York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Summer Sonnets at Holy Trinity Church
YORK Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets return to the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York from August 9 to 17.
“After attracting a record audience of more than 600 people to the show last year in the Bar Convent gardens, we are delighted again to be offering a taste of Shakespeare that is both entertaining and accessible,” says YSP chair Tony Froud, who is directing the sonnet season for a second year.
Holy Trinity last hosted YSP’s Sit-Down Sonnets in September 2020, under social distancing restrictions during the Covid pandemic.
Writer Josie Campbell
“This year we plan to take full advantage of the historic and beautiful setting”, says Tony. “Many people will know the church as the site of the blessing of the relationship of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Ann Walker [at Easter 1834] and we are building this year’s show around that famous event” [now marked by a York Civic Trust rainbow plaque with the wording “took sacrament here to seal her union”).
The Summer Sonnets show has been scripted by Josie Campbell, who performed for YSP on the Rose Theatre’s Shakespeare Wagon in 2019 at the Eye of York.
Sharing her time between Yorkshire and Dubai, Josie is a professional actor/director and co-founder of Little Britches Theatre Company. In 2021 she toured Yorkshire with a pop-up production of Shakespeare’s Will, a one woman show about Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife.
Summer Sonnets director Tony Froud
For Summer Sonnets, Josie has come up with an entertaining plot, taking full advantage of the church’s setting and rich history. “I have thoroughly enjoyed writing a Sonnets show, which includes Anne Lister, one of Yorkshire’s most uncompromising and resilient women”, she says.
Audiences are “invited to a secret wedding in Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, in the heart of York”, where they will “meet the church’s most famous couple while enjoying a complimentary drink. As they witness the happy event, they may start to wonder: is everything quite what it seems?”
Debutant York Shakespeare Project sonneteer Grace Scott in rehearsal. Picture: John Saunders
“As ever, the show features a wide variety of colourful characters, each speaking in everyday English until they shift into their 14 lines of verse from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets to reveal the heart of their story,” says Tony.
“It’s a lovely experience. You can sip your complimentary drink on a summer’s evening in a delightful setting. Very often, the characters slip into a sonnet and the audience hardly notices that the language has become Shakespearean. And you should look forward to a surprise or two!”
2024 marks the tenth anniversary of YSP’s first show built around Shakespeare’s sonnets in the form of 2014’s Sonnet Walks, wherein groups of audience members met assorted characters as they walked through the streets of York.
Liam Godfrey: Making his Summer Sonnets debut. Picture: John Saunders
“Sadly, I never saw the Walks, but there’s an advantage in having a single setting where characters can meet, start a story and then reappear to complete it,” says Josie.
Tony’s cast is a blend of actors new* to the YSP Sonnets and seasoned sonneteers: Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley*; Liam Godfrey*; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska*; Alexandra Logan*; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott*; Effie Warboys*; Helen Wilson and Tony Froud himself.
York Shakespeare Project in Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, August 9 to 17, except August 12, 6pm and 7.30pm, plus 4.30pm on August 10 and 17. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/. Tickets: £10; £5, age 14 to 17; two under-14s per adult. The price includes a free drink.
Regular York Shakespeare Project sonneteer Helen Wilson in rehearsal. Picture: John Saunders
Helen Wilson in a damned spot of Scottish bother in York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets at Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York. Picture: John Saunders
MUSICAL theatre in a park, drag cabaret at a sports club, Shakespeare sonnets and songs in churchyards, high-speed film action at an airfield and chamber music online catch Charles Hutchinson’seye
Graveyard smash of the week: York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, until Saturday
WHEN York Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth bit the dust in March, put on hold by the Covid lockdown, York’s purveyors of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Walks decided to stage a sit-down, but not as an act of protest.
Director Mick Taylor and producer Maurice Crichton hatched a plan to present assorted familiar Shakespeare characters, brought into the modern world, to reflect on the pandemic with an accompanying sonnet.
Holy Trinity’s churchyard, with its five park benches, tree shelter and mown grass, provides an ideal socially distanced open-air setting. Bring a rug, cushion, camp chair, flask and biscuits, suggests Maurice, to performances at 5.45pm and 7pm, plus 4.15pm on Saturday.
Polly Bolton: Sharing a double bill with Henry Parker in the NCEM churchyard
Double bills in another churchyard: Songs Under Skies, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, tonight, September 16 and 17
SONGS Under Skies brings together the National Centre for Early Music, The Crescent, The Fulford Arms and the Music Venues Alliance for an open-air series of acoustic concerts.
The opening night with Amy May Ellis and Luke Saxton on September 2 was driven inside by the rain. Fingers crossed for more clement conditions for Wolf Solent and Rosalind tonight, Polly Bolton and Henry Parker on September 16 and Elkyn and Fawn the following night.
Gates will open at 6.30pm for each 7pm start; acts will perform either side of a 30-minute interval with a finishing time of 8.30pm.
