Theatre Archives - Page 17 of 180

October 29, 2024October 29, 2024

‘The play is about what happens when a person communicates differently and the challenges they face,’ says Wonder Boy director Sally Cookson

OLIVIER Award winner Sally Cookson directs Bristol Old Vic’s production of Wonder Boy, Ross Willis’s exploration of the power of communication, on tour at York Theatre Royal from tonight to Saturday.

Playful humour, dazzling visuals and thrilling original music combine in this innovative show that uses live creative captioning on stage throughout as 12-year-old Sonny, who lives with a stammer, must find a way to be heard in a world where language is power, with the aid of his imaginary friend Captain Chatter.

When cast in a school production of Hamlet by the head teacher, Sonny discovers the real heroes are closer than he thinks.

Here Sally discusses the wonders of Wonder Boy.

How did your production of Wonder Boy come to fruition?

“I was invited to a new writing festival at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School pre-pandemic in which Ross Willis’s play was presented. It jumped out at me as a piece of unique writing, and I was attracted to the way Ross combined an absurd world with the very real. It made me laugh and cry.

“I contacted him and went to see his production of Wolfie at Theatre 503 [in Battersea, London], which I loved. Tom Morris [the then artistic director of Bristol Old Vic] agreed to programme Wonder Boy the following year at Bristol Old Vic but that got postponed because of Covid.

“Ross and I got to know each other during the pandemic via delightful phone calls where we’d just talk about anything and everything. Chatting with Ross is like being in one of his plays. Wonder Boy finally got performed in 2022, a couple of years later than intended, but by which time we’d had a chance to dream up ideas together about the show.

*Hilson Agbangbe as Sonny in Bristol Old Vic’s Wonder Boy. Picture: Steve Tanner*

In the play, Ross Willis writes movingly about the frustrations that can come with having a stammer. How did you bring that into the structure of the show?

“This is at the heart of the piece. Ross calls it the great inner operatic pain that comes not being able to be seen or express yourself. It was essential that we found a way of bringing all elements of the production together to illustrate and highlight Sonny’s plight.

“Music is especially important in helping with this and Benji Bower’s composition manages to get right inside the character’s head. But casting an actor who is able to portray the character’s trauma is key.

“Understanding what causes Sonny to behave in the way he does and identify every moment of his thought process is vital. Some of Sonny’s darkest moments happen when there is no text, so being able to identify how his pain manifests physically is important too.

“Ross has written it into the structure of the show, those big absurd moments when Shakespeare comes to life to torment Sonny or when vowels and letters attack him are all moments that tap into his inner operatic pain.”

How is creative captioning used in the show?

“The play is about what happens when a person communicates differently and the challenges they face when fluent speech is the expected societal norm. It felt entirely natural to include creative captions as part of the overall design of the show to tap into the major theme of communication.

“Creative captioning involves incorporating the entire text into the world of the play. We don’t just display the words on a small digital strip positioned either to the left or right of the stage; we ensure that all the words spoken are visually central to the piece.

Designed by Tom Newell, the creative captions provide another creative layer and are not only an access tool for deaf, deafened or hard of hearing people but an important part of the imaginative world created in the play.”

*Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny with his imaginary friend, Ciaran O’Breen’s Captain Chatter. Picture: Steve Tanner*

Wonder Boy deals with mental health issues, such as suicide. Can theatre do that particularly well?

“My experience is that theatre is a wonderful place to interrogate the stuff that frightens us as humans. And to ask those questions safely in a rehearsal room, and to share that with an audience is what theatre does best.

“In Wonder Boy the protagonist Sonny experiences complicated feelings of guilt, shame, grief and anger as a result of his mother’s death by suicide. A lot of plays written for young people shy away from themes such as this, but Ross approaches the subject with honesty and integrity. He understands what young people endure and gives voice to their suffering in an imaginative way.

“Theatre is a space to gather together to explore human behaviour, and hopefully come away with a bit more understanding of why we do the things we do.”

Wonder Boy is a play for young people – and very “sweary” too. Discuss…

“Oh, we had so many discussions about the ‘sweariness’. It has taken us around and about and back to where we started, which is why we’ve changed very little of it. Ross is quite right – most young people swear a lot. It has become part of the way they communicate.

Some adults get quite upset about the amount of swearing in the show; no young people do. And the play really is for teenagers. Getting teenagers into the theatre is very difficult, and I think Ross has absolutely found a way of engaging them – by telling a beautiful and important story and using an extreme version of the language they identify with.

*A scene from Bristol Old Vic’s touring production of Wonder Boy*

This show illustrates the impact of art, and theatre in particular, on young people, especially those who experiencing difficulties. Are you passionate about this?

“Yes. That’s what helped me. I hated school. I was really miserable. And my mum sent me to the local youth theatre. That’s where my journey into the arts started. And it’s where I suddenly felt valued, and where I had a voice, so I feel very strongly about it.

And now more than ever – with a curriculum starved of the arts (hopefully this will soon change) – theatre is essential in engaging young people’s imaginations and allowing them space to dream and think big.”

What can theatre give to a young person who is struggling to be heard or to find a voice?

“So many things. It’s not just about encouraging young people to work in the arts. By joining a youth theatre, being part of an audience regularly, partaking in drama, it can make you feel more connected, less alone.

“It can inspire your imagination, make you think bigger, think differently; it can encourage empathy by helping you understand why other people behave like they do. It can tap into your own artistic talents, and help you find things out about yourself that you never knew you had. It can also just be a good laugh. The list is endless.”

Bristol Old Vic presents Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, tonight until Saturday; evenings, 7.30pm, tonight, tomorrow and Friday; matinees, 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 / yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Flashback

*Nadia Clifford as Jane Eyre in the National Theatre’s Jane Eyre, directed by Sally Cookson*

IN the 2017 Hutch Awards, Sally Cookson’s National Theatre staging of Jane Eyre, performed on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, won Stage Production of the Year in York made outside York.

“YOU will not see a better theatre show in York this year, and you won’t have seen a better theatre show in York since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time”. So The York Press review stated in May that year.

How true that proved to be. Cookson’s devised production of vivid, vital imagination brought Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre back to Yorkshire with breathtaking results.

