Tracy-Ann Oberman: From EastEnders to Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice set in London’s East End in 1936
WATFORD Palace Theatre’s ground-breaking new production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice will visit York Theatre Royal on tour from November 14 to 18.
Tracy-Ann Oberman, from EastEnders, Doctor Who and Friday Night Dinner, will play Shylock on an autumn itinerary that will open at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from September 21 to October 7.
Developed in association with HOME Manchester and with support from the RSC, The Merchant Of Venice 1936 is adapted and directed by Brigid Larmour from an idea by co-creator Oberman. Their thought-provoking and timely reimagining relocates the action to an electrifying new setting: London in 1936.
The capital city is on the brink of political unrest, fascism is sweeping across Europe and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists is threatening a paramilitary march through the Jewish East End. Strong-willed single mother Shylock runs a pawnbroking business from her house in Cable Street, where Mosley will march.
When charismatic, anti-Semitic aristocrat Antonio comes to her for a loan, a high-stakes deal is struck. Will Shylock take her revenge? Who will pay the ultimate price?
“I look forward to sparking debate and enlightening people about a pivotal but largely forgotten part of British history,” says actress Tracy-Ann Oberman
“It has a been a lifelong dream of mine to bring this play to the stage in a new way, reimagining Shylock as one of the tough, no-nonsense Jewish matriarchs I grew up around in Brent,” says London-born actress, playwright and narrator Oberman, 56.
“I’m delighted this project is finally happening and look forward to sparking debate and enlightening people about a pivotal but largely forgotten part of British history – just how close the establishment were to Oswald Mosley and his British Union Of Fascists. I cannot wait to take this important, sharp, sexy and heartfelt production to theatres around the country.”
Oberman played Chrissie Watts in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders from 2004 to 2005; Yvonne Hartman in a two-part Doctor Who story, Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday, and Valerie Lewis or “Auntie Val” in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner from 2011 to 2020.
Larmour’s production will open at Watford Palace Theatre on February 27 before transferring to HOME Manchester from March 15. Joining her in the production team will be costume and set designer Liz Cooke, lighting designer Rory Beaton, sound design Sarah Weltman and composer Erran Baron Cohen (yes, actor/comedian Sacha’s older brother).
Trafalgar Theatre Productions and Eilene Davidson Productions are producing the tour in association with the RSC, HOME Manchester and Watford Palace Theatre.
Tickets for the York run can be booked on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Harry Summers: Title role in York Shakespeare Project’s Richard III this spring
REHEARSALS are under way for Richard III, the first production of York Shakespeare Project’s phase two.
Dr Daniel Roy Connelly’s cast will be led by Harry Summers in the winter-of-discontent role of Richard Duke of Gloucester/Richard III.
Further roles will go to Rosy Rowley, Duke of Buckingham; Miranda Mufema, Lady Anne; Emily Hansen, Queen Margaret; Andrea Mitchell, Queen Elizabeth; Frankie Hayes, Duchess of York/Sir William Catesby; Matt Simpson, Duke of Clarence, and Jack Downey, Sir Richard Ratcliffe.
Clive Lyons will play Lord Hastings; Michael Peirce, Young York/Lord Grey/Murderer; Nell Frampton, Prince Edward/Rivers; Frank Brogan, King Edward IV/Stanley; Thomas Jennings, Sir James Tyrell; Nick Jones, Earl of Richmond; James Tyler, Archbishop, and Anna Kedge, Marquis of Dorset.
Dr Daniel Roy Connelly: Making his York Shakespeare Project debut as director of Richard III
As was the case when YSP began its 20-year mission to present all 37 of the Bard’s works with the 2002 production of Richard III at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, so Richard III will be the opening play once more, this time at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York from April 26 to 29.
A newcomer to York, theatre director, actor, poet, professor and former British diplomat Dr Connelly is at the helm after directing in places as diverse as Shanghai, Rome, America and the Edinburgh Festival. He will refract Richard’s turbulent tale of politics, power and corruption through today’s lens.
Richard III will be one of two YSP productions at the 2023 York International Shakespeare Festival, along with Liz Elsworth’s semi-staged version of Shakespeare’s narrative poem The Rape Of Lucrece.
YSP begins a new chapter in 2023 with a 25-year project to stage not only those plays again, but also the best works by his Elizabethan and Jacobean contemporaries.
Mayflies cast members Emma Thornett, left, Rumi Sutton and Nuno Queimado with composer, writer and lyricist Gus Gowland
THREE into two will go when York Theatre Royal stages the world premiere of resident artist Gus Gowland’s musical Mayflies from April 28 to May 13.
Three actors, Nuno Queimado (May), Rumi Sutton (May/Fly) and Emma Thornett (Fly), will alternate the roles of May and Fly, with each pairing offering a different perspective on the relationships within this contemporary love story.
Not to be confused with Peter Mackie Burns’s 2022 television drama of the same name based on Andrew O’Hagan’s novel, Gowland’s Mayflies tracks the romantic relationship of May and Fly from first flourish to final goodbye.
After swiping right, left, up and down across the dating apps, they match, duly beginning a tentative conversation. Over time, their romance grows into something real, something special. Then they meet!
