New home: AJ Powell, Berwick Kaler, Suzy Cooper, David Leonard and Martin Barrass settle into the Grand Opera House auditorium. PIcture: David Harrison
THIS morning was the official launch for Berwick Kaler’s comeback pantomime, Dick Turpin Rides Again, as the resurrected York dame handed over the first tickets to queueing fans at his new home, the Grand Opera House.
Joining him were villain David Leonard, stalwart stooge Martin Barrass, ageless principal girl Suzy Cooper and luverly Brummie A J Powell after their controversial exit and crosstown switch from the York Theatre Royal, signing on the dotted line for pantomime powerhouse producers Qdos Entertainment and the Cumberland Street theatre’s owners, the Ambassador Theatre Group.
Not joining them, however, was CharlesHutchPress, barred from the launch and the morning’s media interviews at the request of the Panto Five in a move from the Dominic Cummings rule book for Number 10 press briefings .
This has to stop.
It is time to re-build bridges, and Valentine’s Day would have been a good start, rather than continuing this Charles Hutchinson Derides Again contretemps .
Food Glorious Food: the Young People’s Ensemble give it plenty in Oliver!. All pictures: Tom Arber
REVIEW: Oliver!, York Light Opera Company, York Theatre Royal, until February 22. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
DAME Berwick Kaler’s 41 years at York Theatre Royal
have come to an end, but one company with an even longer run there is still
rolling out the productions after 60 years.
York Light have chosen to mark another 60th anniversary by staging Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, first performed in the West End in 1960.
This latest revival of a perennial favourite utilises David Merrick and Donald Albert’s Broadway stage version, here directed and choreographed by Martyn Knight on an expansive set with walkways, bustling London streets, the drab workhouse, smart townhouse and the underworld of Fagin’s dingy den.
The show opens with a death outside the workhouse,
and the dead woman being promptly stripped of her necklace by an older woman:
welcome to dark Dickensian London.
Rory Mulvihill’s Fagin and Jonny Holbek’s Bill Sikes in York Light’s Oliver!. Picture: Tom Arber
Once inside, Food Glorious Food bursts into life, the first of so many familiar Lionel Bart songs, choreography well drilled, the young people’s ensemble lapping up their first big moment (even if their bowls are empty already!).
The directorial polish in Hunter’s show is established immediately; likewise, the playing of John Atkin’s orchestra is rich and in turn warm and dramatic. These will be the cornerstones throughout in a show so heavy on songs, with bursts of dialogue in between that sometimes do not catch fire by comparison with the fantastic singing.
This review was of the first night, leaving time
aplenty for the acting to raise to the level of the songs, but there really does
need to be more drama, for example, from all the adults in Oliver and Dodger’s
pickpocketing scene. Likewise, spoiler alert, Nancy’s death scene fails to
shock, although Jonny Holbek elsewhere has the menace in voice and demeanour
for Bill Sikes. Even his dog Bullseye looks scared of him.
Playing the nefarious Fagin for a second time, with a stoop, straggly hair and wispy beard, stalwart Rory Mulvihill has both the twinkle in his eye and the awareness of the fading of the light, characteristics he brings to the contrasting ensemble numbers You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two and Be Back Soon and the reflective, sombre solo Reviewing The Situation.
Jonathan Wells’s Mr Sowerberry and Annabel Van Griethuysen’s Mrs Sowerberry with Matthew Warry’s Oliver (alternating the role with Alex Edmondson)
Overall, the company could take a lead from Neil
Wood’s Mr Bumble and Pascha Turnbull’s Widow Twankey in their hanky-panky I
Shall Scream scene, full of humour, sauce and pleasing characterisation.
Alex Edmondson’s truculent Oliver and Jack Hambleton’s chipper Dodger bond well, especially in Consider Yourself; Jonathan Wells’s Mr Sowerberry and Annabel Van Griethuysen’s Mrs Sowerberry are in fine voice. Her singing is even better, creamier you might say, for the Milkmaid, when joined by Sarah Craggs’s Rose Seller, Helen Eckersall’s Strawberry Seller, Richard Bayton’s Knife Grinder and Edmondson’s Oliver for Who Will Buy?, always beautiful and deeply so here.
