Category: Theatre

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Where there’s a Will, there’s a way to survive in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage at York Barbican

Your Bard: Richard David-Caine’s William Shakespeare, centre, holds history in his hands as monarchs turn monstrous in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage. Picture: Matt Crockett

FOR the first time in history, favourite songs and actors from the CBBC TV series Horrible Histories will be appearing live – and dead! – on stage in a special concert production. York Barbican awaits on April 6 and 7.

Asked to create the greatest show in history by his boss Queen Elizabeth I, esteemed playwright William Shakespeare has no idea just how much trouble is on its way from such monstrous monarchs as King Henry VIII and Queen Victoria.

Life will hot up even more when Death appears – and now Boudica and Cleopatra want to take over. Can matters worsen still more? Of course they can!

Find out how and why when actors from the BAFTA award-winning television series sing songs from the TV shows such as Funny Stupid Deaths, Charles II, Dick Turpin and The Monarchs Song, to the accompaniment of a live band led by Horrible Histories song master Richie Webb, as the Bard seeks help to save himself from execution.

Horrible Histories: The Concert director and Birmingham Stage Company actor/manager Neal Foster

“The trick about this show is the disaster is unfolding in front of you, so the audience are in on it,” says director Neal Foster. “No-one knows how it’s going to work or whether Shakespeare is going to get away with it or just how disastrous it’s going to because it’s really happening right there.”

On tour from January 23 to April 18, Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage is written by Ben Ward and Claire Wetton, with songs and music by Webb, and is directed by Birmingham Stage Company actor/manager Foster, designed by Jackie Trousdale and choreographed by Lucie Pankhurst.

Foster, the creative force behind all the Horrible Histories Live On Stage adaptations of Terry Deary’s stories since 2005, will be playing Charles II, York Gaol anti-hero Dick Turpin and a Viking.

“These Horrible Histories TV songs have been around for a long time and we feature 16 of the most popular songs in the show,” says Neal. “They’re so loved and no-one around the country’s ever had the chance to see them live on stage and to sing with the actors and join in.”

Neal Foster’s dapper King Charles II in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Picture: Richard Southgate

Neal has brought together two worlds, television and stage, for the concert tour. “Part of the reason this production has happened is because in 2023 we got together with Lion Television [producers of the BBC series] to create ‘Orrible Opera for the BBC Proms,” he says. “It was a huge success and, more important, we had a lot of fun and found we complemented each other very well.”

Neal recalls: “We enjoyed working with each other so much, we really wanted to do something again. This seems to be as good as it gets: a collaboration where people get to see the TV actors on stage in a singalong of all the songs they know.

“It’s the biggest show – and the most expensive –we’ve ever done: 17 cities in three months; 23 people on the road, ten in the stage management team, a cast of eight, with a band of five musicians, and we’ve never had a live band in any of our shows before.

“There’s a lot of drama, lots of songs, lots of dancing, and it’s also got wonderful video effects, with the footage being filmed by Lion Television [producers of Horrible Histories on the BBC]. I think there are about 50 costumes, with wigs, hats, props, turning it into a really enormous show.

Neal Foster’s Charles II, second from right, singing The King Of Bling. Picture: Matt Crockett

“All the funding comes from ticket sales, so we’re always delighted that people keep supporting us. That’s how we’ve run our company for 35 years. except in Covid, when we were supported by the Government to do ten shows in car parks and at racecourses.”

Swapping TV for the live tour are long-serving Richard David-Caine, also known for Class Dismissed and CBeebies’ Swashbuckle; Harrie Hayes, who has embodied history’s most iconic royals, from Elizabeth I to Marie Antoinette; Inel Tomlinson, from Histories’ Rameses and Science’s Big Danny; company favourite Ethan Lawrence, also from Ricky Gervais’s After Life, and Verona Rose, Horrible Histories regular, Top Boy and Fully Blown writer-performer and host of ITV2’s Secret Crush.

Joining them are Neal and Alison Fitzjohn, his fellow stalwart from Horrible Histories Live On Stage, touring the world with Birmingham Stage Company.

“They’re such a strong company that in the first week of rehearsals we got so much work done,” says Neal. “My rule is that they must know so much like the back of their hand, and as with a lot of TV actors, our cast are really good on stage and at working with a live band.

Verona Rose and Ethan Lawrence’s Henry VIII in Horrible Histories: The Concert. Picture: Matt Crockett

“Richie Webb, who’s written all 200 songs featured in the TV series, will be on stage leading the band, and the actors are more than capable of hitting the back of the auditorium with their singing.”

Neal has had plenty on his plate, not only directing but also playing multiple roles on stage. “There are great parts for me in the show as I’ve managed to end up with Charles II, Dick Turpin and one of the Vikings, and I’m also understudying four of the other actors, so I’ve had to learn all the script. 100 pages! That’s been quite a challenge!” he says.

“I’m singing my two favourite songs from the TV series, because I’m singing The King Of Bling as Charles II and Dick Turpin’s Highwayman – and as a Viking, I am singing Literally, literally!” 

Cast member Ethan Lawrence says: “It’s been a long time since I was last on stage – and I’ve only done one show before: a pantomime. Cinderella. I gave an absolutely stellar performance as Buttons. There were literally tens of people that said I was pretty good!

Neal Foster and his fellow Vikings “singing Literally, literally” in Horrible Histories:The Concert . Picture: Matt Crockett

“Basically I take the jobs that are put in front of me. I’m not so vain that I don’t take on work. It just so happens that I deal with the cards that are presented to me – and now I get the chance to go on stage with Horrible Histories, The Concert where Shakespeare is in the process of writing a show starring all your favourite Horrible Histories characters

“Chaos ensues, high jinks prevail – and it’s very interactive as well, encouraging the audience to participate. I can imagine this show, because of its live nature, will be evolving as we do it. York Barbican is very deep into the run, so theatrically it’ll be the show at its best.”

Fellow cast member Verona Rose admits: “I’m not that good at history! For me, the easiest way to learn about these characters is by watching Horrible Histories.

“I have Cleopatra’s big number, Ra Ra Cleopatra [from Awful Egyptians] and I’ve learnt so much from doing rehearsals for that song.”

Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage cast members, very much live on stage. Picture: Matt Crockett

Ethan picks out his favourite role: “I’m a busy boy in the show, but the chief thing that’s exciting for me is the opportunity to play Henry VIII. One of the really gratifying things is singing one of the more modern songs from the TV shows, Ruinous Rivals, with Harrie Hayes.”

Verona says “I’m excited to be doing this show, and the more we do the tour, the more shows we do, what the interaction will be will become clearer. From the first laugh, we’ll know what the audience will be like at each show.”

Speaking ahead of the tour, Neal says: “More than anything else this show will be a celebration of Richie Webb’s brilliant music. Having him on stage, with all these actors he’s worked with, has never been seen before on stage, so it will be very special.

Death stalking Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live and very much Dead On Stage. Picture: Matt Crockett

“I’ve no idea how the audience will react, though I have a feeling it might be even more ecstatic, with the words on screens and audience interaction encouraged.

“Very quickly things start to go wrong for William Shakespeare – and in Tudor and Elizabethan times, if things go wrong, you might lose your head! In the end it’ll be up to the audience to save Shakespeare from being for the chop.”

Come on York, make Monday and Tuesday the most Horrible shows yet.

Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage, York Barbican, April 6, 2.30pm and 6.30pm; April 7, 11am and 3pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

NEWSFLASH: 6/4/2026: Horrible Histories: The Concert star Richard David-Caine to play villain in York Theatre Royal panto

Richard David-Caine in the poster image for his role as Herman the Henchman in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs

THE latest name to join York Theatre Royal’s pantomime cast for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs is in York already today (6/4/2026).