Award-winning composer, lyricist, songwriter and playwright Gowland’s musical explores the different versions of themselves that people become during relationships and how – in the blink of an eye – it can all come crashing down.
“I was really excited by the challenge of writing something that could be played by pretty much anyone, regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality,” says Gus.
Nuno Queimado at a research & development session for Mayflies
“As an audience, we bring so much of ourselves and our understanding of the world to the things we see, so I wanted to explore what happens when we see the exact same love story told by different people – how would the dynamics change? Which moments would hit harder in each telling?
“I know how much an actor brings to a role too and so I wanted to create people that the actors cast would be able to really imbue with their own sense of identity. We’ve seen some rotating casts before, but I really wanted to write the flexibility of casting into the material, rather than just have it as a production idea layered on top.”
Gus adds: “It’s a real challenge to avoid signifiers of characteristics, like age and gender, but I’ve adored finding ways to create rounded specific characters without those to lean back on. One way I’ve done that is to write the parts in different time signatures, which makes them musically very distinct.
“I’m over the moon with the extraordinary cast of actors we have for this first ever production of Mayflies, and am so excited to see what they each bring to the characters.”
Portuguese-born Nuno Queimado played the alternate Alexander Hamilton in the London West End production of Hamilton and has starred in Jesus Christ Superstar too. Rumi Sutton’s credits include Hex and Heathers; Emma Thornett has appeared in War Horse and Bedknobs And Broomsticks.
Directing this trio in rehearsals from the first week of April will be Tania Azevedo, who specialises in developing new work. Resident director on & Juliet in the West End, earlier she received best director nominations in the Off-West End Awards and Broadway World Awards for her work on Turbine Theatre’s world premiere of But I’m A Cheerleader, based on the cult LGBTQ+ film. The show won best Off-West End production at the What’s On Stage Awards.
Emma Thornett: Playing Fly in Mayflies
“When I first read Mayflies, one of the aspects of Gus’s work that immediately grabbed me was the flexibility with which May and Fly have been written,” says Tania. “It allows them to be played by any actor, regardless of age, gender or any other identifiers. This has led to a rich and thought-provoking casting process.
“It truly became about pairing actors and learning about their shared humour, approach to vulnerable conversations and chemistry with one another. Finding three actors who bring very different things to the table, and who have the craft to tackle this idea of ‘multiple configurations’, has been a joyous process and a unique approach to musical-theatre casting. We’re looking forward to making this piece with this incredible cast.”
Songs by Gowland, who lives in York, have been heard already on the Theatre Royal stage in showcases for professional York talent. For 2021’s Love Bites, he wrote a song for diarist Anne Lister (alias Gentleman Jack), performed by Dora Rubinstein, and for 2022’s Green Shoots, he used James Herriot quotes for I’ll Go T’Other, a song about the vet and his relationship with North Yorkshire, performed by Joe Douglass.
Before moving from London to York, Gowland enjoyed success with his first full-length musical Pieces Of String at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, named The Stage’s Best Regional Musical of the Year in 2018 and nominated for the UK Theatre Best Musical Production award. He won The Stage Debut Award for Best Composer/Lyricist and was nominated for the inaugural Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting.
Gowland has been commissioned previously by Theatre Royal Stratford East and has developed shows with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Leeds Conservatoire.
In 2021, with Craig Mather, he wrote and released an EP of pop songs focusing on mental health, In Motion.His musical short Subway was produced by MPTheatricals that year.
Rumi Sutton: Playing May/Fly in Mayflies
His short musical Sick! was performed at LOST Theatre, London, and his short play Clocks & Teapots was performed at RADA Studios and the London Transport Museum.
Gowland was commissioned by Olivier Award-winning theatre collective Duckie to write songs for Copyright Christmas (Barbican, London). He co-wrote and directed Barren and Love Love Love, which toured to Canada, and wrote and performed the one-man musical Tell Me On A Thursday at the Camden Fringe.
Joining Azevedo in the production team will be designer TK Hay, whose hi-tech creativity was last seen on a North Yorkshire stage in Nick Payne’s intricate Constellations at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, last November. Past credits include Making Of A Monster for Wales Millennium Centre and The Apology for New Earth Theatre. Musical direction, arrangement and orchestration will be by Joseph Church.
York Theatre Royal presents Gus Gowland’s Mayflies, April 28 to May 13, 7.30pm, plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.For a video introduction to Mayflies, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXJ962JF2Rc&t=23s
Did you know?
IN 2014, Gus Gowland was on the UK Jury for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Gus Gowland and director Tania Azevedo at a research & development session for Mayflies
Neil Wood’s Sweeney Todd and Julie-Anne Smith’s Mrs Lovett with their hot-selling new pie in York Light Opera Company’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. Picture:Matthew Kitchen
LIGHT meets dark when York Light Opera Company return to York Theatre Royal from Wednesday in “one of the darkest musicals ever written”, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.
Steered by the familiar hands on the tiller of director Martyn Knight and musical director Paul Laidlaw, the show is set in the Georgian era, rather than the usual Victorian London murk.
In York Light’s 70th anniversary production, Neil Wood takes the title role of the misanthropic barber who returns home to the Big Smoke after 15 years in exile, seeking vengeance on the corrupt judge (Craig Kirby) who ruined his life.
