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More Things To Do in York & beyond when ghosts light up gardens & dogs can be spotted. Hutch’s List No. 46, from The Press

Skylights: York band headline York Barbican for the first time tonight

FROM  Skylights to Ghosts After Dark, a fiesta of film to a musical dog show, Charles Hutchinson spots plenty to light up these November nights.

York gig of the week: Skylights, York Barbican, tonight, doors 7pm

ANTHEMIC York indie band Skylights play their biggest home-city gig to date this weekend with support from Serotones and Pennine Suite.

Guitarist Turnbull Smith says: ‘We’re absolutely over the moon to be headlining the Barbican. It’s always been a dream of ours to play here. So to headline will be the perfect way to finish a great year. Thanks to everyone for the support. It means the world and we’ll see you all there.” Box office update: Standing tickets still available at ticketmaster.co.uk.

Rob Rouse: Headlining Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, tonight

Comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, Rob Rouse, Peter Brush, Faizan Shan and Damion Larkin, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 8pm

PEAK District comedian, television regular, Upstart Crow actor and self-help podcaster Rob Rouse, who trained as a geography teacher at the University of Sheffield, makes a rare York appearance with his hyperactive, loveable brand  of comedy.

Harrogate Comedian of the Year 2012 Peter Brush combines a slight, bespectacled frame and scruffy hair with quirky one-liners and original material, delivered in an amusingly awkward fashion. Manchester comic Faizan Shah’s material makes light of growing up in an immigrant household with the mental health challenges it brings. Organiser Damion Larkin hosts as ever. Box office: 01904 612940 or lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.

Artist CJP with his work The Majestic Oak at Art Of Protest Gallery, York

Exhibition of the week: From Little Acorns Grow Mighty Hopes: An Exhibition of Hand-drawn Natural Wonders, Art of Protest Gallery, Walmgate, York, until November 16

ART Of Protest is the first gallery to show CJP’s work The Majestic Oak in an exhibition of original and rare limited-edition artwork. Look out for the Art Of Protest York Special Edition, only available to be ordered until November 16, featuring the River Ouse-dwelling Tansy Beetle, an elusive insect featured on a resplendent mural near York railway station.

“This is an amazing opportunity to own a truly unique celebration of British fauna with a very special York twist,” says gallery owner Craig Humble. “CJP will add a Tansy Beetle to each piece, along with the gold leafing of the branches.”

Pride And Prejudice * (*Sort Of): Making merry mayhem with Jane Austen’s novel at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

Theatrical high spirits of the week: Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, November 4 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

MEN, money and microphones will be fought over in Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), the audacious retelling of a certain Jane Austen novel, where the stakes couldn’t be higher when it comes to romance but it’s party time, so expect the all-female cast to deliver such emotionally turbulent pop gems as Young Hearts Run Free, Will You Love Me Tomorrow and You’re So Vain.

Writer Isobel McArthur directs this new production of her West End hit, Olivier Award winner for best comedy and Emerging Talent Award winner in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, now featuring University of York alumna Georgia Firth in the cast. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

On the spot: 101 Dalmatians The Musical takes up canine residence at the Grand Opera House from Tuesday. Picture: Johan Persson

Dog show of the week: 101 Dalmatians The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, November 5 to 9, 7pm plus 2pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees

KYM Marsh’s Cruella De Vil leads the cast for this musical tour of Dodie Smith’s canine caper 101 Dalmatians. Written by Douglas Hodge (music and lyrics) and Johnny McKnight (book), from a stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris, the show is re-imagined from the 2022 production at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London. 

When fashionista Cruella De Vil plots to swipe all the Dalmatian puppies in town to create her fabulous new fur coat, trouble lies ahead for Pongo and Perdi and their litter of tail-wagging young pups in a story brought to stage life with puppetry, choreography, humorous songs and, yes, puppies. Box office: atgtickets.com/york. 

