Tucking in: Becky Heslop’s Molly and Charlie Blanshard’s Joe with George Green’s Mum in Next Door But One’s How To Be A Kid. All pictures: James Drury
First published on May 16 2025
YORK community arts collective Next Door But One has been touring How To Be A Kid to primary schools and Out Of Character at York St John University this week, bookended by public performances at York Explore and Friargate Theatre.
CharlesHutchPress was among the audience of adults and children at the first of two shows in the Marriott Room, a regular, wood-panelled location at York Explore for NDB1’s work.
Sarah McDonald-Hughes’s hour-long play for seven to 11-year-olds and their grown-ups has its roots in a Paines Plough premiere in London, but as ever with NDB1, associate director Kate Veysey’s production has been informed, indeed influenced and rubber-stamped by working with communities with lived experience of the subject. In this case, young carers, young people in care and the Out Of Character theatre group, whose members have experience of mental health issues.
Hence NDB1 has teamed up with Our Time Charity to raise awareness of mental health, young carers and those in care. A play can go only so far. Our Time Charity can go further.
Becky Heslop’s Molly and George Green’s Taylor in How To Be A Kid
McDonald-Hughes’s story of family, friends and fitting in certainly plays its part in highlighting the work of a group that often goes unspoken, maybe even unknown: young carers. Young carers such as Molly (played by Becky Heslop).
She is 12 years old; her dinosaur-fixated dreamer of a kid brother, Joe (Charlie Blanshard), is six. When, spoiler alert, Nan (George Green) dies, Mum (Green again) is so grief stricken, she becomes house-bound, even bed-bound.
Molly must cook, do the dishes, make sure Joe brushes his teeth, get him ready for school, find time for homework and look after Mum. How can she still be a child under such duress?
At one point, Joe is packed off to live with his dad; Molly, meanwhile, is placed in a care home for six weeks, where she befriends Taylor, soon her bestie with a mutual love of dancing.
Charlie Blanshard’s Joe lets out a dinosaur roar in How To Be A Kid
Scenes are short, likewise sentences are snappy, to make revelations even more startling. Character changes are no less swift, with the impressively diverse George Green being the quintessence of multi-role-playing: at the last count, nine! Namely, Taylor/Abby/Mum/Nan/bus driver/social worker Michelle/teacher Miss Johnson/monosyllabic McDonalds worker/swimming pool cleaner. Everything’s gone Green, to borrow a 1981 New Order song title.
And yes, you read that right: swimming pool cleaner. Under Kate Veysey’s direction, How To Be A Kid enters a world of magic realism where Molly is at the wheel of a car, Joe beside her, in his dinosaur top, as they head off to the baths, closed at night to the public, yet magically open to them.
Veysey, whether working with Youth Theatre Royal Youth Theatre or now with NDB1 and Out Of Character, has a way of making theatre work for young and older alike, and here she elicits delightful performances from the chameleon Green, Heslop’s resourceful Molly and Blanshard’s ever-imaginative Joe, as full of wonder and humour as pathos and bewilderment.
Why should we see How To Be A Kid, CharlesHutchPress asked the cast. “Because it’s a beautifully epic, hilarious adventure rooted in reality,” said Blanshard.
“It’s fun, it’s honest and it’s playful,” says How To Be A Kid actress Becky Heslop
“It’s fun, it’s honest and it’s playful. They are the three words to describe it – and there’s lots of cake and dinosaurs and dancing,” said Heslop. “It turns a light on grief, mental health and carers in a positive way.“
“I think it’s fun that means something, an hour of escapism, where you learn something, but not in a preachy way,” said Green.
Your reviewer couldn’t have put it better, so take their word for it. How To Be A Kid is child’s play with a serious message, one that states how everything can be changed by communication. In this case by talking with mum, not staying mum.
Make that two messages, because McDonald-Hughes places great store in the power of imagination and creativity in pursuit of joy and hope. In a nutshell, the tools of theatre.
Island Movements at Tang Hall Library in 2024. Picture: David Harrison for Explore York
EXPLORE York invites you to celebrate the untold stories of Britain’s black ballet dancers, brought centre stage for the first time in a new touring exhibition at York Explore Library.
The exhibition is free to view with no need to book, so just come along. In addition, during the May school half-term, it will be accompanied by a workshop programme, including dance, storytelling, photography, VR and more.
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Into The Light: Pioneers Of Black British Ballet is the result of a partnership between creative agency Oxygen Arts and Libraries Connected.
The exhibition bring together archive photography, film, newspaper articles and posters, alongside new video and audio interviews, to trace the history of black British ballet from the 1940s to the present day.
Into The Light showcases these dancers at the height of their careers, performing across Europe, Asia and North America during a time of profound global change—including the civil rights movement, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Dave Fleming, Explore York’s lead for innovation, creativity and learning, says: “Last year’s ballet performance, Island Movements, was a sell-out with an enthusiastic audience from five-year-olds to 80-year-olds packed into Tang Hall Library.
Black British Ballet exhibition, on display at York Explore. Picture by permission of Libraries Connected
“That was such an inspiring and unforgettable occasion. This exhibition and the accompanying events programme will offer people another chance to connect with the remarkable history of black British ballet. It’s an absolute pleasure to bring the Into the Light exhibition and events programme to York.”
The story of black dancers in British ballet is rich, complicated and inspiring. Its history stretches back to 1946, when Berto Pasuka, who had trained in classical ballet in Jamaica, founded Europe’s first black dance company, Les Ballet Nègres, alongside fellow Jamaican dancer Richie Riley.
Nothing forced about Adrian Hood’s “Rhubarb” Eddie in Richard Bean’s To Have And To Hold at Hull Truck Theatre
TO Have And To Hold began life at the Hampstead Theatre in London in November 2023 with a cast led by Alun Armstrong and Maria Bailey as an aged East Riding couple bickering more than ever after 60 years.