The road to revenge leads to him to open new tonsorial premises above the failing pie shop run by Mrs Lovett (Julie-Anne Smith). Cue a very tasty meaty new ingredient to boost sales in this now cutthroat business.
“Yes, it’s dark and gruesome, but it’s so funny too,” says Neil. “One moment the audience are bent double with laughter; the next they’re in tears. A lot of it comes down to the patter style that’s reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan.”
Richard Bayton, by day in charge of ticket sales for Sweeney Todd as York Theatre Royal’s box office manager, will be playing Beadle Bamford. “Two months into rehearsals, I’m thinking, ‘who is this man? There has to be more to him than how than how he ends up’, so I’ve built up the character, when he’s often seen as comic relief but I’ve looked to make him darker,” he says.
A cut above: Neil Wood’s Sweeney Todd in the doorway of his Fleet Street upstairs premises. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
“I’ve really enjoyed it because it’s always fun to play a bit of a baddie, though the real baddie is definitely Judge Turpin.”
Julie-Anne Smith’s Mrs Lovett occupies the dark side too with her surprisingly delicious but morally dodgy pie contents. “Everyone is damaged in this piece, all except Anthony Hope [played by Maximus Mawle],” she says. “Even Johanna [Madeleine Hicks] is extremely damaged – and living with the Judge, she would be! Everyone else represents the underbelly of London.”
Neil rejoins: “Whether you’re playing Shakespeare’s Richard III or Sweeney Todd, you have to find something you understand in the character. It’s not until he meets the damaged Mrs Lovett, who has her own agenda, that he changes course after being wrongly exiled for a crime he didn’t commit.
“Through fate, he has found his way back home to London to find his wife dead and discover what the judge has done, with his daughter now in the judge’s hands. In that moment, Mrs Lovett manipulates him, and it’s like a puppet being played with, on a knife edge.”
Julie-Anne says: “You have to push that notion that they’re only human; you have to make that connection with the character you’re playing. At the end of the day, she’s human, she’s damaged. She just wants a cottage by the sea and will do anything to get it.
“That’s why she’s interesting to play because people can never believe the horrific deeds that humans can do, but particularly if it’s a woman perpetrating such horrific crimes, but her humour endears her to the audience – and they’re laughing with her rather than at her. That’s why I like playing the anti-hero, because they’re more complex.”
“People can never believe the horrific deeds that humans can do, but particularly if it’s a woman perpetrating such horrific crimes,” Julie-Anne Smith, York Light’s Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
From the maniacal Sweeney Todd to Titus Andronicus, such characters “have always been more interesting, with the best lines”, notes Neil. “We’re just really lucky to have the chance to be doing such roles,” he says.
“It’s also the right time to be staging Sweeney Todd, especially with Stephen Sondheim passing away last year. There’s lots of interest in him again, with Sweeney Todd running on Broadway and the Sondheim concert, Old Friends, with Bernadette Peters in the company, that’ll be on in London at the Prince Edward Theatre for 16 weeks.”
Richard is savouring the meatiness of Sondheim’s lyrics in a show where 80 per cent of Sweeney Todd is set to music, either sung or underscoring dialogue. “They’re so rich in meaning,” he says. “I’ve been able to find new interpretations and new meanings in every rehearsal because you can read so much into them.”
Neil adds: “It’s such a complete show; the orchestrations are wonderful, and Martyn Knight and Paul Laidlaw have been a joy to work with as they really appreciate what a challenge Sondheim is. That’s why we started in early October on the music, and then Martin came up for a first block of rehearsals from November and has back since January after a Christmas break. You can’t start working on the detail until the words are embedded in you.”
Julie-Anne is thrilled to be putting flesh on Sondheim bones in Sweeney Todd. “I was in a professional group, Lucky 4 You, that performed Sondheim songs all around Yorkshire, and I’d always wanted to do the big duet from Sweeney within the context of the show. Now I can do that with Neil.”
York Light Opera Company in Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, York Theatre Royal, Wednesday (22/2/2023) to March 4, 7.30pm, except February 26; 2.30pm, February 25 and March 4. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Countering the winter blues: Doubletake Projections’ Colour and Light illumination at York Minster
DARKNESS and light, American and Scottish singers, Yorkshire brass players and a York comedian will draw the crowds in the week ahead, advises Charles Hutchinson.
Light show of the week: Doubletake Projections’ Colour and Light, York Minster, 6pm to 9pm nightly until February 23
DOUBLETAKE Projections are using projection mapping to re-imagine the facade of York Minster’s South Transept in a free public show visible from the South Piazza.
Brought to the city by the York BID (Business Improvement District) to illuminate the cathedral during winter’s dark nights, this immersive digital experience is running on an eight-minute loop. Viewers are invited to stay for as many showings as they wish. No booking is required.
In addition to paying homage to the cathedral’s construction and incorporating nods to local history, York Minster’s medieval stained glass is in the spotlight. Collaged compositions of biblical stories told through the glass is being animated and beamed onto the towering transept walls, shining a new light on the medieval window illustrations.
Using animation techniques and styles, the after-dark projection show showcases elements of the rich historical archives in a new way while emphasising the grandeur and ornate detail of York Minster’s architecture.
