Tag: Beyonce

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Aoife Kenny delights in playing Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty after jumping at chance to appear in Theatre Royal panto

Aoife Kenny in the role of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

WEST End actress Aoife Kenny is making her York Theatre Royal debut as Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty of the title of this winter’s pantomime co-production with Evolution Productions.

Originally from Birmingham, now living in Reading and working mainly on the London stage, she made her first ever visit to York for the September 30 pantomime press launch. “My first time in Yorkshire was last Christmas for Snow White at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre [also co-produced by Evolution Productions],” she says.

Aoife had studied at Laine Theatre Arts performing arts school, in Epsom, Surrey, when the Covid 19 pandemic made for a disrupted finale to her musical theatre degree under lockdown restrictions in 2020.

“I had to finish my studies that summer on Zoom, and luckily it was a nice summer, so I was able to complete the course out in the garden,” she recalls.

“Ever since then, I’ve done various musical theatre shows, such as being in the ensemble for Frozen The Musical at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which you can watch on Disney+.  We filmed it in February 2024.

“I’ve just finished in a show in London called Clueless [at Trafalgar Theatre], a musical theatre show that KT Tunstall wrote the score for, with lyrics by Glenn Slater [best known for Sister Act and Tangled]. Amy Heckling, the writer-director of the original film, wrote the script.

“I was in the ensemble and covering for the role of Dionne Marie Davenport, played by Stacey Dash in the 1995 film. It was meant to run for a year but closed early after six months.

“When I rang Paul (Evolution Productions director and York Theatre Royal panto script writer Paul Hendy) and said, ‘the Clueless job has been cancelled, do you have a panto slot for me ?’, as I’d enjoyed Snow White so much,  luckily this chance to play Aurora in York came up.

Aoife Kenny’s Princess Aurora and Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia singing a duet in Sleeping Beauty. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

“I’ve been raving about Paul’s script writing. He really knows his art and he just captures so well what works for a ‘straight’ panto character. He knows how kids think, being a dad, and is very up to date with the modern world, which always helps.”

Aoife enjoys performing with Evolution. “They’re lovely people to work with, really easy going, and it’s nice to have input into a show, whereas you can’t do that with West End show. The joy of panto is reacting to the audience and having fun with them,” she says.

“This year I’m in the princess’s role, which kind of drives the show forward – someone’s got to get the show’s message across! She’s a modern-day princess in our show, and although she’s still being rescued [from Carabosse’s curse], she can hold her own.”

Aoife can certainly hold a tune too. “I was brought up in an Irish-Jamaican family who loved musicals, growing up with so much music around me 100 per cent of the time.  Me and my sister Sinead, all we’ve known is music and musical theatre,” she says.

“My parents were a bit reluctant at first [for Aoife to pursue a stage career] because it’s a hard industry but Sinead and I had the talent and they’ve thoroughly supported us.” Who should be sitting directly in front of CharlesHutchPress on press night but Aoife’s parents, whereupon a very proud conversation ensued.

Naming a favourite musician, Aoife picks Steve Wonder. “I went to see him at Hyde Park this summer, which was amazing, but that was the day I found out I’d lost my Clueless job, so there I was, in the middle of Hyde Park, crying – and that’s when I decided to contact Paul [Hendy] about a panto job.

She is a “huge fan” of Beyonce too. “I saw her at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in June on her Cowboy Carter Tour,” she says. “I loved her country album! Her career has been going as long I’ve been here – I’m 26 – and she’s an icon.  She does her own thing, and she has a message behind everything, so it’s not just the music with her.”

Christmas has been a chance for Aoife to reunite with her partner, musical theatre actor Matt Blaker. “He’s been out in the Philippines doing The Bodyguard The Musical for ten weeks,” she says. “My family are all away in Spain for Christmas, but Matt’s coming up for a couple of days from Reading. Just the two of us together – and York’s not a bad place to be for Christmas!”

