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.
Heart-breaking: Nathaniel Hall in his one-man show First Time at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. Pictures: Andrew Perry
DAY three in the Studio Discoveries festival house, and York
Theatre Royal’s Visionari community programme group will be presenting
Nathaniel Hall’s First Time tomorrow night.
Can you remember your first time? Nathaniel can’t seem to
forget his. To be fair, he has had it playing on repeat for the last 15
years, and now he is telling all in his one-man show on tour in North Yorkshire
this month.
After
playing the VAULT Festival in London, Hall has embarked on his travels, taking
in the McCarthy at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre last night, Harrogate
Theatre’s Studio Theatre tonight and York Theatre Royal Studio tomorrow as part
of Studio Discoveries, a week of new theatre chosen by Visionari.
The party is over, the balloons have all burst and Nathaniel is
left living his best queer life: brunching on pills and Googling ancient
condoms and human cesspits on a weekday morning…or is he?
“Join me as I blow the lid on the secret I’ve been keeping all these years,” says Nathaniel Hall
After
playing the Edinburgh Fringe for four weeks last summer, HIV+ queer artist and
theatre-maker Hall takes First Time on the road as he strives to stay positive
in a negative world. “Join me as I blow the lid on the secret I’ve been
keeping all these years,” he says.
Conceived, written and performed by HIV activist Hall, this
humorous but heart-breaking 75-minute autobiographical show is based on his
personal experience of living with HIV after contracting the virus from his first
sexual encounter at 16.
“Narratives
of HIV often portray people living with the virus as the victim. First Time
doesn’t accept this stance,” says Hall. “It not only transforms audiences into
HIV allies, but also helps them rid toxic shame from their own lives.”
First Time
takes up Hall’s story after an all-night party, when “he hasn’t been to bed and
he hasn’t prepared anything for the show. He’s only had 12 months and a grant
from the Arts Council, but he can’t avoid the spotlight anymore and is forced
to revisit his troubled past”.
“First Time not only transforms audiences into HIV allies, but also helps them rid toxic shame from their own lives ,” says Nathaniel Hall
His path leads from sharing a stolen chicken and stuffing
sandwich with a Will Young lookalike aged 16, through receiving the devastating
news aged 17 and heart-breaking scenes devouring pills and powder for
breakfast, to a candlelit vigil and finally a surprising ending full of
reconciliation, hope…and a houseplant from Mum.
Commissioned
by Waterside Arts and Creative industries Trafford and developed with Dibby
Theatre, the original production led the Borough of Trafford’s 30th World AIDS Day commemorations in 2018.
Directed by
Chris Hoyle and designed by Irene Jade, with music and sound design by Hall,
First Time will be staged at 7.45pm at each location. Tickets:
Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; York, 01904 623568 or
yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Visionari’s Studio Discoveries festival
runs until Saturday. For full details, visit the Theatre Royal website.
Feel the chemistry Emma Lucia’s Girl and Daniel Healy’s Guy in Once , The Musical
Once, The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/York
THREE weeks
into rehearsals at Toynbee Hall in London’s East End, the media were invited to
a press day where director Peter Rowe and musical supervisor Ben Goddard put
their 16-strong cast through their paces in exhilarating fashion.
Sometimes you can feel the magic in the air as early as that, sensing the chemistry between leads Daniel Healy and Emma Lucia and the bonding of the company of actor-musicians as they turned a rehearsal room into an Irish pub full of lusty singing and joyful playing.
You just knew the show was going to be good, but, glory be, it is even better than that. Having cherished John Carney’s micro-budgeted cult romantic Irish film starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova since 2007, yet aware that many still don’t know that charming movie, save maybe for its multi-award-winning song Falling Slowly, your reviewer urges you to fall immediately for this touring musical version. No time for slowness here.