Chop chop! Demon barber Sweeney Todd (Neil Wood) and resourceful pie-maker Mrs Lovett ( Julie-Anne Smith) make a fast buck from their tasty venture in a cutthroat world in York Light’s Sweeney Todd. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Dark show of the week: York Light Opera Company in Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, York Theatre Royal, Wednesday to March 4, 7.30pm, except February 26; 2.30pm, February 25 and March 4
YORK Light return to York Theatre Royal for a 70th anniversary production of “one of the darkest musicals ever written”, Stephen Sondheim’s noir thriller Sweeney Todd, directed by Martyn Knight with musical direction by Paul Laidlaw.
Neil Wood plays the Georgian-era misanthropic barber who returns home to London after 15 years in exile, seeking vengeance on the corrupt judge (Craig Kirby) who ruined his life. The road to revenge leads him to open new tonsorial premises above the failing pie shop run by Mrs Lovett (Julie-Anne Smith). Cue a very tasty meaty new ingredient to boost sales in this now cutthroat business. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Shepherd Group Brass Band: Performing with the Black Dyke Band at Grand Opera House, York
Fundraiser of the week: York Brass Against Cancer 2, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 2.30pm
YORK’S Shepherd Group Brass Band joins up with West Yorkshire’s world famous Black Dyke Band for a charity collaboration in aid of York Against Cancer. BBC Radio Leeds presenter David Hoyle hosts this two-hour concert. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
Belinda Carlisle: Revisiting her decades of hits at York Barbican
California calling: Belinda Carlisle, The Decades Tour, York Barbican, Monday, 7.30pm
NOW living in Bangkok and once the lead vocalist of The Go-Gos, “the most successful all-female rock band of all time”, Los Angelean Belinda Carlisle, 64, has enjoyed chart-topping solo success too with Heaven Is A Place On Earth.
At a gig rearranged from October 2021, hopefully The Decades Tour set list will be taking in Runaway Horses, I Get Weak, Circle In The Sand, Leave A Light On, Summer Rain, (We Want) The Same Thing, Live Your Life Be Free, In Too Deep and Always Breaking My Heart from her eight studio albums. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Suzanne Vega: Songs and stories from New York in York on Wednesday night
Storyteller of the week: Suzanne Vega, An Intimate Evening Of Songs And Stories, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm
2022 Glastonbury acoustic stage headliner Suzanne Vega, 63, plays York Barbican as the only Yorkshire show of the New York singer-songwriter’s 14-date tour.
Emerging from the Greenwich Village folk revival scene of the 1980s, Vega has brought succinct, insightful storytelling to songs of city life, ordinary people and social culture. Her support act will be Tufnell Park folk singer and traditional song archivist Sam Lee. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Rob Auton: Send in the crowds in York, Pocklington and Leeds
Crowd pleaser: Rob Auton, The Crowd Show, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 24 (Burning Duck Comedy Club) , 8pm, sold out; Pocklington Arts Centre, May 27, 8pm; Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, June 5, 7.30pm
CHARMINGLY offbeat York poet, stand-up comedian, actor and podcaster Rob Auton returns home from London on his 2023 leg of The Crowd Show tour. Next Friday’s show is crowded out already but space is available at his Pocklington and Leeds gigs.
After his philosophical observations on the colour yellow, the sky, faces, water, sleep, hair, talking and time, now he discusses crowds, people and connection in a night of comedy and theatre “suitable for anyone who wants to be in the crowd for this show”. Box office: Pocklington, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; Leeds, hydeparkbookclub.co.uk.
KT Tunstall: A nut in every soundbite on her latest album, showcased at York Barbican on Friday
Doing her Nut: KT Tunstall, York Barbican, February 24, 8pm
SCOTTISH singer-songwriter KT Tunstall returns to York on Friday for the first time since she lit up the Barbican on Bonfire Night in 2016. In her line-up will be Razorlight’s Andy Burrows, on drum duty after opening the gig with his own set.
The BRIT Award winner and Grammy nominee from Edinburgh will be showcasing songs from her seventh studio album, last September’s Nut, the conclusion to her “soul, body and mind” trilogy after 2016’s Kin and 2018’s Wax. Box office: kttunstall.com and yorkbarbican.co.uk.
A tale of love: Will Parsons as Davy and Kayla Vicente as Yvonne in Central Hall Musical Society’s Sunshine On Leith at the JoRo Theatre. Picture: Joly Black (jolyblack4@gmail.com)
You should walk 500 miles for: Central Hall Musical Society in Sunshine On Leith, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 23 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
SUNSINE On Leith, aka “the Proclaimers’ musical”, is a tale of love; love for family, love for friends, love for romantic partners and love for our homes, as one tight-knit family, and the three couples bound to it, experience the joys and heartache that punctuate all relationships.
Secrets will be revealed, relationships made and lost and broken hearts mended once more, all while singing the songs of Charlie and Craig Reid in this student production by the University of York’s musical theatre society, directed by Romilly Swingler. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Slapstick synergy:Danielle Bird’s Charlie Chaplin and Jerone Marsh-Reid’s Stan Laurel in Told By An Idiot’s Charlie & Stan. All pictures: Manuel Harlan
WHY this wonderful 90 minutes of fantastically inventive silent comedy is not playing to full houses renders your reviewer speechless.
