Bootiful moment for Damien Poole’s Charlie, left, and Samuel Lewis’s Simon/Lola in York Stage’s York premiere of Kinky Boots
York Stage in Kinky Boots, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York
YORK Stage director-producer Nik Briggs has made an astute judgement in deciding to bring out the British qualities that marked Julian Jarrold’s 2005 film version of Kinky Boots in his York premiere of Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper’s 2012 musical.
For all its parochial Northampton setting, the American coupling of writer Fierstein and songwriter Lauper had crafted a show more rooted in grander Broadway stylings.
Briggs has retained the glitz, but located the grit too, making Kinky Boots more in keeping with Billy Elliot, Calendar Girls or even Harold Brighouse’s 1915 comedy-drama Hobson’s Choice, while still striving to match the glorious drag staging posts La Cage Aux Folles and Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical.
Whether on Broadway, in the West End or now at the refurbished Grand Opera House, Kinky Boots applies a thigh-high boot up the derriere to prejudice and intolerance, championing diversity and rallying to the cause of letting people be who they are.
The Price & Son factory in York Stage’s Kinky Boots
Charlie Price (Damien Poole) needs to learn that lesson, just as his father, factory boss Mr Price (Martyn Hunter), did before him.
“Inspired by true events”, the setting is Price & Son, a fraying shoe factory on its last legs, where Charlie feels duty bound to fill his late father’s outmoded shoes, even though factories all around have lost their sole and closed.
Girlfriend Nicola (Nicola Holliday) wants him to climb the property ladder in London, but Charlie has only gone there to please her, his boot laces still tied to his hometown and his family’s loyal workforce.
He needs more than a patriarchal conscience, however. He requires a new direction and so does Price & Son. Help sashays his way in the fabulous form of Lola (York stage debutant Samuel Lewis), an outré drag act, seeking sturdy yet slinky stilettos for not only his act but all his attendant Angels drag queens too.
Coming to blows: Finn East’s Don takes on Samuel Lewis’s Simon/Lola in a boxing challenge
Outwardly poles apart, nevertheless they find common ground: both Charlie from Northampton and Lola, boxer’s son Simon from Clacton, have endured struggles with meeting their fathers’ expectations.
Poole has all the assurance, singing craft and emotional connection that characterised his lead role as Buddy in York Stage’s Elf, but he has to negotiate the rather forced sudden switches in tone in Fierstein’s script that do not wholly convince.
The buzz surrounds Samuel Lewis’s swaggering, staggeringly good performance as Lola/Simon. What a singing voice, one to catch you like when you first heard Bronski Beat’s Jimmy Somerville.
He can do the drag queen moves too, the shrug, the catwalk twirl, the eyes, but what marks him out is his ability at characterisation: beneath the glam carapace, the waspish putdowns and the bold front of Lola, he shows Simon’s wounded core. The complete performance, in other words.
Second York Stage new signing Amy Barrett, who has moved to the city to teach drama, brings zest, resourcefulness, fun and not a little cheek to Lauren, the factory worker on the path from chorus line to lead. Nicola Holliday does not bat an eyelid at having to be myopic, miserable, irritating, as Nicola.
Bringing to heel: York Stage’s cast members pull on the boots for the finale to Kinky Boots
Finn East is a knockout, as he so often is as the factory neanderthal, Don, while Katie Melia’s Pat, Andrew Roberts’s Harry/Delivery Guy, Jack Hooper’s George and Jess Main’s Trish all have their moments. So do Harry Kennely and Harrison Turner-Hazel’s Young Charlie and Jacob Clarke and Tom Hampshire’s Young Lola.
AJ Powell’s choreography brings out the best in both Lewis and the factory-worker ensemble, and seeing is believing with the cross-dressing Angels, where “they do boys like they’re girls”, as Blur once sang, with such swish relish.
Fierstein’s book is uneven, veering towards the histrionic on occasion, revelling in Lola’s drag queen but dragging a little too. Lauper’s lyrics are sassy; her songs are not overt pop hits but carry the panache and drama that big musical numbers should, especially Sex Is In The Heel and What A Woman Wants.
A word too for the band, under Stephen Hackshaw’s direction in the first week, and especially for Jessica Douglas, who has dashed back from her wedding to resume musical-director duties for week two.
As for the boots, they even outstrut York hen parties on a Saturday night.
Paul French’s Prospero and Effie Warboys’ Miranda in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s touring production of The Tempest. Picture: John Saunders
STORMY Shakespeare, bountiful balloons, rebellious schoolchildren, heaps of horror movies and Sherlock’s farewell tour are right up Charles Hutchinson’s street.
Theatre event of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Tempest, on tour from September 23 to October 1
YORK Shakespeare Project’s 20-year journey to stage every Shakespeare play concludes with a Yorkshire tour of The Tempest, the Bard’s powerful last play, directed by Parrabbola artistic director Philip Parr with Paul French as Prospero.
When an unusual collection of people is thrown together on an island by a storm, old injuries must be resolved, a new generation makes new plans and everyone is driven to find something of themselves in a disrupted world.
Parr uses communal storytelling in a new interpretation to highlight themes of colonisation, reconciliation and change. Full tour and ticket details can be found at beta.yorkshakespeareproject.org/the-tempest/.
What’s on Watson’s mind? Mark Watson reckons This Can’t Be It in comedy tour dates in York, Helmsley and Selby. Picture: Matt Crockett
Comedy gig of the week: Mark Watson, This Can’t Be It, Burning Duck Comedy Club, The Crescent, York, tonight (17/9/2022), 7.30pm
EVERYONE has been pondering the fragility of life in Covid’s shadow. Don’t worry, Bristol comic Mark has it covered. At 42, he is halfway through his days on Earth, according to his £1.49 life expectancy calculator app.
That life is in the best shape in living memory, but one huge problem remains. Spiritual investigation meets observational comedy as Watson crams two years’ pathological overthinking into one night’s stand-up. “Maybe we’ll even solve the huge problem,” he ponders. “Doubt it, though.”
Watson also plays Helmsley Arts Centre on October 7 and Selby Town Hall on November 17. Box office: York, thecrescentyork.com; Helmsley, 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk; Selby, 01757 708449 orselbytownhall.co.uk.
Mikron Theatre Company’s tour poster for Raising Agents
History in the baking: Mikron Theatre Company in Raising Agents, Clements Hall, Nunthorpe Road, York, Sunday, 4pm
MIKRON Theatre Company’s 50th anniversary tour brings the Marsden travelling players to York for a second time this summer this weekend. After the premiere of Lindsay Rodden’s Red Sky At Night at Scarcroft Allotments in May, here comes Rachel Gee’s revival of Maeve Larkin’s play about the Women’s Institute, Raising Agents.
Bunnington WI is somewhat down-at-heel, with memberships dwindling, meaning they can barely afford the hall, let alone a decent speaker. However, when a PR guru becomes a member, the women are glad of new blood, but the milk of WI kindness begins to sour after she re-brands them as the Bunnington Bunnies.
