Category: Theatre

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ***

Ian Giles, front, leading Adam Price and Joy Warner in Adieu La Vie in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely War at Theatre@41, Monkgate

PICK Me Up Theatre are staging Oh! What A Lovely War to mark the 60th anniversary of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop premiere at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.

Why else Robert Readman and co-director Johnny Holbek are reviving this old stager is not so clear on encountering the veteran work of Sixties’ agit-prop; rather like the surfeit of voices that are sometimes a struggle to comprehend in the absence of head microphones.

Body mics do the hard-working company no favours, especially Ian Giles’s all-important master of ceremonies, whose deadpan punchlines fall flat when dying in the muffled air. In contrast, the regular toots on his whistle could not have been shriller.

Ironically, when your reviewer – seated up on the mezzanine level – couldn’t decipher what the drill sergeant was shouting, it turns out it was supposed to be gibberish, but the joke was lost after the uncertainty caused by the earlier encounters with the lack of clarity.

Alison Taylor, front left, and Beryl Nairn performing En Avant!

Oh! What A Lovely War, constructed as a searing satirical chronicle of the First World War, as told through songs and documents in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment, was a landmark in British theatre history, prompting the intrigue surrounding Pick Me Up’s revival.

Likewise, Richard Attenborough’s 1969 film account of the working-class Smith lads, Jack, Freddie, Harry and George, seeing initial hope swallowed up by the mud and stench of the trenches, resonated amid the Sixties’ vibe of Make Love, Not War.

From Blackadder Goes Forth to Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse and Private Peaceful, Sam Mendes’s 1917 to this year’s BAFTA-winning All Quiet On The Western Front, the Great War continues to provoke eloquent, elegiac reflection across the arts and literature.  

Oh! What A Lovely War is closest in spirit to Blackadder in the trenches, in its sense of futility, chiming with Winston Churchill’s maxim in favour of dialogue over destruction. “Jaw Jaw is better than War War,” he forewarned, and in turn Oh! What A Lovely War has plenty of jaw jaw about war war, while making a song and dance of it with familiar music-hall songs from the Great War period and hymns fitted out with new lyrics to give them a satirical snap.

Florence Poskitt, left, Maggie Smales and Marlena Kelli in the Kamerad! Kamerad! vignette in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely War

Against the John Cooper Studio’s back wall, ever more damning statistics of the body count are typed out across the screen, the factual counter to the officers’ cavalier attitude to so many wasteful deaths of the working-class cannon fodder.

They have the show’s most shuddering impact, ensuring that a sense of righteous anger prevails, as does a haunting sorrow, further enhanced by the presence of a junior ensemble.

However, the strident tones of surrealism, in part set by the Pierrot costumes with their out-of-period elasticated waists, always feels one step removed from connecting. Likewise, you can see the ever-willing cast having to push too hard to make the satire amusing in a show that starts to drag on, like the war itself.

Readman and Holbek’s period-piece production seeks to break down theatre’s fourth wall, often through Giles’s conspiratorial asides, sometimes through music-hall repartee, but the best scenes are self-contained, most notably for the Christmas Day exchange of gifts in No Man’s Land and the grotesque grouse moor shooting-party bluster among those making money out of the war (in a haunting forerunner of Covic contracts).

James Willstrop and Sanna Jeppsson, front, with the Pick Me Up Theatre ensemble performing Row Row Row

Inspired by Charles Chiltern’s radio series that combined First World war statistics with songs, Littlewood’s piece was constructed through improvisation and credited to the company of performers. In the spirit of that gestation, Pick Me Up’s multi role-playing troupe of troops is credited by a list of cast names and not by character, and it is very much an ensemble piece, teamwork to the fore, although James Willstrop, Florence Poskitt, Alison Taylor and in particular Craig Kirby stand out.

Accompanied by Natalie Walker’s piano-led band, the songs transition from hope to despair, from perky to poignant, from Belgium Put The Kibosh On The Kaiser to I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier.

Reviving Oh! What A Lovely War does not evoke nostalgia and nor should it. Instead, it feels and looks out of its time, like Richard Lester’s 1967 film How I Won The War. Some vignettes still work, elsewhere the satire has tired or lost coherence over 60 years.

What hasn’t changed? War, huh, yeah, what is good for? Absolutely nothing. Except anti-war songs.  

Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (6/4/2023) and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster artwork for Oh! What A Lovely War
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Don’t be confused! Jacob Ward is the real deal as he directs Settlement Players in Stoppard’s confusing play The Real Thing

Jacob Ward directing a rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ production of The Real Thing. All pictures: Ben Lindley

YORK Settlement Community Players return to York Theatre Royal’s Studio this Eastertide with Tom Stoppard’s typically smart and unsettling comedy drama The Real Thing.

Premiered in 1982 by the Pocklington School alumnus, this beguiling play of surprises and erudite wit follows Henry – possibly the sharpest playwright of his generation – who is married to actress Charlotte. Into the story Stoppard weaves a second couple, Max and wife Annie.

Henry, meanwhile,  has written a play about a couple, who happen to be called Max and Charlotte – just to muddy the water – whose marriage is on the brink of collapse.

Soon they will discover that sometimes life imitates art in Stoppard’s world of actors and writers, wherein his exploration of love and infidelity is designed to make audiences question: “What is the real thing?”

Alan Park’s Henry and Alice May Melton’s Annie rehearsing a scene from The Real Thing

Directing the Settlement Players for the first time, professional actor Jacob Ward says: “I’m very excited for an audience to interact with our modern-day version of this play. Its subject seems simple but, as we see through the eyes of various characters, we realise its complexity, and enjoy having our views on love and relationships broadened.

“The writing is nothing short of genius – it really is. Even after 20-plus times of reading, I’m still finding impossible connections and meaning. It’s a joy to direct and will be a thrill to watch: hilarious, heart-warming and thought-provoking all in one. We have a brilliant cast of actors to take you on the journey and a truly dedicated production team to bring the play to life.”

Ward’s cast will be led by Alan Park, chair of Theatre@41, Monkgate, as Henry and Alice May Melton, a stand-out in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s December 2022 production of A Nativity of York, playing Annie.

Victoria Delaney quickly follows up her turn as Kath in York Actors Collective’s debut production of Joe Orton’s farce Entertaining Mr Sloane with her role as Charlotte. Mike Hickman will be Max, Rebecca Harrison, Billy, and Hannah Waring, Debbie. Settlement chair – and Ward’s partner to boot – Livy Potter has taken over the part of Brodie at short notice, only weeks after starring in Gary Owen’s one-woman drama Iphigenia In Splott.