Broadway, the West End and Dublin have all had a go at doing Once The Musical. Rowe and regular musical partner Goddard first united Scotsman Healy and Durham-born Lucia as Guy and Girl, jilted Dublin busker/vacuum cleaner repairman and immigrant Czech odd-jobs worker and musician, for shows in Ipswich and Hornchurch in 2018, and now they have found the perfect format for a touring version.
What a Guy: Daniel Healy in Once, The Musical
Designed by Libby Watson, the setting is an Irish pub, crammed with pictures and chattering life, where the cast rally the audience with songs familiar from The Pogues, Chieftains and Dubliners to set the Dublin craic.
Scenes are
played out against this backdrop, the musicians fading in and out of scenes,
sometimes acting like a Greek chorus as they lean in, in response to what is
unfolding between Healy’s Guy and Lucia’s Girl.
They are
first encountered as she watches him busking in the chill streets, singing to
his ex, now moved to New York, but still the subject of each pained song,
although he is on the cusp of giving up on those songs too.
Girl is open,
frank, funny for being so serious; Guy is taciturn, guarded, but the shared
love of music speaks volumes and she needs her vacuum cleaner mending. It duly arrives
as if out of thin air, shooting across the stage in one of the show’s many
humorous moments.
Big-hitting Falling Slowly is not held back. Instead, it forms their first song together in Billy’s unruly music shop, tentative at first as she picks out the piano lines, to accompany his singing, then joining in, their voices entwining and overlapping beautifully. Gradually, one by one, the musicians join in too: fiddle, guitars, mandolin, cello, squeezebox and more, in union, in sympathy.
Emma Lucia’s Girl saying hello to the piano – which musicians should always do, she says
Here, in a
nutshell, is why Once works wonders as a musical, being as much a celebration
of the power of music in Dublin’s fair city as a love story of ebb and flow,
rise and fall, surprise and revelation, over five all too short days.
The path of
love is never smooth, as we all know, but for those who have never seen Once,
it would be wrong to issue spoiler alerts of what ensues. Except to say, on the
way home you will want to discuss how the open-ended story might progress, if you
have any romantic bones in your body!
Healy and
Lucia are terrific leads: who would not fall for either of them?! His Guy is
generous, kind, a blue-eyed soul man of song and acoustic guitar playing; her Girl,
his new Czech mate, is feisty, fearless in the face of adversity in her adopted
city, and plays the piano exquisitely too.
Dan Bottomley’s
hapless, bandy-legged, hopelessly romantic, fiery Billy pickpockets plenty of
scenes and Ellen Chivers, last seen in York last summer in the Theatre Royal’s Swallows
& Amazons, is even better as wild-spirited Czech Reza.
From Enda Walsh’s witty, whimsical, love-struck script to Hansard and Irglova’s impassioned songs, you must see Once, a wonderful show that blows away weeks of panto wars and politics, to herald a new year of theatre in York. In fact, it is so enjoyable, you could go not once, but twice…and make sure to arrive early to see York buskers Rachel Makena, Florence Taylor, Owen Gibson and Peter Wookie taking turns pre-show and in the interval in the foyer bar.
What if the story of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight were to be retold by the woman at its heart ? Debbie Cannon does exactly that in Green Knight
STUDIO Disoveries, a week of new
theatre chosen by the Visionari community programming group, continues tomorrow
with a brace of shows at the York Theatre Royal Studio.
Writer and performer Debbie Cannon’s
Green Knight, at 6.30pm, is a one-woman version of the medieval poem Sir Gawain
And The Green Knight.
The setting is Christmas at Camelot,
where a monstrous green warrior issues an unwinnable challenge to Arthur’s
finest knight, but what if the story were to be retold by the woman at its
heart?
Flying
Elephant’s premiere production, Picasso’s Women, delivers a unique look at Picasso’s life through the
voices of his wives, mistresses and muses at 8.30pm.
One of three of Picasso’s Women at York Theatre Royal Studio tomorrow
Written by Brian McAvera, directed by
Marcia Carr and performed by Judith Paris, Colette Redgrave and Lucy Hunt, it
takes the form of three monologues featuring French model Fernande, Russian
ballerina Olga and 17-year-old mistress Marie-Therese.
