Shôn Dale-Jones revisits emergency fund-raising show The Duke, collecting funds for Save The Children at Theatre@41 tonight

Shôn Dale-Jones in The Duke. Picture: Jaimie Gramston

SHON Dale-Jones heads to Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight with a re-working of his Edinburgh Fringe First award-winning, fund-raising one-man show, The Duke. 

Along with his show about inequality, privilege and poverty, Me And Robin Hood, The Duke has raised more than £100,000 for charities supporting children refugees and street-connected children. Proceeds from his latest tour will go to Save The Children’s Emergency Fund.  

Exploring kindness, generosity and the value of what we do, The Duke weaves together the tragi-comic fate of a family heirloom (a porcelain figure of the Duke of Wellington), the  quandary of a scriptwriter stretching his integrity and an unfolding disaster as thousands of children flee their homes. 

Bristol writer-performer Shôn blends theatre, comedy and storytelling with fantasy and reality to gently challenge our priorities in a world full of crisis in a 60-minute play premiered in 2016 in response to the refugee crisis that exploded following the ‘Syrian Conflict’.

The Duke was re-written and revived last year in response to the ever-evolving and worsening refugee crisis following more conflicts and disasters around the world.

 “Every show I make is made for a particular reason,” says Shôn. “I made The Duke in 2016 because I wanted to find a way of doing something practical about ‘the refugee crisis’.

“I couldn’t watch more images of the terrifying reality that these people are suffering without contributing towards the relief effort. I’m not a doctor or an engineer – I’m a writer/performer – and so I decided I could write a show which connects us to the crisis and raise money to support Save The Children’s refugee and crisis work.

“Now, in 2025, I’ve returned to The Duke because ‘the refugee crisis’ has become more extreme and heavily politicised. It feels more important than ever to remind each other that we are talking about people. People like us. It might be complicated to find solutions to the crisis but it’s straightforward to practise empathy for innocent people whose lives are being torn apart.”

Shôn continues:“We feel passionately about what the show is aiming to achieve: to make audiences wonder about the value of art at a time when the world is in turmoil and to reach out and empathise with the refugee crisis.

“We want to increase our empathy for people whose lives have been torn apart and forced them to seek refuge and sanctuary away from home. The show is a vehicle for raising money and awareness. It’s a conduit to an urgent and immediate need and we hope our audiences join us in empathising and raising money to support this cause.”

How did The Duke first emerge? “What happened was I’d spent over a year developing a TV show and at the end I was told I had a couple of months to wait for it to be confirmed,” recalls Shôn.

“I hadn’t expected that, so I thought it would be useful to use those months to write a play, and what was going on at that time was our TV screens were being bombarded with images of the Syrian crisis. We were seeing images of the refugee camps for the first time.

“My father had died, my mother was lonely, and I was concerned about whether my TV proposal would be accepted, so I wrote a solo show that intertwined all those narratives.

“The Duke connects me and my relationship with my mother

The Duke cooconnectsmeandmyrelationshipwithmymother,andmyworkinglifeasawriter,tothelifeofarefugeewhoisherewithhertwoyoungdaughtersthatdon’tknowwhethertheirfatherisaliveordead.TheDukeconnectsustotherefugeecrisisbysharingourcommonhumanityandthelovingbondthatexistsbetweenchildren,mothersandfathers.

What happened next? “The TV project never materialised, so I thought, ‘I’ll go back into theatre’ and set up The Duke as a fund-raising show for Save The Children, where I would give theatres the show and rather than paying for their tickets, audiences would give to the charity.

“I played the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016, then London, Norway and Australia, and the play got translated into Flemish, (Brazilian) Portuguese and Turkish, so there are now other versions being presented around the world.”

Shôn enthuses: “I thought, ‘there’s something in this’, and it’s rekindled my desire to work in theatre and engage with social and political issues. I then made the second show [Me And Robin Hood] for Street Child United, who put on a World Cup for children around the world, which was held a month before the World Cup.

“I went to Chennai in India and did some work directly with one of the homes out there and then  I worked with a company in Belgium. I’m still making a lot of theatre but I’m also back in TV development now. I’m still optimistic but less naive.”

Assessing why The Duke has had such an impact, Shôn says: “I think it has an emotional sincerity to it. We’re concerned for our parents when they get older, and it’s also impossible for us not to get caught up in the narrative surrounding refugee camps, but then there is the question of how much do you focus on your professional development when you know there are other things needing your support.

“The whole idea of contributing, of helping others, is deeply embedded in my family. Both my grandmother and my mother were embedded in charity work. My grandmother worked for Oxfam when it was first set up; my mother has worked for all sorts of agencies: for the NSPCC, Samaritans and the Adoption UK charity.

“What I think I found when I started working with humanitarian relief projects was it was so different from the theatre world, and I suddenly found a different dimension to my theatre work, connecting my storytelling to things that were more meaningful.”

Summing up The Duke, he says: “The play connects me and my relationship with my mother, and my working life as a writer, to the life of a refugee who is here with her two young daughters that don’t know whether their father is alive or dead.

“The Duke connects us to the refugee crisis by sharing our common humanity and the loving bond that exists between children, mothers and fathers.”

From an initial expectation of raising maybe £4,000-£5,000 from  the four-week Edinburgh Fringe run, Shôn’s charity donations have passed the £100,000 mark, even in straitened times when the average charity donation has gone down from £8  to £4. “I’ve resolved to keep sending the donations to the charities that work on the ground,” he says.

SDJ Productions presents Shôn Dale-Jones  in The Duke, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight at 7.30pm. Box office:  tickets.41monkgate.co.uk or by emailing boxoffice@41monkgate.co.uk.

Shôn Dale-Jones: back story

BORN in Llangefni on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales. Studied Drama & Film at University of East Anglia (1987-1990) and trained at Lecoq School in Paris (1990-1992) while making street theatre and performing stand-up. 

Works as a writer, performer, director and producer, making work on stage, radio, screen and elsewhere. Created 29 theatre shows, six radio plays, several films and site-specific and outdoor work since 1994.

His work has toured to more than 20 countries, across six continents and been translated into seven languages. Partners have included BBC, Barbican, Royal Court, National Theatre Studios, National Theatre Wales and Sydney Opera House.

Previously founding director of Hoipolloi and Hugh Hughes Productions before launching SDJ Productions.

The Duke: back story

PERFORMED  at venues across the world from Africa to Australia, at a host of London theatres, including the Royal Court, Barbican and Soho Theatre, and on UK tours.

Won Fringe First Award; highly commended in Sit Up and Act Awards; nominated for Prix Europa Award in Best European Radio Fiction category. Made into BBC Radio 4 play in 2018.

Revised show is touring throughout England and Wales this spring, asking audiences to continue to make a difference to the lives of refugees by inviting them to donate to Save The Children’s Emergency Fund after performances.

