Mick Liversidge, back left, Bryan Bounds, back right, Susannah Baines and Will Fealy in the rehearsal room for Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?
YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre will stage the northern UK
premiere of Edward Albee’s emotional rollercoaster of an American play, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, next month.
World-famous New York architect Martin Gray has it all:
fame, fortune, a happy marriage to Stevie, and a wonderful son, Billy, but he
is hiding a BIG secret. Everything changes when he admits to his best friend,
Ross, that he is having an affair with…a goat.
Bryan Bounds, left, Mick Liversidge and Will Fealy in rehearsal for The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?
The Goat caused controversy but was a hit with audiences when it opened on Broadway in 2002, going on to win the Tony Award for Best Play, 40 years after Albee took home the same award for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
The tone switches between laugh-out-loud comedy and
full-blown tragedy as Stevie, Billy and Ross struggle to deal with Martin’s
revelation.
Albee said: “The play is about love and loss, the
limits of our tolerance and who, indeed, we really are. All I ask of an
audience is that they leave their prejudices in the cloakroom … and later —
at home — imagine themselves as being in the predicament the play examines and
coming up with useful, if not necessarily comfortable, responses.”
Pick Me Up Theatre cast members Bryan Bounds, left, Will Fealy and Susannah Baines. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Directed by Mark Hird and produced and designed by Robert Readman, Pick Me Up’s production
features Bryan Bounds as Martin; Susannah Baines as Stevie; Mick Liversidge as
Ross and Will Fealy, a student at CAPA College, the creative and performing
arts college in Wakefield, as Billy.
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, will run at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41Monkgate, York, from February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly. Box office: 01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com. Please note: this play contains adult themes and strong language; suggested minimum age of 15.
Be prepared for Lucy Porter: she is playing Selby Town Hall on June 6
SELBY Town Hall’s spring season will be its biggest ever with 27 live
shows between February and the start of June, plus a trio of Edinburgh Fringe previews
in July.
“There’s the usual mix of folk, Americana, stand-up, pop, rock, theatre
and more with chart-toppers, cult indie royalty, a Grammy winner, the radio
voice who guided my teenage pop dreams, a primetime impersonator tinkling the
ivories and even a 13-piece orchestra,” says Selby Town Council arts officer
Chris Jones.
“We had a good end to 2019 with a surprise listing in the Guardian as
one of the UK’s best tiny venues and that seems to have spilled over into 2020
with strong early sales. It’s full steam ahead.”
The programme’s headline stars include punk princess, actor, television
presenter and Top Ten hit maker Toyah with her stripped-back Acoustic, Up Close
& Personal show on February 21; Mark Radcliffe: Loser?, a solo show of
words and songs from the BBC6 Music and Radio 2 presenter, on April 2, and impersonator
Alistair McGowan, in his new-found guise as a classical pianist, in The Piano
Show on May 22.
Guitarist Gordon Giltrap’s re-scheduled date is confirmed for February 29; cult Eighties’ indie icon, John Peel favourite, Scouse maverick and The Mighty Wah! frontman Pete Wylie presents a duo show of hits and stories on March 14, and Dire Straits founding member David Knopfler, now plying his trade as a singer-songwriter, performs with Harry Bogdanovs on May 27.
Me and my mum: Arabella Weir in her debut stand-up show
On the comedy front, The Fast Show star turned bestselling
author Arabella Weir plays the smallest date on her first ever stand-up tour, the
confessional Does My Mum Loom Big In This?, on February 28; Paul Sinha,
one-time Grand Opera House, York, pantomime villain, comic and quiz sensation from
The Chase, performs Hazy Little Thing Called Love on March 21; and Jo Caulfield discusses unreasonable
neighbours, call centres, snobby ghosts, prosecco drinkers, being married
forever and rude children in Voodoo Doll on May 1.
BBC New Comedy Award winner, To Hull And Back sitcom writer and Hull
native Lucy Beaumont spins surreal anecdotes about bubble wrap, boxing, boobs
and believing in UFOs or not in Space Mam, her return to live stand-up after a
four-year hiatus, on April 17.
Always space for Hull humorist Lucy Beaumont
“The season also includes one of the biggest successes from last year’s
Edinburgh Fringe, comedy duo Max & Ivan, on February 7,” says Chris. “Their
show Commitment was named the fourth best comedy performance of 2019 by the
Guardian and has just been listed as one of the comedy highlights of 2020 by
The Times.
“There’ll be more laughs from BBC Radio 4 favourite Lucy Porter in Be
Prepared, her show on how ‘life turned out to be slightly more
complicated than Brown Owl let on’, on June 6; classically moulded British eccentric
Tim FitzHIgham in Pittancer Of Selby on April 8, and Nineties’ comedy pin-up
turned philosophical raconteur Rob Newman in Rob Newman’s Philosophy Show: Work
In Progress on May 16.
