The Ballad Of Maria Marten playwright Beth Flintoff
GOODBYE Polstead, say hello to The Ballad Of Maria Marten, the new name for Beth Flintoff’s captivating drama that first toured in 2018.
Directed by Hal Chambers in tandem with Ivan Cutting, an all-female cast will embark on a spring tour from Tuesday at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, led by Elizabeth Crarer, who returns to the title role for Flintoff’s re-telling of a real-life Suffolk murder mystery in Summer 1827.
In a red barn, Maria Marten awaits her lover. A year later, her body is found under the floor of the barn in a grain sack, barely identifiable, and the manhunt begins.
Maria’s story sent shock waves throughout the country. The Red Barn Murder, as it became known, was national news, inspiring writers and filmmakers down the ages.
Here was the sort of gruesome tale that had all the hallmarks of a classic crime drama: a missing body, a country location, a disreputable squire and a village stuck in its age-old traditions.
However, amid all the hysteria, Maria’s own story has become lost – until this play. Chambers and Flintoff’s spine-tingling rediscovery of her tale brings it back to vivid, urgent life.
Flintoff, a freelance playwright and theatre director from Hampshire, was asked by co-director Cutting to write the play.
She was immediately intrigued, not only because she had never heard of the murder, but also because she then learnt how the story previously had been told.
“Ivan approached me after seeing another play that I’d written, which was set in the early 12th century,” she recalls. “We met in Polstead, Suffolk, to walk through the village, and I was fascinated. In particular, Ivan wanted the story to focus on Maria because so many versions of this tale are centred around William Corder.”
Beth continues: “From the moment of the trial, the focus was on the murderer, not Maria. No-one seemed to be looking carefully at the intricacies of her life, beyond the basics. So, I wanted to tell the story entirely from her point of view.
“We are often presented with stories of women as ‘victims’, rather than as interesting, complicated people who had hopes and dreams, friends and lives of their own.”
For her research, Flintoff stayed in Ipswich for a while and walked around Polstead to gain a sense of how she lived her life. “I visited all the locations of Maria’s life that I thought would be mentioned in the play: Layham, Sudbury, Hadleigh. I went to the Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds, which has relics relating to the murder, and the Records Office in Ipswich to look at newspaper reports,” she says.
“I talked to local people to try and understand what everyone thinks now (the answer: everyone that knows of it has a different version!). Then I spent a lot of time in libraries: the University of Sussex Library, the British Library in London and the Bodleian in Oxford.”
Flintoff notes that amid the profusion of accounts of the story, whether from the time of the murder or much more recent, they are all very different. “Some are truly horrible about Maria, others make her out to be an angelic village maiden, and some offer some pretty bizarre theories about Ann,” she says.
“One offered ‘hints to the ladies’ on how to avoid marrying a murderer in the future. Several anxiously urged women not to be so promiscuous, to avoid being murdered themselves. None suggested that men stop murdering. Needless to say, I could not find any contemporary accounts written by a woman.
“Then I put all the research aside and tried to think about Maria as a person. Who does she love, what do they talk about, what does she do when she’s having fun? I didn’t want her to be a victim any more. Maria emerged as intelligent, brave and wryly funny, just like the survivors I had met.”
What does Flintoff anticipate this week’s SJT audience will take away from The Ballad Of Maria Marten? “First of all, I hope they enjoy themselves! That’s my number one job really. It’s not a laugh-a-minute sort of play but you can still enjoy a story, even if it’s full of sadness.
“But also I hope they enjoy watching these actresses, as I have, working together to tell this story about a woman who has somehow got lost in the retelling of her own murder.”
Secondly, she hopes they feel the story is still relevant. “On average, two women are killed every week by their partner or ex-partner in this country,” Beth says. “I feel increasingly that this story is not about the past but the present: how are we going to let women speak for themselves when there is so much history of being ignored?
“I feel very optimistic for the future. I think things are going to change, and it’s wonderful to be living in that change, but it’s going to take work.”
The Ballad Of Maria Marten will run in the Round at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from Tuesday,February 11 to 15 at 7.30pm nightly, plus matinees at 1.30pm on February 13 and 2.30pm on February 15. Tickets, priced from £10, are on sale on 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE: VERY SORRY THE TEXT IS MISBEHAVING. NO IDEA WHY IT IS, BUT HOPEFULLY THIS DOES NOT SPOIL ANY ENJOYMENT OF READING THE STORY. CH
Riotous: Ubu (Katy Owen) and Mrs Ubu (Mike Shepherd) in Ubu! The Sing Along Satire
REVIEW: Kneehigh’s Ubu! A Singalong Satire, Quarry Theatre, Leeds
Playhouse, tonight at 7.30pm. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at
leedsplayhouse.org.uk
ALEX, the woodsman-bearded
drama teacher from York, won’t forget his afternoon visit to Leeds Playhouse,
thrashed by a Leeds boy in a daft party game in Kneehigh’s promenade musical.
He loved it! We
loved it! You’ll love it! Yet again, Cornwall’s Kneehigh send you home dizzy and
delirious with the joys and jolts, the thrilling rock’n’rollercoaster ride, of
theatre that aptly comes with an exclamation mark in its show title.
Ubu! A Sing Along
Satire has politics, a big flushing loo, cheers and boos, inflatable animals, songs,
more politics, more songs, competitive audience participation and a giant bear
with poor vision in a chaotic, kinetic, karaoke cabaret circus of derailed life
under a deranged dictator.
