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Full steam ahead for Emma Rice’s take on Brief Encounter at Stephen Joseph Theatre

Anne-Marie Piazza’s Laura and Pete Ashmore’s Alec take time out from rehearsals for the SJT’s Brief Encounter to encounter LMS Royal Scot Class 46115 Scots Guardsman, the locomotive that featured in the 1936 film Night Mail. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

THE Stephen Joseph Theatre’s stage version of Noël Coward’s buttoned-up story of forbidden love, Brief Encounter, opens tomorrow in Scarborough.

Adapted for the stage by Emma Rice, of pioneering Kneehigh Theatre and Wise Children acclaim, SJT artistic director Paul Robinson’s actor-musician production is being staged in collaboration with Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, and the Octagon Theatre, Bolton.

Rice herself had staged the premiere in 2007, her script drawing on both Coward’s 1945 film, Brief Encounter, and Still Life, his short play in five scenes from 1936, for a comedy drama that combined actors with a live band and film sequences.

“I contacted Emma and didn’t have to persuade her very much to let us do it,” says Paul. “She first said she’d worked on it for so long, she was just delighted to see it being done again, and then she contacted me again to say the only thing she would still like to have done was to do it in the round. I said, ‘please don’t come!’.” Relax, Paul was joking! “Emma was so generous,” he says.

He did not see her production but was drawn to her version of Brief Encounter by reading the script. “I think I might have felt daunted if I’d seen it,” he says, revelling in being able to bring a fresh perspective both to Rice’s play and Coward’s story of Laura and Alec, both married but not to each other, whose chance meeting at a railway station hurls them headlong into a whirlwind romance that threatens to blow their worlds apart.

“The Round requires you to do it differently, like when we did The 39 Steps, where we knew Patrick Barlow’s end-on production couldn’t be bettered, so why do it that way again?” Paul asks.

“We’ve decided to take an actor-muso approach to Brief Encounter,” says Stephen Joseph Theatre artistic director Paul Robinson. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

“We’ve decided to take an actor-muso approach with Brief Encounter. Emma had used actors and a band, and we’ll be showing off our company’s musicality too. This is a great way to see musicianship in a show, where they’re not only great actors but between them they can play 11 instruments at a drop of a hat – and often a hat really does have to be dropped to let them do that!”

As for the storytelling side of Brief Encounter, Paul says: “What Emma has encouraged us to do is to go back to Coward’s work in his Chekhovian portrayal of relationships and matters of class, and how he looks at first-time love, the couple who’ve been around the block, and then the illicit love of Alec and Laura.

“What we’d done is really explode all those emotions of being in love, making it not only visually explosive but tonally too. What Emma achieved that Coward didn’t was the ‘ridiculousness’ of being in love, though Alec and Laura’s love is more naturally shaped.

“Unlike the world Patrick Barlow created in The 39 Steps, their relationship is sacrosanct and needs to stay in a true place, which gives the play a core.”

Emma drew on Coward’s own songs and poems to highlight his own situation, where he never came out of “the closet”. “There were obviously a lot of parallels with what he could or could not say about love and his own relationships,” says Paul. “Society has still not moved to being polyamorous. We still have that push and pull of being attracted to people ‘we shouldn’t be’. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ says Emma. ‘It means we’re still alive’.”

Composer Simon Slater has given jazz arrangements to such Coward numbers as Mad About The Boy and set various Coward poems to new music. “They’re poems that Emma had picked out to go with the Coward script that she’d totally stripped back,” says Paul.

Forbidden love: Pete Ashmore’s Alec and Anne-Marie Piazza’s Laura in a Brief Encounter clench. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

“She also used impressive, newly created film scenes to move characters seamlessly from stage to screen, but we can’t do that in the Round, which has given us added challenges, like how do we make Laura swim, how do we make waves, and how do we bring a train on stage without actually using film?

“That allows us to explore the wonderful expressionism of David Lean’s 1945 film without being too literal. They weren’t concerned with what a train sounded like, more with the cinematography, which was so extraordinary, as the story of Alec and Laura is told in such a heightened way, where they’re in rapture but also a high state of fear when they think of what they’re about to lose.”

Paul was adamant he would not undermine Brief Encounter’s truthfulness by sending up the clipped accents. “Yes, the film is very mannered and of its time, but I want the story to still feel resonant and I don’t want to take anything away from that, because the play is like Chekhov, where the subtext is vital. The accents will be RP (Received Pronunciation), but they won’t sound affected.

“I’ve also hinted at setting it in York. The film was filmed in wartime in the Lake District [at Carnforth station], because London was in blackout, but it was probably set in the Home Counties. I wanted to put more northern accents in it, implying it’s set at York station.

“We’re taking the production to the New Vic [Newcastle-under-Lyme], Bolton and Keswick, so we have north western and north eastern accents in the cast, because it’s fun to have a diversity of accents.”

Emma Rice’s Brief Encounter goes full steam ahead at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from tomorrow (22/7/2022) to August 27. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com

By Charles Hutchinson 

Copyright of The Press, York

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REVIEW: NE Musicals York’s Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical ****

Feathered finery: Tom Henshaw’s Adam/Felicia, left, Steve Tearle’s Bernadette and Finley Butler’s Tick/Mitzi in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical

NE Musicals York in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Sunday, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm matinees, Saturday and Sunday. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

YOU must have seen the lipstick-pink banners plastered all over town, pronouncing NE Musicals York’s hotter-than-July production of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert.

“With a cast of 30 and more than 300 costumes, this is not just a bus ride, it’s a two-hour rollercoaster of a ride,” promises creative director and producer Steve Tearle, his beard shaved off to play veteran drag queen Bernadette Bassenger, the Terence Stamp role in Stephan Elliott’s 1994 film that gave rise to this musical spin-off.

Stamp famously gave transgender Bernadette an apples-and-pears Cockney accent despite the setting of the Australian Outback. Blonde-wigged North Easterner Tearle goes for Aussie, although he is sometimes closer to Newcastle-upon-Tyne than Newcastle, New South Wales, but he carries off Bernadette’s regal disdain with such aplomb in his swaggering strut that it matters not a jot.

What’s more, in the tradition of Berwick Kaler’s pantomime dame, Tearle is never averse to ad-libbing, breaking down the fourth wall to comment on one line he dislikes having to say and later pleading to borrow his co-star’s wig to cover his shaven head when he had left off his hairpiece in a rushed costume change, duly bringing the house down.

No misunderstanding: Definitely Jack Hambleton’s Miss Understanding

Both moments in Wednesday’s opening night were very much in keeping with NE Musicals York’s determination for everyone – cast and audience alike – to have a fun, fabulous time, whether being taken by the hand to join in a country dance in the aisles or being a lucky recipient of a gift bag containing a pink ping-pong ball and Ginger Nuts biscuits in a nod to one of the show’s most memorable lines.

Tearle’s direction has gone for spectacle, glamour, flamboyance, drama, boldness and pride, rather than technical perfection, especially in the singing, and is rewarded with performances full of vitality and emotional clout and bags of ballsy humour too.

Big number after big number, from It’s Raining Men to I Love The Night Life, I Will Survive to Hot Stuff, MacArthur Park to the Finally finale, are exuberantly choreographed by Ellie Roberts, and the drag costumes grow ever louder and prouder.

Elliott and co-writer Allan Scott’s musical retains the film’s fearless humanity, frank, fruity humour and fabulous feathered finery while adding a Kylie medley for Tom Henshaw’s Felicia and so many dancefloor fillers.

Show time for Finley Butler’s Tick/Mitzi, Tom Henshaw’s Adam/Felicia and Steve Tearle’s Bernadette

Yet for all that peacock parade and the novelty of a bus on stage, Priscilla Queen Of The Desert is all the better for wearing its heart on its sleeve in its tale of the tiffs and the tantrums, the tears and the fears, the triumphs and the terrors as the three drag queens, Tearle’s waspish Bernadette, Henshaw’s reckless young Adam/Felicia Jollygoodfellow and Finley Butler’s Tick/Mitzi, journey from Sydney to Alice Springs across the Oz outback for Tick to meet Benji (Matthew Musk), the son he has always found excuses never to be with.

Subtlety is not to the fore in Priscilla, but both the script and Tearle’s direction provide just enough, not least in Bernadette’s burgeoning bond with mechanic Bob (James O’Neill) and Tick’s reunion with wife Marion (Melissa Boyd).

Ali Butler-Hind is a scream as Cynthia, Bob’s mail-order bride with her ping pong ball-firing party trick to M’s Pop Muzik. Perri-Ann Barley, Aileen Stables and Julie Blackburn’s Divas, Jack Hambleton’s Miss Understanding and the ensemble relish every scene.

Scott Phillips’s orchestra glistens as brightly as his attire in this Tearle twirl of a dazzling show that parks the bus so much more positively than Jose Mourinho ever did.

By Charles Hutchinson

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Exit Velma Celli for one night only as Ian Stroughair fronts up for revealing show without make-up at Grand Opera House

York musical theatre actor, dancer and vocal drag artiste Ian Stroughair sans make-up

IAN Stroughair, creator of flamboyant York vocal drag artiste Velma Celli, will reveal The Man Behind The Make-Up at the Grand Opera House, York, on September 9.

For one night only, international award-winning cabaret and musical theatre star Ian will shed his Velma alter-ego to present his brand of fabulous, revealing entertainment “complete with a live big band and a lot of laughs”.

Returning to his roots, he will serve up a one-off concert as himself, celebrating the music that inspired him to sing. From George Michael to Freddie Mercury, Elton John to David Bowie, York’s West End performer promises an evening of musical theatre and anecdotes from his varied career in show business, from cruise ships to pantomime, Cats, Fame, Rent and Chicago on the London stage to Funny Girls in Blackpool. Oh, and a cameo on EastEnders.

Ian Stroughair in Velma Celli mode at the Impossible Wonderbar

In the guise of Velma Celli, Ian has presented such shows as A Brief History Of Drag; Irreplaceable, his Bowie tribute; Velma Celli’s Equinox, “the one with witches, creeps and freaks”, and Outlaw Live!, his York Gin night at the National Centre for Early Music.

Velma has a residency at the Impossible Wonderbar, in St Helen’s Square, where upcoming shows include Velma Celli’s Equinox on October 31 and Velma Celli’s West End Christmas on December 16, as well as The Velma Celli Show on July 29, September 30 and November 25.

Here in York, Ian also has presented the Ian Stroughair Jazz Band’s jazz and blues gigs at Nola, the 1920s’ Art Deco-themed restaurant and bar in Lendal, and starred in York Stage’s debut pantomime, playing the villainous Flesh Creep in Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre@41, Monkgate, in December 2020.

Tickets for September 9 cost £22.90 upwards on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.