Emma Louise Dickinson’s Nancy gives Act Two opener
Oom-Pah-Pah plenty of oomph, and although As Long As He Needs Me sits uncomfortably
on modern ears with its seeming tolerance of domestic abuse, she gives that
bruised ballad everything twice over.
Reviewing the present situation, the singing is
strong, moving and fun when it should be, but, please sir, your reviewer wants
some more from the non-singing scenes, and then he might be back soon.
Binaural Dinner Date: the alternative Valentine’s Day date, so alternative that the date will be on the day after Valentine’s Day
PAY attention hopeful singletons and curious couples seeking an alternative Valentine’s Day date with a difference.
York’s Taste of SLAP Saturday curators and directors Lydia Cottrell and Sophie Unwin are bringing immersive and digital performance innovators ZU-UK to York Theatre Royal this weekend to set up the post-Valentine Binaural Dinner Date.
On the traditional
sporting match day of the week, matches of a different kind will be taking
place in the Theatre Royal café at 3pm, 5pm and 7.45pm, when ZU-UK will
be asking “audiences
to swipe right and join them for an experiential dating experience”.
“Come with your own date, or we can find one for you,” they
say, emphasising that booking is required as soon as possible on 01904 623568,
at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person at the Theatre Royal box office.
What will happen on Saturday? “Using binaural sound, participants will be guided by a voice in their ears to ask each other questions, offer answers, and consider the dos and don’ts of what we say, and what we would like to say, to each other on a date,” say ZU-UK, a company with its art and its heart in both London and Brazil.
“What are we really thinking when we meet for the first time? How much are we prepared to confess? And are the questions we ask each other the questions that will help us find love?”
Binaural Dinner Date is “part interactive performance, part dating agency” for individuals looking for love, or existing couples who simply want a “very different” dating encounter
It will take place at nine tables simultaneously, where the aforementioned voice in the ear of every participant will steer them through a “perfect” date. Wearing headphones, two participants per table will be hosted by a waiter/facilitator/DJ, complemented by “interactively mixed binaural audio” with suggestions and comments on dating “rules”, as well as games pushing social expectations and “acceptable” table-talk topics.
Jorge Lopes Ramos, ZU-UK’s co-artistic director, says: “ZU-UK’s artistic work has never shied away from engaging with urgent, problematic and at times depressing aspects of the contemporary human condition.
“This is a time to
question mainstream narratives and to consider our role in shaping communities
and relationships between strangers. Dating seemed like a contemporary human
ritual worth exploring.”
Formerly known as Zecora Ura and Para Active, ZU-UK is an independent theatre and digital arts company based in East London and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, since 2001. Driven by an artistic partnership between Ramos and Persis Jadé Maravala, ZU-UK creates interactive experiences, using games, performance and technology, that can happen anywhere, whether on the phone, in the house, on a stage, in a shopping mall or a field.
Binaural Dinner Date is the first instalment in ZU-UK’s ten-part series Decalogy of Loneliness. After ZU’s Hotel Medea in 2009 to 2012 and the interactive technology exhibition Humble Market in 2012 to 2014, they have been developing ten artworks as part of this project.
Since 2015, they have
worked with Canadian research institute TAG (Technoculture, Arts and Games), using
game-design to deepen ZU’s work with immersive, participatory and interactive
performance.
Over the next three
years, ZU will develop the remaining parts of the Decalogy, focusing on the
relationship between strangers in public and private spaces. The company also
will present two digital artworks using
public phones, #RioFoneHackand How Mad Are You? , and a binaural
prototype, Small Data Mining.
Suitable for age 16 plus, Binaural Dinner Date is part of SLAP organisers Lydia Cottrell and Sophie Unwin’s Taste Of SLAP, a day of food-themed shows under their Social Live Art Performance banner (although, if memory serves right, SLAP initially stood for Salacious Live Alternative Performance when the festival was first set up!).
Full details of Taste of SLAP can be found at slapyork.co.uk and a further preview will appear online at charleshutchpress.co.uk. Tickets for this weekend’s taster carry a “Pay What You Can” price tag.
The Magnificent Six in Crongton Knights at York Theatre Royal from February 25 to 29. Pictures: Robert Day
YORK Theatre Royal resident company Pilot Theatre are following up last year’s powerful adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses with another topical collaboration.
Pilot have teamed up with Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre to present Emteaz Hussain’s new staging of Alex Wheatle’s award-winning young adult novel Crongton Knights.