CBBC and CBeebies’ star Richard David-Caine, who turned 39 on Sunday, will switch to the dark side as villainous Herman the Henchman this winter, but first he is on the 17-city tour of Horrible  Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Next stop, York Barbican, today (6/4/2026) at 2.30pm and 6.30pm; tomorrow at 11am and 3pm.

Richard, core cast member of CBBC’s Horrible Histories and Horrible Science, is playing under-pressure playwright William Shakespeare,  who is commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I  to create the greatest show on Earth but promptly runs into trouble with monstrous King Henry VIII and Queen Victoria.

On his return to York, Richard will team up with regular Theatre Royal dame Robin Simpson and comic turn returnee Tommy Carmichael, who starred in Sleeping Beauty last winter.

Richard, who appeared in Shakespeare Live! on BBC 2 and Horrible Histories: The Movie and played naughty pirate Line in CBeebies’ Swashbuckle, will be following in the footsteps of CBeebies stars Andy Day (2021), Mandy Moate (2022), James “Raven” McKenzie (2023), Evie Pickerill (2024) and Jennie Dale (2025) in starring in the York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions co-production.

Richard David-Caine in his promotional image for Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Picture: Richard Southgate

No stranger to pantomime, Richard won the Best Supporting Male award at the 2018 Great British Pantomime Awards for his performance as Herman the Henchman, the role he will reprise in York. Two years later, he received the Best Male Villain prize for Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Grove Theatre, Dunstable.

The 2026-2027 pantomime will be directed by Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and written by Evolution Productions director Paul Hendy, the creative team behind such Theatre Royal shows as Jack And The Beanstalk, Aladdin and Sleeping Beauty.

Juliet says: “We are thrilled to welcome Richard to our cast for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. He is absolutely hilarious and I know our audiences are going to love him as our baddie Herman the Henchman. Tickets are selling fast, so be sure to book early so you don’t miss out!”  

Further casting will be announced for the December 4 to January 3 2027 run. Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Family tickets are available for all performances with savings of up to £61 on bookings for four tickets.

Richard David-Caine: back story

Richard David-Caine

ACTOR, writer, comedian and voiceover artist.

Born April 5 1987 in Ruislip, North London.

Graduated from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in 2009.

Set up  comedy group Four Screws Loose with Joseph Elliott, Conan House and Thom Ford in 2009, performing at Edinburgh Fringe for five successive years, along with Bestival, Latitude Festival, Underbelly, Southbank Festival, Brighton Fringe and Adelaide Fringe Festival. Featured on BBC Radio 4’s Sketchorama.

Core cast member of CBBC’s Horrible Histories and Horrible Science, featuring in Shakespeare Live! on BBC 2, and Horrible Histories: The Movie.

Starred in five series of CBBC mockumentary Class Dismissed, twice being nominated for Royal Television Society award for Best Comedy Performance. Created, wrote and fronted Big Fat Like sketch show, pastiching the internet with Joseph Elliott, Amy Gledhill and Ibidano Jack, on CBBC.

Richard David Caine’s William Shakespeare performing Literally with the Vikings in Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! Picture: Matt Crockett

Appeared as one half of comedy duo Cook and Line with Joseph Elliott in CBeebies’ BAFTA-winning children’s game show Swashbuckle, launched in 2013. Young contestants aged four to eight, known as Swashbucklers, competed in physical, interactive games on a soft-play pirate ship to win back stolen jewels from naughty pirates Cook, Line and Captain Captain and their host, Gem.

Further film and television credits: Steal (Amazon); Masters Of The Universe (MGM/Mattel); Cruella (Disney); Father Brown (BBC); Better Things (FX); Avenue 5 (HBO); Midsomer Murders (ITV); Murder, They Hope (UKTV Gold); Finding Alice (ITV); Dead Air (BBC); Skins: Redux (E4); Doctors (BBC); Big Field (BBC) and People Just Do Nothing (BBC).

Stage credits: The Importance Of Being Earnest (Mercury Theatre, Colchester); The Witches (National Theatre, London); Soho Cinders (original West End cast recording, Queen’s Theatre); Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage! (national tour); The Taming Of The Shrew (Derby Theatre); The Tempest (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond); Potted Panto (Vaudeville Theatre, London) and Jihad! The Musical (Jermyn Street Theatre, London), as well as his award-winning one-man show, Tall, Dark And Anxious (Soho Theatre, London). How tall? Richard is 6ft 3ins.

Harrie Hayes’s Elizabeth I making her point to Richard David-Caine’s William Shakespeare in Horrible Histories: The Concert. Picture: Matt Crockett

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REVIEW: 2:22 A Ghost Story, spooking out Grand Opera House, York, till Saturday *****

James Bye’s Sam takes a vote on a point of debate with Shvorne Marks’s Jenny, Natalie Casey’s Lauren and Grant Kilburn’s Ben in 2:22 A Ghost Story.

THE Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny podcaster, broadcaster and journalist Danny Robins’s smart, modern-day London supernatural thriller is haunting York once more, only 23 months since last doing so.

Is that return too soon? Tuesday’s audience could have been fuller, and a cursory inspection of the Grand Opera House box-office website reveals a similar picture for the rest of the week, but your reviewer urges those yet to encounter this Best New Play winner in the WhatsOnStage Awards to do so. In a nutshell, if you enjoy regular returnee The Woman In Black, then clock on for 2:22.

Robins’s nerve-shredder looks very much at home in Europe’s self-proclaimed “most haunted city”, but with a notable metropolitan flair to Anna Fleischle’s set design of a state-of-the-art, open-plan, glass-encased kitchen, complemented by a sleight of hand worthy of Derren Brown’s mind games, topped off by Magic Circle member Chris Fisher’s illusions.

Directors Matthew Dunster and Gabriel Vega Weissman crank up the tension pre-show with the too-quick-for-the-naked-eye turnover of numbers on the electronic kitchen clock – never stopping at 2:22 – while Ian Dickinson’s sound design grows ever louder and more discordant to heighten your senses for what lies ahead.

Throughout, Dickinson and lighting designer Lucy Carter will work those senses to the maximum with mischievous glee and a conductor’s sense of perfect timing, regularly interrupting with shocking sounds, screams, blinding lights and a framing of the proscenium arch in red light at the start of each scene. You will judder, you will shudder, you may well shriek, jolted further by the yelps of foxes doing what foxes do in the garden.

Robins combines the cultural and social commentary of James Graham’s dramas with his own canny podcast insights in his  paranormal tale of teacher-on-maternity-leave Jenny (Shvorne Marks) and irritatingly always-right scientist Sam (James Bye) hosting their first dinner party since becoming the latest “posh tw*ts” to move into a newly gentrified Greater London neighbourhood.

Sam will be heading back from a work trip on the Isle of Sark. For several nights, however, Jenny has been disturbed at 2:22am precisely by the footstep thud of someone moving around the house and the sound of a man’s crying voice, picked up via the baby monitor in newborn daughter Phoebe’s bedroom. Already convinced  the house is haunted, Jenny whiles away the hours each night by painting until that time arrives.

Robins, in partnership with his meticulous directors, is stirring the ingredients of a classic thriller with Hitchcockian chutzpah, just as guest Lauren (Natalie Casey), Jenny’s American psychiatrist best friend since university days, is stirring the risotto on arrival.

Lauren has brought along her latest boyfriend, house renovator Ben (Grant Kilburn) a streetwise, working-class counter to the yuppie London intellectuals, who did up her kitchen, never left and likes to wear his shoes without socks.