REVIEW: NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ***

Sam Bailey’s April Devonshire, left, and Nina Wadia’s Gemma Warner, with the Birmingham skyline behind them, reconnect in NOW That’s What I Call A Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

THE familiar chunky bold typeface and loud colours of the NOW compilation album series greets the audience on a huge sign, hanging high above Tom Rogers and Toots Butcher’s  set design, to announce we are in the presence of NOW That’s What I Call A Musical.

Next, the equally familiar tones of Craig Revel Horwood, the pantomime villain of Strictly Come Dancing’s judges, voices the obligatory recorded request to switch off all electronic equipment, backed up by the promise of a fab-u-lous show.

Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he, as he is the director-choreography, and the show has all the hallmarks of what the flamboyant Australian loves in a performance: energy, more energy, impish expression, personality and well-drilled routines.

NOW That’s What I Call A Musical is very much Now That’s What I Call A Jukebox Musical, driven in this case by a multitude of 1980s’ smashes guilty pleasures and karaoke bangers with musical supervision, orchestrations and vocal arrangements by Mark Crossland that are invariably as loud and bold as that NOW signage.

NOW’s book writer, Pippa Evans, is an author, writer, performer and BBC Radio 4 and Edinburgh Fringe musical comedy regular with a track record for improvisation and musical theatre (as a founder member of Showstopper! The Improvised Musical), and significantly too she was the dramaturg on 9 To 5: The Musical.

In other words, she knows how to structure a musical’s emotional ebb and flow, and now, in adding ‘jukebox musical’ to her polymath portfolio, she shows a facility for finding humorous ways to shoehorn songs with a knowing wink into the flow of her plot, from Tainted Love to Gold, Everybody Wants To Rule The World to St Elmo’s Fire, as well as delivering punchlines and putdowns aplenty.

That plot is set in Birmingham, now and back then, or more accurately in 2009 and 1989, opening at the Sparkhill school reunion for the Class of ’89, leading into a full-throttle burst of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax, one of multiple ensemble numbers that revel in Revel Horwood’s terpsichorean panache.

At this “most dreaded event of their lives”, stoical nurse Gemma Warner (Nina Wadia, last seen in York as Fairy Sugarsnap in the Theatre Royal’s 2023-2024 pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk) is awaiting the arrival of April Devonshire (The X Factor winner Sam Bailey), the best friend she has not seen for years since she headed for Hollywood.

The open-plan design allows the storyline to move between the 20-year division, quickly introducing the younger versions of the more practical Gemma (Nikita Johal) and the dreamer April (Maia Hawkins) that go on to dominate Act One, with scenes in the Warner kitchen and the schoolgirls’ bedrooms in days of planning their lives around Number One magazine quizzes and dreaming of snogging Rick Astley.

We see how Mum (Poppy Tierney) and Dad (Christopher Glover) met (cue their version of Tainted Love, Brummie accents et al), as well as younger versions of Gemma’s entrepreneurial brother Frank (Luke Latchman), school lad Steve (Matthew Mori) and later mullet-haired Tim (Kieran Cooper), who will give hints of the cheating husband to Gemma that he becomes (Chris Grahamson).

Some songs, such as Grahamson’s venal performance of Gold, are used to capture a character; others, like a dazzling silver-suited take on Video Called The Radio Star are there for the fun of it. Some, notably Tainted Love, combine both, switching from a confessional duet for Mum and Dad into an elegant dance routine for six ensemble members.

Act Two fills in the blanks of the missing years, taking on the darker themes of infidelity, broken promises, shattered dreams, strained friendships and infertility as the older Gemma and April move  centre stage, with Wadia and Bailey taping  into pathos and pain as much as humour (especially in Wadia’s drunken scene) as the revelations mount and the friction sparks.

Wadia, in her first pop musical role, has worked on her singing skills to be more than proficient alongside the powerhouse Bailey, whose opening to Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves is the show’s knockout vocal high point.

Grahamson’s smug rat Tim comes to the fore, Shakil Hussain’s Frank steps out of the shadows, and both Callum Tempest’s Barney  and Phil Sealey’s Steve have their moment, the latter putting a full vat of chips into his fleshy take on the Chippendales. Meanwhile, Lauren Hendricks’s teacher Ms Dorian makes the most of her cameos too.

The show taps further into the Eighties’ nostalgia with a roster of guest stars for the tour, from Sonia and T’Pau’s Carol Decker to Toyah Willcox (in Edinburgh) and Sinitta, York’s star turn, who turns from bedroom wall poster and face on a bedspread to bursting into life at Gemma’s initiation and duly sings So Macho, all in white, with a diva final flourish.

She returns for the medley finale too, an effervescent conclusion to a show that may be clichéd but has heart and much as hits and humour, knows its target audience, knows Birmingham (with a good joke about its “beauty”), and knows its Eighties’ pop nuggets, from the teenage exuberance of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and a creepy Every Breath You Take to a table-spinning You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) and a climactic Hold Me Now.

NOW That’s What I Call A Musical runs at Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 11, from Gazette & Herald

York Pop artist Harland Miller with his new work York from his XXX exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Olivia Hemingway

FROM Harland Miller’s Pop Art to Emma Rice’s theatrical world premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, these are exciting times for artistic expression, Charles Hutchinson reports.

XXXhibition of the week: Harland Miller: XXX, York Art Gallery, until August 31, open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm

YORK-RAISED artist and writer Harland Miller has returned to York Art Gallery to launch XXX, showcasing paintings and works on paper from his Letter Paintings series, including the unveiling of several new paintings, not least ‘York’, a floral nod to Yorkshire’s white rose and York’s daffodils.   

Inspired by his upbringing in 1970s’ Yorkshire and an itinerant lifestyle in New York, New Orleans, Berlin and Paris during the 1980s and 1990s, Miller creates colourful and graphically vernacular works that convey his love of popular language and attest to his enduring engagement with its narrative, aural and typographical possibilities. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk.

Simon Oskarsson’s Valerian, left, Ewan Wardrop’s Roger Thornhill, Katy Owen’s Professor and Mirabelle Gremaud’s Anna rehearsing a scene for Emma Rice’s production of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By North West. Picture: Steve Tanner

World premiere of the week in York: Wise Children in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, York Theatre Royal, until April 5, 7.30pm plus 2pm, March 26 and April 3; 2.30pm, March 29 and April 5

IT would be strange if, in a city of seven million people, one man were never mistaken for another…and that is exactly what happens to Roger Thornhill, reluctant hero of North By Northwest, when a mistimed phone call to his mother lands him smack bang in the middle of a Cold War conspiracy. Now he is on the run, dodging spies, airplanes and a femme fatale who might not be all she seems.