Seeing the funny side: Victoria Delaney’s Charlotte in The Real Thing

“I’d been in The Real Inspector Hound in 2006, directed by Laura Attridge, the opera director, who now lives in York, by the way,” says Jacob, recalling his first experience of performing in a Stoppard play in his Newcastle University days where he also co-directed new writing pieces and did likewise on scratch nights for Northern Stage and Alphabetti Theatre.  

“I went to see The Real Thing with my dad, when I was at university. I was at a loose end that day and it just happened to be on at the Old Vic. We both really enjoyed it, but I remember having no idea of what happened in the play as it’s designed in every way to confuse the audience!

“So, when Settlement put out a call to direct this season’s production, I thought, ‘here’s an opportunity to do the play that confused the hell out of me, to see if I could make any more sense of it for the audience!”

Reading the script, Jacob realised “it’s not meant to be anything but confusing”.  “Stoppard says it’s like a magic trick,” he says. “As a director, I’m thinking, ‘well, why has he made it so difficult?’, but that’s the point. You have all these characters reading something different into the same situation, mainly relating to their relationships.”

Stepping in: Livy Potter is taking over the role of Brodie in The Real Thing

How has Jacob responded to the intricacies and layers of Stoppard’s script? “His writing has a uniqueness because so few writers are so good that every single stage direction, every piece of grammar, really matters.

“They’ve all been thought out so well that you know when you’ve hit the right note, as it’s intricately designed to perfection, so that ultimately it only works one way in my head – which is always a brilliant Stoppard way.

“Working with the cast, we have to keep playing with it, delving into it, to make sense of it, until suddenly it takes on a greater meaning when all the pieces fit together. Everyone in the cast has enjoyed doing the play because you get these Aha! Moments.”

What is real in The Real Thing, Jacob? “There are many real things that he’s talking about, in general and specific terms: love, relationships and sex as part of love,” he says.

Alan Park’s Henry and Hannah Waring’s Debbie in the rehearsal room

“He’s also looking at how people put on facades; what’s real and what’s a front; what’s real writing, what isn’t; what’s real art, what isn’t.

“Then ‘class’ feeds into it too, how someone who’s not been educated to a certain level can live a full life but not articulate it, whereas someone else can articulate but may not know as much about life as they think they do.

“We don’t get answers with Stoppard, but lots of viewpoints to go away and discuss. I love how this play has a reason to exist and that reason is to talk about it afterwards.”

York Settlement Community Players in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal, April 5,  6 and 11 to 15, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm April 15 matinee. No performances from April 7 to 10.  Post-show Q&A session on April 12. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

What is Jacob Ward directing next?

Director and actor Jacob Ward

JACOB Ward is directing a script-in-hand reading of Old Stan, aka A Fool Fooled, by Marin Držić , “the Croatian Shakespeare”, at the York International Shakespeare Festival next month.

The performance of the 1551 comedy’s first ever translation into English will take place in the Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, Humanities Research Centre, University of York on April 27 at 6pm, preceded by an introduction to the work of the greatest Slavic Renaissance playwright at 5pm.

In Old Stan, an old peasant is fooled by tales of false fairies whose magic supposedly restores youth. Držić’s delicious, sparkly play, written entirely in verse, was commissioned for a wedding feast of a Ragusan nobleman, and he joked that nobody could marry without him in Dubrovnik, his home city.

Translated for the first time in 471 years by Filip Krenus – again entirely in verse – the comedy follows Stan’s misadventures that we might associate with Bottom or even Falstaff in riotous proof of Držić’s uncanny kinship with Shakespeare.

Držić devotees will be travelling over from Dubrovnik to attend the performance. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk.

Did you know?

JACOB Ward played the god Tyr in York Theatre Royal’s community production of Maureen Lennon’s The Coppergate Woman last August.

In York Shakespeare Project’s final production of its first full cycle of Shakespeare plays, he took the role of suitor Ferdinand in The Tempest on tour last September.

Jacob Ward’s Ferdinand and Effie Warboys’ Miranda in York Shakespeare Project’s The Tempest. Picture: John Saunders

Copyright of The Press, York

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What her grandad did in the Great War, now singer Marlena Kellie is re-creating in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely War

Marlena Kellie, left, going through her Oh! What A Lovely War solo with Pick Me Up Theatre musical director Natalie Walker

ART is imitating life for singer Marlena Kellie, who has joined Pick Me Up Theatre’s 60th anniversary production of Oh! What A Lovely War.

From March 31 to April 8, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, she will play her part in re-creating the shows her grandfather would have performed in during the First World War, singing the lead on Now You’ve Got Yer Khaki On.

Devised and presented by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in 1963 before being turned into a film by Richard Attenborough in 1969, Oh! What A Lovely War is a satirical chronicle of the Great War, told through songs and documents in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment.

This photograph of a First World War entertainment troupe shows Marlena Kellie’s grandfather, Richard Palmer, centre, with his first wife, Marion Williams, next to him in the nurse’s uniform

While rehearsing, Leeds jazz singer and actress Marlena realised the costumes and songs from Robert Readman’s production were reminiscent of her own family’s acting career.

“My grandfather, his first wife and my grandmother were all in entertainment troupes during the First World War,” she says. “I found some wonderful old photos of them all – and they are the real-life versions of what we’re doing on stage.”

Marlena’s Romany grandfather, Richard Palmer, had an act he would perform at travelling fairs and later in the music hall, and he was part of Fred Karno’s circus too.

This troupe of Pierrots – dressed exactly as the original cast of Oh! What A Lovely War would have been – features Marlena’s grandfather, Richard Palmer, and her grandmother, Greta Palmer

Marlena’s parents, Eddie Palmer and Shirley Kellie, travelled the country with their own club act, settling down when Marlena was three years old.

Carrying on the Romany tradition, Marlena can sometimes be found telling fortunes but concentrates on club singing and acting. She was one of the trifle-bearing women seen charging joyfully along in last winter’s Argos Christmas advert!

“I used to be embarrassed by my ‘otherness’ in school, but now I embrace it,” she says. “I live with two fabulous drag queens and a lovely little dog called Whoopie.

Marlena Kellie’s parents, Eddie Palmer and Shirley Kellie, who toured their cabaret act for many years

“I can’t quite believe how life has led me to Oh! What A Lovely War but it feels like it was meant to be.  My parents are sadly no longer with me, but I very much feel I am carrying on the family tradition.”

Meanwhile, York actor Ian Giles, who will play the Master of Ceremonies in Pick Me Up’s production, has found an image of his paternal grandfather, Sergeant William Giles, from Christmas Day 1915.

It shows his grandfather with men of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry at Fleurbaix, near Béthune, northern France. “He is the sergeant standing upright pretty well at the
centre of the photograph,” says Ian.

