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York International Shakespeare Festival is under way for 11 days of shows, talks, workshops, exhibition and scratch night

Footsbarn Theatre in Twelfth Night: Making their first British apperance in 15 years at the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival

FOOTSBARN Theatre will premiere their new production of Shakespeare’s bittersweet comedy Twelfth Night in a triumphant return to British soil after 15 years at the York International Shakespeare Festival.

April 27’s evening performance and April 28’s matinee will be followed by a UK and European tour throughout the summer, taking in the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival in Romania next month and Verona International Shakespeare Festival, Italy, in August.

Directed by Sadie Jammett, this will be the first full-scale Shakespeare show to be performed by the iconic travelling theatre company in Great Britain since A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 15 years ago.

Footsbarn began life in Cornwall in 1971 when a group of young performers started rehearsing in the barn of Trewen, a farmhouse near the village of Trewidland. Born out of a dream to create a form of theatre that would be “popular, generous and accessible to all”, the company is noted for performing in its circus big top across the globe. 

In more than 50 years – the last 25 based in Maillet, France – Footsbarn have put their name to most of Shakespeare plays, but this will be their first staging of Twelfth Night. Now, perhaps more than any other time, this play comes into its own by exploring the themes of gender identity that younger generations are bravely bringing to the world’s attention.

Artistic director Sadie Jemmett says: “It was important to choose a production that would continue the great legacy and style of the company while also appealing to a new generation of theatregoers, and I believe that Twelfth Night does just that.”

Established in 2014 to “showcase York adaptations of Shakespeare’s works alongside international  interpretations and to make global Shakespeare accessible to UK audiences from York and beyond”, this month’s event will be the festival’s sixth staging and the first since it became an annual event.

Residents and visitors to York from today until April 28 will find the city filled with powerful, moving shows, lectures by internationally recognised academics, exhibitions and workshops presented by Shakespeare enthusiasts from all over the world.

The festival is in the first year of a three-year sponsorship by York St John University, resulting in the theatre in the new Creative Centre becoming the principal location.

Other partners include York Theatre Royal, York Explore Library, York Shakespeare Project, the Grand Opera House, York, Theatre @41, Monkgate, Riding Lights Theatre Company, Rise @ Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, and many volunteers.

Two world premieres will bookend the festival. Opening the event today will be the European Shakespeare Festivals Network’s ShakeSphere Award Winner 2024, Hamlet: Double Bill from Italy, featuring Hamlet & The Grave Diggers and Hamlet & The Players, selected from 76 proposals. Footsbarn’s visit will be the closing act.

Another recommendation is American actress Debra Ann Byrd’s powerhouse solo show Becoming Othello, chiming with the festival theme of Shakespearean identity, in a Wednesday evening performance and Thursday matinee for schools.

“If we’re talking about an international festival of Shakespeare, we’re talking about Shakespeare morphing with other cultures and then taking shape in their own work,” says festival director Philip Parr.

“Becoming Othello is about a black woman’s journey into theatre – and Debra Ann has had as rough a journey as you could imagine, in New York, where she was told ‘you can’t go to drama school; black women don’t go, and certainly not from Harlem. If you do go, you play maids and servants and certainly not Shakespeare leads’.

“Yet 20 years ago she founded the Harlem Shakespeare Festival. So Becoming Othello is her story, and it’s a brilliant piece of theatre that she worked on at the Shakespeare Institute, with Shakespeare specialists both here and in the United States. The show is really grounded in the nature of Shakespeare.”

In her week-long stay in York, Byrd will be mentor of honour at a Shakespeare Scratch Night at the Grand Opera House and will host workshops in schools too.

Further highlights will include first readings of English translations of Shakespeare inspired plays from Bulgaria and Turkey, and a first-time visit by two Ukrainian actors and a director to work for a week with Philip Parr, leading to two performances tomorrow (20/4/2024).

Literature fans can look forward to a variety of talks and lectures delivered throughout the festival by Shakespearean academics from Europe, Asia, and the Americas, while York Explore will play host to an exhibition of 300 years of representations of Othello.

York youngsters and families will have free or low-cost opportunities to become involved with the festival “to enjoy a bit of Shakespeare”.

Philip says: “This will be the only time this year you will be able to see international theatre in our city. In our fast-changing world, the plays of Shakespeare provide a shared body of work, which explores essential values, and which is capable of infinite reinvention.

“They create a space in which we can exchange ideas, explore our differences, and find our common ground. We’re excited to be creating such a space in York.”

Tickets and full programme details are available at yorkshakes.co.uk/programme-2024.

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Husthwaite Players head to the woods in Lottie Alexander’s staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Husthwaite Village Hall

Effie Warboys’ Helena, Sam Strickland’s Lysander and Rachael Williams’s Hermia in rehearsal for Husthwaite Players’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream. All pictures: Jack Wells

LOTTIE Alexander directs Husthwaite Players in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Husthwaite Village Hall, near Easingwold, from April 25 to 27.

“What happens when characters – and audiences and readers – are moved from the known to the unknown, from order to disorder?” asks Lottie. “When they step outside their everyday life and enter into a strange dimension, such as the island in Lord Of The Flies, or Neverland, or the wood in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

“The wood is the centre of Shakespeare’s play, a place inhabited by fairies, ruled over by Titania and Oberon, whose quarrel has had the effect of altering the seasons. The disruptive interaction of the fairies with the mortals who dare to enter the forest, the lovers, and the artisans rehearsing their play, forms the major part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Despite the play being set in Athens, the wood and the fairies are thoroughly English, as are the artisans who perform their play for Duke Theseus. “Our production is set in 1918 – and the setting is appropriate,” says Lottie.

Marcus Pickstone’s Oberon stands overThomas Jennings’s Demetrius as they rehearse for Husthwaite Players’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“In 1917, in England, the photographs, taken by two young girls, of cut-out paper fairies deceived many in England, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. From the 18th century, England was changed forever, as the Industrial Revolution drove the change from rural life to the new mechanized society, and the countryside was swallowed up by railways and urban and suburban sprawl.

“As a reaction, the interest in stories of fairies and magic abounded, folk tales and ballads were collected by antiquarians, and Spiritualism flourished, particularly post-war.”

Lottie continues: “In the play, Theseus explains to Hippolyta that it is easy for mortal minds to be confused by unusual images and experiences, and, as Puck reminds the audience at the play’s end, it may all have been a dream.”

Casting an eye over her company, Lottie says: “We are a village with a small community, and most of our players are local, but we have been lucky enough to be able to attract outside talent in several of our previous productions.

Thisbe, left, The Wall and Pyramus in the “Wall Play” finale to Husthwaite Players’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“For A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we have four talented and dedicated players as our young lovers: Effie Warboys (Helena), Thomas Jennings (Demetrius), Rachael Williams (Hermia) and Sam Strickland (Lysander). Effie and Thomas have most recently performed with the York Shakespeare Project.”

Look out too for Ray Alexander, past director of York Mystery Plays and York Settlement Community Players productions, making an ass of himself in the role of Nick Bottom, the weaver.

“We hope audiences will enjoy our production. After all, as Philip Henslowe says in the film Shakespeare in Love: ‘Comedy, love and a bit with a dog. That’s what they want’!”

Husthwaite Players in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, April 25 to 27, 7.30pm; doors 7pm. Tickets: £10, children £5, family £25; 07836 721775 or email sheila_mowatt@btinternet.com.

Husthwaite Players’ poster for Lottie Alexander’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Cast

Duke Theseus: Paul Hampshire

Hippolyta: Rachael Bice

Philostrate: Euan Crawshaw

Egeia: Lydia Ebdon

Hermia: Rachael Williams

Demetrius: Thomas Jennings

Lysander: Sam Strickland

Helena: Effie Warboys

Polly Quince: Stella McDevitt

Nick Bottom: Ray Alexander

Francis Flute: David Aspinall

Robin Starveling: Jane Cluley

Sally Snug: Sheila Mowatt

Puck: Scott Lammas

Celandine: Bethan Simpson

Oberon: Marcus Pickstone

Titania: Emma Kissack

Conker (the dog):  Himself

Fairies and sprites played by Hustwaite children.

Production team

Director: Lottie Alexander

Set design: Ray Alexander

Scenic artists: Sorrel Price, Emma Kissack

Wardrobe: Lynn Colton, Julia Hampshire

Props: Liz Walton, Doreen French

Stage management: Stephen Barker, Simon Eedle

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Steve Tearle to play Tevye for third time in NE Theatre York’s Fiddler On The Roof

Steve Tearle’s Tevye and Perri Ann Barley’s Golde in NE Theatre York’s Fiddler On The Roof

DIRECTOR and lead actor Steve Tearle is at the helm of NE Theatre York’s revival of Fiddler On The Roof at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, next Tuesday to Saturday to celebrate the American musical’s 60th anniversary.

Based on Sholem Aleichem’s story Tevye And His Daughters (or Tevye The Dairyman) and other tales, the nine-time Tony Award-winning 1964 musical has music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and book by Joseph Stein and is best known for the songs If I Were A Rich Man, Matchmaker, Miracle Of Miracles and Sunrise.

Set in the Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia in 1905, the story centres on Tevye, the humble milkman and family man, who lives a very simple life in the small village of Anatevka.

When three of his five daughters rebel against the traditions of arranged marriages and decide to take matters into their own hands, mayhem unfolds as he strives to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural creeds.

Steve Tearle’s Tevye and Alice Atang’s Fiddler, Tevye’s conscience, in NE Theatre York’s Fiddler On The Roof

Tevye must cope not only with his daughters’ strong will to marry for love – each one’s choice of husband moving further away from the customs of his faith – but also with the Tsar’s edict to evict the Jewish community from their village [in the story’s nod to the Kishinev pogrom, an act of persecution against Russian Jews in April 1903].

Tearle will be playing Tevye, forever associated with Israeli actor, singer and illustrator Topol in the Oscar-winning 1971 film, where he reprised the role he had originated on Broadway and went on to perform more than 3,500 times between 1967 and 2009.

Tearle, by comparison, will be chalking up a hattrick of turns as Tevye, a part he played previously for New Earswick Musicals at the JoRo in November 2016 under Ann McCreadie’s direction, when the York Press review praised him for his “limitless charisma and exemplary dad dancing”.

“Tevye is a dream role,” he says. “You get to go through so many emotions. It’s an honour to play this part again, bringing him to life with NE Theatre’s amazing cast. It’s a fab experience.

“The show may be 60 years old but it’s very relevant today with the empowerment of women as Tevye’s daughters rebel against faith and tradition by choosing who they want to marry. The story highlights the struggles of the Jewish community too.”

Fiddler in the woods: Alice Atang’s Fiddler, Perri Ann Barley’s Golde and Steve Tearle’s Tevye set the scene for NE Theatre York’s Fiddler On The Roof

NE Theatre also wanted to do the show as a tribute to the late Mavis Massheder, who made her first stage appearance for New Earswick Amateur and Dramatic Society (now NE Theare York) in 1954 in the chorus of The Gondoliers and was elected chair in 1969.

Mavis steered the company through the many ups and downs and difficult times the theatre industry experienced over the next 45 years. She died in 2020 aged 91.

Perri Ann Barley will play Tevye’s wife Golde, joined by Maia Stroud, Rebecca Jackson, Elizabeth Farrell, Alexa Lord-Laverick and Paige Sidebottom as his daughters, Ali Butler Hind as Yente and Alice Atang as The Fiddler, Tevye’s conscience.

The company will include Kit Stroud, Callum Richardson, Finley Butler, Geoff Seavers, Toby Jensen, James O’Neill, Scott Barnes, Chris Hagyard, Kelvin Grant, Pascha Turnbull, Aileen Hall, Carolyn Jensen and Greg Roberts too.

NE Theatre York in Fiddler On The Roof, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, Haxby Road, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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Alex digs beneath the Surface to bring out the comedy in The School For Scandal

“Joseph Surface is selfish, hypocritical, vain, manipulative,” says The School For Scandal actor Alex Phelps. ” I’d say he would think he’s quite charming too!” Picture: Anthony Robling

GOSSIP never goes out of fashion, whether in the 1770s, 2020s or 1950s, the new setting for Tilted Wig’s production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s Georgian comedy of manners The School For Scandal.

“We wanted to allow our audience to get to as close to the heart of the play as possible and sometimes the baggage that goes with 18th century theatre, all the wigs and ruffles, can feel like a barrier,” reasons director Sean Aydon, ahead of next week’s run at York Theatre Royal.

“The actors of the 1770s would be wearing the height of fashion and we wanted our audiences to get a sense that these people were wealthy, stylish and take great care of their personal appearances.

“However, it didn’t feel right to set it in the modern day as the world of the play has very different rules to our own, particularly with regards to marriage as a financial agreement.”

Sean continues: “We felt the middle of the 20th century would be a great place aesthetically as our audience could enjoy the vibrant colours and evocative textures, appreciating its style while knowing we are not in our 21st century world.

Alex Phelps’s Joseph Surface, left, seeks to deceive Joseph Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal. Picture: Anthony Robling

“It also allows us to play with some recognisable comedy tropes from the Fifties, including some rather brightly coloured telephones.”

Aydon’s cast is led by Joseph Marcell, once the butler in NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, now the lordly, wealthy aristocrat Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but if her husband believes it, she may as well give it a go.

Enter into the scandalous scenario one Joseph Surface, played by Alex Phelps, whose adroit comedy talents last graced the York stage in February 2023 in Tilted Wig’s touring collaboration with the Theatre Royal in the circus-themed Around The World In 80 Days in the dual roles of the Ringmaster and the unscrupulous globe-trotting Phileas Fogg.

Earlier Alex had stolen the show when playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek with such brio in Joyce Branagh’s Jazz Age take on Twelfth Night for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre at the Eye of York in June 2019.

Introducing his latest role as Joseph Surface, Alex says: “Lots of things are going on beneath that surface. He’s selfish, he’s hypocritical, he’s vain, he’s manipulative. I’d say he would think he’s quite charming too, which is a deception. That’s his undoing in a way, thinking he’s got it all going on, but then it all begins to unravel.”

Alex Phelps in the role of the Ringmaster/Phileas Fogg in York Theatre Royal and Tilted Wig’s co-production of Around The World In 80 Days in 2023. Picture: Anthony Robling

Phelps’s Surface succeeds in convincing Sir Peter that he is the epitome of goodness. “Initially it goes incredibly well for him, and he manages to get inside Sir Peter’s head, but then he tries to seduce his wife.”

Wrong move. “The reason I love playing this kind of character is that they have so far to fall. That lovely twist of someone thinking they’re the best thing in the world and convincing everyone else of that too, but then they begin to fall very quickly, as they try to be high status but do so in a way that betrays them. When you play against that barrier, it becomes funnier.”

Alex is working with director Sean Aydon for the first time. “It’s been really wonderful,” he says. “We discovered that Sean had been in the third year at my drama school – Manchester School of Theatre – when I was in my first year, but you don’t really mix with the third years, who are busy doing plays, so I didn’t get to know him there. It’s only now, ten years later, that we’ve done that.”

Alex has revelled in Sean’s adaptation. “The language has stuck entirely to its period, with Sean not trying to change its 1777 style. Sheridan’s razor-like wit really comes through, but what Sean has done is set it in 1950 with a minimalist set with three telephones on plinths,” he says.

“Like Richard Bean did so well with One Man, Two Guvnors [relocating Carlo Goldoni’s play from 1746 Italy to 1963 Brighton], in Sean’s version, 18th century social conventions for men are still there in 1950, but what Sheridan did was to give women incredible power in the play: they are the driving force.”

Alex Phelps, middle, back row, playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s Twelfth Night in York in 2019

Working on stage with Joseph Marcell has been rewarding too. “I’m blessed in the sense that each night I get back to sit back and learn from him and his skills and his crafts. He’s been at the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company], on the board at Shakespeare’s Globe, and he has such incredible amount of experience, I would be a fool, as someone who loves this craft, not to watch him and learn from him,” he says.

“Sometimes, I’ll sit there with puppy dog eyes, thinking, ‘gosh, I’m on stage with one of the greats, someone with comedy in his bones’. He’s a lovely man and a great actor.”

Alex has learned to be alive to the unpredictability of live performance, how a show, especially a comedy, can change from night to night. “When you’re on stage, all your senses are heightened; you listen to see if the audience is coming with you, if a laugh makes something work. It’s incredibly elusive because it’s different every night. Like a bar of soap, sometimes it slips, but sometimes you catch it!”

Tilted Wig in tandem with Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Joseph’s journey from the butler in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air to aristocratic Sir Peter Teazle in The School For Scandal

Joseph Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in The School For Scandal. Picture: Ant Robling

THE last time Joseph Marcell played York Theatre Royal, the March 2020 visit of Alone In Britain was stopped mid-run by the imposition of Covid restrictions.

Next week, he returns in Tilted Wig’s production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comedy of manners The School For Scandal in the lead role of Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but she starts to think that if her husband believes it, she should give it a go. After all, if you are going to cause a scandal, you may as well enjoy it.

Now 75, Saint Lucia-born actor and comedian Marcell is best known for his NBC sitcom role as Geoffrey, the snooty butler, in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air from September 1990 to May 1996.

His other TV credits include Mammoth and I Hate You for the BBC and this year he is to appear in Candice Carty-William’s Queenie on Channel 4.

His prolific stage credits include the Young Vic’s Hamlet with Cush Jumbo; Kathy Burke’s Lady Windermere’s Fan; extensive work with Shakespeare’s Globe, such as the titular role in Bill Buckhurst’s King Lear and Derek Walcott’s Omeros, as well as seasons at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He is taking to the road in Seán Aydon’s staging of The School For Scandal after starring in Chiwetel Ejiofor’s debut feature film, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind.

Alex Phelps and Joseph Marcell in a scene from Seán Aydon’s production of The School For Scandal. Picture: Ant Robling

Here he discusses his latest stage role; The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air; Sir Patrick Stewart; leaving electrical engineering for theatre; Saint Lucia and Queenie.

How does Sir Peter Teazle fit into the plot of The School For Scandal?

“Sir Peter is an aristocratic, wealthy and well-respected lord. He decided to marry. A country girl was chosen after a fairly long courtship. The difference in their ages and outlook has become a constant issue.

“Lady Teazle has become a full member of the WITS, a set of gossip mongers. Sir Peter is at his wits’ end. This school for scandal is the bane of his life and the cause of the endless bickering. However, he loves and cares for Lady Teazle.

Would you agree with Sheridan’s 1777 play being called “one of the greatest comedies ever written”?

“Yes, I would agree. The language, settings, characters and themes are amusing. And at the time of the play’s first production that aspect of comedy had not been enjoyed by a British audience.”

What differentiates Tilted Wig’s staging of The School For Scandal from past productions?

“We are set in the 1950s. Although we are not in wigs and frock coats, the sentiment of those times as best as we can imagine is fully respected. The characters are of a time gone by and we are totally respectful to the language, because without that there is no play The School For Scandal.”

Lydea Perkins’s Lady Teazle and Jospeh Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in The School For Scandal

Will today’s audiences be scandalised by The School For Scandal?

“I am not too sure of that. But I am certain that within the world of the play a modern audience would empathise. Gossip and scandal to me is not the actual story; it’s the embellishments that happen in the retelling of the tale. We, a modern audience, really do understand the importance of ‘fact-checking’.”

What is the best bit of gossip you have heard about yourself?

“That I am an American actor. That I am married to an American woman from California and a British woman from Berkshire at the same time.”

How did a young actor born in Saint Lucia and living in London get cast in an American TV comedy, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air? Didn’t Patrick Stewart have something to do with it?

“Ah, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. Well, I was touring the Universities of Southern California with an organisation called ACTER (Alliance for Creative Theatre and Research), which was created by Sir Patrick Stewart and Professor Homer Swander, of UC [University of California] Santa Barbara, under the auspices of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Tilted Wig’s poster image for The School For Scandal

“We were playing in Los Angeles in 1987 in a five-person production of Measure For Measure directed by Patrick Stewart. I played Angelo and three other roles. This flagship company was created for actors who had played leading roles in the plays of William Shakespeare, and our presence in Los Angeles, especially under the RSC banner, was a theatrical event. Anybody who was anybody came to the theatre over those days.

“Then, in 1990, Brandon Tarticoff (NBC) and Quincy Jones decided to produce the show The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. They needed an English butler and one of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Someone remembered me as Angelo in Measure For Measure; searched and located me, and then made me an offer, which I would have been foolish to refuse. So yes, Sir Patrick Stewart created the space for me. And for that, I am very grateful.”

Are you still recognised from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air and do you keep in touch with co-star Will Smith and the cast?

“Yes, I am very much recognised. From America to Zimbabwe. Wherever in the world I visit. We do all keep in touch and have a biannual lunch in Malibu, California. These reunions are fun.”

How much of a culture shock was it when you and your family moved from Saint Lucia in the Caribbean to Peckham in London in the mid-1950s?

“My father had been resident for a year before the family joined him. We arrived via Genoa, Italy, to Waterloo, London, in November. The fog and the cold temperature was a shock but the denuded trees with no leaves was astonishing. The paraffin heaters took a long time to get used to. Having to play cricket in the rain was boring.”

Last time at York Theatre Royal for Joseph Marcell: Playing Inspector Esherick in Alone In Berlin in March 2020

You trained as an electrical engineer, so how did the acting start?

“Purely by accident. There was a theatrical event in London at that time called The World Theatre Season, created by a man called Michael Saint-Denis. I went to a play by the American Negro Theatre.  I believe the play was called Black New World. They were later to become the lauded Negro Ensemble. That was it for me. I found my road to Damascus. I said goodbye to electrical engineering.”

Your TV break came in Empire Road, a contemporary soap with an almost completely black cast, on the BBC in 1978. How difficult has it been to get diverse roles?

“In my opinion, I believe it is more difficult in these times. The loss of the repertory theatres and the advent of streaming has not been helpful. There’s nowhere to learn and practise the craftsmanship required.”

The last time you were appearing at York Theatre Royal in Hans Fallada’sAlone In Berlin, the theatre had to close mid-run because of the Covid epidemic. How much of a disappointment was that?

Joseph Marcell: Returning to York Theatre Royal

“A great disappointment. The role of Inspector Esherick, a detective in 1930s’ Berlin, was a dream of a role for a non-white actor. The director, James Dacre, had the imagination to cast me in that role. Very brave of him too. Such a talented director. In one move the diversity aspect was vanquished, for a while.

“And yes, the Covid pandemic did cut us off in our prime. Thankfully we have all survived and are in good health. Yet Alone In Berlin was a tremendous production and should have had a much longer life.”

You will next be seen on TV in Queenie, an adaptation of Candice Carly-Williams’s bestseller, on Channel 4. Who do you play?

“Grand Pa Wilfred. Of ‘the Windrush Generation’, he’s a lovely man who has embraced the situation in which he finds himself. One of the unsung heroes of the Caribbean migration to the United Kingdom.”

Tilted Wig in tandem with Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

A quartet of questions for director Seán Aydon

Seán Aydon: Directing Tilted Wig’s production of The School For Scadal, set in 1950

Are you doing your production in period or in a modernised setting?

“We wanted to allow our audience to get to as close to the heart of the play as possible and sometimes the baggage that goes with 18th century theatre, all the wigs and ruffles, can feel like a barrier.

“The actors of the 1770s would be wearing the height of fashion and we wanted our audiences to get a sense that these people were wealthy, stylish and take great care of their personal appearances.

“However, it didn’t feel right to set it in the modern day as the world of the play has very different rules to our own, particularly with regards to marriage as a financial agreement. We felt the middle of the 20th century would be a great place aesthetically as our audience could enjoy the vibrant colours and evocative textures, appreciating its style while knowing we are not in our 21st century world. It also allows us to play with some recognisable comedy tropes from the Fifties, including some rather brightly coloured telephones.”

Would you agree that Sheridan’s play is “one of the greatest comedies ever written”?

“I think it’s absolutely one of the best comedies ever written! You can see so many hallmarks of contemporary comedies and the great plays and films of modern times. It’s a classic sitcom plot with wicked wit, alongside slapstick, farce and some very silly physical comedy.

“Working on it, it seems easy to see its influence on so many of our favourite comedies from Blackadder to Noises Off.”

What differentiates this staging of The School For Scandal from past productions?

“This production really puts the relationship between the actors and the audience first. It is truly theatrical, an experience you can’t have on your sofa. At the same time, I think our new setting will make it feel very easy to relate to and understand from the very off while celebrating everything that makes this play exceptional.”

Will today’s audiences be scandalised by The School for Scandal?

“I don’t want to spoil anything, but those ghastly scandal-makers get what they deserve. In that respect it feels very contemporary; as a nation, we’re still pretty obsessed with the gossip columns!

“But I think our audiences will leave feeling rather warm and fuzzy – and with sore sides of course.”

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REVIEW: York Stage in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Gold top performance: Reuben Khan’s Joseph in York Stage’s Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick

AFTER Lee Mead, Keith Jack, Joe McElderry and Union J’s Jaymi Hensley, Joseph’s coat of many colours fits Reuben Khan delightfully lightly at the Grand Opera House.

The University of York psychology student, from Burnley, has plenty on his mind: third-year studies; his debut York Stage title role and applications to London drama schools to do a Masters degree in musical theatre.

On the evidence of his assured performance at 23, especially vocally, his future looks as bright as the Technicolor Dreamcoat that had him “saying the colours of Jospeh’s coat before I could spell them” on car journeys with his mum.

Director, producer and designer Nik Briggs returns to Lloyd Webber and Rice’s early musical for the first time since his “Joseph as you’ve never seen it before” show at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in November 2018 with its  cast of 50 and Joseph in pyjamas.

Performing on crutches: Finn East’s Simeon singing with the Brothers

The Grand Opera House offers the opportunity to deliver a production on a bigger scale, not in cast size, but in lighting, staging and visual impact, aided by the fabulous parade of costume designs from Charades Theatrical Costume, St Helens.

The stage is built from scratch, as first the Narrator, Hannah Shaw, then Joseph and children from York Stage School (divided into Team Canaan and Team Egypt) oversee the creation of the world of Canaan, home to Jacob and his 11 sons (some of them daughters in Briggs’s company).

It looks so inviting, you want to book a holiday there. All it needs now to complete the scene is a camel. Oh, and here comes a camel on wheels, pretty much life-size!

From the off, this sung-through pop musical moves at a lick: typified by Finn East’s Simeon defying his injured knee to speed around on crutches, popping up everywhere and taking on a second role too as the Snake.

Hannah Shaw, who studied music at York St John University, sets the tone and style in glittering dress and shiny boots, engaging with the children like a teacher, driving the show forward and singing with oomph, both in her high notes and a lower register.

Storyteller in song: Hannah Shaw’s Narrator

Reuben Khan’s Joseph sings like a dream, whatever a song demands, whether tenderness, drama, power, or emotion further heightened by standing atop a ladder on a stage suddenly full of them in one of Briggs’s most striking designs.

Khan’s characterisation of Joseph has to be expressed largely through Rice’s narrative lyrics, and he does so particularly strongly in the dark ballad Close Every Door, while Any Dream Will Do is as irresistible as ever.

Lesley Hill’s choreography is as playful, fun and camp as this glitterball of a musical demands, at its best in the glorious ensemble number Joseph’s Coat, where Adam Moore’s lighting design matches every change of colour in the lyric.

Briggs’s company revels in playing old favourites with a knowing campness that has only increased with the passing of the years, especially in Jacob (Martin Rowley) and the brothers’ cod rendition of the sad chanson Those Canaan Days, exaggerated French accents et al.

The York Stage company in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Benjamin’s Calypso is even dafter, full of Caribbean joy as Cyanne Unamba-Oparah’s Judah has the brothers walking on sunshine.

Pop hit after pop hit hits home in all manner of musical styles, from Alex Hogg leading the brothers in the One More Angel In Heaven hoedown to Matthew Clarke’s vainglorious Potiphar luxuriating in the richness of his self-titled song.

In the absence of Carly Morton with shingles (get well soon, Carly), Amy Barrett takes on the rock’n’roll role of Pharaoh, traditionally played in sequinned-Elvis-in-Las-Vegas style. Not so much Elvis as Elvira here, but her Song Of The King is still a peach (one of the 29 colours in Joseph’s coat, by the way).

Adam Tomlinson’s 15-piece orchestra is on top form throughout, savouring the multitude of song styles and pumping up the beat for the Joseph Megamix finale as the party vibe suffuses the cast and cheering audience alike.

York Stage in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight, Wednesday and Thursday; 5pm and 8pm, Friday; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york

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BREAKING NEWS! Charles Hutchinson’s verdict on: Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening!, Leeds Grand Theatre ****

Back in the news: Stephen Tompkinson’s Damien, left, Robert Duncan’s Gus, Jeff Rawle’s George, Neil Pearson’s Dave and Victoria Wicks’s Sally Smedley reunite in The Truth newsroom in Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening!

MARK Twain would have it that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Once that mantra would keep journalists on their mettle, but now we are in a media world of truths, half-truths and Donald Trump’s favourite, alternative truths, and this way trouble lies.

Already the Beeb had a disinformation correspondent. Then came last May’s launch of the BBC Verify team of 60 journalists, whose forensic job is to “fact-check, verify video, counter disinformation, analyse data and – crucially – explain complex stories in the pursuit of truth”.

In our age of fakes deeper than a Balearic holiday tan, alleged Russian interference on social media and AI manipulation, the virus of misinformation is spreading ever wider and faster.

So much for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when so much news output is slanted opinion rather than fact or when politicians play for time by saying “let me make this absolutely clear”. Muddy the water? More like the rotten state of the Thames on this month’s Boat Race day.

Once there was the loneliness of the midnight-shift shock-jock on the radio, now there is a plethora of right-leaning news radio stations and celebrity hack-led satellite TV channels.

News alert! Here comes Truth News. After Alan Partridge, Brassy Eye’s Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci and Punt & Dennis’s The Now Show, and the indefatigable thorn-in-the-side investigative journalism of Ian Hislop’s Private Eye, what better time for Drop The Dead Donkey to re-enter the fray, 30 years after Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin launched their TV satire on newsroom practices and malpractices behind the deadlines and the headlines.

Earlier this spring, An Evening With The Fast Show recalled all its TV yesterdays with a nostalgic night of chat, catchphrases and microwave-quick sketches 30 years on at the Grand Opera House.

By comparison, Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening is no mere re-heat. Yes, “the band have got back together again”, save for the late Haydn Gwynne (1957-2023), Globelink News’s deputy editor, but now they work for the soon-to-launch Truth News in the white heat of the 2024 news industry, 24-hour rolling news et al.

Welcome back George (Jeff Rawle), the stoical editor, with a new North Korean girlfriend on his mind and an erratic coffee machine to work out, over-eager to respond to his every spoken order.

One by one, the “fab four” reunite in Drop The Dead Donkey’s stage debut: next, the troubled and in-trouble Dave (Neil Pearson), then buzzword-chomping chief executive Gus (Robert Duncan).

Lastly, Damien (Stephen Tompkinson), always a stranger to truth in the cause of a scoop from the frontline and now confined to a wheelchair as a “Primark Frank Gardner”. That gibe is typical of Hamilton and Jenkin’s wit, attuned to the BBC Radio 4 listeners populating the Grand Theatre auditorium, along with a knowing jest at their age.

Thirty years on, the news hounds remain well drawn, colourful and amusingly fallible characters. Less so, the women in the news team: Ingrid Lacey’s long-suffering Helen; Susannah Doyle’s not exactly joyful Joy; Julia Hills’ duplicitous Mairead and Kerena Jagpal’s newcomer, Rita, the easily shocked weather girl, sorry, presenter.

Only Victoria Wicks’s newsreader, the implacable, thick-skinned Sally Smedley, has lines or a story arc to rival the men in the room. That’s a missed opportunity by the writers.

As Truth News takes to the air, the frictions and revelations, the technical hitches and glitches, have the rhythm of sitcom, forcing familiar characters and traits to collide anew. Duncan’s hyperbolic Gus is on particularly fine form, bubbling and babbling away the more the troubled waters rise.

Hamilton and Jenkin are at their punchiest in their topicality, updating the script throughout the tour, taking pot shots at Sunak and Hancock for example. Their satirical finger is on the pulse of 2024 news gathering and the source of its financing too.

Nothing sums up news trends better than gushing Gus’s obsession with the power of algorithms to dictate news agendas. Time after time he hits you with his algorithm schtick, more ridiculous than the last.

Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! lives up to that exclamation mark, its sceptical, zeitgiest humour topped off by Damien’s Henry V-style battle cry in the cause of truth that brings the house down in agreement, only for one last revelation to trip him up.

Derek Bond’s smart direction, Peter Mackintosh’s newsroom set and Dan Light’s video design are spot on. Drop the dud ending, or at least make it sharper, and this would be an even better comeback show. And that’s the truth.

Drop The Dead Donkey, Leeds Grand Theatre, tonight at 7.30pm. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond as art bursts out of every corner. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 16, from The Press

Impressionist oil painter Michael Hasan Reda: Making his York Open Studios debut in Prices Lane

ART from the city and out of this world, an orchestra of two, Canadian rock, Italian opera and a courtroom thriller have Charles Hutchinson reaching for the front door key.

Art event of the fortnight: York Open Studios, today and tomorrow; April 20 and 21, 10am to 5pm

AS many as 156 artists and makers who live or work within a ten-mile radius of York will be welcoming visitors to 106 workspaces to show and sell their art, ranging from ceramics, collage, digital, illustration, jewellery and mixed media to painting, print, photography, sculpture, textiles, glass and wood. Among them will be 31 new participants. Full details and a map can be found at yorkopenstudios.co.uk. Look out for booklets around the city too.

East Riding Artists: Addressing climate change in From The Earth exhibition at Nunnington Hall

Ryedale exhibition of the week: From The Earth, East Riding Artists, at Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, near Helmsley, until May 12, 10.30am to 5pm

THE climate crisis is high on the worldwide agenda; evidence of nature’s fragility can be found everywhere we turn, and few would question that our Earth is changing dramatically, in some cases irrevocably. Nature, however, is a force to be reckoned with, prompting 32 painters, potters and creatives from East Riding Artists to celebrate everything our natural world has to offer.

From the power of the North Sea and the beauty of Yorkshire’s countryside and coastline to the food we grow and the flowers we cultivate, From The Earth cherishes the best of our ever-changing world. Normal admission applies; National Trust members, free.

In Flight: Barenaked Ladies land at York Barbican on Sunday

Pinch me, look who’s coming to York: Barenaked Ladies, In Flight UK Tour 2024, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.50pm

IN the words of Barenaked Ladies drummer Tyler Stewart: “Our In Flight UK Tour 2024 will feature tasty new songs from the album and of course, a whole slew of BNL hits spanning 35 years. So come on Subjects! It’s time to ring in spring with your favourite Canadians, Barenaked Ladies. We look forward to seeing your happy faces.” Support acts will be Callum Beattie and Ferris & Sylvester.

Sold out already in the York Barbican week ahead are the Modfather Paul Weller’s return on Wednesday and arch comedian Tom Allen’s Completely gig on Thursday. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

The Blackheart Orchestra: Two musicians, Chrissy Mostyn and Rick Pilkington, play 13 instruments between them at Helmsley Arts Centre

Prog rock for the space age: The Blackheart Orchestra, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday (19/4/2024), doors, 7.30pm

CHRISSY Mostyn and Rick Pilkington’s two-piece “orchestra” play 13 instruments between them from their prog-rock space station on stage, from acoustic and electric guitars, bass and bowed guitar to piano, organ, vintage synthesisers, omnichord, melodica and electric percussion.

Drawing on influences as varied as Kate Bush, Portishead, Cocteau Twins, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, they combine folk and rock roots with electronica and classical music. Foxpalmer, alias London singer-songwriter Fern McNulty, supports, from 8pm. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Patrick Draper, Tony Jameson and Alfie Joey: Comedy at the treble on Friday at the Milton Rooms, Malton

Hilarity Bites Comedy Club: Alfie Joey, Patrick Draper and Tony Jameson, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm

ALFIE Joey is a polymath: artist, radio presenter, podcaster, comedian, communication coach, Ted X speaker, impressionist, interviewer, charity auctioneer, motivator, children’s author, master of ceremonies, pantomime player, sitcom actor, Britain’s Got Talent participant and illustrator for York writer Ian Donaghy’s book Never Stop Drawing.

Comedy will be his focus in Malton, where he will be joined by Patrick Draper, purveyor of deadpan jokes, visual gags and songs, and host Tony Jameson. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Keeping an eye on things: English Touring Opera in Manon Lescaut. Picture: Richard Hubert Smith

Opera of the week: English Touring Opera in Manon Lescaut, York Theatre Royal, Friday, 7.30pm

ENGLISH Touring Opera returns to York in Jude Christian radical production of Giacomo Puccini’s heartbreaking Manon Lescaut, for which she brings incisive direction to her sharp, poetic new translation.

Puccini’s 1892 breakthrough hit presents a devastating depiction of a woman wrestling with her desire for love on her own terms and the rigid double standards imposed on her by society. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

London Obbligato Collective: Opening York Baroque+ Day at the NCEM

Classical concert of the week: London Obbligato Collective, York Baroque+ Day, April 20, 12 noon  

FORMED by Masumi Yamamoto, the new London Obbligato Collective focuses on “accompanied harpsichord sonatas”, where the harpsichord is given the solo role within the trio sonata texture, highlighting and enriching the colours and nuances of the instrument.

Next Saturday’s programme includes 18th century music by Felice Giardini, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich. Box office: 01904 658338 or  ncem.co.uk.

Jury service: Christopher Haydon’s cast for Reginald Rose’s courtroom thriller Twelve Angry Men at the Grand Opera House, York

Show announcement of the week: Twelve Angry Men, Grand Opera House, York, May 13 to 18, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

CHRISTOPHER Haydon’s touring production of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men for Bill Kenwright Ltd returns to York on the American courtroom thriller’s 70th anniversary tour, having last played the Grand Opera House in April 2015.