Last to arrive is Bye’s Sam, a self-righteous, hyper-opinionated sceptic, apologising for losing his phone on Sark but not for his sarky attitude. Whereupon these two stags lock horns in splenetic class warfare on what turns out to be Ben’s old “manor” before Sam and Jenny stripped out everything, like in every house around them that all end up with the same soulless look, says Ben, who has designed plenty of them.

Sam is a belligerent non-believer in ghosts, adamant that more logical reasons can explain the noises. Ben believes in the supernatural; tipsy Lauren could be persuaded either way. Let’s stay up to 2:22am, suggests Jenny, as the trendy wine flows, the guards drop and the arguments rise – as ultimately does the sexual heat – in an echo of the sparks flying in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf or a Tennessee Williams play, played out in performances that all catch fire.

2:22 A Ghost Story has the spooks to rival The  Woman In Black, but now filtered through modern technology (the baby monitor and an erratic Alexa). Then add the razzle-dazzle to and fro of the dialogue in Robins’s state-of-the-nation character study: the choices of wine and risotto for supper; Sam’s dinner party playlist (Massive Attack) and Jenny’s too (The XX); the reference to Sam and Lauren working together for a charity in Africa.

Robins is happy for his quarrelling quartet to discuss how the lizard, mouse and monkey sections of our brain work and to reflect how fear, rather than love, is our most powerful emotion. You may well want to join that debate afterwards, once your heart rate has returned to normal.

2: 22 A Ghost Story has shocks and alarms aplenty, but above all it is uncomfortably, truthfully humorous, becoming all the spicier for the intellectual jousting that sometimes leaves the dialogue almost too hot to touch under Dunster and Weissman’s combustible direction.

Robins fills the hours until 2:22am so thrillingly, building the chills while thickening the plot with relationship revelations; setting up a debate over the existence or non-existence of ghosts; telling the Charles Lindbergh story behind the invention of the baby monitor, and orchestrating the climactic séance conducted by Ben. 

You will have to see the show- and you really should – to discover the truth behind the spooks, but all the while Ben serves as a ghost of the street’s past that cannot be erased, no matter the aspirational revamp.

“Shhh, please don’t tell” requests a neon-lit message in shepherd’s-warning red after the final “reveal”. Lips sealed, note taken, review concluded.

2:22 A Ghost Story, Grand Opera House, York, until  Saturday, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 13, from Gazette & Herald

York artist Gerard Hobson installing one of 13 bird boxes for the Castle Howard Easter Family Trail. Picture: David Scott

FROM a bird box trail and Vanbrugh’s architecture at Castle Howard to Horrible Histories in concert and the magic of science, Charles Hutchinson embraces Easter’s extra spring in the step.

Birdlife event of the week: Castle Howard Easter Family Trail, Castle Howard Gardens & Arboretum, near York, until April 19

CASTLE Howard has collaborated with York artist and printmaker Gerard Hobson on a new interactive Easter trail, comprising 13 handmade wooden bird boxes installed for a springtime adventure across Castle Howard Gardens and the Arboretum.

The boxes house Hobson’s linocuts of birds, including swallow, magpie, woodpecker and wren, as part of a story designed for children as they all prepare for spring. “Young explorers will discover interesting facts about our feathered friends and learn more about their homes along the way,” he says. Admission is included in Castle Howard and Arboretum day tickets at castlehoward.co.uk/castlehowardarboretumtrust.org.

Architect Roz Barr: Designer and curator of Staging The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard. Picture: Carole Poirot

Exhibition of the week: Staging The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard, on show at Castle Howard, near York, until October 31.

STAGING The Baroque: Vanbrugh At Castle Howard celebrates its creator, the architect and playwright Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), on the 300th anniversary of his death.

Designed and curated by architect Roz Barr, the exhibition chronicles the story of the stately home’s creation, exploring Vanbrugh’s visionary use of scale, shadow and light and his creative relationship with the third Earl of Carlisle, as shown in letters by Vanbrugh on public display for the first time. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.

Pickering singer-songwriter David Swann

Folk gig of the week: David Swann, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm, doors 6.30pm

PICKERING folk singer and songwriter David Swann writes comic songs about the people, places and history of his native North Yorkshire, as well as songs of love lost and found. He accompanies himself on acoustic guitar and ukulele and always encourages audience participation.

Swann runs the Ryedale Songwriters Circle, encouraging and promoting songwriting through workshops and concerts, and has won BBC Radio York’s Song for Yorkshire competition, Bedale Acoustic Music Festival’s inaugural Songwriting Competition for the Harvey Blogg Cup and the anthem-writing competition for Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.

James B Partridge. Hosting Primary School Bangers at York Barbican. Picture: Rebecca Johnson

“School” concert of the week: James B Partridge, Primary School Bangers, York Barbican, Saturday, doors 7pm

TEACHER James B Partridge brings his viral hit show Primary School Bangers to York for a night of massive singalongs, throwback mash-ups and tongue-in-cheek humour. What started in the classroom has become a nationwide phenomenon – from Glastonbury to sold-out theatres – as James leads audiences through the songs that defined school days.

“Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or just someone who remembers every word to He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands, this one’s for you,” he says. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk. 

Horrible Histories : Live – and Dead! – in concert at York Barbican

“The ultimate first concert for children”: Horrible Histories: The Concert, Live And Dead On Stage!, York Barbican, April 6, 2.30pm and 6.30pm

FOR the first time, favourite songs and actors from Horrible Histories’ BAFTA Award-winning CBBC TV series will be live – and dead! – on stage in York. When William Shakespeare is asked to create the greatest show on earth, he runs into trouble with monstrous monarchs King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.

Once Death appears, Boudica and Cleopatra want to take over! Can things turn any worse? Of course they can! Cue songs such as Stupid Deaths, Charles II, Dick Turpin and The Monarchs Song, performed to a band led by Horrible Histories’ song master, Richie Webb. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Jason Fox: Embracing the chaos at York Barbican

Advice of the week: Jason Fox, Embrace The Chaos, York Barbican, April 8, 7.30pm

SOME people are built to embrace the chaos. Adventurer, Royal Marine Commando and UK Special Forces soldier Jason Fox is one of them, having survived myriad hostile outposts as an elite operator, documentary maker and expedition leader.  

In his new show, Foxy shares stories of his close brushes with enemy gunmen, terrorist bomb makers and cartel leaders, while revealing his strategies for surviving and thriving in environments as life-threatening as the Arctic Circle and Afghan Badlands. Using principles from his military operations, he will help you to reboot your thinking, challenge your limits, change your habits, transform and rebalance your life – and he will answer audience questions too. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Out Of The Box: Transforming everyday objects into extraordinary adventures at Helmsley Arts Centre

Family show of the week: Darryl J Carrington in Out Of The Box, Helmsley Arts Centre, April 9, 2pm

DARRYL J Carrington transforms everyday objects into extraordinary adventures in Out Of The Box, where a toothbrush stars in a balancing act, a string sparks a heist and a tea party lands on someone’s head in an hour of joyful chaos, jaw-dropping skill and irresistible fun.

Carrington brings five-star Edinburgh Fringe reviews, the Brighton Fringe’s Best Family Show prize and more than 20 years of circus and clowning experience to his silent comedy’s blend of juggling, inventive physical theatre and audience interaction. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Top Secret: Asking “Is it magic…or is it science?” in April 9’s interactive show, replete with mystery, suspense, experiments and mess, at Pocklington Arts Centre

Fun experiments of the week: Top Secret in The Magic Of Science, High Voltage, Pocklington Arts Centre, April 9, 2pm

JOIN Top Secret as they go on a high-voltage adventure, The Magic Of Science, to ask the question “Is it magic…or is it science?” in a fast-moving, colourful, interactive show filled with mystery, suspense, experiments and loads of mess.