“I can’t quite believe how life has led me to Oh! What A Lovely War but it feels like it was meant to be,” says singer and actress Marlena Kellie

” It was found in my nan’s purse when she died in the mid-1970s. She had carried it with her everywhere. Gramp survived the war and lived well into his eighties.”

In a moving scene in the play, British and German soldiers sing carols and have a drink together over the barbed wire of No Man’s Land.

Ian, by the way, directed Oh! What A Lovely War in September 1972 in Newcastle at what is now the home of Northern Stage. “The late Freddie Jones, who was rehearsing Peer Gynt at the time, used to sneak in every night to watch my ending, which he found profoundly moving,” he recalls.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 31 to April 8, 7.30pm, except April 2 and 3; 2.30pm, April 1, 2 and 8. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

York actor Ian Giles’s paternal grandfather, Sergeant William Giles, with men of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry on Christmas Day 1915 at Fleurbaix, near Béthune

Did you know?

MARLENA Kellie played Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar in her debut for York Musical Theatre Company at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, in November 2019.

Here’s Jonny Holbek, adding directing and sketch comedy to his theatrical portfolio

Jonny Holbek: Actor, director, sketch comedy performer

YORK actor Jonny Holbek is stepping out of the ranks to co-direct Pick Me Up Theatre’s 60th anniversary production of Oh! What A Lovely War.

Last seen on stage as the emotionally damaged Tobias Ragg in York Light Opera Company’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street at York Theatre Royal in February and early March, he is working alongside artistic director Robert Readman at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

“I’ve not done much directing before,” he says. “I directed a concert/show for York Light, A Night With The Light, at Friargate Theatre in June last year and also did some assistant directing for Nik Briggs for York Stage Musicals’ The Flint Street Nativity in 2019.

“This time it’s in between assistant directing and directing. It’s co-directing, which is the toughest form of directing in terms of presenting a coherent production.”

How has the partnership worked out with Robert? “I missed some of the early rehearsals because of doing Sweeney Todd, with Robert doing a lot of the early blocking. Then we worked on scenes in separate rooms, and for the last two weeks it’s been entirely me, while Robert has been busy building the set.”

The collaboration emerged through Jonny expressing an interest in co-directing. “Robert suggested working on Oh! What A Lovely War, a piece that I didn’t know, but I know very well now,” he says.

“I’m really glad I said yes. What a great show it is. I’m so pleased to get to know its full cycle, its humour and its darkness.”

Devised and premiered by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London in 1963 before being turned into a film by Richard Attenborough in 1969, this satirical chronicle of the Great War is told through music-hall songs, hymns with rewritten verses and vignettes in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment, accompanied by statistics of the growing body count on the war front.

Jonny Holbek, fourth from right, leading the singing in God, That’s Good! in York Light Opera Company’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street at York Theatre Royal

“The first thing to say is that so many people died absolutely needlessly, and this show gives us the chance to explore that situation and find the absurd comedy in it, or in this case the careful juxtaposition of comedy and the horror of war,” says Jonny.

“One minute, the audience will be laughing at something; the next, they will be bulldozed by a harrowing image, a shocking fact – and when you make them feel an emotion, they feel it even more.

“The songs have a powerful impact too. A lot of the audience will know most of them, certainly the music-hall ones that provide the sense of pride and excitement the soldiers would have been feeling at first. That gives the show its energy, and then the other side of warfare comes through: the wistful songs that become gut-wrenchingly haunting.”

Contrasting directing with acting, Jonny says: “Firstly, they’re obviously very different disciplines, although they do overlap. In terms of performance, in both roles, you look for the comedy, the drama, and the nuances in the piece.

“Directing, I find it more rewarding helping others to find and highlight the various levels of light and dark to keep the audience interested; whether a scene needs to be reined in or played bolder.

“You also have that tricky balancing act of trying to encourage the best performances, without causing stress or knocking morale.”

Jonny’s daytimes find him working for the Rural Payments Agency, part of DEFRA. By night, he is a regular on the York stage, adding another string to his bow with The Dead Ducks, the sketch comedy troupe he has joined, made up mostly of University of York post-grads, such as Tommy Harris and Eloise Ward.

“We do little shows every few weeks,” he says. “The last one was in a big lecture room at the university, and we’ve also played The Den at Micklegate Social. This summer we’ll be playing the Edinburgh Fringe at one of ‘theSpace’ venues. No show title yet.”

Summing up his love of performing (and directing too), Jonny says: “It’s the camaraderie you build, putting together something in such a tight time frame. I haven’t found anything like it outside the arts. That buzz.”

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More Things To Do in York and beyond for those about to rock…or put Spring in their step. Hutch’s List No. 13, from The Press

The return of RSJ: York metalcore band reconvene for one -off reunion at The Crescent

HEAVYWEIGHT comedy, hardcore rock, reshaped Shakespeare and a ‘roarsome’ children’s show fire up Charles Hutchinson’s enthusiasm for the week ahead.

Resurrection of the week: Mr H presents RSJ, The Crescent, York, tonight, doors 7pm

YORK’S mightiest metalcore groovers reunite for a special one-off show, fronted once more by Dan Cook, now of Raging Speedhorn. “RSJ were/are one of the most intense groove and hardcore noise monsters, not just in York but across the UK. It’s no wonder they stormed stages at Bloodstock, Knebworth and Hellfire,” says promoter Tim Hornsby.

RSJ’s spine-rattling polyrhythms and huge guitars will be preceded by the return of much-missed melodic hardcore band Beyond All Reason and Disinfo. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Justin Moorhouse: Plenty on his plate to get off his chest at Burning Duck Comedy Club night

Lancastrian in York of the week: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Justin Moorhouse, Stretch And Think, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

MANCHESTER stand-up, radio presenter and actor Justin Moorhouse is back, “still funny, yet middle aged” (he’s 52), in a new suit for a new show that may contain thoughts on yoga, growing older, Madonna, shoplifters, Labradoodles, cyclists, the menopause, running, hating football fans but loving football…

…not drinking, funerals, tapas, Captain Tom, Droylsden, the environment, self-improvement,  horses, the odd advantages of fundamental religions, the gym and shop-door etiquette. “Come, it’ll be fun,” he says. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Royal Shakespeare Company: Linking up with York Theatre Royal for York Associate Schools Playmaking Festival

School project of the week: York Theatre Royal and Royal Shakespeare Company present York Associate Schools Playmaking Festival of The Merchant Of Venice, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday and Wednesday, 6.30pm

SHAKESPEARE’S play is told in six sections by six schools each night, using choral and ensemble approaches to relate Shylock’s story through multiple bodies and voices in a celebration of the joy of performance that explores themes of prejudice, friendship and self-interest.