First, house
lights up, Delycia Belgrave and the soul house band The Sweaty Bureaucrats set
the boisterous mood from up on high with party anthems.
Enter our
convivial, dry-witted host in vest, tie and striped trousers, Jeremy Wardle (Niall
Ashdown), commenting on the state of the British nation as he introduces the land
of Lovelyville and the campaign trail of sleek, sloganeering President Nick
Dallas (Dom Coyote), his woke daughter Bobbi (Kyla Goodey) and their Russian
security boss Captain Shittabrique (Adam Sopp). Shitt-a-brique. Geddit. There
are plenty more risqué gags like that to follow.
Where’s Ubu?
Here’s Ubu! Tiny yet hugely impactful Katy Owen’s unhinged, petulant, crude and
cruel soon-to-be-dictator Ubu. Potty mouthed, bespectacled, dreadlocked, Welsh
voiced, and in the words of Kneehigh: “impossibly greedy, unstoppably rude,
inexorably daft and hell-bent on making the country great again! Sound
familiar?”
Familiar, yes,
but told so gleefully afresh, as Alfred Jarry’s famously riot-inducing shot of anarchy
from 1896 Paris kicks up a song and dance in the manipulative era of Trump,
Johnson and Putin.
Conceived by writer Carl Grose, his co-director Mike Shepherd (the
show’s ribald, preening Mrs Ubu) and musical director Charles Hazlewood, Ubu! is
a punk-spirited, twisted vaudeville study of power, protest and populism that
could not be better timed.
Boos for Katie Hopkins, Boris and Trump; Britney’s Toxic, The Carpenters’ Close To You and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk re-invented so joyfully; wonderful performances all round, audience included; crazily energetic choreography by Tom Jackson Greaves and a constantly busy, circular rostrum set by Michael Vale all make for another Kneehigh knees-up high.
Cause a riot, if needs must, to secure a ticket for this petty, power-mad protagonist’s panto of pandemonium.
Not sorry to be a nuisance at York Explore tonight
WHISPER it loudly, the word is out that history will misbehave tonight at York Explore Library, Library Square, York, from 7.30pm to 9pm.
Why? Because the air will be thick with Paul Birch’s live audio drama The Nuisance Inspector, wherein a sinister slice of York’s past, the Hungate Clearances, will be re-told.
Birch travels back to the 1930s when York’s newest Health Inspector encounters more than he bargains for in the mysterious and extraordinary alleys and yards of Hungate.
A strange body in the Foss, ghostly goings-on in Carmelite Street and an unlikely romance all feature in this moving tale of love, loss and community spirit.
Based on real events and inspired by letters, maps, books and photographs from the civic archives, The Nuisance Inspector uses drama, comedy and live music to transport the audience into a powerful and poignant past.
Tonight’s immersive performance comes in the wake of two sold-out shows in December. Doors open at 7pm for the 7.30pm start and tickets are FREE. Be sure to arrive in good time for start.
REVIEW: Made In Dagenham, The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm, 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk
MADE In
Dagenham, re-made in York, is the third production by the Jospeh Rowntree
Theatre Company, formed to raise funds for the Haxby Road community theatre.
A good cause, in other words, and the more companies that use this ever-welcoming theatre, the better. The more companies that rise up to tread its boards, the better, too, because York is suffused with musical theatre talent and also with audiences always keen to support such productions.
This week represents the chance to see the York premiere of Made In Dagenham, transferred from screen to stage by composer David Arnold, lyricist Richard Thomas and Richard Bean, the Hull playwright whose comedy dramas revel in confrontations, spats and politics on stage (witness One Man, Two Guvnors and Toast, for example).
Bean re-tellsthe true 1968 story of the women in the stitching room of Ford’s Dagenham car plant being stitched up by both management and corrupt union, bluntly told their pay is to be dropped to an “unskilled” grade. What follows is a fight for equal pay, standing up against an American corporation, and if the battle is less well known than the Suffragette movement of the 1900s, it is a women’s rights landmark nonetheless.
From the off, once an ensemble number loosens limb and voice
alike for Kayleigh Oliver’s cast, the banter amid the graft of the sewing machinists
is boisterously established, the humour full of double entendres and sexual
bravado, as characters are drawn pleasingly quickly. So too are their
interactions with the men at the car plant, and in the case of Rita O’Grady
(Jennie Wogan), working wife and mother of two, her home life with husband
Eddie (Nick Sephton).
Rita, together with Rosy Rowley’s Connie Riley, become the protagonists
of the struggle, but at a cost: for one, her relationship, for the other, her health.
Wogan and Rowley are both tremendous in the drama’s grittier scenes and knock the
hell out of their big numbers.
Bean writes with more sentimentality than usual, charting the fracturing
of Rita and Eddie’s relationship, but it suits the heightened tone of a musical.
Sephton handles his ballad lament particularly well.
Jennifer Jones’s Sandra, Izzy Betts’ Clare and, in particular, Helen
Singhateh’s lewd Beryl add to the car plant fun and games, as does Chris Gibson’s
ghastly American management guy, Tooley. All your worst Stetson-hatted American
nightmares in one, and post-Brexit, there’ll soon be more where he came from!
You will enjoy Martyn Hunter’s pipe-smoking caricature of Prime Minister Harold Wilson and director Kayleigh Oliver’s no-nonsense Barbara Castle too. Richard Goodall is good all round as the machinists’ hard-pressed union rep.