It is only right , however, that Hull playwright Richard Bean’s tragic-comedy should find its way back to his home city, with director Terry Johnson still at its helm. For like a gardener knows his scallions from his shallots, Bean knows his Wetwang (“wet land”) from his Driffield (“dry land”).
The theme of ageing, of passing on, and passing on the family baton, is universal, but planting To Have And To Hold on home soil makes it more fertile. Likewise, the sight of Hull Truck stalwart Adrian Hood filling a doorway reprising his Hampstead role back on familiar terra firma feels even more right.
Hoody is playing “Rhubarb” Eddie, and on his first entry we recognise him as much from the oversized sticks of Yorkshire’s champion vegetable, clasped to his midriff, as from Hood’s formidable frame, head still out of view.
Bean is as much a master of physical comedy as verbal wit, the two combining delightfully in the opening scene as Florence (Paula Wilcox, yes, Paula Wilcox, from Man About The House, Emmerdale and Driving Miss Daisy at York Theatre Royal) chugs up and down on a Stannah stairlift, torn between answering the voice at the door and the voice from the bedroom. The snail-slow build-up to the punchline makes it all the better.
Florence and former copper Jack (Ian Bartholomew) are as well worn as their Wetwang house in Dawn Allsopp’s design, with its faded wallpaper, black-and-white photographs and service hatch, through which Florence will pop her head like a cuckoo clock, forever offering to make cups of tea.
Into their nineties, forgetful Florence and the ailing yet mentally sharp Jack are at that Vladimir and Estragon stage in their relationship, finding each other endlessly irritating, yet inseparable, but not so much waiting for Godot as the creeping shadow of death. Such is the witty observation of Bean’s writing that they are very good company for the audience, their grouchy point scoring mirroring the spats of a double act.
Bean ekes comedy out of the stasis and foibles of an acrimonious relationship in a geriatric groove rather than a rut, and the erosion of memory that has Florence confusing names, whether calling Rob “Tina” or reaching for the elusive name of a movie director. You find yourself joining in the hunt under your breath.
Bean is far harsher on their offspring, just as middle-aged son and daughter are harsher too in their judgements, albeit with a residue of fondness and amused bemusement, even cringing, at the behaviour of their parents, who nevertheless continue to show unconditional love in absentia, albeit with head scratching aplenty at what has become a north-south divide.
Rob (Stephen Tompkinson) and Tina (Rebecca Johnson) visit only rarely – almost to the point of neglect – having long migrated from the family nest to pursue ambitions fuelled by education beyond their parents. Malcontent Rob is a TV and book writer of detective dramas, his time divided between London and Los Angeles; career-driven Tina is a private health care entrepreneur, living the Somerset lifestyle.
Whereas Florence and Jack trade harmless barbs, Rob and Tina drop bombs with damaging results for the parents’ regular visitors, odd-job man “Rhubarb” Eddie, and chippy cousin Pamela (Sara Beharrell), who both come under scrutiny over missing money as Bean weaves a mystery thread into his blistered domestic drama.
Bean worked as a psychologist and stand-up comedian before play writing took over, and comedy is always his first instinct, be it in one-liners or putdowns, or Florence referring to Jack’s “enlarged prostrate”. Yet amid the quips with everything, the psychologist is at work, exploring the impact of strained relationships and wounding words, accusations and recriminations.
The sudden insurgence of Covid has a transformative impact too. Bean’s plays often have pulled the rug from under the comedy with shards of darkness that echo the works of John Godber and Alan Ayckbourn. Here, instead, a redemptive rainbow follows that hail storm, involving the stories of his days on the beat that Jack has been recording secretly through the play. Bean now adds a gift for storytelling to his repertoire of combative comedy and cultural commentary.
Under Johnson’s finely tuned direction, Tompkinson’s irascible Rob, Wilcox’s frustrated yet perky Florence and Bartholomew’s physically frail but still assertive Jack excel, with impactful support from Johnson and Beharrell. Hood, the perennial scene stealer, once again is the comic apotheosis of less is more, dipping into pathos too. He puts you in mind of a northern Tommy Cooper, physically funny but with instinctive timing too.
Just as he did for Martin Barrass,when writing the elderly waiter Alfie in One Man, Two Guvnors expressly for his fellow son of Hull, so Bean has given Hood the ideal role for his deadpan delivery and comedic candour.
To Have And To Hold, Hull Truck Theatre, Hull, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Wednesday, Friday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk.
Pease in our time: John Pease tops bill at Patch’s new Funny Fridays comedy forum at the Bonding Warehouse
A NEW comedy night in a bygone location and Shakespeare on a council estate stand out in Charles Hutchinson’s picks for cultural exploration.
Laughter launch of the week: Funny Fridays, Patch, Bonding Warehouse, Terry Avenue, York, May 9, doors 7pm for 7.30pm start
LIVE comedy returns to the Bonding Warehouse for the first time since the days of the late Mike Bennett presenting the likes of Lee Evans and Ross Noble under the Comedy Shack banner. Stand up for Funny Fridays, hosted by York humorist Katie Lingo (alias copywriter Katie Taylor-Thompson) with an introductory price of £6.50.
On her first bill will be Kenny Watt, Tuiya Tembo, BBC New Comedy Awards semi-finalist Matty Oxley, Saeth Wheeler and Edinburgh Fringe Gilded Balloon semi-finalist John Pease. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk/e/funny-fridays-at-patch-tickets.