A battle ensues for the very soul of Bunnington, perhaps the WI itself, in a tale of hobbyists and lobbyists that asks how much we should know of our past or how much we should let go of it.
Raising Agents features not only a cast of Hannah Bainbridge, Thomas Cotran, Alice McKenna and James McLean but also songs by folk duo O’Hooley & Tidow, Mikron’s Marsden neighbours of Gentleman Jack theme-tune fame. Box office: email willyh@phonecoop.coop; ring 07974 867301 or 01904 466086; call in at Pextons, Bishopthorpe Road, York.
Boyzlife and balloons: Keith Duffy and Brian McFadden headline next Saturday’s line-up at the Yorkshire Balloon Fiesta
Festival of the week: Yorkshire Balloon Fiesta, Knavesmire, York, September 23 to 25
THE largest hot air balloon and music festival in the north will take off in York for the last time from Friday before moving elsewhere next year. Expect hot-air balloon launches, children’s entertainment, live music, a funfair, a Labyrinth Challenge obstacle course, food and drink and Friday and Saturday Night Glow lit-up balloons.
Friday’s acts will be Sam Sax, Scouting For Girls and DJ Craig Charles’s Funk and Soul Show; on Saturday, Huge, Brainiac Live (science show), Gabrielle, Heather Small and Boyzlife; on Sunday, YolanDa’s Band Jam, Andy & The Odd Socks, Howard Donald (DJ set) and Symphonic Ibiza, before a fireworks finale. Full details and tickets: yorkshireballoonfiesta.co.uk.
Clash of wills: Sam Steel’s headmistress Miss Trunchbull and Juliette Sellamuttu’s special-powered pupil, Matilda, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Matilda: The Musical Jr. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Children’s show of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical Jr, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 23 to October 2
REBELLION is nigh when Robert Readman’s York company Pick Me Up Theatre presents Matilda Jr, a gleefully witty ode to the anarchy of childhood and the power of imagination.
Packed with high-energy dance numbers and catchy Tim Minchin songs, this joyous girl power romp will have audiences rooting for the “revolting children” who are out to teach mean headmistress Miss Trunchbull a lesson, led by Matilda, the child with astonishing wit, intelligence, courage and…special powers! Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
All’s well that’s John Bramwell: I Am Kloot frontman to play “super-intimate” gig at Ellerton Priory. Picture: Ian Percival
Whatever happened to I Am Kloot? Off The Beaten Track presents John Bramwell, Ellerton Priory, Ellerton, near York, September 24, 7.30pm. UPDATE: 22/9/2022: GIG CANCELLED AFTER FAMILY BEREAVEMENT
FROM the team behind shows by Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys and The Beta Band’s Steve Mason in Stockton on the Forest Village Hall comes a “super-intimate” gig by I Am Kloot singer, songwriter and guitarist John Bramwell.
Since 2016, Bramwell has reverted to being a solo artist, releasing the home-recorded Leave Alone The Empty Spaces in 2018 and performing with John Bramwell & The Full Harmonic Convergence. The follow-up album, a more expansive affair with a working title of The Light Fantastic, is “scheduled for 2022”. Tickets are on sale via thecrescentyork.com or seetickets.com.
20 years later: Danny Boyle’s 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later will be shown in the Classic slot at the Dead Northern Horror Festival at City Screen. Copyright: Fox Searchlight
Film event of the week: Dead Northern Horror Festival ’22, City Screen Picturehouse, York, September 23 to 25
YORK’S only horror film festival returns to City Screen for three days, “bigger and bloodier than ever”, with a line-up of horror and fantasy-themed entertainment, new and classic feature films, live horror entertainment, parties, Q&As, special guests and exclusive merchandise.
Among the feature films will be After She Died, The Lies Of Our Confines, Shadow Vaults and Dog Soldiers on September 23; three world premieres with Q&As, Searching For Veslomy, Calling Nurse Meow and The Stranger, plus Eating Miss Campbell, on September 24, and The Creeping, The Group and 28 Days Later on the last day, when Paul Forster will host a séance at 7pm. Box office and full programme: deadnorthern.co.uk.
Farewell, but not goodbye: Dominic Goodwin’s Dr Watson, left, and Julian Finnegan’s Sherlock Holmes return in their long-running show, Holmes And Watson: The Farewell Tour
Double act of the week: Pyramus & Thisbe Productions in Holmes And Watson: The Farewell Tour, York Theatre Royal Studio, September 23 and 24, 7.45pm
JULIAN Finnegan’s Sherlock Holmes and Dominic Goodwin’s Dr Watson team up in Stuart Fortey’s “utterly bonkers” two-man play, wherein the detective has prevailed on the doctor, landlady Mrs Hudson and Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard to join him in a farewell tour of the British Isles before he retires.
For the first time ever, they will re-enact one of Holmes’s most baffling unrecorded cases, The Case Of The Prime Minister, The Floozie And The Lummock Rock Lighthouse, an affair on whose outcome the security of Europe once hung by a thread. Will Professor James Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, make an appearance? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Not before time: Suede announce their first York Barbican gig in a quarter of a century. Picture: Dean Chalkley
Gig announcement of the week: Suede, York Barbican, March 15 2023
SUEDE are to play York Barbican for the first time in 25 years on the closing night of their 2023 tour, in the wake of this week’s release of their ninth studio album, Autofiction, their first since 2018.
Next March’s tour will combine the London band’s classics, hits and selections from Autofiction, climaxing with their first Barbican appearance since April 23 1997. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk and ticketmaster.co.uk.
The poster for the York Printmakers Autumn Print Fair
Art event of the week: York Printmakers Autumn Print Fair, York Cemetery Chapel & Harriet Room, York, September 24 and 25, 10am to 5pm
INNOVATIVE printmaking can be discovered at York Cemetery Chapel, spanning etching, linocut, collagraph, monotype, screen print, solar plate and stencilling. Now in its fifth year, the York Printmakers Autumn Print Fair brings together a thriving, diverse group of enthusiastic artists who work independently but support and challenge each other by sharing opportunities, ideas and processes.
Hundreds of original prints will be on show and entry is free; prices range from £2 to £300. Some members run printmaking courses, so next weekend is a chance to find out more by chatting to the artists behind the prints.
York Printmakers’ member Russell Hughes printing in his “pop-up studio” in an empty office in York
York Printmakers: the background
EMILY Harvey started the group in 2015. “A new arrival in York contacted me via my website to ask if there was a printmakers’ group in the city, at that time the answer was ’no’,” she recalls.
“But I knew there were quite a few printmakers here, so I thought ‘why not?’. A few phone calls later, nine printmakers were sat round a table in the pub, and York Printmakers was born.”
The group now numbers about 50 from a wide range of printmaking backgrounds, from art students to professional artists who exhibit widely.
Emily loves the group’s “unconventional streak”. “We like to experiment with new methods and ideas,” she says. “Printing plates made from eggshells and prints developed using GPS tracking are just some of our recent adventures. Sharing these innovations helps to keep our work lively and relevant.”