Supporting roles and ensemble serve the show well too, and if
sometimes the sound balance means lines are hard to hear when the Timothy
Selman’s orchestra is playing beneath them, it is a minor problem. Selman’s
players, Jessica Douglas and Sam Johnson among them, are on good form throughout.
Lorna Newby’s choreography could be given a little more oomph but
with so many on stage at times, space is tight. One routine, where the women
move in circles one way, and the men do likewise the other way, outside them, works
wonderfully, however.
Made In Dagenham may be a car plant story, but its factory politics resonate loudly nanew in York, the industrial city of chocolate and trains.
Please note, Made In Dagenham features some very strong language
and may be unsuitable for children.
Anna Soden, Joe Feeney, Lewes Roberts and Kate Cresswell in Cosmic Collective Theatre’s Heaven’s Gate
FOUR cups of Apple Sauce. Four canvas camp beds. One Comet. Heaven’s Gate is closing and the Away Team are ready for Graduation, but whatever you do, don’t mention the C-word. Cult, that is.
Premiered
by the new York company Cosmic Collective Theatre at last summer’s Great
Yorkshire Fringe in York, the 55-minute Heaven’s Gate is orbiting Yorkshire
on its first tour, playing the Visionari community programming group’s Studio
Discoveries season at the York Theatre Royal Studio tonight (February 7) at
7.45pm.
Written by
company co-founder Joe Feeney, this intergalactic pitch-black comedy imagines
the final hour of four fictionalised members of the real-life
UFO-theistic group, Heaven’s Gate.
“As they prepare for their ‘Graduation’ to the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, initially the excitement is palpable, but soon the cracks start to appear,” says Joe, an alumnus of York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre, along with fellow cast member Anna Soden.
“I’ve always been interested in slightly unusual stories, like the paranormal,” says Joe. “I remember reading about the Heaven’s Gate cult, a real-life cult in San Diego, California, who believed God was an alien in a space ship and they were aliens too but wearing the bodies of humans, but actually being versions who would be beamed up to heaven.
“A lot of their religious mantras were from Star Trek and Star Wars, and they all had matching hair-dos and tracksuit clothing.”
Joe was not aware of any previous fictionalised works telling the Heaven’s Gate story. “About 18 months ago, I was watching this BBC Four documentary about meteorites, and it got to 1997 and they started talking about the Comet Hale-Bopp in the sky in March that year,” he recalls.”
“They mentioned an American cult who said it was a calling from God and they could see a UFO in the trail that would take them to heaven.”
These are the facts: On March 26, 1997, the San Diego County Sheriff’s department discovered 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members in a house in the suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. They had participated in a mass suicide, co-ordinated in ritual suicides, in the belief they would reach the aforementioned extraterrestrial space craft trailing in Comet Hale-Bopp’s slipstream.
“Learning about this, the story quickly went from humour to thinking that, ‘oh my god, people need to hear this story and the terrible things they all went through,” says Joe.
“That’s why I’ve written about the fictionalised last hour of four members, drawing on the iconography and ideology of other cults, as well as Heaven’s Gate, in the play.”
Joe has created four “relatable characters”. “They are everyday people who found themselves in the right or wrong place and who felt themselves being swept up in it,” he says.
His writing tone is humorous but darkly so. “The play is a comedy, albeit a black comedy that takes the subject seriously but in a satirical way, managing to find a critique within that satire,” he says.
In the publicity material, Cosmic Collective Theatre make a point of saying “Don’t say the C-word. Cult!”. Why not, Joe?
“The word ‘cult’ always has a stigma to it, but a lot of people in cults don’t know they’re in a cult. They think that they’re in a religion. I don’t want to stigmatise it,” he says. “What’s the difference between God being in a UFO and God being someone with a white beard?
“We hope there are 39 people in a spaceship on the other side of the world. That’s a lovely thought, but the reality is those people are buried somewhere in America.”
Joe was keen to address another subject in the play, amid the rising tide of intolerance and division in the 21st century. “Heaven’s Gate is also about identity, how we make our journey through the world, when we’re now living in a polarised world where we all pin our beliefs to the mast,” he says.
Cosmic Collective Theatre, who enjoyed a sold-out run at the Drayton Arms Theatre, London, after the York premiere, have so far played Harrogate Theatre Studio and The Carriageworks, Leeds, on tour. Still to come are Hull Truck Theatre Studio, on February 14 at 8pm and Slung Low at Holbeck Theatre, Leeds, on February 16 at 5pm.
Joining Joe and Anna in the cast are Lewes Roberts and Kate Cresswell. “The four of us all went to Mountview [Academy of Theatre Arts]. Myself, Lewes and Kate were there from 2015 to 2018; Anna was in the year above – and we’d already been part of the York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre together and worked backstage there too,” says Joe.
“We started the company with a punk ethos, and this time last year I wrote Heaven’s Gate and we managed to get it into the Great Yorkshire Fringe festival last summer. On the back of that, we got a London run, and now we’ve booked this winter tour, stopping off at venues all four of us have admired or performed in,
“We kind of shot for the moon with all the venues we wanted to do, and if you don’t ask, you don’t get. We had a bucket list of ideal locations and virtually all of them said ‘yes’. Doing the tour at the start of the year is great too, as we can then plan the rest of the year, like going back to the Edinburgh Fringe.”
Performing at York Theatre Royal has particular resonance for Joe
and Anna. “This is incredibly special for us,” says Joe. “I’ve been involved
with York Theatre Royal for more than 20 years. I was a Youth
Theatre member for ten-plus years and have worked as crew backstage
on and off since 2010.
Explaining why Cosmic Collective Theatre are so named, Joe
says: “First of all, we were a collective, with our own individual strengths,
but given that our first play is ‘astronomical’, and we want to make theatre
that is out of this world, we settled on that name and we’ve gone from strength
to strength.
“It was our first goal to do the Great Yorkshire Fringe and we had the honour of doing the first play on The Arts Barge’s new home, the Selby Tony barge on the Ouse, so we can always say we had our world premiere on water and then our world premiere on land in the Basement at City Screen a couple of days later…on two days that happened to be the hottest two days of the year!
“Me and Anna have been involved with Arts Barge for ten years,
with Anna’s mum performing in the Bargestra, and so it felt like a homecoming
doing the first show. As does this return now, performing as professional
actors at the Theatre Royal for the first time.”
York
tickets for Heaven’s Gate can be booked on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk;
Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk; The Holbeck,
slunglow.org/event/heavens-gate.
Please
note: Heaven’s Gate contains references to abuse and suicide
and has mild swearing. Age recommendation: 15 plus.
Preacherman in One Foot In The Rave, the closing show of Visionari’s Studio Discoveries programme
DO mention the C-word. Cult!
The Visionari community programming group’s final choice for
this week’s Studio Discoveries season is One Foot In The Rave, the debut verse
play by writer and performance poet Alexander Rhodes at the York Theatre Royal
Studio tomorrow (February 8) at 7.45pm.
Rhodes relates the
story of a disillusioned
23-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, who breaks free free from the cult and lands on
the Ecstasy-fuelled dance floors of Nineties’ clubland. Shunned by everyone he
knows, he is not prepared for what lies ahead.
“In 1976, Sean’s world changes for
ever. Dragged into a doomsday cult, by parents who are struggling to find their
own identities, the family are brainwashed into believing the end of the world
is nigh. But the route to salvation is not as it seems,” says Rhodes,
introducing his his verse play.
Billed as “an energetic mix of agony and total
Ecstasy”, One Foot In The Rave is set to a backdrop of club classics as Rhodes moves
hypnotically between the characters and scenes to deliver the chemical highs
and pitiful lows. Expect wry observations, chemically induced inspirations and
twisted logic in a warmly witty, soulful, self-aware story of survival.
Who Is
Alexander Rhodes?
“Alexander Rhodes” is just an idea…says
“Alexander Rhodes”.
This idea is, in fact, the third
incarnation of a career as a DJ and producer spanning 18 years. Having moved
through three different genres, each with its own stage name and distinctive
sound, the Alexander Rhodes music project became a spoken-word and performance
art project in early 2015.
“If you look hard enough you will
find a few house music mixes here, the odd chill out track there, echoing in
the digital ether,” he says.
Since 2015, “Alexander” has written and
performed spoken word all over the UK. He started Plymouth’s Pucker Poets, hosts
of a regular poetry slam for cash competition.
Rhodes has taken part in numerous poetry
slams and will take One Foot In The Rave on tour in April and May 2020.
Visionari Studio Discoveries presents Alexander Rhodes: One Foot In The Rave, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow (February 8), 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or atyorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age guide: 16+; show contains drug and alcohol references.
Night Of The Living Dead – Remix: theatre and film in synchronicity
REVIEW: Night Of The Living Dead – Remix, Leeds Playhouse/Imitating The Dog, Courtyard Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, until February 15; Dr Korczak’s Example, Leeds Playhouse, Bramall Rock Void, Leeds Playhouse, until February 15. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk
FIRSTLY, apologies for the tardy reviewing, but there is
still time aplenty to see these two contrasting yet equally impactful
productions at the restructured Leeds Playhouse.
The human condition, what we do to each other, lies at the heart of both pieces, and at a time when the divisive aspects and little island mentality of Brexit are coming home to roost after cutting the umbilical cord with Europe on January 31, they are even more resonant.
American film-maker George A Romero, from The Bronx, New York, would have turned 80 on Tuesday, making Leeds Playhouse and cutting-edge Leeds company Imitating The Dog’s co-production very timely.
Romero’s trademark was
gruesome horror movies, satirical in tone yet serious in their message, delivered
as it was through depicting variations on a zombie apocalypse. Night Of The
Living Dead, from 1968, set the template and here comes a Remix that is at once
theatrical and filmic.
In a city where football
coach Marcelo Bielsa preaches the value of repetition, yet still with unpredictable
results, the Playhouse/Imitating The Dog company sets itself the challenge of mirroring
Romero’s film, frame by frame. The two are shown side by side on screen, synchronised
in motion with actors saying the lines.
Your gaze goes from screen
to screen but also you watch the actors in the act of re-making the film,
switching between performing and working the cameras, and defying the odds in
pulling off the feat when seemingly always up against the clock with the need
for improvisation, confronted by limited
resources. Round of applause, please, to Laura Atherton, Morgan Bailey, Luke
Bigg, Will Holstead, Morven Macbeth, Matt Prendergast and Adela Rajnovic.
You find yourself appreciating
a “dance” show as much as a theatre and film one, because the movement across,
on, off, and around the stage has the ebb and flow of choreography. Another
round of applause, then, to co-directors Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks;
projection and video designer Simon Wainwright; lighting designer Andrew Crofts;
composer James Hamilton and on-stage model creator and operator Matthew Tully.