October 26, 2024October 26, 2024

REVIEW: Black Sheep Theatre Productions in Songs For A New World, National Centre for Early Music, York ****

*Lauren Charlton-Mathews: Solo renditions of Stars And The Moon and The Flagmaker, 1775 in Songs For A New World. All pictures: Matthew Kitchen*

WHEN Songs For A New World opened at the WPA Theatre in New York, Jason Robert Brown and his director, Daisy Prince, described it as “neither musical play nor revue, but a very theatrical song cycle”.

It becomes even more so in the hands of Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ musical director and producer Matthew Peter Clare and his co-director and co-stage designer, Mikhail Lim, as the York company follows up last week’s collaboration with Wharfemede Productions in another Brown work, The Last Five Years.

The traverse setting for that fractious two-hander makes way for an end-on design that makes full use of the St Margaret’s Church bare side wall, framed with netting and white sheets and a screen for Kelly Ann Bolland’s all-important scenic design.

The video footage, full of politicians promising peace, countered by war and destruction, racist hatred and financial meltdowns up to the present-day conflicts, serves as a modern update on the Pathé News reels so evocative of World War times, setting the tone for each song within the show’s themes of hope, faith, love and loss.

Almost two decades have passed since the Off Broadway premiere, and could anyone argue that the world has not worsened in that time? More war. More division in society and wealth. More mendacity in power. More moves to the right wing. More rules, CCTV and form-filling. Too much heat, and not only in the alarming change in climate.

The need for a “new world” – one of hope and love, faith in each other as much as in the One above, and loss of hubris and hunger alike – has never been greater.

*Mikhail Lim: Co-director, co-stage designer, co-costume designer and vocalist*

As Clare and Lim put it in their programme note: “Our reimagining of Songs For A New World addresses the ever-growing uncertainty and tension found within today’s political climate. The aim is to create a production that resonates deeply with an audience who are prepared to journey through the complexities of today’s societal landscape.”

Job done, courtesy of their emotionally charged direction; Freya McIntosh’s minimalist but moving choreography; the aforementioned designs; the impact of being in a church building, a place, a cradle, of grace, contemplation and the power of silence…

…Then add the palate of colours in Lim and McIntosh’s modern yet timeless costumes, each in two tones, for contrasts, connection and continuity, with an eye for composition reminiscent of a painting.

*Katie Brier: Soloist for Just One Step and Surabaya-Santa*

Each costume change, conducted en masse, adds to the visual pleasure, while the movement of wooden boxes throughout the performance is conducted with the significance of a chess move.

Crucially too, Clare and Lim have doubled the cast size to eight, making for more singing partnerships in a multi-ethnic, multi-faceted company, where both individual and ensemble can shine, framed so poetically by McIntosh’s measured choreography.

Responding to Clare’s keyboard-led nine piece band, Ayana Beatrice Poblete, Katie Brier, Reggie Challenger, Lauren Charlton-Mathews, Rachel Higgs, Mikhail Lim, Adam Price and Natalie Walker sing righteously, romantically, roundly well.

*Ayana Beatrice Poblete and Reggie Challenger*

What of Brown’s songs? More melodic, less Sondheim than The Last Five Years, they hit both heart and soul, with The River Won’t Flow, Charlton-Mathews’ Stars And The Moon, Act I finale The Steam Train, Lim’s King Of The World, Challenger and Price’s Flying Home and the Higgs-fronted Final Transition: The New World all sung particularly passionately and persuasively.

Roll on this new world, and yes, let’s make a song and dance about it, like Jason Robert Brown and Black Sheep Theatre Productions have.

Black Sheep Theatre Productions, Songs For A New World, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, today at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk.

*Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ artwork for Songs For A New World*

Creative team:
Co-director, musical director & producer: Matthew Peter Clare

Co-director: Mikhail Lim
Assistant director & choreographer: Freya McIntosh

Cast:
Ayana Beatrice Poblete; Katie Brier; Lauren Charlton-Mathews; Reggie Challenger;
Rachel Higgs; Mikhail Lim; Adam Price and Natalie Walker.

Band:

Matthew Peter Clare, musical director and keys; Ben Huntley, guitar; Zander Lee, bass; Helen Warry and Elle Weaver, violin; Gregory Bush, viola; Mari MacGregor, violincello; Jude Austin, drums, and Jez Smith, auxiliary percussion.

October 26, 2024October 31, 2024

More Things To Do in York and beyond when a rebellious sea dog makes the news. Hutch’s List No. 44, from The Press

The Whitby Rebels cast on a boat trip in Scarborough’s South Bay: from left, Keith Bartlett, Duncan MacInnes, Jacky Naylor, Jacqueline King, Louise Mai Newberry and Kieran Foster. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

FROM a motley crew all at sea to Eighties’ pop and rock stars, a beehive buzz of a campaigning American teen to a boy with a stammer, Charles Hutchinson’s week promises both adventure and misadventure.

World premiere of the week: The Whitby Rebels, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until November 2, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

IN Whitby Harbour, in the summer of 1991, something extraordinary happened. A humble pleasure boat set sail for the Arctic crewed by misfits, pensioners and the vicar for Egton and Grosmont, North Yorkshire.

This motley crew was assembled by Captain Jack Lammiman to complete a daring mission: to erect a plaque honouring Whitby whaling Captain William Scoresby senior on a volcanic island hundreds of miles north of Iceland. Bea Roberts’s new play tells their true story, boat on stage et al. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.

*Ayana Beatrice Poblete and Reggie Challenger in Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Songs For A New World*

Song cycle of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions presents: Songs For A New World, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, today, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

ON the heels of last week’s The Last Five Years, Black Sheep Theatre perform another Jason Robert Brown work, 1995’s Songs For A New World.

Defying conventional musical theatre formats, Brown and original director Daisy Prince say the non-linear show is “neither musical play nor revue”, but exists as a “very theatrical song cycle” that explores such universal themes as hope, faith, love and loss in its emotionally charged songs. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/blacksheeptheatreproductions/.

*While & Matthews: Playing Hunmanby on closing night of 30th anniversary tour*

Folk gig of the week: While & Matthews, Hunmanby Village Hall, near Filey, Sunday, 7.30pm

THE 30th anniversary tour of the longest-lasting female folk duo, singer-songwriters Chris While and Julie Matthews, concludes this weekend at Hunmanby Village Hall, where they sold out two years ago. Together they have played more than 2,500 gigs, appeared on 100 albums, written hundreds of original songs and reached millions of people around the world.