Sean Heydon: Magical sleight of hand at the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club tonight
Magical comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club presents Sean Heydon, Big Lou, Oliver Bowler and MC Damion Larkin, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 8pm
LAUGH Out Loud headliner Sean Heydon has performed to A-list celebrities and blue-chip companies, as well as at comedy clubs, with his combination of madcap comedy, sleight-of-hand magic and illusions for more than 15 years.
Big Lou offers a modern twist on old-school joke telling in the Les Dawson style; comedian, actor and writer Oliver Bowler discusses life experiences on the mean streets of Bolton; regular host and promoter Damion Larkin keeps order. Box office: 01904 612940 or lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.
Anastacia: Playing York Barbican on her Not That Kind 25th anniversary tour
Anniversary tour of the week: Anastacia, Not That Kind Tour, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.45pm
CHICAGO singer-songwriter Anastacia , 56, heads to York on her European tour marking the 25th anniversary of her debut album Not That Kind and its breakthrough hit I’m Outta Love.
Further singles Not That Kind, Paid My Dues, One Day In Your Life, Left Outside Alone and Sick And Tired charted too, as did 2001 album Freak Of Nature (reaching number four) and 2004’s chart-topping Anastacia, 2005’s Pieces Of A Dream, 2008’s Heavy Rotation, 2014’s Resurrection and 2015’s Ultimate Collection Her special guest will be Casey McQuillen. Box office: for returns only, yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Newton Faulkner: Unveiling new songs from his upcoming Octopus album at The Crescent, York
“No technological funny business” of the week: Newton Faulkner, Feels Like Home Tour 3, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
LET Reigate singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner describe his York gig: “Folks, I give you the Feels Like Home Tour 3. We’re talking no technological funny business in my set-up. I love switching my focus back to just playing and singing. I also cannot wait to introduce you properly to the new material and my new head.”
Often Faulkner has found himself in his home studio working solo, but not for this next record, nor for this tour. His new phase is full of collaboration, one where “seeing these songs come to life on stage is going to be nothing short of joyous” ahead of the September 19 release of Octopus. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape on his return to York Theatre Royal after 45 years. Picture: Gisele Schmidt
York theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, until May 17
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut in 1979, to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since 1989.
“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Tickets update: check availability of returns on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
York musician Steve Cassidy: Once he worked with John Barry and producer Joe Meek, now he plays with his mates on regular nights at the JoRo
Return of the week: Steve Cassidy Band, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
YORK singer, songwriter, guitarist and former head teacher Steve Cassidy will be joined by special guests when he lines up as usual with John Lewis on lead guitar, Mick Hull on bass guitar, ukulele, guitar and vocals, Brian Thomson on percussion and George Hall on keyboards.
Expect rock and country songs, as well as instrumental pieces, selected especially for this evening. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Mark Holgate’s Oberon and Suzy Cooper’s Titania, centre, with Sam Roberts’s Demetrius, left, Amy Domeneghetti’s Helena, Will Parsons’ Lysander and Meg Olssen’s Hermia in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Reinvented play of the week: York Stage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Grand Opera House, York, May 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees
YORK pantomime golden gal Suzy Cooper turns Fairy Queen Titania opposite York-born Royal Shakespeare Company actor Mark Holgate’s Fairy King Oberon in Nik Briggs’s debut Shakespeare production for York Stage.
In his first co-production with the Cumberland Street theatre, Briggs relocates the Bard’s most-performed comedy from the court of Athens to Athens Court, a northern council estate, where magic is fuelled with mayhem and true love’s bumpy path is played out to a new score by musical director Stephen Hackshaw and Nineties and Noughties’ dancefloor fillers, sung by May Tether. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Katherine Toy in rehearsals for AKA Theatre’s The Flood, on tour in York, Hull and Leeds. Picture: Cian O’Riain
Premiere of the week: AKA Theatre Company in The Flood: A Musical, Friargate Theatre, York, May 9 and 10, 7.30pm; Godber Studio, Hull Truck Theatre, Hull, May 13, 7pm; Leeds Playhouse Burton Studio, May 14 and 15, 8pm
AKA Theatre Company’s premiere of Lucie Raine and Joe Revell’s musical The Flood blends live music and heartfelt storytelling based on true accounts of facing up to disaster in West Yorkshire in 2015.
“This is a story about what it means to come together when everything falls apart,” says writer-director Raine, who uses a cast of five actor-musicians. “It’s not just a play. It’s a tribute to resilience and creativity, inspired by Hebden Bridge and its people. It’s a celebration for all communities who have faced adversity and emerged stronger.” Box office: York, ticketsource.co.uk; Hull, hulltruck.co.uk; Leeds, leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox: Putting the retro into today’s hits at York Barbican
Nostalgia for today: Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox: Magic & Moonlight Tour 2025, York Barbican, May 7, doors 7pm
AFTER chalking off their 1,000th show, retro collective Postmodern Jukebox are on the British leg of their Moonlight & Magic world tour. Enter a parallel universe where modern-day hits are reimagined in 1920s’ jazz, swing, doo-wop and Motown arrangements. Think The Great Gatsby meets Sinatra At The Sands meets Back To The Future. Dress vintage for the full effect. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
In Focus: York Late Music, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, Stuart O’Hara & Marianna Cortesi, today at 1pm; Trio Agile and Northern School of Contemporary Dance, today at 7.30pm
Stuart O’Hara & Marianna Cortesi
YORK Late Music plays host to two concerts today, the first featuring bass Stuart O’Hara and pianist Marianna Cortesi this afternoon as Sounds Lyrical presents settings of poets Hugh Bernays, John Gilham, Richard Kitchen and Alan Gillott by composers Thomas J Crawley, Robert Holden, Jenny Jackson, Katie Lang, Dawn Walters and James Else.