Let this fool for love tell you in the politest terms, you would be an idiot to miss Told By An Idiot’s utterly charming “comically unreliable tribute” to England’s golden comedy age of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.
Storytelling physical theatre without dialogue but with the familiar tropes of the silent silver screen – musical accompaniment and scene-setting “intertitles” on screen – is enacted by a cast of four with all the mannerisms and ticks of bygone days under the whimsical direction of writer/storyboarder Paul Hunter.
Together in constant motion and sometimes commotion, they tell the “trueish” story of “the greatest double act that nearly was”…and now is, thanks to Hunter’s romantic imagination and deconstructionist zeal.
All at sea: Jerone Marsh-Reid’s Stan Laurel, left, Danielle Bird’s Charlie Chaplin, Nick Haverson’s Fred Karno and pianist Sara Alexander in Charlie & Stan
What is true is that the sapling comedic talents of the then-unknown Charlie Chaplin (Danielle Bird) and Stanley Jefferson (later Laurel, Jerone Marsh-Reid) did share a cabin on board the SS Cairnrona to New York in 1910 as part of impresario Fred Karno’s music hall troupe. Stan would then understudy Charlie for more than 18 months around America.
From such source material Hunter magically spins the “true fantasy” of Chaplin & Laurel, “intrigued to uncover a hidden and poignant chapter of comedic history”, in keeping with the London company’s mission to “inhabit the space between laughter and pain”.
Yes, laughter and pain both feature here. So much laughter in the nascent comedic talent of Charlie and Stan, but the hints of jealousy of the singular Chaplin towards the fledgling team player Laurel. Then the pain of Charlie’s childhood, with a drunken father (Nick Haverson) and a mother (Sara Alexander) taken away in a straitjacket, and later a veteran Stan arriving just too late for a reunion with Chaplin, who he had so admired for so many years (whereas Chaplin never mentioned him in his autobiography).
Playing “fast and loose” with the truth also allows Told By An Idiot to play fast and loose with time’s past, present and future, enabling Haverson to switch from drumming and Fred Karno duties to become partner-in-waiting Oliver Hardy, with the aid of padding and a strip of black tape. Likewise, at the finale, Chaplin’s trademark Little Tramp takes his impish first steps to Hollywood stardom.
Ioana Curelea’s delightful set evokes on-deck and below-deck on the SS Cairnrona, where Charlie and Stan spar with slapstick timing and pratfalls on their cabin beds: the double act come to life.
Proper Charlie: Danielle Bird’s Charlie Chaplin
Music is vital too, whether in Chaplin’s father’s boozed-up bar song, Charlie playing his signature tune Smile, or Alexander exuberantly performing Zoe Rahman’s piano score in the traditional silent movie style.
Meanwhile, audience members from the stalls are picked to play their part, coerced by cheeky Chaplin, adding to the fun of such an enchanting homage: a celebration of comedy’s timeless ability to highlight the ridiculous, the absurd, our human foibles, as we laugh at ourselves through agents Chaplin and Laurel.
In his programme notes, Hunter talks of being “determined to value fiction over fact, fantasy over reality, and shine a very unusual light on a pair of show business legends”. Yet in doing so, a greater truth emerges. As told by Told By An Idiot, life’s tale is not mere sound and fury signifying nothing; it as much a laughing matter as no laughing matter, especially when these four players strut their 90 minutes upon the stage.
All four are a joy to behold, Haverson and Alexander playing anything but second fiddle as they complement the uncanny physicality and balletic grace of Bird’s Chaplin and Marsh-Reid’s gentle, nice mess of a mishap-prone Laurel.
Both funny and moving, thumbs-up all round.
Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Nick Haverson’s Fred Karno in the swing of things in Charlie & Stan as Jerone Marsh-Reid’s Stan Lauel keeps his distance
Benjamin Westerby’s Macbeth and Maia Tamrakar’s Lady Macbeth in Imitating The Dog’s Macbeth. Picture: Ed Waring
THREE mysterious figures enter the stage, talking of the hurly-burly, thunder and lightning and a young couple hell bent on overthrowing the old regime.
Whereupon they conjure the Macbeths, placing them in a dangerous new world ruled by paranoia, betrayal, and brutality.
Something wicked – but not wholly familiar – this way comes in ground-breaking Leeds company Imitating The Dog’s typically audacious retelling of Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play”, on tour at Harrogate Theatre on February 24 and 25.
Retold and directed by Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks, with set and video design by Simon Wainwright and original music by James Hamilton, Macbeth’s tale of ambition, betrayal and downfall is re-booted as a neon noir thriller wherein Shakespeare’s language collides with “startling new scenes, stunning visuals and a powder-keg intensity”.
“Macbethis an extraordinary play,” says Imitating The Dog artistic director Andrew Quick. “Shakespeare’s exploration of power, ambition, violence and love seems so relevant to today.
In the flesh and on screen: Maia Tamrakar’s Lady Macbeth and Benjamin Westerby’s in Macbeth. Picture: Ed Waring
“We’re excited to be bringing Macbeth to Harrogate Theatre in a unique take on the original play, a Macbeth as you have never seen before, but still with Shakespeare’s story at its heart.”