Wise Children writer-director Emma Rice turns film legend Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller on its head in her riotously humorous reworking. Replete with six shape-shifting performers, a fabulous 1950s’ soundtrack and a heap of hats, this dazzling co-production with York Theatre Royal, HOME Manchester and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse plays with heart, mind and soul in a topsy-turvy drama full of glamour, romance, jeopardy and a liberal sprinkling of tender truths. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Nina Wadia’s Gemma and Sam Bailey’s April in NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith

Musical of the week: NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees, today and Saturday

DIRECTED by Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, comedian Pippa Evans’s hit-laden musical is set in Birmingham in 1989 and 2009. Back in the day, school friends Gemma Warner and April Devonshire are planning their lives based on Number One magazine quizzes and dreaming of snogging Rick Astley. Twenty years later, Gemma (Nina Wadia) and April (The X Factor winner Sam Bailey) face the most dreaded event of their adult lives: the school reunion.

Drama, old flames and receding hairlines come together as friends reunite and everything from the past starts to slot into place. Sinitta, Eighties’s pop star of So Macho and Toy Boy fame, will be the guest star all week in a show featuring Gold, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Tainted Love, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves et al. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Nearly here: Nearly here: Paddy McGuinness brings his Nearly There tour to York Barbican tomorrow

Comedy gig of the week: Paddy McGuinness, Nearly There, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7.45pm

FARNWORTH comedian, television and radio presenter and game show host Paddy McGuinness plays York on his first stand-up itinerary since 2016. Launching the 40 dates last year, he said: “It’s been eight years since my last tour and there’s lots of things to laugh about! I’m looking forward to getting back in front of a live audience, along with running the gauntlet of cancel culture, click bait and fake news.” Tickets update: only a handful of single seats still available at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Contemporary jazz gig of the week: Jamie Taylor & Jamil Sheriff, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, tomorrow, doors 7.30pm

THE musical association and friendship between guitarist Jamie Taylor, principal lecturer in jazz guitar at Leeds Conservatoire, and Leeds jazz pianist, composer and educator Jamil Sheriff goes back over 20 years of performing together in settings ranging from intimate small groups to large ensembles, such as Sheriff’s own big band.

Playing as a duo at Rise, they will channel this shared history and musical empathy, taking inspiration from jazz piano and guitar collaborations such as Bill Evans with Jim Hall and Fred Hersch with Bill Frisell. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.

Dr Rangan Chatterjee: Health and happiness hacks at York Barbican

Meet “the architect of health and happiness”: Dr Rangan Chatterjee, The Thrive Tour 2025, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm

JOIN Dr Rangan Chatterjee, inspirational host of Europe’s biggest health podcast, Feel Better, Live More, author and star of BBC One’s Doctor In The House, for two transformative hours of learning the skill of happiness, discovering the secrets to optimal health, breaking free from habits that hold you back and discovering how to make changes that last. “Be empowered, be inspired and learn how to thrive,” he says. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

James Jay Lewis: Raw garage blues at Milton Rooms, Malton

Ryedale blues gig of the week: James Jay Lewis, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm

SELFT-TAUGHT multi-instrumentalist James Jay Lewis has performed with The La’s and played bass for fellow Liverpool band Cast and now lead guitar in The Zutons, having earlier formed the band Cractilla.

He has written, recorded and produced two solo albums, the acoustic odyssey Back To The Fountain and the lo-fi, rough and ready garage blues of Waiting For The World, on which he plays all the instruments. He has worked with Nile Rodgers at Abbey Road Studios, is involved in the new Zutons album and is venturing into recording, producing and composing for television and film. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Alligator Gumbo: Re-creating New Orleans 1920s’ jazz in 2025 Helmsley on Saturday

New Orleans jazz jive of the week: Alligator Gumbo 2025, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

LEEDS seven-piece band Alligator Gumbo evoke the Roaring Twenties’ heyday of the New Orleans swing/jazz era, when music was raw, fast paced and largely improvised with melodies and solos happening simultaneously over foot-stomping rhythms. Their repertoire is built around songs made famous by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Jelly Roll Morton, and Billie Holiday, played in the traditional style. Box office:  01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.  

National Theatre Connections turns spotlight on new plays and young performers at York Theatre Royal Studio

Ravers: Part of the National Theatre Connections programme at York Theatre Royal Studio

THE National Theatre Connections programme in the York Theatre Royal Studio welcomes Westborough High School this evening at 6.15pm to present Jane Bodie’s The Company Of Trees.

Playwright, screenwriter and teacher Bodie’s drama about bullying, bravery, the power of nature, finding friendship, loneliness and Hanoi the giant tortoise follows new girl Willow as she moves into town but is not welcomed by the popular gang. Meanwhile, when a spectacular gymnastic accident leaves Taylor bed-bound, her once loyal gang begin to drop away.

Enter Willow, to share Taylor’s solitude, teach her about trees and poems that don’t rhyme, whereupon Taylor begins to heal.

Suitable for age 14 upwards, The Company Of Trees features strong language, themes of bullying, references to physical injury and the loss of a parent.

Vickie Donoghue’s Fresh Air will be staged by South Hunsley School tonight at 7.45pm and John Smeaton Academy on Thursday at 7.15pm.

Fresh Air: Featuring in the National Theatre Connections season at York Theatre Royal Studio

In this  Essex stage, screen and radio writer’s play, students from a pupil referral group are made to go orienteering in what they discover is England’s most haunted woods. Stalked by eerie ghost children determined to keep them there forever, they must learn to confront the here and now to unlock the key to their futures.

Suitable for age 14 upwards, Fresh Air features moderate language, mild gore, mild dread, ghosts and supernatural elements throughout, references to mental health and one instance of a character being choked.

Writer, director, composer, choreographer, designer, producer and film, theatre, TV and radio performer Rikki Beadle-Blair’s Ravers will be performed by Wyke Sixth Form College tomorrow at 6.15pm and York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre (York St John University group) on Saturday at 12 noon and 7pm.

A rag-tag group of self-described “neeks” (nerds and geeks) gathers at midnight in a local park to hold a “‘dry rave” (No intoxicants). Will the group succeed in redefining “cool” or will the powers-that-be succeed in shutting down the neek revolution?

Again suitable for age 14 upwards, Ravers has depictions of underage drinking, moderate language, themes of anxiety and references to the loss of a parent.

Brain Play: One of the plays to be performed at York Theatre Royal Studio this week

Oxfordshire playwright Chloë Lawrence-Taylor and Olivier-nominated playwright, dramaturg and musician Paul Sirett’s Brain Play will be presented by Joseph Rowntree School on Thursday and 1812 Youth Theatre on Friday, both at 5.30pm.