York Printmakers’ member Jane Dignum in lino-printingmode
The group’s monthly meetings feature a sharing practice slot where printing problems and solutions are discussed. During the Covid lockdown, the group started a themed postcard-sized print challenge, the results being shared in Zoom meetings. Not only did this help the printmakers maintain their creativity, but it also produced some surprising and innovative results. Many of these small prints will be on display during the fair.
Group member Jo Ruth says: ‘One of the joys of being part of this group is the variety of experience among us. Some members are expert printmakers, others are just starting out, but we all have a lot to offer and to learn from each other.”
Members produce their work in their own spaces, some in purpose-built studios but many in far more humble surroundings, such as at their kitchen tables. Exhibitions and events showcase the group’s array of skills with printing processes that date back hundreds of years, through to those that push the boundaries of contemporary practice with innovation in laser-cut plates, digital elements and 3D techniques.
During the past year, work from the group has featured in events across the country, including the Rheged Centre in Penrith, The Inspired By…Gallery in Danby and Ferens Art Gallery in Hull.
Chantel McGregor: Opening the new season at Selby Town Hall
SELBY Town Hall launches its autumn season of music, comedy, theatre, poetry and more with tonight’s 8pm gig by virtuoso blues rock guitarist Chantel McGregor.
This multiple British Blues Award winner will be performing with her power trio, supported by melodic blues band Blue Nation.
Programmed by Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones, the programme for September through to the new year includes BAFTA, Ivor Novello, Blues Award, BBC Folk Award and Edinburgh Comedy Award winners, Grammy nominees, chart toppers and multi-million selling songwriters.
Highlights include the December 16 return of Squeeze guitarist, singer and lyricist Chris Difford who, alongside musical partner Glenn Tilbrook, has written a cavalcade of timeless songs, from Cool For Cats to Labelled With Love and Up The Junction, turning the mundane into the beautiful and the urbane into the exquisite for over forty years.
Christmas Difford: Special Selby show for Chris Difford
“While Squeeze continue to sell out major theatres and concert halls around the world, this is a rare chance to hear those classic hits, and the stories behind them, in a special Christmas show following the band’s big autumn tour [visiting Harrogate Convention Centre on November 2].
Delivering another festive musical feast on December 10 will be Mari Wilson, the Neasden queen of soul and high priestess of hairspray, performing her Eighties hits and tunes of Yuletide yesterdays in A Mari Christmas.
Legendary Irish folk sextet Dervish, who received a Lifetime Achievement accolade at the latest BBC Folk Awards, will perform on November 25. “Fronted by Cathy Jordan, regarded by many as the most distinctive voice in Irish traditional music today, the band have performed across the globe at festivals such as Glastonbury and Rock In Rio and on bills alongside some of the biggest names in music, from James Brown and Neil Young to Sting and even Iron Maiden,” says Chris.
Folk devotees can look forward to further visits from singer-songwriter and session guitarist to the stars John Smith, who will play in a double headliner with Katherine Priddy on November 3, and festive supergroup St Agnes Fountain, promising seasonal sparkle in early December 1.
Jon Gomm: December 2 gig in Selby. Picture: Tom Martin
Look out for a debut visit on September 22 by singer-songwriter Luke Concannon, frontman of folk-pop duo Nizlopi, whose single JCB Song was a platinum-selling number one in December 2005.
Patience has paid for Jones with the December 2 booking of “jaw-droppingly skilful guitar supremo Jon Gomm”. “I’ve wanted to book for aeons,” he says.
The Comedy Network will be coming to Selby for the first time this autumn for a series of four Sunday night shows, each featuring a headliner, support and a compere for an introductory price of £10.
“Over the years, the club has helped nurture the careers of some of comedy’s biggest names with past headliners such as Russell Howard, Bill Bailey, Roisin Conaty and Greg Davies,” says Chris.
Sofie Hagen: On tour with her Fat Jokes
“The opening event on Sunday night includes Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Phil Ellis and BBC Radio 4 News Quiz writer Katie Mulgrew, with later shows featuring Britain’s Got Talent runner-up Robert White on October 30 and BBC New Comedy Award winner Steve Bugeja on December 18.”
Full-length comedy shows are on the way from campaigning GP turned comedian and TV mainstay Dr Phil Hammond on September 30; Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Sofie Hagen in Fat Jokes on October 8; TV and radio regular and Taskmaster survivor Mark Watson in This Can’t Be It on November 17 and Phoenix Nights star Justin Moorhouse in Stretch & Think on January 20.
On the theatre front, York Shakespeare Project’s tour of The Tempest, the last play of their remarkable 20-year journey through all of Shakespeare’s plays, visits Selby on September 28.
Amy Trigg: Bringing Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me to Selby on her debut tour
On her first UK tour, on October 15, Amy Trigg’s extraordinary debut, Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me, tells the Women’s Prize for Playwriting-winning story of a young woman born with spina bifida navigating her twenties amid love, loneliness and street healers.
On November 20, storyteller and Edinburgh Fringe favourite James Rowland is back with his big-hearted story of a remarkable teenage friendship, Learning To Fly.
“This autumn programme is one of the most eclectic we’ve had in a fair few years,” says Chris. “From blues guitar hero Chantel McGregor to Radio 4 favourite and TV producer extraordinaire Henry Normal with his brand-new show of poetry, jokes and stories [Sit Down Poetry, October 22], there’s a proper mix of performances, including award winners, platinum-selling artists, a Grammy nominee, a GP and a pub quiz [The Thinking Drinkers’ Pub Quiz, October 21].
Normal behaviour: Henry Normal takes a seat for his Sit Down Poetry on October 22
“I’m particularly excited to be welcoming The Comedy Network, our first ever regular comedy club. Run by Avalon, one of the biggest names globally in live and broadcast comedy production, it offers audiences the chance to see acts who may well be filling arenas in years to come, alongside some established circuit favourites.”
One disappointment for Chris: “I was most looking forward to the return of Illinois indie-Americana quintet The Way Down Wanderers on November 10. They’re my favourite band ever to play at the Town Hall (and I’ve seen a lot!).
“Life-affirming, joy-filled music performed with an enthusiasm you wish you could bottle. This show had already been delayed for two years by Covid, and I really couldn’t wait to have them back with us, but they’ve just cancelled their UK tour.”
For tickets, head to selbytownhall.co.uk, call 01757 708449 or visiting Selby Town Hall in person.
Cancelled alas: The Way Down Wanderers have called off their UK tour, scuppering their already delayed Selby returnon November 10
Samuel D Lewis’s drag queen Lola, centre, has a laugh with the Angels ahead of York Stage’s York premiere of Kinky Boots opening tomorrow
THE stage has always been the place to break down boundaries first, to give everyone a voice, to celebrate individuality but common humanity too.
All the more so in this age of diversity and letting people be whom they are, when the York premiere of West End hit Kinky Boots can apply a particularly glittery boot up the backside to prejudice and intolerance in the wake of such drag staging posts as Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert and La Cage Aux Folles.