*Arthur Smith: Grumpy old man of comedy at Helmsley Arts Centre*

Comedy turn of the week: An Audience With Arthur Smith, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 7.30pm

COMPERE, playwright, panellist, performer and Edinburgh Fringe stalwart Arthur Smith worked previously as a road sweeper, dustman, market researcher and teacher. He even advertised chicken burgers in supermarkets dressed as a fox.

A career in stand-up comedy was the only one that could follow a build-up like that, he decided, since when he has appeared on quiz shows and Loose Ends, been a regular Grumpy Old Man and Countdown wordsmith and presented BBC Radio 4’s Excess Baggage and Radio 2’s The Smith Lectures. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

*Chrissie Hynde: Fronting The Pretenders at a sold-out York Barbican on Thursday*

What an Eighties’ week at York Barbican: The Cult, Tuesday, sold out; Adam Ant, AntMusic 2024, Wednesday, limited ticket availability; The Pretenders, Thursday, sold out

THE Cult’s 8424: 40th Anniversary Tour brings Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy’s band to York with their pioneering fusion of post-punk, hard rock, and experimentalism. Pop icon Adam Ant performs his chart-topping hits and personal favourites in his AntMusic 2024 show on his return to the Barbican.

Chrissie Hynde leads The Pretenders in York, one of three additions to their extended 2024 tour, combining new tracks with classics such as Brass In Pocket and Back On The Chain Gang. Last year they released their 12th studio album, Relentless. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Katie Brice’s Tracy Turnblad and Neil Hurst’s Edna Turnblad in Hairspray The Musical, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York*

Musical of the week: Hairspray, Grand Opera House, York, October 28 to November 2, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

BASED on cult filmmaker John Waters’ 1988 American movie, Hairspray The Musical follows the progress of heroine Tracy Turnblad, with her big hair, big heart and big dreams to dance her way on to national television and into the heart of teen idol Link Larkin.

When Tracy (Katie Brice/Scarborough actress Alexandra Emerson-Kirby in her professional debut) becomes a local star, she uses her newfound fame to fight for liberation, tolerance, and interracial unity in Baltimore. Look out for Yorkshireman Neil Hurst as Tracy’s mum, Edna, and Strictly Come Dancing’s Joanne Clifton as villainous Velma Von Tussle. Box office: atgtickets.com/York.

*Ciaran O’Breen as Captain Chatter and Hilson Agbangbe as Sonny in Wonder Boy, on tour at York Theatre Royal*

Children’s story of the week: Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, October 29 to November 2; evenings, 7.30pm, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday; matinees, 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday; 2.30pm, next Saturday

OLIVIER Award winner Sally Cookson directs Bristol Old Vic’s touring production of Wonder Boy, Ross Willis’s exploration of the power of communication, told through the experiences of 12-year-old Sonny and his imaginary friend Captain Chatter.

Playful humour, dazzling visuals and thrilling original music combine in this innovative show that uses live creative captioning on stage throughout as Sonny, who lives with a stammer, must find a way to be heard in a world where language is power. When cast in a school production of Hamlet by the head teacher, he discovers the real heroes are closer than he thinks. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

*Victoria Delaney and Tony Froud in J M Barrie’s Mary Rose, next week’s production by York Actors Collective. Picture: Clive Millard*

Theatre Royal debut of the week: York Actors Collective in Mary Rose, York Theatre Royal Studio, October 30 to November 2, 7.45pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and 2pm Saturday matinees

YORK Actors Collective make their York Theatre Royal debut with a revival of Peter Pan and Quality Street playwright J M Barrie’s Mary Rose, adapted and directed by Angie Millard.

“Barrie uses dimensions of time to great effect,” she says. “His treatment of love, loss and unwavering hope draws in an audience and gives it universality. I’ve adapted the script to appeal to modern thinking but his themes are intact. The strange and ghostly atmosphere fits beautifully into our autumn slot, which includes Halloween and is a time for considering other worldliness.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

October 25, 2024October 31, 2024

How Yorkshireman Neil Hurst went from big Dave in The Fully Monty to even bigger Edna Turnblad in Hairspray The Musical

*Katie Brice’s Tracy Turnblad and Neil Hurst’s Edna Turnblad in Hairspray The Musical, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, next week*

YORKSHIREMAN Neil Hurst returns to York’s Grand Opera House all this week after his standout turn as big Dave in The Full Monty last October – and this time he has to wear a fat suit.

“I’m a big lad, but I’m not big enough for this role,” he says of the requirements to play agoraphobic laundry-business boss and mum Edna Turnblad in Hairspray The Musical, the part played by Divine in John Waters’ cult 1988 American film and later by John Travolta in the 2017 movie musical remake.

“I have to wear a fat suit as well as the false boobs to look the part. It’s all about finding the physicality of the character that’s important. But everything’s there on the page, to find the voice, the way she moves.”

More than 100 shows into the tour, Halifax-born Neil says: “My feet are killing me with the heels I have to wear. I’m learning a lot about what it’s like to be a woman, but I’m having a ball. It’s such a joy to play Edna.

“Every now and then I slip into panto dame mode, but I do try to play Edna as a mum and a wife, finding the real woman in her rather being a big northern lad in a dress.”

How is the tour progressing since opening in July, with around 270 shows still to go? “I started getting RSI [Repetitive Strain Injury] in my right elbow because of all that flapping of my wrists, but now I think my muscles have got used to it,” says Neil.

“Having said that, as I stood by the fridge the other day, my wife said, ‘Why are you standing like that?’. I was standing with a hand on a boob, like Edna does!”

Quick refresher course: Hairspray The Musical is the story of heroine Tracy Turnblad, with her big beehive hair, big heart and big dreams to dance her way on to national television and into the heart of teen idol Link Larkin, supported all the way by mum Edna but hindered by villainous Velma Von Tussle (Strictly Come dancing’s Joanne Clifton).

“It’s a massively popular show,” says Neil. “I was a big fan of the original film in the Eighties, and then the musical and the later film too. At the core of it, it’s a really good story, and if you get the story right, you can’t go wrong. It’s got a good message, it’s politically apt, saying you should love people for who they are, not what they look like.