Fusing live performance with digital technology for 23 years, latterly in Night Of The Living Dead ™ – Remix and Dracula: The Untold Story, Imitating The Dog turn to Shakespeare after staging Cinema Inferno for the Parisian haute couture house Maison Margiela, based on an original concept by creative director John Galliano, for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal 2022 collection.
“We started off with Romeo & Juliet, working on a version for two actors in their 60s or 70s,” says Andrew. “We did some research, but it felt like a one-idea show that we couldn’t commit to.
“But Macbeth was a play we really liked, and there’ve been a lot of film versions, with two recent ones [Joel Coen’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth, from 2021, and Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth, from 2015] still fresh in the mind. So, we thought, ‘if we can’t do Romeo & Juliet, let’s do Macbeth’.”
As a contrast with Denzel Washington and Michael Fassbender’s older Macbeths in those two films, Imitating The Dog settled on two young leads (played by Benjamin Westerby, from the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Maia Tamrakar, from Sheffield Crucible’s Rock, Scissors, Paper).
“Out, damned spot; out, I say”: Maia Tamrakar’s Lady Macbeth, filmed by Laura Atherton, who plays one of the witches in Imitating The Dog’s Macbeth. Picture: Ed Waring
“In our adaptation, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are 18-19 years old; they’re kids really, street kids,” says Andrew.
“We’ve set it in a kind of parallel world, a version of London that’s a cross between Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles and London, with a Blade Runner feel to it. Duncan [the king in the original] is a crime lord; Macbeth seizes the moment, suddenly being thrown into the spotlight when he becomes second in line to Duncan, who starts thinking, ‘ooh, this kid is a bit much’.
“When Macbeth murders him, it’s not just about ambition but self-protection, because though he feels he’s really good at his job, he also feels that if he doesn’t kill him now, he could get done in.”
As played by Stefan Chanyaem, Matt Prendergast (from Dracula:The Untold Story) and Laura Atherton (from Night Of The Living Dead™ – Remix), the witches/shape shifters set up the story in Imitating The Dog’s version, playing everyone bar the Macbeths, who have “fallen into this world that is testing them”.
“The witches are like clowns in suits, these grotesques, who do all the live filming on stage, with Macbeth always being filmed close-up, giving almost a forensic quality to the piece, adding to the psychological drama,” says Andrew.
That world is constructed with 70 to 30 per cent division between original text and new text with hints of the Russian, Italian and Japanese language: “little traces of those argots”, as Andrew puts it. “It’s a cosmopolitan city that is multi-racial, international, like lots of big cities nowadays. “It’s a city that the witches set up and the Macbeths descend into,” he says.
Imitating The Dog’s cast of five in a scene from Macbeth. Picture: Ed Waring
“In the back story, they were orphaned when growing up, and Macbeth is looking after her, more like a brother and sister rather than lovers.
“The challenge was: could we make the Macbeths lovable or at least understandable; make them human, whereas Shakespeare’s Richard III is more of a monster under all that Tudor propaganda of the time.”
Exploring the “challenge” further, Andrew says: “Whether you can really like them or not, I don’t know, but I think you can understand their motives in a very brutal world. The Macbeths do things that are terrible, they use extreme violence, like killing Lady MacDuff and the MacDuff children, but we’re not only interested in a story of power and ambition but the context in which that arises too. Right now, looking at monarchy and power feels very relevant.
“In this very violent world, the Macbeths’ love for each other is very important, with everything that Macbeth does being rooted in his need to protect Lady Macbeth. He’s always questioning, always doubting, always reassessing what he should do next, and what’s great about the play is that Shakespeare gives him humanity despite what he’s doing.”
A further reference point is Arthur Penn’s 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde. “Even though they do these terrible things, there’s something very attractive about them – and once they start, they have to keep going,” says Andrew.
Imitating The Dog in Macbeth, Harrogate Theatre, February 24 at 7.30pm; February 25, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk. Further Yorkshire dates: CAST, Doncaster, February 21 and 22, 01302 303959 or castindoncaster.com; Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, 01484 430528 or thelbt.org.
Benjamin Westerby’s Macbeth in rehearsal for Macbeth
The more, the Melia: “Triple threat” Kate Melia’s Charity Hope Valentine in York Stage’s Sweet Charity. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick
ON Broadway, Sweet Charity would come with a 30-piece orchestra and all that jazz. In York, you can see it up close and personal, so close that Katie Melia’s fully flexed leg comes within an inch of connecting with your reviewer’s face, plonked by invitation at the centre of the front row. Well, that’s one way to secure a thumbs-up review!
Sweet Charity might equally have suited the Grand Opera House or Theatre Royal stage, but director-producer Nik Briggs foresaw the benefits of making Neil Simon, Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ witty, waspish 1966 New York musical comedy a studio-sized production, just as he found a new way to present pantomime at Theatre@41, with West End choreographer Gary Lloyd’s song-and-dance numbers to the fore alongside the slapstick in the Covid winter of 2020 in Jack And The Beanstalk.
Briggs calls it a “dance-heavy musical but one where you can really get into the story, and seeing those scenes so intimately will be really rewarding”. Consequently, he delivers both glitz and grit, romanticism and realism, with the aid of two finger-clickin’ good lieutenants, musical director Jessica Viner, leading her four-piece on keys and violin on the mezzanine level, and choreographer Danielle Mullan-Hill.