Nik Briggs’s company York Stage will be pulling on the thigh-high boots and staggering stilettos from tomorrow (16/9/2022) to present the York premiere of a joyous show with 16 songs by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Tony-winning Harvey Fierstein to add yet more sparkle to the newly refurbished Grand Opera House.
Leading players Damien Poole (Charlie Price) and Amy Barrett (Lauren) get to grips with a thigh-high boot
“What perfect timing,” says Nik of a storyline where young Charlie Price must step into his late father’s outmoded shoes to run Price & Son, a fraying Northampton shoe factory on its last legs.
“Charlie has to take over this ageing institution that his father has looked after so dutifully at a time when all the other shoemakers are closing. In the light of what’s happened in the past week [with the passing of HM The Queen], it’s even more poignant, especially when they talk of Charlie.
“But it’s also an uplifting show, so it’ll be a lovely show for people to see at this time when they need a lift.”
Charlie’s Angels: Damien Poole’s Charlie Price with two of the Angels in Kinky Boots
Charlie’s girlfriend wants him to climb the ladder in London, but he seems tied by the laces to his hometown, his workforce, especially when help swishes into view in the unlikely but fabulous form of Lola, a drag queen supreme in need of sturdy yet slinky stilettos for not only Lola but all the Angels that strut their stuff and fluff with him.
“The whole show is based around the story of two men who grew up in the 1980s and Nineties, trying to deal in different ways with the legacy of their father. Simon/Lola’s father, who was a boxer, didn’t want him to explore his love of female clothes, whereas Charlie was always expected to take over the family business, and they come together at that point.”
Based on the true story of Steve Bateman saving a small shoe factory in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, by deciding to focus on fetish footwear, Kinky Boots has had two lives, both as a 2005 British comedy-drama film, directed by Julian Jarrold and written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth, and as the Lauper-Fierstein musical directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell of Hairspray and Legally Blonde The Musical fame.
“We’ve now struck a better balance that allows the story to come across better,” says York Stage director and producer Nik Briggs
“When I saw the musical, I hadn’t seen the film, and it jarred on me as a British tale that came across as very American musical, whereas the film was very British in character,” says Nik. “I felt the musical needed to be stripped back to look at what it is to be a man in this toxic environment. I think we’ve now struck a better balance that allows the story to come across better.”
Turning his thoughts to American pop singer Cyndi Lauper’s songs, Nik says: “There are a lot of ballads, which is not what we think of from Cyndi’s pop career, but she can write a really good ballad: Soul Of A Man; Hold Me In Your Heart; Not My Father’s Son, Charlie and Lola’s ballad, which really encapsulates the story.
“The music has that electropop vibe of the late-1990s, but still feels modern and that comes through in the performances of the drag queens, so it’s very entertaining.”
The Angels size up the shoe boxes for Kinky Boots
York Stage’s cast of 25 will be led by Damien Poole, playing Charlie Price after his outstanding turn as Buddy in York Stage’s November 2021 production of Elf The Musical, and company debutant Samuel D Lewis as Lola.
“Samuel happens to be Emily Ramsden’s best friend [Emily played Audrey II in York Stage’s Little Shop Of Horrors at York Theatre Royal this summer], and he’s got a voice like the male equivalent of Emily. He can belt almost as high as she can!” says Nik.
“Samuel is from South Yorkshire and he’s been travelling the world on cruise shows as a vocalist/performer, but he had a gap in his diary that’s enabled him to do our show.”
If the shoe fits: Daniel Poole prepares to play Charlie Price in Kinky Boots
Another York Stage debutant, Amy Barrett, will play the show’s leading lady, Lauren, the assembly line worker. “Originally from the North East, she’s recently graduated from Oxford University, and she’s now teaching drama at schools in York,” says Nik. “She turned up at the auditions having heard of our company and she just filled the room with fun.”
When it comes to the kinky boots for Kinky Boots, “the postman keeps looking quizzically at me as he brings these boxes to the door, and I’ve been getting some very interesting sites popping up on the screen on my laptop,” says Nik.
York Stage presents Kinky Boots at Grand Opera House, York, from tomorrow (16/9/2022) to September 24. Performances: 7.30pm, Friday, Saturday, Tuesday to Saturday; 2pm, 6.30pm, Sunday; 2.30pm, Saturday matinees. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Elvis is in the building: Beverly (Katy Dean) reaches for a Presley platter as the party atmosphere turns ever more awkward in Abigail’s Party. Paul Hawkyard’s Tony, left, and Robin Simpson’s Laurence keep their distance. Faye Seerawinghe’s Angela, seated, left, and Janine Mellor’s Sue, await with trepidation. All pictures: Ant Robling, Robling Photography
Abigail’s Party, HT Rep, Harrogate Theatre/Phil & Ben Productions, at Harrogate Theatre, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm, 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk
HARROGATE Theatre’s HT Rep 2022 season of Three Plays, Three Weeks, One Cast opens with Mike Leigh’s caustic comedy Abigail’s Party, written in 1977, the year of The Queen’s Silver Jubilee and now revived in the year of her Platinum Jubilee.
Director Marcus Romer, Harrogate Theatre’s associate producer, had planned to have the Sex Pistols’ 1977 anthem God Save The Queen seeping through the walls from Abigail’s punk and booze-fuelled party next door, but the events of last Thursday afternoon saw a respectful change to Anarchy In The UK.
Romer has form for Abigail’s Party, having steered York Theatre Royal’s 2005 repertory production. Now the spirit of rep theatre is being repeated in a third such autumn season at Harrogate, the cast piggy-backing from one play to the next, rehearsing Abigail’s Party for a week, and now rehearsing Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight by day and staging Leigh’s suburban comedy of awkward social-climbing manners by night.
Husband-and-wife strife in Abigail’s Party: Robin Simpson’s Laurence and Katy Dean’s Beverly having a difference of opinion…again
The same process will follow next week, when Paul Hawkyard, Robin Simpson and Janine Mellor will knock John Godber’s Men Of The World into shape in the daytime rehearsal room under Amy Burns Walker’s direction before Harrogate-born Faye Weerasinghe, Simpson, Harrogate pantomime regular Katy Dean, Mellor and Ian Kirkby form co-producer Ben Roddy’s cast each night for Gaslight.
In rep tradition, there is a familiarity to the cast, not only Dean, but also Mellor from the 2019 HT Rep season’s On The Piste and Deathtrap and her dual roles as Dandini and a Snugly Sister in last winter’s Cinderella, while rising star Weerasinghe played the lead in Full English at Harrogate Theatre in June.
York audiences, meanwhile, will need no introduction to Hawkyard and Simpson, whether from Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre or their Mardy and Manky double act in Cinderella at the Theatre Royal last winter. Captain Hook and Mrs Darling await them in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan this winter.
Now put them all together in surely one of the most destructive yet indestructible of English comedies. Your reviewer is yet to see a duff production and Romer’s return to Leigh is another winner.