When Mia’s dad suffers a traumatic brain injury and struggles to leave the house, she makes it her mission to find the cure for his symptoms. Delving deeper and deeper into the world of neuroscience, Mia is desperate to make him better, but first she must contend with her own brain.

Suitable for age 13 upwards, Brain Play contains strong language, discussion of brain injury and its associated effects, plus hearing loss, anxiety, PTSD, obsessive compulsive disorder and mental health, references to blood and agoraphobia, and, at one point a character says “take him out and shoot him” in jest.

Abbey Grange Academy takes to the Studio stage on Friday at 7.15pm to perform Mia And The Fish, Southall writer Satinder Chohan’s modern retelling of the ancient Indian myth Manu And The Fish.

Mia is a young refugee girl who, along with her sister, is washed up onto the British shores. Against the backdrop of a freak winter heatwave, as the climate emergency becomes critical, one day Mia happens upon a talking fish that she nurtures and names Samaki.

Mia And The Fish: Performance at 7.15pm on Friday

As well as becoming Mia’s friend and confidante, Samaki grows quickly into a giant fish, larger than any marine animal the world has ever known, and becomes the key to her and her friends’ survival in the face of the imminent extinction of humanity.

Suitable for age 13 upwards, Mia And The Fish contains discussions of the climate emergency, references to displacement and the refugee crisis and mild language.

National Theatre Connections’ week of York Theatre Royal Studio performances concludes with three weekend performances of Gary McNair’s No Regrets and Stage@Leeds Young Company’s Sunday performance of Alys Metcalf’s YOU 2.0.

York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre will be in action at 4.15pm and 5.30pm on Saturday, followed by Cockburn John Charles Academy on Sunday at 5pm, presenting No Regrets.

The Company Of Trees: Jane Bodie’s play for National Theatre Connections

Over the course of five years, Glasgow writer-performer McNair, three-time winner of the coveted Scotsman Fringe First Award, spoke to people at all stages and in all walks of life on the subject of regret.

This play marks the results of those conversations, presented in a collection of scenes, from the silly to the profound, that charts our relationship with the things we should have done but never did and the things we should not have done but did.

Suitable for age 14 upwards, No Regrets features strong language, descriptions of violence, mentions of alcohol and addiction, one scene of a mugging and stabbing and references to death.

In Sunday’s 12.30pm performance of YOU 2.0, strangers Martha and Isaac find themselves forced into playing YOU 2.0, a new therapy video game designed to help players access their better selves. As they tackle the levels in two-player mode, the pair form an unlikely friendship behind the anonymity of their gaming avatars, but their impact on each other’s lives goes much deeper than the game.

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

Jodie Comer to revive Prima Facie “one last time” on 2026 tour. Grand Opera House, York, awaits next Feb in only Yorkshire run

Jodie Comer in the role of defence barrister Tessa Ensler in Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie, heading for the Grand Opera House, York, in February 2026. Picture: Helen Murray

NEWSFLASH: 26/3/2025

GONE in a flash. Tickets have sold out already for Jodie Comer’s “one last time” return to Prima Facie at the Grand Opera House, York. On pre-sale to members at 10am this morning and the general public at 12 noon, The York Press reports that only 20 minutes later, the last seat was filled.

JODIE Comer will revive her Olivier and Tony Award-winning solo performance in Suzie Miller’s sexual assault drama Prima Facie “one last time” on a 2026 tour booked into the Grand Opera House, York, from February 17 to 21.

The Killing Eve star last appeared on a North Yorkshire stage in her professional debut as spoilt, mouthy but bright, privately educated Ruby, playing opposite York actor Andrew Dunn in the world premiere of Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in November 2010.

Tickets will go on sale at midday on Tuesday, March 25 at atgtickets.com/york for criminal lawyer-turned playwright Miller’s Olivier Award winner for Best Play, wherein Comer will play thoroughbred Tessa Ensler, a young, brilliant barrister who loves to win.

Ambitious Tessa has worked her way up from Liverpool and Luton council estates, via Cambridge University, to be at the top of her game in her early 30s as a criminal defence barrister for an esteemed London chambers: defending the accused, cross examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case.

However, an unexpected event forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge.

Jodie Comer in her professional debut role as Ruby in Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in April 2010. In the background is York actor Andrew Dunn. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

“She played by the rules, but the rules are broken,” as the sleeve to Miller’s script puts it, when Tessa, the woman who defends men accused of rape, is assaulted herself.

Liverpool-born Comer, who turned 32 on March 11, won the Olivier Award for Best Actress for her 2022 performance as Tessa in her sold-out West End debut at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, repeating that feat in the Tony Awards when Miller’s play transferred to Broadway in 2023.

The NTLive (National Theatre) and Empire Street Productions live capture of Prima Facie has enjoyed two record-breaking cinema releases, with streaming on National Theatre At Home too, and Comer also has recorded an audiobook adaptation by Miller.

Looking forward to reprising Miller’s monologue on tour, Comer says: It is a huge privilege to return to Prima Facie for one last time and take this important play on tour across the UK & Ireland. The resonance of Suzie Miller’s writing, both in London and New York, exceeded anything we could have imagined.

“I’m so thrilled to have the opportunity to get the team back together and take the production to theatres around the country, including my hometown of Liverpool. On a personal note, I can’t think of a better finale to what has been such an incredible and deeply rewarding chapter in my life.”

“It is a huge privilege to return to Prima Facie for one last time,” says Jodie Comer. Picture: Helen Murray

In her play, Miller, who was a lawyer for 15 years before focusing on writing since 2010, drew on research from trials at the Old Bailey to address how the legal system conducts sexual assault cases.

“It’s almost impossible to actually run a sexual assault case and win it,” she told a 2022 roundtable with Comer, DSI Clair Kelland and barrister Kate Parker, hosted by Emily Maitlis (as reported by the Guardian, April 22 2022).  “It’s almost like the forum of the court is not fit for purpose for sexual assault.”

“I couldn’t be more thrilled about the Prima Facie 2026 tour,” says the Australian playwright, screenwriter, librettist, visual artist, novelist and human rights lawyer, who has degrees in both science and law. “This play has already achieved more than we all could have dreamed, and Jodie’s commitment to the story reaching so many new venues and communities means more people can be part of the conversation, and the solution.”’

Empire Street Productions producer James Bierman has announced that partnerships with the Schools Consent Project and Everyone’s Invited charities will continue on next year’s tour.

Set up in 2014 by barrister Kate Parker, the Schools Consent Project sends lawyers into schools to teach 11 to 18 year olds the legal definition of consent and key sexual offences.

The poster for the 2026 tour of Prima Facie

Their aim is to normalise these sorts of conversations among young people; to empower them to identify and communicate their boundaries, and to respect them in others.  To date, they have spoken to more than 80,000 young people across the country.

Throughout the tour, the production will be working with each venue to support the charity’s work in educating young people in the UK about consent.

Everyone’s Invited’s mission is to expose and eradicate rape culture with empathy, compassion and understanding. The charity offers a safe space for all survivors to share their stories completely anonymously. 

Everyone’s Invited allows many survivors a sense of relief, catharsis, empowerment, and gives them a feeling of community and hope. 

Conversations with friends and personal experiences throughout school and university revealed to founder Soma Sara how widespread the issue is, whereupon she began sharing her experiences of rape culture on Instagram.

Prima Facie playwright Suzie Miller. Picture: Sarah Hadley

In light of the overwhelming response from those who resonated with her story, Soma founded Everyone’s Invited in June 2020, later gaining charitable status in 2022 alongside the launch of the Everyone’s Invited education programme. So far, the programme has reached more than 50,000 students across the UK.

James Bierman says: “All of us involved in Prima Facie are honoured to be able to highlight and support the essential and brilliant work that Everyone’s Invited and The Schools Consent Project do up and down the country.

“Creating safe spaces for people to share their stories and be heard is vital, and to try and change the horrific levels of sexual assault we have in this country we have to change the way we as a society see and talk about consent. By educating young people the Schools Consent Project team are making the future a better place.”

The nine-city UK and Ireland tour will open at Richmond Theatre, London, on January 23 2026 and will visit the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin; Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, New Theatre, Cardiff; The Grand Opera House, York, in its only Yorkshire dates; Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, and Birmingham Rep before closing with Comer’s home run at Liverpool Playhouse from March 17 to 21.

Prima Facie is helmed by Olivier Award-winning director Justin Martin, who is joined in the creative team by Rotherham-born composer Rebecca Lucy Taylor, the Brit Award-nominated singer and songwriter otherwise known as Self Esteem; set and costume designer Miriam Buether; lighting designer Natasha Chivers; sound designers Max and Ben Ringham; video designer Willie Williams for Treatment Studio and vocal coach Kate Godfrey.

Jodie Comer: the back story

Jodie Comer

BORN on March 11 1993 in Liverpool, Merseyside. Made professional stage debut in Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, April 2010.

Best known for playing psychopathic assassin Villanelle in cult BBC America spy thriller Killing Eve (2018–2022).  Won Emmy Award for Lead Actress in a Drama Series and BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actress in 2019. Later nominated again for Emmy Award, BAFTA Award and Critics Choice Award, as well as Screen Actors Guild Award.

Made West End debut at Harold Pinter Theatre, London, in 2022 and Broadway debut at John Golden Theatre, New York, in 2023 in Suzie Miller’s legal drama Prima Facie. Won Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play, Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play and Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World awards. Nominated for Drama League Award too.

Starred in Channel 4’s Covid film drama Help, opposite Stephen Graham, marking her executive producer debut too. Won BAFTA for Leading Actress; Help won BAFTA for Single Drama. 

Further television credits include: Thirteen (BAFTA Award and RTS Programme Award nominations); Talking Heads; Doctor Foster; The White Princess; Rillington Place; Lady Chatterley’s Lover; My Mad Fat Diary and Remember Me.

Made feature film debut in Shawn Levy’s $300 million-grossing action comedy Free Guy, alongside Ryan Reynolds and Joe Kerry, in 2021. That year too, she appeared alongside Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Adam Driver in Ridley Scott’s historical drama The Last Duel, premiered at 78th Annual Venice International Film Festival.

In January 2024, she starred in The End We Start From, Mahalia Belo’s survival thriller based on Megan Hunter’s novel about the trials and joys of new motherhood in the midst of devastating floods that swallow up London.

Last year too, she joined Tom Hardy and Austin Butler in The Bikeriders, Jeff Nichols’s account of a fictional 1960s’ Midwestern motorcycle club, based on the photo-book of the same title by Danny Lyon.

Coming next, from June 20, will be 28 Years Later, Danny Boyle’s latest instalment in the 28 Years Later trilogy, where she stars alongside Aaron-Taylor Johnson, Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell, followed by Kenneth Branagh’s The Last Disturbance Of Madeline Hynde.

Now filming The Death Of Robin Hood, playing opposite Hugh Jackman, directed by Michael Sarnoski.

‘RENT is the reason we fell in love with theatre in the first place,’ says Inspired By Theatre director Dan Crawfurd-Porter

Inspired By Theatre principal cast members for RENT: left to right, Maddie Jones, Jess Gardham, Iain Harvey, Dan Poppitt, Gi Vasey, Mikhail Lim, Tom Collins and Fen Greatley-Hirsch. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

FROM the York theatre company that brought the Hutch Award-winning production of Green Day’s American Idiot to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre last July comes another iconic American rock musical, RENT.

Directed once more by company founder Dan Crawfurd-Porter, Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking Tony Award winner will run at the JoRo from April 10 to 12 with its celebration of life, even in the face of adversity.

“RENT tells a story of love, resilience and artistic defiance, making it as relevant today as it was when it debuted 30 years ago,” says Dan.

Dan Poppitt’s Roger, left, Gi Vasey’s Mimi and Mikhail Lim’s Benny in Inspired By Theatre’s RENT. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

Set in the heart of New York City’s East Village at the apex of the AIDS epidemic, RENT follows a group of young artists struggling to survive, create and hold onto hope in the face of uncertainty.

Larson’s revolutionary score, with its blend of rock, pop and musical theatre, features such numbers as Seasons of Love, La Vie Bohème and Take Me Or Leave Me.

“This isn’t just another revival; for us, it’s personal,” says writer-director Dan, who credits the show as a major inspiration for his company’s formation and mission to bring bold, meaningful theatre to York audiences.

Fen Greatley Hirsch’s Angel and Joseph Hayes’s Tom Collins. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

“RENT is the reason we exist and the reason we fell in love with theatre in the first place. It’s a show that has inspired us to tell stories, push boundaries and build a thriving theatre community.

“This production brings together returning favourites and exciting new members of the company, and I’ve never seen a cast quite like this before. We’ve assembled a powerhouse of performers, ready to bring this iconic show to life like never before.”

Crawfurd-Porter’s principal cast comprises American Idiot leading man Iain Harvey as Mark; Dan Poppitt as Roger; Gi Vasey as Mimi; Joseph Hayes as Tom Collins; Maddie Jones as Maureen; York blues musician Jess Gardham as Joanne; Fen Greatley-Hirsch as Angel and Mikhail Lim as Benny.

Iain Harvey’s Mark in Inspired By Theatre’s RENT. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

In the ensemble will be: Richard Bayton; Katie Brier; Kailum Farmery; Rebecca Firth; Jack Fry; Chloe Pearson; Lucy Plimmer-Clough; Fernadna Aqueveque Retamal; Connie Richards; Josh Woodgate and Tiggy-Jade.

Crawfurd-Porter is joined in the production team by choreographer and assistant director Freya McIntosh, musical director Matthew Peter Clare and assistant producer Charlie Clarke.

Inspired By Theatre was known formerly as Bright Light Musical Productions. “We rebranded as Inspired By Theatre to reflect our evolving vision: theatre that moves people, challenges perspectives and delivers unforgettable moments both on and off the stage,” says Dan.

Maddie Jones’s Maureen and Jess Gardham’s Joanne. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

“We saw this philosophy come to life with our highly successful production of Green Day’s American Idiot last summer when more than 1,000 audience members, many covered head to toe in merchandise, packed the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, proving that a show can be more than just a performance, it can be an event.”

Inspired By Theatre in RENT, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 10 to 12, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: https://www.josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/all-shows/rent/2761.

Inspired By Theatre ensemble members Connie Richards, left, and Tiggy-Jade. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter

REVIEW: Rowntree Players in Glorious!, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 2.30pm and 7.30pm today ***

Neil Foster’s Cosme McMoon Jackie Cox’s Florence Foster Jenkins and Mike Hickman’s St Clair Bayfield in the Rowntree Players poster for Glorious!, mirroring the composition of the poster for Stephen Frears’ film, by the way

GLORIOUS! is the true story of 1940s’ New York socialite heiress Florence Foster Jenkins, “the worst singer in the world”, yet cherished by Cole Porter and Tallulah Bankhead, no less.

You may recall Meryl Streep’s Oscar-nominated tour de force in Stephen Frears’ 2016 film or Hull actress Maureen Lipman in the West End premiere of Peter Quilter’s 2005 play with music. Now is the turn of Jackie Cox in Martyn Junter’s elegant production for Rowntree Players.

Meanwhile, as chance would have it, across the Pennines, Wendi Peters is playing Florence in a revised version of Quilter’s joyous drama at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester until March 30.

In her day, bemused audiences would great the screeching warbling of the deluded Florence with mocking laughter, but in Glorious! the laughter is reserved for Quilter’s script, whose wit is even sharper than Florence’s ever-enthusiastic but far-from-pitch-perfect singing.

We first encounter Cox’s flamboyant Florence in her grand hotel suite abode, where her constantly supportive manager and long-time companion, failed British Shakespearean actor St Clair Bayfield (Mike Hickman), has arranged for dapper Cosme McMoon  (Neil Foster) to be her new piano accompanist.

Apparently, St Clair has been cut from the streamlined Manchester production, but Hickman makes you wonder why as he continues his run of impressive performances with this arch, dry-humoured fixer.

Foster’s McMoon takes his place behind assorted grand pianos through the show, his face a picture of alrm when he first encounters the shocking noise of “the First Lady of the sliding scale”.

It becomes a running joke how McMoon’s eloquence allows him to seemingly flatter Florence by leaving out the exact word that would insult her and yet impart that meaning to the audience. Here Quilter’s delicious, mischievous writing is at its best, along with the moment he plays a delightful trick on the audience in a funeral scene, turning sombre repose to chuckles.

Florence loves to sing, loves to dress up, loves to entertain, loves to raise money for charity, loves music, but she does not take kindly to criticism, vetting her potential audiences by restricting entry to invitation only to her notorious balls.

She is shielded from the truth by kindly/sycophantic friends, such as Dorothy (Jeanette Hunter in a double act with a stuffed dog), but in Cox’s hands you cannot but warm to her passion for performing, even if you cover your ears when another high note falls off the cliff edge.

What’s more, like comedian Les Dawson’s deliberately maladroit piano playing, it takes skill to sing always tantalisingly either side of the right note. Director Hunter encouraged Cox to worsen her singing in rehearsal, advice that pays off in Cox’s indestructible performance.

Her Madame is neither an operatic diva, nor a circus freak show, more a singing equivalent to Olympian ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards in still giving pleasure for all the faults in her technique. Quilter brings so much heart her character and to his storytelling, summed up in a poignant finale where we are invited to think how Florence, by now in angel wings for her triumphant Carnegie Hall farewell, thought she sounded when she sang.

That angelic frock is but one of many striking costume choices by Julie Fisher and Cox herself, matched by the set design with yellow walls and green doors for Florence’s hotel apartment.  Abundant flowers adorn the stage, courtesy of Robert Readman and cast members, and if Cox’s singing puts teeth on edge, the soothing recorded piano arrangements by Sam Johnson are of the highest order.

Martyn Hunter pops up in dapper dinner jacket to play a CBS news reporter, Graham Smith has a cameo as the Undertaker, and Quilter’s skill at crafting humorous characters is further affirmed by Moira Tait’s Maria, Florence’s Mexican maid, who sticks stoically to speaking Spanish  – aside from “sandwiches” – but understands every English utterance in another running gag.

Chris Higgins draws boos for her performance as Mrs Verrinder-Gedge, not for the quality of her acting, be assured, but for her music snob’s rude, mean-spirited interruption of Madame’s concert.

Not boos, but cheers, even tears, accompany Florence’s swan song – fitting for Rowntree Players’ polished, amusing, ultimately poignant show. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

More Things To Do in York and beyond when the XXX factor hits the gallery walls. Hutch’s List No. 11 from The York Press

York Pop artist Harland Miller with his new work York from his XXX exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Olivia Hemingway

FROM Harland Miller’s Pop Art to Emma Rice’s theatrical world premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, these are exciting times for arts exploits, Charles Hutchinson reports.

XXXhibition launch of the week: Harland Miller: XXX, York Art Gallery, until August 31, open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm

YORK-RAISED artist and writer Harland Miller has returned to York Art Gallery to launch XXX, showcasing paintings and works on paper from his Letter Paintings series, including the unveiling of several new paintings, not least ‘York’, a floral nod to Yorkshire’s white rose and York’s daffodils.   

Inspired by his upbringing in 1970s’ Yorkshire and an itinerant lifestyle in New York, New Orleans, Berlin and Paris during the 1980s and 1990s, Miller creates colourful and graphically vernacular works that convey his love of popular language and attest to his enduring engagement with its narrative, aural and typographical possibilities. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk.

David John Pike: Baritone soloist at York Musical Society’s concert

Classical concert of the week: York Musical Society, Bach Mass in B minor, York Minster, tonight, 7.30pm

DAVID Pipe conducts York Musical Society’s singers and orchestra in Bach’s epic choral work, replete with magnificent choruses, resplendent fugues, moving arias and soloists Zoe Brookshaw and Philippa Boyle (both soprano), Tom Lilburn (countertenor), Nicholas Watts (tenor) and Canadian/British/Luxembourger David John Pike (baritone), who returned to music after initially training and working as a chartered accountant. Tickets: available from York Minster or on the door.

