Tristan Sturrock’s Blue Beard versus Katy Owen’s Mother Superior in Wise Children’s Blue Beard
PRESS night for Wise Children’s Blue Beard coincided with Thursday’s release of the findings of Lady Elish Angiolini’s inquiry into the murder of York-born Sarah Everard by Met Police officer Wayne Couzens.
That murder was among the triggers for Wise Children writer-director Emma Rice deciding to write her version of the fairy tale Blue Beard, a gruesome tale of controlling women that she had previously avoided and never liked, “not wanting to add to the number of dead women scattered throughout our literature and media”.
Haunted by “the regular and painful chime of murdered woman in the news”, Rice woke one morning with the story knocking powerfully at her dreams. She duly wrote what she calls a wonder tale of vibrant, flawed, joyful living women, working together to turn the tables on the violent aggressor, “taking down the ones who threaten us” in a revenge story of female friendship, intellect and survival that is both defiant and hopeful.
The review to this point is quoting in depth from Rice’s interview, outlining her need, brought on by anger, to use her craft, platform and experience to make a small difference. Her motive was not to understand or excuse Blue Beard but to breathe life into the women he sought to control, celebrating them in “all their wild and surprising glory”, saying “enough is enough; we will not be afraid anymore.”
Emma Rice: The snap, crackle and pop of modern theatre
“It certainly won’t be boring,” she promised. Boring? Has any Emma Rice production, whether for the pioneering Kneehigh Theatre or now Wise Children, ever been boring, whether Brief Encounter, Malory Towers or Wuthering Heights?!
Blue Beard, her fifth supernova of a Wise Children show, is everything modern theatre should be: intelligent, topical, provocative, surprising; full of music, politics, “tender truths”, mirror balls and dazzling costumery; comedy as much as tragedy; actors as skilled at musicianship as acting and dancing to boot; embracing the Greek, Shakespearean, cabaret, kitchen sink and multi-media ages of theatre.
Seamless scene changing too by designer Vicki Mortimer, with a combination of furniture on wheels, doors centre stage, and curtains being closed and opened to conceal and reveal as if by magic. That’s how to stage a show. Then add Rice’s Blue Beard (Tristan Sturrock) now being a magician. Cue knife-throwing with a real point to it.
Emma Rice makes audacious theatre, full of mischievous imagination and stylish innovation in her vow to “entertain, move and transport”. She does so with a bravura flourish that means broad comedy and terror, a potty-mouthed nun and a filmic slow-motion climactic fight, a dig at Jamie Oliver cookbooks and CCTV film footage of the lead-up to a murder can collide and elide in one play, replete with gutteral physicality and grace.
Welcome to the Convent of the Fearful, the F****d and the Furious, where the nuns all wear shades and the terrific Katy Owen’s blue-bearded Mother Superior rules with waspish wit, fearless frankness, frightening zeal and a shrill referee’s whistle.
Revenger’s tragicomedy: Patrycja Kujawska’s Treasure wreaks vengeance on Tristan Sturrock’s Blue Beardin Wise Children’s Blue Beard
Into Rice’s overlapping stories are woven the young, modern-day Adam Mirsky’s Lost Brother and Mirabelle Grimaud’s guitar-playing Lost Sister, and the timeless triumvirate of sisters Lucky (Robyn Sinclair), Trouble (Stephanie Hockley) and their mother, Treasure (Patrycja Kujawska), reminiscent of the Witches in Macbeth. Enter Blue Beard, whom Trouble will marry – and if he’s looking for Trouble, he’s in the right place, as he meets his match.
All the while, be beguiled by the playing of Stu Barker’s Sister Susie of the Dulcimer and the superb movement direction and choreography of Etta Murfitt.
In the words of Rice: “Using music, dance, and storytelling, I want the production to seduce with high comedy, tragedy, magic, romance and just a sprinkle of spine-tingling horror. It’s a blockbusting rollercoaster!”
Couldn’t put it better! Rice’s Blue Beard is bloody funny, but shocking; violent, furious, dark yet enlightening; as romantic and joyful as it is fearful; empowering in its feminism, pulling reality from fantasy, haunting yet hopeful at the last. Remarkable, breathtaking theatre for today yet rooted in the ages, demanding a better tomorrow. You MUST see Blue Beard. It’s certainly not boring, Emma.
Wise Children presents Blue Beard at York Theatre Royal until March 9, except Sunday and Monday. Performances: 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 7.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Tuck into An Audience with Grace Dent, the Guardian food writer, columnist, author and presenter, at the Grand Opera House, York, on March 30 (7pm) as part of York Literature Festival
LITERATURE festivities, psychological bunny puppetry, sci-fi theatre, paranormal investigations and explosive dance promise out-of-this-world cultural experiences, reckons Charles Hutchinson.
Festival of the month: York Literature Festival, ends April 4
YORK Literature Festival is under way with events spread between St Peter’s School; York St John University; York Explore Library; Theatre@41; The Mount School; The Basement at City Screen; York Museum Gardens; York Medical Society, Stonegate; The Crescent; the Grand Opera House and The Blue Boar, Castlegate.
Among the highlights are today’s (2/3/2024) Folk Horror Day; food writers Nina Mingya Powles and Ella Risbridger on Thursday and Grace Dent on March 30; Nicholas Royle David Boiwe, Enid Blyton and The Sun Machine, March 12; journalist and broadcaster Steve Richards on Turning Points in modern Britain, March 16; Lush founder and lead singer Mike Berenyi, discussing her memoir Fingers Crossed, March 24, and poet and broadcaster Lemn Sissay’s morning poems, March 30. For the full programme and bookings, visit yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk.
Lemn Sissay: British-Ethiopian poet will perform morning poems from Let The Light Pour In at York Literature Festival on March 30 (2pm). Picture: Hamish Brown
When Tuesday is on a Saturday: 1812 Youth Theatre in Tuesday, Helmsley Arts Centre, tonight (2/3/2024), 2.30pm, 7.30pm
AN ordinary Tuesday turns really, really weird when the sky over the school playground suddenly rips open in Alison Carr’s funny and playful play Tuesday. Pupils and teachers are sucked up to a parallel universe as a new set of people rain down from above. ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ must come together to work out what is going on and how to return things to how they were.