Danny Hunt and Stephanie Clarke take on the guise of Professor Danny and his lab assistant Crazy Kazy as they fuse the mystery of magic with wondrous and miraculous feats of science. Box office:  01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Alison Moyet: Revisiting synth-pop songs from Yazoo’s two albums after more than 40 years at York Barbican. Picture: Naomi Davison

Gig announcement of the week: Alison Moyet, Songs Of Yazoo, the minutes and Other Tour, York Barbican, November 18

BASILDON soul, blues and pop singer-songwriter Alison Moyet will play York in one of ten new additions to her autumn tour, when she will focus on songs from Yazoo’s 1982-1983 catalogue, recorded with Vince Clarke, and a selection from her solo electronica albums, 2013’s the minutesand 2017’s Other, both co-written with producer Guy Sigsworth.

“Many years touring the same pool of songs and I am keen for a palate refresher,” says Moyet, 64. “Specifying which years I will be fishing from too, I think, is a grand way to serve pot luck for specific tastes. No bones.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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Last chance to see: The Ladies Football Club, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield ****

The women factory works – and footballers to boot – in The Ladies Football Club. Picture: Johan Persson

GO Firth and multiply the possibilities. In the wake of BAFTA and Olivier Award winner Tim Firth being asked to write the book for the Madness musical Our House and adapting his Calendar Girls film script for the stage version and subsequently the musical with composer Gary Barlow, now he puts the Sheffield into Stefano Massino’s 2019 Italian play Ladies Football Club, adding “The” to become the definitive version.

One accompanied in the city known as the “Home of Football” by foyer panels of information on the history of the women’s game, from Dick, Kerr’s Ladies FC and legendary gay star winger Lily Parr to Hope Powell and beyond.

Parr’s story, incidentally, has been told theatrically in Benjamin Peel’s Not A Game For Girls and Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish’s Offside, a play about football, feminism and female empowerment: themes in common with Firth’s premiere.

In the amphitheatre of the Sheffield Crucible, a theatrical sporting venue more associated with the multi-coloured ball-manoeuvring skills of snooker’s world championship, Sheffield Theatres’ artistic director Elizabeth Newman teams up with Frantic Assembly counterpart Scott Graham, whose trademark storytelling through movement was so crucial to the National Theatre’s The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time.

Jessica Baglow’s goalkeeper Rosalyn leaps into action in The Ladies Football Club. Picture: Johan Persson

Bringing football alive on stage has been expressed in myriad forms, from the game enacted in the heat of Celtic-Rangers sectarianism in avant-garde ballet maverick’s Michael Clark & Company’s punk liaison with Mark E Smith’s The Fall in I Am Curious, Orange, at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 1988, to the masks and mannequins for the “Dirty Leeds” players in Anders Lustgarten’s Brian Clough psychodrama The Damned United.

More recently, Amanda Whittington turned the spotlight on the early days of women’s football in Mikron Theatre’s four-hander Atalanta Forever in 2021 and James Graham essayed the state-of-the-nation treatise wrapped inside the so-close-but-no-cigar reinvention of England’s football team under thoroughly decent Gareth Southgate, premiered by the National Theatre in 2023 and now being stretched into a four-part BBC One series.

You could argue that theatre’s best evocation of physical combat on the sports field comes in John Godber’s Up’N’Under, wherein Rugby League’s bruising encounters are played out by actors wearing shirts with one team’s colours on the front and the opponent’s strip on the back. So simple, so economical, so effective, so Godber.

Here, in The Ladies Football Club, no football is kicked with a satisfying thud, although we still feel every lunging tackle, every meaty header, as the cut and thrust, the tension and drama, of a game is evoked by Graham through largely balletic movement, sometimes freeze-frame in the manner of Roy Of The Rovers comic strips, sometimes in cartoonish slow motion, other times with sudden circular bursts of energised running.

“Offside, ref!”: The Doyle & Walker Ladies players protest in The Ladies Football Club. Picture: Johan Persson

There are 11 players on the “pitch”, sometimes fewer, depending on factory resources available, but all representing only the one team. Opponents are a ghostly blur, conjured in your imagination, as the Sheffield foundry team go through their motions and emotions.

Just as the opposing teams are absent, so too are the steel city’s men folk, sent to the front in the Great War. The women take over their Doyle & Walker factory labours, making the munitions for all that senseless fighting and bombing.

We see them on the factory floor, with their banter, their sandwiches and their rivalries, and we see them starting up lunchbreak kickabouts, with their banter, their sandwiched tackles and their rivalries, before progressing from playing with prototype explosives for a ball to local pitches and ultimately to famous stadia.

Teamwork is captured in Graham’s ensemble movement; individual stories are played out in Firth’s script, 11 stories in all, one for each player, each with a back story to tell.

Anne Odeke’s Justine celebrating victory in The Ladies Football Club. Picture: Johan Persson

That requires Firth to emphasise one trait or trope to encapsulate a character, a device that is at risk of making them 2D, rather than 3D, but aids the humour in the clashes of personality, beliefs and habits, also brought out in the way each plays the game. The fiery Marxist activist of the team plays, where else, but on the left wing.

Firth and director Newman have to squeeze in too much, but the accumulative effect is to bring the speed and momentum of a match into the storytelling, matched by Joe Ransom’s playful video designs, using projections rather than jumpers for goalposts, as the walls and floor come alive, in tandem with the ‘cabinets’ in Grace Smart’s smart set design, from which the factory work stations are pulled out.

United in defiance in the team line-up are Jessica Baglow’s stoical goalkeeper, Rosalyn; Cara Theobold’s workforce leader, Violet; Leah Brotherhead’s idealist militant, Hayley; Lesley Hart’s minister’s daughter, Berenice; Bettrys Jones’s Olivia, first with the news from the family newsagency, Ellie Leach’s Brianna, Claire Norris’s late-blooming outsider, Melanie; Krupa Pattani’s Cheryl, reluctant player-turned-captain; Cheryl Webb’s Abigail; Chanel Waddock’s Penelope, and, most amusing of all, Anne Odeke’s loud and proud Justine, never short of a salty quip.

How rare and exhilarating it is to see an entirely female cast – and of this number too – as they fight to break out of the strictures of prescribed roles for women.

Playing for more than kicks: Chanel Waddock’s Penelope in The Ladies Football Club. Picture: Johan Persson

When Red Ladder staged The Damned United, artistic director Rod Dixon summed up the play’s attributes thus: “As a story, it has it all – passion, power struggles, tragedy and a classic anti-hero – which lends itself brilliantly to theatre.” In the case of The Ladies Football Club, passion, power struggles and the tragedy of war play out. As for an anti-hero, the Football Association banned women’s football from 1921 to 1971 on the grounds of safety risks (to their anatomy). In a nutshell, the beautiful game was deemed “quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.”

And so, women received the red card from both the post-war factory floor and playing pitch. Amanda Whittington wrote Atalanta Forever as her revenge play; Firth concludes The Ladies Football Club with a triumphant coda, celebrating the Lionesses’ victories and welcoming the next generation of young players on stage in full England kit (in a role shared by Evie-Rose Drake, Cristina La Roca, Bonnie Hill and Sophie tanner).

The audience cheers rise all the louder, honouring the wartime past of the foundry’s first flame of players while holding a torch for the future too. Football is indeed coming home…to Sheffield.

Sheffield Theatres in The Ladies Football Club, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, today, kick-off at 7.15pm. Box office: 0114 249 6000 or sheffieldtheatres.co.uk.