Co-directed by Corey Campbell, artistic director of Strictly Arts Theatre Company, and Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson, the touring world premiere will play the Theatre Royal from February 25 to 29.
Wheatle’s story depicts how life is not easy on the Crongton Estate and for McKay and his mates what matters is keeping their heads down. When a friend finds herself in trouble, however, they set out on a mission that goes further than any of them imagined.
Crongton Knights will “take you on a night of madcap adventure as McKay and his friends, The Magnificent Six, encounter the dangers and triumphs of a mission gone awry”.
Esther Richardson: Crongton Knights co-director and Pilot Theatre artistic director
In this story of how lessons learned the hard way can bring you closer together, the pulse of the city will be brought to life on stage with a Conrad Murray soundscape of beatboxing and vocals laid down by the cast of Kate Donnachie; Zak Douglas; Simi Egbejumi-David; Nigar Yeva; Olisa Odele; Aimee Powell; Khai Shaw and Marcel White.
Wheatle, a writer born in London to Jamaican parents, says: “I’m very proud that Pilot Theatre are adapting my novel, Crongton Knights, for the stage. It’s a modern quest story where, on their journey, the young diverse lead characters have to confront debt, poverty, blackmail, loss, fear, the trauma of a flight from a foreign land and the omnipresent threat of gangland violence.
“The dialogue I created for this award-winning novel deserves a platform and I, for one, can’t wait to see the characters that have lived in my head for a number of years leap out of my mind and on to a stage near you.”
Co-director Esther Richardson says of the teen quest story: “For us, this play is a lens through which to explore the complexity of young people’s lives, open a platform for those concerns and show what they have to try to navigate fairly invisibly to other members of society. It’s the context in which they live that creates the problem, and these kids go under the radar.
“Alex is writing about how the world is stacked against teenagers; how young people have been thrown to the dogs; how they to negotiate this No Man’s Land they live in, when their places have been closed down; their spaces to express themselves.
On the wall: The Crongton Knights cast
“They have been victims of austerity – as have disabled people – so it’s no surprise that there’s been a rise in knife crime, with kids on the streets and no youth workers to go to, to talk about their feelings.”
Esther notes how they have no access to the arts either. “That’s why our job becomes very important, especially the work we do with theatres around the country, such as the Young and Talented theatre workshops, working with kids in inner-city London who otherwise would have no involvement in the arts,” she says.
“It’s a very heavily subsidised actor-training scheme for children aged five or six upwards, and cast members for plays like Crongton Knights can come through the scheme.”
Esther is concerned, however, by the cuts in arts funding and the potential negative impact of Brexit too. “Theatre is not seen as an opportunity to thrive in, especially in this post-Brexit landscape where it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” she predicts.
“That’s why we will further shift into co-creating pieces, Pilot creating work with communities, Pilot co-creating with teens, which we do already do, but we can do it better and do it more.”
On yer bike: A tense scene in Crongton Knights
Significantly, Crongton Knights is the second of four co-productions between Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, and York Theatre Royal, who last year formed – together with the Mercury Theatre in Colchester – a new new partnership to develop theatre for younger audiences.
From 2019-2022, the consortium will commission and co-produce an original mid-scale touring production each year that will play in all the consortium venues as well as touring nationally. The consortium’s debut production, Noughts & Crosses, was seen by more than 30,000 people on tour with 40 per cent of the audience being aged under 20.
To reflect the diversity of the consortium partners and the universality of Crongton Knights’ theme, Esther says: “Although there’s an estate in London called Notre Dame, which features in the book and the play, we have very much created a fictionalised inner city in the play, as Corey and I felt we wanted regional as well as London voices in the cast.
“So, our inner-city world is neither London, nor Birmingham, nor Coventry; it’s everywhere from the perspective of teenagers.”
Pilot Theatre and partners present Crongton Knights, York Theatre Royal, February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly plus 2pm, Thursday and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age guidance: 11 plus; show contains strong language.
PHOENIX Dance Theatre are
exploring the long-lasting effects of British colonial forces in the world premiere
of Black Waters at Leeds Playhouse this week.
Drawing inspiration from history,
this emotionally evocative new production by the Leeds company combines two events.