Carr combines “a little bit of sci-fi and a lot of big themes”: friendship, family, identity, grief, responsibility – and what happens when an unexpected event turns the world upside down. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Exploring psychological damage: George Green in Foxglove Theatre’s Rabbit at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
New play of the week: Foxglove Theatre in Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (2/3/2024), 7.30pm
YORK company Foxglove Theatre identified a need for weirder, more experimental theatre in the city, focusing on “psychological exploration through innovative visual storytelling”. Here comes their debut new work, Rabbit, wherein a brave bunny wakes up lost in a murky forest determined to find her way home to Mumma.
Blending puppetry and visual effects, George Green’s performance explores the psychological damage that develops from even the smallest mishandlings of our childhood selves. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Back on the Chain Gang: Miles Salter, second left, and his York band make a second visit to Ampleforth Village Hall tonight
Village gig of the week: Miles and The Chain Gang, Ampleforth Village Hall, near Helmsley, tonight (2/3/2024), 7.30pm
YORK band Miles and The Chain Gang return to Ampleforth Village Hall by popular demand after a first outing there last summer. Expect rock’n’roll, acoustic songs, new wave, soul and country, plus Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash covers.
Their latest digital single, the country-tinged Raining Cats And Dogs, is sure to feature in the set by Miles Salter, guitar and vocals, Mat Watt, bass, Steve Purton, drums, and Charlie Daykin, keyboards. Tickets: 07549 775971.
Yvette Fielding: Leading the paranormal investigations at the Grand Opera House, in the haunted city of York, in a Sunday fright night
Paranormal show of the week: Most Haunted: The Stage Show, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday (3/3/2024), 7.30pm
YVETTE Fielding, “the first lady of the paranormal”, joins Karl Beattie, producer and director of the Most Haunted television series, in the investigative team to take Sunday’s audience on “the darkest, most terrifying journey of your life”, followed by a question-and-answer session.
In a city bursting at the seams with ghost stories and walks, Fielding and Beattie present Most Haunted’s All-Time Top Ten Scares, complete with unseen video footage from haunted castles, manor houses, hospitals and prisons. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Excellent entertainment? Phil Ellis reckons so at Theatre@41 on Tuesday
Comedy gig of the week: Phil Ellis’s Excellent Comedy Show, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday, 8pm
DO you like comedy? Do you like shows? What are your thoughts on excellence? “If you like all three, then the award-winning Phil Ellis’s Excellent Comedy Show is the excellent comedy show for you,” advises Ellis, who promises an hour of stand-up and fun from “the North West’s most punctual working-class comedian”. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Diversity: Dancing around the Supernova at the Grand Opera House, York, for two nights. Harrogate and Hull to follow
Dance show of the week: Diversity in Supernova, Grand Opera House, York, March 7 and 8, 7.45pm; Harrogate Convention Centre, March 9, 3.30pm; Hull Connexin Live, April 7, 2.30pm
2009 Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity return to York on their biggest tour yet to stage Supernova, devised by founder Ashley Banjo. More than 120,000 tickets have sold for more than 90 dates in 40 cities and towns through 2023 and 2024, with both Grand Opera House performances down to the last few tickets.
Diversity will be supporting the Trussell Trust, the anti-poverty charity, inviting audience members to bring food donations to place in collection points. Cash donations in buckets are welcome too. Box office: York, atgtickets.com/york; Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Hull, connexinlivehull.com.
Suzi Quatro: Using this iconic image from her first photographic session with Gered Mankowitz in 1973 to promote her 60th anniversary tour. York Barbican awaits
Gig announcement of the week: Suzi Quatro, York Barbican, November 15
SUZI Quatro will mark the 60th year of her reign as “the Queen of Rock’n’Roll” by embarking on a five-date autumn tour, taking in York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue.
Born in Michigan, Quatro flew to England in 1971 to work with songwriting duo Chinn and Chapman, chalking up chart toppers with Can The Can and Devil Gate Drive and further hits with 48 Crash, Daytona Demon, The Wild One, If You Can’t Give Me Love and She’s In Love With You, as well as co-writing Babbies & Bairns with dame Berwick Kaler in his York Theatre Royal panto pomp. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk/event/360060579D80156E.
In Focus: Two Houses, One Story: York ‘s Forgotten Women at Bar Convent and Fairfax House
Special collections manager Dr Hannah Thomas studies a reproduction of Lady Hungate’s unofficial will alongside items left to the Bar ConventLiving Heritage Centre
TWO Houses, One Story: York’s Forgotten Women, a collaboration between the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre and Fairfax House, opens today, marking International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month.
Running until April 27, the project explores the long intertwining histories of these illegal Catholic houses with an exhibition at each house that enhances the other.
Two of York’s most iconic historic houses, they share a history of strong Catholic women. One was founded as a secret convent, operating a pioneering school for girls, in Blossom Street; the other was constructed as the winter townhouse of Charles, 9th Viscount Fairfax of Emley, gifted to his daughter, the Hon Anne Fairfax, with its richly decorated interiors and stucco ceilings in a masterpiece of Georgian design and architecture in Castlegate.
Dr Hannah Thomas, the Bar Convent’s special collections manager, says: “The histories of the Bar Convent and Fairfax House are so closely intertwined that a joint exhibition such as this makes perfect sense.
The welcome to the Two Houses, One Story exhibition at Fairfax House
“Not many people are aware of the links between the houses but both Anne and Mary Fairfax attended the school here and Lady Hungate lived here with the sisters for 29 years.
“This exhibition gives us a fantastic opportunity to explore and share this exciting little-known narrative with the public and to work with the incredible team at Fairfax House.”
Sarah Burnage, curator at Fairfax House, says: “We are delighted to be working with our friends at the Bar Convent on this joint venture. The exhibition tells the story of women living in York in the 18th century and offers a fascinating glimpse into the little-known world of Catholicism in York”.
Two Houses: One Story features recently discovered documents, beautiful portraits and intriguing artefacts that give new insight into the day-to-day lives of these exceptional Yorkshire women.
