Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever is just around the corner. All pictures: Dan Tsantilis
PEPPA Pig is celebrating ten years of live shows with a new adventure,
Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!, visiting the Grand Opera House, York, on March
4 and 5.
Performances start at 1pm and 4pm on the first day; 10am and 1pm on the
second, and courtesy of the Cumberland Street theatre, CharlesHutchPress has
one family ticket (four seats) to be won for the 4pm Wednesday performance.
Based on the Entertainment One animated television series, this is Peppa
Pig’s sixth touring production, rooted as ever in songs, games and laughter as
Peppa and friends make a big splash when they jump in puddles.
Peppa Pig Live has been enjoyed by more than 1.5 million
people in Britain, playing eight consecutive West End seasons, as well as
touring the United States and Australia.
In the wake of directing and adapting the stage shows Peppa Pig’s
Adventure, Peppa Pig’s Party, Peppa Pig’s Treasure Hunt, Peppa Pig’s Big
Splash and Peppa Pig’s Surprise, Richard Lewis is doing likewise
for Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever, working with BAFTA award-winning composer Mani
Svavarsson.
Family travels in Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!
Produced by children’s theatre team Fierylight, in tandem with eOne,
the new adventure finds Peppa Pig excited to be going on a special
day out with George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig.
Peppa’s best day ever will involve a road‐trip full of fun
adventures. From castles to caves, dragons to dinosaurs and ice‐creams to the muddy puddles, there will be something for all Peppa’s family and their
friends Mr Bull, Suzy Sheep, Gerald Giraffe and very busy newcomer Miss
Rabbit to enjoy.
Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Competition question:
Who has written the music for Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!?
Send your answer with your name, address and daytime phone number, to charles.hutchinson104@gmail.com, marked
Peppa Pig Competition, by 1pm on Monday, March 2.
Let’s go.! Time to head out on Peppa Pig’s best day ever
Quickfire questions for Peppa Pig to answer as York beckons.
Are you excited about your road trip with your family and friends?
“Yes. Oink! Oink! Hee! Hee! Hee! I’m very excited to visit loads of
new places and I hope to make some more nice friends. I think it’s going to be
the best ever!”
What makes your best day
ever?
“Lots of adventure! I like it when we get to drive around in our
camper van and eat lots of ice cream and explore castles. And jump in muddy
puddles of course.”
What are you most looking
forward to on your road trip?
“Jumping in muddy puddles. Hee! Hee!”
Who is your favourite person
to travel with?
“My little brother, George. Oink! Oink! But he has to bring Mr Dinosaur
everywhere with him!”
Who else will join you at
the theatre?
“Mummy, Daddy, Mr Bull, Suzy Sheep, Gerald Giraffe and some of our
other friends. Even Miss Rabbit is coming. She is always so busy with all her
jobs, so it’s extra special she can come with us.”
Awkward moment for Martin (Bryan Bounds) and son Billy (Will Fealy) in The Goat. Pictures: Matthew Kitchen
REVIEW: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Pick Me Up Theatre, John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, dropping jaws until Saturday, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com.
WELL, you won’t see a play like this every day, but I dare you still
to see it in Pick Me Up Theatre’s northern UK premiere.
Playwright Edward Albee, born in Virginia, but long associated
with New York after moving to Greenwich Village at 18, is best known for Who’s
Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?. The 1962 one, turned into a 1966 Mike Nichols film with
the almighty verbal scrap between Elizabeth Taylor’s Martha and Richard Burton’s
George.
Susannah Baines’s Stevie wonders what’s going on in The Goat
Albee wrote another play with a question mark in its title in
2002: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? The American agent provocateur of theatre of
the absurd could pour 50 years of the even more absurd into it, but essentially
it is a further study of the marital complexities of a middle-aged
couple, in this case Martin and Stevie Gray.
Except that Albee’s Broadway premiere came with
a plea from the writer: “Imagine what you can’t imagine… imagine being in love
with something you can’t conceive of. The play is about love, loss, the limits
of our tolerance and who, indeed, we really are.”
And there was more: “All I ask of an audience
is that they leave their prejudices in the cloakroom and view the play objectively
and later – at home – imagine themselves as being in the predicament the play
examines and coming up with useful, if not necessarily comfortable, responses.”
Will Fealy as Billy: announcing a talent to watch as drama school beckons
Who could sense at the start what lies in store, how famous New York architect Martin Gray’s world would soon turn to rubble as the American Dream crumbles? Played by suave American actor Bryan Bounds, who recommended the play to director Mark Hird, Gray has just turned 50, won his latest prize and been given the ultimate commission to design the World City on Kansas’s wheat fields.
Hair immaculate, life immaculate, house
immaculate in its monochrome trendiness (in Robert Readman’s design), he says
he could not be more happily in love with wife Stevie (Susannah Baines). Son
Billy (Will Fealy) is blossoming at 17, brightly questing and gay (like Albee,
who knew it at 12 and a half).
Yet Martin seems distracted, playing at forgetfulness
in banter with Stevie, and what’s that smell, she asks. When he is even more
distracted while talking with best friend Ross (Mick Liversidge), fouling up a
TV interview recording, the truth will out. Martin has fallen in love with Sylvia,
a goat (hence the smell), and the feeling is mutual, and yes, without being
graphic, the relationship is full on.
MIck Liversidge’s Ross: asking the searching questions in The Goat
Greek tragedies dive deep into the extremes of
the human condition, as do plenty of Shakespeare’s plays, and, especially,
Jacobean tragedies. The Goat puts the ‘eek’ into a modern Greek tragedy,
although it is more of a tragicomedy. Yes, you read that right. There is a liquorice-dark
humour to Albee’s brilliantly written confessions and confrontations, as well
as moments that are excruciatingly uncomfortable, as The Goat turns from domestic
situation comedy to Domestos-powerful situation tragedy.
What’s more, Hird’s thrust-stage setting, with
the audience so close up on three sides, adds to that discomfort, and not because
Baines’s Stevie starts smashing all the living-room pottery (courtesy of Fangfoss
Pottery’s Gerry Grant). No, it is the fierce heat, the candour, of what is
being said. Hird’s cast avoids histrionics; instead the rise and fall and rise
again of anger, hurt, confusion, love, is far more skilfully played by one and
all, pulling the audience this way and that.
Bounds urged Hird to cast Baines, and he was spot-on:
his Martin is infuriatingly phlegmatic, unflustered; her Stevie is an ever-tightening
coil in response, whose actions will speak louder than his words.
The Gray family: all smiles before the Sylvia storm
Son Billy is caught in the middle, and Will
Fealy, such a burgeoning talent that he has just been offered an unconditional
place at Arts.Ed in London, conveys all the confusions of illusions being shattered,
certainties derailed, while dealing with his own sexual awakening.
Mick Liversidge’s bewildered, shocked Ross sort
of represents the audience in his reactions, or does he, because the moral
ambiguities are complex, and as Albee once said, “if you think this play
is about bestiality, you’re either an idiot or a Republican”. Trump that!
Albee also said: “Never leave the audience the same way you found them”, and 90 unbroken minutes of The Goat – apart from the smashed bowls and vases – will leave you pondering relationships, family, love. As for goats, I’ll stick to loving goats’ cheese.
Please
note: this play contains adult themes and strong language; suggested minimum
age of 15.
IN the week when Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s terrifying play Ghost
Stories will be spooking out the Grand Opera House, now there is to be even
more paranormal activity at the York theatre.
On March 12 and 13 at 10.30pm each night, Paranormal Research York (PRY)
will lead The Ghost Hunt in a theatre lit only by the emergency lighting
systems.
Those attending this after-dark theatre tour will be encouraged to
participate throughout the interactive event, where PRY will employ assorted traditional
methods, such as a human pendulum and divination activities, using crystals and
divining rods.
Ghost hunters: the calling card for Paranormal Research York
A variety of technical equipment will be on hand for guests to try out, such as a “stick
man” camera and gadgets that can detect spirit energies. In a nutshell, guests
can be “as involved as they dare to be”.
Paranormal Research York’s team of experienced and professional paranormal investigators
from York have come together to investigate predominantly in “Britain’s most
haunted city”.
Their work involves accessing a range of haunted locations in and around
York and then researching their findings to go with the legends.
Parallel paranormal activities: Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s play Ghost Stories will be scaring all and sundry at the Grand Opera House in the same week as the late-night ghost hunts
Looking forward to conducting The Ghost Hunt in a building built in 1868,
PRY’s Clare Bryant says: “We’re very excited to be hosting the first ever ghost
hunt at this amazing, historical building. From our first walk around at the
Grand Opera House, we could feel the spirits already coming forward.”
Kevin Spindloe, from PRY, adds: “Wow! Friday the 13th and we have the
privilege to be investigating here. It’s so active here and the spirits seem
keen to tell their own ghost stories. As a guest you can be involved in the
activities or just watch. Either way you will experience an event like no
other.”
The Ghost Hunt on Friday, March 13th has sold out – unlucky for some! – but tickets for March 12 and the Ghost Stories run from March 10 to 14 are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
The lecturer in Ghost Stories: “The supernatural is purely a trick of the mind,” he says…but is it?
THE Grand Opera House, York, already
has its own ghost, one said to call out the first name of a new member of staff
in the quiet of the auditorium on first acquaintance.
No doubt that will intrigue Professor
Goodman, ahead of the lecturer’s visit to the Cumberland Street theatre from
March 10 to 14 as the investigative fulcrum of writer-directors Andy Nyman and
Jeremy Dyson’s “supernatural sensation”, Ghost Stories, on its first national
tour.
On the road since January 7 after
completing its latest West End run at The Ambassadors Theatre, London, the
Lyric Hammersmith Theatre production should feel at home in York, the
self-proclaimed most haunted city in Europe.
What’s more, with the Grand Opera
House’s proximity to the York Dungeon, “York’s scariest tourist attraction”,
where better for Nyman and Dyson’s global hit to be spooking?
Premiered a decade ago and turned into
a film too, Ghost Stories invites its captive audience to “enter a nightmarish
world, full of thrilling twists and turns, where all your deepest fears and
most disturbing thoughts are imagined live on stage”.
Expect a “fully sensory and
electrifying encounter in the ultimate twisted love-letter to horror, a
supernatural edge-of-your-seat theatrical experience like no other”, as
Professor Goodman strives to prove the supernatural is “purely a trick of the
mind” in the face of three stories that beg to differ.
“Ghost Stories has never really gone
away, running in various incarnations since the original production a decade
ago, going into the West End, then Canada, Moscow,” says co-writer Jeremy
Dyson, best known for his work with those twisted humourists The League Of
Gentlemen.
“It was done in Russian in Russia but we
had to maintain that it was set in Britain because apparently no Russian is
afraid of a ghost.”
Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson: co-writers and directors of Ghost Stories
The latest British incarnation opened
at the Lyric Hammersmith last March, whereupon it was picked up by commercial
producers keen to take it on the road. “We’d always wanted to do that but never
been able to do so, even though we knew just how much people wanted to see it,
but we were told it ‘wasn’t tourable’.”
Until now, until Jon Bausor came up
with a design that could play both The Ambassadors Theatre and theatres around
the country.
“He’s made it possible to squash the
set into a van!” says Jeremy, who lives in Ilkley, by the way. “Each time we’ve
staged the play, we’ve been able to solve another problem, get rid of another
niggle, and finally we have the production that is totally to our satisfaction.
“The show’s been going down really well
on tour, and it will fit perfectly into York with all its ghost stories and the
York Dungeon opposite the Grand Opera House.”
Why are we so drawn to ghost stories,
Jeremy? “I think there are lots of reasons,” he says. “One of them is obvious: death
and the afterlife, which is a personal concern to all of us, and ghost stories
are a way to approach such an overwhelming concern.
“That’s particularly so in our
increasingly secular society, where there’s a hunger for the mysterious, the
uncanny, the inexplicable, which once upon a time would have come under the
auspices of the church and religion.
“That’s part of it, and also when it
comes to a show like Ghost Stories, there’s the entertainment and the thrill,
the fairground element.”
Nyman, London actor, director and
writer, and Dyson, screen and stage writer and author, have been friends for a
“very long time”. “Since we were teenagers, in fact,” says Jeremy. “We met when
we were 15 and one of the things we bonded over was horror movies at the dawn
of the video age, renting those films to watch them together.
The Caretaker: one of the three Ghost Stories to be told at the Grand Opera House, York
“We’ve had our individual careers and
we’d never thought of working together, but out of the blue Andy called me with
this idea of having three men sitting telling ghost stories after he saw The
Vagina Monologues [Eve Ensler’s show with three women telling stories].
“It was a very intriguing idea that was
enough to hook me straightaway, though we then veered away from that initial
construction over a long gestation period.
“Creating Ghost Stories was very much a
case of sitting in a room together, talking about it for a year, and then
getting together, bashing out the outline, working every day for a week, when
we pretty much hammered it out, because we’d been thinking about it for so
long.”
Ghost Stories has drawn comparisons
with Stephen Mallatratt’s stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black,
premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 1987 and still running
in the West End, but Jeremy was keen that Ghost Stories should stand in its own
right.
“We wanted very much to create a theatre
experience that we hadn’t had before, in terms of being a very immersive piece
of theatre, and we also like the challenge of taking things that you’re
familiar thematically from horror films and seeing if we could transfer them to
the stage.”
A further element is at play in Ghost
Stories. “Andy and I both have a love of conjuring and magic; Andy has worked
with Derren Brown for 20, so we wanted to build that into the show’s
structure,” says Jeremy. “We wanted to look at how you can create a magical effect
with a combination of storytelling and technology, and that’s what we’ve
achieved.”
Ghost Stories promises “moments of extreme shock and tension” at the Grand Opera House, York, from March 10 to 14. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york. Unsuitable for anyone under 15 years old.
Matthew Kelly, left, and David Yelland in The Habit Of Art. Picture: Helen Maybanks
YORK Theatre Royal’s co-production of Alan Bennett’s comedy The Habit Of Art with the Original Theatre Company is heading to New York as part of the Brits Off Broadway festival.
Premiered in York in September 2018, Philip Franks’s show starring Matthew Kelly will be one of eight productions featured in 59E59 Theaters’ annual celebration of theatre from the UK.
Franks’s
production begins its
second British tour in March ahead of the American dates from May 29 to June 28
in one of 59E59 Theaters’ three off-Broadway spaces, having first toured Britain
in Autumn 2018.
The Habit Of Art director Philip Franks
Leeds playwright Bennett’s 2009 play imagines a meeting between friends and collaborators W.H. Auden, the York-born poet, and composer Benjamin Britten. Most of the original cast are in the latest production, including Kelly, David Yelland and Yorkshire actor Benjamin Chandler, who made his York Theatre Royal debut in the 2018 company.
Kelly says: “I’ve done Brits on
Broadway before in [Hull playwright] Richard Bean’s play Toast, which is very
different to The Habit Of Art. But Americans are going to love Alan Bennett
because they think they’re going to see something very British.”
John Wark, left, and Ben Chandler in The Habit Of Art. Picture: Helen Maybanks
Director Franks adds: “New York is the
most wonderful city but there’s a huge challenge because it’s such an English
play. I hope very much audiences will respond.”
The 2020 production of The Habit Of Art is produced by the Original Theatre Company and Anthology with Peter Stickney and York Theatre Royal.
Franks last directed in York in Summer 2019 when his Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre production of The Tempest ran at the Elizabethan pop-up theatre on the Castle car park.
REVIEW: Crongton Knights, Pilot Theatre, York Theatre Royal,
until Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
EVER since Lord Of The Flies, York Theatre Royal resident
company Pilot Theatre have made theatre that speaks directly to young
audiences.
Now, Pilot are in the second year of a four-year creative
partnership with Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre, Derby Theatre and the Theatre
Royal, their reach spreading ever wider.
Last year’s gripping adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s radical Noughts & Crosses is followed up by another topical story, Emteaz Hussain’s stage account of Crongton Knights, a young adult novel by Brixton Bard Alex Wheatle, a London writer of Jamaican parentage.
Co-directed by Corey Campbell, artistic director of Strictly Arts Theatre Company, and Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson, it is a play with music, not a musical, but has the punch of West Side Story, the exhilarating beatbox and vocal score by Conrad Murray setting the story’s pulsating rhythm.
The Crongton Knights of the title are the self-styled
Magnificent Six, caught up at a young age in the gangland turf wars of the
Crongton Estate, divided into “North Crong” and “South Crong”, their homestead.