Rob Newman: philosophical work in progress
“Rob will be trying out material for the next series of his award-winning
BBC Radio 4 stand-up philosophy programme Total Eclipse Of Descartes.”
Jones always has a strong hand of American folk and roots music acts
each season. “This spring is no different with performances from Grammy-winning
Californian bluegrass icon Laurie Lewis and her band The Right Hands on May 21;
singer-songwriters Bronwynne Brent and Rachel Baiman on March 6 and May 28 respectively
and the sunshine melodies and harmonies of Illinois indie-Americana quintet The
Way Down Wanderers on April 10,” he says.
Tim FitzHigham and Duncan Walsh Atkins in their Flanders & Swann show
Selby Town Council commemorates the 75th anniversary of
VE Day with a concert in Selby Abbey by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band on May 9,
preceded by Tim FitzHigham and Duncan Walsh Atkins’s Flanders & Swann show, At The
Drop Of A Hippopotamus, on May 8 at Selby Town Hall.
The venue plays host to its first ever orchestral performance when a
13-piece ensemble from the Northern Chamber Orchestra plays on April 7, with cellist, baritone and
actor Matthew Sharp as the host.
Yorkston Thorne Khan, pictured right to left, playing Selby Town Hall in March
“As well as being our biggest ever programme of events, this spring season is also one of our most eclectic,” says Chris. “I’m particularly excited to welcome one of the most inventive and cool acts on the folk scene right now, Yorkston Thorne Khan, on March 20, when they promote their new album Navarasa: Nine Emotions.
“They mix an incredible array of sounds, from Scottish traditional to
Indian classical, and are signed to the same label as Arctic Monkeys and Franz
Ferdinand!
“We’re also delighted to open up the season on February 1 with a rare
show for a great folk-rock supergroup, The Sandy Denny Project, brought
together by Fotheringay MkII’s PJ Wright and The Poozies’ Sally Barker to
celebrate one of Britain’s greatest ever singers.”
Nashville singer-songwriter Rachel Baiman
Further dates for the diary are Celtic band The Tannahill Weavers, with
their ballads and lullabies on St Valentine’s Day, February 14, guitar duo Ezio
on March 5; and Martin Turner: Ex Wishbone Ash, performing his former band’s
1971 album Pilgrimage in its entirety on March 28.
Reform Theatre present Midsommer, playwright David Greig and
singer-songwriter Gordon McIntyre’s collaborative piece about two mid-30s,
messed-up strangers – failing car salesman/poet Bob and divorce lawyer Helena –
embarking on a lost weekend of debauchery, bridge-burning, car chases, wedding
bust-ups, midnight trysts and hungover self-loathing, on April 25.
Key signing for Selby Town Hall: impressionist turned piano man Alistair McGowan
Edinburgh Fringe comedy previews with two comics each night will be held
on July 11, 18 and 25, with tickets going on sale in the spring.
This season’s National Theatre Live screenings will be Cyrano de
Bergerac, starring James McAvoy, on February 20, and Lucy Kirkwood’s bold new
thriller The Welkin, starring Maxine Peake and Ria Zmitrowicz, on June 4.
Pete Wylie: singing Story Of The Blues and telling stories at Selby Town Hall on March 14
“From comedy to rock, bluegrass to theatre, orchestral to music hall and
much, much more, there’s a huge array to choose from at Selby Town Hall this
spring season,” concludes Chris.
Tickets are on sale on 01757 708449, at selbytownhall.co.uk or in person from the town hall.
The naked truth: Theo Mason Wood and Albert Haddenham in How To Beat Up Your Dad. Pictures: Mollie Gallagher
CARAVAN
Guys Theatre Company’s darkly comic tale of “toxic masculinity”, How To Beat Up
Your Dad (The Musical), is taking to the road.
First
stop for this debut show – first performed in its entirety at The Arts Barge
Riverside Festival in York last July – will be at Slung Low’s home at The Holbeck
Theatre, in Leeds, on February 9.
On stage
at 5pm will be Albert Haddenham and York actor, musician and writer Theo Mason
Wood, son of York playwright Mike Kenny and stage and screen actress Barbara
Marten.
First making his mark on the York music
scene with Bonnie Milnes in the darkly humorous The Lungs and Gwen, Theo
graduated from the drama and theatre arts degree course at Goldsmiths,
University of London, three summers ago.
Now comes Caravan Guys’ savagely
satirical tale of one young man’s journey through manhood, taking him from
being a meek teenager looking for the secret, to losing his virginity, to
becoming a young man stealing Yakults™, searching for happiness and finally
standing up to his own dad with his fists.
Please note, this show is a
“free-form piece of dark comedy about the damaging and violent nature of
masculinity and doesn’t actually give any instructions on beating up your own
dad”. Instead, as told through a cocktail of performance, spoken word,
music and storytelling, humour and hubris, How To Beat Up Your Dad is a comedy
about masculinity and all the wrong ways to solve your problems.