Original 18th century account books referencing Lady Hungate, on display for the first time at the Bar Convent
The exhibitions explore how they navigated their faith during an era of persecution and suspicion, and how some were linked to dangerous underground activity that ultimately aided the survival of the Catholic faith in York and beyond.
At the Bar Convent, discover the early years of the Fairfax daughters who attended the school, how and why their grandmother, Lady Hungate, lived at the house for 29 years and the significance and legacy of this alliance.
At Fairfax House, learn more about the limited life choices that woman, like Anne Fairfax, faced in the 18th century. Also discover more about the Catholic networks in the city and how this clandestine community supported each other.
Each exhibition complements the other, and visitors to one house receive a 30 per cent discount on admission to the other with proof of receipt. The Bar Convent is open 10am to 5pm (last entry 4pm), Monday to Saturday; Fairfax House, from 10am to 4pm daily (Fridays: guided tours at 10am, 12pm and 3pm). Tickets: Bar Convent, barconvent.co.uk or 01904 643238; Fairfax House, fairfaxhouse.co.uk or 01904 655543.
Discover what Lady Hungate left to the Bar Convent in her unofficial will, on show at the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre
Neil McDermott’s Milo Tindle, left, and Todd Boyce’s Andrew Wyke in Anthony Shaffer’s thriller Sleuth, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Jack Merriman
AMID the multitude of musicals, concerts and comedians, the arrival of a ‘straight play’ is always welcome at the Grand Opera House, especially when it is such a gem.
Hidden gem, hopefully not, although Monday’s audience was not of the full variety, and word of mouth as much this review will be needed to spread the word.
Sleuth, Anthony Shaffer’s 1970 “thriller about thrillers”, received the Tony Award for Best Play, its Broadway stars, Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter, picking up the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.
The darkly psychological play was adapted for feature films in 1972 and 2007, the first starring Michael Caine as hairdresser Milo Tindle opposite Laurence Olivier’s detective novelist Andrew Wyke. Caine would then take on the older role in 2007, joined by Jude Law’s Tindle.
Star quality, in other words. Make that soap star quality in the case of the 2024 touring production under the Bill Kenwright umbrella. Todd Boyce, formerly “notorious” Coronation Street baddie Stephen Reid, plays Wyke opposite Neil McDermott, once EastEnders’ Ryan Molloy, as Tindle.
Todd Boyce as detective novelist and complex game player Andrew Wyke in Sleuth. Picture: Jack Merriman
Twelve-year runs in the West End and on Broadway are testament to Sleuth’s appeal to theatregoers and devotees of the national pastime of amateur sleuthing alike. Add the directorial elan of Rachel Kavanaugh and it still works waspishly, wittily, wonderfully well.
In his grand Wiltshire manor house, Boyce’s wealthy, erudite, insufferable author Wyke is writing his latest St John Lord Merridew mystery. In country suit and tie, he looks and sounds very pleased with himself, awaiting the arrival of a young man of Italian parentage, McDermott’s Milo Tindle.
Ever the devious novelist keen to toy with his audience, Wyke is in the mood for point scoring/mischief making/playing games to match the automata, inventions and games that populate his study in Julie Godfrey’s classically English yet somewhat creepy design. Soon it transpires that Tindle wants to marry Wyke’s heavy-spending, lavish-lifestyle wife, Marguerite. Let the fun and gamesmanship begin in a battle of wills and wits.
McDermott’s Tindle appears to be drawn all too easily into the web of Boyce’s cynical Wyke, dressing up as a clown to stunt the burglary of Marguerite’s jewellery that will fund Marguerite’s expensive tastes and be covered by an insurance claim, but never judge a detective novel by its cover or indeed a novelist by his front.
The sudden appearance of Wyke’s gun changes the playful tone to deathly serious, but how can we be sure what is real and imaginary in his mind games or in what we are seeing?
Sleuth director Rachel Kavanaugh. Picture: United Agents
Rather than giving the game away, let’s say twists, turns and surprises plenty are in store in Act Two, after speculative interval chatter over what might ort might not be going on. Inspector Doppler will appear to make his uncoventional enquiries, later joined by the noises off of Detective Sergeant Tarrant and Police Constables.
Who is one step ahead: Wyke, Tindle or the audience? Not telling. Who’s bluffing? Not telling! Who’s on superb form? Director and cast alike, so too sound designer Andy Graham and lighting designer Tim Oliver.
Boyce and McDermott delight in Shaffer’s wit and authorial chicanery, his turn of phrase and unpredictable humour, his love of the thriller and the craft of writing. Do not let Sleuth slip by this week; it is one of those nights of clever, smart, stylish theatre that makes you love the artform.
The Jolly Jack Tar automata may have the last laugh on stage, but you will be the one wreathed in smiles as you leave the theatre, so glad to have experienced such an intriguing, criminally good drama.
Sleuth, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday.Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Berwick Kaler’s dame Dotty Dullaly in his last pantomime, Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
BERWICK Kaler, Britain’s longest-running pantomime dame, is “bowing out gracefully after 47 years of getting away with complete nonsense” on the York stage, but there could yet be one final show.
“It has crossed my mind to maybe do a one-off performance as a thank-you, a show of appreciation to the staunch fans of our pantomime,” says Berwick.
Most likely it would be held at the Grand Opera House, host to the Kaler panto for the past three winters.
“I don’t want to say too much but the farewell has been handled wrongly,” says Berwick. “I’ll be 78 later this year [October 31], I’m ready to retire, but I would like to have made the decision in a better way.”
A seven-minute standing ovation had concluded the final night of Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse – written and directed by and starring the dowager dame as ever – but ticket sales for the December 9 to January 6 run had been underwhelming, even prompting a discounted price campaign.
“All those panto companies in the business, they need to make money,” acknowledges Berwick. “But I just thought, after the reception from the audience to that last show, which was totally amazing…
“…I’ve always said that every show I’ve done was ‘rubbish’, but that standing ovation, I don’t know if they knew something that night.
“I know it can’t go on forever. It can’t. I’ve not spoken anyone apart from [UK Productions managing director] Martin Dodds, who rang to let me know, so I’ve kept it to myself for a week.