Originally produced for the National
Theatre and BBC Radio 3, the women’s stories provide an insight into the
influence these women had on Picasso’s life and art.
The full programme for Visionari’s
second Studio Discoveries season can be found at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. The
festival begins today (February 4) with Not Now Collective’s Pepper &
Honey, a new play with live Croatian pepper biscuit-baking, at 11am and 2pm. Box
office: 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre
Royal box office.
YORKSHIREMAN Simon Armitage performs in York tonight and tomorrow for
the first time since being appointed Poet Laureate last May.
The 56-year-old Huddersfield poet is presenting Seeing Stars: An Evening
With Simon Armitage at York Theatre Royal in two fundraising
shows to support the theatre’s community work.
Confirmed to be joining Armitage for the 7.30pm shows are actors Kacey Ainsworth (best known for playing Little Mo in EastEnders), Richard Bremmer, Charlotte Mills and Tom Kanji.
Curated by Scarborough-born theatre director Nick Bagnall, Seeing Stars features readings from Armitage’s works inspired by Sir Gawain And The Green Knight and The Death Of King Arthur on the tenth anniversary of Seeing Stars, his “very dramatic, very theatrical” book of dramatic monologues, allegories and absurdist tall tales.
Nine months into his Poet Laureateship, how would Armitage, the first
Professor of Poetry at Leeds University, define poetry? “I’ve always taken the
view that poetry is not just one thing,” he says.
“There have been recent times when people think it’s just words in a
book, but performance has always been important and that has come back into
fashion and been re-imagined too with spoken-word slams. There is room for everybody
creating the language.”
Armitage continues: “One of the roles of the Poet Laureate, as I see it,
is to promote poetry and speak up for the arts.
” I know it can have a strange effect on people when you say you’re a poet,” says Poet Laureate Simon Armitage
“My feeling is, if you’re involved with the arts, you’re more
comfortable with yourself and you bring that to the inner universe you exist
in, even if it’s only being more comfortable about language and how you think.”
At a time of cutbacks in arts funding and schools putting science before
the arts in the curriculum, Armitage says: “You stifle creativity at your peril
because, if you don’t offer an outlet, if you antagonise, it will still find a
way out.”
Where does Armitage see sitting poets sitting in the public’s perception
in 2020? As minstrels? Prophets? Commentators? Outsiders? “I know it can have a
strange effect on people when you say you’re a poet. Definitely there’s something
of the outside, the alternative, about it,” he says.
“It’s been a ‘peculiar’, not ever a mainstream, artform but I think people
have a soft spot in their heart for poetry, especially at moments in their life,
happy or sad, whether reading it or even writing it in those moments, so I still
don’t think it’s a remote artform.”
As for his aims in his ten-year tenure as Poet Laureate, Armitage says: “By
the end of those ten years, I would like to have seen my projects come to
fruition [such as the newly founded Laurel Prize for nature poems and the
establishing of a National Centre for Poetry].
“I’d also like to be judged for my writing, either myself seeking to
maintain standards, or writing in a communicative, engaging way, and my Poet
Laureate poems have to satisfy me too.”
Seeing Stars: An Evening With Simon Armitage, York Theatre
Royal, tonight and tomorrow, February 4 and 5, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568
or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
New pantomime partnership: York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster and executive director Tom Bird with Evolution Productions producer Paul Hendy,
THE new age of pantomime at York
Theatre Royal will involve Evolution rather than revolution.
For the first panto of the post-Berwick
Kaler era, the Theatre Royal is teaming up with award-winning pantomime producers
Evolution to present Cinderella.
The show dates will be December 4 to
January 10 2021, an earlier start and finish than the December 7 to January 25
run for Sleeping Beauty, Dame Berwick’s last pantomime as co-director and writer
after a 41-year association with the Theatre Royal.