The concert comprises: Elizabeth Lutyens’ Refugee Blues (Auden); David Blake’s Morning Sea (CP Cavafy); Dawn Walters’ Pre-dawn (Richard Kitchen); Jenny Jackson’s Collecting Stones (Richard Kitchen); Robert Holden’s Flaneur (John Gilham) and Katie Laing’s Maker (Richard Kitchen).
Then come Thomas J Crawley’s Leather Heart (Hugh Bernays); James Else’s Retras IV (Alan Gillott); Tim Brooks’s Jeer (Lizzie Linklater); David Blake’s Voices (CP Cavafy) and Stephen Dodgson’s Various Australian Bush Ballads, 2nd Series. The programme also includes music by David Blake and Elizabeth Lutyens.
Northern School of Contemporary Dance dancer Antonio Bukhar Ssebuuma: Performing with Trio Agile tonight
TONIGHT’S concert marks a first collaboration between York Late Music and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Trio Agile and NSCD’s Freedom Dances programme.
Bringing together the freedoms of dance, music and rhythm, Trio Agile combine their experimental flair and improvisatory talent with four dancers from the Leeds school, Antonio Bukhar Ssebuuma, Darcy Bodle, Genevieve Wright and Maya Donne.
The 7.30pm performance blends a range of styles from across the globe in a shared expression of the power and joy of the arts, including new works from Indian composer and performer Supriya Nagarajan, Angela Elizabeth Slater, David Lancaster, Steve Crowther, David Power, Athena Corcoran-Tadd and James Else.
Curated by James Else in partnership with the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the programme comprises: Susie Hodder-Williams & Chris Caldwell, Prelude; Angela Elizabeth Slater, Weaving Colours; Paul Honey, Une Valse Assez Triste; James Else, Freedom Dances and David Lancaster, The Compendium Of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.
Then follow Susie Hodder-Williams & Chris Caldwell, Pas de Deux; Tom Armstrong, Aunt Maria’s Dancing Master; Paul Honey, Pizzìca; Athena Corcoran-Tadd, To You; Supriya Nagarajan, Mohanam Raga; Steve Crowther, Once Upon A Time Harlequin Met His Columbine; David Power, Something In Our Skies; Susie Hodder-Williams & Chris Caldwell, Light Dances and Athena Corcoran-Tadd , Hope Is A Boat.
The musicians will be: Susie Hodder-Williams, flutes; Chris Caldwell, saxophone and bass clarinet; Richard Horne, vibraphone and percussion; Supriya Nagarajan, voice, and Paul Honey, piano.
Chris Caldwell, Susie Hodder-Williams and composer James Else will give a pre-concert talk at 6.45pm with a complimentary glass of wine or juice.
Tickets are on sale at latemusic.org or on the door.
Rebecca Jackson’s Maria in NE Theatre York’s The Sound Of Music
RODGERS & Hammerstein’s The Sound Of Music is handed from York company to York company.
After Nik Briggs’s production on a grand scale for York Stage Musicals at the Grand Opera House in 2019 and Robert Readman’s Pick Me Up Theatre staging for Theatre@41’s Christmas show in 2022, now comes Steve Tearle’s show for NE Theatre York at a third location, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre.
Officially press tickets had been given over to charity by director-producer Tearle, but your reviewer was kindly accommodated at Wednesday’s performance.
Tearle played milkman Tevye for the third time when NE Theatre staged Fiddler On The Roof in April 2014, delivering the York company’s most moving production under his usually flamboyant leadership.
The Sound Of Music is of a similar ilk: the anti-Semitism of Fiddler now matched by the rise of Nazism, and once more you can see how moved he is by his cast’s performance and the audience’s reaction to a show played out against a 2025 backdrop of political turmoil and the rise of the Right.
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical has further significance for Tearle, who made his stage debut aged 11 as Kurt, one of the Von Trapp children, in a professional tour.
“I’ve always loved this show, and remembering my experience of it always fills me with joy,” he says. “Fast forward to 2025 and I get to produce this famous musical and play my personal favourite part in the show, Max Detweiler.”
Detweiler has been called a “political cockroach”, but just as Andrew Isherwood peppered his Pick Me Up performance with a comic edge more associated with the Emcee in Cabaret, Tearle favours a dapper flamboyance in his wardrobe and camp manner, being arch and surprisingly avuncular, rather than sinister. Having the fluffiest of canine companions in his own dog, Millie Bell, makes it all the harder to be a scurrying, hard-edged cockroach rather than the symbol of limp Austrian compliance with Hitler.
Tearle loves to stretch NE Theatre, whether in size of cast or scale of ambition or his passion for inclusivity. This time that adds up two Marias (Rebecca Jackson & Maia Beatrice); two Captain Von Trapp (Matthew Clarke & Chris Hagyard); three groups of Von Trapp children and multiple members of Strensall & HuntingtonWomen’s Institute, plus the aforementioned dog.
In their centenary year, Tearle reached out to Strensall & Huntington WI to play the Nonnberg Abbey nuns, and they open the show in choral Latin song, filing in from the wings and the aisles, candles in hand, to fill the stage and line up in front too, the essence of devotion and purity, with a huge cross on the cloth behind.
It is a beautiful moment of solemnity, peace, sanctuary, as much a cry for today’s world as 1938 Austria, where the hills may be alive with the sound of music but that will soon be drowned out by anything but music, replaced by extremism, intolerance and a hail of Sieg Heils.
The nuns will return at the finale, filling the stage once more with almost painfully beautiful song. Tearle’s directorial judgement here is at its best.
He could let silence fall, but ever effusive, the PT Barnum in Tearle has him addressing the audience, inviting us to take photos, talking of the impact of the show on himself and the cast and plugging NE Theatre’s upcoming concert production of Carousel at Tempest Anderson Hall, Museum Gardens, in June and the York premiere of Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, The New Musical, at the JoRo in November.