Participating schools on March 28: Acomb Primary, Applefields School, Millthorpe School, Vale of York Academy, St Barnabas CE Primary; March 29, Clifton Green Primary, Poppleton Road Primary, Brayton Academy, Scarcroft Primary, Fulford School and Joseph Rowntree School. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Big in the Eighties: Andy Cryer in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less) at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Patch Dolan

Shake-up of the week: The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Thursday to April 15

ORIGINALLY by Shakespeare, now messed around with by Elizabeth Godber and Nick Lane, SJT director Paul Robinson’s vibrant new staging of the Bard’s most bonkers farce arrives  in a co-production with Prescot’s Shakespeare North Playhouse.  

The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less) is brought to life in neon-lit 1980s’ Scarborough. Cue mistaken identities, theatrical chaos and belting musical numbers from the era of big phones and even bigger shoulder pads. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com. SEE REVIEW BELOW.

The poster artwork for Pick Me Up Theatre Company’s Oh! What A Lovely War

Revival of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 31 to April 8, 7.30pm, except April 2 and 3; 2.30pm, April 1, 2 and 8

PICK Me Up Theatre present a 60th anniversary production of Oh! What A Lovely War, a satirical chronicle of the First World War, told through songs and documents in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment.

Devised and presented by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in 1963 before being turned into a film by Richard Attenborough in 1969, now it is in the hands of Robert Readman’s York cast. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Feeling hot, hot, hot: Zog is on fire in Freckle Productions’ show at York Theatre Royal

Children’s show of the week: Freckle Productions in Zog, York Theatre Royal, March 31, 4.30pm;  April 1,  10.30am, 1.30pm and 3.30pm 

JULIA Donaldson and Alex Scheffler’s Zog takes to the stage in a magical Freckle Productions show most suitable for age three upwards, although all ages are welcome. Zog is trying very hard to win a golden star at Madam Dragon’s school, perhaps too hard, as he bumps, burns and roars his way through Years 1, 2 and 3.

Luckily plucky Princess Pearl patches him up, ready to face his biggest challenge yet: a duel with knight Sir Gadabout the Great. Emma Kilbey directs; Joe Stilgoe provides the songs. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Roy “Chubby” Brown: Bluer than Stilton at York Barbican

Still in rude health: Roy “Chubby” Brown, York Barbican, March 31, 7.30pm

ROY “Chubby” Brown – real name Royston Vasey, from Grangetown, Middlesbrough – is on the road again at 78, 50 years into a blue comedy career that carries the warning: “If easily offended, please stay away”.

Chubby may not be everyone’s cup of tea but a lot of people like tea, he says. Thirty DVDs in 30 years, thousands of shows worldwide and four books testify to the abiding popularity of a profane joker full of frank social commentary, forthright songs and contempt for political correctness. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

In the doghouse: Ferocious Dog attack songs with bite at York Barbican

Where there is despair, may they bring Hope: Ferocious Dog, supported by Mark Chadwick, York Barbican, April 1, 7pm

FEROCIOUS Dog, a Left-leaning six-piece from Warsop, Nottinghamshire, slot somewhere between Levellers and early Billy Bragg in their vibrant vein of Celtic folk-infused punk rock.

Fifth album Hope came out in 2021, charting at number 31 in the Official UK Charts. Special guest will be Levellers’ leader Mark Chadwick, joined by Ferocious Dog violinist Dan Booth for part of his 7pm set. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Artwork by Cuban painter Leo Morey, one of the new artists taking part in York Open Studios 2023

Early sighter of the week: York Open Studios 2023 Taster Exhibition, The Hospitium, Museum Gardens, York, April 1 and 2, 10am to 4pm

FOR the first time since 2019, York Open Studios will be launched with a taster exhibition next weekend featuring examples of work by most of the 150 artists and makers set to open their studio doors on April 15, 16, 22 and 23.

This free preview gives a flavour of what will be coming up at more than 100 venues next month.  Full details of this year’s artists and locations can be found at yorkopenstudios.co.uk. Look out for booklets around York.

In Focus: Luke Wright, The Remains Of Logan Dankworth, Selby Town Hall, March 30, 8pm

In the Wright place: Luke Wright making his political point in The Remains Of Logan Dankworth

PERFORMANCE poet Luke Wright returns to Selby Town Hall on Thursday to peform his 2022 Edinburgh Fringe political verse play The Remains Of Logan Dankworth.

Columnist and Twitter warrior Logan Dankworth grew up romanticising the political turmoil of the 1980s. Now, as the EU Referendum looms, he is determined to be in the fray of the biggest political battle for years.

Meanwhile, Logan’s wife Megan wants to leave London to better raise their daughter. As tensions rise at home and across the nation, something is set to be lost forever.

The third in Wright’s trilogy of lyrically rich plays looks at trust, fatherhood and family in the age of Brexit. Winner of The Saboteur Award for Best Show, it picked up four and five-star from the Telegraph, the Scotsman, the Stage and British Theatre Guide.

Wright was a founder member of poetry collective Aisle16, who shook up the spoken-word scene in the 2000s, helping to kick-start a British renaissance of the form. He is the regular tour support for John Cooper Clarke and often hosts shows for The Libertines.

He is a frequent guest on BBC Radio 4, a Fringe First winner for writing and a Stage Award winner for performance.

“Luke Wright is an astonishing performer and one of the best political writers around today, whose wonderful, lyrical writing translates really well to full-length plays,” says Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones.

“I was lucky enough to see The Remains Of Logan Dankworth in Edinburgh last summer and made sure I booked it for Selby Town Hall straight away. It’s a brilliantly told story by a powerhouse poet.”

For tickets: ring 01757 708449 or book online at selbytownhall.co.uk.

REVIEW: The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough *****

David Kirkbride’s Antipholus of Scarborough in a headlock with Claire Eden’s Big Sandra in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less). All pictures: Patch Dolan

Stephen Joseph Theatre and Shakespeare North Playhouse in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until April 15, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com

THIS Comedy Of Errors gets everything right. Not more or less. Just right. Full stop.

Shakespeare’s “most bonkers farce” has been entrusted to Nick Lane, madly inventive writer of the SJT’s equally bonkers pantomime, and Elizabeth Godber, a blossoming writing talent from the East Yorkshire theatrical family.  

How does this new partnership work? In a nutshell, Lane has penned the men’s lines, Godber, the female ones, before the duo moulded the finale in tandem.

SJT artistic director Paul Robinson, meanwhile, selected a criminally good play list of Eighties’ guilty pleasures, from Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, Nik Kershaw’s Wouldn’t It Be Good to Toni Basil’s Mickey, Cher’s Just Like Jesse James to Kenny Loggins’ Footloose, to be sung in character or as an ensemble with Northern Chorus oomph.