Cinderella will be directed by Theatre
Royal associate director Juliet Forster, who directed Shakespeare’s comedy A
Midsummer Night’s Dream for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in York in 2018 and Arthur
Miller’s A View From The Bridge in the Theatre Royal main house last September,
as well as children’s shows aplenty.
Juliet Forster, who will direct York Theatre Royal’s pantomime, Cinderella
The script will be written by Evolution
co-founder and producer Paul Hendy in tandem with York-born comedy writer and
podcaster David Reed, who has returned to his home city and will provide
additional material.
The cast is yet to be announced but
will not be a star vehicle, with variety acts and blossoming pantomime talent
and a “York flavour” likely to be to the fore instead. The set designer, not
confirmed yet, will be charged with creating magical transformations and glittering
sets to complement the “stunning songs and side-splitting laughs”.
Formed in 2005 by Paul Hendy and Emily
Wood, Evolution Productions present “bespoke pantomimes of epic spectacle and
hilarity” for the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield; Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury; The
Hawth Theatre, Crawley; Garrick Theatre, Lichfield; Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury;
Alban Arena, St Albans; Octagon Theatre, Yeovil, and Grove Theatre, Dunstable,
now joined in a co-producing partnership by York Theatre Royal.
Juliet Forster and Theatre Royal
executive director Tom Bird were exhilarated by Evolution’s 2019-2020 pantomime
for Sheffield Theatres, starring long-running dame Damian Williams in
Cinderella at the Lyceum.
Paul Hendy’s script from that hit show will
provide an early template for Reed to set to work on giving it a York branding,
with Cinderella’s rags-to-riches story being switched to this historic city in
a “new pantomime for everyone”.
Evolution producer Paul Hendy: co-writer of Cinderella at York Theatre Royal
Executive
director Bird says: “We are
over the moon to be creating a spectacular new pantomime for the people of York:
one that’s tailor-made for the whole family, while honouring the pantomime
traditions that our audiences love so much.
“Our recipe includes two of the most
exciting voices in our city, David Reed and Juliet Forster, together with Emily
Wood and Paul Hendy, the finest makers of pantomime in the country – a
fairytale combination.”
Bird continues: “This phenomenal team
will give the York Theatre Royal pantomime a new lease of life with a fresh,
family friendly, fun-filled approach to the story of Cinderella. It’s a
pantomime for the new decade, set with pride in our amazing city.”
Evolution Productions has built a
reputation for superior, bespoke pantomimes with the emphasis on high-quality
production values, strong casting and funny scripts, twice winning Pantomime of
the Year at the Great British Pantomime Awards.
Producer and writer Hendy says: “Emily
and I are absolutely thrilled to be working with York Theatre Royal on this
year’s pantomime. We are huge fans of the theatre and we’re looking forward to
collaborating with Tom and his brilliant team to produce a wonderful, family-friendly
pantomime with spectacular production values, a superbly talented cast,
and a genuinely funny script.”
Ticket prices will remain the same as
for 2019-2020. Family tickets and Sunday shows are being introduced, as well as
schools and groups discounts so that “everyone can go to the ball”.
Theatre Royal members’ ten-day priority booking opened today; members’ five-day priority booking on February 8; 9am in person at the box office, 10am online and phone booking. General booking opens on February 13; same times as above. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Meanwhile, Berwick Kaler’s first pantomime
at his new York home, the Grand Opera House, will be Dick Turpin Rides Again, with
writer, director and revived dame Kaler being joined by regular cohorts Martin
Barrass, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper and AJ Powell for Qdos Entertainment’s
panto partnership with the Ambassador Theatre Group.
Pepper & Honey: Not Now Collective’s play with live baking opens Visionari’s Studio Discoveries festival at the York Theatre Royal Studio
WHAT happens when the audience selects
the shows? Find out at York Theatre Royal from tomorrow in the Studio
Discoveries festival of theatre chosen by the Visionari community programming
group.