The Bev Jones Music Company in a socially distanced rehearsal for Sunday’s show at the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre
Musical theatre showcase part one: Bev Jones Music Company, Strictly Live In The Park, Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, Sunday, 3pm.
THE Bev Jones Music Company stage a full-sized musical theatre concert with more than 20 socially distanced singers and a five-piece band on Sunday afternoon.
Strictly Live In The Park promises a “spectacular show for all the family, with popular show music, pop music, dance and comedy”, under the musical direction of John Atkin with choreography by Claire Pulpher.
Expect numbers from Adele to Robbie Williams, Cabaret to Hairspray, Mack & Mabel to South Pacific, The Full Monty to Chess, Miss Saigon to the finale, Les Miserables, all arranged by the late company driving force Bev Jones. Also expect temperature tests on arrival.
Conor Mellor in York Stage Musicals’ first show at the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York. He will be back for the second one too. Picture: Jess Main
Musical theatre showcase part two: York Stage Musicals present Jukebox Divas, Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, September 18 to 20, 7pm
AFTER the sold-out three-night run of York Stage Musicals’ first ever outdoor show last month, producer/director Nik Briggs and musical director Jessica Douglas return to their Rowntree Park psychedelic igloo to stage Jukebox Divas.
Jessica’s band line-up has changed, so too has the singing sextet, with Conor Mellor from the debut show being joined by Dan Conway, Sophie Hammond, Grace Lancaster and Eleanor Leaper.
“With music from We Will Rock You, Mamma Mia! and more modern releases like + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, audiences will be entertained for 90 minutes with vocal tributes to artists such as Elvis Presley, Queen, Meat Loaf, Katy Perry, Carole King and many more,” says Nik.
Baby Driver: one of the films with high-speed thrills to be screened at AA Getaway Drive-in Cinema at Elvington Airfield
Car experience of next week: AA Getaway Drive-in Cinema, Elvington Airfield, near York, September 18 to 20
AFTER Daisy Duke’s Drive-in Cinema on Knavesmire, now comes a celebration of high-speed thrills and derring-do skills at Elvington Airfield…on screen, courtesy of AA Getaway Drive-in Cinema.
Tickets have sold out already for the September 19 screenings of James Gunn’s 2014 space chase, Guardians Of The Galaxy (12A), at 2.30pm and James Mangold’s 2019 Ford v Ferrari race-track clash, Le Mans 66 (12), at 7.30pm.
Bookings can still be made, however, for Guardians Of The Galaxy on September 18 at 2.30pm and September 20 at 7.30pm and Edgar Wright’s 2017 getaway-car heist thriller, Baby Driver (15), September 18, 7.30pm, and September 20, 2.30pm.
No more kitchen-sink dramas for Velma Celli as York’s drag diva deluxe swaps live-streaming for the great outdoors in Acomb tomorrow
Stepping out of her Bishopthorpe kitchen into the York open air: Velma Celli: An Evening Of Song, York RI Community Sports Club, New Lane, Acomb, tomorrow, 8pm.
AFTER a spring and summer of concerts live-streamed from home, York drag diva Velma Celli takes to the outdoor stage at a sports club.
“The show will be a mixed bag of whatever I fancy on the day – pop, rock, impressions and some musical theatre obviously – and of course requests online. Message me on Facebook,” advises Velma.
Very special guests are promised: definitely York soul powerhouse Jessica Steel will be among them.
Tim Lowe: York Chamber Music Festival artistic director and cellist
Festival of the month: York Chamber Music Festival, September 18 to 20
THE 2020 York Chamber Music Festival is going online to live-stream three concerts from the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, in a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.
Festival artistic director and cellist Lowe will be performing with Simon Blendis and Charlotte Scott, violins; Matthew Jones, violin and viola; Jon Thorne, viola, and Katya Apekisheva, piano. For full details on the programme and on how to watch the concerts, go to ycmf.co.uk.
Strictly between us: Anton du Beke and Giovanni Pernice’s tour poster for Him & Me next summer at the Grand Opera House, York
One for the 2021 diary: Anton & Giovanni, Him & Me, Grand Opera House, York, July 12
STRICTLY Come Dancing staples Anton du Beke and Giovanni Pernice will link up for their debut tour together, Him & Me, next year.
Details are sketchy, but the dapper Sevenoaks ballroom king and the Italian stallion say: “This show promises to be thebest night out in the Summer of 2021 for all ages…A true dance extravaganza!”
Anton and Giovanni will be joined by a “world-class cast” of dancers and singers for a show produced by Strictly Theatre Co and directed by Alan Burkitt.
And what about…?
A visit to the reopened Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre exhibition in Blossom Street, York. Malton Harvest Food Festival on Saturday. New Light Prize Exhibition, with more than 100 artists, opening at Scarborough Art Gallery on September 19. York Walking Festival, running or, rather, walking until Sunday (details at iTravel York website).
Jon, by Laura Quin Harris, at the New Light Prize Exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery
