Juliet Forster, left, directing rehearsals for Out Of Character’s Less Than Human
SOMETHING strange is happening,
something disturbing, say York company Out Of Character in Less Than Human,
this week’s production at the York Theatre Royal Studio.
After their sold-out November 2017 show about Victorian freak shows and mad doctors, Objects Of Terror, they are collaborating once more with the Theatre Royal, whose associate director, Juliet Forster, again directs the new piece.
Out Of Character’s publicity artwork for Less Than Human
Less Than
Human plays out against the backdrop of Planet Earth having less to give but
its inhabitants
taking more. In this struggling world of diminishing resources, humanity is
forced to wrestle with the true cost of survival. What does it mean to be
truly human? Are some lives worth more than others? Who decides who lives and
dies? A question that suddenly has a new urgency and prescience amid the
rise of Coronavirus.
As evolving technologies offer new
forms of “human being”, is there still hope for a bright future…or do some
people have to pay the price, the play asks.
Out Of Character in rehearsal for Less Than Human
Out Of Character’s company of artists and
performers brings together people who use or have used mental health services.
Their bold, creative and darkly comedic approach to making theatre aims to stir
both the mind and the heart.
The company won the Excellence in
Equality and Cultural Diversity Prize at the 2018 York Culture Awards. Audiences
on social media have described their work as compelling, deeply affecting,
intense, beautiful, clever, articulate, challenging, powerful, poignant and
thought-provoking.
Out Of Character cast members in a tug-of-war scene in Less Than Human
Out Of Character’s previous shows included Tales From Kafka in July 2010, Henry IV in May 2012 and More Tales From Kafka in November 2014.
Less Than Human runs from Thursday to Saturday (March 12 to 14) at 7.45pm nightly. Tickets cost £10, concessions £8, on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Making his point: Luke Dickson’s Brian Clough clashes with David Chafer’s Peter Taylor in Red Ladder Theatre Company’s The Damned United
DOWN the stairs, along the corridor,
round the corner, into the dressing room. His dressing room. Hateful, hateful
place. Spiteful, spiteful place. Dirty, dirty Leeds.
Here comes The Damned United, the story
of Brian Clough’s ill-fated, fetid 44 days as reigning champions Leeds United’s
manager in the summer of 1974.
Adapted for the stage from West Yorkshire
author David Peace’s book The Damned Utd, Anders Lustgarten’s play is presented
by Leeds’s Red Ladder Theatre Company at York Theatre Royal on April 17 at the
familiar kick-off time of 7.30pm.
The strife of Brian: The poster for Red Ladder Theatre Company’s The Damned United
The Damned United invites you to enter
the obsessed head of Brian Clough, already the enfant terrible of English
football management after his exit from Derby County, who arrives at Elland
Road in 1974, seeking to redeem his reputation by winning the European Cup with
his new club, Division One champions Leeds United.
This is the team he has despised for
years, the team he hates and that hates him no less. Don Revie’s Leeds, the
greatest but most grating team of its era.
Let playwright and political activist
Lustgarten’s abrasive play take you inside the tortured, drink-befuddled mind
of a north-eastern genius slamming up against his limits, as The Damned United “brings
to life the beauty and brutality of football, the working man’s ballet”.
Falling out with the chairman: Luke Dickson’s Brian Clough has another fractious encounter in The Damned United
Directed by Red Ladder artistic
director Rod Dixon and originally co-produced with West Yorkshire Playhouse in
2015, this latter-day Greek tragedy adapts Peace’s fictionalised, first-person
account to focus more on the flawed Clough’s fractious relationship down the
years with Peter Taylor, his sage and stoical regular right-hand man, who did
not accompany him to Elland Road.
This bullish character study of bravado,
loyalty and strained friendship is performed by Luke Dickson as Clough, David
Chafer as Taylor and Jamie Smelt as everyone else, while Dixon is joined in the
production team dug-out by set and projection designer Nina Dunn, lighting
designer Tim Skelly and sound designer Ed Heaton.
Tickets are on sale at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk, on 01904 623568 or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.
Heather Agyepong as Sephy in Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses at York Theatre Royal last April . Picture: Robert Day
YORK company Pilot Theatre will revive
their award-winning 2019 production of Noughts & Crosses for an autumn tour.
This announcement comes amid the blaze
of publicity for BBC One’s six-part adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s young
adult novel, filmed in South Africa, that began earlier this week.
Sabrina Mahfouz’s stage version of a modern-day
Romeo & Juliet tale of first love in a dangerous fictional dystopia will
be directed once more by Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson, whose
co-production of Crongton Knights played York Theatre Royal from February 25 to
29 on Pilot’s latest tour.
“We’re delighted that this show, which
was nominated for best show for children and young people at UK Theatre Awards,
is returning later this year,” says Esther. “It’s wonderful that even more
young people can experience this production and that Pilot will be able to tour
to areas of England that we haven’t visited, thanks to the support of Arts
Council England.”
Class act: more than school friends Sephy (Heather Agyepong) and Callum (Billy Harris) in Noughts And Crosses last year.
Noughts & Crosses will open at the
York theatre in a September 11 to 19 run before embarking on a national tour
until late-November.
Told from the perspectives of two
teenagers, Sephy and Callum, Blackman’s love story set in a volatile,
racially segregated society, where black (the Crosses) rules over white (the
Noughts), as she explores the powerful themes of love, revolution and what
it means to grow up in a divided world.
Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation for
teenagers is based on Blackman’s first book in the Noughts & Crosses series
for young adults, winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award and the
Fantastic Fiction Award, among other accolades.
Noughts & Crosses was produced
by Pilot Theatre, York Theatre Royal, Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry,
and the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, as the first show in a new partnership to
develop theatre for younger audiences. This is the consortium behind the
aforementioned tour of Emteaz Hussain’s
adaptation of Alex Wheatle’s Crongton Knights.
Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson
Last year, Noughts & Crosses won
the Excellence in Touring award at the UK
Theatre Awards, when also nominated for Best Show for Children and Young
People.
As with Crongton Knights, schools
workshops and outreach projects, along with free digital learning resources,
will be available alongside the autumn production of Noughts & Crosses
Casting will be announced in the coming
months. Tickets for the York run are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.
Here is a precis of Charles Hutchinson’s review of Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses at York Theatre Royal, printed in The Press, York, in April 2019.
“ESTHER Richardson proposed Noughts & Crosses when pitching for Pilot’s artistic directorship after Marcus Romer headed south, and her passion for Malorie Blackman’s twist on a Romeo & Juliet story is writ large in her telling of Sabrina Mahfouz’s electrifying adaptation.
Heather Agyepong’s Sephy in Noughts & Crosses last year
“In Blackman’s Britain, Noughts are the
white underlings; no orange juice; milk only on Fridays; no mobile phones;
second-rate secondary education. Crosses are the black ruling class; apartheid
divisions turned on their head.
“Never the twain shall meet on equal terms, except that Nought
Callum (Billy Harris), 15, and Cross Sephy (Heather Agyepong), 14, have been
friends throughout childhood, meeting secretly on her family’s private beach.
Sephy’s father, Kamal Hadley (Chris Jack), is the Home
Secretary; Callum’s mum, Meggie (Lisa Howard), is the Hadley family’s
housekeeper. When Callum is one of three Nought teens granted a place at
Sephy’s Crosses-only school, how will it affect their relationship?
“Blackman depicts a fractious, tinderbox world: Sephy’s mum
Jasmine (Doreene Blackstock) is an alcoholic, neglected by her preoccupied
husband; Callum’s dad Ryan (Daniel Copeland) and brother Jude (Jack Condon) are
Liberation Militia freedom fighters. Callum’s sister, so damaged in an assault,
has curled up in a ball ever since.
Pilot Theatre cast members in a scene in Noughts & Crosses
“As with Pilot’s first hit, Lord Of The Flies, our ability to
destroy rather than create bonds, to repeatedly take the wrong turn, lies at
the heart of Blackman’s damning, bleak vision that haunts us still more in
intolerant Brexit Britain.
“Sephy and Callum express a wish for a better world, one where
we rub along with each other, but this is a rotten Britain of death sentences,
an intransigent Home Secretary, thwarted love across the divide.
“Given the bold imagination of Blackman’s novel for young adults with its heroine figure of a bright black teenage girl, you might wish she had come up with a similarly bold answer to so many ultimately familiar woes.