Wednesday’s cast was fronted by Rebecca Jackson’s serene Maria Rainer and Chris Hagyard’s stern but loving widower father, Austrian naval captain Captain Von Trapp.
Jackson radiates goodness and good humour as the unsure trainee nun who finds her true calling looking after seven von Trapp children: the young governess with nonconformist ideas, full of love and kindness, strong of will, independent of mind, determined to nurture and bring joy, but still with so much to learn herself.
She bonds delightfully with the children, led by Caitlin Smith’s wilful Liesl, and her singing is equally adept solo or in tandem with the children.
Hagyard’s Captain von Trapp goes from austere authority, issuing orders to staff and children alike on his whistle, to warming under Maria’s influence, while never wavering from his bold stance against Nazism. He sings Edelweiss with tenderness to still the rising storm.
The supreme vocal performance award goes to Perri Anne Barley’s Mother Abbess, climbing every demanding rising note in Climb Ev’ry Mountain, but sung in keeping with her matriarchal concern rather than with unnecessary showy excess.
Praise too for Ali Butler-Hind’s Elsa Schraeder, all airs and graces, and especially for the outstanding Finlay Butler’s Rolf Gruber, the naïve delivery boy who takes up the Nazi cause. Joe Allen’s musical forces are in fine form too.
From swastikas on the auditorium walls to archive footage of German boots pounding on Austrian soil, the rise of Nazism haunts Tearle’s show throughout.
NE Theatre York in The Sound Of Music, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee, all SOLD OUT. Box office: for returns only, 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Suzy Cooper’s Queen of the Fairies, Hippolyta, in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
GARY Oldman will not be the only former Berwick Kaler co-star returning to a York stage in 2025.
Suzy Cooper, for more than 20 years the ditzy, posh-voiced, jolly super principal gal in the grand dame’s pantomimes, will lead Nik Briggs’s cast alongside York-born actor Mark Holgate in the dual roles of courtly Hippolyta and Theseus and the quarrelling Queen and King of the Fairies, Titania and Oberon, in York Stage’s reinvention of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from May 6 to 11.
In his tenth anniversary of producing and directing shows at the Grand Opera House, Briggs relocates his debut Shakespeare production from the court of Athens to Athens Court, a northern council estate, where magic is fuelled with mayhem and true love’s path still does not run smooth, set to a Nineties and Noughties’ dancefloor soundtrack of Freed From Desire, No Limits, Show Me Love, Everytime We Touch et al as Shakespeare meets Shameless.
Presented as York Stage’s first co-production with the Cumberland Street theatre, Briggs’s ‘Dream’ will feature a new score by musical director Stephen Hackshaw. “Whilst not being a musical, the show will include a live band alongside powerhouse vocals that York Stage are famous for with their musical production,” says Nik.
Mark Holgate and Suzy Cooper in rehearsal for York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Suzy last trod the Grand Opera House boards in dowager dame Berwick Kaler’s valedictory pantomime after 47 years on the York stage in Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse, the final curtain falling on January 6 2024.
“It will be lovely to be back in York, performing at the Grand Opera House again,” says Suzy. ““I’ve not worked with Mark before, but he did the Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre season in York the same summer that I did it at Blenheim, when we brushed shoulders in that amazing tent when we gathered for the start of the second summer. It’s going to be a lot of fun working with him.
“For ‘Dream’, the lovely Nik rang me and said, ‘it’s a very unusual thing we’re doing, a co-production with the Grand Opera House, and would you like to play Hippolyta?’. I didn’t need to think about, and not to have to audition was music to my ears!”
Mark’s career has taken in the Royal Shakespeare Company, Cheek By Jowl, Sheffield Crucible and theatres across the UK, as well as such roles as Banquo in Macbeth and Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre seasons in 2018 and 2019 in his home city.
Forest fireworks: Mark Holgate’s Oberon in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
He last performed on a York stage in Riding Lights Theatre Company’s staged reading of Maryland, Lucy Kirkwood’s “howl” of a protest play, directed by Bridget Foreman at the Friargate Theatre in November 2021.
Mark’s participation in York Stage’s ‘Dream’ was “actually all down to my Dad”. “He has always been a great support of my acting career,” he says. “He read an article in The Press and sent it over to me, about York Stage putting on ‘Dream’ and that they were holding auditions. I dropped Nik a line, came to York Stage to meet him and that was that.”
Reflecting on the contrast between his past Shakespeare experiences, including Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, and now with York Stage, Mark says: “The main difference is the rehearsal schedule. A lot of the cast have 9-5s and so rehearsals have worked around people’s availability. Whereas I would rehearse for three or four weeks consecutively, with this production you could have a gap of two weeks before being back in the room again.
“So you really have to be on your game at keeping track of everything you’ve discovered and set in rehearsal. Working in this way is completely new to me. It definitely keeps it fresh and exciting.”
Suzy Cooper: “Making decisions organically about how we’ll play Hippolyta’s relationship with Theseus”
Suzy adds: “Mark and I have had around five days’ rehearsals, which though it sounds really scary, as you’d normally do three weeks, but actually they’re intense days, so I just have to keep calm and carry on!
“We’re still undecided, right up to the last minute, making decisions organically about how we’ll play Hippolyta’s relationship with Theseus, where she’s been won as a prize, but maybe she’s not unhappy about that. Wait and see!
“It’s trickier than Titania, and you know me, I need to get my [acting] shoes on to get my feet rooted in a role.”
What are the challenges of playing two roles, Theseus and Oberon, in one play, Mark? “Remembering who I am playing in each scene. Only joking! Theseus is quite tricky as, once you’ve seen him in the first scene, he doesn’t appear again right till the end. Keeping hold of his journey after playing Oberon in between will be the challenge.