Ian Stroughair as Flesh Creep in York Stage’s 2020 pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

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REVIEW: Charles Hutchinson’s verdict on York Stage’s Little Shop Of Horrors ****

Audrey 2 x 2: The plant and the plant in human form in Emily Ramsden in Nik Briggs’s inspired innovation in Little Shop Of Horrors. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick Photography

York Stage in Little Shop Of Horrors, planted at York Theatre Royal until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

THIS is a 40th anniversary production with plenty of firsts and one unquenchable thirst.

York Stage are making their Theatre Royal main-house debut after shows all over town; Filipino-born and trained, York further-educated actor and chef Mikhail Lim is cutting the mustard in a premier-league lead role; Lauren Sheriston is rocking blue hair for the first time as Audrey and…

…Audrey 2, the ever-expanding plant with the insatiable need to “feed me” with rather more than BabyBio, has undergone a sex change from bass-baritone bully to seductive soul diva and sprouted not only profuse foliage but an accompanying female embodiment in the form of Emily Ramsden: a sort of Christina Aguilera think bubble come alive. Or an Audrey 2 x 2, if you prefer.

This way, the jive-talking, blood-sucking, man-munching plant takes on even more of a personality, albeit less sinister than usual.

Mikhail Lim’s Seymour, left, and James Robert Ball’s Mr Mushnik in Mr Mushnik’s Skid Row florist shop

Not even initial sound-level problems could knock Ramsden off her stride. Quick thinking by musical director Stephen Hackshaw saw his band drop their volume, while a hand mic was found for Ramsden to see her through to the end of her opening number. After that, everything went tickety-boo as York Stage settled into new surroundings under the ever-watchful eye of director-producer Nik Briggs.

Little Shop Of Horrors is a grisly, if tongue in cheek, cautionary tale of the dangers of rampant commercialism and unsavoury greed, where the laughs are rooted in feet of clay and the protagonists die, laughing.

The director’s challenge is twofold, first to find the gory heart of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s rock’n’roll send-up of Roger Corman’s B-movie horror flick and Fifties’ American culture but to make us laugh like a hyena on the highway to hell while doing so.

Secondly, to not let the underlying moral message about the fallacy of the American dream – the profits of doom – stand in the way of a bluesy belter, a tender ballad, a dollop of girl-group doo-wop or a blast of rock’n’roll swagger.

Lauren Sheriston’s Audrey, left, and Lucy Churchill’s Chiffon in York Stage’s Little Shop Of Horrors

Briggs’s propulsive production could be darker, more twisted in the manner of The Rocky Horror Show, but the laughs flow and the principals’ singing throughout is powerful, impassioned and sassy.

Little Shop Of Horrors is set in the trash can of the aspirant American Fifties, otherwise known as Skid Row, New York, as denoted by two big bins in Brigg’s otherwise colourful set and costume design.

Initially, Mr Mushnik’s struggling little flower shop feels a little crammed with unnecessary “stuff” on the Theatre Royal stage: twice Lim’s shop junior, Seymour Krelbourne, unintentionally bumps into a waste-bin by the counter, although his character is clumsy by nature – and as the plant and its notoriety threaten to outgrow the premises, it is only right that everything becomes a tighter squeeze.

Those bumps are the only false steps in an otherwise delightfully personable, pathos-led performance by Lim as the bespectacled, geeky loser Seymour, who grows from being comically, loveably awkward and love-struck to surprisingly ruthless and reckless as fame and fortune come his way once he signs his Faustian pact with Audrey 2. He has a sweet-sweet singing voice too that channels Sam Cooke’s tone.

Danger to dental health: Darren Lee Lumby’s mad dentist Orin finding life a gas, gas, gas

Sheriston’s Audrey, the subject of Seymour’s crush, is being crushed by her abusive dentist boyfriend, Darren Lee Lumby’s corkscrew-haired, cocksure Orin, who threatens mental and dental health alike in his deranged bad-lad turn.

Sheriston has to pull off a now uncomfortable Fifties’ trait of being too good for her own good, to the point of self-sacrifice. Audrey is compliant yet resolute, and Sheriston’s performance, especially in her singing, conveys both those traits. Briggs gives her a spot-on wardrobe too, notably a green dress to rival Audrey 2’s leafage.

The thrill-seeking doo-wop chorus girls (Hannah Shaw’s Crystal, Lucy Churchill’s Chiffon and Cyanne Unamba-Oparah’s Ronnette) serve as Greek chorus and girl-group nostalgia alike with hen-party glee. By way of contrast, James Robert Ball’s phlegmatic Mr Mushnik is amusingly lugubrious, wearier than a latter-day Woody Allen.

Praise too to Hackshaw’s band, embellished with wood and brass; to Adam Moore for lighting that nods to Little Shop’s red and green livery, and to plant puppeteers Jack Hooper, Katie Melia and Danny Western, relishing their well-deserved applause when leaping out at the finale.

York Stage will return to the Grand Opera House for Kinky Boots from September 16 to 24, but looking ahead, maybe an ideal scenario is for Nik Briggs’s ever-busy calendar to accommodate shows at the Theatre Royal, Opera House and 41 Monkgate each year.

Hannah Shaw’s Crystal: Part of the Greek chorus in A Little Shop Of Horrors
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‘Utterly Brummie’ take on The Wind In The Willows heads north to the wild wood of Stillington Mill for Silly Fringe shows

Paperback Theatre’s Mole (Charis McRoberts), left, Toad (Nathan Blyth), Rat (Carys Jones) and Badger (Lucy Bird) in their 2022 tour of The Wind In The Willows

PAPERBACK Theatre’s debut national tour of their “utterly Brummie” The Wind In The Willows will conclude with two Theatre At The Mill performances on July 30 at Stillington, near York.