On top of that, if Briggs could have chosen the perfect week to stage a musical with a lead character called Charity Hope Valentine, then a week front-loaded with St Valentine’s Day would be the one. The John Cooper Studio is suitably fitted out with heart shapes galore, balloons et al, while the end-on stage is fringed with glittering tinsel drapes and audience members are seated around tables.
Duet par excellence: Emily Ramsden’s Nickie, left, and Carly Morton’s Helene reflecting on life at the Fandango Ballroom
Briggs’s designs, topped off by the checkboard flooring for the Fandango Ballroom, give off an Austin Powers Sixties’ vibe, matched by the fabulous costumery, and vital to that look is the fantastic hair and make-up work of Phoebe Kilvington. All the better for being experienced within touching distance.
There is a sting in the tale to Sweet Charity, but the vibe is largely fun, breezy and very Sixties, and Briggs is in playful mood, replacing the lake of the film version with a bath filled with plastic balls for two scenes where Katie Melia’s ballroom taxi dancer – or dancehall hostess, to be more colloquial – ends up in both the opening and closing scenes.
Briggs refers to Melia as a “triple threat”, equally adept at singing, acting and dancing (including solo tap dancing here), and she has a goofy girl-next-door appeal to her too. Her heart-of-gold Charity is a dreamer, quirky and spirited, but too trusting, too generous, forever looking for love, but alas in the wrong places. Or, as fellow taxi dancer Nickie (sassy Emily Ramsden) puts it: “Your big problem is you run your heart like a hotel – you got guys checkin’ in and out all the time.”
Living in (dashed) hope, seeking escape, Melia’s plucky Charity goes from man to man, from Sam Roberts’s taciturn Charlie Dark Glasses, to Jack Hooper’s moustachioed movie idol Vittorio Vidal to Stuart Piper’s shy, neurotic tax accountant Oscar Lindquist.
Uplifting: Katie Melia’s Charity Hope Valentine and Stuart Piper’s Oscar Lindquist in Sweet Charity
Roberts’’s part is wham, bam, Sam, gone, but Hooper and Piper are both terrific. Hooper’s Italian accent and Latin romantic lead schtick are a joy, as his gorgeous singing, his debonair air served up with a dash of the tongue in cheek in Simon’s script.
Melia finds the comedy gold in both relationships, the first involving her hiding in the closet, chomping on olives and a sandwich as Vittorio’s high-maintenance lover, Ursula (York Stage debutant Mary Clare), arrives suddenly.
The second, spanning either side of the interval, begins in a malfunctioning lift, where Melia’s laissez-faire Charity contrasts with Piper’s hyperventilating Oscar, his performance combining physical comedy with aerated verbal expression.
Ramsden’s Nickie and Carly Morton’s Helene excel too, especially in their duet, while James Robert Ball shines as brightly as his silver suit in the stand-out Rhythm Of Life, everyone in green all around him.
Putting it in black and white: The sensational Frug dance in York Stage’s Sweet Charity
Big Spender is an early come-hither taxi-dancer knockout, but better still in Mullan-Hill’s sensuous, sinuous and darn hot choreography is the Frug sequence of three ensemble dances, in black and white, each as groovy, baby, as Austin Powers could wish.
At short notice, Nik Briggs has stepped in to take over the role of matchstick-chewing ballroom manager/pimp Herman, reminding us of his now rarely seen singing and acting prowess.
Melia’s finest hour, knockout dancing, superb band, a frenzy of fishnets, snazzy gear and snappy dialogue, Sweet Charity demands to be your Valentine, whichever night or day, this week.
Performances: 7.30pm, tonight tonight and Friday; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday; 2.30pm, Sunday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Finding the Rhythm Of Life: James Robert Ball and the dance ensemble in silver and green unison in Sweet Charity
Danny Mac’s Edward and Aimie Atkinson’s Vivian in the West End production of Pretty Woman: The Musical. Picture: Helen Maybanks
THE debut UK tour of Pretty Woman: The Musical will play the Grand Opera House, York, from February 20 to 24 next year.
Billed as “Hollywood’s ultimate rom-com, live on stage”, the show features original music and lyrics by Canadian rock star and Grammy Award winner Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance and a book by Garry Marshall and the 1990 film’s screenwriter, J F Lawton, with direction and choreography by two-time Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell.
Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees in York are newly on sale at atgtickets.com/York.
The West End production continues to play at the Savoy Theatre, London, taking bookings until June 11 2023. The British and Irish tour will open on October 17 at the Birmingham Alexandra Theatre; the tour cast is yet to be announced.
Should the Richard Gere-Julia Roberts movie have escaped your attention, here is a quick refresher course on Pretty Woman’s story: Once upon a time in the late 1980s, Vivian met Edward and her life changed forever.
Or put it another way, in a tale based somewhat loosely on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, rich New York corporate raider Edward Lewis hires free-spirited Hollywood prostitute Vivian Ward to accompany him to a series of social events, only to fall in love with her. How will they bridge the chasm between their worlds?