Laura Hopkins’s set and costume designs are a show in themselves too.
Night Of The Living Dead –
Remix is not a mere tribute act of breath-taking invention and bravura humour.
Instead, it seeks to give 1960s’ American social and political context to Romero’s
message by bleeding in film and sound of John F Kennedy, Senator brother Robert
and Dr Martin Luther King’s famous speeches and the cast’s re-enactment of
coverage of their assassinations. The words echo down the years, haunting and
disturbing, all the more so when matched with a zombie apocalypse.
Robert Pickavance as Dr Korczak and Gemma Barnett as Stepanie in Dr Korczak’s Example
The Playhouse’s new third
performance space, the Bramall Rock Void studio, made its autumn debut with Charley
Miles’s all-female Yorkshire Ripper drama There Are No Beginnings, giving voice
to a blossoming North Yorkshire writer.
Now it turns the spotlight
on the Holocaust in a Playhouse production timed to mark Holocaust Memorial Day(January
27) in a city with both Jewish and Polish communities. Playhouse artistic director
James Brining had commissioned David Greig to write Dr Korczak’s Example when working
in young people’s theatre in Scotland 20 years ago for performances in school
halls, and on moving to Leeds he read it with the Playhouse youth theatre “a
year or so ago”.
That prompted Brining to
direct this winter’s production, turning the spotlight anew on the Polish Jewish
doctor, children’s author, storyteller, broadcaster and educator Janusz
Korczak, who brought liberal and progressive ideals to running a ghetto
orphanage for 200 children in Warsaw.
His principles live on, becoming the basis for the United Nations Convention on the Rights Of Children that still prevails. That is the history and the present of a story that Greig turns into a play set in 1942 that is at once grim and yet hopeful because of the example of the title that Dr Korczak set.
Brining’s production is
supported by the Linbury Prize for Stage Design, a prize for emerging designers
that sees set and costume designer Rose Revitt turn the new studio back to
rubble, with piles of bricks, dusty furniture and desks.
Greig’s play is a three hander, wherein Playhouse regular Rob Pickavance brings gravitas, warmth and sensitivity to Dr Korczak, while Danny Sykes and Gemma Barnett announce talents to watch.
Sykes plays Adzio, brittle, brutalised
and psychologically damaged at the hands of adults, his 16 years of childhood stolen
from him, as he becomes the latest child to be taken in by Korczak. Barnett’s
Stepanie is a beacon, benefiting from Korczak’s care already and drawn to
trying to help the deeply bruised Adzio.
David Shrubsole’s sound
deigns and compositions complement the tone, Rachel Wise’s movement direction
is as important as Brining’s direction, and the actors’ use of models (the size
of Action Man, without being glib) to play out several scenes has a powerful
impact too.
Having a recording of Leeds children reading Dr Korczak’s principles for children’s rights to freedom, respect and love at the play’s close is a fitting finale, one that echoes into the Leeds night air.
Mark Curry’s pedantic Donald, right, with Robert Daws’ hapless committee chairman, Ray, in Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table, presented by Bill Kenwright’s Classic Comedy Theatre Company. All pictures: Pamela Raith
ALAN Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table is the one with “the committee from hell and a fete worse than death”.
Premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 1977, when inspired by the myriad committees that formed for The Queen’s Silver Jubilee that year, Ayckbourn’s calamitous comedy by committee now forms the inaugural production by the Classic Comedy Theatre Company, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, from Monday.
This is the latest theatrical enterprise from impresario Bill Kenwright, whose Agatha Christie, Classic Thriller and Classic Screen to Stage companies are familiar to York audiences over the past 15 years in shows replete with star names.
Among the company, alongside the likes of Robert Daws, Robert Duncan and Deborah Grant, is Mark Curry, the former Blue Peter presenter, now 57.
Taking on the role of pedantic Donald brings back memories of his own encounter with Ayckbourn, artistic director of the SJT at the time, when Mark was pretty much straight out of drama school.
“Apart from auditioning for Alan back in the day, I’ve never met him since then, but I’d love to do as he’s such a brilliant man, and I’d love to sit him down and ask him about the characters in Ten Times Table,” he says.
What did Ayckbourn say when he did audition you, Mark? “He said, ‘you’re not quite ready yet, but you have such energy’.” As perceptive as ever in his people-watching, Ayckbourn highlighted a characteristic that Curry has since brought to his career, whether on Blue Peter, in theatre roles or as a radio presenter.
As chance would have it, Ayckbourn still did play his part in Mark’s milk-teeth days as a professional actor. “I was in rep [repertory theatre] for about three years at Harrogate Theatre, when Mark Piper was the artistic director, and one of the parts I did was a non-speaking role in, ironically, Ten Times Table,” he recalls.
You’re fired! The Pendon Folk Festival committee meeting reaches crisis point in Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table
“I played Max Kirkov, a really strange character who walks on and carries off the leading lady, played in that production by Jean Fergusson, who went on to be Marina in Last Of The Summer Wine for so many years.”
In fact, Mark knows Ayckbourn’s comedy very well, for this latest tour is his third encounter with Ten Times Table, a “predominantly sedentary farce” – the Scarborough playwright’s own description – set in the long-since grand ballroom of the Swan Hotel.