Here Theo steps out of the caravan to answer Charles Hutchinson’s questions.
Who are the Caravan Guys and
why is the company so called, Theo?
“Caravan Guys is myself, Theo Mason
Wood, and Albert Haddenham, of Bridlington, a charismatic
sausage/multi-instrumentalist with the best sense of humour and big strong
hands.
“We are the draughty corridor between hilarity and horror,” says Theo Mason Wood, pictured on the run behind Albert Haddenham,
“We met about 14 months ago and
immediately found that we found the same things funny. On New Year’s night last
year, we drunkenly swore to make something together and that’s how How To Beat
Up Your Dad (The Musical) was born.
“People do awful things, really weird
awful things and Caravan Guys want to show you why and make you laugh at them.
We are the draughty corridor between hilarity and horror. We are the unknown
stain on the caravan floor and the reason it’s going cheaply.”
What was the inspiration for
the show?
“The absurdity of masculinity. The
script was originally a short story I wrote; I compiled some real stories of
extreme and absurd situations that I and other men I know have been in and then
applied them all to one character. I find myself constantly amazed by the
lengths men will go to assert themselves. It’s shocking and often unpleasant
but also really funny.”
Where do you stand on
masculinity? Some say men are becoming emasculated, such as in the way they are
portrayed in adverts and increasingly on TV. On the other hand, your play
highlights “the damaging and violent nature of masculinity”. Discuss…
“Although the phrase gets used a
lot, I really do think that masculinity is spectacularly fragile. As a culture,
we’re all becoming more aware of this, so the cracks in the macho façade are
growing bigger and bigger, and I think we’re all a lot more able to see it for
what it is.
“The play shows
how sexism and homophobia are often just defences against feeling emasculated.
These tropes of masculinity say a lot more about the individual’s sense of self
than it does about the groups they are attacking.
“As men, we have been taught that
sadness, anxiety and vulnerability are not valid emotions; to cry is to be weak
and to be weak is to not be masculine. Therefore, often men will push outwards
when experiencing these feelings, they will turn it into rage, aggression and
violence.”
“Many men don’t have the correct tools to deal with their emotions and will lash out because anger is seen as masculine while sadness isn’t ,” says Theo Mason Wood
How is that reflected in your
play?
“This is what I mean when I say the
play is about the damaging and violent nature of masculinity, I mean that many
men don’t have the correct tools to deal with their emotions and will lash out
because anger is seen as masculine while sadness isn’t. “Although this all
sounds very serious – which it is – our show is largely a comedy and we aim to
create a space where we can all laugh at the strange things men do to protect
themselves from feeling small.”
Explain the provocative choice
of show title…
“This is not a musical, nor is it a
guide on how to beat up your dad. I don’t know your dad, he might be really
hard.
“Our hero, Amon, has a lot of
emotional issues tied up in his experiences with his Dad when he was a child.
The show starts with Amon as a pre-teen upset because he hasn’t been allowed to
come to his own dad’s wedding.
“The play then follows Amon into
adulthood and becoming ‘a man’ via some pretty terrible experiences. Finally,
he wants to confront his father and get some closure but the man he returns
home to isn’t the alpha male he grew up in fear of. Now he does meditation and
has started wearing beads.”
What do you love about dark
comedy? Your songs with Bonnie Milnes in The Lungs and Gwen occupied that
terrain too.
“I think comedy is a brilliant
vehicle for making a point without boring people. Serious issues can be very
serious and often no fun to talk about.
“Comedy allows people to enjoy
thinking and learning; comedy makes things that are hard to swallow much much
easier to swallow. Personally, I’d rather have a laugh than a scowl but that
doesn’t have to mean the content of discussion can’t be an important one.”
There’s nudity in the show…why?!
“People are paying whatever they want to for a ticket, so I want them to feel they’ve got their money’s worth.”
In a field of their own:: Albert Haddenham, front, and Theo Mason Wood contemplate masculinity in How To Beat Up Your Dad
One reviewer called
The Caravan Guys’ comedy style “punk, a bit scary, Berkoff, brave”, How
would you define it?
“We blur the lines between fiction and reality: the story tells one
narrative, of masculinity and how trauma is inherited and shared, how victims
become perpetrators. As we shift between characters and ourselves we tell
another, deeper and darker narrative about us as men: our competitiveness, our
need to dominate, to show off, to win the play.
“Our work is raucous and violent. It is completely free form. We
drag the audience through styles, times, places and people to show all the
insidious ways masculinity gets its claws in.”
What else are you up to, Theo?
“Currently I
perform comedy music under the title Jean Penne and I’ll soon be releasing a
small book of short stories.
“Meanwhile, me and
Albert are going to continue to try and become the Simon and Garfunkel of dark
comedy. After selling out a number of shows in Manchester and London, we look forward
to bringing the explosive How To Beat Up Your Dad to Leeds and Bristol in
February, the Brighton Fringe in May and Cambridge in July.
“We’ll then take the show to the
Edinburgh Fringe and the rest of the world (Bridlington) and then get cracking
on the next play.”
Caravan Guys Theatre Company in How To Beat Up Your Dad (The Musical), at Slung Low’s The Holbeck Theatre, Leeds, February 9, 5pm. Box office: via slunglow.org, at quaytickets.com or on 0843 208 0500. Please note, this is a Pay What You Decide After The Show performance.
Interview copyright of The Press, York, from July
23 2019
The final curtain: Berwick Kaler’s final wave on the night he retired after 40 years as York Theatre Royal’s dame on February 2 2019
TEN KEY POINTS FROM YORK THEATRE ROYAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TOM BIRD’S BBC RADIO YORK INTERVIEW WITH ADAM TOMLINSON THIS AFTERNOON
1. A new writer and director, with a new direction, will be appointed to make a “spectacular, fabulous, really York” Theatre Royal pantomime for 2020-2021.
2. Yes, it will still be a pantomime, not a winter show.
3. No, Berwick Kaler will not be involved as writer, co-director or dame.
4. Audience figures have declined for 11 years, from as high as 54,190 for Dick Turpin in 2008 to 30,000 so far (with two weeks to go) for Sleeping Beauty. Those “collapsing” figures have to be checked and reversed by attracting a new audience as well as retaining the regular theatregoers.
5. The current contract practice with the regular players, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper, Martin Barrass and A J Powell, is an unspoken agreement of a return for the next show, but Mr Bird wanted to be clear with those performers that this time this would not be the case. No-one is guaranteed an automatic contract renewal and no-one is on a long contract.
6. No regrets at the “halfway house” of retaining retired dame Berwick Kaler as writer and co-director for Sleeping Beauty as a chance to showcase the talents of the “amazing” cast regulars in a way audiences had not seen before, and “to some extent” this had happened. However, from ticket launch day onwards, some people had said ‘No, I’m not going to go.”
7. Refuting Berwick Kaler’s charges of “cheap sets, cheap costumes” for Sleeping Beauty, Mr Bird said the overall pantomime budget had increased. The designer [Anthony Lamble] was new, but the set and costume expenditure was the same as it was for The Grand Old Dame Of York last winter.
8. The new director and writer will need to have free rein for next winter’s pantomime, and if they were told they had to have certain actors, that would not be free rein. It should be a free shot, a state of autonomy, without any ties restricting them.
9. Could there be a U-turn, given that 1,400 people have signed an online petition to bring back Berwick? No.
Berwick had created something extraordinary over 40 years, but this is how life works: the panto needs a re-boot, one where “you don’t have to be in the club to come”.
10. The 2020-2021 pantomime will be announced at a launch on February 3.
Dame Berwick Kaler’s final wave at the end of his 40 years of pantomimes at York Theatre Royal on February 2 2019. All pictures: Anthony Robling
“Things have not gone well and it’s not the fault
of the cast. The sets do not do what the script requires.” Dame Berwick Kaler,
The Press, York, January 9.
IT should not have come to this, and yet it was
inevitable. Berwick Kaler told the full house on the last night of his 40-year
damehood on February 2 last year that he would be “back like a shot” if the
Theatre Royal came a’calling.
Now, in a move without consultation with those above him to match the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in the very same week, and always a law unto himself, he has used the pages of The Press newspaper to tell the Theatre Royal to “take me back”, backed by long-serving principal girl Suzy Cooper.
“I made the biggest mistake saying I
was going to retire,” said Dame Berwick. “I want to jump out of my suit and
perform.”
Let’s remember that the dame called
time; he was not pushed into retirement, and a 40th anniversary
show gave Britain’s longest-serving dame a right royal and loyal send-off in
The Grand Old Dame Of York.
The knives are out…but from Berwick Kaler and Suzy Cooper in The Press, and not A J Powell in Edward Scissorhands mode in Sleeping Beauty.
Fully fit after his double heart
bypass, Dame Berwick has “retired” but, unlike Elvis, not left the building, writing the script for
Sleeping Beauty and co-directing the show with Matt Aston, purveyor of the past
three rock’n’roll pantomimes at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall in Leeds.
Like the dame, many a boxer later
decides he has made a mistake by retiring, but then makes a bigger one by
returning, having lost his punch or, in Berwick’s case, his punchlines.
The splash story in The Press amounts
to an act of mutiny by Berwick Kaler and Suzy Cooper, openly taking on the
management and the board with a series of criticisms that have been refuted
swiftly by executive director Tom Bird. In doing so, they are in essence saying
“Back us or sack us” and calling on the public, “our audience”, to support
their case.
Berwick may have been in for a shock
when The Press’s invitation to Have Your Say on whether he should be back on
stage next winter evoked such responses as: “No. Big ego.” “Time for completely
new blood.” “Time to move on, Berwick”. “Definitely not.” “Stay retired
Berwick. The pantomime has run its course.” Or, in the words of Farmer Tom:
“Time to have a completely fresh start. The Kaler days were legendary but
they’re gone. New blood needed.”