Explosive drama: Claire Norris’s Melanie, centre, discovering the football is a prototype bomb in The Ladies Football Club. Picture: Johan Persson

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More Things To Do in York and beyond as the clocks go forward and arts spring up. Hutch’s List No. 12, from The York Press

James Bye, left, Shvorne Marks, Natalie Casey and Grant Kilburn in Danny Robins’ 2:22 A Ghost Story, on tour at Grand Opera House, York

THE clock is ticking to see a ghostly thriller, a madcap murder mystery, a poetic book launch and an unjust trial as Charles Hutchinson sets his arts alarm.

Supernatural thriller of the week: 2:22 A Ghost Story, Grand Opera House, York, March 30 to April 4, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

“THERE’S something in our house. I hear it every night. At the same time,” says Jenny, who believes her new home is haunted, but her husband Sam is having none of it. Whereupon they argue with their first dinner guests, old friend Lauren and new partner Ben. Can the dead really walk again? Belief and scepticism clash, but something feels strange and frightening and is moving closer. Only by staying up until 2:22 will they know the answer.

James Bye, Shvorne Marks, Natalie Casey and Grant Kilburn perform Uncanny and The Battersea Poltergeist podcaster Danny Robins’s supernatural thriller, the Best New Play winner at the 2022 WhatsOnStage Awards, on its return to York. As secrets emerge and ghosts may or may not appear, dare you discover the truth? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

What We Could Have, by Sarah Williams, from the Other Viewpoints exhibition at Pyramid Gallery

Meet The Makers event of the week: Other Viewpoints, Lesley Williams, Sarah Williams, Peter Heaton and Adele Howitt, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, today, 11.30am to 2.30pm

YORKSHIRE artists Lesley Williams, Sarah Williams and Peter Heaton and ceramicist Adele Howitt have teamed up for Other Viewpoints, on show until May 9. Today, they will be on hand to discuss their work.

Lesley, from York, makes semi-abstract oil paintings based on rural landscape and gardens; Sarah, also from York, employs colours, textural marks and shapes in blending abstract and figurative elements; Peter, from North Yorkshire, is exhibiting landscape fine art prints, and Hornsea maker Adele’s ceramics are marked by notions of the living landscape, abstraction, pollen grains and natural pattern.

Main Street Sound: In harmony with Harmonia at the NCEM

Choral concert of the week: Choirs In Harmony, Main Street Sound & Harmonia, National Centre for Early Music, York, today, 7.30pm

CHOIRS In Harmony brings together two Yorkshire vocal groups for an evening of rich, expressive choral music. York’s only ladies’ barbershop chorus, Main Street Sound, and Malton contemporary, folk, jazz, and musical theatre ladies’ choir Harmonia join forces to showcase a vibrant mix of contemporary arrangements, close harmony and uplifting ensemble singing. Expect moments of intimacy, bursts of energy and the joy of voices uniting in a space made for resonance. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Giddy up: Country queen Twinnie rides into The Crescent tonight

Recommended but sold out already: Twinnie, The Crescent, York, tonight, 7.30pm

BORN in York and now established as the UK’s leading country-pop trailblazer on the American circuit after her West End musical theatre days and TV soap career as Porsche McQueen in Hollyoaks and ruthless boxing promoter Jade Garrick in Emmerdale, Twinnie-Lee Moore returns home on her Dirt Road Disco Tour.

Noted for her fearless honesty and storytelling truths, she blends Nashville-inspired country roots with pop hooks and her own gypsy-influenced flair in songs of empowerment, vulnerability, and unapologetic individuality. She made her Grand Ole Opry debut in November 2023 as the first British Romani Traveller to perform in the circle and featured on Rob Brydon’s Honky Tonk Road Trip documentary series on BBC Two last year.

Lucy Keirl in rehearsal for the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s madcap musical mystery Murder For Two. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Whodunit of the week: Murder For Two, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, today to April 18, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

JOE Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s fast-paced musical whodunit is a madcap murder mystery with a twist, performed by two actors, Tom Babbage and Lucy Keirl, who play 13 characters between them, plus the piano, as they put the laughter into manslaughter.

When famous novelist Arthur Whitney is found dead at his birthday party, it is time to call in the detectives, but they are out of town. Enter Officer Marcus Moscowicz, a neighbourhood cop who dreams of climbing the ranks. Here is his chance to prove his super sleuthing skills and solve the crime before the real detective arrives. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Stu Freestone: Launching first poetry collection at The Crescent

Book launch of the week: York Literature Festival and Say Owt present Stu Freestone, The Lights That Blur Between, The Crescent, York, March 30, 7pm to 10pm

YORK performance poet, Say Owt gobby collective associate artist and Cheese Trader cheesemonger Stu Freestone launches his debut poetry collection, The Lights That Blur Between, with two sets, one comedic, the other accompanied by guitarist Simone Focarelli, accordionist Ben Crosthwaite and drummer Joe Douglas. In support will be Grantham singer-songwriter Adam Leeson and York political satirist and performance poet Sarah Armitage.

Freestone’s poems explore the nostalgia of adolescence, relationships, loss and processing, as well as humorous themes of condiment addiction, festival trips gone wrong, cheesemonger battle raps and the perils of “after-work’ drinking in his honest portrayal of life experiences. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Dan Poppitt, Charlie Clarke, front, and Georgina Burt in rehearsal for Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Parade

The other American musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions in Parade, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 1 to 4, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

PRESENTED by York company Black Sheep Theatre Productions under the direction of Matthew Peter Clare, Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s stirring Tony Award-winning musical explores love and hope against the odds, set against a backdrop of political injustice and rising racial tension. 

Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew, is put on trial for murder in Marietta, Georgia, but when the world seems against you, receiving a fair trial might prove impossible. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Alison Moyet: Re-visiting Yazoo’s two synth-pop albums after more than 40 years at York Barbican. Picture: Naomi Davison

Gig announcement of the week: Alison Moyet, Songs Of Yazoo, the minutes and Other Tour, York Barbican, November 18

BASILDON soul, blues and pop singer-songwriter Alison Moyet will play York in one of ten new additions to her autumn tour, when she will focus on songs from Yazoo’s 1982-1983 catalogue, recorded with Vince Clarke, and a selection from her solo electronica albums, 2013’s the minutesand 2017’s Other, both co-written with producer Guy Sigsworth.

“Many years touring the same pool of songs and I am keen for a palate refresher,” says Moyet, 64. “Specifying which years I will be fishing from too, I think, is a grand way to serve pot luck for specific tastes. No bones.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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Full cast confirmed for Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman’s world premiere of twisted thriller The Psychic at York Theatre Royal

York Theatre Royal’s cast and creative team for Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s world premiere of The Psychic

THE full cast is in place for York Theatre Royal’s world premiere of The Psychic, a twisted thriller written and directed by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman.

Joining the already announced Frances Barber (as Rosa) and Eileen Walsh (Sheila Gold) are Megan Placito (Tara), Dave Hearn (Robert Hamm), Jaz Singh Deol (Deepak), Nikhita Lesler (Nisha) and East Yorkshire actor Charlie Blanshard (Mark).

After the international success of Ghost Stories, Dyson and Nyman return with a dark thriller that follows the story of popular TV psychic Sheila Gold. The production will open on May 6, preceded from April 29, and will run until May 23 with its combination of thrills, laughs and shocks.

The Psychic co-writers and co-directors Jeremy Dyson, left, and Andy Nyman

Sheila Gold loses a high-profile court case that brands her a charlatan, costing her not only her reputation, but also a fortune in legal fees. When a wealthy couple ask Sheila to conduct a séance to attempt to make contact with their late child, she senses an opportunity to bleed them for money.

What follows makes Sheila question everything she has ever believed and leads her on a journey into the darkest corners of her life.

Joining Dyson and  Nyman in the production team will be designer Rae Smith; illusion designer Chris Fisher; lighting designer Zoe Spurr; sound designer Nick Manning; video designer Duncan Mclean; casting director Arthur Carrington;  associate director Andy Room and design assistant Will Fricker.

The poster for York Theatre Royal’s world premiere of The Psychic

Award-winning Leeds-born writer and director Dyson’s writing credits include Ghost Stories, nominated for Olivier Award for Best Entertainment; The League Of Gentlemen Are Behind You, The League Of Gentlemen: A Local Show For Local People, nominated for Olivier Award for Best Entertainment, and The League Of Gentlemen.

His co-writing credits for television include Psychobitches, winner of Rose d’Or for Best TV Comedy and nominations for two British Comedy Awards; The Armstrong & Miller Show, BAFTA Award winner for Best Comedy; Billy Goat; Funland, nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Drama Serial and The League Of Gentlemen, winner of BAFTA Award for Best Comedy, Golden Rose of Montreux and RTS Award for Best Entertainment. Co-writing credits include Ghost Stories and The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse.

 Nyman is an award-winning actor, director and writer. As an actor, his theatre work includes The Producers(Menier Chocolate Factory/Garrick Theatre); Assassins; Terrible Advice(Menier Chocolate Factory); Fiddler On The Roof (Menier Chocolate Factory/Playhouse Theatre – Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical); Abigail’s Party (Menier Chocolate Factory/Wyndham’s Theatre); Hello, Dolly! (London Palladium) and Hangmen (Wyndham’s Theatre/Golden Theatre, New York City).

Charlie Blanshard: Appeared on the York stage in 2025 in his debut full-length play Jorvik and York company Next Door But One’s How To Be A Kid

He starred in Ghost Stories (Duke of York’s Theatre/Arts Theatre),  co-written and co-directed with Jeremy Dyson and later adapted into a film, in which he also starred.

His television credits include Hanna, Wanderlust, The Eichmann Show, Campus, Crooked House, Dead Set and Peaky Blinders. Among his film credits are Wicked: Part 1, Jungle Cruise, Judy, The Commuter, Death At A Funeral, Kick-Ass 2, Black Death, The Brothers Bloom, Severance and Shut Up & Shoot Me (Best Actor Award at the Cherbourg Film Festival).

Nyman has collaborated with Derren Brown for almost 20 years, co-writing and co-creating much of Brown’s early TV work. He has co-written and directed six of Brown’s stage shows, winning the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Derren Brown – Something Wicked This Way Comes and a New York Drama Desk Award for Best Unique Theatrical Event in 2017 for Derren Brown – Secret.

Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Mischief Theatre co-founder Dave Hearn: Last appeared on the York Theatre Royal stage in Original Theatre’s The Time Machine in March 2023

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Next To Normal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until April 4 ***

Andrew Isherwood’s cast in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Next To Normal: back row, from left, Ryan Richardson’s Dr Madden/DrFine, Matthew Warry’s Gabe, Dale Vaughan’s Dan, Niamh Rose’s Natalie and Fergus Green’s Henry; front, Monica Frost’s Diana. Picture: Emil Marczuk

BRIAN Yorkey and Tom Kitt’s 2009 triple Tony Award-winning American musical carries a content warning on the Theatre@41 website and noticeboards.

“Please note, that Next To Normalincludes depictions of various mental health conditions and disorders, including bipolar disorder, anxiety, and grief,” it reads. “The production also includes depictions and discussion of drug use, self-harm, death, and medical trauma.”

At the heart of this intimate exploration of family and illness, loss and grief is electroconvulsive therapy, but audiences are in for shock treatment too. Pick Me Up Theatre’s show is loud, very loud, sometimes too loud, and while loathe to call it an aural assault, the combination of a score operatic in dramatic scale, propelled by rock guitars as much as keyboards, and vexatious singing, where voices rise and rise and overlap, can become too much, too big.

Your senses take one heck of a bashing, nothing by comparison with grief-riven suburban American wife and mother Diana’s 16 years of manic depression, granted, but you might want to let out a scream, if it were not so indelicate to do so.

Imagine a union of Alanis Morissette’s Thank U and Greek tragedy, as intense as clenched teeth, as restless as waiting for test results, in a musical stronger on malady than melody, as too many modern American shows are.

Director Andrew Isherwood, on an award-winning hot streak, seeks to find a chink of light in the shroud of darkness, drawing on the sporadic shards of humour, particularly in Act One, but they tend to sit awkwardly, as jagged as broken glass, under the weight of Kitt’s oppressive, largely depressive music.

Leading a merry dance: Ryan Richardson’s Dr Madden in a clasp with Monica Frost’s Diana. Picture: Joanna Hird

We meet the family in Robert Readman’s dark design of the kitchen, with a stairway to the bedrooms on the mezzanine level above. Between pillars can be seen musical director James Robert Ball’s band, Ball pretty much out of view but playing as beautifully as ever on the keyboard, complemented by Helen Warry’s violin and synths, Georgia Johnson’s bass, Joel Fergusson’s drums, Catherine Strachan’s cello and  Neil Morgan’s itchy guitar.

Pent-up dad Dan (Dale Vaughan) is an architect trying to hold the increasingly flimsy domestic structure in place. Mum  Diana is always in a rush but going nowhere fast, talking in front of the children of nipping upstairs for sex, making sandwiches for packed lunches, but she is cutting them on the floor.  

“Happy Easter,” she says, when teenage daughter Natalie points out that the wall calendar remains on April from the year before. Nothing she says makes sense, says Dan, confiding in the audience as he breaks down theatre’s fourth wall.

Natalie (a suitably prickly Niamh Rose) is bright, but agitated, her behaviour gradually mirroring her mother, distant, even sour, when fellow student Henry (Fergus Green) will not be put off by her cold shoulder. Eyes are said to be the window to the soul, but both Rose and Green have a curtain of hair, in the manner of Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke’s Kevin & Perry.

Brother Gabe (Matthew Warry) flits in and out, always in his mum’s corner and ear but often at odds with his dad. His story is central to her decline, but it would be wrong to give away the full details here, as the revelation needs to be gradual.

Frost looks younger than she is playing, Rose older, which is initially disorientating, but the characterisation and mannerisms soon emphasise the age difference.

Monica Frost’s Diana, Matthew Warry’s Gabe and Dale Vaughan’s Dan in the kitchen in Next To Normal. Picture: Joanna Hird

Your reviewer may not be alone in not connecting with any of the family members, in part because of so much self-pitying song content, while Green’s stoner Henry is something of a saint for persisting in caring for Natalie.

If laughter is the best medicine, then Ryan Richardson has his moments as a brace of doctors, Dr Madden and Dr Fine. Note the names: Madden and Fine, specialists in dealing with mental illness and trying to make you feel fine. Richardson has a disarming manner, something of the night about him, but more Dr Frank-N-Furter than Dr Frankenstein, putting the scare into care, yet always seeking to be reassuring despite all the shortfalls and pitfalls  in Diana’s ECT treatment.

Next To Normal is pretty much a sung-through musical, with only the briefest bursts of dialogue leading to the next outburst in song. More to-and-fro talk, fewer stand-and-deliver songs, would have been a better balance, rounding out the characterisation more fully too, a deficiency that undermined the show publicity’s promise of “presenting the family’s story with love, sympathy and heart”. Alas, your reviewer did not feel any of those emotions being stirred.