The first of six picks in Visionari’s
second season really takes the biscuit when Not Now Collective’s new play of
love, loss, heritage and new beginnings, Pepper & Honey,is told through the
baking of Croatian pepper biscuits.
Known as paprenjaci, they will be baked
live in front of the 11am and 2pm audiences as the story of Ana’s preparations
to start a new life in the UK unfolds. Babes-in-arms are welcome at the 11am
and 2pm shows – and biscuits are included.
So, what is “home”, ask Not
Now Collective. Now that the era of post-Brexit Britain is under way, that
question has never been more pertinent, in this case for Ana, a
young Croatian woman, as she settles in the UK.
Determined to make it home, she focuses
on life in this new land, but she is haunted by the voice of her Grandma,
calling for her to stay true to national identity and yearning for Ana
to come home.
Grandma bakes her traditional Croatian
pepper biscuits – believed to bring
a loved one back home – but will this be enough to be reunited with her
granddaughter? What is “home” to Ana now?
Written by a Croatian playwright and performed by a Croatian actor, Pepper & Honey is a poignant, subtle and timely play about the journey of change, cultural differences, trying not to feel like a foreigner in your adopted country, and the conflict between upholding the traditions of the “old country” and embracing those of the new.
As trailered
earlier, Pepper & Honey will be “timed to perfection
to deliver a perfect Croatian pepper biscuit, baked live with the help
of the audience”. Tickets for all the Visionari Studio Discoveries plays are on
sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. The price is £10 per show or
£8 when two or more Studio Discoveries shows
are booked.
Kneehigh’s Ubu!: party and protest rolled into one riotous show . Picture: Steve Tanner
ALFRED Jarry’s ground-breaking political
parable Ubu Roi caused riots when first staged in Paris in 1896. Now, Kneehigh’s
Ubu! A Singalong Satire promises an equally riotous night out at Leeds
Playhouse’s Quarry Theatre from Tuesday to Saturday.
Conceived by Carl Grose, Charles
Hazlewood and Mike Shepherd, it smashes together Jarry’s gleefully rude and
deliberately childish script with a crowd-pleasing singalong, party games, inflatable
animals and contemporary political satire.
Kneehigh’s Ubu! is a punk-spirited, comedic
study of power, protest and populism. “And what better form of popular culture
to demonstrate this than mass karaoke?”, ask the Cornish company.
The show is led by Katy Owen’s tiny,
tyrannical Pa Ubu and Mike Shepherd’s pouting, preening Ma Ubu, alongside the
ever-versatile Kneehigh ensemble: a six-strong cast and the band The Sweaty
Bureaucrats.
Arranged by Hazlewood, the selection of
songs is inventive and cannily chosen, ranging from Britney Spears’ Toxic and Edwin Starr’s War to Mark Ronson’s Uptown
Funk and The Carpenters’ Close To You, as a festival atmosphere builds.
Writer and co-director Carl Grose
explains how Ubu! came to fruition and why the petty protagonist still
resonates with modern audiences. “When
Alfred Jarry’s play received its premiere at the Théâtre de l’OEuvre in Paris
on December 10 1896, there was, so the story goes, a full-on riot,” he says.
Winging it: Kneehigh’s singalong Ubu!. Picture: Steve Tanner
“Audiences and critics alike were
confronted with sights and sounds of such outrageousness that pandemonium broke
out and the production was shut down after only two performances.”
Grose
continues: “Like all
great artists, Alfred Jarry was a disrupter, and Ubu was his weapon of mass
disruption. A personification of chaos, a lord of misrule, a howling,
hysterical metaphor for greed, lies and corruption.
“The main character was designed to be
both laughed at and despised, and that’s still the case. He is here to gather
us together as his prisoners, his acolytes, his victims – or his potential
usurpers.
“He is a reminder that those in power
will do their damnedest to make their reality our normality. It’s up to us to
collectively remember that there’s nothing normal about Ubu and his ilk.”