3 Missing 10 Hours, directed by Fanni Fazakas, showing in the Animation programme at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2024

York festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York city centre, November 6 to 10, and UNESCO City of Media Arts EXPO, Guildhall, York, November 7 to 9

THE BAFTA-Qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival returns for its 14th year under the direction of Cherie Federico, this time integrating the tenth anniversary of York’s designation as Great Britain’s only UNESCO City of Media Arts. Fifteen venues will play host to 300 film screenings in 12 genres, Virtual Realty and Gaming labs, plus 60 panels, workshops and discussions. For the full programme and tickets, head to asff.co.uk.

The UNESCO EXPO will showcase the region’s creative sector, working in film production, games development, VFX (visual effects), publishing and design, with the chance to try out new projects and speak to creatives. Entry to the Guildhall is free.

Ghosts After Dark: New nocturnal complement to the Ghosts In The Gardens installation in York Museum Gardens

Nocturnal event of the week: Ghosts After Dark, York Museums Gardens, November 7 to 10, 6.30pm to 9.30pm; last entry, 8.30pm

YORK Museums Trust and the York BID present the inaugural Ghosts After Dark, showcasing York’s rich tapestry of historical figures with light, sound and storytellers for four nights only.

Ticketholders will have the  exclusive chance to experience York Museum Gardens like never before, by choosing their own path to explore 46 ghostly sculptures, hidden around the gardens and lit dynamically against an atmospheric background of smoke and sound. Box office: yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/ghosts-after-dark/.

Rag’n’Bone Man: Returning to Scarborough Open Air Theatre next summer

Gig announcements of the week: TK Maxx presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell, July 6, and Rag’n’Bone Man, July 11 2025

“I THINK I’ve got the best reggae band in the world,” says UB40 legend Ali Campbell, who last played Scarborough OAT in 2021. “They are all seasoned musicians, who have spent all their lives in professional bands, and I feel so confident with them.” Support acts will be Bitty McLean and Pato Banton.

Triple BRIT Award and Ivor Novello Award winner Rag’n’Bone Man, alias Rory Graham,  will follow up his 2023 Scarborough OAT show with a return next summer in the wake of his third album, What Do You Believe In? entering the charts at number three last Friday. His special guest will be Elles Bailey. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.

Show announcement of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, April 14 to May 17 2025

Gary Oldman reflecting on his first steps in professional theatre in the York Theatre Royal dressing rooms on his March visit

OSCAR winner Gary Oldman will return to York Theatre Royal, where he began his career as a pantomime cat, to direct himself in Krapp’s Last Tape next spring: his first stage appearance since the late-1980s.

The April 14 to May 17 2025 production of Samuel Beckett’s one-act monodrama was set in motion when Slow Horses star Oldman paid a visit to the St Leonard’s Palace theatre in March, when he met chief executive Paul Crewes.

“When Gary visited us at the beginning of the year, it was fascinating hearing him recount stories of his time as a young man, in his first professional role on the York Theatre Royal stage.,” says Paul.

“In that context when we started to explore ideas, we realised Krapp’s Last Tape was the perfect project. I am very happy that audiences will have this unique opportunity to see Gary Oldman return to our stage in this brand new production.”

Making plans: Actor and director Gary Oldman in discussion with York Theatre Royal chief executive Paul Crewes in the York Theatre Royal main house auditorium

Ticket prices start at £25, with priority booking for the York Theatre Royal Director’s Circle opening on November 6, YTR Members’ priority booking from November 11 and public booking on November 16, all from 1pm. To become a member and access priority booking, head to: https://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/support-us/.

After graduating from Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, Londoner Oldman started out in the repertory ranks at York Theatre Royal in 1979 in such plays as Privates On Parade and She Stoops To Conquer and playing the Cat in Berwick Kaler’s third York pantomime, Dick Whittington, that Christmas.

Dame Berwick later told the Guardian in an interview in 2018: “Gary has gone on to become one of our greatest screen actors but I’m afraid he was a bit of a lightweight when it came to pantomime.

“He kept fainting inside the costume. On at least three occasions I had to turn to the audience and say, ‘Oh dear, boys and girls, I think the poor pussy cat has gone to sleep’!”

Gary Oldman as the Cat with dame Berwick Kaler, centre, in the 1979-1980 York Theatre Royal pantomime Dick Whittington. Picture: York Theatre Royal

Oldman, now 66, posted on Instagram: “My professional public acting debut was on stage at the York Theatre Royal. York, for me, is the completion of a cycle. It is the ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home.

“The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.”

After cutting his teeth in York, New Cross-born Oldman went on to act at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, the Royal Court, London, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He then swapped theatre for film with break-our roles as Sid Vicious in Sid And Nancy (1986), Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1992) and Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

He later played Sirius Black in the Harry Potter film franchise and Commissioner Jim Gordon in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, won the 2018 Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, and is now starring as obnoxious MI5 boss Jackson Lamb in the latest Apple+ series of British spy thriller Slow Horses.

Gary Oldman (third from the left in hat and glasses) in Privates On Parade at York Theatre Royal in 1979: one of his first professional performances after graduating from Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, in Sidcup, Kent, with a BA in Acting. Picture: York Theatre Royal

Oldman has been considering going back to the stage for a long time. “I have never been far from the theatre and, in fact, have been discussing plays and my return to the theatre for nearly 30 years,” he posted.

What happens in Krapp’s Last Tape, Samuel Beckett at his most theatre of the absurd? Each year, on his birthday, Krapp records a new tape reflecting on the year gone by.

On his 69th birthday, Krapp, now a lonely man, is ready with a bottle of wine, a banana and his tape recorder. Listening back to a recording he made as a young man, Krapp must face the hopes of his past self. 

The melancholic, tragicomic role was premiered in 1958 by Patrick Magee and has been played by the likes of Albert Finney, Harold Pinter, John Hurt, Stephen Rea and Kenneth Allan Taylor, the long-running Nottingham Playhouse pantomime dame, writer and director, at York Theatre Royal in 2009.

Gary Oldman’s Cat in the 1979-1980 York Theatre Royal pantomime Dick Whittington. Picture: York Theatre Royal

Samuel Beckett (1906 – 1989): the back story

IRISH writer, dramatist and poet, specialising in theatre of the absurd. Wrote in English and French. Principal works for the stage included Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape and Waiting For Godot. Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Gary Oldman: Further screen appearances

TINKER, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Academy Award and BAFTA nominations); Mank (Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations); Oppenheimer; The Book Of Eli; Meantime; The Firm;  Prick Up Your Ears; Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead; State Of Grace;  Romeo Is Bleeding; True Romance; Leon/The Professional; The Fifth Element; Immortal Beloved and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, among many others.

Worked with directors Stephen Frears, Oliver Stone, Frances Ford Coppola, Luc Besson, Alfonso Curon, Chris Nolan, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher and Paulo Sorrentino.

Did you know?

IN 1995 Gary Oldman and producing partner Douglas Urbanski founded a production company, producing Oldman’s screenwriting and directorial debut, Nil By Mouth, winner of nine majot awards from 17 nominations.

Selected to open the main competition for the 1997 50th Anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, where Kathy Burke won Best Actress. The same year, Oldman won Channel Four Director’s Prize at Edinburgh International Film Festival, British Academy Award (shared with Douglas Urbanski) for Best Film and BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay.

In Focus: Other Lives Productions in How To Be Brave, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm, and on tour

Livy Potter as Katy, left, and Alice Rose Palmer as mum Natalie in Louise Beech’s How To Be Brave

ON March 19 1943, just after midnight, Merchant Seaman Colin Armitage’s cargo ship, the Lulworth Hill,  was torpedoed by an Italian Navy submarine in the South Atlantic. He scrambled aboard a life raft. Fifty days later HMS Rapid rescued him.

Colin was the grandfather of How To Be Brave playwright Louise Beech. Sixty-four years after his ordeal, Louise’s daughter, Katy, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In order to distract her during insulin injections Louise began to tell the story of Colin’s bravery and determination to survive. 

The story inspiring ten-year-old Katy to be brave in the face of her diabetes is a true one. She has said that Grandad Colin’s experience made her determined to carry on when she wanted to give up and die: “If Grandad Colin can survive an ordeal like that, I can do anything. I can do these injections,” she said. And she has never faltered.

Director Kate Veysey with Rose’s seagull Gilbert

“We hope that by presenting this story we can inspired audiences in the East Riding and beyond,” says director Kate Veysey, a familiar name from both York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre and Next Door But One productions.

Scenes alternate between the life raft and Katy’s house in Hull as York actors Jacob Ward and Livy Potter take the roles of Colin Armitage and Rose (Katy, given a pseudonym), joined by Lex Stephenson as carpenter Ken Cooke, on the raft, Alice Rose Palmer as Natalie (alias mum Louise) and Alison Shaw as nurse Shelley. Age guidance: ten upwards (the show contains moderate bad language). Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Lex Stephenson, as Ken Cooke, left, and Jacob Ward, as Colin Armitage, in Other Lives Productions’ How To Be Brave
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REVIEW: Bristol Old Vic in Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm tonight and 2.30pm tomorrow ****

Wonder-ful: Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny in Wonder Boy. Picture: Steve Tanner

WHAT was the last play to capture the forlorn yet defiantly hopeful schoolroom experience so expressively? Willy Russell’s musical Our Day Out, with its busload of bored teens, springs to mind; John Godber’s Teechers even more so, especially in its Leavers 22 revamp.

In a new class of its own is Ross Willis’s Wonder Boy, an exploration of the power of communication with the aid of creative captioning, wherein the electronic screen captures every last repeated letter of young Sonny’s “Stammer Horror” experience.

At the helm of Bristol Old Vic’s touring production is Sally Cookson, whose unforgettable National Theatre staging of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre lit up the Grand Opera House with such vitality, imagination and innovation in 2017 that it won that year’s Hutch Award for Stage Production of the Year in York.

What her reading of Wonder Boy shares with her Jane Eyre is its focus on a central character’s struggles in a world seemingly set against them, taking up residence inside the head of the outsider so completely that we feel we are in there too.

In this case, 12-year-old Sonny (Hilson Agbangbe) lives with a stammer that leaves him silent and sullen at school. Words, not ideas, hopes or flights of fancy, evade him except when in the company of his imaginary friend, the combative word warrior Captain Chatter (Ciaran O’Breen).

The omnipresent caption and video design, courtesy of Limbic Cinema’s Tom Newell, charts every uttering of Sonny, whether fluent when kept inside that troubled head or when in conversation with rebellious, trouble-magnet friend Roshi (Naia Elliott-Spence), report-obsessed new head teacher Miss Fish (Meg Matthews at Wednesday’s matinee/Jessica Murrain) or his Mum (Matthews/Murrain again) in flashback scenes that trace her downward spiral.

Sonny expresses himself in his comic-book drawings, but inevitably bullying will spoil that well of creativity and expression in this struggling, downtrodden secondary school.

When the insensitive Miss Fish decides to impose the role of the Guard in Hamlet on him in the school play, Sonny finds an ally in the shape of unconventional deputy head Wainwright (Eva Scott), Wonder Boy’s answer to Godber’s new drama teacher in Teechers, Geoff Nixon.

Wainwright likes Ryvita nibbles, paper planes and Star Wars models; Wainwright dislikes Miss Fish’s methods, manner and form-filling excesses. For all her love of teaching, she will be the next to join the stampede of exits stage left from the teaching profession.

Willis writes with an anger and vigour, a frustration too, to match former teacher Godber – and that of Sonny too, although the boy’s determination to deliver his lines brings tears to the eye.

Cookson’s witty and wise direction combines with Willis’s astute writing to bring out the playful, scabrous humour as much as the pathos in Wonder Boy, not least in not shying away from the frank, “very sweary” language that adds even more impact.

Agbangbe and Scott, in particular, are terrific, their scenes together being the most moving your reviewer has seen on a York stage this year. Top marks too for Katie Sykes’s set and costume design, Laila Diallo’s Kapow-style movement direction and Benji Bower’s incidental compositions.

Wonder Boy is wondrous theatre, a lesson to us all in the importance of listening and breaking down barriers. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Hairspray The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

You can’t stop the beat: The Hairspray The Musical cast on Takis’s psychedelic stage

HAIRSPRAY opened on Monday, but press night was on Tuesday, when it was somewhat of a surprise to be presented with an extensive notice headed “For this performance the role of… will be played by”.