“What I don’t want is for us to continue and for me to find that my energy levels – which were as good as ever for Robinson Crusoe – were suddenly not there. I smoke, I drink, I’m lucky to have got to the age I have!”
The last gang show: Martin Barrass, left, dame Berwick Kaler, Suzy Cooper, David Leonard and AJ Powell promoting Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouseoutside the Grand Opera House, York.Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
That thought would seem to rule out any suggestion of a move for Kaler and co to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre for winter 2024, in favour of a farewell one-nighter.
“I’ve had a pacemaker for eight years,” says Berwick, who also had a double heart bypass operation in July 2017. “I wanted to get out of hospital the day after the pacemaker was fitted. They said ‘No’, but I did leave the next day!
“I’m just sorry that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to our most wonderful audiences, to say ‘thank you’ on my part and everyone in the panto gang’s part too. Now it’s about just getting used to looking after my two dogs on my own in Acomb.”
And now, the end is here, the final curtain falling after panto producers UK Productions decided not to retain the services of veteran dame Berwick, who had transferred across the city after 40 years at York Theatre Royal to stage Dick Turpin Rides Again and subsequently Old Granny Goose and Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse.
“I would love to thank everyone in York for giving me a career that would not have gone on this length of time without their support, because every minute I’ve been on stage I’ve just bounced off the audience’s energy, and I’m so grateful for that,” says Berwick.
“When we went to the Grand Opera House, it continued to be ‘the York pantomime’, and that’s a reputation I hope will go on.”
Exiting panto stage left too will be Kaler’s “loyal gang”: long-serving comic stooge Martin Barrass, vainglorious villain David Leonard, principal golden gal Suzy Cooper and “luverly Brummie” A J Powell after their three-year run at the Cumberland Street theatre.
Thanking his co-stars for “putting up with me for so many years”, Berwick says: “I don’t know why UK Productions, even if they didn’t want me anymore, wouldn’t want to keep David, the best villain in the country, the amazing Suzy, Martin and AJ.”
Born in Sunderland, Berwick moved to London in his teenage years to be a painter and decorator, but the acting bug bit. Initially, in pantomime Berwick took to the dark side as a villain but 1977 found him donning his wig as Ugly Sister Philomena in Cinderella at the Theatre Royal after playing Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that summer.
This would be the last time: Berwick Kaler’s dame Dotty Dullaly in familiar rudimentary wig and workman’s boots with contrasting laces in Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
He would go on to play dame, write the script, ignore conventional plot lines, ad lib ad nauseam and direct “the rubbish”, year after year, bringing him the Freedom of the City, an honorary doctorate from the University of York and a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Great British Pantomime Awards.
“I came to York, not known to the Theatre Royal audience, but the thing is, they take a comic actor to their heart and that was case with me,” he says.
He retired once… “Don’t forget, when I announced my retirement from the Theatre Royal, I was ready to retire. It was that thing of marking 40 years.”
He soon regretted that decision, even more so after writing, co-directing and appearing on screen in the 2019 panto, Sleeping Beauty, and particularly so after the Theatre Royal decided to part with the Kaler gang to make way for a new partnership with Evolution Pantomimes.
The invitation to take up a three-year contract at the Grand Opera House brought about his comeback in 2021, but his finale to his last interview with The Press turned out to be prescient.
“I’m not going to announce my retirement. I’ll just go quietly, whenever. I’ve had my big send-off already [after 40 years at the Theatre Royal],” he mused last December.
“When they announce the next Grand Opera House pantomime, it will either be with us or without us.”
The reality is, “without us”, but with a new “star casting” instead for Beauty And The Beast’s run from December 7 to January 5 2025, with tickets on sale from Monday, March 11 at 4pm at atgtickets.com/york.
As for that Berwick Kaler farewell show, watch this space.
Alex Hamilton: Scottish guitarist plays Ryedale Blues Club gig at Milton Rooms, Malton
BLUES guitars, psychological bunny puppetry, mountain films, sci-fi theatre, paranormal investigations and explosive dance promise out-of-this-world cultural experiences, reckons Charles Hutchinson.
Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents Alex Hamilton Band, Milton Rooms, Malton, tomorrow, 8pm
GLASWEGIAN guitarist Alex Hamilton (formerly Lewis Hamilton) has been part of the British blues/rock scene since 2010. Parading a playing style that recalls Robben Ford and Matt Scofield, he released his debut album, Gambling Machine, at 18, winning the Scottish New Music Award for Jazz/Blues album in 2012.
Further albums Empty Roads, Ghost Train, Shipwrecked and On The Radio have followed. Hamilton makes his return to Malton in a trio with his father, Nick Hamilton, on bass and Ian Beestin on drums. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
George Green in Foxglove Theatre’s Rabbit
New play of the week in York: Foxglove Theatre in Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.30pm
YORK company Foxglove Theatre identified a need for weirder, more experimental theatre in the city, focusing on “psychological exploration through innovative visual storytelling”. Here comes their debut new work, Rabbit, wherein a brave bunny wakes up lost in a murky forest determined to find her way home to Mumma.
Blending puppetry and visual effects, George Green’s performance explores the psychological damage that develops from even the smallest mishandlings of our childhood selves. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
The poster for 1812 Youth Theatre’s production of Tuesday at Helmsley Arts Centre
When Tuesday is on a Friday and Saturday: 1812 Youth Theatre in Tuesday, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm, 7.30pm
AN ordinary Tuesday turns really, really weird when the sky over the school playground suddenly rips open in Alison Carr’s funny and playful play Tuesday. Pupils and teachers are sucked up to a parallel universe as a new set of people rain down from above. ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ must come together to work out what is going on and how to return things to how they were.
Carr combines “a little bit of sci-fi and a lot of big themes”: friendship, family, identity, grief, responsibility – and what happens when an unexpected event turns the world upside down. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Banff Mountain Film Festival: Visiting York Barbican on world tour on Friday
Film event of the week: Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, Red Film Programme, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
EXPERIENCE a night of thrilling adventure – up on the big screen. The Banff Mountain Film Festival features a new collection of short films filled with extreme journeys, untamed characters and captivating cinematography.