Ubu’s behaviour beggars belief, concludes
Grose. “He is cruel, nonsensical, cowardly, aggressive and beyond vile in his
actions,” he says. “Career mad, he looks totally ridiculous, puts money over
humanity in a heartbeat and has a vocabulary that leaves a lot to be desired.
What an absurd creation, eh?”
Prepare for a Kneehigh antidote to a
divided world that makes a stand against divisiveness and brings audiences
together through the joyful act of singing
Kneehigh’s Ubu! A Singalong Satire, Quarry Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, February 4 to 8. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
Fflur Wyn as Susanna and Phillip Rhodes as Figaro in Opera North’s The Marriage Of Figaro. All pictures:. Robert Workman
Opera North in The Marriage Of Figaro, Leeds Grand Theatre, February 1 ****
Further Leeds performances on February 8, 14, 19, 22, 26 and 29, then on tour . More details at operanorth.co.uk. Leeds box office: 0844 848 2700 or at leedsgrandtheatre.com
IT is strange how operatic revivals can vary so much from their originals, even when the same director is on hand to oversee them. Jo Davies’s production of Mozart’s opera buffa dates from January 2015. That is before the Me Too movement really took off in October 2017, when the treatment of women in Hollywood began to come under the microscope.
Its repercussions on this show are fascinating. The two leading men, Count Almaviva and Figaro himself, are by far the most charismatic here. That is partly down to the singers involved. But it also reflects the relative hardness of their ladies, the Countess and Susanna.
These men are having their very manhood challenged, even as they attempt their various conquests. It could help to explain why Quirijn de Lang’s relentlessly dim-witted Count (though the singer himself is clearly quite the opposite) comes across as a failed Don Giovanni, never quite achieving those desired notches on his cane. The man is libidinous beyond belief. Even at the end you wonder how long he can possibly remain faithful to his wife. He nevertheless sings with plenty of self-belief.
Heather Lowe as Cherubino
The New Zealand baritone Phillip Rhodes relaxes into the title role immediately, despite taking it on for the first time. The part could have been made for him. His Figaro retains unclouded optimism in the face of every setback, helped by warm, clear tone and a pair of eyebrows that crinkle with mirth at every excuse.
Opposite him, Fflur Wyn, also new to her role as Susanna, is a calculating creature – the gardener Antonio’s social-climbing niece – rather than a playful minx. Her soprano is light and clean, her diction less so. Nor is clarity Máire Flavin’s strong point as the Countess. Her first aria was too tense to excite sympathy, her second showed what might have been, with fluent control. But she moves beautifully and always has the moral high ground over her wayward husband.
The lower orders are well represented. It comes as no surprise to discover that Heather Lowe, the tousle-haired Cherubino, is a trained dancer. She is exceptionally nimble as well as vocally adept, not least as girl-plays-boy-playing girl.
Jonathan Best makes a diffident old fogey of Bartolo, well partnered by Gaynor Keeble’s earthy Marcellina. Joseph Shovelton is back with his oily Basilio, as is Jeremy Peaker’s rubicund Antonio. Alexandra Oomens is the peppy Barbarina. Even Warren Gillespie’s Curzio makes a mark, here as a censer-swinging priest. Real incense too.
Quirijn de Lang as Count Almaviva and Máire Flavin as Countess Almaviva
Antony Hermus makes his first appearance in the pit since being appointed Principal Guest Conductor. He is a mixed blessing. His rigid, hyperactive baton ensures taut ensemble, but allows his woodwinds little flexibility; the strength of his accents regularly swamps the singers’ words in ensemble. On the other hand, conducting from the harpsichord, his recitatives flow idiomatically.
Leslie Travers’s mobile set shows both the downstairs and the upstairs of this society, the former doubling as the outside of the house for the garden scene. Peeling wallpaper and rickety staircases speak of genteel poverty. Gabrielle Dalton’s socially-layered costumes could be from almost any era.
In the wake of Me Too, we should expect certain aspects of the comedy to be soft-pedalled. But there is plenty of amusement at the expense of the men. And that is as it should be.