What the Kaler-Cooper outburst has
done is bring the debate out into the open, just as was the intention of the
headline in the charleshutchpress.co.uk review:
“Sleeping Beauty awakes at York Theatre Royal but should Dame Berwick era
be put to bed?”
A picture of innocence: Suzy Cooper as the young Princess Beauty, with her cuddly toy, in Sleeping Beauty
At the request of the rest of the “Not
Famous But Famous Five in York”, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper, Martin Barrass and
AJ Powell, Berwick was taken on once more as writer and co-director, also
appearing in the brace of films and voicing, aptly, a skeleton. The effect,
however, was like Banquo’s Ghost haunting this halfway house of a show.
And now, within the bubble of self-preservation, Berwick wants to be back, Suzy wants him back. However, while a bad workman blames his tools, as the saying goes, this particular workman, Berwick, blamed someone else’s tools – the “cheap sets and cheap costumes” – for “things not going well” for Sleeping Beauty. It is true Anthony Lamble’s designs did not match the spectacular heights of predecessor Mark Walters, but that slur is a cheap, inaccurate shot, and although he is right that Sleeping Beauty’s failings are “not the fault of the cast”, what of his own tools as writer and co-director?
Berwick is deluded in believing the
script was not at fault either, and it is no secret that the new, experimental Aston-Kaler
directorial partnership did not gel, alas.
Where does York Theatre Royal go
next? Bird and board cannot answer only to the needs and wishes of Berwick,
Suzy and their “loyal audience”. There is a wider audience to consider; those
who do not go to a Dame Berwick pantomime, but would like to see in this new
decade with a new beginning for the Theatre Royal’s winter show.
In particular, a show for the next generation of theatre-goers, children, who are noticeably outnumbered by adults at the Kaler brand of chaotic meta-panto, in contrast to the audience profile of pantomimes across the country.
David Leonard as Evil Diva in Sleeping Beauty, but will the greatest villain in pantoland return to York Theatre Royal next winter?
The CharlesHutchPress review of Sleeping Beauty on December 12 ended by pondering the Theatre Royal’s vision for 2020. “Are the days of this brand of pantomime behind you?”, it asked, “because the patented but weary “same old rubbish” won’t suffice next year.
“This is no
laughing matter, and here are the options,” it went on. “Bring back Dame
Berwick full on, working from the inside, not the outside, with all that goes
with that; or freshen up the panto in a different way, or find a new vehicle to
utilise the talents of Leonard, Cooper, Barrass and Powell. Many a theatre has
moved on from pantomime, whether Leeds Playhouse, the Stephen Joseph Theatre or
Hull Truck, and still found a winter winner. We await the Bird call…”.
The future of the Kaler pantomime is uncertain, says Suzy, who
fears the axe, but the future of pantomime at York Theatre Royal is not
uncertain. Will the Theatre Royal “take Berwick back” into the panto fold on
stage? No. No player is bigger than the club, as the football world is fond of
saying, and to continue the football analogy, Berwick and Suzy have scored an own
goal in going to The Press.
If Berwick, now 73, really does want to “jump out of my suit and
perform”, then how about doing so in plays for the veteran stage of acting:
Lear in King Lear, Prospero in The Tempest or Sir in Ronald Harwood’s The
Dresser with Martin Barrass as his Norman?
Come early February, we shall know the answer to the pantomime conundrum. Is it too outrageous to suggest that if it came to a choice between who is now more invaluable to the Theatre Royal panto, it would be the villainous David Leonard, not the mutinous Dame Berwick?
Alex Hill, left, Beth Scott, Jami Richards and Laura Castle with £5 student tickets for Once The Musical at the Grand Opera House. Picture: David Harrison
THE Grand Opera House, York, is teaming up with City of York Council to offer anyone aged 26 and under £5 tickets for the Broadway and West End show Once The Musical.
Running from February 3 to 8, the show is based on the 2007 Irish indie hit film, telling the uplifting yet yearning story of two lost souls – a Dublin street busker and a Czech musician – who unexpectedly fall in love.
Charting their relationship across five short days, big changes happen to both of them in little ways in this romantic musical drama. Celebrated for its original score, including the Academy Award-winning song Falling Slowly, Once is a spell-binding story of hopes and dreams.
Directed by Peter Rowe, with musical direction by regular accomplice Ben Goddard, Once The Musical has embarked on its first major British tour after Broadway and West End productions, leading to a Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album, eight Tony Awards and an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music.
To book £5 tickets, go to atgtickets.com/sho…/once/grand-opera-house-york/ Code: ONCE5. Proof of age must be shown when collecting tickets.