Mark Holgate’s Oberon and Suzy Cooper’s Hippolyta, centre, with Sam Roberts’s Demetrius, left, Amy Domeneghetti’s Helena, Will Parsons’ Lysander and Meg Olssen’s Hermia in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“I’m really looking forward to taking them on to the Grand Opera House stage. Both of my daughters have performed there but I never have. They beat me to it.”
York Stage’s ‘Dream’ calls on Mark to do a double act at the double with Suzy Cooper’s Hippolyta and Titania. “Suzy and I have never worked together but we have crossed paths. On the first day of rehearsal I was a bit nervous as usual on the first day. Like the first day of school. Then Suzy entered the room, I walked over and gave her a hug and all my nervous energy disappeared.
“She has been an absolute joy to work with and I really look forward to sharing the Grand Opera House stage with her.”
Both Suzy and Mark have “previous” form for appearing in Shakespeare’s most performed comedy. “I’ve never played Titania before, but I did play the fairy, Mustardseed, and Snout the Tinker in Lucy Pitman-Wallace’s production at York Theatre Royal, with Malcom Skates as Bottom and Andrina Carroll as Titania, and then Peter Quince in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s production at Blenheim Palace in 2019, the summer when I also played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth,” says Suzy.
“Suzy has been an absolute joy to work with and I really look forward to sharing the Grand Opera House stage with her,” says Mark Holgate
“Those nights doing ‘Dream’ were so joyful, when director Juliet Forster said ‘just trust in what you do’, but Nik’s show is a very different ‘Dream to any I’ve seen or done before, with Nik’s wonderful design and working with a composer. It’s the youngest, most exciting version I’ve experienced. I’m seeing out my history in the play with these new actors.”
Mark was part of Juliet Forster’s cast for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre production of ‘Dream’ at the Eye of York in 2018. “The audience just love it,” he says, exploring the 1595 play’s abiding popularity. “Apart from theatre being a great form of escapism, the play itself is such a fantastic piece. It has great characters, it’s funny, dramatic, poetic, and in this production the songs, movement and storytelling from a superb ensemble will really blow your socks off.
“I hope people come to see it because it will be so different to the idea of Shakespeare that you have in your head. It will be a lot of fun. It’s on for only one week, so get those tickets booked.”
York Stage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Grand Opera House, York, May 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees . Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Dream casting: York Stage’s poster artwork for Suzy Cooper and Mark Holgate’s participation in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The artwork for Shakespeare’s Speakeasy at York International Shakespeare Festival
“IT’S Shakespeare, but it’s secret”.Can a group of strangers successfully stage a Shakespearean play in a day?
Shakespeare’s Speakeasy is the place find out as part of York International Shakespeare Festival at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow at 7.30pm (box office, yorkshakes.co.uk).
Directed and produced by Steve Arran, for one night only this production offers an irreverent and entertaining take on one of Bill the Bard’s best-known plays, crammed into only 60 minutes.
“Five actors are given a script with their lines and cues and must learn it over the course of a month without ever meeting each other,” says Steve. “On the day of performance, the actors meet for the first time and rehearse for six hours before staging a 100 per cent ‘not-all-serious play’ from the canon.
“But which play will it be? Well, like all good Speakeasy shows, that’s a secret. The only way to find out is to come inside.”
Like last year’s inaugural York Shakespeare Speakeasy, when he played Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, one of the actors will be Ian Giles, soon to reveal his Bottom in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Grand Opera House, York, from May 6 to 11 (box office, atgtickets.com/york).
Ian Giles’s Bottom in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, set on a northern council estate
Climb every mountain: Rebecca Jackson in the role of Maria in Steve Tearle’s production of The Sound Of Music for NE Theatre York
THE spring weather may be perking up, but Charles Hutchinson still finds reasons aplenty to stay in the dark for cultural satisfaction.
York musical of the week: NE Theatre York in The Sound Of Music, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
IN its centenary year, members of Strensall Women’s Institute have accepted NE Theatre York creative director Steve Tearle’s invitation to play the abbey nuns in this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
The show brings back special memories for Tearle, who played Kurt Von Trapp at the age of 11 in a professional tour in his first role in any show. This time he plays his favourite part, Max Detweiler. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Cracking the whip: Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity Jane in Calamity Jane, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Mark Senior
Whip-cracking touring musical of the week: Calamity Jane, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees
WEST End leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher takes the title role of fearless, gun-slinging Calamity Jane, the biggest mouth in Dakota territory and always up for a fight, in North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster’s touring production, based on the cherished 1953 Doris Day movie.
When the men of Deadwood fall hard for Chicago stage star Adelaid Adams, Calamity struggles to keep her jealousy holstered. Here come The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away), The Black Hills Of Dakota, Just Blew In From The Windy City and Secret Love in this Watermill Theatre production, choreographed by Nick Winston. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Got it taped: Gary Oldman with the reel-to-reel tape machine in Krapp’s Last Tape at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Gisele Schmidt
York theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, until May 17
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut in 1979, to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since 1989.
“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Tickets update: check availability of returns on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Andy Bell: New songs, solo favourites and Erasure hits at York Barbican tonight
York gig of the week: Andy Bell, Ten Crowns Tour, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm
ERASURE singer Andy Bell opens his tour at York Barbican on the eve of Friday’s release of his third solo album, Ten Crowns, ten tracks of dazzling, joyous pop, produced and polished in Nashville, inspired by the dancefloor and gospel, available on vinyl, CD (standard and 2CD versions), gold cassette and digitally via Crown Recordings.
Bell’s set combines new compositions with favourites from his solo catalogue and Erasure hits aplenty. His band features his principal Ten Crowns collaborator and co-writer, Grammy-winning American producer Dave Audé, who opens tomorrow’s show with a DJ set. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Guitar Legends: Terrific riffs galore at Milton Rooms, Malton
Tribute show of the week: Guitar Legends, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm,
GUITAR Legends celebrates the music of iconic guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Prince, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler and Jimi Hendrix.