On the road since June 4, the Birmingham company’s charming outdoor production will be heading to North Yorkshire for its only northern shows, directed by company co-founder Lucy Bird on her return to her roots.

Adapted for the stage from Kenneth Grahame’s book by fellow co-founder George Attwell Gerhards, Toad’s tale played to sell-out audiences at Paperback’s own arts festival, Little But LIVE! 2021, and in the Assembly Festival Gardens at Coventry City of Culture 2021 with Attwell Gerhards playing the irrepressible Toad.

Now Nathan Blyth is pooping Toad’s car horn on the tour, alongside Lucy Bird’s Badger, Charis McRoberts’ Mole and Carys Jones’s Rat.

Introducing the play, Lucy says: “Mole has been stuck inside for far too long. Finally escaping their underground home, they team up with good friends Ratty, Badger and the loveably roguish Toad on an adventure to blow away the quarantine cobwebs.

“Mole and the gang must go head-to-head with a motor car, Her Majesty’s Constabulary and, the greatest challenge of all, a legion of Weasels, Ferrets and Stoats, who have taken up residence in Toad Hall. Can our plucky band of heroes save the day?”

Lucy Bird: Director and Badger

Here, Lucy answers CharlesHutchPress’s questions on Toad and co, the company name and why Paperback Theatre are coming to Stillington.

Why call the company Paperback Theatre, Lucy? 

“As a company, we’re most interested in adaptations. Taking old stories and retelling them for a new age, re-examining them, or just bringing them back to life for modern audiences (as we do with The Wind In The Willows).

“The name Paperback relates to the idea of a well-worn paperback book that has been read again and again, with a bent spine and crinkled pages, because there’s something that keeps drawing us back to those stories.” 

What drew you to staging The Wind In The Willows?

“Pre-pandemic, Paperback made more indoor shows for older audiences, but during the pandemic we pivoted to working outdoors, for Covid safety reasons, and even started producing our own outdoor festival, Little But LIVE!.

“We found that outdoor work attracted more family audiences, and when we came to programming our second version of the festival The Wind In the Willows was touted as the perfect show for an outdoor family festival.

“Moreover, we were interested in the parallels in the tale to hibernation/isolation and our national journey out of lockdown. That said, The Wind In The Willows has always been thrown around our artistic discussions; it’s a book I loved as a child.”

Paperback Theatre take to the great outdoors in their debut national tour

What are your first memories of the story?

“My parents only had a VHS player and no TV licence, and one of the only video sets we had was the stop-motion series from back in the ’80s. Me and my brother watched it on repeat and routinely staged our own productions of it with other children in the village. 

“I’ve run with that memory a fair amount in our staging and tried to create a low-tech, playful production that children could go away and stage themselves if they wanted to. We have sock puppets for ferrets, coconuts for horses’ hooves and a great medley of kazoos to manage our sound effects.”

Outdoor story equals perfect show for performances in the great outdoors. Discuss…

“I think there’s a lot of truth to that; it makes locating the story easier. When we arrive at each venue on tour, we have to agree where the Wild Wood is, where Toad Hall is, or the Riverbank, so we know where to point when we refer to them.

“Normally there’s a copse of trees – or indeed quite often a manor house looming in the distance that we can locate – which brings an extra exciting energy to the show.

“The Wind In The Willows is also a story about exploration and connecting with your local habitats after a long time away from them, so if you’re telling it outside, it feels like a great way to get audiences to start that journey of reconnection themselves. 

“That said, I love the challenge of telling an indoor story outside: the harder you and the audience have to work to commit to imagining that you are in the middle of a palace, or a church, when you are in the pelting rain or blistering sun, the more fun you can have, I think.”

Paperback Theatre co-founder George Attwell Gerhards, who adapted Kenneth Grahame’s book for the stage, is pictured playing Toad in the 2021 production

What is distinctive about George’s adaptation?

“What’s different about this production to others I’ve seen is, firstly, its pace. George has compressed this well-loved tale into just an hour and, as a result, it has a really fast-paced, fluid energy to it, which also informs the great comedy and slapstick that we’ve discovered in the show.

“What’s particularly impressive and interesting is how much of the script has come straight from the book – which I think is really engaging for older audience members who may have a feeling of nostalgia for the original text – and yet how fresh and engaging it is for younger audiences.”

How do you involve the audience in the show?

“It’s an interactive show in the sense that we’re constantly talking directly to the audience, or pretending that they’re different characters in the show, but in a gentle way; we never get anyone up on stage or make them act out.

“We invite audiences to join in on our discoveries, to clap and cheer when the characters win something, or to groan in sympathy when we’re a bit sad. But if they aren’t feeling it that day, we just carry on…though we’ve yet to experience that!” 

Paperback Theatre use recycled materials and bits of rubbish – sock puppets et al – in their design and props for The Wind In The Willows

What is the message of The Wind In The Willows in 2022?

“There’s a message about valuing nature and the countryside. Mainly though, given the last few years, for us it’s about friendship and camaraderie in difficult times, about reconnecting with people you haven’t seen in a while and helping them through the fun times and the tough times.”  

What does an “utterly Brummie” interpretation bring to the show? 

“Accents, mainly! Our Rat and Toad are both from Birmingham originally so they play the characters with their home accents, and then we bring in a plethora of other ones to help distinguish our multi-rolling, also to reflect the diversity of a city like Birmingham.