“Next to normal” is not only how the dysfunctional family eventually settles on living but sums up this musical too: it is indeed next to normal – if the likes of Six, Legally Blonde, Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, Buddy and Calendar Girls pass as normal – in being so discomforting, disquieting, musically unnerving, mentally exhausting, as unflinching as Spring Awakening.

The performances are better than the show, Ball’s band pulling out all the strings, and Isherwood’s cast equally committed to going hell for leather when in collective song, especially in the high-stakes sparring of Vaughan and Warry. Tenderness has its place too, and those songs are more rewarding, especially when Frost’s Diana is at her most emotionally damaged.

“There will be light, there will be light, there will be light, there will be light,” concludes the closing song Light, an assertion that feels wholly unconvincing, like the restoration of order at the end of Macbeth.

Pick Me Up Theatre, Next To Normal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until April 4; 7.30pm nightly except Sunday; 2.30pm matinees, tomorrow, Sunday and next Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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Why 2: 22 A Ghost Story is more than jump scares for Natalie Casey on stage return in timely Danny Robins supernatural thriller

Natalie Casey’s Lauren and James Bye’s Sam in Danny Robins’ 2:22 A Ghost Story, on tour at Grand Opera House, York, next week

THE numbers add up for metropolitan supernatural thriller 2:22 A Ghost Story. Seven West End seasons, 12 productions worldwide, one record-breaking UK and Ireland tour, now being followed by another.

Next stop, a return to the Grand Opera House, York, from March 31 to April 4 after a first spooking in Europe’s self-proclaimed “most haunted city” in May 2024.

From the imagination of The Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny podcaster, broadcaster and journalist Danny Robins comes the paranormal tale of teacher-on-maternity-leave Jenny (Three Little Birds’ Shvorne Marks) and always-right scientist Sam (EastEnders’ James Bye) hosting their first dinner party since becoming the latest “posh tw*ts” to move into a newly gentrified Greater London neighbourhood.

For several nights, Jenny has been disturbed at 2:22am precisely by the sound of someone moving around the house and a man’s voice crying, picked up via the baby monitor in daughter Phoebe’s bedroom. 

She is convinced the house is haunted, but Sam scoffs at the suggestion, sparking an argument with dinner guests Lauren (Natalie Casey), Sam’s best friend since university days, and her latest boyfriend, builder Ben (Grant Kilburn), a streetwise, working-class counter to the yuppie London intellectuals.

Can the dead really walk again? Belief and scepticism clash, but as the sudden sounds, screams and blinding lights multiply and the trendy wine  flows, they will stay up until 2:22am to discover the answer in Robins’ thriller of Hitchcockian elan.

Facing up to the supernatural: James Bye, left, Shvorne Marks, Natalie Casey and Grant Kilburn in 2:22 A Ghost Story

“The thing about this show is that it’s a phenomenon,” says cast member Natalie Casey, once of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. “I’ve never been involved in anything like it. MAGA [Make America Great Again] is a cult, but 2:22 is a phenomenon. I’ve never done a show before where people scream, they cry, and it grabs them by whatever they want to be grabbed by!

“I first auditioned for it many years ago, but didn’t get it and was very sad about that, but I think I must have stayed on their radar as I was asked to do this tour – though I hadn’t toured for a long time – and got very excited when I saw who else would be doing it.

“It’s reinvigorated my love of touring, and it’s been amazing meeting people around the country, where we know that this is a time when lots is going on to divide people, when in fact  all we want is to get on with our neighbours and just hug each other.”

Analysing why 2:22 is more than a supernatural thriller, Natalie says: “It’s very richly layered. On the surface it’s about the jump scares, but it’s also a play about fear, longing and our refusal as human beings to let things go when we need to.

“To be able to deliver that message to people in the dark of a theatre, where they can feel real emotions together, is an amazing feeling to get as an actor. As dark as our times are, I can feel we want better, we want more, and theatre is a magical part of that.”

Natalie’s character, Lauren, comes from California. “So I’m doing a slight ‘Valley girl’ accent – I’m good at American accents as they infect every part of our lives,” she says. “I’m playing someone who’s completely unlike me, but that’s the chameleon quality of acting, where my dream is to be in Star Trek. I’d love to play a Klingon!”

New house, old friends: James Bye’s Sam, left, and Shvorne Marks’s Jenny, right, welcome Natalie Casey’s Lauren and Grant Kilburn’s Ben for dinner in 2:22 A Ghost Story

Actress, presenter, narrator and singer Natalie feels very lucky to be on stage with James Bye, Shvorne Marks and Grant Kilburn. “It’s very easy to ramp up the tension when you have actors so committed to doing that, and immediately the house becomes very claustrophobic: that feeling of walls closing on you,” she says.

Throughout, the clock is on the move. “There is the symbolism of time, how it will inevitably pass, whether we like it or not, and how it will reveal too, whether we want it to or not,” says Natalie.

Does she believe in the supernatural? “I’m not a believer, I’m a ‘man of science’. I’ve never experienced what could be classed as ‘supernatural’ or felt it, but I also know that science takes a long time to catch up, so I would never say that anyone who has had a supernatural experience is wrong. It’s just that we’ve not  yet reached the point where we can explain it,” says Natalie. “In an infinite world with infinite possibilities, there are infinite explanations.

“It’s part of our collective psyche, that obsession with what is just beyond our periphery; our need to reach out to what is just beyond our understanding. We will always look to give meaning to our world.”

Summing up 2:22 A Ghost Story, she says. “It might look like a simple piece of theatre with two couples sitting around a dinner party table, but it turns into a play about love and loss, mourning and yearning for a different life. This play will be watched for decades. This play will never die. Oh, the irony.”  

2:22 A Ghost Story, Grand Opera House, York, March 31 to April 4, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Black Sheep Theatre puts justice on trial in Parade at Joseph Rowntree Theatre amid religious intolerance and racial tension

Dan Poppitt, Charlie Clarke and Georgina Burt in rehearsal for Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Parade

MURDER in myriad forms is making its way on to North Yorkshire’s stages this spring, whether Tigerslane Studios’ real-true-crime courtroom drama Murder Trial Tonight IV: Death Of A Landlord at York Barbican last Sunday or Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s madcap musical whodunit Murder For Two, “putting the laughter into manslaughter” at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from Saturday.

Next comes York company Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ staging of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s stirring Tony Award-winning musical Parade, first performed in 1998 and now more topical than ever in its exploration of love and hope against the odds, set against a backdrop of religious intolerance, political injustice and rising racial tension.

The tragic true story of the trial and lynching of  a man wrongly accused of murder will be brought to life anew at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from April 1 to 4.

The setting is 1913, when Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew living in Georgia, is put on trial for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, a factory worker under his employ. Already guilty in the eyes of everyone around him, his only defenders are a governor with a conscience and his assimilated Jewish wife, who finds the strength and love to become his greatest champion when the world seems against you and receiving a fair trial might prove impossible.

Director/musical director  Matthew Peter Clare welcomes the chance to put Parade on parade. “It was due to be done in Leeds but that production got pulled because of Covid,” he says. “It’s not been done in York for at least a decade, and it’s fantastic for us to get hold of the rights, but it is an upsetting piece.

“It’s set in Marietta, near Atlanta, Georgia, post the race riots there, but pre the Great Depression and it’s based on a real-life trial of Leo Frank, who worked in middle management as a superintendent in a pencil factory.

“When one of the employees, Mary Phagan, is murdered, instead of doing a proper investigation, they arrest the nearest Jewish guy – whereas the the nearest black guy is let off because of the race riots, when politically it now wasn’t seen to be right to prosecute a black man.

“So they go with prosecuting Leo Frank, with all the prejudices  of the public heavily influencing the trial with the attitude of ‘he’s Jewish, so get rid.’”