Oh, Dromio, Dromio, wherefore art thy other Dromio? Oliver Mawdsley’s Dromio of Prescot in the SJT’s The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less)

Aptly, the opening number is an ensemble rendition of Dream Academy’s one-hit wonder, Life In A Northern Town, that town being 1980s’ Scarborough, just as Lane always roots his pantomimes in the Yorkshire resort.

From an original idea by Robinson, Lane and Godber’s reinvention of Shakespeare’s comedy is not too far-fetched but far enough removed to take on its own personality and, frankly, be much, much funnier as a result. To the point where one woman in the front row was in the grip of a fit of giggles. Yes, that joyous.

For Ephesus, a city on the Ionian coast with a busy port, read Scarborough, a town on the Yorkshire coast with a fishing harbour, although all the fish and chip cafés were shut without explanation on the evening of the press night. Was something fishy going on?

Ephesus was governed by Duke Solinus; Scarborough is run by Andy Cryer’s oleaginous Solinus. Still the merry-go-round action is spun around outdoor public spaces on Jessica Curtis’s set, where protagonists bump into each other like dodgem cars. Just as Syracusans were subject to strict rules in the original play, now Lancastrians are given the Yorkshire cold shoulder in a new war of the roses, besmirched Eccles Cakes et al.

In with a shout: Claire Eden, right, meets a Scarborough greeting from Alyce Liburd, left, Valerie Antwi and Ida Regan in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less)

So begins a tale of two rival states and two sets of mismatched twins (Antipholus and Dromio times two) on one nutty day at the seaside. Cue a mishmash of mistaken identities, mayhem agogo, and merriment to the manic max, conducted at an ever more frenetic lick.

It worked wonders for Richard Bean in One Man, Two Guvnors, his Swinging Sixties’ revamp of Goldoni’s 1743 Italian Commedia dell’arte farce, The Servant Of Two Masters, setting his gloriously chaotic caper, as chance would have it, in another English resort: Brighton. Now The Comedy Of Errors evens up the mathematical equation for two plus two to equal comedy nirvana from so much division.

One ‘guvnor’, Lancastrian comic actor Antipholus of Prescot (Peter Kirkbride) crosses the Pennine divide to perform his one-man show. Trouble is, everyone has booked tickets for the talent show across the bay, starring t’other ‘guvnor’, the twin brother he has never met, Antipholus of Scarborough (David Kirkbride, different first name, but same actor, giving licence for amusing parallel biographies in the programme).

The two ‘servants’ of the piece, Dromio of Prescot and Scarborough respectively (Oliver/Zach  Mawdsley), are equally unaware of the other’s presence, compounding a trail of confusion rooted in Scarborough’s Antipholus owing money everywhere but still promising his wife a gold chain. He needs to win the contest to appease Scarborough’s more unsavoury sorts.

Comedy gold: Andy Cryer in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less)

Kirkbride takes the acting honours in his hyperactive double act with himself, Mawdsley a deux  is a picture of perplexity; Cryer, in his 40th year of SJT productions, is comedy gold as ever in chameleon roles; likewise, Claire Eden fills the stage with diverse riotous, no-nonsense character, whether from Lancashire or Yorkshire.

Valerie Antwi, Alyce Liburd and Ida Regan, each required to put up with the maelstrom of male malarkey, add so much to the comedic commotion, on song throughout too.

Under Robinson’s zesty, witty direction, everything in Scarborough must be all at sea and yet somehow emerge as comic plain sailing, breaking down theatre’s fourth wall to forewarn with a knowing wink of the need to suspend disbelief when seeing how the company will play the two sets of twins once, spoiler alert, they finally meet.

Who knew shaken-and-stirred Shakespeare could be this much fun, enjoying life in the fast Lane with Godber gumption galore too. Add the Yorkshire-Lancashire spat and those Eighties’ pop bangers, Wayne Parsons’ choreography and the fabulous costumes, and this is the best Bard comedy bar none since Joyce Branagh’s Jazz Age Twelfth Night for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in York in 2019.

When The Comedy Of Errors meets the 1980s, the laughs are even bigger than the shoulder pads. A case of more, not less.

Review by Charles Hutchinson




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Kyiv City Ballet sell out return to York Theatre Royal but Crowdfunder donations welcome to cover costs of Ukrainians’ visit

Dancers from Kyiv City Ballet at York Theatre Royal on their June 2022 visit. Picture: Tom Arber

KYIV City Ballet will return to York on a special visit next week, climaxing with a fundraising gala performance at York Theatre Royal.

The 30-strong Ukrainian dance troupe first performed there last June, playingto a full house, at the invitation of Tom Bird, the then chief executive.

Plans for their 2023 stay include a primary school visit and a lunch with Ukrainian families based in York, as well as An Evening With Kyiv City Ballet on March 30 at 7.30pm at the Theatre Royal.

Directed by Ivan Kozlov and Ekaterina Kozlova, the evening will feature excerpts from the ballets Tribute To Peace, Don Quixote, La Bayadere, Les Sylphides and Paquita. All funds raised will support Kyiv City Ballet and York Theatre Royal’s ongoing partnership.

Aelita Shekchuk dancing at York Theatre Royal last June. Picture: Tom Arber

Businesses in York and beyond have come together to ensure the Ukrainian dancers receive a warm welcome to the city once again. Eurostar and LNER have stepped in to arrange their travel from France to York, while hotels within Hospitality Association York are collaborating to offer 24 rooms for the company to rest during their stay.

Those hotels include The Grand; Middletons; No.1 by Guest House; Elmbank; York Pavilion; Marriott; Queens Hotel; Hampton by Hilton; Malmaison; Hilton York; Middlethorpe Hall and Mercure York Fairfield Manor Hotel, who have all offered their hospitality.

The dancers will be treated to a tour of York Minster and an evening river cruise, provided by City Cruises, as part of their visit.

The gala performance has sold out but those unable to attend can support the event via Crowdfunder donations to crowdfunder.co.uk/p/an-evening-with-kyiv-city-ballet. The funds raised will help to cover the costs involved in the visit and ensure the company can continue to spread the vital message of hope through its inspirational work.

Aelita Shevchuk and Nazar Korniichuck of Kyiv City Ballet

Michael Slavin, interim chief executive of York Theatre Royal, says:“We were overwhelmed by the generosity and support of the city when Kyiv City Ballet made their visit to York last year and we are thrilled to be able to build on this ongoing partnership by inviting them back once again.

“They are an immensely talented group of artists, and we are delighted to share our stage with them once more. A huge thank-you to all the businesses across York who have come together to help us celebrate and share the rich and amazing culture of the city and to all our audience members and donors who have made this event happen.”

Ekaterina Kozlova, associate director of Kyiv City Ballet, says: Our visit to York last year was so special and we are so happy to be returning once again. We can’t wait to experience more of what the beautiful city of York has to offer, to meet people in the community and share our work with audiences.” 