The list covered a full page of A4, eight roles in all, but the eye went straight to the disappointing absence of Yorkshire lead actor and Hull New Theatre pantomime favourite Neil Hurst, whose interview featured in The Press on Monday.

In his stead, understudy Stuart Hickey would be cross-dressing as Edna Turnblad, the no-nonsense laundry service,  played on screen by Divine and John Travolta, no less. Hurst will be back from Thursday, we are told.

On a further Yorkshire note, your reviewer had hoped to see Alexandra Emmerson-Kirby in her professional debut as plucky daughter Tracy Turnblad after cutting her musical theatre teeth at the YMCA Theatre in Scarborough.

 On tour, however, performances are being shared out with Katie Brice, and on Tuesday, it was Katie’s turn. What a feisty, fearless, funny  performance she gave.

Still the feel-best of all the feel-good musicals, Hairspray will be playing to big houses all week, all the more so in half-term week when families are looking to fill the diary with not only Halloween parties and too many sweets.

Paul Kerryson and Brenda Edwards’s touring production last played the Grand Opera House in July 2018, and it returns looking even more kaleidoscopically colourful in Takis’s design for this black-and-white anti-segregation story.

Rooted in John Waters’ cult 1988 cinematic nostalgia spoof and the tongue-in-cheek panache of the 2007 Travolta-led movie remake, this fabulously flamboyant, highly humorous and exuberantly energetic spin-off Broadway musical is propelled by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whittman’s Sixties pastiche songs and Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan’s witty, anarchic book.

Takis delivers a deliciously gaudy set and costume design, as groovy as an Austin Powers movie, now complimented by George Reeve’s projections designs that bring a hi-tech sheen to evoking an early-Sixties retro vibe, whether depicting Baltimore streets, the TV studio for The Corny Collins Show, the Turnblad and Pingleton homes or a prison cell that echoes Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock movie.

Hairspray is set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, where teen rebel Tracy Turnblad (Brace/Emmerson-Kirby) vows to prove “fat girls can dance”, as she challenges the segregation policy that excludes her like and the black community from appearing in the TV talent contest introduced by the slick Corny Collins (cheeky charmer Declan Egan).

On one side of the divide are Tracy; outspoken, larger-than-life mum Edna Turnblad (Hickey/Hurst) and joke shop-owning doting dad Wilbur (Dermot Canavan), and geeky pocket-dynamo best friend Penny Pingleton (Nina Bell/Freya McMahon).

So too are hip-swivelling black pupil Seaweed J Stubbs (Shemar Jarrett/Reece Richards)) and the sage, savvy Motormouth Maybelle (Michelle Ndegwa).

On the other side are the aspiring pageant queen, spoilt brat Amber (Allana Taylor) and her bigoted mother, the TV show’s shrewish, bigoted producer, villainous Velma Von Tussle (Strictly Come Dancing alumna Joanne Clifton in the latest of multiple Grand Opera House musical appearances).

Torn between needy pin-up girl Amber and boundary-breaking Tracy is the TV show’s Elvis-lite pretty boy, Link Larkin (Solomon Davy).

Hickey’s Edna is very much a towering man in a dress, but equips her with the  requisite twinkling eye, abundant love of family and well-timed putdowns for authority, and is at his best in the double act duet with Canavan’s ever-resourceful Wilbur, Timeless To Me. Mel Brooks would surely love it.

Beneath her bouffant beehive, Brace’s Tracy buzzes with enthusiasm for life and taking every opportunity; Davy’s Link carries a crooner’s tune and pink suit with equal aplomb, and Clifton’s humorously sour-faced Velma is full of vile style.

Soul and gospel singer Michelle Ndegwa is resplendent in her theatre debut as Motormouth Maybelle after working with the likes of Gorillaz, Gregory Porter and Leeds band Yard Act. Golden hair, golden dress, golden voice, she brings the house down in the stand-out I Know Where I’ve Been.