Tristan Gemmill, Michael Greco, Jason Merrells, Gray O’Brien and Gary Webster feature in the cast for this study of human nature and the art of persuasion set in the jury deliberating room, where 12 men hold the fate of a young delinquent, accused of killing his father, in their hands. What looks an open-and-shut case soon becomes a dilemma as the jurors are forced to examine their own self-image, personalities, experiences and prejudices. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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REVIEW: Cheltenham Everyman Theatre Company in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, York Theatre Royal ****

Top: The look of love for Natalie Winsor’s Titania and Tweedy the clown’s Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Picture: Andrew Higgs/Thousand Word Media

BOTTOM has top billing in Everyman Theatre’s touring production of Shakespeare’s most performed, most perfumed comedy.

Tweedy, the Scottish clown with the trademark red stripe in his hair, is the Cheltenham theatre’s regular pantomime daft lad (although he played dame for the first time last winter), as well as being a staple of Giffords Circus for 17 years.

Everyman director Paul Milton had cast Tweedy – real name Alan Digweed – as Estragon opposite Jeremey Stockwell’s Vladimir as the clowning duo in Samuel Beckett’s apocalyptic Waiting For Godot and now reunites them in his ‘Dream’ adaptation.

Tweedy plays the heavy-coated Bottom to Stockwell’s Welsh-voiced Puck and West Country Snug, his fellow Rude Mechanical. The squeak in Tweedy’s Bottom puts you in mind of Harrogate Theatre’s panto clown, Tim Stedman, while the silver tongue and riparian flow of Stockwell’s Puck evokes Richard Burton’s rendition of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.

Significantly too, Milton has cut out classical Greek references and “bits of speech that now feel quite archaic” in pursuit of creating “accessible Shakespeare” without modernising it.

This gives more space for clowning interjections by Tweedy’s nimble, quick-thinking loon, whether being hit by a plank of wood or Moon’s lamp, wrestling with a deckchair, being dragged back by an unseen dog or quoting Shakespeare’s Richard III as he gives the kiss of life to a pantomime horse.

The stuffed horse promptly drops three plops…for Tweedy to demonstrate his juggling skills. Oh, and how he could resist expelling Bottom burps, putting the ‘f ‘ into art, in the way that so many panto fools do.

This might feel like a commercial pantomime’s habit of shoehorning a star name’s speciality act into a show, but here it is entirely in keeping with the character of Nick Bottom, the weaver, the attention seeker, the egotist, who reckons he can play every part in the Mechanicals’ play. Tweedy is the show’s comedy advisor too, although Botom would probably reckon he should have that duty!

Milton restricts his cast to only ten, so everyone aside from Bottom has two or three roles, switching from the Athenian court to the forest fairyland, pretty much all of them playing a fairy.

This makes for a wholly satisfying ensemble experience, a seamless Dream, classical and magical, with a relish for the words as much as for the fractious fizz in the clashes of Troy Alexander’s Oberon and Natalie Winsor’s Titania and the young lovers (Oliver Brooks/Nadia Shash and Thomas Nellstrop/Laura Noble).

Milton has assembled a superb production team too: Charles Cusick-Smith and Phil R Daniels’ gorgeous set and costume designs for court and forest alike; Michael Childs’ delightful compositions; Michael E Hall’s midsummer lighting and Steve Anderson’s sound design that fills the auditorium with atmospheric woodland wildlife.

Above all, Tweedy’s Bottom makes an ass of himself with glee, cheek and joie de vivre. Bottom’s up indeed.

Cheltenham Everyman Theatre Company, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Bottom: Tweedy the clown in his ass-ured performance as Nick Bottom, the weaver, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Picture: Andrew Higgins/Thousand Word Media
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REVIEW: Northanger Abbey, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, till April 13 **

Rebecca Banatvala’s Cath, back, AK Golding’s Iz and Sam Newton’s Hen in Northnager Abbey

THE journey from page to stage is familiar, well trodden, but still unpredictable for classic novels. Sometimes it works, sometimes it tries too hard, when a book remains better read than said.

This co-production by the SJT, Scarborough, Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, Octagon Theatre, Bolton, and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, is one such occasion.

We have seen many adaptations in this manner: a small, busy-as-Heathrow cast working with more imagination than props in Hannah Sibai’s design, breaking down theatre’s fourth wall from the start,  speeding between roles and  differing theatre styles, but here falling short of the best work of Tilted Wig, Wise Children and Nick Lane’s adaptations.

Writer Zoe Cooper defines Jane Austen’s coming-of-age satire of Gothic novels as “a book about invention that revels in layers of fictionality, of imagination”, one that she first read at 19, roughly the same age as lead character Catherine Morland when she leaves behind her claustrophobic northern family to join the smart set in Bath.

In her programme note, Cooper recalls how she felt out of place, awkward and grubby in her posh university town. Austen’s Catherine Morland (Rebecca Banatvala’s Cath) is a bookworm who feels that same discomfort and disconnection after being drawn to Bath by books and dreams.

Cooper and Banatvala express Cath’s tendency to over-excitement and bad behaviour, ending up in difficult situations that she navigates by warping reality with fiction amid the balls and parties.

Cooper draws on another recollection of her English Literature studies, how her tutorials were “generally male, very white, and very heterosexual”. Her reading of Northanger Abbey was rather different: she liked the book because “it felt a little bit naughty” in the friendship of Catherine and society sophisticate Isabella.

That plays out passionately in this account, where the loving bond between impressionable Cath and worldly Iz (AK Golding) runs deeper than Cath’s relationship with Hen (Sam Newton).

Tessa Walker’s production, however, needs to be more humorous, darker in its Gothic climax, but that requires sharper writing by Cooper. The performances have to swim against the tide, too much work to do.

Matt Haskins’ lighting is a delight, but that should never be the stand-out feature. An Audience with Lucy Worsley on Jane Austen, with “new research and insights into a passionate woman who fought for her freedom”, at York Barbican on October 14 will be more enlightening.

Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.