Kyiv City Ballet dancers arrive at York Station last June. Pictured, back row, centre, are director Ivan Kozlov and York Theatre Royal’s then chief executive, Tom Bird (in Ukrainian blue and yellow). Picture: Ant Robling
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REVIEW: Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Christopher Weeks’s Buddy Holly in Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story

IT feels like Buddy, the forerunner to so many jukebox musicals, is always playing the Grand Opera House. Not so! Once there was a 12-year gap, and this week’s run is the first since 2017.

What is true, nevertheless, is that it deserves to keep coming back with its sad but joyous celebration of the geeky, bespectacled boy in a hurry, the revolutionary rock’n’roll rebel from Bible-belt, country-fixated Lubbock, Texas.

As heard in concert at York Barbican last autumn, Don McLean’s letter to the heart of American culture, American Pie, is cryptic in its lyrics. Except for its clarity in recalling “the day the music died” as McLean shivered with every paper he delivered that February 1959 morning after Holly and fellow singers J P Richardson (aka The Big Bopper) and Ritchie Valens had perished in a plane crash in the Iowa snow.

“Something touched me deep inside,” sang McLean in his eulogy, and Alan Janes’s musical has carried that torch through 27 actors playing Buddy, 414 pairs of glasses and 3,326 pairs of trousers – those figures no doubt still rising – since its August 1989 debut at the Plymouth Theatre Royal.

So many short, sharp songs from a brief but brilliant life cut short still rave on, never to fade away, as Janes crams in Holly hit after Holly hit, and plenty more besides with long concert sequences at the climax to both halves.

Indeed, unless your reviewer’s memory is playing tricks, there seems to be less detail of the story these days (in particular about the split from Buddy’s increasingly truculent band The Crickets and old-school producer Norman Petty as Holly (Christopher Weeks) swapped New Mexico for New York. This fracture is now mentioned only in passing by Thomas Mitchells’s narrator, Lubbock radio show host Hipockets Duncan, pretty much with a shrug of the shoulders).

That said, The Buddy Holly Story does answer McLean’s question, “Now do you believe in rock and roll?” with an emphatic ‘Yes’. But “can music save your mortal soul?” The inevitability of death would say ‘No’, but hey, it makes you feel good to be alive, whatever your age, how often you hear those Buddy songs.

Hipockets Duncan’s homespun narration begins at the very end ofthe story, before Holly’s 18-month rise and crash landing is charted chronologically. The teenage rebel with a cause in Buddy bursts through the gingham niceties of the opening number as he dupes a country radio station in deepest redneck 1956 Texas into letting him play on air, only to switch mid-song to that new interloper, rock’n’roll. Rip It Up is the song and rip it up is exactly what rule-breaker and innovator Buddy does.

A Nashville Decca producer may dismiss him with a “Can’t sing, can’t write” jibe, but Holly’s big specs appeal, silver tongue and golden arrow to the melody bullseye will triumph: no time to eat, but always feeding the beat as he writes restlessly and records relentlessly.

Directed by Matt Salisbury, rock’n’roll history in motion is a delight – the where, when and why it happened – as Petty’s wife, Vi (Stephanie Cremona) swaps tea-making for playing the celeste in a key contribution to Everyday; Buddy adapts the drum warm-up of The Crickets’ Jerry Allison (Josh Haberfield) for the opening to Peggy Sue, and Buddy refuses advice to remove his glasses, instead switching to thicker frames.

Such is the energy and joy, the love of life and wonder of love in Holly’s songs that this musical and its cast of multi-talented actor-musicians refuses to let the music die.

Cheeky humour and romance, innocence and defiance play their part, as Weeks’s Holly leads the show in all-action style, his singing and guitar playing top notch, while Joe Butcher’s constantly on the move stand-up bass player Joe B Mauldin and Haberfield’s drumming delight too. Look out too for Thomas Mitchells, taking on no fewer than six roles, count’em. That’s why his surname sounds plural!

Through the second half, the love-at-first-sight story of Buddy and record company receptionist Maria Elena (Daniella Agredo Piper), with her premonitions of Buddy’s fate, tugs at the heart strings like a Buddy Holly ballad.

Both concerts are choreographed superbly by Miguel Angel, whipping up the audience to the max; first, the remarkable night when the mistakenly booked Crickets found themselves playing at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York.

Then, the fateful last night of a badly organised tour at the Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa, as Christopher Chandler’s Big Bopper and Miguel Angel’s hip-swivelling Ritchie Valens share the spotlight with Weeks’s inexhaustible Holly.

The tears will always flow at the sudden curtain fall to announce Holly’s passing, but every performance is a resurrection, a chance to shout Hollylujah.

Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Dame Berwick and his crew all at sea as they launch Robinson Crusoe piratical pantomime for Grand Opera House

Messing about on the river: Dame Berwick Kaler, AJ Powell and David Leonard spot an incoming Grand Opera House pantomime. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

AT 76, York’s grand dame of pantomime, Berwick Kaler, is never too old to try something new.

After 41 years in his big boots and misbehaving wig at York Theatre Royal and now newly confirmed for a third season following his crosstown transfer to the Grand Opera House, he will write, direct and star in Robinson Crusoe for the first time.

Or, to give this “swashbuckling panto adventure” its full title with a nod to a certain Johnny Depp film franchise, Robinson Crusoe & The Pirates Of The River Ouse will be afloat from December 9 to January 9 2024.

Martin Dodd, pantomime producer for UK Productions’ second year at the Cumberland Street theatre, says: “Following last year’s success with The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose, we are delighted to return with another legendary Berwick Kaler pantomime in York. Ahoy me hearties…grab your tickets quick!”

Those tickets – £13 and upwards – will go on sale to ATG TheatreCard and Groups Presale today (March 23) from 10am and on general sale from tomorrow (March 24) at 10am in person at the box office or at atgtickets.com/york.

Dame Berwick and fellow piratical panto hearties David Leonard and AJ Powell launched Robin Crusoe in suitable costume in the Tuesday morning rain aboard a City Cruises self-drive boat, steered by comic sidekick Martin Barrass, making an impromptu appearance in his civvies.

Only regular co-star Suzy Cooper was not on board, but she too has been confirmed as part of the crew for the famous-in-York five’s winter return.

Laura McMillan, theatre director for the Grand Opera House York, says: “We are delighted to welcome Berwick and the wider family back this year for what will certainly be a swashbuckling family adventure. The Berwick panto is a York tradition, and we can’t wait to welcome audiences to the theatre.”

What can they expect? Dame Berwick as writer? Tick. Director? Tick. Dowager dame? Tick. The dame’s name and role? How she fits in? Er, nothing decided yet, although any variation of “Mrs Crusoe” is the odds-on favourite.