Tayla Kenyon: Exploring memories and the choices we make in Fluff at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Fringe play of the week: Teepee Productions and Joe Brown present Fluff, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

NOW is the time for Fluff to do the ultimate puzzle: her life. As she navigates her way through her most treasured and darkest memories, she desperately needs to piece together her life, story by story, person by person.

Tayla Kenyon performs solo in her darkly comedic 75-minutre play, co written with James Piercy, as she explores memories and the choices we make, using a non-linear plot line to enable the audience to feel, first hand, the devastating effects of dementia. Box office:  tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Ewan Wardrop in rehearsal for his role as reluctant hero Roger Thornhill in Wise Children’s production of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, premiering at York Theatre Royal from March 18

World premiere of the week in York: Wise Children in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, York Theatre Royal, March 18 to April 5, 7.30pm plus 2pm, March 26 and April 3; 2.30pm, March 29 and April 5

IT would be strange if, in a city of seven million people, one man were never mistaken for another…and that is exactly what happens to Roger Thornhill, reluctant hero of North By Northwest, when a mistimed phone call to his mother lands him smack bang in the middle of a Cold War conspiracy. Now he is on the run, dodging spies, airplanes and a femme fatale who might not be all she seems.

Wise Children writer-director Emma Rice turns film legend Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller on its head in her riotously humorous reworking. Replete with six shape-shifting performers, a fabulous 1950s’ soundtrack and a heap of hats, this dazzling co-production with York Theatre Royal, HOME Manchester and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse plays with heart, mind and soul in a topsy-turvy drama full of glamour, romance, jeopardy and a liberal sprinkling of tender truths. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Nina Wadia’s Gemma and Sam Bailey’s April in NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith

Musical of the week: NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, Grand Opera House, York, March 18 to 22, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees, Wednesday and Saturday

DIRECTED by Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, comedian Pippa Evans’s hit-laden musical is set in Birmingham in 1989 and 2009. Back in the day, school friends Gemma Warner and April Devonshire are planning their lives based on Number One magazine quizzes and dreaming of snogging Rick Astley. Twenty years later, Gemma (Nina Wadia) and April (The X Factor winner Sam Bailey) face  the most dreaded event of their adult lives: the school reunion.

Drama, old flames and receding hairlines come together as friends reunite and everything from the past starts to slot into place. Sinitta, Eighties’s pop star of So Macho and Toy Boy fame, will be the guest star all week in a show featuring Gold, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Tainted Love, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves et al. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

In the Strummer time: Stiff Little Fingers’ Ali McMordie, left, Steve Grantley, Jake Burns and Ian McCallum pay tribute to The Clash punk hero at York Barbican. Picture: Will Byington

Punk gig of the week: Stiff Little Fingers, Flame In Our Hearts Tour, York Barbican, March 18, doors 7pm

NORTHERN Irish punk legends Stiff Little Fingers’ tour title is a nod their 2003 track Summerville, recorded to mark the untimely passing of Joe Strummer of The Clash.

Frontman Jake Burns says: “The opening line to the song is ‘You lit a flame in my heart’ and still stands strong today as it did when I wrote it. Joe was a legend and a huge influence on myself and the band. Calling the tour Flame In The Heart keeps Joe in everyone’s memory.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk. Meanwhile, Monday’s double bill of The Darkness and special guests Ash has sold out.

Nearly here: Paddy McGuinness brings his Nearly There tour to York Barbican next Thursday

Comedy gig of the week: Paddy McGuinness, Nearly There, York Barbican, March 20, 7.45pm

FARNWORTH comedian, television and radio presenter and game show host Paddy McGuinness plays York on his first stand-up itinerary since 2016. Launching the 40 dates last year, he said: “It’s been eight years since my last tour and there’s lots of things to laugh about! I’m looking forward to getting back in front of a live audience, along with running the gauntlet of cancel culture, click bait and fake news.” Tickets update: only a handful of single seats still available at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Dr Rangan Chatterjee: Health and happiness tips at York Barbican

Meet “the architect of health and happiness”: Dr Rangan Chatterjee, The Thrive Tour 2025, York Barbican, March 21, 7.30pm

JOIN Dr Rangan Chatterjee, inspirational host of Europe’s biggest health podcast, Feel Better, Live More, author and star of BBC One’s Doctor In The House, for two transformative hours of learning the skill of happiness, discovering the secrets to optimal health, breaking free from habits that hold you back and discovering how to make changes that last. “Be empowered, be inspired and learn how to thrive,” he says. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

REVIEW: Next Door But One in Hospital Doors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

Christie Peto’s Jo , left, Evie Jones’s Sam and Ian Weichardt’s Andi in Next Door But One’s Hospital Doors at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Picture: James Drury

YORK community arts collective Next Door But One co-created Hospital Doors over 18 months in workshops with community groups of LGBTQ+ young people and adults, unpaid carers and disabled people.

Artistic director Matt Harper-Hardcastle’s resulting 75-minute play filters that research into a fractious family drama built on intersecting conversations on disability, sexuality, illness, care and death.

When their father falls ill, estranged siblings Jo (Christie Peto), Andi (Ian Weichardt) and Sam (Evie Jones) find themselves thrown together for the first time in years. Assumptions are shattered, revelation by revelation, as they grow to know each other anew.

Writer-director Matt Harper-Hardcastle in the rehearsal room for Next Door But One’s Hospital Doors

Harper-Hardcastle structures his contemporary drama as a three-hander that explores the sibling relationship from their contrasting perspectives, building the full, three-dimensional picture out of all the chaos of their childhood and adult years.

Peto’s Jo is the disgruntled elder sister, who at 16 took over looking after her disabled sister Sam (Jones) when their mother died. She is filled with resentment towards gay brother Andi (Weichardt), who has been absent for six years, not there to help with caring for their ailing father, having left the home and a stifling environment where school bullies had called him ‘poofter’ and his homophobic father ridiculed him as “Andi Pansy”.

In turn, Jones’s Sam has had to cope with disability, walking with a stick after an accident, and sensing her father’s shame at having a disabled daughter, like when he took away her stick for photos for the family album. She has had to live with people always looking at Jo, rather than her, when matters are being discussed. Now she is embroiled in the labyrinthine bureaucracy of PIP (Personal Independence Payment) negotiations too.

Christie Peto’s Jo taking centre stage in Next Door But One’s premiere of Hospital Doors. Picture: James Drury

Harper-Hardcastle writes with candour, humour and insight, great understanding too, reminiscent of both Mike Leigh and Ken Loach in documenting modern-day family dynamics within the impact of the wider society framework, with its prejudices, its moral minefields, its bigotry and belligerence.  

This story of home truths and days, even years, away from home, is full of pain, grief, anger, but also, in Harper-Hardcastle’s own words, “the joy that can be found in the mundane efforts we all make to understand those we love”. Therein lies the hope in an ending that asks the last of the play’s big questions.