Here, a most miscellaneous assemblage has gathered to conduct the business of the Pendon Folk Festival, led by excitable chairman Ray. Unfortunately for Ray, his committee quickly divides as his wife Helen has a bone to pick.
Then add a nitpicking councillor, a Marxist schoolteacher, a military dog-breeder and an octogenarian secretary, and turbulence is on its way.
Second time around, Mark played Ray, the fulcrum of all the chaos, on a six-week tour. Now, director Robin Herford has cast him as Councillor Donald Evans, a character whose pen portrait for auditionees describes him as “a professional committee man who likes nothing better than a good agenda. A glasses-wearing pedant who is precise to the point of obsession; always accompanied by his mother, Audrey.”
“What made me do it this time was that Robin was directing. He was the first person to play Donald for Alan Ayckbourn in 1977, by the way, and I’d done Woman In Black at the Fortune Theatre in London, with Robin directing, as he always does with that play, in 1994.
“I remember saying to him, ‘I want to play the older guy [in Woman In Black]; I’m really ready for it’.”
Instead, Mark played The Actor, the younger role in Stephen Mallatratt’s play, but perhaps he could work on Herford during the Ten Times Table run to suggest he is even more ready now, 26 years on, to be cast as Arthur Kipps.
That’s all, folk. Another moment of despair at the Pendon Folk Festival committee meeting in the Classic Comedy Theatre Company production of Ten Times Table
Mark is no stranger to Ayckbourn plays, having appeared in Bedroom Farce, How The Other Half Loves, Season’s Greetings and Joking Apart too, and after resuming the Ten Times Table tour in late-January that began with six weeks of shows before Christmas, he is greatly enjoying the role of Donald.
“He’s described as ‘grey man’. Well, I’m grey now! He’s this pedantic, boring little man and it really bothers him when there’s a spelling mistake or grammatical error! Apparently, Alan had encountered someone like that in a committee meeting!
“Anyway, Donald, who still lives with his mum, is really obsessed with details. It’s a role as real as you could make it, and there’s so much more to this part than just being a boring little man.”
Mark is rather less enamoured by committee meetings. “I remember being on a tennis club committee at a lovely club in Horsforth. I volunteered and was very enthusiastic, but what I soon realised was that while we all had one thing in common – we all loved tennis – we were all different characters who’d end up arguing, even though we all wanted the club to thrive,” he recalls.
“You think, if this is what happens with a small-scale committee, imagine what it must be like when it matters on a world scale!”
What next might come Mark’s way? Would he, for example, fancy playing dame in pantomime, now that such a vacancy exists at a theatre not far from the Grand Opera House? “The dame is the only role I could do in pantomime now,” he says. “It would be lovely to do it.” Watch this space!
The Classic Comedy Theatre Company in Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Putting his big boots back on: York pantomime dame Berwick Kaler, pictured here in his last Theatre Royal show, The Grand Old Dame Of York, before retiring. Now the Grand Opera House beckons. Picture: Anthony Robling
BERWICK Kaler is back, as the Grand Old Dame of York transforms into the Grand’s new dame.
Now that the Grand Opera House will
be the home of his latest dame after 41 years at York Theatre Royal, both Dame
Berwick and Dick Turpin will ride again from December 12 to January 10 2021.
Kaler pulled on his big boots at the
Theatre Royal for the last time on February 2 2019 after announcing his
retirement from Britain’s longest-running panto damehood.
Giving that retirement its P45, in
favour of a re-boot, he will write and direct as well as star in Dick Turpin
Rides Again, as he takes back control [to borrow a Dominic Cummings mantra].
What’s more, he will be re-uniting on stage with sidekick stooge Martin
Barrass, villain David Leonard, ageless principal girl Suzy Cooper and luverly
Brummie AJ Powell.
This time, the re-formed Panto Five
will be on new terrain as the Grand Opera House owners, Ambassador Theatre
Group, team up with Qdos Entertainment, the most powerful pantomime brand in
the land.
Here Charles Hutchinson puts the questions to prolific theatre producer, director and Qdos Entertainment (Pantomimes) managing director Michael Harrison, Kaler’s fellow north easterner, who stands at number eight in The Stage’s Top 100 most influential people in theatre, no less.
Michael Harrison: managing director of Qdos Entertainment (Pantomimes), the panto powerhouse bringing Berwick Kaler’s dame out of retirement. Picture: Simon Hadley
Why bring back Berwick, Michael?
“The best things fall out of the sky and I wasn’t expecting this
opportunity.
“I’m from Newcastle and I travelled all over the place to see
pantomimes; first Newcastle and Sunderland, then Darlington, and then I started
venturing to York and further, and I loved York Theatre
Royal’s show.
“If you see all the pantos everywhere, they can become like wallpaper,
but stumbling across Berwick in York was like a breath of fresh air. I’d never
seen anything like it. Stepping out of the script, as he does, I just loved it.
“I never really thought there was a place for it in what I did but was
more than happy to see it in Berwick’s pantos, and I did try to put some of
that madness in my shows, like I have for 16 years at Newcastle Theatre Royal.”
What struck you most about Berwick’s pantos?
“I like the way he has catchphrases that you don’t have to spend three
minutes introducing to the audience because they already know them.
“I like how he returns to things from previous shows, how he uses wild
titles and how he has cast members returning every year.