“But there definitely won’t be a Man Friday,” he says of the slave character from Daniel Defoe’s 1719 seafaring tale, The Life And Strange Surprizing Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner.

“You’ve got to get round that. I’m not ‘woke’, but for 50-odd years we’ve never insulted anybody. If we like to take the mick, we take it out of ourselves, but when you get to adapt fairy tales – or a novel, like this one – there’s a lot you have to change.”

What is promised, to quote the Grand Opera House press release, is an “hilarious take on the classic story of the sailor from York who finds himself marooned on a desert island, but he’s not alone”. Expect a “captivating tale of magic, mayhem and misunderstanding”…and mystery at this stage, because Dame Berwick’s panto is among the very first in the UK Productions stable to be announced for 2023/24.

Martin Barrass takes the wheel on the City Cruises self-drive boat as fellow Grand Opera House pantomime stars Berwick Kaler, AJ Powell and David Leonard launch Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates On The Ouse. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

“Man Friday isn’t necessary to the story, and I’m used to changing things anyway. I’ve always done that in my pantomimes, changing names, or the plot, to give it some spontaneity, to make it something different.

“The problem for pantomime is that if you make it ‘woke’, it just won’t be funny, I promise you.”

The challenge is to make it work, not make it woke. “To do that, it’s about playing to the strengths of the cast, how they play their characters each year. I still have my imagination and it’s a young imagination for my age, and that’s vital for panto,” says Dame Berwick.

“We love to make it a little different, but at the same time, I don’t think anyone would go away from having ‘He’s behind you!’ in there, but we even change that a bit.”

In the first instalment of Defoe’s nautical trilogy, Robinson Crusoe introduces himself thus: “I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, tho’ not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull.”

Defoe’s  hero does not stay long in York, however, the call of the sea soon luring him to his shipwrecked fate. “In my story, I have to decide how far does he get up the Ouse before he meets the pirates,” says Dame Berwick.  What about Hull, the book’s starting  point. “No, not in our panto!”

Kaler’s pantomimes are no stranger to taking to the waters, whether in Dick Whittington or 2011’s The York Family Robinson or indeed the many bygone years of water slapstick for Dame Berwick and Barrass.

Will water slapstick or aquatic mishaps make a Kaler panto comeback? “You’ll be the first to know,” says Dame Berwick. “I’ve got to get water into it somehow, so I think you will see water, but I’m governed by the commercial pantomime producers and the space.

“To do a proper water scene, you do need the whole of the floor to be covered.  At the minute, I’m trying to get them to do something new and hopefully get a rocking cabin on the stage.”

Perennial panto villain David Leonard was dressed in a rather dandy wig for the City Cruises launch. “It’s a pirate theme, so they thought, ‘let’s have me looking like Captain Hook, AJ like Smee and Berwick as…well, looking like a ‘Mona Washboard’,” he says of that familiar harassed washer woman look.

As for his role, details are sketchy because Kaler will be writing “from scratch”. “He’ll be someone tall, a 6ft 3 ponce in a wig,” David speculates. “And evil,” says dame Berwick. “Oh yes, very evil.”

“Luvverly Brummie” AJ Powell has set his sets high. “I’m hoping for the title role this year. Robinson Crusoe,” he says. “But he never appears. He’s only spoken of,” jests David. “A bit like Berwick’s Mrs Fitzackerley, always mentioned but never seen!”

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Flying Ducks Youth Theatre to present northern premiere of Maureen Chadwick’s Crush: The Musical at JoRo Theatre

Out come the hockey sticks in rehearsal for Flying Ducks Youth Theatre’s Crush: The Musical

FLYING Ducks Youth Theatre stages the northern premiere of Maureen Chadwick and Kath Gotts’s 2015 comedy drama Crush: The Musical at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from Thursday to Saturday.

This week’s production will be the York company’s first book musical since Jenna Dee Howlett joined as director and chair in 2018. “We’re so excited to finally be putting on the show,” she says.

From the team behind Bad Girls: The Musical comes an outrageously fun, subversive musical set in 1963 in the Dame Dorothea Dosserdale School for Girls, an establishment with a proud tradition of fostering free spirits from all walks of life.

What a crushing blow when the new headmistress turns out to be a tyrant with strict Victorian values. Top of her hit list are two sixth-formers accused of “unnatural behaviour” – the “crush” of the title – in the Art Room.

Hope is revived, however, by a glamorous games mistress known as Miss Givings. Cue hockey sticks to the fore in an all-out battle to save the school and the course of true love. 

“Although set in the 1960s, Crush delivers a storyline that tackles important subjects of our modern-day society, delivering humour and satire too,” says Jenna Dee of Chadwick’s pastiche of girls’ school stories such as Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and Ronald Searle’s St Trinian’s books.

Pupil power rules: The Dame Dorothea Dosserdale School for Girls schoolgirls stage their protest in a Flying Ducks’ rehearsal for Crush: The Musical

“It explores themes of female empowerment, love is love, and fighting for what you believe in, while celebrating and subverting the traditional schoolgirl fiction genre.

“It’s a smashing musical comedy with lashings of charm, team spirit, a catchy score to have you toe-tapping in your seats and dazzling dance routines to keep you entertained from beginning to end. This is a terrific, all-round musical for the whole family, performed by a talented young cast, in this coming-of-age show.”

Picking stand-out musical numbers, Jenna Dee says: “Navy Knicks is a strong company number lead by Miss Givings,  encouraging the girls to stay positive, ‘put on their Navy Knicks, pick up their hockey stick’,  and fight for what they believe in!

“It’s Not Fair is a comedic, self-pitying outcry from the school ‘snitch’ Brenda Smears, who wants nothing more but to moan about why she doesn’t fit in, much to the other girls’ amusement. 

“Run Away/Stay, the closing number of Act One, is by far one of the most musically challenging numbers, but shows the talent and hard work the girls have put in over the past few months.

“With more than eight overlapping character and ensemble parts, and four transitions throughout the number, it’s sure to leave you going into the interval wanting to know what’s coming next.” 

Brolly good show: Flying Ducks Youth Theatre cast members in a colourful umbrella routine in Crush: The Musical

Taking over Flying Ducks from Stephen Outhwaite in 2018, Jenna Dee runs the Ducks group for ages 11 to 18 alongside her sister Sara Howlett, who trod the JoRo boards herself only last week in Rowntree Players’ production of another teenage classroom drama, John Godber’s Teechers Leavers ’22.

Jenna Dee has opened up new classes – Quacks and Ducklings – for ages four to ten that consist of fun drama-based games, scene and character work, singing, movement and dance.

Sessions strive to encourage individuality, self-expression and creativity while helping to build confidence and teach performance skills in a safe, friendly environment.