Into the dangerous Notre Dame estate they venture on a teen
quest, a mission to rescue the mobile phone of Venetia (Aimee Powell, the
show’s best singer), in the possession of her ex-boyfriend with incriminating
photographs she needs to erase.
Leading them is big-hearted McKay (Olisa Odele); alongside are
Jonah (Khai Shaw), Bit (Zak Douglas), Saira (Nigar Yeva) and, along for the
ride, and desperate to be their lookout, Bushkid (Kate Donnachie), on her bike.
What follows is a story of “lessons learned the hard way” at
the hands of those more experienced, more streetwise, more ruthless, more desperate,
as represented by Simi Egbejumi-David’s ensemble roles.
In Wheatle’s words, the Magnificent Six must “confront debt,
poverty, blackmail, loss, fear, the trauma of a flight from a foreign land and
the omnipresent threat of gangland violence”, but the tone is not suffocatingly
grim. Even in a world stacked against teens, there is hope; there is
positivity; above all there is the bond of friendship.
Pilot’s press release talked of a madcap adventure, and Simon Kenny’s graffiti-painted, rainbow-coloured, scaffolded set design plays to that spirit, especially when garage lock-up doors open up to show the Magnificent Six running in slow motion. Imagine a cartoon crossed with the black comedy drama of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting.
Not all the dialogue is as clear as it could be, and nor is the story’s passage, but the highly energised performances, especially by Odele and Powell, are terrific, and special praise goes to Dale Mathurin for stepping into the role of Nesta with only two hot-housed days of rehearsals.
Richard G Jones’s lighting and Adam P McCready’s sound
design are important too, both complementing the urban wasteland of troubled
teens trying to find their place when so much is barren.
A scene from Seeds at Leeds Playhouse. All pictures: Wasi Daniju
TWO mothers united in sorrow, unable to escape the tragedy of
knife crime, try to protect their sons, one in life, one in death, in Mel Pennant’s
new play, Seeds, at Leeds Playhouse.
Running in the Bramall Rock Void until Saturday, it tells the
stories of those who fight to keep their children safe from the world they grow
up in, when knife-crime offences in England and Wales have reached a record
high and hate crimes have more than doubled over a seven-year period.
Shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award, Seeds is
billed as “a courageous play that looks at difficult subjects of racism,
violence, death and grief. It describes a hate crime and uses the N word, all
of which may be a trigger for people who have suffered as result of the above
and may be difficult for some audience members”.
The setting is Michael Thomas’s
birthday, when his cake sits in his mother’s living room, its candles burning
undisturbed. Jackie wants to clear her conscience, while Evelyn has a big
speech to deliver on the 15th anniversary of Michael’s fatal stabbing. Are some
things better left unsaid?
Seeds is presented by Tiata Fahodzi
and Wrested Veil in association with Leeds Playhouse, Soho Theatre and Tara
Finney Productions.
Here, first, writer Mel Pennant and, then, director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour discuss the play.
“Rollercoaster, awkward, emotional”: Mel Pennant’s play Seeds
How would you describe the play, Mel?
“Two mums, either side of a racist murder, come together and explore what happened to their sons 15 years earlier. They go to places no-one else would take them to and,, in doing so, come to an agreed truth which is life changing for both of them.”
How would you sum up Seeds in three words?
“Rollercoaster, awkward, emotional.”
What inspired you to write the play?
“In writing the play, I was conscious that we rarely hear, in any depth, the stories of the families of people involved in tragedies and yet as a society we often judge them.
“I wanted to explore those stories through two mothers on either side of such an event and, in doing so, interrogate the very essence of motherhood.
“Those two women have a conversation that couldn’t happen without the other: they can face the depth of their despair and longing, how they define themselves in a space that is becoming even more limiting.”
Why is it important we discuss knife crime from the perspective of mothers?
“Because it’s families, parents, mothers who are left with the aftermath. When the headlines are over, they are the ones who deal with the reality. I wanted to explore that reality.”
What do
you want audiences to take away from Seeds?
“I hope audiences see my play as the beginning of a conversation. I hope that it enables audiences to see and engage with the complexities and layers of the issues discussed.”