Exuberant dance numbers choreographed with oomph and pizzazz by Drew McOnie combine with fun, fabulous and forthright performances in a knockout show where “you can’t you stop the beat” but you can beat intolerance, bigotry and racism.  

Hairspray, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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York Actors Collective enter the spirit of Halloween with J M Barrie’s haunted house drama Mary Rose at Theatre Royal Studio

Victoria Delaney, as Mrs Morland, and Tony Froud, as Mr Morland, in York Actors Collective’s Mary Rose. Picture: Clive Millard

YORK Actors Collective make their York Theatre Royal debut in the Studio with this week’s revival of J M Barrie’s haunted house drama Mary Rose, adapted and directed by Angie Millard.

Formed by a group of like-minded actors with the aim of producing entertaining and thought-provoking theatre, the company was launched in March 2023 with Joe Orton’s 1964 black comedy Entertaining Mr Sloane, followed in February 2024 by the gritty improvisational piece Beyond Caring, Alexander Zeldin’s topical exposé of the social damage inflicted by zero hours contracts. Both were staged at Theatre@41 in York.

Now comes Mary Rose, a third Barrie drama to play York Theatre Royal in recent years after the 2022-2023 pantomime All New Adventures Of Peter Pan and Northern Broadsides’ touring production of his Regency comedy Quality Street in May 2023.

In this one, an old Yorkshire manor house for sale – Sussex in the original – is haunted by the ghost of a young woman who once lived there.

Thirty-seven years earlier in 1913, a young girl, Mary Rose, went missing on an island in the Outer Hebrides while her father was out of sight. After a month, she mysteriously returns, unaware that she had been away and with no memory of the time she spent missing. 

Chris Pomfrett’s Harry and Beryl Nairn’s Mrs Ottery in Mary Rose. Picture: Clive Millard

Then, as a young married woman in 1938, Mary Rose persuades her husband to take her back to the island, only to disappear again. She reappears 22 years later, but she has remained the same while her husband, parents and son have all aged. 

Featured at number ten in Michael Billington’s August 2020 list of Forgotten Plays in the Guardian, Barrie’s “strange, sinister Hebridean ghost story about the intensity of mother-son relationships and the universal grief for loss” has long sparked Angie Millard’s intrigue.

“Barrie uses dimensions of time to great effect,” she says of a play that covers a period of 41 years, during which there were two World Wars and massive changes in British society.

“His treatment of love, loss and unwavering hope draws in an audience and gives it universality. I have adapted the script to appeal to modern thinking and offer a little more explanation than Barrie provided but his themes are intact. It remains a moving tribute to mother-love, loss and final reconciliation.”

The production run could not be better timed, coinciding with Halloween on October 31. “The strange and ghostly atmosphere of the play fits beautifully into the autumn slot, which includes Halloween and is a time for considering other worldliness,” says Angie.

Xandra Logan’s Mary Rose and Laurence O’Reilly’s husband Simon on their island picnic in Mary Rose

“I’ve wanted to direct Mary Rose for many years as it was a favourite of my mother’s, who  saw it in Sheffield and thought it was a beautiful and charming story.  I wanted York Actors Collective to produce something with a lot of theatrical effects, a contrast to what we have done before.

“I suggested this play with two or three other ideas to Juliet [Forster, York Theatre Royal’s creative director] and she settled on this one.”

Barrie’s supernatural play has been “severely adapted” by Angie. Why? “Because you can see the difference between Edwardian and modern-day audiences just by reading it,” she says. “I’ve changed it from three acts with two intervals to three scenes before the interval and two after, reducing the running time by about 20 minutes.

“I’ve also cut out one of the characters, Mr Morland’s friend. They would just talk about the value of art, and though it was supposed to be funny, it just didn’t work for a modern audience.”

Angie has capitalised on Halloween week, “but the ghost story is only one aspect of it,” she says. “It’s a story about mother-love,  about [Mary Rose] having a child and losing that child, and how that feels when you deeply love the child. It’s all about loss, framed in a ghost story.

Mary Rose director Angie Millard, left, and stage manager Em Peattie

“In rehearsals, it’s been about exploring characters and the loss they feel. We’ve had crying  in the rehearsal room, and I defy anyone to watch the last scene without a lump in their throat.”