“Alas not, but this is nevertheless a superb production with good performances all round, plenty of punch in the direction, and high-quality set, lighting, sound, music and video design.”
DANCE troupe Diversity will play York
Barbican on April 25 2021 on their Connected tour.
Last year marked ten years since Diversity won the third series of Britain’s Got Talent, an anniversary celebrated on the sold-out 48-date Born Ready tour.
At those shows, Diversity promised to continue into a second decade and, true to their word, founder and choreographer Ashley Banjo has created Connected, a show that centres around the world of social media, the internet and the digital era we now live in, but, more importantly, how this connects us all.
Banjo says: “Every year that goes by,
and every time we get to create a new touring show, I cannot believe we are
still lucky enough to get to do this.
“But even after all this time, we are
still growing, and this new decade and new chapter for Diversity is sure to be
something even more special than the last. I truly do believe that we are all
connected in more ways than one and I cannot wait to bring this to life on
stage.”
Banjo has returned to the judging
panel for his third series of ITV’s Dancing On Ice, whose final on Sunday will
feature fellow Diversity member Perri Kiely competing for the
winner’s trophy.
He also has hosted, choreographed and starred in the BAFTA-nominated The Real Full Monty from 2017 to 2019 and the International Emmy Award, Broadcast Award and Royal Television Society Award-winning The Real Full Monty: Ladies Night in 2018-2019. His Channel 4 show, Flirty Dancing, completed it second series last December.
Diversity’s nine tours have sold more
than 600,000 tickets. Tickets
for next spring’s Connected show at York Barbican are on sale on 0203 356 5441,
at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Running from March 19 to May 29 2021, the Connected tour also will visit Harrogate Convention Centre on March 20; Victoria Theatre, Halifax, March 21; Hull Bonus Arena, April 3, and Sheffield City Hall, April 4. Box office: Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Hull, 0844 858 5025 or bonusarenahull.com; Halifax, 01422 351158 or victoriatheatre.co.uk; Sheffield, 0114 278 9789 or sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
HARRY Baker, mathematician-turned-world-slam champion, marks turning
10,000 days old by celebrating numbers, words and life itself at The Crescent,
York, on March 15.
Making a plus out of everything, Baker will be at the latest gathering
of Say Owt, the spoken-word fulcrum hosted by York performance poet Henry Raby.
Amy King: finding words to sum up sexuality and feminism
“From winning his school’s Battle of the Bands competition with a Jay-Z maths homage, to his prime number poetry TED talk being watched by millions online, Harry’s love of language and logic has got him through literal marathons, seen him rap battle in front of Ice Cube, and now has him analysing the technical accuracy of So Solid Crew’s 21 Seconds,” says Henry. “He’s got 99 problems but maths ain’t one.”
Support comes from Amy King and Robert Steventon. “Amy won Say Owt Slam #23 last September. She’s a queer, northern, spoken-word artist, co-founder of the Sheffield spoken-word night All Mic Long, and her poetry tackles topics such as sexuality, feminism and her unwavering love for Wetherspoons,” says Henry.
Robert Steventon: gut-grabbing honesty
“Robert. who won Say Owt Slam #24 in February, is the maestro of Manchester’s Punk In Drublic poetry/comedy night. His poetry is 50 per cent heartfelt gut-grabbing honesty, 50 per cent honorary gobby northern nuance.”
Doors open at 7pm for the 7.30pm performance of Harry Baker: I Am 10,000. Tickets cost £10, concessions £8, from Earworm Records, in Powells Yard, off Goodramgate, or The Crescent, off Blossom Street, or at seetickets.com or £12 on the door.
Benedict Turvill’s troubled playwright Konstantin and The Seagull of the title in York Settlement Community Players’ production. All pictures: John Saunders
REVIEW: The Seagull, York Settlement Community Players, York Theatre Royal Studio, until March 7, 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
IT didn’t end well for the goat in Edward
Albee’s The Goat at Theatre @41 Monkgate last week. It doesn’t end well for the
seagull – borrowed from the National Theatre, no less – in Anton Chekhov’s The
Seagull at the Theatre Royal Studio, but there is awkward comedy aplenty in
both plays.