Through a blend of live music, visuals and anecdotes, the show takes a journey through rock history, showcasing tenor vocal prowess and guitar virtuosity. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Learlike: Greensleeved tell Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear from the distaff side at York International Shakespeare Festival
Festival of the week: York International Shakespeare Festival presents Greensleeved in Learlike, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, Saturday, 2pm
GREENSLEEVED, a female-led pan-European ensemble, premiere their show Learlike in York, presenting Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear but this time told by his daughters. These tyrant-children are newly in power but old in their ability for manipulation and deceit. Or are they? Even in the most corrupt homes the roots of resistance grow deep.
Greensleeved comprises performers who met at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: Amber Frances (Belgium), Ariela Nazar-Rosen (Poland/USA), Lucy Doig (Scotland), Julia Vredenberg (Norway) and Cecilia Thoden van Velzen (Netherlands). For the full programme to May 4 and tickets, head to: yorkshakes.co.uk.
Rob Auton: Any eyeful tower of ocular comedy at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall
The eyes have it: Rob Auton: The Eyes Open And Shut Show, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, Saturday, 7.30pm
“THE Eyes Open And Shut Show is a show about eyes when they are open and eyes when they are shut,” says surrealist Barmby Moor/York comedian, writer, artist, podcaster and actor Rob Auton. “With this show I wanted to explore what I could do to myself and others with language when eyes are open and shut…thinking about what makes me open my eyes and what makes me shut them.” Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Scouting For Girls: Heading for York and Leeds in 2026
Gig announcement of the week: Scouting For Girls, York Barbican, March 17 and Leeds O2 Academy, March 24 2026
LONDON trio Scouting For Girls will accompany the 2026 release of a new studio album with a 22-date tour that takes in York Barbican and Leeds O2 Academy next March. General ticket sales open at 10am on Friday at yorkbarbican.co.uk and academymusicgroup.com.
Roy Stride, vocals, piano and guitar, Greg Churchouse, bass guitar, and James Rowlands, drums, last payed York Barbican in October 2021. Next year’s shows will mark the 15th anniversary of their Everybody Wants To Be On TV album too.
Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity in Nikolai Foster’s production of Calamity Jane. Picture: Mark Senior
MUM knows best. West End leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher has played Éponine and Fantine in Les Misérables, Veronica Sawyer in Heathers: The Musical and Wednesday in The Addams Family, as well as originating the role of Cinderella in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella, but her mother reckoned there was one role her South Harrow daughter was born to play.
Namely, the gun-slingin’, tough-talkin’, hard-ridin’ American frontierswoman Calamity Jane, the feisty tomboy role immortalised by Doris Day in the 1953 film and last played on tour on the Grand Opera House stage by Jodie Prenger in February 2015.
Mrs Fletcher’s instinct was spot on. Here was a Calamity waiting to happen, you could say. Carrying her mum’s hopes, Carrie Hope is whip-smart in The Watermill’s cracker of a touring production as York audiences experience her musical theatre chops for the first time, having seen her only in Love Letters, her exploration in song of all forms of love, from romantic to maternal, unrequited to obsessive, at York Barbican last October.
What a fabulous voice she has, even if the emotional release of the serenading Secret Love was shared with a women in the row behind your reviewer, who could not resist joining in with every line. Please, please desist.
Perhaps now is the time to introduce a singalong performance for every familiar touring musical to abate this selfish trend. If not, dear audiences, show better instinct when to join in, pretty much at the cast’s invitation here for reprises of Deadwood Stage and Black Hills Of Dakota.
Seren Sandham-Davies’s Katie Brown, the wannabe showgirl in Calamity Jane. Picture: Mark Senior
The 2025 Calamity Jane carries all the hallmarks of the 2015 version: direction by North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster; co-direction and choreography by Nick Winston; set and costume design by Matthew Wright; musical supervision and orchestration by Catherine Jayes, topped off by the witty touch of the plush Grand Opera House being covered by a worn, faded, ropey one to transform the York theatre into the financially stricken Golden Garter theatre in Deadwood, South Dakota.
A lonesome banjo is attached, the first sign that this will be an actor-musician musical, where even Carrie Hope Fletcher joins on coconuts to mimic the sound and motion of a horse and carriage.
Complementing Wright’s nostalgic palette of colours in his evocation of the Deadwood City of Summer 1876, Tim Mitchell’s lighting compounds the sense of being amid the summer dust, dry heat, bluest skies and wild life of the Midwest, where Calamity Jane’s entrance is held back to enable maximum impact after talk aplenty about of how she “tried to behave like a man but couldn’t help lovin’ like a woman”.
Fletcher looks right at home in buckskins and britches, hands on her gun belt, quips on her lips, Dakota accent on a roll. Her Calamity whips up a storm; she sure can crack a wisecrack and she is as abrasive as coal tar soap once was, but behind the brassy front of this game gal is a vulnerability that steadily seeps through, especially when her romantic feelings are exposed.
Fletcher’s Calamity does not need to fire a gun to make an impact on each return, and crucially for the light, humorous tone of Foster’s production of Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster and Charles K Freeman’s musical, Fletcher’s performance is suffused with fun to go with the games being played.
Falling out: Vinny Coyle’s Wild Bill Hickok clashes with Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity. Picture: Mark Senior
Caught up in those games are Vinny Coyle’s Wild Bill Hickok and Luke Wilson’s Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin, as they squabble over Seren Sandham-Davies’s young maid and wannabe singer Katie Brown.