Parade chimes with Black Sheep’s policy of presenting “theatre with a point  that encourages audience reflection”. “This is a show that, like our productions of Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens and Falsettos, is pushing the concept of ‘other’ to the front and shows the impact of moving against the ‘other’ at a time of racial prejudice,” says Matthew.

Playing the role of Leo Frank will be Black Sheep regular Dan Poppitt. “With regard to Leo, we said from very early on in rehearsals that he was not raised in Atlanta, unlike his wife Lucille, but from Brooklyn, and only moved there when offered a job by Lucille’s uncle, so Leo is seen as a Jewish man first, whereas Lucille is seen as Georgian first, Jewish second,” he says

“These are the nuances that we wanted to promote: the significance of his Jewish heritage and how that leads to prejudice.”

Dan has been particularly keen to be authentic in his portrayal. “Like having to learn Hebrew,” he says. “I’ve studied it phonetically to make sure that the dialogue is pronounced accurately.

Eloise Schneck rehearsing her role as Mary Phagan in Parade

“It’s a case of speaking it properly and with clear intention and how it should be delivered in society at that time.”

Molly Whitehouse is playing Leo’s wife Lucille, an assimilated Jewish woman, which means she “adopts the language, dress and secular cultural habits of the majority population”.

“I’m a northerner first and had a very secular upbringing,” she says. “That regional identity that you draw so much pride from, especially as a queer, working-class woman, can put you on the edge of the community.

“In Lucille’s case, she is already so close to the border of what’s acceptable in Georgia.”

Charlie Clarke has four roles in Parade, two on stage, as Mrs Phagan and Sally Slaton, and two off, as assistant director and choreographer. “I don’t do things by halves!” she says. “Luckily with Matthew directing and being the musical director too, I can spread what I do.

“As choreographer and assistant director, we’ve spoken about how each actor has to give each character their own identity, like Reggie Challenor playing two characters [Jim Conley and Newt Lee] who are the complete antithesis of each other.

“We’ve also discussed how, first of all, they’re all representing real people on stage and how they must make sure that’s pushed through in their performances – and the cast have been really receptive to that.

“We have to ensure we tell the story with truth because, before it’s a musical, it’s a true story.”

Dan rejoins: “I think, especially with a stage show, it’s very easy to forget they’re real characters, but every single person in the show was a real person with a life from before the show’s story began.”

The design will be “incredibly minimalist,” says Matthew. “The blocks we used in Falsettos will be used again, but in a different way, not to evoke houses but the red hills of Georgia. They’re being utilised either as part of the choreography or they’re serving as the landscape.”

Should you be wondering, Parade is so named because the story opens and closes on the day of the Marietta parade for the Confederates’ Memorial Day. “So that’s the framing device, celebrating Georgian identity, but unfortunately there’s a dark underside to that identity, where it prevails, being regardless of the truth in this trial,” says Matthew.

Black Sheep Theatre Productions in Parade, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 1 to 4, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

Who’s in the cast for Parade?

Dan Poppitt as Leo Frank; Molly Whitehouse, Lucille Frank; Reggie Challenor, Jim Conley/Newt Lee; Eloise Schneck, Mary Phagan; Oskar Nuttall, Frankie Epps/Young Soldier; Mark Simmonds, Governor Slaton/Old Slaton; Charlie Clarke, Mrs Phagan/Sally Slaton; Pauline Tomlin, Minnie McKnight; Jack Hooper, Hugh Dorsey; Richard Bayton, Britt Craig; Georgina Burt, Iola Stover;  David Copley Martin, Judge Roan; Jack James Fry, Luther Rosser/Officer Ivey; Sophia Razak, Essie, and Sarah Rudd, Monteen.

Who’s in the production team?

Director and musical director: Matthew Peter Clare; assistant director & choreographer: Charlie Clarke; assistant choreographer& welfare officer: Jack James Fry; costumier: Molly Whitehouse; sound designer: Ollie Nash; lighting designer: Adam Kirkwood; stage managers: Megan Bostock & Steve Hibbs.

Coming next from Black Sheep Theatre Productions

They did the monster match: Dan Poppitt’s Alan and Molly Whitehouse’s Minnie in Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ poster for Love At First Bite

JOSH Woodgate will direct Dan Poppitt and Molly Whitehouse’s seductive new work Love At First Bite at Theatre@41, Monkgate, from June 4 to 6.

“Dating can be hell, but what if one of them was a creature of the night?” ponder the co-writers.

What happens? Alan and Minnie meet at a speed-dating night. A spark flickers. Dates follow. Laughter lingers.

“Yet beneath the rhythms of a familiar rom-com, something waits in the dark,” say Poppitt and Whitehouse, who will play the lovers. “One of them is a vampire — but the secret shifts. Each night, the actors trade fangs, and the audience is left to wonder who is hunter, who is prey.”

Blending sharp-fanged wit with a brush of gothic shadow, Love At First Bite toys with romance, rewrites folklore and invites audiences to consider what it means to love…and to hunger!

Woodgate’s production will mark Black Sheep’s return to Theatre@41, Monkgate, after last year’s staging of The Tempest and The Inner Selves. Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday matinee are on sale at tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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Emmerdale bad lad Tom Lister to play Captain Hook in Grand Opera House panto The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan

Tom Lister’s Captain Hook in the poster for The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan: The Return Of Captain Hook

EMMERDALE star Tom Lister is Hooking up with the Grand Opera House to make his York pantomime debut in The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan: The Return Of Captain Hook from December 5 to January 3 2027.

Stage and screen actor Lister, 47, best known for his eight years as bad lad Carl King in the Yorkshire soap from 2004 to 2012, will be in villainous mode anew as Captain Hook, performing alongside the already confirmed comedic returnee Jimmy Bryant as Smee in the UK Productions show.

Born Thomas Brown in Ingleton, Yorkshireman Lister took his mother’s maiden name when turning professional. Since graduating from Birmingham School of Acting in 2001, he has played Harry Wainwright in Heartbeat and Rob Ingram in The Bill, as well as appearing in Doctors and Hollyoaks and taking on the guise of jazz pianist Jamie Cullum on Stars In Their Eyes.

On leaving Emmerdale in October 2012, he played Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Sundreland Empire that winter and has since branched out into musical theatre as Grimes in the world premiere of Water Babies at Curve, Leicester, in April 2014, subsequently appearing as Wild Bill Hickoc in the 2014 UK tour of Calamity Jane, as well as in 42nd Street in the West End and Legally Blonde The Musical.

He will be on familiar panto terrain once more as Captain Hook this winter, having won the Best Villain prize at the inaugural Great British Pantomime Awards in 2017 for his performance in Peter Pan in the 2016-2017 season at the Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage.

“I’m so excited to be sailing into York this Christmas as Captain Hook,” says Tom. “He’s a role I love, and I swear he gets more wicked and mischievous every year I play him!

“As a Yorkshireman, York is very close to my heart, and I can’t wait to spend Christmas in this beautiful city. I am really looking forward to teaming up with Jimmy Bryant to bring all of the festive magic and mayhem of panto. So come aboard and join us, or you’ll be walking the plank.”

Producer Martin Dodd adds: “We’re delighted that the wonderfully charismatic Tom Lister will be appearing as the deliciously devilish Captain Hook in this year’s pantomime.  Tom brings real star quality to Neverland. Paired with the brilliantly funny Jimmy Bryant as Smee, audiences can expect a perfect storm of comedy, adventure and just a touch of villainous charm.”

The Further Adventures Of Peter Pan: The Return of Captain Hook will run at the Grand Opera House, York, from December 5 to January 3 2027. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.