Black Waters: Phoenix Dance Theatre’s exploration of place, worth and belonging
In the first, in the late-18th century,
130 slaves were thrown overboard from the Zong as the ship owners attempted to
profit from their life insurance.
More than 100 years later, Indian
freedom fighters were incarcerated in the Kala Pani prison for speaking out
against the regime.
Co-choreographer Sharon Watson during rehearsals for Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Black Waters
Black Waters reflects on these two colonial landmarks, showing
how people can find value, inspiration and hope even in the bleakest of times.
The co-choreographers, Phoenix
artistic director Sharon Watson and Shambik Ghose and Dr
Mitul Sengupta, artistic directors of Rhythmosaic, from Kolkata, combine
contemporary dance with Kathak dance: one of the eight major forms of Indian
classical dance, traditionally attributed to ancient travelling storytellers.
Black Waters co-choreographer Shambik Ghose
Sharon says: “Black Waters is not about recreating these two events through
contemporary dance, but is an exploration of place, worth and belonging, which
can often be conflicting for people of colour.”
Black Waters can be seen in the Quarry Theatre at 7.30pm tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
Robert Daws’ committee chairman Ray, left, and Mark Curry’s pedantic Councillor Donald Evans in Ten Times Table. Pictures: Pamela Raith
REVIEW: Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table, The Classic Comedy Theatre Company, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york
IMPRESARIO and
prolific producer Bill Kenwright has his name on multiple shows that frequent
the Grand Opera House, from musicals to the Agatha Christie, Classic Thriller
and Classic Screen To Stage companies.
Now add The
Classic Comedy Theatre Company to that list, making their debut tour either
side of Christmas with Ten Times Table, Alan Ayckbourn’s “calamitous comedy by
committee” from 1977, the year when committees popped up everywhere to mark HM
The Queen’s Silver Jubilee.
Those stellar
names of British theatre, Kenwright and Ayckbourn, are complemented by a third:
Robin Herford, perennial director of The Woman In Black and much else, not
least past productions of Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves at the Stephen
Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and Relatively Speaking, Confusions, Bedroom Farce and Season’s
Greetings elsewhere.
What’s
more, Ayckbourn cast him as pedantic, punctilious, punctuation and procedure-obsessed
Councillor Donald Evans in his SJT premiere of Ten Times Table in January 1977.
Everything
sounded so promising for Herford’s touring production, not least a cast
starring Robert Daws, Robert Duncan, Mark Curry and Deborah Grant. Certainly,
more promising than the gloomy forecast that the River Ouse floodwaters could
be seeping beneath the Grand Opera House doors by 6am, prompting senior
management to stay on watchful guard through the night.
Thankfully, such concerns turned out to be a false dawn. Alas, Ten Times Table proved to be a damp squib too: that rare occasion when an Ayckbourn play just isn’t very funny any more.
Maybe we are spoilt by Sir Alan’s revivals of his classics at the Stephen Joseph Theatre each summer season; maybe they better suit the bear-pit setting of the SJT’s theatre in the round: more intimate, more inclusive, more apt for the combative nature of his vintage comedies. Maybe it is significant that Ten Times Table has never been among those revivals.
Misfiring: Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Ten Times Table fires blanks in Robin Herford’s touring production
Here in
York, on a proscenium-arch stage, as with the body of a giraffe, Ten Times
Table feels like the work of a committee. Or the work of a committee like the
one we are watching as they assemble maybe ten times around the table (although
your reviewer lost count).
Welcome to the “miscellaneous assemblage” of the Pendon Folk Festival committee, gathering beneath the erratic lights of the faded grand ballroom of the Swan Hotel, as Seventies as hotel grey gravy and over-boiled veg and as tired as the comedy in Michael Holt’s design.
The
pathway to the Pendon Pageant will be a bumpy one, all the more so for the
irascible, over-excitable disposition of chairman Ray (Robert Daws), who bores
everyone, audience included unfortunately, as he recounts Pendon’s most dramatic
news story of the past.
Now the 18th
century army massacre of the radical Pendon Twelve agricultural agitators is to
be re-enacted on pageant day. Ayckbourn duly sets up matching class warfare:
middle-class conservatism on one side, represented by smug Ray; his constantly
peeved, overbearing wife Helen (Deborah Grant); a mad, revolver-toting military
dog-breeder, Tim (Harry Gostelow), and ineffectual dullard Councillor Evans
(Mark Curry).