Join the world’s top adventure filmmakers and thrill-seekers as they climb, ski, paddle and ride into the wildest corners of the planet. Prize giveaways are promised too. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Back on the Chain Gang: Miles Salter, second left, and his York band play Ampleforth Village Hall for the second time
Ryedale gig of the week: Miles and The Chain Gang, Ampleforth Village Hall, near Helmsley, Saturday, 7.30pm
YORK band Miles and The Chain Gang return to Ampleforth Village Hall by popular demand after a first outing there last summer. Expect rock’n’roll, acoustic songs, new wave, soul and country, plus Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash covers.
Their latest digital single, the country-tinged Raining Cats And Dogs, is sure to feature in the set by Miles Salter, guitar and vocals, Mat Watt, bass, Steve Purton, drums, and Charlie Daykin, keyboards. Tickets: 07549 775971.
Yvette Fielding: Leading the paranormal investigations in the Most Haunted stage show at the Grand Opera House, York
Paranormal show of the week: Most Haunted: The Stage Show, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
YVETTE Fielding, “the first lady of the paranormal”, joins Karl Beattie, producer and director of the Most Haunted television series, in the investigative team to take Sunday’s audience on “the darkest, most terrifying journey of your life”, followed by a question-and-answer session.
In a city bursting at the seams with ghost stories and walks, Fielding and Beattie present Most Haunted’s All-Time Top Ten Scares, complete with unseen video footage from haunted castles, manor houses, hospitals and prisons. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Diversity: Dancing around the Supernova at the Grand Opera House, York, for two nights
Dance show of the week: Diversity in Supernova, Grand Opera House, York, March 7 and 8, 7.45pm; Harrogate Convention Centre, Saturday, 3.30pm; Hull Connexin Live, April 7, 2.30pm
2009 Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity return to York on their biggest tour yet to stage Supernova, devised by founder Ashley Banjo. More than 120,000 tickets have sold for more than 90 dates in 40 cities and towns through 2023 and 2024, with both Grand Opera House performances down to the last few tickets.
Diversity will be supporting the Trussell Trust, the anti-poverty charity, inviting audience members to bring food donations to place in collection points. Cash donations in buckets are welcome too. Box office: York, atgtickets.com/york; Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Hull, connexinlivehull.com.
Suzi Quatro: Using this iconic image from her first photographic session with Gered Mankowitz in 1973 to promote her 60th anniversary tour. York Barbican awaits
Gig announcement of the week: Suzi Quatro, York Barbican, November 15
SUZI Quatro will mark the 60th year of her reign as “the Queen of Rock’n’Roll” by embarking on a five-date autumn tour, taking in York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue.
Born in Michigan, Quatro flew to England in 1971 to work with songwriting duo Chinn and Chapman, chalking up chart toppers with Can The Can and Devil Gate Drive and further hits with 48 Crash, Daytona Demon, The Wild One, If You Can’t Give Me Love and She’s In Love With You, as well as co-writing Babbies & Bairns with dame Berwick Kaler in his York Theatre Royal panto pomp. Tickets will go on sale from 10am on Friday at https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/360060579D80156E.
George Green and puppet in Foxglove Theatre’s premiere of Rabbit at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
YORK company Foxglove Theatre have identified a need for weirder, more experimental theatre in the city, focusing on “psychological exploration through innovative visual storytelling”.
Here comes their debut new work, Rabbit, booked into Theatre@41, Monkgate, from Thursday to Saturday with a warning: “This is not a play for children”.
Why? Rabbit contains:
Disturbing content; physical harm/violence (explicit); suffocation; vomiting; flashing lights; jump scares; sudden loud noises; use of haze.
What happens? Rabbit is lost. Rabbit is scared. She will die by the end of the night. Waking up lost in a murky forest, this brave bunny is determined to find her way home to Mumma.
Foxglove Theatre’s poster for psychological drama Rabbit
However, an innocent bunny is not prepared for the trials and tribulations of the real world, where the wind cuts deep, teeth slice flesh, and a mothers hug falls short.
Blending puppetry and visual storytelling effects, Foxglove Theatre’s performance explores the psychological damage that develops from even the smallest mishandlings of our childhood selves.
Focusing on attachment and loss, Rabbit invites this week’s audiences to place their inner child under a magnifying glass and watch it burn.
Vowing to bring impactful, new age, daring theatrical productions to York, Foxglove Theatre made their debut in Summer 2002 at Theatre@41 with Welsh writer Brad Birch’s thriller The Brink: a dark comedy replete with blood, murder and death, sexual imagery and ephebophilia (sexual attraction to post-pubescent adolescents and older teenagers, aged 15 to 19).
Sam Jackson’s Nick comes face to face with Abel Kent’s Mr Boyd, the head teacher, in Foxglove Theatre’s inaugural prodiction, Brad Birch’s psychological thriller The Brink, in 2022
“As young people exploring our creative boundaries in York, we identified a gap in York’s theatre scene, a need for weirder, more experimental performance, and through Rabbit, our first new-work piece, we hope to begin to address this blind spot,” says producer Ione Vaughan.
“This 60-minute production aims to invite our audience into a space for self-reflection, while also refusing to diminish the negative repercussions of allowing poor mental health to fester. Combining modern contemporary theatre technology with the traditional medium of puppetry, we are utilising everything live performance has to offer to provide an impactful and immerse experience for our audience.”
Foxglove Theatre was formed by producers Ione Vaughan and Ivy Magee and director Nathan Butler. “Deciding to dedicate our work to bringing innovative theatre to this brilliant city, we also chose to champion the growth of young creatives like ourselves, offering flexible and malleable opportunities to develop their creative practice while with our company,” says Ione.
“This has been a success with our performer, George Green, as we developed a unique skill to add to their repertoire: puppetry. George learnt a range of puppetry techniques, both those required by the performance and beyond, including training with Leeds puppetry company The Object Project to support their overall development as a performer.”
Foxglove Theatre in Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm. Recommended age: 16 plus. Box office:tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
George Green in a scene from Foxglove Theatre’s Rabbit
Ape japes: Berwick Kaler in his last pantomime, as Dame Dotty Dullally, in Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
BERWICK Kaler, Britain’s longest-running pantomime dame, is “bowing out gracefully” after 47 years on the York stage.