Giving him the bird: David Leonard’s Evil Diva in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. All pictures: Robling Photography
Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, until January 25 2020. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
UNLESS you have been asleep for 100 years, you will know Sleeping Beauty is the first York Theatre Royal pantomime since Berwick Kaler hung up his big boots after 40 years as Britain’s longest-serving dame.
Unlike Elvis, however, Kaler has not left the building. Now 73, he is still taking care of business, writing the script; co-directing with Leeds City Varieties rock’n’roll pantomime alumnus Matt Aston; appearing in two film sequences and in doll’s head form for baby Beauty, and providing sporadic voice-overs too. In other words, there is still a Kaler on the loose.
Slice-up: A J Powell’s ever-changing modes transform him into Edward Scissorhands
“You have given me a purpose to life,” he told his adoring panto public as he waved goodbye through the final curtain on February 2 this year. “I’m not going anywhere. If this theatre needs me, I’ll be back like a shot.”
Executive director Tom Bird and co decided they did need him for the first pantomime of the post-dame, post Damian Cruden directorship era. Britain’s best villain, David Leonard, perennially bouncy sidekick Martin Barrass, ageless principal girl Suzy Cooper and chameleon Brummie A J Powell said they needed him too, to write the script.
And so Berwick was back like a shot, ticket sales have passed the 30,000 mark, but how do you fill the black hole, the tornado wreaking havoc, the master adlibber, the smasher of theatre’s fourth wall that is the Kaler dame?
All rise: Martin Barrass’s down-to-earth Queen Aradne with Jack Lansbury’s King and newcomer Howie Michaels’ Funky the Flunky in Sleeping Beauty
This is the elephant in the room, a role more usually taken by Barrass in one of his animal acts. In fact, a better comparison is Banquo’s ghost, haunting this halfway house of a panto.
Sleeping Beauty retains the Kaler template, from Babbies And Bairns theme tune opening to Hope You’ll Return Next Year finale to convoluted plot, via disappointingly unfunny films (one with Berwick and Harry Gration) and a futile slosh scene.
As there ain’t no-one like Berwick’s dame, the remaining panto gang of four spread out their familiar traits without ever filling the gap. Thankfully, there’s no rest for the wicked, and so David Leonard is still fab-u-lous, with a dash of dame, or more truthfully waspish drag queen, about his Evil Diva, and his character switch with Powell’s ever-so-nice Darth Vader is the show’s one coup de theatre.
Principal girl, cuddly toy: Suzy Cooper’s Princess Beauty
Suzy Cooper’s Princess Beauty goes from St Trinian’s schoolgirl with a cuddly toy to leading song-and-dance routines, searching forlornly for better material, especially in a year when she has excelled as Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare Rose Theatre’s Macbeth at Blenheim Palace.
Without his buddy Berwick to bounce off, Martin Barrass is in no man’s land – or even no mam’s land – as Queen Ariadne, not a dame, nor a queen, one with only one good (Bile Beans) costume and only one innovation, a nod to Eric Morecambe, to go with the old Barrass tropes.
Musical theatre newcomer Howie Michaels’s Funky the Flunky, big voice, big stage presence, fares well, and Jack Lansbury’s King/Tarquin Farquhar, dance captain Danielle Mullan and the ensemble work their panto socks off in frankly difficult circumstances, their reward coming in the stand-out Teenage Dirtbag routine, Grace Harrington’s best choreography..
Beauty and the beastly: Suzy Cooper with vainglorious villain David Leonard
Was it a mere coincidence that new designer Anthony Lamble’s sets lacked the sparkle of old, just as the comedy lacked the spark, surprise, timing, topicality and magical mayhem of the peak Kaler years?
Last night (December 11) felt awkward, uncomfortable, indulgent. Bird and the board have to ask: “Are the days of this brand of pantomime behind you?”, because the patented but weary “same old rubbish” won’t suffice next year.
This is no laughing matter, and here are the options. Bring back Dame Berwick full on, working from the inside, not the outside, with all that goes with that; freshen up the panto in a different way, or find a new vehicle to utilise the talents of Leonard, Cooper, Barrass and Powell. Many a theatre has moved on from pantomime, whether Leeds Playhouse, the Stephen Joseph Theatre or Hull Truck, and still found a winter winner. We await the Bird call…
Lucy Boyland’s evil Baron Bluebeard and Imogen Rose’s principal boy, Tommy Tucker, clash in Pickering Musical Society’s Humpty Dumpty. All pictures: Brian Stockley
REHEARSALS for Pickering Musical Society’s pantomime Humpty Dumpty are in full swing for the January 17 to 26 run at the Kirk Theatre, Pickering.
Written by Ron Hall and directed by Luke Arnold, the show is set in Nursery Rhyme Land, the kingdom of Old King Cole and Queen Ribena, who will be played by society stalwarts Stephen Temple and Marcus Burnside.
When the evil Baron Bluebeard (Lucy Boyland) arrives in the land to attend the birthday of Princess Crystal, strange things begin to happen, culminating in the arrival of eternal winter.