The quiet and the constant noise: Janine Mellor’s Sue and Katy Dean’s Beverly
It is Katy Dean’s turn to behave appallingly in the Alison Stedman-patented lead role of gauche Beverly, dark haired this time rather than bottle-blonde but still over-dressed for cheese and pineapple-stick nibbles in her fuchsia party dress.
Embroiled in a stultifying game of one-upmanship with dyspeptic, workaholic property-agent husband Laurence (Simpson), their latest playground for point-scoring is a soiree for their new neighbours, taciturn ex-professional footballer Tony (Hawkyard) and nervous nurse Angela (Weerasinghe) in their oh-so Seventies’ North London living room.
Joining them with reluctance written all over her face is Sue (Mellor), banished from her 15-year-old daughter’s party, fretful that it will get out of hand. as it inevitably does.
Leigh depicts a Britain heading towards the acquisitive Thatcherite era of material greed. Already the status-symbol fibre-optic lamps, drinks cabinet and brown sofas are in place in Geoff Gilder’s design.
Faye Weerasinghe’s Angela, left, and Katy Dean’s Beverly, standing, attend to Janine Mellor’s Sue after one too many top-ups
Tensions rise, tempers flare, the polite veneer gradually erodes under the influence as Dean’s monstrous Beverly has her sport at the hands of her guests and mocked husband amid the surfeit of gin top-ups and chain-smoked “little cigarettes”, with her recourse to Donna Summer, Demis Roussos and Elvis records failing to break the awkwardness.
For all her restless noise and surface swagger, the tactless and tasteless Beverly is lonely behind the perma-cigarette haze, frustrated by the absence of bedroom action, empty too, for all her superficial possessions and on-trend kitchen gadgets. Full of aspiration yet desperation.
Simpson’s Laurence is sullen and sunken in Beverly’s loud, crushing shadow, stewing at his shallow wife’s dismissal of his tentative, self-improving interest in art.
New to your reviewer, wide-eyed Weerasinghe is outstanding as the effusive, chatterbox nurse Angela, talking ever looser as the gin kicks in, then dancing as out of time as a stopped clock.
Paul Hawkyard’s taciturn Tony on the turn
Hawkyard, meanwhile, maximises minimum words as the humourless Tony, whose imposing demeanour goes from monosyllabic indifference to not-funny wound-up menace to sudden snapping point.
Mellor’s Sue is Leigh’s quiet voice of excruciating middle-class discomfort, stuck in the middle yet desperate to be elsewhere, having to put up with Beverly’s insensitive inquisition about her marriage breakdown and Angela’s well-meant over-fussing.
Very 1977 and yet full of English characteristics that have not changed, and probably never will, Leigh’s writing is as sharp as a punk safety pin, his contempt unconfined for values so anathema to him, his humour merciless and deeply wounding.
Romer squeezes Leigh’s sour lemon to the max, knowing just how far to go for the juiciest bitter comedy when Beverly keeps going too far. One hell of a party, one hell of a play, one hell of a knockout production.
Abiola Owokoniran’s Algernon Moncrieff makes his play for Phoebe Campbell’s Cecily in John Worthing’s garden
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest, ETT, Leeds Playhouse and Rose Theatre, at Leeds Playhouse until Saturday. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk
CROSS-DRESSING comedy duo Hinge & Bracket went Wilde with The Importance Of Being Earnest in 1977. So did satirical duo Lip Service in 2001, the late Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding setting the Victorian comedy of manners in the 1950s.
In November 2015, Nigel Havers’ Algernon Moncrieff and Sian Phillips’s Lady Bracknell led the veteran Bunbury Company of Players’ “entirely faithful but completely unique” golden-oldies production at the Grand Opera House, York.
Three examples of how Oscar Wilde’s “trivial comedy for serious people” can bend to myriad interpretations. Now add Denzel Westley-Sanderson “sassy co-production” for ETT (English Touring Theatre), Leeds Playhouse and Rose Theatre, Kingston, where the RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award winner “melds Wilde’s wit with chart-toppers, shade and contemporary references”.
He sets Wilde’s satire of dysfunctional families, class, gender and sexuality in Black Victorian high society, casting Daniel Jacob, alias drag queen Vinegar Strokes, as Lady Bracknell and adding to the gender fluidity with Dr Chasuble being played by Anita Reynolds, bonding in a lesbian relationship with Joanne Henry’s Miss Prism.
“The play is a wonderfully silly comedy, so the most important thing is that it brings joy,” states Westley-Sanderson. “But it’s about reclaiming truth, and honouring truth. I hope it opens up the conversation so that people start to think about Black Victorians and their place in our history.
Portrait of Black Victorian society in Denzel Westley-Sanderson’s The Importance Of Being Earnest. Back row, left to right: Daniel Jacob’s Lady Bracknell, Adele James’s Gwendolen, Valentine Hanson’s Merriman and Anita Reynolds’ Dr Chasuble. Front row: Abiola Owokoniran’s Algernon Moncrieff, Joanne Henry’s Miss Prism and Phoebe Campbell’s Cecily
“If seeing Black people who look stunning in Victorian dress, who were rich, who weren’t just on the plantation, prompts some curiosity about Black Victorians, I’ll be very happy.”
That adds up to a serious message behind a fast-moving, fabulously frothy, elegant front, but still everything serves the comedy, just as it did in Lip Service’s version, when the much-missed Maggie Fox had said: “It’s become the tea and cucumber sandwich play with the handbag, and so it’s lost its shock – not least the secret meanings of some of the expressions Wilde wrote for his male friends – but it is a hugely scandalous piece.”
Behind polite society manners, everyone is harbouring a secret in Wilde’s 1895 comic drama. “It’s a play full of scandal, prejudice, lies and deceit; it’s Gentlemen Behaving Badly, and we wanted to bring back that thing of everyone trying to be someone else, but who are they really?” Maggie said, before playing York Theatre Royal 21 years ago.
Two decades on, art meets artifice in Westley-Sanderson’s account, beautifully and wittily designed and costumed by Lily Arnold, both for Algernon’s London abode and John Worthing’s country retreat.
Abiola Owokoniran’s immaculate, foppish Algernon paints with slapdash vigour rather than rivalling Eric Morecambe’s erratic piano playing in a change to the opening scene, one that ties in with the empty frames for portraits, through which Valentine Hanson’s butler Lane leaps or passes items.
In another exquisite adjustment, Lane serves cucumber martinis in crystal glass and bread and butter, rather than cucumber sandwiches.
Daniel Jacob’s thunderous Lady Bracknell
Later, John Worthing’s ward, Cecily (a delightful Phoebe Campbell), will be seen struggling with a lawn mower.
Later still, at the Worthing pile, a row of stern portraits in oil will be picked out one by one in light to re-emphasise the Black Victorian lineage. A new photograph of all the company closes the play, Jacob’s statuesque Lady Bracknell towering over everyone.