The theatrical style is intimate, chamber sized, with only three red chair, symbolic of its small scale but with a big impact, like in John Godber’s early kinetic comedies. The focus is on the to and fro of the dialogue, the performing style being equally frank and no-nonsense.

Playing games: Evie Jones’s Sam presents the family Monopoly set to Ian Weichardt ‘s Andi as Christie Peto’s Jo looks miffed in Hospital Doors. Picture: James Drury

Props are minimal but deeply significant, never more so than when each sibling brings a game or toy from childhood days with sustained symbolism, such as Andi being the missing piece from his jigsaw. (Sam chooses Monopoly; Jo, Buckaroo.)

Stella Blackman’s set design of see-through string curtains and doorways evokes what Harper calls “fleeting, transient places” for conversations in hospital corridors, over garden walls and on the phone. Lara Jones’s sound design, Jessie Addinall’s lighting design and Amelia Hawkes’s video projections bring modernity to the Sixties’ kitchen-sink drama conventions of the subject matter, peaking with a fevered mash-up of sound and vision to match the splintered emotions.

Next Door But One prides itself on being an inclusive company, typified here by the use of Hawkes’s creative captioning, displayed above the set design. You might find yourself comparing the printed wording with the more flexible interpretation by the cast, but for your reviewer it reinforces the punching power of Harper-Hardcastle’s text.

Next Door But One presents Hospital Doors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow at 2pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Next Door But One’s poster for Hospital Doors

Now that’s what I call a debut musical role for Nina Wadia at Grand Opera House

Nina Wadia’s Gemma Warner, left, and Sam Bailey’s April Devonshire in NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York, next week. Picture: Pamela Raith

NINA Wadia grew up listening to the NOW tapes. “For me, being part of this musical is like going home,” she says, as NOW That’s What I Call A Musical heads to the Grand Opera House, York, next week.

On tour since last September, comedian-writer Pippa Evans’s fun-filled show, bursting with Whitney Houston, Wham!,  Blondie, Tears For Fears, Spandau Ballet hits and many more besides, offers the chance to relive the playlist of your lives in celebration of 40 years of the NOW That’s What I Call Music compilation brand.

“When I read the script, I immediately fell in love with the characters and Pippa’s story,” says Nina who “couldn’t wait to get started on my first ever musical”.

Profiling herself on social media as “Mother, Actress, Producer and Presenter”, Nina has embraced everything, from radio drama company regular to soap opera, in a career that has taken in the  BBC Asian sketch comedy in Goodness Gracious; TV roles as Aunty Noor in Citizen Khan, Mrs Hussein in Still Open All Hours and Zainab Masood in EastEnders; being a video game voiceover artist and narrator for the animated series Tweedy And Fluff on Channel 5’s Milkshake and taking her terpsichorean turn as a Strictly Come Dancing contestant in 2021. She is a charity campaigner too, honoured with an OBE.

NOW That’s What I Call A Musical director-choreographer Craig Revel Horwood and writer Pippa Evans

Now she is starring alongside Sam Bailey, 2013 winner of The X Factor, and Eighties’ pop star Sinitta, of So Macho and Toy Boy fame, in Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood’s touring production of NOW That’s What I Call A Musical.

“I did a workshop for it in October 2023 and thought nothing of it at first because we do a lot of workshops; sometimes things happen; sometimes they don’t, but this one has worked out,” says Nina. “It’s a really fun piece, right up my street, comedy and drama mixed together, but I was a bit confused because music was not my thing.

“But I did sing in the York Theatre Royal panto that winter [playing the kooky Fairy Sugarsnap in Jack And The Beanstalk], and the next thing I knew, they offered me the show, and I thought ‘I’ll take the chance’. It’s been such fun, getting my singing voice up to speed and working with this incredible cast: 21 of us, a huge cast!”

Pippa Evans’s show heads back to 1989 in Birmingham, where school friends Gemma Warner and April Devonshire are busy with planning their lives based on Number One Magazine quizzes and dreaming of snogging Rick Astley.

Nina Wadia with NOW That’s What I Call A Musical co-star Sinitta. Picture: Oliver Rosser

Cut to Birmingham 2009, for the most dreaded event of their adult lives: the school reunion. Drama, old flames and receding hairlines come together as friends reunite and everything from the past starts to slot into place for Nina Wadia’s Gemma and Sam Bailey’s April.

“It’s like a play within a musical and people come away very, very surprised, not expecting what they see,” says Nina. “Then everyone is up on their feet at the end for the medley.”

Nina and Sam are joined by a rotating roster of star turns on the tour run, whether Sinitta, Sonia, T’Pau’s Carol Decker, Jay Osmond or, for one week only in Edinburgh, Toyah Willcox.

“They each do a special fantasy sequence, coming on to do a big number and the megamix at the end,” says Nina. “It’ll be Sinitta doing it in York and she’s so much fun. All our guest stars bring their own style to it, and Sinitta has a real diva style, sending herself up.”

Nina Wadia: Mother, actress, producer, presenter, voiceover artist and charity campaigner

The magic roundabout of guests brings it challenges. “It’s on a wing and a prayer and that’s genuinely half the fun of it, because audiences find it hilarious,” says Nina. “We’ve had maybe two four-hour sessions before they each perform with us.”

She is full of praise for Pippa Evans’s script. “Pippa said she really wanted me to be in the show and wrote the part of Gemma for me, which is a real compliment. She has a wonderful ability to come up with a line where I can make people laugh and also feel empathy and she really understands friendships and how they work,” says Nina.

“My best friends are from when I was 18/19, when you have big dreams, and in this story they’re two friends who’ve not seen each other for 20 years. You see their younger selves with all their dreams and then the second half really flies as you see what’s happened to them.

“It’s funny for 80 per cent of it but you also get invested in it really quickly, going from belly laughing to not being sure what to think, from laughter to crying to dancing at the end.”

Nina Wadia’s Fairy Sugarsnap in Jack And The Beanstalk, York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions’ pantomime in 2023-2024

Nina is looking forward to her return to York. “I was really quite ill at the start of the panto, which was so upsetting as it was my first time in York, and what’s lovely is that I now get to do what I wanted t do while I was in the panto, which is to train my voice and use it properly,” she says.

“I’m not a musical theatre actor, so the best advice I was given was that if you sing in character, as Gemma, the voice just comes. That advice came from Georgia, our musical director, who said ‘don’t be nervous’and gave me so many different vocal exercises to do. If I felt nervous in September, by October I felt really invested in it and now I love it.”

ROYO, Universal Music UK, Sony Music Entertainment and Mighty Village present  NOW That’s What I Call A Musical, Grand Opera House, York, March 18 to 22, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york

Copyright of The Press, York.