Key to Angie’s decision to “offer a little more explanation” is her exploration of Mary Rose. “I’m trying to express her state of mind,” she says. “Mary Rose is clearly autistic, hiding in the apple tree as a child when the Morland family story opens in 1909. At 18, she could equally be taken for a child, talking about playing games.

“She’s too young for her age; her mother and father [Mr and Mrs Morland] recognise this, and in now having an actor in his 40s – rather than one in his 20s – as her husband, it works really well for having the bigger age discrepancy as it was a time when men married young women and no-one thought anything of it.”

You will note that Barrie’s Mary Rose mirrors Peter Pan in the theme of mothers and lost sons: Barrie grew up as a “lost boy”, neglected by his grieving mother after the death of his elder brother. Like Peter Pan too, the character of Mary Rose does not grow up.

“I’m also fascinated that Alfred wanted to do Mary Rose’s story as a film,” says Angie. “He could see the mileage in it, that strangeness typical of Hitchcock. “

Haunted: Beryl Nairn’s Mrs Ottery in York Actors Collective’s Mary Rose. Picture: Clive Millard

In Angie’s cast are Beryl Nairn as Mrs Ottery; Chris Pomfrett as Harry; Tony Froud as Mr Morland; Victoria Delaney as Mrs Morland; Clare Halliday as Molly; Xandra Logan as Mary Rose; Joy Warner as Cameron and Laurence O’Reilly, Angie’s poet son, as Simon, stepping into the role at three weeks’ notice.

York Actors Collective presents  J M Barrie’s Mary Rose, York Theatre Royal Studio, October 30 to November 2, 7.45pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and 2pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or  yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Did you know?

MARY Rose premiered in London at the Haymarket Theatre in April 1920, running until February 1921. Fay Compton played Mary Rose, a role written for her by Barrie. The play opened in New York on Broadway in December  1920, running at the Empire Theatre for four months with Ruth Chatterton as Mary Rose.

A 1972 production by Manchester’s 69 Theatre Company starred American actress Mia Farrow, transferring to London.

Alfred Hitchcock planned to turn the play into a film, with Tippi Hedren in the title role, but was thwarted by Universal Studios.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York & beyond, from fantastical tiger’s tale to ghostly goings-on. Hutch’s List No. 40, from Gazette & Herald

Balancing act: M6 Theatre Company in Mike Kenny’s A Tiger’s Tale at Helmsley Arts Centre

A TIGER adventure and a boy with a stammer, two ghost stories and a pioneering DJ are in the spotlight in Charles Hutchinson’s entertainment tips for the week ahead.

Ryedale children’s show of the week: M6 Theatre Company, A Tiger’s Tale, Helmsley Arts Centre, today, 2.30pm

ROCHDALE company M6 Theatre presents York playwright Mike Kenny’s fantastical, riotous adventure A Tiger’s Tale, the extraordinary story of Fenella, the Holmfirth Tiger, in a high-spirited balancing act of circus, puppetry, live music and song.

From a circus train in South Africa, to a steamboat on the Atlantic Ocean and onward to West Yorkshire, the ramshackle travelling troupe of Titch, Ma and Pa relates the unbelievable true story of a family of acrobats and their adopted tiger cub. Suitable for ages four to 11. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny in Bristol Old Vic’s Wonder Boy, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Steve Tanner

Play of the week: Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday; evenings, 7.30pm, tonight and Friday; matinees, 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday

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

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

Victoria Delaney as Mrs Morland and Tony Froud as Mr Morland in York Actors Collective’s production of J M Barrie’s Mary Rose at York Theatre Royal Studio. Picture: Clive Millard

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

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

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

Helmsley company Clap Trap Theatre in the ghost story The Room Upstairs at Helmsley Arts Centre

Haunted drama for Halloween week: Clap Trap Theatre in The Room Upstairs, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm

WHEN a young woman answers an advertisement for a trusted house-sitter, she arrives at a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere. It should be the perfect job but with one proviso. Please do not go into the room upstairs.