“There are a few unique references to the city, like bits of dialect or items of costume that are specific to our local area (Rat has a Moseley Folk Festival T-shirt on). 

“Also, because the show was originally made for urban audiences, we’re looking at what urban wildlife is like. Our costumes and set are constructed out of recycled materials or bits of rubbish that we think the animals could have found hanging around to build their homes.

“I guess that also feeds into a message in our production of ecology and preserving the environment.” 

Bird transforms into Badger: Lucy at play in the natural world

You are playing Badger, but is Badger your favourite character?  If not, who is?!!

“Ooo, tricky! I do love Badger and their fieriness! But I think I’m coming round most to Rat. Bit of a curveball but they seem like an animal who’s just trying to be kind and do the right thing, even though they sometimes get it wrong, and I can empathise with that.” 

Finally, Lucy, how did the performances at At The Mill come about?

“I’m actually from North Yorkshire originally, just across the way from Stillington in Ampleforth. When we first started booking The Wind In The Willows on tour I was absolutely determined to book a show near to the home I grew up in.

“My journey into theatre very much started with going to see outdoor performances that were touring to the local area, and I was really keen to try and offer that to the children and families who are living there now. 

“I’d heard of Stillington Mill through family friends who said they had seen a few things there that were great and they felt it was a fab new venue, so I dropped the organisers, Alex [Flanagan Wright] and Megan [Drury], a line and they booked us in.”

Theatre At The Mill’s Silly Fringe presents Paperback Theatre in The Wind In The Willows at Stillington Mill, Stillington, near York, on July 30, 2.30pm and 7pm. Box office: atthemill.org/summer-at-the-mill/  

Paperback Theatre’s tour poster for The Wind In The Willows

Paperback Theatre’s back story

* Formed at University of Warwick by Lucy Bird and George Attwell Gerhards, on the cusp of graduation in 2016. Now based in Balsall Heath, Birmingham. 

* Past work includes thought-provoking original plays We Need to Talk About Bobby (Off EastEnders) and Me And My Doll, plus innovative adaptations of classics.

* In 2020, in response to Covid-19, they set up open-air arts festival called Little But LIVE! in Moseley Park, Birmingham, to give performing platform to Midlands artists who had lost work and to bring community together in period of isolation. Event now produced annually, entering third year in 2022.

* Debut tour of The Wind In The Willows is taking in Birmingham, Northampton, Lichfield, Stafford and Suffolk before Stillington finale.

Did you know?

LUCY Bird hails from the prodigiously artistic Bird family from Ampleforth. Brother Henry is an actor and musician; brother Conrad fronts the Newcastle band Holy Moly & The Crackers.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond on not only Bob Dylan’s rough and rowdy days. List No. 91, courtesy of The Press, York

NE Musicals York cast members climb aboard a City Sightseeing bus to publicise their upcoming production of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert

AS Madness and Sugababes canter up to York Racecourse, Charles Hutchinson picks his favourites from the upcoming entertainment runners and riders  

Musical of the week: NE Musicals York in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 20 to 24, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday and Sunday matinees

CREATIVE director Steve Tearle’s cast of 30 features Finley Butler, Tom Henshaw and Tearle himself as three drag queens who take an epic journey from Sydney to Alice Springs across the Australian outback in their bus Priscilla.

“The journey is full of drama and dance routines but also so many laugh-out-loud moments,” says Tearle. “There’ll be costumes – 300 in total – that have never been seen before in York and the star of the show, the bus, will take your breath away.”  Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

John Cale: Rearranging his gig date at York Barbican

Underground movement of the week: John Cale, York Barbican, from July 19 to October 24, 8pm

VELVET Underground icon John Cale, now 80, is moving his first British itinerary in a decade to the autumn. Tickets for Tuesday – the only Yorkshire gig of his seven-date tour – remain valid for the new date in October.

The Welsh multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer will be performing songs from a pioneering six-decade career that began in classical and avant-garde music before he formed The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed in New York in 1965. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Bob Dylan’s poster for his Rough And Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour, visiting Hull Bonus Arena

Gig announcement of the week: Bob Dylan, Hull Bonus Arena, October 27

BOB Dylan will play Hull Bonus Arena as the only Yorkshire gig of his Rough And Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour 2021-2024 this autumn.

The Nobel Prize-winning American singer, songwriter and cultural icon last visited Britain in 2017 on his Never Ending Tour. This time the focus will be on his 39th studio album, June 2020’s chart-topping Rough And Rowdy Ways, his first set of original songs since 2012’s Tempest. Box office: hurry, hurry, to ticketmaster.co.uk.

Resting up: Tears For Fears’ Scarborough concert is cancelled due to Curt Smith’s rib injury

One on, one off, tonight: cheers for Richard Ashcroft, Sounds Of The City, Leeds Millennium Square; tears for Tears For Fears, Scarborough Open Air Theatre

IN the Leeds outdoors tonight, Richard Ashcroft, frontman of Wigan’s Nineties’ rock gods The Verve, performs songs from his chart-topping band days and solo career in the wake of re-recording his prime work for 2021’s Acoustic Hymns Vol 1. Gates open at 6pm; support slots go to DJ Wayne and Cast. Last few tickets: millsqleeds.com .

Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things they could do without: Curt Smith’s rib injury has forced Tears For Fears to call off tonight’s gig in Scarborough.