Danny Mac’s Edward Lewis and Aimie Atkinson’s Vivian Ward in a scene from Pretty Woman: The Musical at the Savoy Theatre, London
Move forward to 2023-2024, when the tour publicity invites you to “be swept up in their romance in this dazzlingly theatrical take on a love story for the ages – and get to know these iconic characters in a whole new way – in a sensational show guaranteed to lift your spirits and light up your heart”.
The musical also features the Roy Orbison and Bill Dees composition Oh, Pretty Woman, the Big O’s August 1964 chart topper that inspired Garry Marshall’s film.
Atlantic Records has released Pretty Woman: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording), a soundtrack album produced by Adams and Vallance.
The show has scenic design by David Rockwell; costumes by Tom Rogers, from the original Broadway designs by Gregg Barnes; lighting design by Kenneth Posner and Philip S Rosenberg; sound design by John Shivers; hair design by Josh Marquette and music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations by Will Van Dyke.
Pretty Woman; The Musical received its world premiere at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre in March 2018 before transferring to Broadway, where it ran at the Nederlander Theatre. A German production opened in Hamburg at the Stage Theater an der Elbe in September 2019 and a USA tour began in October 2021.
The Ambassador Theatre Group, the Grand Opera House owners, are among the tour’s producers.
The artwork for Pretty Woman: The Musical, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, next February
Anna Rose James: Workshops and open mic shows at UK Ghost Story Festival. Picture: Nicolas Laborie
YORK actor-writer Anna Rose James will be the Ghost Of Festival Present at this week’s UK Ghost Story Festival at the Museum of Making, Derby Silk Mill, Derby.
“I’ll be running two workshops on Friday, hosting an open mic on Sunday, live-tweeting the rest and sharing a creative response to the whole thing at the end,” she says, ahead of attending the event from tomorrow until Sunday.
Anna will lead Friday’s Ghosts and Comedy workshop in the River Room from 2pm to 3pm, followed by the Ghostly Origins session in the Studio Space from 5pm to 6pm. Sunday’s open mics will be at 10.30am and 12 noon in the River Room.
Anna, or AR James as she is profiled in the festival speakers’ biographies, is a queer, bisexual actor-writer of unsettling entrances and exits in the form of poetry, flash fiction, auto-fiction, screenplays and scripts.
She co-founded Sonnet Sisters, Six Lips Theatre and The Podvangelist and is the voice of 3CC0 in Tin Can. Her works include Unknown (York publisher Stairwell Books), Little Irritants (Analog Submission Press) and 100 Friggin’ Poems.
Here Anna Rose James answers five questions on the ukghoststoryfestival.co.uk blog
What was the first ghost story you read, Anna?
“The first ones I remember encountering were actually told to me, and they were poems: Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, which remains a favourite, and The Listeners by Walter de la Mare – another narrative lyric that portrays a traveller who knocks upon a ‘moonlit door’ only to wait in the silence of the ‘listeners’, the phantoms who inhabit the house.
“Unlike the thoroughly conclusive The Raven, The Listeners is a swift draft of pure anticipation – silence and waiting and the unknown.”
Do you have a favourite ghost story, be it on the page or on the screen?
“The ones I’m writing will always be my favourites, but I can’t share those yet. I also won’t rank any single tale above the rest, but one of my favourites is The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens. I’ve only read and heard it so far, but I imagine it would also make a great short film in the right hands.
“I am fascinated by the cyclical impression of the titular character’s dreadful premonitions – the repetition of the haunting refrain, ‘Hallao, below there!’ and the tragic futility of his being trapped with the knowledge of impending doom and the inability to do anything to prevent it.
“There’s a real sense of ‘so close!’ – the narrator takes an interest in his strange case, the visions must surely be warning him for a reason, but…ultimately, fate strikes again. The real-world parallels with Dickens’s own life (and death) are a perfectly eerie cherry on the cake.”
What was the first ghost story you wrote?
“I wish I could find it to share pictures because it was a riot. The Time Machine was, I suspect, inspired equally by Jurassic Park and Sister, Sister! Penned at the tender age of seven, I used poster paints, masking tape and glitter glue to weave a (literally) incredible story about some friends who travelled back in time, saw some dinosaurs and got eaten.
Meanwhile in the present day (or future, presumably), someone had given birth to twins who then suddenly faded away (presumably the people who’d been eaten). It was non-stop until it stopped abruptly before seven-year-old me came up with an ending.”
What is the enduring appeal of the ghost story form?
“The social aspect of telling and being told, sharing the creeps and relishing the feeling of doling out some ghoulish experience. Watching a friend’s face as you lay out the reveal. The thrill of the unearthly clues, the surprising explanations.
“We love to be scared. We love it when stories can still surprise us, even with all we know. And until we know what’s beyond the veil of death, we’ll have this eternal playground of ideas to explore, whether we’re tugging at a thread we feel we shouldn’t or attempting to make peace with something completely out of our control and understanding.”
What are you particularly looking forward to at the festival?
“I’m a sucker for psychogeography so I can’t wait for Ally Wilkes’ workshop on Landscape and Location in Horror on Sunday. I’m an old lovey too so all the performances are top of my list.
“I’m also super excited to get stuck into my own workshops on comedy and origins in ghost stories, and to hear what the attendees have cooking in their own cauldrons at the open mic slots!”