Always accompanying
Evans is his octogenarian mum Audrey (Elizabeth Power), the minute-taking but
pretty much deaf committee secretary who never delivers the minutes, dithering dottily
except when a drink or the chance to play the piano comes her way.
On the
other side, representing the agitators, is the truculent Marxist martyr, comprehensive
schoolteacher Eric (Craig Gazey), and his acolytes, the ever-underwhelming
Sophie (Gemma Oaten), even a disappointment to herself, and the almost impossibly
quietly spoken costume maker Philippa (Rhiannon Handy).
No idea
where he is, the sozzled Laurence (Robert Duncan) stumbles from marital crisis
to the next marital crisis.
Ayckbourn
depicts the minutiae of committee conduct with trademark mischief making but
somehow this Ten Times Table does not add up amid the personality and
ideological clashes. The power-driven Ray is as irritating as the banging on
the floor above; plenty of others follow suit, and, especially in the long
first half, the comedy feels too slow, too forced, the timing……..off.
STORYTELLER, poet and BBC Radio 4 regular John Osborne returns
to Pocklington Arts Centre on Thursday to present his beautiful, funny and
uplifting new theatre show about music and dementia.
Last March,
he performed a quietly spoken double bill of John Peel’s Shed and Circled In
The Radio Times in the bar; intimate, convivial storytelling in an intimate,
convivial space.
Now, inspired by seeing a friend’s father face a dementia
diagnosis and the feelings of warmth and positivity and unexpected twists and
turns the family went through, he has put together You’re In A Bad Way.
“This is the fifth theatre show I’ve made and it’s definitely my favourite,” says Osborne. “That’s because I never planned to write about something as personal as dementia, and I’d never written about such a big topic before, which I felt was intimidating and other writers would do it.
“But I was faced with this dilemma when my friend’s father was
diagnosed with dementia a couple of years ago. It was a really interesting
thing to observe, because though it was horrible and terrifying and sad, it was
also beautiful and magical with special moments.
“It felt like such a beautiful story that I wanted to tell. Just
because you’ve been diagnosed with something, it doesn’t mean it’s the end.”
Osborne recalls the circumstances behind his friend’s
revelation. “My friend and I go to Glastonbury every summer. We started at 21
and we’ve been going for 17 years now and we never miss a year,” he says.
“So, it was one of those sweet things we like to do, but it was
at Glastonbury she told me about her father. Glastonbury is kind of where these
things do happen, when you’re spending so much time together.
“I was saying I felt I was getting too old for Glastonbury, for putting
up tents and the like, and it was then she suddenly told me about her dad’s
dementia, and I thought, ‘what’s happening to us?’. But everyone has these
stories, don’t they?”
This set in motion You’re In A Bad Way. “I started thinking
about my relationships, friendships; growing up and now not being as young as
you used to be, but also about having the luxury of growing old, and then my
friend’s father dementia diagnosis,” says Osborne. “I also found myself
thinking about how music plays an important part in our lives.”
Gradually, music and dementia joined in union as Osborne wrote
the show. “Initially, I was looking at music from my own point of view, but the
more I researched dementia, sport and music were two things that were so important
to dementia patients,” he says.
“Like hearing an old commentary from a cup final their favourite
team won. Someone who has been unresponsive to any stimulus can suddenly go back
to where they first heard that commentary.
“It’s the same with music, where they can remember the lyrics
from years ago, but can’t now remember who anyone is.”
Before he went ahead with You’re In A Bad Way, Osborne sought
his friend’s approval for him to talk about her family’s story on stage. “She
works in theatre and said she was happy if a theatre show did discuss these
things,” he recalls.
The poster artwork for John Osborne’s dementia-and-music show You’re In A Bad Way
When premiering the show at last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe, Osborne
spent time at a dementia care centre in the Scottish capital to ensure he was
fully informed about the experience of caring for someone with dementia.
“I met these fantastic women at LifeCare Edinburgh, and we
talked about what they do and how they wanted to raise awareness of what they
do,” says Osborne. “We raised money at the end of every performance to give to
LifeCare.
“It was really good to get information and stories from them and
to be able to repay them by mentioning LifeCare at each show.”
Osborne says that every time he performs You’re In A Bad Way, he
learns new things about dementia. For example, the feeling of isolation when confronted
by loved one falling into the black hole
of dementia. “If you’ve got a parent with dementia, it can be very hard to
communicate about it with your friends, as your relationship with your family
is so specific to you,” he says.
“In the case of my friend, her response was to drop everything to
support her father, whereas her sister couldn’t deal with it at all and wasn’t
there for him. She ran away from it.
“But whatever your reaction, there are thousands of reasons for
why people do what they do in those circumstances.
“That’s why I wanted to do my research and not be out of my
comfort zone when people tell me their own stories at the shows. I’ve met
people who have stayed and supported; I’ve met people who ran away.”
Looking
forward to Thursday’s Pock performance, what tone can the audience expect? “As
it’s such a big topic, I’ve tried to make the show funny and life affirming and
relatable,” says Osborne.
“I don’t
want it to be sad or serious; I think it’s important for it to be a good story
to someone who has no association with dementia, as well as being sensitive to
those who live surrounded by the illness.”
Osborne is busy writing his next show for this summer’s
Edinburgh Fringe. “After two serious shows, You’re In A Bad Way, and before
that, Circled In The Radio Times, which was also about getting older, I
thought, ‘I really want to write something fun’,” he says, introducing My Car
Plays Tapes.
“I’d had my first car for years, but it broke down. I did my John
Peel’s Shed tour in it, and that’s partly why it broke down, when a little
Fiesta isn’t meant to do that many miles, with a box of records in the back.
“So, I got the cheapest replacement car possible, with no
electric windows, no CD player, but it’s got a tape player. Suddenly I was
re-united with the tapes I made when I was 16, when I would have had no reason
to listen to them again otherwise.
“That’s set me off writing about being forced to re-visit your
past.” Hopefully, the resulting show will make its way to Pocklington
post-Edinburgh Fringe.
In the meantime, tickets for Thursday’s 7.30pm performance of You’re In A Bad Way are on sale at £10 on 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk or £12 on the door, with a special price of £9 for a carer of someone with dementia.
A Bunch Of Amateurs writers Ian Hislop, left, and Nick Newman
PRIVATE Eye
editor and Have I Got News For You team captain Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s
comedy A Bunch Of Amateurs will play York Theatre Royal from June 2 to 6.
What happens in this play? Keen to boost his flagging career,
fading Hollywood action hero Jefferson Steele arrives in England to play King
Lear in Stratford, only to find that he is not in the birthplace of
Shakespeare, but in a sleepy Suffolk village.
Instead of starring alongside Sir Kenneth Branagh and Dame Judi
Dench, the cast members are a bunch of amateurs trying to save their theatre
from ruthless developers.
Jefferson’s monstrous ego,
vanity and insecurity are tested to the limit by the enthusiastic am-dram thespians
who share his spotlight. As acting worlds collide and Jefferson’s career
implodes, he discovers some truths about himself and his inner Lear.
After tours of Hislop and Newman’s The Wipers
Times and Trial By Laughter, Trademark
Touring, Karl Sydow and Anthology Theatre, in association with The Everyman
Theatre, Cheltenham, will be taking A Bunch Of Amateurs on the road from April 23 to July 4.
Hislop and Newman say: “Following successful national tours of The Wipers Times and Trial By Laughter, we are thrilled to be touring the very first
play we wrote, A Bunch Of Amateurs: a love
letter to the world of amateur theatre and a celebration of the overweening
absurdity of Hollywood stardom.”
A Bunch Of Amateurs will
be directed by Robin Herford, whose production of Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Ten
Times Table for impresario Bill Kenwright’s Classic Comedy Theatre Company is
running at the Grand Opera House, York, this week.
Herford is best known for directing The Woman In Black, the Stephen Mallatratt stage adaptation of Susan
Hill’s novel that he commissioned in 1987 when artistic director of the Stephen
Joseph Theatre. The Woman In Black has
been running in the West End for 30 years, always directed by Herford, along
with the regular tours.
Tickets for A Bunch Of Amateurs are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.
Note the name of the pub: the perfect prescient setting for The Last Quiz Night On Earth
QUICK question. Did you see Chip Shop Chips, Box Of Tricks Theatre Company’s show at Pocklington Arts Centre last year?
Yes? So,
presumably you will want know when they will be returning to Pock and what in?