“It’s no secret that our most successful pantos are where the stars keep
returning: Allan Stewart, 20-plus years at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh; Billy
Pearce, more than 20 years at the Bradford Alhambra; Danny Adams and Clive Webb, 16
years at Newcastle Theatre Royal; Matt Slack at Birmingham Hippodrome.
“It’s true that pantomime is a celebration of local culture and that’s
why Berwick had that long run at the Theatre Royal.”
The final curtain for Berwick Kaler’s dame in The Grand Old Dame Of York on February 2 2019 at York Theatre Royal has turned out to be au revoir, not adieu. Picture: Anthony Robling
How did you feel when Berwick retired?
“The day after The Grand Old Dame Of York finished, and I was very tired
after directing three pantomimes and producing 30 shows that winter, I got very
emotional, thinking ‘this is the end of an era’. But I was also thinking ‘why
does Berwick want to retire in his early seventies, when he doesn’t have to
travel to do the show, he can go home every night?’”
How did Berwick’s dame resurrection at the Grand Opera House come to fruition?
“Mark Walters, the designer who Qdos have signed up for the London
Palladium and Newcastle Theatre Royal pantomimes and who used to design
Berwick’s pantos in York, got in touch on January 11 to say ‘Have you heard
what’s happening to the Theatre Royal panto?’ [with the news of a new creative
team being put in place].
“I woke up the next morning thinking, ‘I don’t know if this is over’.
‘Why is Berwick not coming back? One year off, now he should come back
refreshed.
“I wrote to Berwick and said ‘you don’t know who I am, but I put on
pantomimes and lots of other shows and I’m a massive fan of your pantos. If I
can get the Grand Opera House, would you do it? Would you talk?’.”
What happened next?
“Berwick’s agent contacted me the following day and it developed very
quickly from there.
“I just felt that Berwick’s panto was a little bit of pantomime history
that should continue.
“Qdos produce all the other Ambassador Theatre Group pantomimes, and I was
aware that Three Bears Productions’ contract was not being renewed. Normally
it’s about ‘big’ casting, but this was different. There was Berwick and all his
regulars.
“It happened quickly with Berwick and then we approached the other four
[Barrass, Leonard, Cooper and Powell], and there just seemed to be a passion to
make it happen.”
Re-uniting: villain David Leonard and perennial principal girl Suzy Cooper, pictured here in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal, will be back on stage with Berwick Kaler from December 12
Will you want more of “the same old rubbish” as Berwick calls it, or will you be seeking fresh elements to appeal to the regular Grand Opera House panto audience, who like plot, plenty for children to enjoy and popular songs?
“We want to make it a York pantomime. We have to grasp all the best bits
that have really worked for Berwick, and we also have to work out what’s the
best recipe for this opportunity to move forward in a different way.
“I remember the advice of a member of the audience in Newcastle, who
said: ‘Don’t ever change it, but keep surprising me’, and that’s what we have
to discover each time; how to do that.
“But Berwick’s panto format is very unique, and I feel that while he
wants to do it, and they all want to do it, and there’s an audience that wants
him to do it, then let’s continue doing it.
“What I do know is that more people still saw David, Martin, Suzy and AJ
in Sleeping Beauty than went to Snow White at the Opera House, by a considerable
margin, and by adding Berwick to the mix again, it will be interesting to be in
York next winter.”
Does the feisty side of Berwick, such as his “I’m b****y furious” outburst at the finale to the last night of Sleeping Beauty, worry you?
“Anybody that is passionate about what they do can have a reputation for
being demanding, but that goes with the territory.
“You expect anyone with a mind like that is going to challenge, always
wanting things to be better. I’m sure he only does it with the audience in
mind. It’s just about doing the best job for them.”
The new pantomime team at York Theatre Royal: associate director Juliet Forster, who will direct Cinderella, executive director Tom Bird and Evolution Productions producer Paul Hendy
Will there be a rivalry with the York Theatre Royal panto, now to be co-produced with Evolution Productions’ Paul Hendy and Emily Wood, presenting Cinderella for 2020-2021?
“I know Paul and Emily well. They’ve sat in my house. We might all be
panto producers but there’s no rivalry there, though I’d love to know why a
repertory theatre is teaming up with a pantomime company.
“Picking the Theatre Royal cast now, it will have to be star-driven,
otherwise who will go? But Paul is a very clever panto man, so he won’t be going
into it to get it wrong.
“Besides, there are more important things going on in the world than a panto ‘rivalry. It’s really not worth falling out when it’s only four of five weeks a year.”
Could the two theatres potentially be swapping their pantomime audiences?
“If there were 31,000 who saw Sleeping Beauty without Berwick – and there’s
no surprise that ticket sales fell when someone who’s an institution isn’t
there on stage anymore – then there’ll be those 31,000 here. I think there’s no
reason why we won’t have 40,000 people coming.
“It would be great to keep some of the regular Grand Opera House panto
audience too, if they’ve never experienced a Berwick Kaler pantomime. But I
also understand those who want something more traditional, though I think the
York audience is still stronger for a Berwick Kaler pantomime than a normal storyline-driven,
fairy-tale panto.
“In year one, people might go and see both.”
Will you be looking to inject young talent into the Grand Opera House pantomime, alongside the established team?
“I’m always mindful of who are the pantomime stars of tomorrow because
we’re not breeding them as we once were, like when they used to do a Blackpool
summer season or a sitcom.
“Today’s comedy stars do Radio 2 and Radio 4 shows and bypass panto, so
we have to find the new stars through other ways.”
