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Chief excutive Paul Crewes reveals vision for York Theatre Royal future in new season

York Theatre Royal chief executive officer Paul Crewes. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

ONCE the York Theatre Royal packed away the big top as the circus-themed Around The World In 80 Days-ish concluded its globe-trotting travels last Saturday, attention could turn to the autumn and winter season.

At its core will be two in-house productions: Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster’s staging of Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age story Little Women, from September 21 to October 12, and the year-ending pantomime Aladdin, co-produced by the Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions, from December 3 to January 5.

Presented in association with “silent partner” Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Little Women is adapted by Anna Marie Casey in a new look at the story of headstrong Jo and her sisters Meg, Beth and Amy growing up in New England during the American Civil War.

Aladdin reunites regular dame Robin Simpson and baddie Paul Hawkyard, who returns after a year’s absence to restore a partnership last seen as Mrs Smee and Captain Hook in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan. Joining them will be CBeebies star Evie Pickerill as Spirit Of The Ring and BBC Let It Shine winner Sario Solomon in the title role.

“What we’re trying to do here is look to increase the work we produce ourselves, which has become smaller for reasons such as Covid,” says chief executive officer Paul Crewes. “We have to re-establish ourselves as a producing theatre that presents great touring work as well.”

Add Around The World In 80 Days-ish to the home-grown list, and Paul’s vision for the future is taking shape. “I want our in-house productions to run for more than ten days. That’s risky but unless you start doing it, you don’t build an audience,” he says.

“Then you think, ‘what work do I want to put around those shows?’, ‘how do we balance and support that work?’, and one of the things I want to do is build a programme of really high-quality dance shows. That’s why we have London City Ballet coming back for the first time in nearly 30 years as part of their re-launch.”

On September 6 and 7, London City Ballet will perform a revival of Kenneth Macmillan’s 1972 one-act ballet Ballade, not seen in Europe for more than 50 years, Arielle Smith’s premiere of Five Dances and artistic director Christopher Marney’s 2022 work Eve.

“We’re also delighted to have Company Wayne McGregor performing Autobiography (V102 and V103) on October 25 and 26,” says Paul. “Wayne McGregor is one of the top choreographers in the world; he’s just been knighted and he’s running the dance programme for the Venice Biennale 2024. That’s some statement about the quality we’re trying to establish here.”

Genetic codes, AI and choreography merge in this McGregor work that re-imagines and remakes itself anew for every performance as “artificial intelligence and instinct converge in creative authorship”..

Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of): Not sort of, but definitely, on stage at York Theatre Royal from November 4 to 9. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovicast

Looking further ahead, the Theatre Royal will welcome Jasmin Vardimon: Now, a new creation by choreographer Jasmin Vardimon MBE, celebrating the 25th anniversary of her dance theatre company, on February 8 next year. “This will be the company’s first time in York,” says Paul.

In addition to Little Women, the autumn’s classic literary focus will continue with Newcastle Theatre Royal’s Olivier Award-winning Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), by Isobel McArthur after Jane Austen, from November 4 to 9. Billed as a unique and audacious retelling of Austen’s iconic love story”, in a nutshell, “it’s the 1800s, it’s party time. Let the ruthless matchmaking begin”.

“I’ve known the producer, David Pugh, for a long time, and it’s good to take shows from the West End and bring them here,” says Paul.

On a literary bent too, crime writer Ian Rankin’s detective Rebus treads the boards in a new play, Rebus: A Game Called Malice, from October 15 to 19, with Glasgow-born Gray O’Brien, last seen in York as the boorish, bigoted Juror 10 in Twelve Angry Men at the Grand Opera House in May, taking the role of John Rebus.

Rankin, who will attend a post-show discussion on October 18, has co-written the play with Simon Reade, set at a stately home dinner party where guests are required by the hostess to play a murder mystery game she has thought up. “It’s well timed after the new TV series, and having Ian Rankin at the discussion is a bit of a coup too,” says Paul.