“Also, every few minutes, there’s a banging number, ending with You Can’t Stop The Beat. The music is great, the script is brilliant, and then we have Joanne Clifton, who’s wonderful as the baddie character, Velma Von Tussle.

“We get on like a house on fire. We love to do a jigsaw puzzle at every venue, and we’re like these two old fuddy-duddies with all the others being about 20 years old!”

Neil will be taking a winter break before resuming the tour until April, but not for a rest. Instead, this award-winning pantomime performer will be returning to Hull New Theatre for Goldilocks And The Three Bears.

“This time I’m playing Joey the Clown, who’s in love with Goldilocks. I’ve got to try to woo her affection by being the biggest and best act in the circus,” he says. “This will be my fifth Hull pantomime, I love doing the panto there, and this one is very different.

“We’re bringing Hairspray to Hull New Theatre in a few weeks’ time, in the middle of November, but annoyingly I start panto rehearsals the week after, when we’ll be in Bradford that week, so I’ll be be going over in the day to do rehearsals and performing Hairspray at night.”

Hairspray The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, October 28 to November 2, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Did you know?

NORTHERN actor, presenter, writer, podcaster, husband and dad Neil Hurst began his career as a song-and-dance act, touring the country in comedy and variety shows and supporting comedy legends such as Bruce Forsyth, Bob Monkhouse, Jimmy Tarbuck, Ken Dodd and Cannon and Ball.

Neil Hurst’s television credits include two series in a recurring live improvisation role on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show on BBC One, working alongside McIntyre to set up his Unexpected Star of the Show.

Did you know too?

NEIL’S television credits include two series in a recurring live improvisation role on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show on BBC One, working alongside McIntyre to set up his Unexpected Star of the Show.

He hosted his own USA television pilot for Food Network, Hopping The Pond, wherein he travelled the United States, eating local dishes, drinking local brews and learning all about small-town America from the locals.

One more thing..

NEIL wrote the pantomime scripts for Beauty And The Beast at CAST Doncaster and Cinderella for Towngate Theatre, Basildon. In his writing partnership with actress Jodie Prenger, together they have scripted A Very Very Bad Cinderella, The Government Inspector and Cinderella, A Socially Distanced Ball for London theatres The Other Palace, MTFest UK and Turbine Theatre.

October 25, 2024October 25, 2024

REVIEW: York Shakespeare Project in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ***1/2

*Effie Warboys’ Silvia, Nick Patrick Jones’s Proteus, right, and Thomas Jennings’s Valentine in York Shakespeare Project’s The Two Gentlemen Of Verona. Picture: John Saunders*

AMERICAN writer, director, performer and teaching artist Tempest Wisdom [they/them] headed to York to pursue a Masters degree in theatre-making at the University of York in 2021.

Itinerant from the days of their father serving in the Marine Corps., always moving every couple of years, like so many before however, once here they never left, first setting up York’s variation on Seattle’s Bard in a Bar, the Shakespeare karaoke night Bard at the Bar in The Den at Micklegate Social.

Now, after directing Anorak in Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios in the Theatre Royal Studio earlier this year, Tempest is at the helm of York Shakespeare Project for the first time for the rarely performed The Two Gentlemen Of Verona: “possibly the first play Shakespeare ever wrote and certainly the only one with a part for a canine,” they say.

Tempest has re-set Shakespeare’s 1593 comedy of cross-dressing, mistaken identity and courtly love as a play within a play, staged by Monkgate Music Hall, “a bawdy, raucous place” peopled by a host of Victorian variety acts.

*Liz Quinlan’s sharp-shooting Speed, left, and Lara Stafford’s comedy act Launce. Picture: John Saunders*

On the piano throughout is musical director Stuart Lindsay in a dapper waistcoat beneath a luxuriant moustache. On the piano too is a portrait of Queen Victoria, her face as “not amused” as ever. Determined to amuse, however, is Jodie Mulliah’s Chairwoman. No stranger to steering talent in the right direction as a secondary school drama teacher, she keeps her gavel busy in introducing act after act.

Their task is to deliver both their speciality act and lines of Shakespeare’s text, be it the North America golden gunslinger Speed (multi-disciplinary theatre-artist-turned scientist Liz Quinlan, in her YSP debut and first theatrical adventure for seven years), or Lara Stafford’s Launce in a comedy double act with canine companion Crab (a wooden puppet handled with the aid of a drawer handle on its besuited back by puppeteer Wilf Tomlinson).

Stuart Green, who returned to the stage after 35 years last year as The Torturer in York Theatre Royal’s community play Sovereign, has particular fun sending up furniture-chewing acting skills as the pompous Antonio. Forever looking for his Hamlet, his performance appears to be torn from Michael Green’s book The Art Of Coarse Acting.

For “proper” acting, look no further than Mark Payton’s Duke of Milan. Once part of Riding Lights Theatre Company before becoming an English teacher, he is belatedly treading the boards anew, every last vowel the thespian in resonance and intonation.

*Dapper pianist Stuart Lindsay and the portrait of Queen Victoria in the Monkgate Music Hall. Picture: John Saunders*

The sparring of Charlie Barrs’ Panthino and Four Wheel Drive director Anna Gallon’s Lucetta and later the antics of the Outlaws (Pearl Mollison, K Maneerot and Celeste North Finocchi) add to the merriment and mayhem.

What of the ‘Two Gents’, you ask. Ah yes, there’s the play. Step forward, in dapper straw hats and clowns’ rouge cheeks, the gentlemanly, but not very gentlemanly, all too arrogant and deceitful Proteus (Nick Patrick Jones) and Valentine (Thomas Jennings), not born a gentleman, but definitely as romantic as his name.

Proteus should be focusing on love-struck Julia (Lily Geering) but has his wandering eye on his friend Valentine’s secret love, Silvia (Effie Warboys), who the Duke of Milan has earmarked for the socially superior but unctuous Thurio (Charlie Spencer in circus ringmaster attire).

Jones’s programme profile speaks of having “no experience of music hall or vaudeville, but in many ways his whole life is an extended Buster Keaton routine”. As it happens, it is Jennings who reminds you more of the “Great Stone Face” of American silent cinema, but Jones is suitably duplicitous, dark beneath the light air.

Warboys, one of the best discoveries of York Shakespeare Project’s recent years and now studying for a Masters at the Shakespeare Institute, gives her best performance yet as Silvia. As a bonus, she returns to her musical roots to reveal a delightful singing voice in The Lass Of Richmond Hill.