Absurd comedy in Albee’s jaw-dropping 2002 piece; tragicomedy in Chekhov’s 1895 dysfunctional family drama, as Helen Wilson completes her ten-year project to direct all four of the Russian playwright’s major works for Settlement Players in the York company’s centenary year.
As with Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard
and Three Sisters, the adaptation is by Michael Frayn, who has praised
Settlement, and by implication Wilson, for not tampering with period,
location, genders and politics to “make them more relevant” for modern
audiences.
Livy Potter’s Nina performs Konstantin’s radical but mannered new play in The Seagull
“People
in York are evidently made of sterner stuff,” Frayn said. “Just occasionally,
perhaps, it’s worth trying to catch the sense and feel of what Chekhov actually
intended.”
Wilson
has pursued the same directorial policy once more, placing her trust in Frayn’s
dialogue, replete with dramatic and comic irony, complemented by an uncluttered
set design by Graham Sanderson, with a plain backdrop, chairs and a mini-stage,
bedecked with flowers, for Konstantin’s play within a play.
Frayn
knows that territory from his own 1982 backstage comedy
Noises Off, a classic English unruly farce, but like Frayn’s appraisal of York audiences,
The Seagull is made of sterner stuff.
Forlorn love: Lucy May Orange in black, playing Masha, destined to be forever ignored by Konstantin (Benedict Turvill)
“They’re all vulnerable, every one of them,” says Wilson of
Chekhov’s characters, and she has made a spot-on judgement call in wanting vulnerability
and warmth in equal measure in her staging. Enter Lucy May Orange’s Masha,
dressed in black to match her forlorn conviction that her love for troubled young
playwright Konstantin (Benedict Turvill) will be forever unrequited.
At this point we laugh in recognition, not least because she
is saying this to smitten teacher Medvedenko (Samithi Sok), seemingly oblivious
to her indifference towards him, and soon we shall find Turvill’s over-sensitive
Konstantin in torment at putative girlfriend Nina (Livy Potter), his muse and
actress for his “ground-breaking” play, not worshipping him the same way her
worships her.
Turvill’s radical theatre-maker Konstantin has an even more troubled relationship with his mother, faded actress Arkadina (Stephanie Hesp), than Hamlet had with Gertrude, merciless in her dismissal of his writing talent, so insensitive in stealing attention away from Nina’s performance of his bold but admittedly dreadful play at Sorin’s increasingly anguished house party one lakeside summer evening.
Clinging on: Stephanie Hesp’s Arkadina losing the attention and affections of her lover, Ben Sawyer’s Trigorin
Sorin (Glyn Morrow), Arkadina’s ageing brother, wants the
next generation to thrive, to blossom; so too does Maurice Crichton’s
Scottish-accented doctor, Dorn. Paul Joe Osborne’s retired lieutenant, Shamrayev,
now Sorin’s steward, loves a story, and Osborne has a splendid night in his
mimicry and comic timing; wife Polina (Elizabeth Elsworth) is his best audience.
The Seagull is a play with a generation gap that grows wider the more the drama unfolds, It goes from what Wilson calls the “comic souffle” of the playful Act One, when we can “laugh at these slightly inept, sometimes pretentious characters thinking they’re something they’re not”, to the painful, poignant consequences of such ineptitude and self-deception, when youthful dreams are dashed and unfulfilled ambitions turn bitter amid the fractious artistic egos.
Chekhov “likes to lob a bomb into the room in Act Three” in
his plays, as Wilson puts it, and here the incendiary device is Arkadina’s
lover, vainglorious novelist Trigorin (Ben Sawyer, suitably smug), under whose
spell the impressionable Nina falls.
Twinkle in the wry: Maurice Crichton as Dorn, the doctor
In a naturalistic play with theatre and writing and creativity at its heart, but ennui and
abject despair eating away at the tumultuous edges, Wilson’s company extract
the ironic, perverse comedy to the full, then bring out all the damaging
familiar failings of those prone to so much sterile philosophising.
Frayn would be delighted with the
performances of Settlement’s experienced hands, while both Turvill and Potter
(by day York Theatre Royal’s marketing and press assistant)
impress in their first principal roles for Wilson in the intimacy of the Studio
space.
Yes, the seagull dies, but not before The Seagull flies high,
full of art and too much hurt heart.
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.