Olivier Award winner Sally Cookson directs the Bristol Old Vic’s innovative production of Wonder Boy, Ross Willis’s “heartwarming and inspiring story about the power of communication packed with playful humour, dazzling visuals and thrilling original music”. Look out for live creative captioning on stage throughout from October 29 to November2. “Sally has a fantastic track record at Bristol and the National Theatre, and this piece just looks really, really exciting,” says Paul.

Among the one-nighter highlights are two Simons: An Evening With Simon Russell Beale, on September 10, wherein the Olivier Award-winning actor delves into his life and career to celebrate his memoir, A Piece Of Work, and An Evening With Simon Armitage & LYR, on January 24, featuring poetry and live performance by the Poet Laureate and his band.

“We just grabbed at the chance to put on Simon Russell Beale’s show when it was offered,” says Paul. “I’m not a great fan of actors standing on stage talking about themselves, but if it’s Simon Russell Beale – or Ian McKellen – then why not!”

Full details of the new season can be found at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk, including the Theatre Royal Studio taking on a new guise from October as a cabaret club after a makeover and name change to The Old Paint Shop for nights of music, improv and burlesque by York  artists. Box office: 01904 623568.

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REVIEW: Around The World In 80 Days-ish, York Theatre Royal, roll up, roll up, until August 3 ****

David Abécassis’s Clown, left, Maria Gray’s Acrobat, Kiefer Moriarty’s Ringmaster, Ambika Sharma’s Trick Rider and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower in Around The World In 80 Days-ish at York Theayre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

THIS circus has left town twice before, in 2021 after 23 days and 2023 after only three for a national tour, but all the stops are pulled out for the big top’s return under a new-ish name, Around The World In 80 Days-ish.

This time, at the height of the circus summer season, creative director Juliet Forster’s dandy adaptation has a bonus to go with the bonanza: a circus school for five to 11-year-olds to learn the tricks of the trade in a one-hour pre-show workshop. All the thrill of learning a skill with aerial artiste Maria Gray as well as the fun of the fair that follows.

At Thursday’s matinee, participating children take their seats, or rather they grab red-and-white striped cushions to sit on the “grass” newly “grown” to create a lawn from the stage-front to the stalls seating. White fencing acts as a perimeter, but not as a boundary as it turns out post-interval, when one young chap starts chipping in with a running commentary as David Abécassis’s servant Passepartout and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s spiv London detective Fix conduct an increasingly drunken conversation on a see-saw, where everything is in the balance.

Not a loose cannon: Maria Gray’s resolute record-breaking travel writer Nellie Bly. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Already a comic high-point of adroit manoeuvres and verbal fencing from past productions, it now has a new juggling ingredient: how to negotiate the scene while being “accosted” by the world’s young heckler. “He’s a baddie,” the boy helpfully advises. Fix in a fix? Not here, where the Edinburgh Fringe-bound Armitt-Brewster, actor, dancer, singer and physical comedian, handles the unexpected competition for attention with Chaplin-esque elan in tandem with the eyebrow-raising-Abécassis.

Armitt-Brewster, who will be appearing in his Skedaddle Theatre show A Brief Case Of Crazy next month, is typical of Forster’s canny casting for a globe-travelling tale that demands physical elasticity, verbal vigour and, yes, circus skills in a play within a circus show. Likewise the ursine, Abécassis, so at ease with his Lecoq-trained clownery, bonhomie and French accent.  

We begin amid the bunting and lights of Verne’s Circus, where Kiefer Moriarty’s punctilious, flustered Irish Ringmaster is striving to pull the story’s strings with the aid/hindrance of his company of Abécassis’s Clown, Gray’s Acrobat, Ambika Sharma’s Trick Rider and Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower.

In the balance: David Abécassis’s Passepartout, left, and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s detective Fix mid-negotiation in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Together they will tell the tale of Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days, wherein Moriarty’s upright, uptight, unflustered, unscrupulous, ever-punctual, tea-drinking Victorian English gent Phileas Fogg will strike a wager with his starchy, sceptical Reform Club cronies – represented by moustaches on sticks – that he can traverse the world in that time.