*Tempest Wisdom: Directing York Shakespeare Project for the first time*

Geering is in fine form too, righteous in Julia’s indignation at Proteus’s deceptions, but canny, mischievous and nimble when taking on a disguise.

Jonathan Cook gives the requisite strong performance as the strongman variety act (Sir Eglamour) in a show full of such cameos, but amid so much physical comedy and clowning, with bursts of song too (Champagne Charlie et al), Tempest ensures Shakespeare’s expose of bad behaviour still hits home

Tempest’s cast makes use not only of Vivian Wilson’s set design but the stairs, doorways and mezzanine level too for a frantic climactic chase around the auditorium in Benny Hill style. Make that chase after breathless chase. Everyone then assembles, like a baying public gallery, to see Proteus being put in his place: wiping the smile off comedy’s face, if only briefly.

Shakespeare’s plays have a habit of running to three hours, and this production is no different, but comedies would always benefit from a shorter running time, for all the fast pace here.

Tempest Wisdom’s show, however, is full of original ideas, bags of energy, not-so-courtly romance, topical sexual politics, music hall ribaldry and slapstick aplenty.

York Shakespeare Project in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*Nick Patrick Jones’s Proteus and Lily Geering’s Julia in disguise in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona. Picture: John Saunders*

October 24, 2024October 24, 2024

What would happen if Picasso met Einstein in a Paris bar and Elvis turned up too? Ask Steve Martin and the Settlement Players

*Mark Simmonds rehearsing for the role of Albert Einstein in York Settlement Community Players’ production of Picasso At The Lapin Agile. Picture: John Saunders*

PARIS. 1904. Wine o’clock, on a not-so ordinary evening at the Lapin Agile. So begins the absurdist play by American comedian, actor, writer, playwright, producer and musician Steve Martin, to be staged by York Settlement Community Players next week.

In Montmartre’s iconic cabaret bar favoured by struggling artists, anarchists and intellectuals alike, two soon-to-be legends find themselves sitting next to each other. Spanish-born Cubist painter, sculptor and theatre designer Pablo Picasso and German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, pumped up with egos as big as their intellects, have plenty to discuss.

As the streets outside grow darker, the cafe is lit up with dizzying debate about the promise of the 20th century, but events take a surreal turn when a certain blue suede shoe-wearing singer from the future shows up. Yes, Elvis is not leaving but, rather, entering the building.

The challenge of directing Martin’s work as he plays fast and loose with history over 80 unbroken minutes falls to Natalie Roe in her first production since taking over from Livy Potter – now to pursue her acting career full time – as Settlement Players’ chair last month.

“This is his most famous play, an off-Broadway hit from 1993 that I’ve been looking to be performed in the UK,” says Natalie. “I saw it at Keene Stage College [the liberal arts college] in New Hampshire, when I was on an international exchange from York St John University (which had really attracted me to the university).

“I had a friend in the cast, another exchange student, from Ghana – us international students really stuck together! – who was playing the role of Freddy, and I loved it.”

Why? “It’s very funny. It has jokes that you don’t immediately get, which is unnerving, but equally if something is funny, it still makes you laugh 20 years later,” says Natalie.

“What I liked is that it was a mix of very silly humour and very intellectual humour and it has a lot to say about both art and science.

“The question is: how will these two great personalities, Picasso and Einstein – both young at this time before they become famous – get on when they meet in a bar in Paris. Steve Martin plays with this idea, where Picasso is as much a mathematician as Einstein is an artist.”

To add to the spice, in the triangular structure the renascent Martin favours once more as co-writer of the mystery comedy-drama series Only Murders In The Building, throws “arguably the greatest musician of the 20th century” into the mix. “That’s possibly Steve Martin’s way of dealing with genius and innovation, by having a time-travelling Elvis turn up!” says Natalie.

*James Lee in the rehearsal room as he prepares to play Pablo Picasso on the cusp of creating Cubism. Picture: John Saunders*

“We also have the bar staff, Freddie, the owner, Germaine, Sagot, the art dealer. Many of them are real historical characters, like Freddie, who did own the bar that Picasso used to frequent in Montmartre.

“Picasso was hanging out at this bar in Paris; Einstein was working in the Patent Office in Berne, so it is conceivable that they met!”

What Steve Martin delivers is a meeting of minds on October 8 1904, when both men are on the cusp of changing the world through ideas. Einstein will publish his theory of relativity in 1905; Picasso will paint his revolutionary work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907.

“There’s a lot of referencing to what they think will happen in the 20th century, so you do get the idea that Steve Martin is at the same time looking back over what happened over the next 90 years,” says Natalie.

“In talking about what might happen, the value of art is discussed in terms of what is the meaning behind a painting, and is a piece of art worth more than it costs to buy it. Is one person’s opinion worth more than someone else’s, and in turn that thought chimes with Einstein’s theory of relativity.”

Martin’s Pablo Picasso is “quite critical of Einstein and his theories at the beginning of the play,” says Natalie. “Picasso’s issue is that he knows he’s on the cusp of something but he doesn’t know what it is. Part of his journey is his discovery of what turns out to be Cubism, and in Martin’s play it could be argued that his meeting with Picasso and of course Elvis from the future ignites his mind.”

Billed only as The Visitor rather than by name in the cast list, the Elvis in Picasso At The Lapin Agile has to be “iconic, almost like a Fairy Godfather”, says Natalie. “Young Elvis too. As part of the audition process, I made every actor do an Elvis impression.” She chose York actor Ray Raper, a regular player in Settlement Players’ Direct Approach performances when aspiring directors directs new works in a pub setting.

Settlement stalwart Mark Simmonds plays Einstein. “He’s very energetic,” says Natalie. “He studied Mathematics, which I didn’t know beforehand, but he seemed to ‘exude Maths’! You have to believe he could do all those equations – and you do!”

For Pablo, she picked James Lee, one of the York scene’s fast-rising talents. “He has a lot of stage presence. Pablo is a tricky part because it’s comedic, it’s poetic, but it’s also moody – and I knew straightaway that James had what I was looking for.”