“Tense, emotive, shattering”: director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour’s summary of Seeds
How would
you describe the play, Anastasia?
“Seeds is a tense drama where two mothers fight for their sons, bargaining with each other to get what they desperately need and, in the process, bare their souls, leaving them both changed by the encounter.”
How would
you sum up Seeds in three words?
“Tense, emotive, shattering.”
What initially drew you to the play?
“Its subject matter. It explores racism and motherhood in a way that really resonates with me: placing racism in the context of families, how the ‘seeds’ of racism can grow in families, ‘take root’ and have horrifically dangerous consequences – a point that I feel is so important to highlight.
“It also considers how far a mother would go to protect her son. Having reached an age where I’m thinking about having children, I worry a lot about how safe the world is, whether I can keep my children safe when I bring them into this world, I think about what I would do to protect them.”
Why is it
important we discuss knife crime from the perspective of mothers?
“They are left dealing with the shattering aftermath for years and years after; they bring life into the world only to see it cut down. There’s a need to highlight these people so that, as a society, we can think more about how we support them to survive the deepest of tragedies.”
What do
you want audiences to take away from Seeds?
“I want to inspire greater awareness of the ‘seeds’
of racism in families in the hope they can be rooted out before they cause disaster.
“I believe
people can change and grow. People with racist views – if they would allow
themselves to see it – can change and help to change others if they choose to
take a stand.
“I want
people to see the play as a warning that we all need to take xenophobia
seriously and act to stamp it out. Discourse-challenging racist and xenophobic
rhetoric and events, like this play which allows people from diverse
backgrounds to be in the same space to face these issues, will help and play a
part in creating change.”
Seeds, Bramall Rock Void, Leeds Playhouse, until Saturday, 8pm plus 2.15pm Thursday, and 2.45pm, Saturday. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk. Age guidance: 14 plus.
Upon The Stair: playing Harrogate Theatre from tonight
HARROGATE Theatre is teaming up with Adam Z Robinson to co-produce his Gothic terror tales Upon The Stair.
Traditional storytelling, live music and fully integrated British Sign Language (BSL) combine to bring three macabre ghost stories to life at Harrogate Theatre tonight until Saturday.
In The Cry Of The
Bubák, a haunted man flees to a health facility to escape his past, only to have
it catch up with him in a most horrifying way.
In Mirrorman, a family moves to an old house on the edge of town and discovers that the previous owner may not have left after all.
In The Xylotheque, a
librarian visits the estate of a doctor with a nefarious reputation and comes
face to face with his diabolical practices.
Each tale is scripted by writer/performer Robinson, who was supported by
Harrogate Theatre previously when presenting his ghostly tales from The Book Of
Darkness & Light.
Adam Z Robinson’s Shivers
Through Robinson working with deaf consultants and linguists Adam Bassett and Brian Duffy, his latest script has been developed
and translated into British Sign Language and Visual Vernacular, making Upon The Stair accessible
for d/Deaf audiences without the need of an interpreter on stage.
Performed by deaf actor and dancer Raffie Julien, the show is billed as “a
truly remarkable gothic performance like never witnessed before”, featuring a
live violin score composed and played by Chloe Hayward.
After two national tours of his first show, The Book Of Darkness & Light, and 30-plus dates for his follow-up, Shivers – both performed in Harrogate Theatre’s Studio – Robinson returns with his “most exciting, ambitious and gripping production yet”, directed by Edinburgh Fringe First Award winner Dick Bonham.
Upon The Stair is a co-production with Harrogate
Theatres, Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax, and producers LittleMight; the
two venues providing support, space and creative input to produce the show.
Robinson’s play premiered at Square Chapel on January
11 and has since played Salisbury Theatre from January 16 to 18. More dates
will be announced soon for Autumn 2020.
Upon The Stair, Harrogate Theatre, February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly and
2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk
Looking ecstatic to be back at York Barbican: Paul Weller , booked in for November 3
YORK Barbican has a fistful of new shows going on sale on Friday: Modfather Paul Weller, comedians Jason Manford, Joel Dommett and Daniel Sloss and the dance extravaganza Here Come The Boys.
Weller, 61, has sold out his May tour
and will go back out on the road for 19 British and Irish dates in October and
November, playing York on November 3.