There will be a distraction, not that talkative little lad by the fence, but the rather more persistent New York World reporter Nellie Bly, who, spoiler alert, outdid the fictional Fogg by crossing the globe in only 72 days, setting off from New York on her 25,000-mile journey on November 14 1889.

Feminist, fearless, and full of wonder in her elegant travelogue prose, she is but one feather in the cap of the multi-role-playing Maria Gray, who pulls off American, North Eastern, Scottish, Welsh and Hull accents, as well spinning shapes in her solo aerial routine (recalling her role as Cobweb in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Eye Of York).

Kiefer Moriarty in a clowning scene in Around The Wold In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Nellie manages to wind up Moriarty’s exasperated Ringmaster and Fogg alike in her interjections, conducted at a different pace to the ever-racing Fogg as the revolving signage announces each new destination.

 Writer-director Forster wastes no time in pricking the balloon that Fogg travelled in such a form of transportation. Only in screen versions, not the book. Imagination and ingenuity against the odds will play their part, as they do in Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps, playing across town at the Grand Opera House this week, and in Mischief’s “Go Wrong” roster of calamitous comedies.

Props and costumes, as well as dexterity and clowning, combine in conveying an elephant, a train, a trading vessel, whatever, in spectacular, often unexpected ways, peaking with slow-motion bridge collapse denoted by ladders in slow motion.

Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Fogg may be in a rush but the first act ironically is a little slow. Not so the superior second act, where the verbal to-and-fro becomes quicker and funnier and the circus acrobatics and physical set-pieces pile up under Asha Jennings-Grant’s movement direction. Edwin Gray’s sound design excels too, especially in an explosive scene, and Sara Perks’s designs and costumes are a vision.

Why, there is even romance in the slow-burning relationship of old-stick Fogg and Sharma’s Indian princess Aouda, who amusingly challenges stereotypes in a piece of metatheatre in keeping with Forster’s feminist vibe.

Around The World In 80 Days-ish, York Theatre Royal, July 27, 2.30pm, 7.30pm; July 29, 2pm; July 30, 5.30pm; July 31, 7pm; August 1, 2pm, 7pm; August 2, 6.30pm; August 3, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

In suspense: Maria Gray’s Acrobat in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
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York Theatre Royal is ready to go Around The World In 80 Days-ish for third time with new cast, circus skills and aerial feats

Kiefer Moriarty with fellow cast members Ambika Sharma, left, and Maria Gray in Around The World In 80 Days-ish at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

YORK Theatre Royal’s Around The World In 80 Days keeps coming around again, returning this summer for a third run, this time under a new-ish title.

Adapted and directed by Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster from Jules Verne’s 1873  novel, the circus-themed production was first staged under Covid social-distancing restrictions on a circus trailer, visiting playing fields on all four corners of York in 23 days in August 2021.

That tour concluded in the Theatre Royal main house, where the Theatre Royal’s subsequent co-production with Tilted Wig opened its 2023 tour of England, Scotland and Wales on home turf in early February.

Now Forster’s adaptation returns with a new name, Around The World In 80 Days-Ish, and a new cast of Kiefer Moriarty as circus Ringmaster and globe-travelling Phileas Fogg, York actress Maria Gray as world record-chasing American investigative journalist Nellie Bly and Acrobat, Ambika Sharma as Aouda and Trick Rider, David Abecassis as Passepartout and Clown and completing the cast is Rowan Armitt-Brewster as detective Fix and Knife Thrower.

“The first time, it was right off the back of Covid, staged mainly on school playing fields, ending with the last four days inside the Theatre Royal, all with social distancing,” recalls Juliet. “Then we had only the first three days of the tour, so we feel it was a show that we hadn’t yet fully shared with Theatre Royal audiences.