Princess Crystal (Alice Rose), Tommy Tucker (Imogen Rose), Humpty Dumpty (Maisie Metcalf), Simple Simon (Matthew Russell) and Little Bo-Peep (Charlotte Hurst) in Pickering Musical Society’s Humpty Dumpty
The whole kingdom has to evacuate to Little-Frolicking-On-Sea, the home of Old King Cole’s mother-in-law Mrs Cordial. While they are beside the seaside, Humpty Dumpty, Simple Simon (Matthew Russell) , Little Bo-Peep (Charlotte Hurst) and Tommy Tucker hatch a plan to save Nursery Rhyme Land.
Pickering Musical Society welcomes back sisters Imogen and Alice Rose once again to play principal boy and girl, Tommy Tucker and Princess Crystal, respectively in a cast of more than 50 that combines familiar Pickering faces with members of Pickering Musical Society Youth Theatre.
Among them will be Jack Dobson and Maisie Metcalf, sharing their first principal role as Humpty Dumpty. Dancers from the Sarah Louise Ashworth School of Dance will be in the company too.
Linda Tester as Mrs Cordial, Stephen Temple as Old King Cole and Marcus Burnside as Queen Ribena in Humpty Dumpty at the Kirk Theatre, Pickering
Director Luke Arnold says: “I can’t quite believe we’re back to panto season so soon. Last year was a huge year for us as we marked our centenary at Pickering Musical Society and 2020 looks to be just as busy.
“Each year I wonder how we can create something more spectacular and magical than the last, but with an army of volunteers both on and off stage it seems 2020 will be more spectacular than ever.”
Tickets for Humpty Dumpty’s 7.15pm evening shows and 2.15pm Saturday and Sunday matinees are on sale at £13 upwards on 01751 474833 or at kirktheatre.co.uk.
The Pickering Musical Society ensemble for Humpty Dumpty
Did you know?
Pickering Musical Society and the Kirk Theatre are entirely self-funded, everyone involved being a volunteer. “By supporting our pantomime, you are supporting our wonderful community theatre and a venue we are all proud of,” says pantomime director Luke Arnold.
Director Gemma McDonald and writer Ian Donaghy at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre box office
NOBODY thought this morning when they turned the key in the door lock, “well, that’ll be the last time I’ll see you.”
So begins the book The Missing Peace: Creating A Life After Death, written by York musician, author, charity event organiser and motivational conference speaker Ian Donaghy, now adapted for the stage by Rowntree Players performer and York teacher Gemma McDonald and Ian himself.
Gemma loved the book and could not help but imagine it on stage, and so she and Rowntree Players pantomime co-writer and director Howard Ella approached Ian with the idea.
“The Missing Peace lends itself beautifully to the stage and also allows an opportunity for actors of all ages to highlight their talents with heart-breaking and heart-warming monologues,” she says. “It’s a very different, original and powerful production.”
Billed as “One play…fifteen endings”, The Missing Peace will be staged at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, on April 17 and 18 with plans for further performances in Yorkshire.
Already confirmed is the recorded involvement of narrator Mark Addy, York star of The Full Monty, The Game Of Thrones and now the new ITV crime drama White House Farm.
“Mark will be in New York when our play opens in April, playing Harry in the Broadway premiere of Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen at the Golden Theatre from March, so he’s very kindly recording the narration before he leaves for the United States,” says Ian.
Next, Gemma will hold an initial meeting for anyone interested in being involved in The Missing Piece on Monday (January 13) at 7.30pm at Door 84 Youth & Community Centre in Lowther Street.
“We’re looking for a variety of actors of all different ages; there really is something for everyone to audition for,” says Gemma. “This is a very exciting project and I can’t wait to start next week.”
Ian shares that excitement. “There’s a big buzz already about this very ambitious production of a truly thought-provoking look into people’s lives after they have lost a loved one.
“The Missing Peace will show audiences that they’re not alone, and I’m also delighted to say that we’re presenting the play as a fundraising event with all proceeds going to local bereavement and hospice charities.”
Rarely will York be so well represented in a production, reckons Ian. “York actors; York production company; York set designers; York play written by a man who has made York his home about people who live in York,” he says.
The poster for Rowntree Players’ premiere of The Missing Peace
“As the poster says, ‘One play…fifteen endings’, because it includes Talking Heads-style monologues of people who have survived losing loved ones, illustrating how the power of kindness, friends and family have helped them through.”
After reading numerous self-help books and “I know so much better than you” guides, Ian felt there was a need for a book that “doesn’t tell you how you should be feeling”.
Former teacher, host of A Night To Remember at York Barbican and still the larger-than-life Big Ian frontman of York band Huge, Ian has branched out into writing about dementia and campaigning to combat loneliness in the elderly, whether at conferences or in a series of moving short films on social media that he shoots in black and white.