York Settlement Community Players in Picasso At The Lapin Agile, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 29 to November 2, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Age recommendation: 14 upwards. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

October 24, 2024

Comedian Nathan Caton takes new funny turn as ‘cheeky but charming’ Narrator in Rocky Horror Show at Grand Opera House

“You have to keep to the script but I can add my own flavour.,” says comedian Nathan Caton of playing the Narrator, his theatre debut in Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show. Picture: David Freeman

WEST London comedian Nathan Caton is donning the trademark blue smoking jacket as the Narrator in the latest tour of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show.

This week, you will find him quick on the quip and punchy with the putdown, and sassy and saucy too, at the Grand Opera House on his return to York in his new guise.

“I’ve been to York a fair few times,” says Nathan, who launched his comedy career at the age of 19 while studying architecture at Anglia Ruskin University . “Because I’m a stand-up comedian I play all over the UK, and I’ve played The Basement at City Screen and 1331 in York.”

Now, 20 years on from cutting his comedy teeth, he follows in the footsteps – and high heels – of Nicholas Parsons, Stephen Fry, Steve Punt, Dom July, Philip Franks, Joe McFadden, Alison Hammond and many more in playing the unflappable Narrator.

“No pressure!” he says of taking on such an iconic role. “It came about quite randomly. Out of the blue, I got an audition call from my agent, and I thought. ‘OK, I want to do some theatre work’.

“But until this summer, I wasn’t aware of what Rocky Horror was. I’d only heard the name. I did the audition, thinking ‘I’m probably not going to get it’; ‘I’ll probably never hear from you again’. But I got the call and the rest is history! I’ve been doing it since the middle of August.”

How did Nathan prepare for the role? “I watched the Rocky Horror Show Live [the 2015 40^th anniversary recording from the Playhouse Theatre in London] on You Tube with Stephen Fry and Emma Bunton and two others as the Narrator [Editor’s note: Anthony Head, Adrian Edmondson and Mel Giedroyc also appear on the Narrator credit list].

“I thought, ‘OK, this is what I’m going to be doing? OK, what am I letting myself in for?’! My wife’s reaction was it would be fun to do. She knows me better than I know myself – and the woman is always right.”

Nathan fits the part and that jacket to a T. “The role works perfectly for me as a comedian with a stand-up background,” he says. “Audience shout-outs. That’s my bread and butter. Coming back at them if they say anything, and trust me, they do! The audience’s timing with their comments is formulaic, but it’s manna from heaven for me.”

Matching how a stand-up show can change and be refined as a tour progresses, Nathan says his role as Narrator has progressed since August. “It’s like riding a bike. The more you do it, the better you get. You get into the groove and you can make it your own,” he explains.

“I’ve been fortunate in that the producer has been great in letting me put my spin on it. Yes, you have to keep to the script but I can add my own flavour.” [Editor’s note: How right he is. Nathan’s tongue-in-cheek asides and close-to-the-knuckle political jests were one of the joys of Monday’s press night.]

His style? “Cheeky but charming – I hope that’s how it comes across,” he says. “You need to have a somewhat commanding voice too, leading the audience in the story so that they stay tuned into you.”

Nathan is working for the first time with Australian star Jason Donovan, who plays sweet transvestite transsexual scientist Dr Frank N Furter on the tour.

“The only time he was in my existence was watching him as a kid when he was in Neighbours,” he says. “He’s a lovely guy. Because I was new to the show, when I first came in, he said, ‘the audience is mad, but it’s so much fun’.

“I was very nervous at the start. I felt very much like a fish out of water, seeing the rest of the cast who are so talented. They sing and dance and act, and all I do is go on stage, chat for a while, the audience giggle, and then I go off!

“I felt like, ‘clearly I’m the least talented guy here’, but they have been so supportive.”

The latest Rocky Horror tour has dates until next summer but “I’ll have a bit of a break for a stand-up tour that I’ve been working on for next spring,” says Nathan, who will be on the solo road from May 1 to 24.

“It’s called My Big Fat Blasian Wedding – a combination of ‘Black’ and ‘Asian’ – and the show is basically me having a mental breakdown about how expensive my wedding was.”

Or, to quote Nathan’s tour publicity: “It’s official. Nathan’s married and off the market – sorry ladies… and gentlemen! What should’ve been the happiest time of his life turned out to be the most stressful and expensive time ever. The end result? Well, it was either therapy or turn it into comedy. Nathan chose the latter…”

In a nutshell, he puts it this way: “You know what they say: ‘Happy wife, happy life, just not a happy bank manager’!”

Nathan Caton appears as the Narrator in Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show at Grand Opera House, York, tonight at 8pm, tomorrow and Saturday at 5.30pm and 8.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/York. Also playing Sheffield Lyceum Theatre, November 25 to 30. Box office: sheffieldtheatres.co.uk.

The nearest city to York that Nathan will be bringing his My Big Fat Blasian Wedding tour will be Newcastle [The Stand Comedy Club, May 9 2025].

Nathan Caton: the back story

*Nathan Caton*: *Taking on Narrator’s role in Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show*

BORN in Hammersmith, he grew up in Greenford, Ealing, West London. Active on comedy circuit since tender age of 19 – he is 39 now – having taken first steps while studying architecture at Angia Ruskin University.

He has since built his career on combining personal, confessional material with up-to-date social and political anecdotes, after playing Edinburgh Fringe, finishing as runner-up in Amused Moose Comedy Search and winning 2005 Chortle Student Comedian of the Year award within his first year.

Appeared on BBC’s Live At The Apollo, Mock The Week, Eurogedden and Russell Howard’s Good News and Comedy Central’s Live At The Comedy Store. Finalist on FHM’s Stand-Up-Hero (ITV 4) . Starred in his own BBC Radio 4 sitcom, Can’t Tell Nathan Caton Nothin’. Written for TV shows Rastamouse and Royal Television Society Award-nominated Jojo & Gran Gran.

Performed five Edinburgh Fringe solo shows. Toured to Dubai, New York, Mumbai and Montreal. Embarked on numerous UK tours. Last tour, Let’s Talk About Vex, was filmed for a comedy special. Next tour, My Big Fat Blasian Wedding, will be on the road from May 1 to 24 2025.

Now playing Narrator’s role on 2024-2025 tour of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show in Bromley, High Wycombe, Fareham, Malvern, Bath, York, Glasgow, Cardiff, Woking, Blackpool and Sheffield. Box office: RockyHorror.co.uk.