The final curtain has fallen after Grand Opera House panto producers UK Productions decided not to retain the services of veteran dame Berwick, 77, who had transferred across the city in 2021 after 40 years at York Theatre Royal.
Exiting panto stage left too will be long-serving comic stooge Martin Barrass, vainglorious villain David Leonard, principal golden gal Suzy Cooper and “luverly Brummie” A J Powell after their three-year run at the Cumberland Street theatre.
In his quote at the very bottom of the Grand Opera House’s official announcement of Beauty And The Beast as the 2024-2025 pantomime, Berwick says: “After 47 years of getting away with complete nonsense, it’s time to bow out gracefully and I couldn’t have wished for a better production than Robinson Crusoe [And The Pirates Of The River Ouse].
“I’d like to thank all of the audiences over the years, and particularly those who came to the Grand Opera House this year for making it so memorable. I’d also like to thank the producers UK Productions for their support, and for bringing to life my frankly mad ideas so spectacularly.
The last gang show: Berwick Kaler, second from right, with David Leonard, Martin Barrass, Suzy Cooper and A J Powell, promoting Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse on King’s Staith
“Last and of course not least, my loyal gang, David, Suzy, Martin and AJ, for putting up with me for so many years.”
The official statement reads: “Also announced today is the departure of Berwick Kaler from the Grand Opera House pantomime.
“Berwick has been a beloved Dame in York since 1977 and it has been a privilege for the Grand Opera House to host Berwick and the gang for the last three years. Martin Barrass, Suzy Cooper, AJ Powell and David Leonard will also not be returning.”
UK Productions took over the Grand Opera House pantomime after only one year of Berwick and co performing for Qdos Entertainment/Crossroads Live in his comeback show Dick Turpin Rides Again.
Managing director Martin Dodd, always an enthusiastic advocate for Berwick Kaler’s pantomimes, nevertheless makes no mention of the parting of the ways in the Grand Opera House announcement.
Instead, he looks to the future, as the pantomime partnership with the York theatre is retained but in a new form with “star casting”. “We are delighted to continue our relationship with the Grand Opera House and bring one of the most popular fairy tales of all time, our award-winning Beauty And The Beast, to audiences in York,” he says.
“The production is spectacular and contains all the elements that young and old will love, and we look forward to announcing the star casting very soon.”
Likewise, Grand Opera House theatre directorLaura McMillan, focuses on the new era: “The annual pantomime is the biggest show in the theatre’s calendar and to be welcoming Beauty And The Beast to our stage is incredibly exciting.
“There’s nothing like pantomime to introduce children and young people to Theatre and I have no doubt that Belle, The Beast and the rest of the characters will bring so much joy this winter.”
Beauty And The Beast will run from December 7 2024 to January 5 2025.Tickets, from £15, will go on sale on Monday, March 11 at 4pm at atgtickets.com/york.
Wise Children “open the bloody door” to Emma Rice’s beguiling but disturbing Blue Beard at York Theatre Royal from Tuesday. Picture: Steve Tanner
PANTO dame tales and a comedian’s first-time memories, a classic thriller and a feminist fairytale, a community choir festival and a prog-rock legend make Charles Hutchinson’s list of upcoming cultural highlights.
Play of the week: Wise Children in Emma Rice’s Blue Beard, York Theatre Royal, February 27 to March 9, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
BLUE Beard meets his match when his young bride discovers his dark and murderous secret. She summons all her rage, all her smarts and all her sisters to bring the curtain down on his tyrannous reign as writer-director Emma Rice brings her own brand of theatrical wonder to this beguiling, disturbing tale.
Applying Rice’s signature sleight of hand, Blue Beard explores curiosity and consent, violence and vengeance, all through an intoxicating lens of music, wit and tender truth. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Rick Wakeman: Last return of the Caped Crusader at York Barbican
Catch him while you can: Rick Wakeman, Return Of The Caped Crusader, York Barbican, tonight (24/02/2024), 7.30pm
PROG-ROCK icon and Yes keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman, 76, is to call time on his one-man shows to concentrate on composing, recording and collaborating, but not before playing York. “I always planned to stop touring by my 77th birthday,” he says. “For those of you who wish to send me a card, it’s 18th May!”
Saturday’s show opens with Wakeman’s new arrangements of Yes material for band and vocalists, followed after the interval by his epic work Journey To The Centre Of The Earth. Box office for returns only: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Robin Simpson on dame duty in York Theatre Royal’s All New Adventures Of Peter Pan
Pantomime revelations of the week: Robin Simpson: There Ain’t Nothing Like A Dame, Rise, Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, tomorrow, 6.30pm
ALREADY confirmed for his return for Aladdin from December 3 to January 5 2025, York Theatre Royal’s resident dame, Robin Simpson, takes a peak behind the wigs into the glitz and glamour of life as a pantomime dame.
Simpson provides an insight into the origins of the character, backstage antics and classic cheeky panto humour as he reveals “what it’s really like to frock up and tread the boards”. Expect cheesy gags, naughty nonsense and even a silly sing-song.
“I’ve run this event before and it was mostly for slightly older children and adults. Ages 7/8 and above really,” says Robin. “The show includes stories, song-sheet sing-alongs and silly poems. It’s not at all serious!
“It’s fun to approach storytelling from the perspective of the dame. It’s a little more anarchic. I also start with a brief history of the pantomime, from Roman times to the modern day.
“I do this while getting dressed and made up into the dame with the idea that, by the time I’m talking about Dan Leno and the Victorian dame, I’m completely changed. There’s room for questions and chat too about being in a panto and what happens on stage and backstage. Like I say, it’s for KS2 and adults really.”
Earlier in the day, at 4.30pm, in an interactive one-hour event for children aged three to six, Robin and Susanna Meese will be spinning the Storywheel to reveal much-loved nursery tales. “It’s a wheel of fortune-style story generator where random fairytales are told and there’s lots of dressing-up, musical instruments, songs, props, puppets and play,” says Robin.
Afterwards, children can delve into story bags full of goodies and stay and play with the hosts, who will have everything needed for the children to tell the tales, including puppets, props, and costumes. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise
Maura Jackson: Public speaker, charity boss and now comedian, playing Theatre@41 tomorrow
Storyteller of the week: Maura Jackson: More O’ Me, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
AT 53 Maura Jackson cannot decide if she is a keynote speaker, charity CEO or comedian. Thanks to “the recklessness of menopause”, she is all three.