Westley-Sanderson talked of reclaiming truth and honouring truth, while bringing out the “silly comedy’s” joy, and he pulls off that dual mission. The set-piece spat over tea and cake between Campbell’s Cecily and Adele James’s affronted Gwendolen is choreographed comedy to the max; Hanson’s butler Merriman provides old-school physical comedy distraction as he struggles back and forth under the weight of luggage.
Justice Ritchie’s upright Worthing and Owokoniran’s maddening but lovable Moncrieff clash and make up with the timing of a double act. Henry and Reynolds bring new electricity to the demure, around-the-houses Prism and Chasuble.
Stephen Fry, Geoffrey Rush, Gyles Brandreth and David Suchet have all played men-in-drag Lady Bracknells. Jacob’s Aunt Augusta is different: a drag act dropping the drag act, although his “stand-and-deliver” Lady B never quite throws off Vinegar Strokes’ airs, all arched eyebrows and arch putdowns, playing to the crowd rather more than to the household gathered around on tenterhooks. More caricature than truthful character, but still carrying a knockout punch.
“My art looks like an explosion,” says York artist Tom Wilson
PROMPTED by his friends’ urges “to do something” with all that artwork filling his small York bungalow, Tom Wilson is to hold his first exhibition in ten years in aid of the people of Ukraine.
From 10.30am to 6.30pm tomorrow (15/9/2022) and Friday, myriad riots of colour by artist, playwright, theatre director and tutor Tom will be on display and for sale at St Bede’s, 21 Blossom Street, York, with free admission.
“I wish to thank the very kind and supportive staff at St Bede’s Pastoral Centre and the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre,” says Tom. “They’ve been so accommodating. Just wonderful!
“There’ll be food and drinks available for all the visitors we’re expecting, and for those who’ll be disappointed they can’t make the exhibition, there’s still an opportunity to browse the work and purchase paintings online at https://north.art/directory/artist/tom-wilson/.”
In the frame: York artist Tom Wilson with two of his artworks
Originally from Salford, polymath Tom has lived in York for more than 16 years and started painting in 1996 after the loss of a good friend to cancer while living in Roehampton.
“I found it a comforting therapy and a kind of a healing activity,” says Tom, who has held three previous shows, the last one taking place in 2012 at the Friends’ Meeting House, in Friargate, to raise funds for the Haiti Earthquake Foundation.
“Starting to paint helped me to process losing this friend, who died very quickly, at only 50 years old. I did this painting, The Night Form, which was like an apparition, or typically what a kid would think of. Adults can think of things that are scary, but children’s minds go to places where there’s no structure, it’s just endless, so their experience is darker.
“But once you articulate something, get it on to a page or a canvas, it becomes less terrifying. More manageable. That’s how I felt.”
Embroiled, by Tom Wilson
Linking his painting past to his present, The Night Form will be on show at St Bede’s among the newer works.
“After living in London for more than 20 years, York gives me incredible peace of mind,” he says. Peace of mind that leads to Tom’s artistic expression both as an artist and playwright, as witnessed in August last year when council chaos and Covid clashed in his timely anarchic farce The Local Authority, presented by the Naloxone Theatre Ensemble at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre.
He is delighted to be mounting his first exhibition in a decade. “At least if I sell one or two paintings, I’ll be able to find my way in and out of the kitchen without risking life and limb,” says Tom, who is disabled and lives alone with his cat, Pendle. “I’m hoping to sell enough to make a difference by sending proceeds to support the people of Ukraine.
“It’ll definitely help with clearing out my bungalow. I got a new shed but filled that up within a day; I was going to try to use it as studio but that never came off! So I just use whatever space I’ve got, the kitchen mainly, but it’s not ideal. Unless you’re moving work on, there’s no point doing new work as it just clutters the place up.”
The poster for Tom Wilson’s anarchic farce, The Local Authority, premiered at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, in August 2021
His dynamic abstract artwork is influenced by Kandinsky, Max Earnst, Otto Dix, Outsider art, German Expressionism and Rayonism (Russian Expressionism). “Rayonism was like a punk movement, breaking away, to try to paint ‘rays of light’, and I took my ideas from their freedom from convention.
“However, it’s also important to find your own voice and your own style,” he says, after being excited and motivated by seeing multiple visceral and dramatic pieces of art.
“I tend to use lots or orange and green in my work, and I think it’s all about the volume, not as in ‘amount’, but as in ‘turning up the amp’, like Jimi Hendrix did with his guitar, so the volume goes up.”
To achieve that Hendrix hum in his art, Tom favours painting on black boards, applying orange, Irish green and turquoise, mystical colours that “conjure up a feeling of vibrations”.
“There’s a lot of happy accidents with my stuff,” says Tom Wilson
“I’ve been using Sennelier crayons, oil crayons rather than wax ones, that are very soft, almost like lipstick, and not easy to work with. Picasso first commissioned them; they were made just for him, when he was struggling to find exactly what he wanted.
“A studio said to him, ‘you tell us what you want, we’ll make it for you’, and if it was good enough for Pablo Picasso, then it’ll do for me!”
Describing his artistic style, Tom says: “There’s a lot of happy accidents with my stuff. Some of it is manipulated experiments, like putting paint on one canvas, then putting another canvas on top of that and then pulling them apart like layers of skin.
“Sometimes it’s about ‘unlearning’ something that you loved or remembered in a painting and just going for it.”
“It’s all about the volume, not as in ‘amount’, but as in ‘turning up the amp’, like Jimi Hendrix did with his guitar,” says Tom Wilson of his painting style
In a moment of sudden candour, Tom says: “I can’t paint! My art looks like an explosion. I’ll be honest, I think I’m a chancer, not a natural-born painter. I can’t even draw. I’ll draw a dog and it looks like a dinosaur…an angry dog!
“But it’s important to have that freedom. Art isn’t a competition; it’s the way you articulate something. That’s the essence of creativity.
“Painting is like a voyage of discovery for me. Maybe other artists start with a painting they loved, maybe a seascape, but I’ll start without a plan. I’ll start with a mood, then make a shape, maybe a curve, and start following it, like jazz musicians improvising. It’s about the vibe, just as it is with jazz.
“Again, rather like music, I can do ten paintings to arrive at the one I want, so those ten paintings are like a rehearsal to get to where I need to be. You don’t show people the departure point; you show them the arrival.”
“I start with a mood, then make a shape, maybe a curve, and start following it, like jazz musicians improvising,” says Tom Wilson
He makes a further comparison with the jazz world. “Ask Ornette Coleman or Thelonious Monk what they’re going to play, and they’d say, ‘I don’t know’ and then start playing. It’s the same with one of my paintings,” says Tom.
“On top of that, I think it’s about expressing an anarchic humour, like John Lennon, Salvador Dali, Picasso.
“What happens is you go into an inner-child mentality, almost like writing with the opposite hand, and you find an area to explore and then the adult takes over to say, ‘right, we’ll take it this final point’.”