The answers
are Friday, March 20 in The Last Quiz Night On Earth, an immersive, innovative
new play by Alison Carr for theatre devotees and pub quiz enthusiasts alike, who
are promised “a very different experience of live performance”, set in a pub.
In the Box
Of Tricks locker already are the award-winning Manchester company’s shows
SparkPlug, Narvik and Under Three Moons. Now they follow two sold-out
tours of Chip Shop Chips with Carr’s pre-apocalyptic comedy, The Last Quiz
Night On Earth, as an asteroid heads to Earth in a tour that also visits the
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, for performances in the bar on March 24
and 25.
Writer Alison Carr and assistant director Kitty Ball in the rehearsal room for The Last Quiz Night On Earth. Picture: Alex Mead
Next
question. What happens? “It’s the final countdown. Landlady Kathy invites
audiences to the last quiz night on earth with Quizmaster Rav. He is the host
with the most,” say Box Of Tricks, an associate company at the SJT, by the way.
“But with
time ticking, some unexpected guests turn up out of the blue. Bobby wants to
settle old scores and Fran wants one last shot at love. Expect the
unexpected to the bitter end and plenty of drama as the show gets quizzical.”
Hannah
Tyrrell-Pinder directs the play, with design by Katie Scott. Pub landlady Kathy
will be played by Meriel Scholfield, who has appeared in Coronation Street,
Last Tango In Halifax, Holby City and Doctors, while Shaban Dar will take the
role of pre-apocalyptic Quizmaster Rav.
Playwright
Alison Carr’s past works include Caterpillar and Iris; her latest play,
Tuesday, has been commissioned for the National Theatre’s 2020 Connections
programme, to be performed by 40 groups from across the country. The Last Quiz Night On Earth is her first
for Box Of Tricks.
Box Of Tricks director Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder
Next
question. Why did she write The Last Quiz Night On Earth? “I started two other ideas
before this one but they wouldn’t take hold. The idea of a quiz night kept
popping into my head but I’d dismiss it because I was worried it’d been done
too often before.
“So,
I kept plugging away and overcomplicating things, until eventually I thought ‘okay,
lean into it – a quiz night and what? A quiz night AND the world is about to
end. It all opened up from there and a quiz night became the only way to tell
this story.
“It
brings so much to explore like togetherness and community, camaraderie, competitiveness.
Throw into the mix an asteroid heading straight for us, and the stakes get
higher. It’s the final chance to say the unsaid, heal rifts, get the last word,
make peace with regrets or try to do something about them.”
Alison
wanted to combine the known and the unknown, the safe and the downright terrifying. “My
vision was to create something that audiences don’t just sit and watch but are
part of – but not in a scary way,” she says.
Meriel Schofield as pub landlady Kathy in The Last Quiz Night On Earth. Picture: Alex Mead
“Personally, the thought of audience participation makes me feel
sick, but a quiz is something we can all do, whether we’re a general knowledge
expert or the neatest so we can do the writing.”
Comparing The Last Quiz Night On Earth with her past work,
Alison says: “There
are elements there like a fractious sibling relationship, and having something
quite extreme or unexpected going on.
“But, overall, it’s quite a departure, especially the characters’ interaction with the audience. My jumping- off point was to write something fun. A play about an imminent apocalypse might not sound like larks and giggles, but around the time I got the call, I’d been researching a lot of serious, dark material for other plays I was writing.
“It
takes its toll. So, when Hannah got in touch, my first thoughts were ‘yes
please’ and ‘for my own well-being, it’s got to be fun’. Plus, I always want to
be challenging myself, not trotting out the same-old, same-old. And just like
‘dark’ doesn’t mean humourless or hard-going, ‘fun’ certainly doesn’t equal
something fluffy or meaningless. It is the end of the world, after all.”
Shaban Dar as pre-apocalyptic Quizmaster Rav
Alison
names Victoria Wood as her biggest inspiration. “She was, is, and always will be,”
she says. “Her voice is so distinctive and so northern. She’s why I tried
writing anything in the first place. She brought joy to so many and achieved so
much, she was a grafter.
“I’ll
always try and see any Edward Albee or Tennessee Williams plays I can: they’re
so big and fearless. Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen Of Leenane is one of my
favourite plays. Lee Hall, Bryony Lavery, Zinnie Harris. I recently saw and
read some Annie Baker plays and I’m in awe of her.