After living a life and a half and taking up stand-up in 2022 on a whim, storyteller Jackson takes tomorrow’s audience on a humorous rollercoaster of life-defining moments, good or bad. Despite her professed aversion to drama, she is surrounded by it. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Neil McDermott, left, and Todd Boyce in Sleuth, “the thriller about thrillers”, at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Jack Merriman
Thriller of the week: Sleuth, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday
TODD Boyce, best known for playing Coronation Street’s notorious baddie Stephen Reid, will be joined by EastEnders soap star Neil McDermott in Anthony Shaffer’s dark psychological thriller about thrillers, directed by Rachel Kavanaugh.
What happens? A young man arrives at the impressive home of a famous mystery writer, only to be unwittingly drawn into a tangled web of intrigue and gamesmanship, where nothing is quite as it seems. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Rob Auton: Star of The Rob Auton Show, full of firsts, from memories to girlfriends to jobs
Comedy gig(s) of the week: Rob Auton, The Rob Auton Show, Burning Duck Comedy Club, The Crescent, York, February 28, 7.30pm; Mortimer Suite, Hull City Hall, February 29, 7.30pm; The Wardrobe, Leeds, March 1, 7.30pm
ROB Auton, Pocklington-raised stand-up comedian, writer, podcaster, actor, illustrator and former Glastonbury festival poet-in-residence, returns north from London with his self-titled tenth themed solo show.
After the colour yellow, the sky, faces, water, sleep, hair, talking, time and crowds, Auton turns the spotlight on himself, exploring the memories and feelings that create his life on a daily basis. Box office: York, thecrescentyork.seetickets.com; Hull, hulltheatres.co.uk; Leeds, brudenellsocialclub.seetickets.com.
Skylights: Lighting up York Barbican in November
Gig announcement of the week: Skylights, York Barbican, November 2
YORK band Skylights will play their biggest home-city show yet this autumn, with tickets newly on sale at ticketmaster.co.uk in a week when latest release Time To Let Things Go has risen to number two in the Official Vinyl Singles Chart.
Guitarist Turnbull Smith says: ‘We’re absolutely over the moon to be headlining the biggest venue in our home city of York, the Barbican. It’s always been a dream of ours to play here, so to headline will be the perfect way to finish what’s going to be a great year. Thanks to everyone for the support. It means the world and we’ll see you all there.”
In Focus: York Community Choir Festival 2024
Jessa Liversidge: Directing Easingwold Community Singers’ performance at the York Community Choir Festival
York Community Choir Festival 2024, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 25, 6pm; February 26 to March 1, 7.30pm; March 2, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
THE 8th York Community Choir Festival spreads 31 choirs across eight concerts over six days at the JoRo. On the opening evening, Easingwold Community Singers will be premiering director Jessa Liversidge’s arrangement of The Secret Of Happiness from the American musical Daddy Long Legs, with permission of composer and lyricist Paul Gordon.
“Festival organiser Graham Mitchell wanted a choir to perform this song,” says Jessa. “I bought the music but couldn’t find a choral arrangement, so I chanced my arm on contacting the composer to ask if there were any arrangements or could I do one, and he said, ‘yes, you can’.
“It’s a lovely gentle song. Hopefully it will go well, and I can then send Paul a recording.”
Choirs range from York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir to The Rolling Tones, Sounds Fun Singers to York Military Wives Choir, Selby Youth Choir to Track 29 Ladies Close Harmony Chorus. Six choirs from Huntington School perform next Friday, taking up all the first-half programme. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
York Community Choir Festival: the programme
Sunday, 6pm
Selby Youth Choir, Bishopthorpe Community Choir, Eboraca, Easingwold Community Singers.
Monday, 7.30pm
Community Chorus, York Celebration Singers, Euphonics, York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir.
Tuesday, 7.30pm
Jubilate, Some Voices York, Sounds Fun Singers, Abbey Belles Chorus.
Wednesday, 7.30pm
Stagecoach Youth Junior Choir, The Garrowby Singers, In Harmony, Stamford Bridge Community Choir.
Thursday, 7.30pm
York Military Wives Choir, Harmonia, Spirit of Harmony Barbershop Chorus, Heworth Community Choir.
Friday, 7.30pm
Huntington School Choirs, Vivace! Aviva York Choir, Main Street Sound Ladies, Barbershop Chorus
GRIFFONAGE Theatre may well be a new name to you, rooted in a word that means “careless handwriting: a crude or illegible scrawl”.
The York company has its roots in the University of York, where director Katie Leckey is studying for a Masters in theatre-making.
Already, the company with the mantra of “making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange” has staged Poe In The Pitch Black in the non-theatrical but very atmospheric Perky Peacock café, in the 14th century Barker Tower on North Street.
Rope, Patrick Hamilton’s 1929 thriller famous for Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking 1948 film version, marks Griffonage’s move into a formal theatre space, the black box of the John Cooper Studio at Theatre@41.
Set designer Alicia Oldbury keeps it as black as the humour and mood of the piece with its shadows of the rise of British fascism. On the walls are mirrors and picture frames left blank, to match the values of William Osbon’s weak-minded Charles Granillo and especially Nick Clark’s fly Wyndham Brandon treating lives as worthless.
Rope opens in the smart London home where Brandon and Granillo will host the weirdest of dinner parties. Not in the dining room, where the table is now buried under a heap of books left to Brandon to sell, but the drawing room where the maid, Sabot (Molly Raine), sets up the food and cutlery on a wooden chest.
In that chest, as we know from the opening scene in the dark, is the body of Granillo and Brandon’s fellow Oxford student, the sporty Ronald Kentley. This is no spoiler alert: Rope is not so much a whodunit or whydunit (disdain, pleasure, arrogance, contempt), but a case of will the smug, wealthy duo get away with their “perfect crime”?