Tom loves applying boldness in his work; he can go four days without painting then suddenly have a flurry of six in two days, rampant with all those orange and green outbursts, and even applying Tippex, but not to correct faults! “No, it’s because it’s always ultra-white, almost like false teeth, whereas white paint can go grey,” he clarifies.
A profusion of orange, green and turquoise bursts out of a Tom Wilson artwork
The challenge with each painting is “knowing when to stop, that cut-off point”. “That’s one of those lessons I’m still learning. Don’t keep going back to it. Don’t be the ‘Tinker Man’, like Claudio Ranieri!” says Tom.
As for size, in the absence of a studio, in the confines of his kitchen, he tends to use A3 or A4. “But I’d love to be like Rothko, lobbing paint around a big studio!”
In the meantime, Tom’s rather more compact jazzy paintings at St Bede’s will be priced from £60 to £400. “But for those who can’t afford some of the artwork, there’s an alternative way to support the plight of the people in the Ukraine, by buying one of the T-shirts on sale,” he says. “They feature images of my art and very fine they look too.”
The banner for Tom Wilson’s exhibition at St Bede’s, York
Robin Simpson in rehearsal for the HT REP season at Harrogate Theatre
THREE plays, three weeks, one cast, the HT REP season opens tonight with two familiar faces reunited at Harrogate Theatre.
After performing together in the Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre company at the Eye Of York and playing a riotous Ugly Sister double act in Cinderella at York Theatre Royal last winter, Paul Hawkyard and Robin Simpson are part of the REP company for the quickfire season ahead, staged in tandem with Phil&Ben Productions.
Directed by Marcus Romer, first up from tonight to Saturday is Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party, wherein Bev and Lawrence invite the neighbours round. Bev is ready to dance the night away; Lawrence is ready to drink it away. What could possibly go wrong?
The season’s co-producer, Ben Roddy, directs the September 20 to 24 run of Patrick Hamilton’s disturbing psychological drama Gaslight, the one where strange things keep happening to Bella. Things go missing, only to turn up again, and Bella thinks she is hearing noises, but is she? Before long she feels she may be losing her mind.
To conclude the REP back-to-back trio, Amie Burns-Walker directs John Godber’s comedy Men Of The World from September 27 to October 1. Recounting memorable coach trips from their past, three coach drivers take a trip down memory lane, looking at the small and often overlooked moments of magic in our lives
In Autumn 2018, Harrogate Theatre first teamed up with Phil&Ben Productions, alias Phil Stewart and Ben Roddy, to stage a rep revival season in 2018, Phil already being a regular in the Harrogate pantomime.
Paul Hawkyard in the rehearsal room for the HT REP season
HT Rep returned in 2019 with On The Piste, Deathtrap and The 39 Steps and should have staged Abigail’s Party, Gaslighting and Men Of The World in 2020, only for the pandemic to rule that out.
Traditionally, a repertory theatre company is a group of actors that performs a small number of plays for only a few weeks at a time.
Harrogate Theatre, for example, had operated as a touring venue up to the early 1930s when the growing popularity of cinema and radio saw a decline in theatre audiences. As an answer to the problem, William Peacock, the theatre’s managing director at the time, formed a repertory company, The White Rose Players, one of the first weekly rep companies in the country, and the theatre became a producing venue.
The White Rose Players performed around 45 plays a year and continued through to the mid-1950s. Now, for the 2022 HT REP company, Simpson (all three plays) and Hawkyard (two plays) will be joined by Janine Mellor (three plays); Katie Dean (two plays), Faye Weerasinghe (two plays) and Ian Kirkby (the Inspector in Gaslight).
Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday matinees are on sale on 01423 502116 and harrogatetheatre.co.uk. Book all three to receive a 20 per cent discount.
Effie Ansah and James Arden, left, in rehearsal for Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses. Picture: Robert Day
YORK company Pilot Theatre’s revival of Noughts & Crosses is even more topical than its award-winning 2019 premiere.
Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel of first love in a dangerous fictional dystopia, rife with racism, will be on tour from this autumn to spring 2023, opening on home turf at York Theatre Royal from September 16 to 24.
“Yeah, things have changed,” says Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson, whose original production played the Theatre Royal in April 2019. “That makes it really interesting to put it on again now.
“What’s changed is that, obviously the pandemic was a huge moment, but what also happened in 2020, the murder of George Floyd, had a massive impact across the world.
“There we were, teetering out of the first lockdown, with this huge anger about the state of the world; people taking to the streets to have a proper conversation for the first time about racial injustice, which had been swept under the carpet before that.
“Even though it was deeply painful, there are always possibilities of change at these times, and so people who hadn’t had the opportunity to take part in the discussion, or hadn’t been aware of the issue, were suddenly alive to it because of Black Lives Matter.”
In Blackman’s Romeo & Juliet story for our times, Sephy is a Cross and Callum is a Nought. Between Noughts and Crosses come racial and social divides as a segregated society teeters on a volatile knife edge.
When violence breaks out, Sephy and Callum draw closer, but this is a romance that will lead them into terrible danger. Told from the perspectives of two teenagers, Noughts & Crosses explores the powerful themes of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world where black rules over white.
Pilot’s premiere – launched before the BBC television adaptation – was seen by more than 30,000 people on tour, 40 per cent of them being aged under 20, en route winning the award for excellence in touring at the 2019 UK Theatre Awards.
The 2022-23 revival is expected to draw big numbers again, not least among the young target audience. “The whole topic of racial equality has really been taken up by university institutions and teachers talking about it, especially about decolonising the curriculum,” says Esther.
“So, suddenly there was a wider focus on what Pilot had been focusing on before the pandemic, but this is a conversation that everyone should have been participating in, just as we were by staging Crongton Knights, Noughts & Crosses, and before my time at Pilot, Roy Williams’s Antigone.”
George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer has been the tipping point for racial equality to be taken more seriously, not least in the classroom. “Continuing Proficient Development sessions for teachers now sell out to help them address prejudice, racism and every other form of discrimination that young people may encounter at school,” says Esther.
Pilot Theatre artistic director Esther Richardson
“But the downside is that we’re in a time where so-called ‘culture wars’ are prevalent, where it’s prescribed that you must be on one side or the other, and that doesn’t help, stirring up strong feelings and even hatred.
“I’ve just been looking at the statistics for hate crimes in 2020-2021 and regrettably they’ve increased. The Home Office points to the reaction to Black Lives Matter as the most likely reason, leading to a rise in right-wing intolerance.
“That’s why Noughts & Crosses is so important because it’s an educative piece of theatre, a powerful story, a love story too, where young people get caught up forbidden love, and very often people have left the show seeing things through a different lens.
“We have a lot of evidence of how it’s not only been taken on in schools, but also by audiences in general who say how it has helped to change their awareness. That will be our mission again in bringing the play back.”
The Noughts & Crosses cast – bigger by two than last time – will be fronted by Effie Ansah and James Arden in their first leading roles as Sephy and Callum.
“I saw the open call, which was great, because opportunities like this don’t often come around,” says Effie. “So, I submitted a self-tape and contacted my agent to let her know.