Valentine’s Day engagement: Berwick Kaler will meet the box-office queues at the Grand Opera House panto ticket launch on February 14
Is there a chance that Mark Walters might design the Grand Opera House show, now that the ex-York Theatre Royal panto designer has signed to the Qdos stable?
“I’m talking to Mark about it now. If it wasn’t for Mark, I wouldn’t have
put that request in to Berwick to play dame again.
“We’ve met already about Humpty Dumpty for Newcastle Theatre Royal…and we’ll
discuss Dick Turpin Rides Again too.”
As a hugely successful pantomime producer and director yourself, with the London Palladium and Newcastle Theatre Royal to your name, what makes a good panto?
“Two things, I would say: comedy and magic. Not magic tricks, but that
sense of wonderment that you can’t put your finger on.
“The best pantomimes are the funniest ones. We can get terribly criticised
for not having as much plot as we could, but the best received shows have
always been more focused on comedy, set pieces and routines.
“The plot has to be there but the show must be funny and it has to have
a wow factor about it.”
Qdos Entertainment present Berwick Kaler in Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House, York, from December 12 to January 10 2021. Dame Berwick and his co-stars will launch ticket sales on February 14 from 10am at the box office. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
WITHOUT
York Theatre Royal, Simon Armitage may never have become Poet Laureate.
Let the
Huddersfield writer explain, as he did last night on the first of two
fund-raising nights for the Theatre Royal’s community fund.
As a boy,
Armitage’s first experience of poetry in performance – poetry in motion, as it
were – was attending a double bill of fellow Yorkshiremen Ted Hughes and Tony
Harrison at the York theatre.
Last night,
he was on that stage himself, marking the tenth anniversary of Seeing Stars, his
“very theatrical, very dramatic” book of dramatic monologues, allegories and
absurdist tall tales.
Curated by Scarborough-born theatre director Nick Bagnall, who made the briefest of appearances at the start, the show combined Armitage, standing to one side, with four actors, beret-hatted Richard Bremmer, Charlotte Mills, Tom Kanji and Kacey Ainsworth.
Sometimes seated in a row, sometimes leaping to their feet, if the lines demanded it, they took their lead from the dry-witted, deadpan Armitage, who orchestrated the show’s rhythms from beneath his still boyish fringe at 56 with a stand-up’s sense of timing.
In a show of two halves, there was a sense of mischief and playfulness throughout, as well as more serious observations, even bleak horror, that the thespian quartet revelled in as much as Armitage.
So much so, at one point he cut across Ainsworth, not rudely, but because he could not resist the sudden urge to read out more of his favourite opening lines from the poems, such was his enjoyment of the audience response.
I say “poems”,
but at the outset Armitage recalled how reviewers had been unsure of exactly
what these works were. “Not poetry,” said one. “Crazy, slightly surreal,” was Armitage’s
own description last night, as the likes of The English Astronaut and Last Day
On Planet Earth spun their modern-day fairytale magic.
Behind Armitage and co was a large print of the book cover: a hybrid of a horse and a pooch that captured this storytelling fusion of prose and poems. Prosems, if you like. It is a perfect choice of image, like Armitage chooses his words so cannily.
There is another
story here too. Proceeds will go to the Theatre Royal’s community work that
facilitates bringing people to the theatre who would not otherwise be able to
visit. Later this year too, there are plans to “embed” people with dementia in
youth theatre sessions in a union of old and young. Fantastic idea.
Tickets are still available for tonight’s 7.30pm performance, when you can savour a night of surprises, satire and surrealism from a Yorkshireman with a darker vision than Alan Bennett crossed with Ripping Yarns. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
A scene from Gary Clarke’s Wasteland, heading for York Theatre Royal next month
THE search is on for singing pitmen to
take part in Gary Clarke’s Wasteland, a new dance event at York Theatre Royal
next month.
Four non-professional singers are being
sought to join the cast for the 7.30pm performances on March 27 and 28.
Wasteland was created to mark the 25th
anniversary of the demolition of Grimethorpe Colliery in South Yorkshire and 30
years since the rise of UK rave culture.
Now the Gary Clarke Company is seeking four singers aged over 40 with experience of singing in a group setting or community choir to play the roles of ex-coal miners.
No professional experience is necessary
but applicants should have experience of learning songs from memory and singing
in unison. The role will involve “some moving on and around the stage and
interacting with other members of the company”.
Down the mines: Another scene from Gary Clarke’s Wasteland
Singers will be supported throughout the process by musical director Steven Roberts, assistant musical director Charlie Rhodes, choreographer and artistic director Gary Clarke and company associate Alistair Goldsmith, who will work with everyone’s individual needs and abilities.
Each participant will receive a food
and travel allowance to help cover the cost of rehearsals and
performances.
For any enquiries or to register
interest, send an email to engagementgcc@gmail.com or call engagement manager Laura
Barber on 07391 621966.
Neil Abdy, who grew up in the mining
community of South Yorkshire and whose father was a miner, was one of the team
of volunteers who took part in a special preview at Cast Doncaster in
2018.
“Being given the opportunity to be part
of this excellent work was unbelievable,” he says. “Everyone made us feel
special and the friendship and camaraderie was excellent. I have a new spring
in my step. If you have the opportunity to take part, definitely give it a go.
It’s one of the best experiences you will ever have working with this wonderful
team.”
Tickets for Gary Clarke’s Wasteland are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