“Having
said all that, I’m not so much a fan of particular playwrights as I am plays
and theatre in general. I try and see as much theatre as I can in the North
East and beyond.”
Last
question, Alison, why should the good people of Pocklington and Scarborough seeThe Last Quiz Night On Earth? “Well,
there’s a quiz – a real one. Real questions, real teams, real swapping of answer
sheets to mark,” she says. “You don’t have to be good at quizzes (I’m not) or,
if you are, great, come and show off.
Chris Jack as Bobby in Box Of Tricks’ production
“And when
you’re not trying to remember which British city hosted the 1970 Commonwealth
Games, there’s a story unfolding around you about family and regrets and last
chances. About making your mark, about grabbing the bull by the horns and not
waiting until it’s too late to say ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I’ve never
liked that colour on you’.
“I
wouldn’t want anyone other than Box of Tricks making The Last Quiz Night On
Earth. Their work is never pretentious or intimidating, it’s welcoming and warm
and a good night out. What better way to meet our fiery demise?”
Box Of Tricks present The Last Quiz Night On Earth, Pocklington Arts Centre, March 20, 7.30pm, and Stephen Joseph Theatre bar, Scarborough, March 24, 1.30pm (Dementia Friendly performance) and 7.30pm; March 25, 7.30pm. Box office: Pocklington, 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
The poster artwork for Farnham Maltings’ tour of Kevin Dyer’s The Man Who Left Is Not The Man Who Came Home
HELMSLEY Arts
Centre will be the only Yorkshire stop for Kevin Dyer’s new play on the lives
of military wives, The Man Who Left Is Not The Man Who Came Home.
“Britain has armed
forces in many countries. Their partners are waiting at home for them to come
back,” says writer-director Dyer, ahead of the March 14 performance by the
Farnham Maltings company. “Some listen to the news, some don’t. Some have
affairs, some don’t. Some sing in choirs and put on a brave face, some don’t.
All of them find a way to get on with it.”
Dyer began his research by chatting to women who had been married to men who had gone to war. “Most of us with partners say goodbye to them when they go to work, but we know that they’re going to come back. Not so, if you’re a ‘military wife’,” he says.
“It soon became
clear in my conversations that the pressures on the pair of them – the wife and
her man – were immense, extraordinary and not at all like civvy street.”
Dyer knew quickly that he had no wish to write about the experience of being “over there”. “There are lots of documentaries and pieces of semi-fiction that have covered that,” he reasons. “But the stories of the women who watched their man go, spent time thinking, wondering, hoping, coping whilst he was away, then experienced him coming back home, were vivid, inspiring, and largely untold.”
He had a few “basic questions” for the women whose men went to war. “What was it like before he went? What was it like saying goodbye? What was it like once he’d gone? What was it like the moment he came back? What was it like after the first buzz of his return had passed?” he asked.
“I heard stories of love, hate, betrayal, uselessness, kids, mates, denial, madness,” says Dyer. “The stories are varied and never simple.”
The Man Who Left Is Not the Man Who Came Home is the product of more than 100 one-to-one interviews with soldiers and their wives, where secrets, regrets and experiences have been shared for the first time.
The resulting play tells
the story of Ashley, a young British soldier, and his wife Chloe just before,
during and after he is posted to serve in Afghanistan.
“Chloé’s future
hopes come with imminent challenges,” says Dyer. “Being married to the military
means facing deployment. Behind closed doors, there is tenderness and humour
too, but as the day of Ashley’s departure comes ever closer, anxiety and
confrontations multiply.
Dyer’s story of
resilience, hope and change – and knowing that the man you love, who is going
to war, might not come back – will be performed by Stephanie Greer and Sam C
Wilson with military wife Sam Trussler. An open conversation on the themes of
the play and the country we live in will follow the 7.30pm performance.
Dyer’s play, both
innovative and emotional, carries this warning: “Though we hope that the
experience of the play will be moving, relatable or cathartic, and there’s no
intention to shock, there’s a chance that, for some audience members, it could
incite emotions and memories that are upsetting or strong feelings about war.”
Tickets are on sale on 01439 771700 or at helmsleyartscentre.co.uk. Age guidance: 14+ only.