October 23, 2024October 23, 2024

What’s On in Ryedale, York & beyond when two plays go to sea & AI comes to dance. Hutch’s List No. 39, from Gazette & Herald

A NAUTICAL Yorkshire drama, a scene-stealing Shakespearean dog, a long-lasting folk duo and a “bit of rough” comedian spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest for the week ahead.

World premiere of the week: The Whitby Rebels, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until November 2, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

*Nick Patrick Jones’s Proteus, left, and Mark Payton’s Duke of Milan in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s The Two Gentlemen Of Verona. Picture: John Saunders*

Comedy play of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

‘TWO Gents’: possibly Shakespeare’s first play and definitely the only one with a part for a dog. But can the newly employed performers at Monkgate Music Hall pull off their production?

Under-rehearsed knife throwers, strongmen, musicians and comedians must pool their skills in Tempest Wisdom’s dazzling take on this rarely performed comedy, delivered by York Shakespeare Project. “Book now for the event of the 19th century!” says Tempest. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*York musical actress Rachel Higgs in the poster for Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Songs For A New World*

Unconventional musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions presents: Songs For A New World, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

ON the heels of last week’s debut NCEM collaboration with fellow York company Wharfemede Productions, The Last Five Years, Black Sheep Theatre perform another Jason Robert Brown work, 1995’s Songs For A New World.

*Our Star Theatre Company cast members outside York Minster on October 15, when the Ledbury company staged Death(s) At Sea at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. On Friday they will be in Pickering*

Sea, sailors and seriously bad acting: Our Star Theatre Company in Death(s) At Sea, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm

A SMALL theatre company is performing its new murder mystery Death At Sea, but despite the cast’s best efforts, everything goes wrong in the telling of a thriller set on a small ship carrying only five passengers and its captain.

When one passenger, Mr Inus, is found dead, the others speculate and turn on each other until the real murderer is caught…but that isn’t how this play (within a play) goes! Props fail, the set falls down, actors get drunk and suffer concussion, and conversations in the wings reveal too much. Can they make it to the end before one of them really kills someone? Find out in Eleanor Catherine Smart’s nautical drama on Friday. Box office: 01751474833or kirktheatre.co.uk.

*Company Wayne McGregor in Autobiography, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Andrej Uspenski*

Dance show of the week: Company Wayne McGregor, Autobiography, V102 and V103, York Theatre Royal, Friday and Saturday, 7.30pm

GENETIC code, AI and choreography merge in a Wayne McGregor work that reimagines and remakes itself anew for every performance. Layering choreographic imprints over personal memoir and in dialogue with a specially created algorithm that hijacks McGregor’s DNA data,Autobiography “upends the traditional nature of dance-making as artificial intelligence and instinct converge in creative authorship”.

Now, AISOMA, a new AI tool developed with Google Arts and Culture – “utilising machine-learning trained on hundreds of hours of McGregor’s choreographic archive – overwrites initial configurations to present fresh movement options to the performers, injecting unfamiliar and often startling content into the choreographic ecosystem”. “Life, writing itself anew,” explains McGregor. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Folk gig of the week: While & Matthews, Hunmanby Village Hall, near Filey, Sunday, 7.30pm

Chris (vocals, guitar, banjo, dulcimer and percussion) and Julie (vocals, piano, guitar, mandolin and bouzouki) released their 13th studio album, Days Like These, on Fat Cat Records last month. Once again they cover a wide range of topics and the full spectrum of human emotions on 12 tracks. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk.

Comedy turn of the week: An Audience With Arthur Smith, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 7.30pm

*Pat Fulgoni Blues Experience: Returning to Milton Rooms, Malton*

Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club, Pat Fulgoni Blues Experience, Milton Rooms, Malton, October 31, 8pm

SINGER Pat Fulgoni returns to Ryedale Blues Club with his band of Jacob Beckwith on guitar, Rory Wells on bass, Sam Bolt on keys and Zebedee Sylvester on drums.

Expect soaring soulful vocals over vibey guitar and piano-orientated blues in a set originals complemented by renditions of Ray Charles, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, Jimi Hendrix and Robert Johnson. Box office: 01653 692240 or themiltonrooms.com.

In Focus: The English Civil War comes to Nunnington Hall this half-term

*Nunnington Hall: Recalling the English Civil War over the autumn half-term*. *Picture: Andrew Davies*

VISITORS to Nunnington Hall, near Helmsley, can dive back in history to the time of the English Civil War throughout the autumn half-term.

From Saturday, October 26 to Friday, November 1, you can train up to become a soldier, with family games such as archery and hobby-horse races, or become a spy for the Royalist side by cracking the secret message in a code breaker trail.

For one weekend only, on November 2 and 3, the grounds of the National Trust property will be turned into an English Civil War encampment by the United Kingdom’s longest-running re-enactment society, The Sealed Knot.

Families will be invited to try on armour, chat to costumed re-enactors and watch show-stopping musket drills happening throughout the day.

Inside the house, children can enjoy playing with the shadow puppet theatre and the Civil War-themed crafts.

Sarah Nolan, visitor experience officer at Nunnington Hall, says: “We’re delighted to bring the UK’s oldest, and Europe’s biggest, re-enactment society to Nunnington and allow our visitors to experience history at its most immersive.

*The Sealed Knot: Taking part in the English Civil War activities at Nunnington Hall. Picture: Levitt Parkes*

“There’s a fantastic link between Nunnington Hall and the English Civil War, as it’s where Roundhead soldiers lived during the siege of nearby Helmsley Castle, 380 years ago!

“We’ve put together a host of children’s activities to choose from, offering a fun day out for all the family.”

In addition, Nunnington Hall is decorated for autumn and a range of seasonal treats is available in the tearoom.

Normal admission applies for access to the house, gardens and all activities; entry is free for National Trust members and under fives.

Nunnington Hall is open every day until Sunday, November 3, from 10.30am to 5pm, with last entry at 4.15pm. Normal admission applies with free admission for National Trust members and under fives.

For more information or to plan a visit, go to: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/nunnington-hall,

October 22, 2024October 22, 2024

REVIEW: Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, Grand Opera House, York, doing the Time Warp again until Saturday ****

*Jason Donovan’s Dr Frank N Furter, centre, returning to Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show after 25 years*

RICHARD O’Brien’s schlock-horror rock’n’roll musical comedy sextravaganza usually returns to York every three years. Even quicker this time.