“Prior to this, I’d actually submitted a time the first time Pilot did it, but I didn’t hear anything so perhaps I’d missed the deadline.”
This time, she was picked, to her delight. “I feel like I’ve wanted for the longest time to get my head around a black, confrontational female lead, and Sephy is all those things,” says Effie. “She’s young, complex, naïve, going on this incredible journey where she discovers her flaws and the flaws of her society.”
James, who is not represented by an agent at present, was tipped off about the auditions by his housemate. “The only experience I had of Noughts & Crosses was auditioning for the TV series, and I have to say Callum is a completely different beast in the play; much more exciting,” he says.
“Sephy and Callum get to tell the story more themselves, and telling it through soliloquies is an amazing opportunity. The play is epic, Shakespearean.”
Tickets for the York run are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses will then tour from September 27 to November 26 and January 17 to April 1 2023.
All Swings And Roundabouts, by Adele Karmazyn, from her Pleasure Gardens exhibition at Village Gallery, York
POLITICAL division and soul power, sturdy stilettos and string sextets, doomed comedy and surreal gardens spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest for the week ahead.
Exhibition of the week: Adele Karmazyn, Pleasure Gardens, Village Gallery, Colliergate, York, until October 25
YORK Open Studios regular Adele Karmazyn is exhibiting new works in Pleasure Gardens, demonstrating her love of Victorian antiquities and oddities, weathered surfaces and nature.
Using her digital camera, scanner and Photoshop, Adele creates playful, surprising, surrealist digital photomontages, printing the images on to archival paper before hand-finishing with paint, pastel and gold leaf.
Drawing on idioms, metaphors and musical lyrics for narrative inspiration, she chooses her characters, then brings them back to full colour, intertwining them with creatures big and small, coupled with delicate foliage.
Nostalgia of the week: Giants Of Soul, York Barbican, Saturday (10/9/2022), 7.30pm
HOSTED by Smooth Radio’s Angie Greaves, the three-hour revue Giants Of Soul assembles performers from the late-1970s to the modern day, who have notched 18 British top ten smashes and 47 top 40 entries between them.
Step forward The Lighthouse Family’s Tunde Baiyewu; Grammy winner Deniece Williams; Rose Royce’s Gwen Dickey, on her farewell tour; Alexander O’Neal; Jaki Graham; Janet Kay and American Candace Woodson, who will be accompanied by an all-star ten-piece band of British and American musicians. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Chris de Burgh: Playing songs and telling stories at York Barbican
Rescheduled show of the week: An Evening With Chris de Burgh, His Songs, Stories & Hits, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm
BRITISH-IRISH singer-songwriter Chris de Burgh heads to York for a night of songs, stories and hits, showcasing his latest album, 2021’s The Legend Of Robin Hood, on guitar and piano.
Born Christopher John Davison in Venado Tuerto, Argentina, de Burgh will be delivering “an exciting evening full of your favourite songs”, accompanied by a large lighting production. Here come The Lady In Red, Don’t Pay The Ferryman and A Spaceman Came Travelling. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Howell of anguish: Comedian Daniel Howell peers through the gloom in search of hope in We’re All Doomed
Doom’s day booking of the week: Daniel Howell, We’re All Doomed, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
WOKINGHAM comedian, YouTuber, presenter and author Daniel Howell’s new solo show, We’re All Doomed, finds him as stressed and depressingly dressed as ever but nevertheless resisting temptation to give into apocalyptic gloom.
Armed with sarcasm, satire and a desire to skewer everything deemed wrong with society, Howell vows to find hope for humanity or at least to “laugh like it’s the end of the world (because it probably is)”. Prepare for savage self-deprecation, soul-searching and over-sharing of his deepest fears and desires. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Tim Lowe: Programming York Chamber Music Festival at the NCEM
Festival of the week: York Chamber Music Festival 2022, National Centre for Early Music, York, September 16 to 18
ARTISTIC director and cellist Tim Lowe turns his festival focus on the string sextet repertoire in the company of Tristan Gurney and Jonathan Stone, violins, Sarah-Jane Bradley and Scott Dickenson, violas, and Marie Bitlloch, cello, plus Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson.
“We’ll play four of the very greatest sextets: Boccherini, the first string sextet, as far as we know; Brahms’s heart-warming/glowing Sextet in B flat; Richard Strauss’s sextet embedded at the beginning of his last opera, Capriccio, and Tchaikovsky’s joyous recollection of his favourite place in his Souvenir de Florence.” Full programme and ticket details at ycmf.co.uk.
Angels in Kinky Boots: York Stage’s musical is a shoe-in for joyous songs and staggering stilettos at the Grand Opera House, York
Musical of the week: York Stage in Kinky Boots, Grand Opera House, York, September 16 to 24
FACTORY owner Charlie is struggling to save his family business. Lola is a fabulous entertainer with a wildly exciting idea. Both live in the shadows of their fathers in seemingly different, yet surprisingly similar ways.
Learning to embrace their differences, they create sturdy stilettos unlike any the world has ever seen.
Up step York Stage director Nik Briggs and choreographer A J Powell to oversee a joyous show with 16 songs by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Tony-winning Harvey Fierstein. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Effie Ansah (Sephy) and James Arden (Callum), left, in rehearsal for Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crossesat York Theatre Royal and on tour. Picture: Robert Day
Political drama of the week: Pilot Theatre in Noughts & Crosses, York Theatre Royal, September 16 to 24
YORK company Pilot Theatre revive their award-winning production of Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel of first love in a volatile fictional dystopia, first toured in 2019.
Sephy is a Cross and Callum is a Nought in a segregated society of racial and social divides. As violence breaks out, the teenagers draw closer, but their forbidden romance will lead them into terrible danger in this exploration of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Phil Ellis: Headlining The Comedy Network’s first triple bill at Selby Town Hall
Comedy launch of the week: The Comedy Network at Selby Town Hall, September 18, 7.30pm
PITCHING up at Selby Town Hall for the first time this autumn, The Comedy Network is launching a series of showcases of national circuit acts, each night featuring a master of ceremonies, support act and headliner.
First up will be Edinburgh Comedy Award panel prize winner Phil Ellis; Mancunian actor and comedian Katie Mulgrew, daughter of Irish humorist Jimmy Cricket, and compere Travis Jay, a writer for Spitting Image. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk or on the door from 7pm.
York National Book Fair in the Knavesmire Suite
Looking for a book?York National Book Fair, Knavesmire Suite, York Racecourse, today, 10am to 5pm
“BRITAIN’S largest antiquarian book fair” is booked in for its second day in the Knavesmire Suite with all manner of book sellers, book binders and restorers, books, maps and prints to discover.
In its 48th year, this Provincial Booksellers’ Fairs Association event brings together an array of rare and antiquarian booksellers offering material for sale to collectors, scholars, dealers, readers and the curious. Items are priced from only a few pounds up to many thousands. Complimentary tickets can be booked at yorkbookfair.com; alternatively, pay £2 on the door.