He has written as one reviewer called it, “a 200-page cuddle”: a book where people share experiences and “you decide what you get from hearing their emotional stories”.
“My aim is to provide a survival guide for people to find their own ‘Missing Peace’,” says the inspirational writer and speaker. “It’s not a morose bereavement book. It won’t tell you how you should be feeling. It’s a book about how to be a better friend when your friends lose someone.”
Ian continues: “As we all grow older, our favourite characters are written out of our lives and we have to, somehow, carry on without them.
“Friends often feel powerless, so terrified of saying the wrong thing that they may say nothing, leaving their friend bereft and isolated.”
Ian Donaghy with Sally Rasmussen from The Missing Peace premiere sponsors The Chocolate Works Care Village
Consequently, the book and the play highlight the power of kindness and offer some tried-and-tested maverick ideas.
“The book is a scrapbook of monologues and stories from interviews and conversations I’ve had with people all over the UK in my work with older people and children,” says Ian, whose research took in bereavement groups, hospices, nurses, doctors and parents.
“There are stories looking at loss from many different angles. Many may surprise you…there’s even a short story about my father’s special Parker pen that cleverly illustrates how to get the best out of people.
“I’ve been invited in by some of the most inspirational, wonderful people, who have shared their innermost thoughts and emotions to help others, so thank you to them.”
The play will deliver an optimistic boost in the opening scene, saying, “If you are watching this play you, already have a 100% survival record. Congratulations!” It will go on to listen, in particular, to the views of children and our oldest generation, who are often ignored, says Ian.
“Children haven’t made their minds up yet and so give you unedited ideas, without any spin, and older people realise they can reflect on their successes and failures, so they either have wonderful experience or a hard-earned wisdom,” he suggests.
Sarah Atkinson, of St Leonard’s Hospice, one of two York charities to benefit from ticket sales for April’s premiere
“The play isn’t a magic wand, a flow chart through the grieving process, and it won’t kiss it better, but it will start the conversation you may need to have between siblings, family or friends.”
Every scene, by the way, is named after a song, such as Everybody Hurts, I Don’t Wanna Talk About It, These Foolish Things and All You Need Is Love.
Two York charities, St Leonard’s Hospice and Bereaved Children Support York, will share the profits from the premiere production.
Jo Cole, founder of Bereaved Children Support York, says: “Grief can be very lonely and isolating. This play gives so many examples of how different people have coped with the loss of a loved one that you’re bound to find something that makes you realise it’s not just you feeling the way you do. To have this play raise awareness will help so many families.”
Janet Bennett, left, Lisa Curtis and Jo Cole, of Bereaved Children Support York, the second charity to receive a donation from The Missing Peace’s run at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Ian concludes: “The stories and monologues will make you smile, some will make you cry, but they will all make you think.
“We’re all broken biscuits when we lose someone. We can either dwell on the cracks or make the best cheesecake ever.”
Rowntree Players present The Missing Peace, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 17 at 7pm; April 18, 2.30pm and 7pm. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk. This production is sponsored by The Chocolate Works Care Village.
Sarah Blanc in My Feminist Boner at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. Pictures: Roswitha Cheshire
SARAH Blanc travels from beauty product addict to born-again feminist,
choreographer and comedian in her partly autobiographical show My Feminist Boner
at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on February 13.
Blanc’s performance “grapples with extreme societal pressures on the
female body and the conflict women feel between indulging in the beauty
industry and maintaining their feminist ideals”.
Sarah Blanc “grapples with the conflict women feel between indulging in the beauty industry and maintaining their feminist ideals”
“Why does the world place such unattainable beauty standards on women?
What does it mean to be a feminist today?” she asks.
My Feminist Boner combines honest confessionals and a show-and-tell of
beauty contraptions with conversations with her feminist-hating Dad,
progressively grotesque movement and satirical humour, as Blanc reveals her
anger at “the commodification of women’s bodies” and exposes the absurdity of
the beauty industry.
Sarah Blanc: angry at “the commodification of women’s bodies”
Blanc, an independent choreographer
and performer from Ireland, creates bold work that straddles the boundaries of
dance, theatre and comedy. She makes not only solo shows but also ensemble work
for adults and children with her all-female inclusive dance company Moxie
Brawl.
“I create work that
challenges preconceptions of what dance and dancers look like, that champions
the representation of diverse bodies on stage,” she says. “My work aims to take
risks without alienating people and is engaging to a wide range of audience.”
” I create work that challenges preconceptions of what dance and dancers look like,” says Sarah Blanc
Blanc has worked in dance
and inclusive practice for more than ten years and has delivered projects for
Greenwich Dance, GLYPT and East London Dance, along with choreographic
commissions such as A Pacifist’s Guide To The War On Cancer for Complicité/Bryony Kimmings. Her 2016 solo show It Started
With Jason Donovan won a 2016 Brighton Fringe Award.
Tickets for My Feminist Boner’s 7.45pm performance in the McCarthy are on sale on 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