Jason Manford: seeking approval at York Barbican next February
Weller will play an acoustic set for
the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on March 25 as a
special guest of The Stereophonics and his new album, On Sunset, will be released
on June 12 on Polydor, his new label.
He performed previously at York Barbican in March 2015 and August 2018 and his last North Yorkshire gig was at Dalby Forest, near Pickering, last June.
Joel Dommett: new show in December
His autumn travels also will take in further
Yorkshire dates at Hull Bonus Arena on November 2 and Bradford St George’s Hall
on November 17.
Jason Manford, who reached the final of ITV’s The Masked Singer this winter, will return to York Barbican in almost a year’s time, on February 17 2021, with his new stand-up show, Like Me.
Expect “observational comedy mixed with comic gold” from the Salford comedian, presenter and actor who chalked up three Barbican performances of his Muddle Class show in October 2018 and March 2019.
Smoke alarm: Daniel Sloss will be full of Hubris on October 3
Rockhampton comedian, actor and
presenter Joel Dommett, host of The Masked Singer, will play York on December 11,
delivering a new show after this 2016 I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here runner-up
brought his Live 2018 tour to the Barbican in February that year.
Scottish comic Daniel Sloss will follow up his X show – taken to 40 countries, including Russia – with his new solo outing, Hubris, booked in for his Barbican bow on October 3.
Here come Michael, Aljaz, Pasha and Sam on June 24
Strictly Come Dancing’s Aljaž Škorjanec sold out his last appearance at York Barbican and will return on June 24, joined in the Here Come The Boys line-up by former Strictly favourite Pasha Kovalev, West End ballet star Sam Salter and NBC World Of Dance champion and Broadway star Michael Dameski, from Australia.
Ballroom, Latin, commercial, contemporary, ballet, acro and tap all will feature in a show where the Boys will perform alongside dancers, gymnasts, tap dancers and more.
Tickets can be booked from 10am on Friday (February 28) at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from Barbican box office.
The Blue Light Theatre Company members with representatives of York Against Cancer and the Motor Neurone Disease Association (York) at the cheque presentation at York’s Ambulance Station. All pictures:: Scott Atkinson
THE Blue Light Theatre Company took to the stage once again in January
at Acomb Working Men’s Club, York, to raise money for York charities York
Against Cancer and Motor Neurone Disease Association (York).
“We’re thrilled to announce that we managed to match last year’s amount
of £3,000 – despite our production costs rising,” says cast member Mark Friend,
who played Pinocchio in Oh! What A Circus on January 24, 25 and 29 to 31.
“The money raised has been split equally between the two charities. We’ve
received fantastic support from many of North Yorkshire’s tourist attractions
and businesses; without their generous support, we would not have been able to
raise this amount.”
The Blue Light Theatre Company in Oh! What A Circus at Acomb Working Men’s Club
Oh! What A Circus was the seventh pantomime performed by The Blue Light Theatre Company, made up of paramedics, ambulance dispatchers, York Hospital staff and members of York’s theatre scene, who have raised well over £10,000 over those years.
Writer and co-producer Perri Ann Barley says: “It’s great to see our
audience come back year after year to support us, plus lots of new audience as
the word gets around just how good our productions are.
“Work is already underway for Panto 2021 and the challenge is on to make
it even bigger and better than the last. The title will be announced later in
the year”.
Mark Friend, as Pinocchio, in Oh! What A Circus
Last Wednesday, the Blue Light company met representatives from York
Against Cancer and Motor Neurone Disease Association (York) MNDA at York’s
Ambulance Station to present them with their cheques.
Julie Russell, from York Against Cancer, says: “Thank you very much for
this generous donation. It will help us make a difference to cancer patients
and their families’ lives. The Blue Light Theatre Company really do know how to
put ‘fun’ into fundraising. Thank you.”
In the cheque presentation picture are Julie Russell, from York Against Cancer; James Chambers, Jen Dodd, Colin Pearson and Val Corder, from MNDA (York) and The Blue Light Theatre Company’s Zoe Paylor, Perri Ann Barley, Christine Friend, Beth Waudby, Mark Friend, Devon Wells, Mick Waudby, Craig Barley and Glen Gears.