Enter, at Brandon and Granillo’s calculated invitation: glamorous socialite but not bright Leila Arden (Carly Bednar, delightfully daffy performance; too-modern dress); awfully nice but a tad dim student – and Brandon’s former school fag – Kenneth Raglan (Peter Hopwood, dressed in black tie and a never-removed top hat,) and the Oscar Wilde of Brandon’s circuit, Rupert Cadell, a droll poet with a lame leg but tack-sharp mind (Griffonage co-artistic director Jack Mackay).
Completing the assortment of guests as eccentric as the meal’s random contents are Ronald’s esteemed, book-collector father Sir William Kentley (Liam Godfrey, as suitably stiff in his disposition as a book cover) and his taciturn sister Mrs Debenham (Frankie Hayes, as disapproving in manner as Lady Bracknell, but saying everything in a look rather than words).
A white door of an erratic nature, period furniture, a drinks trolley, a piano, all play their part, lighting is kept simple, and tension takes its time to turn to Hitchcockian horror, hushed arguments broken like glass by fevered shouts as the cigarettes pile up and the drinks click in.
The atmosphere is awkward, as it would be, lightened by the nervous chatter of Bednar’s Leila, but Rope tightens its grip once the Mackay’s Cadell and Clark’s Brandon – the two outstanding performers – lock horns, one ultimately smarter than the other, as Osbon’s tad-hammy Granillo, by now a drunk, quivering wreck, slumps by the chest.
Rope is the work of a young company finding its feet, a new addition to the Theatre@41 portfolio with plenty of room to grow and another production on its way.
Pilot Theatre’s Jonathan Iceton, left, Beth Crame, Olivia Onyehara, Grace Long and Amonik Melaco in A Song For Ella Grey
NEWCASTLE. Shopping for vintage clothes. Nights on the toon. Bamburgh Beach. Camping out. Beach parties. Cheap supermarket plonk. Best friends for life. First tingle of love.
Such is the teenage stuff of David Almond’s novel for young readers, and the stuff too of Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson’s days of growing up in the North East. Been there, done that, bought the book, the first one she read after taking up her post with the York company.
Eight years later, Richardson is directing Pilot’s touring co-production in partnership with York Theatre Royal and Northern Stage, in Newcastle, where rehearsals and the first peformances took place.
Almond has adapted past works for the stage, but this time Pilot commissioned Zoe Cooper, a playwright and dramaturg who has an M Phil in playwriting from the University of Birmingham and cut her teeth on the Royal Court Young Writers programme. Both her script and Almond’s book are on sale alongside the brownies and chai lattes at the café counter.
Working in tandem, Richardson and Cooper have pitched this particular theatrical tent on the cornerstones of storytelling, music, sound and vision to seek to capture the elusive nature of Orpheus, the “man-god” (as Richardson calls him). I say ‘him’, but this Orpheus is called ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, at various points, depending on who is speaking.
Pilot’s primary target audience is teenage, studying Eng Lit, maybe theatre, and indeed schoolchildren were clustered in the dress circle at Thursday’s matinee, but peppered around the stalls were Theatre Royal matinee regulars.
Overhearing one in the interval and chatting with them afterwards, they praised the performances but had reservations over the storytelling. More specifically, the clarity of what we were watching. In a nutshell, not only was Orpheus elusive, so too was the story.
Your reviewer wholeheartedly agreed about the uniformly excellent cast, but did find himself drawn into the mysteries and murk of Almond’s modern-day re-telling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, one that carried this contents notice in the foyer: References to death of a young person, bereavement/loss and adoption.
Already, on stage in York, at Stillington Mill, in Australia too, Wright & Grainger have explored the myth in a trilogy of exhilarating spoken-word and music shows, Orpheus, Eurydice and The Gods The Gods The Gods, billed as “stories from Greek mythology, told as if they were happening today”.
What Pilot Theatre’s production shares is both modernity and rich imagination in the storytelling, in this case the story of Ella Grey (Grace Long), who was adopted at the age of two and dreams of Orpheus singing to her in the company of her biological parents.
Ella prefers to spend her days and nights with Claire (Olivia Onyehara), her intense best friend since she was four, and Claire’s more open parents, with their baked aubergine suppers and ultra-comfy, tweedy sofas from a Scottish cottage industry. They understand her better, she protests.
Studying Eng Lit etc at A-level, they hook up regularly by the Northumbrian coast with Sam (Amonik Melaco), with his perfectly manicured eyebrows and far from perfect attitude towards young women; the more sensitive birdwatcher Jay (good name for a birdwatcher, Jonathan Iceton) and the ever-curious-to-experiment Angeline (Beth Crame, outstanding).
Craving a feeling of belonging, Ella is ever more drawn to Orpheus, represented here by a silhouetted figure with a crown of twigs behind white curtaining, by distant song and music too. Only she hears the voice at first, but gradually…well, that would be telling.
The content warning serves as a spoiler alert of her death, represented at the sea’s edge by her vintage dress, leaving so many questions to be answered for her friends, audience and Orpheus alike in Act Two.
Designer Verity Quinn switches the colour scheme for the two circular mounds that serve as beds and rocks on the beach from white to funereal black, accompanied by the squawk of a murder of crows and even a crow in the twig head gear worn by Claire.
All the while, Adam P McCready’s all-pervasive sound design (water, water everywhere), Chris Davey’s lighting and especially Si Cole’s video designs on the white backdrop give the atmosphere psychological depths.
Most evocative of all are the compositions of Emily Levy, whose programme note talks of her starting points of “voice (spoken and sung), folk song, and the crossover point where naturally occurring sound morphs into music”. Her songs “pass through and between the performers”, beautifully, spellbindingly so, and they evoke the mystical North East as much as The Unthanks do.
The links with the Orpheus and Eurydice of yore grow ever clearer in song and storytelling alike, as the tragedy and pain of human fallibility, the impossibility of immortality, heighten once in the underworld, but come the finale, Almond and Cooper still allow teenage dreams to be so hard to beat as new worlds beckon for Ella’s friends.
Musician Zak Younger Banks rightly joins the cast on stage to take a bow: thoroughly deserved for his vital contribution.
Performances: York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.Hull Truck Theatre, March 5 to 9, 7.30pm; 2pm Wednesday & Saturday matinees.Box office: 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk.