Last here in March 2022, on a tour when Kristian Lavercombe clocked up his 2,000th performance as flesh-creeping servant Riff Raff, the focus on the 2024 travels falls on Australian treasure Jason Donovan as he sparks fishnet fever anew in high heels, gothic make-up and alluringly dark, Byronic wig.

Twenty-five years since he last played sweet transvestite transsexual scientist Dr Frank N Furter, this tour is his Rocky 2, and he delivers it with knockout panache.

“Rocky now plays to my strengths, less musical theatre, more edgy, a little bit rock’n’roll. More me really!” he said in his tour interview. ““I’m in touch with my feminine side but I come from a masculine sensibility. The character embraces both sides of me: a strength and a vulnerability, as well as danger and denial.”

A fixture on the British entertainment scene since his Neighbours soap days in the late 1980s, Donovan knows his audience, knows the fruity lead role inside out, and is as at ease with lipstick, powder and paint as he was in his last musical theatre role at the Grand Opera House, playing drag queen Mizti Del Bra in Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert in November 2015.

Mitzi and Frank N Furter share an agent provocateur’s sense of danger in all they do, matched by Donovan’s delight in his delicious sauciness, with just the right application of B-movie ham/camp.

You know when The Rocky Horror Show is in town, nights when the men dress more like women on a weekend hen party in York. Glittering Cult of Rocky devotees are out in force in burlesque fancy dress, while Horror Show freshers are swept along on a tide of giddy joy, willingly submitting to initiation to their Frank N Furter rites of passage. And once bitten, they are never shy to do the Time Warp again and again.

Would it be sacrilege to say that The Rocky Horror Show is not as good a show as it is an experience? In truth, the shock of the once new has been usurped by the superior, more rounded Spring Awakening and Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, where there is no lull in momentum or quality of song in the second half. Rocky Horror, by comparison, suddenly rushes to the finishing line with a pile-up of bodies reminiscent of a Jacobean tragedy.

What Rocky Horror has to its advantage is trigger points for audience participation like no other musical theatre show, the only equivalent being that great British staple, pantomime. No wonder, Jason Donovan has called it “panto for adults”. Spot on, Jason. A Weimar pantomime, to be precise.

Fifty-one years since its premiere, with its bravura embrace of transvestism, freedom of self-determination and homosexuality, Rocky Horror feels freshly resonant in this age of gender fluidity, to complement the perennial tropes of infidelity and loss of innocence. The tone remains totally, defiantly tongue in cheek, the expression bold in all matters sexual, sartorial and satirical (like an episode of Fleabag).

What happens in O’Brien’s uproarious send-up of horror and sci-fi B-movies? A newly engaged, squeaky-clean American college couple, geeky Brad Majors (Connor Carson) and sweetheart Janet Weiss (Lauren Chia), lose their way in the Transylvanian woods, then their virginity under the seductive powers of Donovan’s castle-dwelling Dr Frank N Furter.

In a show propelled by song, set-piece, colourful character and carnal pleasure, under Christopher Luscombe’s lustrous direction, O’Brien’s plot loudly echoes Frankenstein in Frank N Furter’s drive to create a new life in the form of the glitter-dusted, ripped Rocky (Morgan Jackson).

Songs are raucous, raunchy and riotous in their pastiche of Fifties’ rock’n’roll, like The Cramps would later deliver too. Equally important are the audience rituals, often in response to the Narrator, the time-honoured recipient of the audience’s often-scripted, sometimes improvised abuse.

The likes of The Now Show comedian Steve Punt and actor Philip Franks have donned the blue smoking jacket at the Grand Opera House, and now Let’s Talk About Vex comedian Nathan Caton fills those shoes and later high heels. Blessed with a voice as deep as James Earl Jones, he is a cool dude, urbane, unflappable, quick to respond to any audience saucery (CORRECT) and equally quick with topical comments. What a canny piece of casting.

Welcome too to a new Riff Raff in Job Greuter, as deadpan and unnerving as he should be. Job, well done. Likewise, the Grand Opera House ushers and usherettes, dressed up to the max.

Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, Grand Opera House, York, 8pm, tonight, Wednesday and Thursday; 5.30pm and 8.30pm, Friday and Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

October 22, 2024October 22, 2024

Bea Roberts’s world premiere of extraordinary true story of The Whitby Rebels launches at Stephen Joseph Theatre

THE Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, is staging the world premiere of Bea Roberts’ The Whitby Rebels, boat on stage et al, until November 2.

In Whitby Harbour, in the summer of 1991, something extraordinary happened. A humble pleasure boat set sail for the Arctic crewed by misfits, pensioners and the vicar for Egton and Grosmont, North Yorkshire.

*Kieran Foster, left, Jaqcueline King, Jacky Naylor and Duncan MacInnes in the SJT rehearsal room*

Their voyage is a classic story of British eccentricity and determination to rival Eddie the Eagle’s Olympic exploits, bus driver Kempton Bunton stealing the portrait of the Duke of Wellington or crane operator Maurice Flitcroft playing golf in the British Open.

Writer Bea Roberts says: “What appealed to me about this true story to begin with is that it felt like an Ealing comedy or a Carry On film – it’s got this fantastically silly edge: this group of pensioners being chased by the Royal Navy!

“But it’s also really remarkable as a story of incredible adventure, of daring, of bravery and of people doing something really rather audacious and brilliant.”

*Jacqueline King, left, Duncan MacInnes, Kieran Foster and Louise Mai Newberry at sea off the Scarborough coast*

Director Paul Robinson says: “I’m so excited to bring this local story to life, particularly as many people will remember it and the film which followed starring Bob Hoskins. And I can’t wait to see the audiences’ faces when they see a boat on stage!”

SJT artistic director Robinson directs a cast of Keith Bartlett, Kieran Foster, Jacqueline King, Duncan MacInnes, Jacky Naylor and Louise Mai Newberry.

The Whitby Rebels is designed by Jessica Curtis, with lighting design by Sally Ferguson; sound design by composer and sailor’s son Simon Slater; movement direction by Georgina Lamb; wardrobe supervision by Julia Perry-Mook and fight director by Kaitlin Howard. Tom Hill is the nautical consultant. Box office: 01723 370541 or at www.sjt.uk.com.