A mysterious cloaked figure narrates and commentates as two young people strive to unravel the long-held mystery of a haunted house in this new 55-minute black comedy by BAFTA-nominated television writer Tom Needham, performed by Cal Stockbridge, Florrie Stockbridge and Helmsley Arts Centre artistic director and Youth Theatre director Natasha Jones. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Skylights: York band headline York Barbican for the first time this weekend

York gig of the week: Skylights, York Barbican, Saturday, doors 7pm

ANTHEMIC York indie band Skylights play their biggest home-city gig to date this weekend with support from Serotones and Pennine Suite.

Guitarist Turnbull Smith says: ‘We’re absolutely over the moon to be headlining the Barbican. It’s always been a dream of ours to play here. So to headline will be the perfect way to finish a great year. Thanks to everyone for the support. It means the world and we’ll see you all there.” Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.

Rob Rouse: Headlining Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club at The Basement. Picture: Andy Hollingworth

Comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, Rob Rouse, Peter Brush, Faizan Shan and Damion Larkin, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, Saturday, 8pm

PEAK District comedian, television regular, Upstart Crow actor and self-help podcaster Rob Rouse, who trained as a geography teacher at the University of Sheffield, makes a rare York appearance with his hyperactive, loveable brand  of comedy.

Harrogate Comedian of the Year 2012 Peter Brush combines a slight, bespectacled frame and scruffy hair with quirky one-liners and original material, delivered in an amusingly awkward fashion. Manchester comic Faizan Shah’s material makes light of growing up in an immigrant household with the mental health challenges it brings. Organiser Damion Larkin hosts as ever. Box office: 01904 612940 or lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.

Andy Kershaw: “Two-hour explosion of irresistible tropical dance music” at Milton Rooms, Malton

Declaring war on musical mediocrity: Andy Kershaw’s African, Caribbean & Latin Dance Night, Milton Rooms, Malton, November 8, 8pm

ANDY Kershaw, DJ pioneer, evangelist and Old Grey Whistle Test presenter, has brought global music to British audiences over more than three decades of programmes on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 3. His obsession with finding new music has resulted in a 7.5 ton record collection garnered from visits to 97 countries in pursuit of new and exciting sounds.

His one-man war on musical mediocrity promises a two-hour explosion of irresistible tropical dance music. Folk-infused York buskers and party, pub and festival covers’ band Hyde Family Jam support. Box office: 01653 692240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Rag’n’Bone Man: Returning to Scarborough Open Air Theatre next summer

Gig announcements of the week: TK Maxx presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell, July 6, and Rag’n’Bone Man, July 11 2025

“I THINK I’ve got the best reggae band in the world,” says UB40 legend Ali Campbell, who last played Scarborough OAT in 2021. “They are all seasoned musicians, who have spent all their lives in professional bands, and I feel so confident with them.” Support acts will be Bitty McLean and Pato Banton.

Triple BRIT Award and Ivor Novello Award winner Rag’n’Bone Man, alias Rory Graham,  will follow up his 2023 Scarborough OAT show with a return next summer in the wake of his third album, What Do You Believe In? entering the charts at number three last Friday. His special guest will be Elles Bailey. Tickets for both shows go on sale at 9am on Friday at ticketmaster.co.uk.

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

Sally Cookson, director of Wonder Boy

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

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

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

Here Sally discusses the wonders of Wonder Boy.

How did your production of Wonder Boy come to fruition?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 How is creative captioning used in the show?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flashback

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adam Price and Natalie Walker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ayana Beatrice Poblete and Reggie Challenger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Band:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris (vocals, guitar, banjo, dulcimer and percussion) and Julie (vocals, piano, guitar, mandolin and bouzouki) released their 13th studio album, Days Like These, on Fat Cat Records last month. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Tracy (Katie Brice/Scarborough actress Alexandra Emerson-Kirby in her professional debut) becomes a local star, she uses her newfound fame to fight for liberation, tolerance, and interracial unity in Baltimore, but can she succeed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did you know?

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

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

Did you know too?

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

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

One more thing..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tempest Wisdom: Directing York Shakespeare Project for the first time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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