York, in 1999. It has since operated as the company’s office and rehearsal space and has two performance spaces: one a ground-floor cabaret-style space seating around 60 people; the other an upstairs black-box studio theatre seating 100. 

World premieres in recent years have included African Snow, a co-production with York Theatre Royal (York Theatre Royal, West End transfer and national tour); Augustus Carp Esq. by Himself (Friargate Theatre); Dick Turpin (Friargate Theatre) and an adaptation of Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men In A Boat (national tour, co-produced with Northcott Theatre, Exeter).

In Summer 2012, Riding Lights, in tandem with York Theatre Royal and York Museums Trust, produced the epic-scale, outdoor production of the York Mystery Plays in York Museum Gardens.

Frequently characterised by quirky satire, Riding Lights’ productions challenge audiences to engage with topical themes and issues, often examining the reverberations of historical events in today’s society.

Classic plays such as Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (two national tours), Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (the inaugural production at Friargate Theatre), Dario Fo’s Mistero Buffo (Friargate Theatre and national tour) and Max Frisch’s The Fire Raisers (Bridewell Theatre, London) have found fresh and arresting relevance in Riding Lights productions.