Jane McDonald: Letting the light in at York Barbican

Yorkshire favourite of the week: Jane McDonald: Let The Light In, York Barbican, July 22, 7.30pm

WAKEFIELD singer and television star Jane McDonald plays her long-awaited Let The Light In Show in York, rearranged from the lockdown gloom of 2020.

The BAFTA award-winner, Cruising With presenter and Loose Women panellist  will be joined by her band and backing singers for a night of cabaret song, laughter and fabulous dresses. Box office for last few tickets: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Madness this way lies: The Nutty Boys are returning to York Racecourse next Friday

On course for race days: York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, Madness, July 22; Sugababes, July 23

CAMDEN’S Nutty Boys, Madness, return to the Knavesmire track next Friday, having first gone One Step Beyond there in July 2010. Once more Suggs and co will roll out such ska-flavoured music-hall hits as Our House, Baggy Trousers, House Of Fun, Wings Of A Dove, My Girl and Driving In My Car after the evening race card.

The re-formed original Sugababes line-up of Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena and Siobhán Donaghy are next Saturday afternoon’s act. The London girl group last appeared in York as long ago as 2003 with a line-up of Buchanan, Buena and Heidi Range at the Barbican Centre, as was.

Here come Freak Like Me, Round Round, Hole In The Head, Push The Button, Walk This Way and About You Now et al. Tickets: yorkracecourse.co.uk.

Low-key festival of the week: Crawfest, Partings Lane, Ebberston, YO13 9PA, off A170, July 22 and 23, noon to midnight

THE line-up is in place for Crawfest, the family-friendly music festival held on farmland near Pickering, in memory of Alan Crawford, a friend of the organisers, who lost his life to Covid in 2020.

Next Friday will be headlined by The House We Built (9.40pm), preceded by Edwina Hayes (2pm); Paint Me In Colour (3.20pm); Nalgo Bay (4.20pm); Sean Taylor (5.30pm); Breeze (6.50pm) and Friday Street (8.10pm).

Next Saturday’s bill toppers will be Big Me (9.40pm), preceded by Kelsey Bovey (12 noon); Bongoman & The Bongomaniacs (1pm); Danny MacMahon (2pm); Beetlebug (3.15pm); Rocketsmith (4.10pm); Nalgo Bay (5.30pm); Red Box (6.50pm) and The Feens (8.10pm). Box office: tickettailor.com/events/crawfest/641880.

Anne-Marie Piazza and Pete Ashmore in rehearsal for Brief Encounter at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Romance of the summer: Emma Rice’s Brief Encounter, in The Round, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, July 22 to August 27

SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs this new co-production of Emma Rice’s playful adaptation of Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, presented in tandem with Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, and Octagon Theatre, Bolton.

Rice turns Coward’s film inside out, adding joyous musical numbers and physical comedy while still maintaining the classic love story of the 1945 black-and-white original, where Laura and Alec are married – but not to each other – when a chance meeting at a railway station hurls them headlong into a whirlwind romance that threatens to blow their worlds apart. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

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REVIEW: David Walliams’ Billionaire Boy, Birmingham Stage Company, at Grand Opera House, York, ends Sunday ***

Matthew Gordon’s Joe Spud, centre, front, and Matthew Mellalieu’s Dad, centre, back, in Birmingham Stage Company’s Billionaire Boy. Picture: Mark Douet

IT used to be Roald Dahl’s stories that always drew children to the theatre, whether The Witches, James And The Giant Peach, The Twits or The BFG.

Now fellow prolific novelist David Walliams is becoming ubiquitous too, ploughing a similar furrow of comedy with an element of the grotesque. First came Gangsta Granny, now Billionaire Boy, and come September, the world premiere of Demon Dentist will be the latest to roll off the Birmingham Stage Company production line (to mark the company’s 30th anniversary).

Billionaire Boy is the tale of lonely boy Joe Spud (Matthew Gordon), whose 12th birthday present is a £1 million cheque, just as it was for his 11th birthday. Mum has left Billionaire Dad, Len (Nether Poppleton actor Matthew Mellalieu), whose new billionaire pad is the largest house in Britain, with a butler to boot, having made his fortune from inventing loo roll that is moist on one side, dry on the other.

Joe already has two pet crocodiles, the biggest TV, a simulated Formula One race track, but no friends: a bum deal indeed, especially at his private school, where he is picked on as the “Bottom Billionaire”.

Will moving to a new school, the local comp Ruffington High School, change all that in director Neal Foster’s boisterous adaptation, where the bum meets the Brum, with the accent on bold caricature performances on a set design made out of…you guessed it, loo rolls?

There are shades of Molesworth, Adrian Mole and Just William (Just Walliams?!) here, capturing the school world of bullying (the Grubs), teasing, trying to fit in, dealing with petty disciplinarian teachers and trying to avoid the ghastly lunch menu of dinner lady Mrs Trafe (one of several outstanding cameos by Emma Matthews).

Gordon’s Joe has a lugubrious air, fed by his Dad’s brash ways constantly bringing him further difficulties, especially with fellow outsider Bob (Jake Lomas). Father has even more to learn than son.

Suitable for age five upwards, Billionaire Boy is high spirited, fun at times too, typified by Tuhin Chisti’s shopkeeper Raj, but somehow not as fun, charming or engaging as it could be, not least Jak Poore’s underwhelming songs. All in all, that makes it a bit of a bummer.

Performances: tonight at 7pm; Saturday, 2.30pm, 7pm; Sunday, 11am, 3pm. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

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Jay’s journey from family drummer to family drama in The Osmonds: A New Musical

Jay Osmond: Enjoying the British theatre tour of The Osmonds: A New Musical. Picture: Aaron McCracken

JAY Osmond has wanted to tell the Utah musical family’s story for “such a long time”.