“When Paul Crewes joined as chief executive last October, he mentioned that he’d really loved the show, so now it’s back with the addition of aerial work this time, which had been too much of a complication before, when we were dependent on the Covid restrictions, but we knew it could work indoors.”

Juliet’s adaptation introduces the real-life character of young journalist Nellie Bly, who actually did circumnavigate the world and in less time than the fictional Fogg. Her version sets up the pair as rival around-the-world travellers, putting the now largely forgotten Nellie Bly in the spotlight.

 “Jules Verne’s story is a lot of fun as the characters race against time to complete a full circuit of the Earth, and in this version, fact and fiction also go head-to-head as Nellie Bly puts in an appearance,” says Juliet.

“It’s a joyful, very energetic, very silly and highly acrobatic re-telling of the story, delivering the kind of experience that live theatre does best.”

Crucial to the show’s success is the multi-role-playing format as the rag-tag band of travelling circus performers embarks on a daring mission to recreate the unflappable Phileas Fogg’s bid to traverse the globe in 80 days, embracing different modes of transport to navigate the frantic race. Expect aerial feats and acrobatics, hoop work and even feigned drunkenness from the versatile company  

To the fore is Kiefer Moriarty’s Ringmaster and Phileas Fogg. “I saw Kiefer in Magic Goes Wrong and was looking for actors who’d been in Mischief’s ‘Go Wrong’ shows, as they understand how comedy works,” says Juliet.

“We met, he signed up, and I look forward to him bringing his own thing to his roles. He’s part of an entirely new cast, who can all bring their own angle, while keeping the DNA of what we know works well.”

Kiefer, who memorably held his breath for 12 minutes under water in Magic Goes Wrong, will be parading circus skills. “I’ve done whip-cracking skills before and I’ll be riding a mini-clown’s bike, which I rode for the first time at the press launch,” he says.

“I’ve never seen a live performance of Around The Days, but I’ve seen the David Niven film, which was my father’s favourite film, so we watched it quite often! I saw the Jackie Chan one as a kid, which was an OK film, I suppose, as the politest way to put it, and then there was the David Tennant one for the BBC that I haven’t seen. But performing in it will be my first live experience of it.”

He loves the thrill of live performance, whether in Magic Goes Wrong or now in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. “That’s where the magic happens, when the choreography is going right, the magic is going right, and I really love the choreography, getting involved with getting it in place,” says Kiefer.

“I’ve seen the trailer for this show [from the past productions], and there are some amazing set-pieces in it that I can’t wait to do.”

Around The World In 80 Days-Ish, York Theatre Royal, July 18 to August 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. 2pm, July 24, 25, 29, August 1; 2.30pm, July 20, 27, August 3; 5.30pm, July 23, 30; 6.30pm, July 19, 26, August 2; 7pm, July 18, 24, 25, 31, August 1; 7.30pm, July 20, 27, August 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond as the Sheds go outdoors. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 25, from Gazette & Herald

Shed Seven: Playing sold-out concerts in York Museum Gardens on Friday and Saturday

SHED Seven’s 30th anniversary open-air concerts are the headline act on Charles Hutchinson’s arts and culture bill for the week ahead. Look out for global travels, Gershwin celebrations and a Hitchcockian comic caper too.

York festival of the week: Futuresound presents Live At York Museum Gardens, Jack Savoretti, tomorrow; Shed Seven, Friday and Saturday

ANGLO-ITALIAN singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti opens the inaugural Live At York Museum Gardens festival at the 4,000-capacity gardens tomorrow, when the support acts will be Northern Irish folk-blues troubadour Foy Vance, York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich and fast-rising Halifax act Ellur.

Both of Shed Seven’s home-city 30th anniversary gigs have sold out. Expect a different set list each night, special guests and a school choir, plus support slots for The Libertines’ Peter Doherty, The Lottery Winners and York band Serotones on Friday and Doherty, Brooke Combe and Apollo Junction on Saturday. Sugababes’ festival-closing concert on July 21 was cancelled in April. Box office: seetickets.com/event/jack-savoretti/york-museum-gardens/2929799.