As in 2015, Jayes’s orchestrations bring out the golden ripeness of such familiar songs as The Deadwood Stage, The Black Hills Of Dakota and A Woman’s Touch in a rip-roaring show where the actor-musician skills on all manner of acoustic instruments add so much to the joy. Winston’s choreography peaks with the hoedown euphoria of Hoedown.
You will go wild for Coyle’s old-fashioned leading man, Wild Bill Hickok, a guitar slinger as much as a gun slinger when he sings Higher Than A Hawk, while you can feel Wilson’s smitten Gilmartin turning up the room temperature on an already warm night.
Above all, just as her mum predicted, Fletcher carries all before her as Calamity, a whip-crackin’ winner of a goodtime, goofball musical hit.
Calamity Jane, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
York Dance Works dancers join Carrie Hope Fletcher on The Deadwood Stage at Grand Opera House at Calamity Jane matinee
Pink stetson gathering:Lead actress Carrie Hope Fletcher and the York Dance Works dance team on stage at the Grand Opera House, York, before Wednesday’s matinee of Calamity Jane, the 100th performance of the 2025 tour
YORK Dance Works’ adult dance team met multi-award-winning West End actress and singer Carrie Hope Fletcher to relive their ‘Deadwood Stage’ moment at the Grand Opera House on Wednesday.
That afternoon they watched Carrie playing the title role in the matinee to celebrate their love of the whip-crackin’ American musical.
Before the 2020-2021 pandemic, the dance group learned a routine to The Deadwood Stage to be performed in a showcase event. When lockdown was imposed, the team continued to learn the routine virtually, enabling the group to keep in touch and dance their way through a challenging period. The dancers eventually performed the routine live in 2022 and have not forgotten it since.
York Dance Works principal Catherine Finta says: “When we were learning the routine online, it became a highlight – to dance, chat and have a social catch-up in what was quite a lonely time.
Cast members celebrate the 100th performance of the 2025 tour of Calamity Jane with cake and balloons on the Grand Opera House stage stage on Wednesday
“Normally, we finish routines and move on to the next one, but with the stop/start uncertainty of the lockdowns, we worked on this one for longer than usual. When we were finally able to, we wanted to perform this on stage, pink stetsons and all, and finally did in summer 2022.
“When we heard Calamity Jane was coming to York, we immediately booked a dance group outing to see the fabulous Carrie Hope Fletcher and the amazing cast.”
Wednesday’s matinee also marked the 100th performance of the Calamity Jane tour. Among the cast is Samuel Holmes, who plays Francis Fryer, having last appeared at the Cumberland Street theatre in the 2012 tour of Monty Python’s Spamalot.
“I’m very excited to be doing our 100th performance, especially in such a beautiful theatre,” he says. “It’s a very special theatre with lots of special memories for me. The audiences are so amazing, and the reactions to the performances have been brilliant. So, if you can get a ticket, come down and see us as we’d love to celebrate the hoedown and the party with you”.
Lisa George: From Coronation Street to the Grand Opera House pantomime with the wave of the Fairy Godmother’s wand
CORONATION Street soap actress Lisa George is the first star to be announced for this winter’s Grand Opera House pantomime in York.
From December 6 to January 4 2025, she will swap Weatherfield for the Fairy Godmother’s glittering wings and wand to “cast enchantment over audiences in this spellbinding tale of love, laughter and letting your sparkle shine as Christmas, dreams really do come true”.
“I’m absolutely delighted to be appearing as Fairy Godmother at the Grand Opera House, York,” says Lisa. “Panto is such a special time of year, and I can’t wait to see families and friends come together to share in the magic over the festive season.”
Known to millions as Corrie’s Beth Sutherland,Lisa is a powerhouse performer with serious theatre chops too. A graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, in Cardiff, she has toured nationally in musicals, tribute shows and pantomimes, showcased her vocals on All Star Musicals and skated on Dancing On Ice, finishing fifth in 2020 when partnering Tom Naylor.
A true all-rounder, Lisa is a gifted vocalist and seasoned live performer, who has toured the UK with musical tributes and soul and swing bands, even supporting rock’n’roll legends Little Richard and Chuck Berry.
Under the moniker Lisa George And The Pedalos, she released the rockabilly album The Devil Said Shake, showcasing her powerhouse vocals and retro flair. Her deep love for live performance has seen her take on everything from musical comedy and straight drama to radio plays and pantomimes, bringing heart, humour and authenticity to every role she has played.
Lisa George: First star name to be confirmed for Cinderella at the Grand Opera House, York
From soul bands to Shakespeare, she has done it all, and now Lisa is ready to light up the Grand Opera House in a UK Productions show scripted by Jon Monie, winner of Best Script at the Great British Pantomime Awards. Here comes comedy, festive cheer, dazzling costumes and miniature ponies.
UK Productions producer Martin Dodd says:“We are thrilled to welcome Lisa George to the cast of Cinderella in York. Lisa brings a huge amount of talent, warmth and star power to the stage, and we know that the audience will fall in love with her Fairy Godmother.
“We’re also delighted to return to the Grand Opera House with another spectacular musical pantomime created by an incredible team of writers, directors, designers and performers. York truly embraces the magic of our panto, and we can’t wait to share this year’s sparkling production with everyone.”
Laura McMillan, the Grand Opera House’s theatre director, says: “We can’t wait to welcome Lisa to the Grand Opera House in what will be another spectacular, magical, musical panto. The audience are in for another treat this year as we bring York the iconic panto title Cinderella, a show that will be enjoyed by the whole family. This is the most fun you can have with one pumpkin, two ponies and a whole lot of fairy dust!”
Watch this space for news of further casting for UK Productions’ fourth pantomime at the Grand Opera House.
Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, December 6 to January 4 2026. For tickets, go to: atgtickets.com/york