“Strong women”: Joanne Theaker, front left, Louise Henry, back left, Sandy Nicholson, Julie-Anne Smith and Kathryn Addison starring in Nik Briggs’s production of Steel Magnolias for York Stage
YORK Stage kick off their 2020 season with Robert Harling’s
comedy-drama Steel Magnolias at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York.
Running in the John Cooper Studio from February 19 to 22, this 1987 American play focuses on the camaraderie of six Southern women who talk, gossip, jest and harangue each other through the best of times and comfort and repair one another through the worst.
“Steel Magnolias is alternately hilarious and touching with
six female characters that are all as delicate as magnolias yet as strong as
steel,” says director Nik Briggs.
Joanne Theaker, Louise Henry, Sandy Nicholson and Julie-Anne Smith in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias
His cast comprises Joanne Theaker as M’Lynn; Louise Henry as
Shelby; Julie-Anne Smith as Ousier; Sandy Nicholson as Clairee; Kathryn Addision
as Truvy and Carly Morton as Annelle.
Yorkshire actress Joanne Theaker returns to the York Stage
company, having led the cast as Maria in The Sound Of Music at the Grand Opera
House last April.
Previously, Joanne has played Sister Mary Roberts in Sister
Act; Diva in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert – The Musical; Judy in Dolly
Parton’s 9 To 5 The Musical and Paulette in Legally Blonde. Elsewhere, she has
performed at Hull Truck Theatre in the original casts of John Godber’s Thick As
a Brick and Big Trouble In The Little Bedroom and at the Stephen Joseph
Theatre, Scarborough, in Neil Simon’s They’re Playing Our Song.
Julie-Anne Smith and Sandy Nicholson have a laugh in the photo-shoot for Steel Magnolias
Louise Henry joins rehearsals after making her professional debut
as Snow White in this winter’s Grand Opera House pantomime, Snow White And The
Seven Dwarfs. Previously, for York Stage Musicals, she had performed in The Sound
Of Music as Liesl last April and Twilight Robbery as Jayne in May. West End
actress Julie-Anne Smith last appeared for York Stage Musicals as Violet in 9 To
5 in 2017.
Briggs says: “Bringing Steel Magnolias to the stage, and
working with these six women especially, has been a joy. It’s no secret that I
love working with strong women, especially in the rehearsal room and you don’t
get much stronger than these six.
”Having previously directed many female-led shows – Sister Act,
Legally Blonde, 9 To 5, The Sound Of Music, Be My Baby and Little Voice – Steel
Magnolias has been on my ‘To Do’ list for a long time.”
Hair-larious: Louise Henry and Joanne Theaker
The women’s closeness drew Briggs to Harling’s piece. “It’s
relatable, the salon is a world in itself and the six characters are an adopted
family,” he says. “They laugh, cry, argue, support and challenge each other
within this world and it really allows for the drama and comedy to flourish and
soar.
“We’ve had tears of laughter and tears of sadness over the rehearsal period. This really is a show to see with your closest girl friends and family. Come, laugh and cry together, and if you want to wear pyjamas and bring a large carton of ice cream with you for the ultimate girly ‘night in-out’, we won’t judge!”
Harling was inspired to write Steel Magnolias, his first
play, after his sister Susan died of complications from diabetes. Premiered off-Broadway
at the WPA Theater in 1987, it quickly transferred to Broadway, where it became
an instant sensation, running for three years and spawning the hit movie
starring Dolly Parton, Julia Roberts, Sally Field, Daryl Hannah, Olympia
Dukakis and Shirley MacLaine.
Hair piece: York Stage’s poster image for Steel Magnolias
York Stage in Steel Magnolias, John Cooper Studio,
Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, February 19 to 22, 7:30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday
matinee. Tickets: £15, concessions £13, at yorkstagemusicals.com, on 01904 623568
or in person from the York Theatre Royal box office. “We shall be supporting
York and District Diabetes UK Group throughout the run,” says director Nik
Briggs.