Claire Martin: Celebrating Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue at Ryedale Festival. Picture: Kenny McCracken

Jazz gig of the week: Ryedale Festival, Claire Martin and Friends, Rhapsody In Blue – A Gershwin Celebration, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm

LONDON jazz singer Claire Martin leads her all-star line-up in a celebration of George Gershwin’s uplifting music and the 100th anniversary of Rhapsody In Blue, a piece that changed musical history.

In the band line-up will be pianist Rob Barron, double bassist Jeremy Brown, drummer Mark Taylor, trumpet player Quentin Collins and saxophonist Karen Sharp. Box office: themiltonrooms.com or ryedalefestival.com.

Maria Gray in the role of The Acrobat in Around The World In 80 Days-ish at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Theatrical return of the week: Around The World In 80 Days-ish, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow to August 3

PREMIERED on York playing fields in 2021, revived in a touring co-production with Tilted Wig that opened at the Theatre Royal in February 2023, creative director Juliet Forster’s circus-themed adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel returns under a new title with a new cast.

Join a raggle-taggle band of circus performers as they embark on their most daring feat yet: to perform the fictitious story of Phileas Fogg and his thrilling race across the globe. But wait? Who is this intrepid American travel writer, Nellie Bly, biting at his heels? Will an actual, real-life woman win this race? Cue a carnival of delights with tricks, flicks and brand-new bits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Katie Leckey and Jack Mackay: Co-artistic directors of Griffonage Theatre, alternating roles in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter

Fringe show of the week: Griffonage Theatre in The Dumb Waiter, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK company Griffonage Theatre follow up February’s debut production of Patrick Hamilton’s Rope with Harold Pinter’s 1957 one-act play The Dumb Waiter, directed and designed by Wilf Tomlinson.

Two hitmen, Ben and Gus, are waiting in a basement room for their assignment, but why is a dumbwaiter in there, when the basement does not appear to be in a restaurant? To make matters worse, the loo won’t flush, the kettle won’t boil, and the two men are increasingly at odds with each other. Unique to this production, actors Jack Mackay and Katie Leckey will alternate the roles of Ben and Gus at each performance. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

One of Anna Matyus’s artworks on show at Helmsley Arts Centre

Exhibition of the week: Anna Matyus, Helmsley Arts Centre, until August 9

ANNA Matyus’s work explores the powerful spiritual resonance of historical sacred buildings and their setting in the landscape. Using etching and collagraph printmaking techniques and a colourful palette, she seeks to bring to life the powerful geometry of the often-faded motifs and time- worn patterns and symbols of historic artefacts found in the masonry and ancient tiles of these sacred sites.

“My final prints explore and record the dynamic rhythms of three-dimensional architectural form, layered with their decorative and symbolic adornment in a graphic expression of awe and wonder,” she says.

Gary Louris: The Jayhawks’ singer, guitarist and songwriter plays solo at The Crescent on Saturday, York. Picture: Steve Cohen

American solo act of the week: Gary Louris, of The Jayhawks, supported by Dave Fiddler, The Crescent, York, Saturday, 7.30pm

OVER three decades, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Gary Louris has co-led Minneapolis country rock supremos The Jayhawks with Mark Olson, as well as being a member of alt.rock supergroup Golden Smog, forming Au Pair with North Carolina artist Django Haskins in 2015 and releasing two solo albums, 2008’s Vagabonds and 2021’s Jump For Joy.

He has recorded with acts as diverse as The Black Crowes, Counting Crows, Uncle Tupelo, Lucinda Williams, Roger McGuinn, Maria McKee, Tift Merritt and The Wallflowers too. As an alternative to the sold-out Sheds on Saturday, look no further than this American rock luminary. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Cutting a dash but in a hurry: Tom Byrne’s Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps. Picture: Mark Senior

Comedy play of the week: The 39 Steps, Grand Opera House, York, July 23 to July 27, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

PATRICK Barlow’s award-garlanded stage adaptation of The 39 Steps has four actors playing 139 roles between them in 100 dashing minutes as they seek to re-create Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller while staying true to John Buchan’s 1915 book.

Tom Byrne – Falklands War-era Prince Andrew in The Crown – plays on-the-run handsome hero Richard Hannay, complete with stiff upper-lip, British gung-ho and pencil moustache as he encounters dastardly murders, double-crossing secret agents and devastatingly beautiful women. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

James: Playing Scarborough Open Air Theatre for the fourth time on July 26. Picture: Paul Dixon

Coastal gig of the week: James, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, July 26, gates 6pm

JAMES follow up Scarborough appearances in 2015, 2018 and 2021 by continuing that three-year cycle in 2024, on the heels of releasing the chart-topping Yummy, their 18th studio album, in April.

“I’m very pleased that we will be playing Scarborough Open Air Theatre this summer – our fourth time in fact,” says bassist and founder member Jim Glennie. “If you haven’t been there before, then make sure you come. It’s a cracking venue and you can even have a paddle in the sea before the show!” Support acts will be Reverend And The Makers, from Sheffield, and Nottingham indie rock trio Girlband!. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/james.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond when going for gold in pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 29, from The Press, York

Shed Seven: Playing sold-out concerts in York Museum Gardens on July 19 and 20

SHED Seven’s 30th anniversary open-air gigs top Charles Hutchinson’s bill. Roman emperors, Ryedale musicians, Brazilian sambas and theatrical Fools look promising too.

York festival of the week: Futuresound presents Live At York Museum Gardens, Jack Savoretti, July 18; Shed Seven, July 19 and 20

ONLY 100 tickets are still available for Anglo-Italian singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti’s opening concert of the inaugural Live At York Museum Gardens festival at the 4,000-capacity York Museum Gardens, when the support acts will be Northern Irish folk-blues troubadour Foy Vance, York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich and fast-rising Halifax act Ellur.

Both of Shed Seven’s home-city 30th anniversary gigs have sold out. Expect a different set list each night, special guests and a school choir, plus support slots for The Libertines’ Peter Doherty, The Lottery Winners and York band Serotones next Friday and Doherty, Brooke Combe and Apollo Junction next Saturday. Sugababes’ festival-closing concert on July 21 was cancelled in April. Box office: seetickets.com/event/jack-savoretti/york-museum-gardens/2929799.

Jack Savoretti: Opening the inaugural Live At York Museum Gardens festival on Thursday

Tribute show of the week: The Illegal Eagles, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm

IN their 24th year on the road, The Illegal Eagles return with a new production rooted as ever in the greatest hits of the American West Coast country rock band, from Hotel California to Desperado, Life In The Fast Lane to Lyin’ Eyes.

The latest line-up features former Blow Monkeys drummer Tony Kiley, Trevor Newnham, from Dr Hook, on vocals and bass, Greg Webb, vocals and guitars, Mike Baker, vocals, guitars and keys, and Garreth Hicklin, likewise. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron: Artist in residence at 2024 Ryedale Festival

Classical festival of the week: Ryedale Festival, running until July 28

THIS summer’s Ryedale Festival features 58 performances in 35 beautiful and historic locations, with performers ranging from Felix Klieser, a horn player born without arms, to trail-blazing Chinese guitarist Xuefei Yang, mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron to violinist Stella Chen, the Van Baerle Piano Trio to Rachel Podger on her Troubadour Trail.

Taking part too will be Royal Wedding cellistSheku Kanneh-Mason, Georgian pianist Giorgi Gigashvili, Brazilian guitar pioneer Plinio Fernandes, choral groups The Marian Consort and Tenebrae, actress and classical music enthusiast Dame Sheila Hancock, jazz singer Claire Martin and Northumbrian folk group The Unthanks. For the full programme and ticket details, head to: ryedalefestival.com. 

Mary Beard: Revealing the truths and lies behind the emperors of Rome at Grand Opera House, York

History lesson of the week: Mary Beard: Emperor Of Rome, Grand Opera House, York, tonight, 7.30pm

CLASSICIST scholar, debunking historian and television presenter Mary Beard shines the spotlight on Roman emperors, from the well-known Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) to the almost-unknown Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE).

Venturing beyond the hype of politics, power and succession, she will uncover the facts and fiction of these rulers, assessing what they did and why and how we came to have such a lurid view of them. Audience questions will be taken. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Maria Gray in the role of The Acrobat in Around The World In 80 Days-ish at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Theatrical return of the week: Around The World In 80 Days-ish, York Theatre Royal, July 18 to August 3

PREMIERED on York playing fields in 2021, revived in a touring co-production with Tilted Wig that opened at the Theatre Royal in February 2023, creative director Juliet Forster’s circus-themed adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel returns under a new title with a new cast.

Join a raggle-taggle band of circus performers as they embark on their most daring feat yet: to perform the fictitious story of Phileas Fogg and his thrilling race across the globe. But wait? Who is this intrepid American travel writer, Nellie Bly, biting at his heels? Will an actual, real-life woman win this race? Cue a carnival of delights with tricks, flicks and brand-new bits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Katie Leckey: Alternating the roles of Ben and Gus with Jack Mackay in Griffonage Theatre’s The Dumb Waiter
Jack Mackay: Alternating the roles of Ben and Gus with Katie Leckey in Griffonage Theatre’s The Dumb Waiter

Fringe show of the week: Griffonage Theatre in The Dumb Waiter, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York,  July 18 to 20, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK company Griffonage Theatre follow up February’s debut production of Patrick Hamilton’s Rope with Harold Pinter’s 1957 one-act play The Dumb Waiter, directed and designed by Wilf Tomlinson.

Two hitmen, Ben and Gus, are waiting in a basement room for their assignment, but why is a dumbwaiter in there, when the basement does not appear to be in a restaurant? To make matters worse, the loo won’t flush, the kettle won’t boil, and the two men are increasingly at odds with each other. Unique to this production, actors Jack Mackay and Katie Leckey will alternate the roles of Ben and Gus at each performance. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Four go into three: Cast members James Aldred, Peter Long, Lucy Chamberlain and Charlotte Horner of The Three Inch Fools

Open-air theatre at the double: The Three Inch Fools in The Secret Diary Of Henry VIII, Scampston Hall, Scampston, near Malton, July 20; Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York, July 23 and Helmsley Walled Garden, August 6; The Comedy Of Errors, Helmsley Walled Garden, July 19, all at 7pm

THE Three Inch Fools, brothers James and Stephen Hyde’s specialists in fast-paced storytelling and uproarious music-making, head to Scampston, York and Helmsley with their rowdy reimagining of the story of the troublesome Tudor king in The Secret Diary Of Henry VIII as he strives to navigate his way through courtly life, while fighting the French again, re-writing religious law and clocking up six wives.

The Play That Goes Wrong’s Sean Turner directs the Fools’ innovative take on Shakespeare’s shortest, wildest farce The Comedy Of Errors, with its tale of long-lost twins, misunderstandings and messy mishaps. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk.

Barbara Marten, York actor, oil on canvas, by Steve Huison, on show at Pyramid Gallery

Exhibition of the week: Steve Huison, Portraits, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until August 31

THE Full Monty actor and artist Steve Huison is exhibiting 12 studies of colleagues in the acting profession, musicians who have inspired him, an adventurous Greenland chef and a famous Swiss clown.

On show are portraits of fellow actors Paul Barber, Arnold Oceng, Barbara Marten, Will Snape, Clarence Smith and Joe Duttine, musicians Abdullah Ibrahim, Quentin Rawlings and Flora Hibberd, counsellor and therapist Dr Tanya Frances, chef Mike Keen and Grock the Clown. Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.