Hold your crazy horses! Here comes The Osmonds: A New Musical, whose 2022 tour visits the Grand Opera House, York, from August 2 to 6.

“The opportunity to create this beautiful musical, a sort of ‘living autobiography’, seemed the perfect way to do so,” says 67-year-old Jay, the Crazy Horses lead vocalist now retired from the family drum stool but very much the driving force behind a world-premiere British and Irish tour that runs from February to early December.

“I spent my whole life performing live – on stage, on TV specials, in arenas – so the buzz of live theatre felt like the perfect place for me. There were some difficult times in my life, and some big hurdles to overcome, and this musical will tell people things that will surprise them.

“But despite that trouble, when you look back and think of the fans, the music, the once-in-a-lifetime things we did, it’s joyful.  I guess I want to do this now to try to spread a little bit of that joy.”

First, Jay penned his 2010 autobiography, Stages, charting a career that began at the age of two and a half. Now, he has provided the story for the Osmonds’ musical, a show with a book by Julian Bigg and director Shaun Kerrison and choreography and musical staging by Bill Deamer.

“I’ll know I’ve done a good job telling this story if I stand at the back of the theatre and see people waving their arms in the air, singing along and dancing in the aisles,” says Jay. “I just want people to be enjoying themselves. I guess that is in the Osmonds’ DNA.”

The Osmonds: A New Musical recounts the story of the brothers from Ogden, Utah, who began as The Osmond Brothers barbershop quartet, featuring Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay, and were later joined by sibling Donny and later still by “Little” Jimmy and sister Marie.

From their star residency on The Andy Williams Show from 1962 to 1969, when pushed into the limelight as children, to pop stars and Osmondmania from 1971 to 1975, to the arrival of The Donny & Marie Show, choreographed by Jay, from 1976 to 1979, The Osmonds lived a remarkable life.

They recorded chart-topping albums, sold out arenas and made record-breaking TV shows en route to 59 gold and platinum albums and 100 million record sales, but then one bad decision cost them everything, as the musical will highlight.

Jay’s musical pulls back the curtain to “reveal the real family behind all those Seventies’ hits”, One Bad Apple, Down By The Lazy River, Crazy Horses, Let Me In, Love Me For A Reason, (We’re) Having A Party, Puppy Love, Long Haired Lover From Liverpool, Paper Roses et al.

Parents George and Olive Osmond and all nine children, including older siblings Virl and Tom, feature in the family story. “The musical is written not only for those of our era, the Seventies, but for those who are curious about us, who know the music, but want to know about our story,” says Jay.

Love them for a reason: A scene from The Osmonds: A New Musical, the story of the family band from Utah, USA. Picture: Pamela Raith

“The show gives a wider specification of who the Osmonds were and are; why the Osmonds’ music is so much part of our lives; and it taps into different aspects of our songs, showing off a wider range of our music than just the hits. That was my goal: to appeal to a wider audience.”

Could an Osmonds’ musical have arrived sooner? “There were times when other members of the group thought about it, but we were doing other things,” says Jay.

“But when I wrote Stages, I was contacted by the producer, who said, ‘I always thought your family should do a musical. As the youngest one in the original group, you can say how you saw it; how the family dynamic worked; what some of the challenges were and how you overcame them’.”

Jay is delighted with how The Osmonds: A New Musical has taken shape. “I’m so thrilled with how the actors are performing. There are times to laugh; times to cry,” he says.

“We take the story back to Walt Disney and Andy Williams and Jerry Lewis, and we  go back and forth between when we were kids and when we’re adults, starting in 1962 and ending in 2008.

“What we show is our uniqueness. If you make comparisons with the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Jackson Five – where there was a rivalry – we were unique as a family band who played our instruments but were also clean cut. That made us stand out.

“I think what people will take away from this show is an appreciation of some of the challenges we faced, some of the obstacles we faced, and how we bonded together as a family through that. That was the highest point of our career: when we were at our lowest, we stuck together.”

Looking back to the brothers’ early days on The Andy Williams Show, Jay says: “The pressure was immense. Growing up in the public eye, the pressure was always on us to get it right. There was a feeling that we had to be perfect, and we had to work through that and smile through that. I address that heavily in the musical, showing that other side to the Osmonds that people didn’t know.”

Likewise, you may not know that Jay and his wife, Karen, “almost moved to York”. “We considered York and Chester logistically, but Chester was nearer to what we were seeking,” he says.

“We want to go to the Jorvik Viking Museum because my wife has Viking connections.”

The Osmonds: A New Musical, runs at Grand Opera House, York, from August 2 to 6; box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York. Also: Hull New Theatre, October 18 to 22, 01482 300306 or hulltheatres.co.uk.

Did you know?

JAY Osmond’s choreographic style for the Osmonds and Donny and Marie’s TV shows was influenced by his karate skills learned from personal instructor Chuck Norris.

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Corrie’s Kevin Kennedy to star in Rock Of Ages’ autumn return to Grand Opera House…but X-Factor winner Matt Terry won’t be. UPDATE 19/07/2022

Kevin Kennedy, right, in his groovy role as Sunset Strip bar owner Dennis Dupree in Rock Of Ages

NEWS JUST IN: Matt Terry will NOT be appearing in Rock Of Ages at the Grand Opera House, York, after all this autumn, but Kevin Kennedy definitely will be.

Contrary to the initial announcement, the X-Factor’s Terry becomes the ex-factor in this visit to York on tour, but who will be playing “Stacee” Jaxx in his stead? The answer is expected to be announced during next week. Watch this space.

CharlesHutchPress wrote on 12/07/2022:

CORONATION Street soap star Kevin Kennedy and The X-Factor’s 2016 winner, Matt Terry, will lead the Rock Of Ages cast at the Grand Opera House, York, on tour from September 27 to October 1.

Visiting York for the fourth time in less than eight years, this rocktastic West End, Broadway, Las Vegas and touring hit is a self-mocking, cheesy jukebox musical comedy built around the classic rock songs of the 1980s from the glam metal prime of Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison, Europe et al.

Here come Don’t Stop Believin’, We Built This City, The Final Countdown, Wanted Dead Or Alive, Here I Go Again, Can’t Fight This Feeling and I Want To Know What Love Is, played loud and proud by a live band to Ethan Popp’s OTT arrangements and orchestrations.

Matt Terry’s rock demigod “Stacee” Jaxx in Rock Of Ages

Audiences are invited to “leave it all behind and lose yourself in a city and a time where the dreams are as big as the hair and they really can come true in Chris D’Arienzo’s tongue-in-both-cheeks book.

Kennedy will reprise the role of Dennis Dupree, owner of the Bourbon Room, on Sunset Strip, where he invites Terry’s egotistical rock demigod, “Stacee” Jaxx, to play for the last time with his band Arsenal, back in the basement where they started, after announcing their break-up.

Dupree’s joint, meanwhile, is under threat of closure from joyless German developer Hertz Klinemann and his rebellious son Franz.

Kevin Kennedy: Actor, soap star and musician

Kennedy previously played laissez-faire Los Angeles dude Dupree at the Grand Opera House in April 2019, having earlier appeared there as Jimmy’s Da in Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments in February 2017.

Best known for his Corrie soap role as floppy-fringed Curly Watts from 1983 to 2003, he was once in a band with The Smiths’ Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke and showcased his Present Kennedy solo album at Fibbers, in York, in July 2002.

Last time in York: Matt Terry, second from left, as Alex the lion in Dreamworks’ Madagascar The Musical at York Theatre Royal in 2019

Terry previously appeared in York in his stage musical debut, Dreamworks’ Madagascar The Musical, playing Alex the lion, king of all the animals in New York’s Central Park Zoo, at the Theatre Royal in February 2019.

He released his debut album, Trouble, in November 2017 and has been working on its follow-up, recording and writing in Miami, Los Angeles, Scandinavia and Spain, as well as fronting his own radio show on Capital FM and starring in Broadway’s Dr Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical on tour.

Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.

Matt Terry: From The X-Factor to musical lead roles

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EastEnders’ Carty, Strong and Altman confirmed for The Mousetrap on 70th anniversary tour at Grand Opera House

Todd Carty as Major Metcalf in the 70th anniversary tour of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, visiting York next March. Picture: Matt Crockett

THREE EastEnders’ alumni, Todd Carty, Gwyneth Strong and John Altman, will star in the 70th anniversary tour of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at the Grand Opera House, York, next year.

Billed as the world’s longest-running play, the genre-defining murder mystery will play York from March 6 to 11 2023.

The Mousetrap made its Grand Opera House debut in May 2013 on the 60th anniversary tour, returning in February 2016 and May 2019.

The poster for The Mousetrap’s 70th anniversary tour

In Christie’s puzzle of a play, as news spreads of a murder in London, seven strangers find themselves snowed in at Monkswell Manor, a remote countryside guesthouse.

When a police sergeant arrives, the guests discover – to their horror – that a killer is in their midst. One by one, the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts, but who is the murderer and who will be the next victim? Can you solve this notorious mystery for yourself?

From the pen of the world’s best-selling novelist of all time, the 70th anniversary tour of The Mousetrap will open on September 27 2022 at the Theatre Royal Nottingham, where the original world premiere tour began in 1952.

Strong casting: Gwyneth Strong, once Cassandra in Only Fools And Horses, now plays Mrs Boyle in The Mousetrap. Picture: Matt Crockett

Christie’s thriller will visit more 70 venues, including all the cities from that first tour, which was followed by the West End opening. To this day, The Mousetrap still plays St Martin’s Theatre, where 28,500 performances have drawn 10 million ticket sales.

Directed by Ian Talbot, the 70th anniversary tour will feature Todd Carty as Major Metcalf, Only Fools And Horses star Gwyneth Strong reprising her Christie role as Mrs Boyle and John Altman as Mr Paravicini.

Joelle Dyson, from Dreamgirls and Funny Girl, will play Mollie Ralston; Laurence Pears, from Magic Goes Wrong, will be Giles Ralston; Elliot Clay and Essie Brown, from The Mousetrap company in London, are confirmed for Christopher Wren and Miss Casewell respectively. Joseph Reed, from The Nobodies, will be leading the enquiries as Detective Sgt Trotter.

John Altman: Playing mysterious house guest Mr Paravicini on The Mousetrap’s 70th anniversary tour

Carty last appeared at the Grand Opera House in his long-running role as King Arthur’s sidekick, Patsy, in Monty Python’s Spamalot, in February 2015.

Altman played the villain, the Sheriff of Nottingham, in Robin Hood & The Babes In The Wood in the 1996-1997 Grand Opera House pantomime and hard-nut doorman Lucky Eric in John Godber’s Bouncers in September 2003 when nursing a broken wrist.

Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.