“The groups have gone from strength to strength with more than 120 members across all sessions,” says Jenna Dee. “After two successful musical variety performances at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, This Is Me in 2019 and No Day But Today in 2022, they’re so excited to be bringing a northern premiere to the stage this week with Crush: The Musical.

“This was supposed to be their debut book musical in 2020, but the pandemic got in the way, so with a brand-new talented cast of 30, an impressive set and a fantastic live band, they’re ready to show York what they have to offer.” 

Crush writer Maureen Chadwick, co-founder and creative director of Shed Productions, created and wrote the hard-hitting television dramas Waterloo Road, Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girls; composer and lyricist Kath Gotts has credits for Bad Girls: The Musical and The Realness. 

Flying Ducks Youth Theatre in Crush: The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, March 23 to 25, 7pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Flying Ducks Youth Theatre’s poster for Crush: The Musical

Flying Duck Youth Theatre’s credits for Crush: The Musical

Director and choreographer: Jenna Dee Howlett and Sara Howlett

Assistant director: Stephen Outhwaite

Musical director: Jessica Viner

Set design: Stephen Outhwaite

Stage manager: Paul Mantle

Costume: Ange Nemeth and Claire Newbold

Set builders: Sam Seago, John Pidcock and Paul Mantle

Set artwork: Anna Jones

Props: Stephen Outhwaite and Angela Day

Band: Jessica Viner and Gill Boler, keyboards; Kate Maloney, woodwinds; Christian Topman, bass; Mike Hampton, drums.

A scene from the tech rehearsal for Flying Ducks Youth Theatre’s Crush: The Musical

Cast

Eva Howe: Susan Smart

Sophie Wade: Camilla Faraday/Camille

Ruby Harrison: Daimler Jones/Desiree

Isabella Patton: Brenda Smears

Evie Fawcet: Miss Bleacher

Neve Gallafant: Miss Austin (Cast 1)/Ensemble

Nancy Mae Mooney: Miss Austin (Cast 2)/Ensemble

Ayda Mooney: Miss Giving/Diana Dosserdale/Buzz

Violet Orange: Benny/Dorian Dosserdale/Marlene (Cast 1)/Ensemble

Jess Ferguson: Benny/Dorian Dosserdale/Marlene (Cast 2)/Ensemble

Poppy Moass: Judith (Cast 1)/Ensemble

Amaia Hall: Judith (Cast 2)/Ensemble

Connie Wood: Lavinia (Cast 1)/Ensemble

Becka Nemeth: Lavinia(Cast 2)/Ensemble/Understudy Susan

Isla Thompson: Annabel (Cast 1)/Ensemble

Bethany Ellerker: Mum/Ensemble/Understudy Miss Givings

James Morton (the only boy in the cast): Dad/Ensemble

Mia Burton: Dorothea/Ensemble/Understudy Daimler

Elsa Adamson: Ensemble/Understudy Camilla

Lily Fawcett, Molly Hare, Sofia Iemboli, Megan Jones, Sylvie Morgan and Eva Robinson: all Ensemble

Lucy Parr: Ensemble/Understudy Dame Dorothea

Daisy Sullivan: Ensemble/Understudy Brenda

Jessica Whitelock: Ensemble/Understudy Mum

Hats galore in Flying Ducks Youth Theatre’s Crush: The Musical
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REVIEW: Original Theatre’s The Time Machine, York Theatre Royal, ends today ***

Be prepared to be amazed by time travel: Dave Hearn, left, and a shocked Michael Dylan and Amy Revelle in Original Theatre’s The Time Machine. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Original Theatre in The Time Machine, York Theatre Royal, today at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

SORRY, there isn’t much time left. Either for CharlesHutchPress to write this review after a truly madly deeply busy week spent in the darkness of theatres and gig venues. Or for you to read it or see The Time Machine before it leaves town forever.

Oh, for a time machine to have made time e    x    p    a     n    d.  Anyway, no time to delay. This is “father of science fiction” H G Wells’s The Time Machine. Or rather it is and it isn’t.

It is based loosely – clinging by its finger nails, more like – on Wells’s 1895 debut full-length sci-fi novel, the one where the Time Traveller invents a device for travelling through time on a journey to the year 802,701.

Herbert George Wells, by the way, used his time well, so well that he wrote more than 50 novels and dozens of short stories, while his non-fiction output took in works of social commentary, politics, history, science, satire, biography and autobiography.

Ah, but he didn’t write The Time Machine, A Comedy, instead the madcap work of Steven Canny, once associate director of Complicite, and John Nicholson, artistic director of Peepolykus, fellow specialists in absurdist, absurdly funny comedies.

In a compressed nutshell, three actors run a theatre company that’s trying to put on a production of The Time Machine, but with fairly limited success. “Limited” in the sense that Hearn, Amy Revelle and Michael Dylan keep veering wildly  from Wells’s intention to travel to the end of the Earth’s life to reflect on our own.

A big event happens that causes the play to spiral out of control as Hearn’s character, also called Dave, discovers actual time travel. Spoiler alert.

Everything stops for tea but not for long for Amy Revelle and Dave Hearn in The Time Machine. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Like in Hearn’s exploits for Mischief Theatre for the past decade, comedy rules all in the desire to get to the end, no matter what mishaps, detours, distractions befall the performance, within the structure of a play within a play, where the actors’ own world permeates the text.

In this case, Hearn is playing Dave Wells, HG’s assertive, egotistical great-great grandson, who wants to tell HG’s sci-fi tale, and is in such a hurry to do so, he is wearing tracksuit trousers and trainers.

But then so too are Amy, the “sensible” one who just wants to sing Cher songs at every opportunity, and Irishman Michael, a lovable science geek who’s having something of a meltdown day. Science fiction meets science friction as they are always on the cusp of falling out.

A door (vital to all farces), a chaise longue, dapper Victorian costumes, a theatrical knife prop, sounds off stage and repetition, repetition, repetition, all add to the fun and games.

“This is a show that laughs in the face of despair and insists on shining light in gloomy times,” says director Orla O’Laughlin (who even has a ‘laugh’ in her surname).

It does do exactly that, while also finding room for audience participation (on and off stage), show tunes, a mischievous nod to Derren Brown, explorations of the fourth dimension, and the “science bit” as Hearn turns into a boffin lecturer. Heck, sometimes, even HG’s story strives to get back on track amid the madness and the mayhem, as all’s Wells that ends well.

This is ‘metatheatre’, to use a pretentious word, but it is often ‘megatheatre’ too, judging by the excited reaction of the matinee school party in the dress circle.

Time and space is running out. What are you waiting for? Why are you still reading this? There’s no time like the present to see The Time Machine. Now.

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