Aoife Kenny’s Princess Aurora and Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles performing in Sleeping Beauty with ensemble members Chris Morgan-Shillingford, back row, left, Elijah Daniel James, dance captain Alyssia Turpin, Sophie Flora and, front row, Jayden Tang and Charlotte Rose O’Sullivan. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Aoife Kenny: back story

TRAINED at Laine Theatre Arts, Epsom, Surrey, graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in musical theatre in 2020.

Theatre credits include Clueless (Trafalgar Theatre); Frozen The Musical (West End); Snow White (Sheffield Lyceum); White Christmas (UK tour); Carousel (Kilworth House); Chess (Theatre Royal Drury Lane); Sunset Boulevard (Alexandra Palace); Up Next Gala (National Theatre); Sleeping Beauty (Mayflower Theatre, Southampton); Peter Pan (Swansea Grand Theatre); Cinderella (SEC Armadillo, Glasgow) and A Little Night Music and Beauty And The Beast (Laine Theatre Arts). 

Television credits include Songs Of Praise, The Chart (pilot), Children In Need and The X Factor. Other credits include Bare (London Palladium); Josh Groban’s Stages (UK tour); Russell Watson (UK tour); Turn Up London (Cadogan Hall); Drive In London (concert); Love Never Dies in concert (Theatre Royal Drury Lane) and I Put A Spell On You (Theatre Cafe). 

Kevin the “vicious” Velociraptor in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

On second thoughts: child’s play at the pantomime on a Saturday afternoon

RE-VIEW: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, until January 4 ****

ACCOMPANYING three children plus chocolate goodies to Saturday afternoon’s matinee of Sleeping Beauty, Charles HutchPress discovered – not for the first time – that he was wrong. Very wrong.

We need to talk about Kevin, the “vicious Velociraptor”, derided in the original review as the “dawdling, limb-twiddling dinosaur that somewhat undermined the impact of speciality act Kris Madden’s fire artistry as Guardian of the Raptor” at the close of Act One.

To these eyes, Kevin still looks lost in the sudden spotlight, his front limbs doing a Tommy Cooper “Just Like That” impersonation”, spoiling any chance of  being scary, but no, no, no. Kevin was a roaring success with Louis, dinosaur devotee, aged five. Enraptured by the Raptor indeed.

And that’s the point. York Theatre Royal and co-producers Evolutions Productions have the right instincts for a pantomime that will appeal to all comers. The animal kingdom has always been part of the Theatre Royal show, whether Martin Barrass’s unforgettable Seal back in the day or Zeus the scene-stealing Border Collie two years ago.

Louis loved Kris Madden’s pyrotechnics too – an act truly on fire, topped off by his burning top hat in his walk-down –  and Finley named that twisting, turning fire starter as his favourite too, while Molly most enjoyed Golden, the up-up-uplifting K-Pop Demon Hunters hit that has become this pantomime season’s ubiquitous song in another on-trend choice by the Theatre Royal panto team.

Fired up: Kris Madden’s Guardian of the Raptor in Sleeping Beauty. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Encountering Sleeping Beauty for a second time, CharlesHutchPress was struck once more by the political jibes (especially a dig at the early release of prisoners under Labour’s watch); the cornucopia of corny puns and the chemistry of dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Tommy Carmichael’s dippy Jangles and Christian Mortimer’s game Prince Michael in the outstanding splosh slapstick scene.

Top marks too go to Terry Parsons, Michelle Marden and Stuart Relph’s gorgeous set designs and Michael J Batchelor and Joey’s Dame Creations’ ever-witty costumes for Simpson’s polka-dotty dame.

The exploding confetti cannon – fired without warning after a big build-up much earlier– finds Simpson’s dame at his best in pulling all the strings amid the comical chaos.

No less explosive is the battle for supremacy of CBeebies’ star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam and Jocasta Almgill’s wicked fairy Carabosse in a lung-busting sing-off as they spar to the max in Everything About You.

To put the cherry on the festive icing, Louis excitedly joined the queue to meet Jennie Dale, still on full beam in the foyer ahead of another performance that evening.

York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions present Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, today, 2.30pm (captioned performance), 7pm; December 31,  11am, 3pm;  January 2,  2.30pm (relaxed performance), 7pm;  January 3, 2.30pm, 7pm; January 4,  11am, 3pm.  

Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam and Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse battling for singing supremacy in York Theatre Royal’s musical variation on a spoken-word slam or rap battle

Which songs feature in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal?

Good Day Sunshine (The Beatles)

Hot To Go (Chappell Roan)

Introducing Me (Nick Jonas, from Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam)

School’s Out/Baggy Trousers/ABC (Alice Cooper/Madness/The Jackson 5)

Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics) 

Hakuna Matata (Elton John, from The Lion King) 

Die With A Smile (Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars)

Golden Slumbers (The Beatles)

Hellfire (Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame)

Pinball Wizard (The Who)

A Hundred Years Have Passed (from Dragonland)

Everything About You (Ugly Kid Joe)

A Thousand Years, repurposed as A Hundred Years (Christina Perri)

Ghostbusters (Ray Parker Jr)

Together In Electric Dreams (Giorgio Moroder and Philip Oakey)

Golden (from K-Pop Demon Hunters) 

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, audience songsheet song, (Wham)

Everybody Needs Somebody To love, walk-down song (Bert Berns, Solomon Burke and Jerry Wexler, from The Blues Brothers).

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Meet the Bolshee trio, the York company behind female-driven creative projects

Driving forces: Bolshee’s Lizzy Whynes, left, at the wheel, Megan Bailey, back seat, and Paula Clark, co-driver

BOLSHEE, the York company for creative projects set up by theatre practitioners Paula Clark, Megan Bailey and Lizzy Whynes, will be performing at Green Shoots tonight and tomorrow at York Theatre Royal.

One of 20 new commissions from York professional artists, Boss B***h will “explore the infamous statement made by influencer Molly-Mae Hague and ‘celebrity nightmare’ Kim Kardashian that we all have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce”.

“Let’s challenge the toxic boss bitch narrative,” proclaim the Bolshee trio, who will deliver five minutes of female voices, beats and moves.

“We set up Bolshee creative projects in lockdown after I decided to leave my job at York Theatre Royal,” says Paula, who is now a freelance creative director and artist and runs Paula Clark Co-Creative Projects.  

“There were loads of reasons why I left, but it’s important to say I’m still good friends with YTR! It’s where Megan, Lizzy and I all met and we still have a lot of love for it.

“But it was time for me to move on. Over that decade, I’d been a youth theatre practitioner, director (when cover for maternity leave), creative skills promoter, overseeing the TakeOver festival, and outreach director.

“There’s always a glass ceiling,” says Paula Clark after 20 years of working in theatre

“I found I enjoyed my job in the pandemic because I could do more than I would normally do, but there’s always a glass ceiling, and that’s not unique to York Theatre Royal. It’s across arts buildings.”

Coincidentally, Megan had left her job and so had Lizzy. “It wasn’t connected, but there were lots of similarities about our negative experiences of the arts industry,” says Paula.

“We’ve all experienced profound sexism in the arts industry and I’ve struggled, being from a working-class background, to make headway, be heard and create change in the way I wanted.

“It feels like there’s a holding on to power by people who are worried about a disruption of power, a sharing of power across the industry and all the talk of wider representation. People are frightened, so they’re holding on to the old way. It’s not a level playing field.”

Paula recalls “starting to feel like a tick box”. “I was tired of being called ‘authentic’ by patronising old men on boards. I wanted to be in charge of my own creative direction, and I want to do more for social justice,” she says.

Cue the arrival of Bolshee. “I have over 20 years’ experience in theatre and community arts and my dream is that Bolshee creates projects that promote social justice, lift people up and include everyone in a creative industry environment that still doesn’t value women enough,” says Paula.

“We have something to offer that isn’t quite like anyone else in York because we are not afraid to be Bolshie,” says Paula Clark, left, of her Bolshee partnership with Megan Bailey, centre, and Lizzy Whynes. Picture: Matthew Jopling

“It’s important that as a company we particularly support and encourage working-class women and girls. That’s why I’ve teamed up with Megan and Lizzy, both extremely talented young women. We feel like we have something to offer that isn’t quite like anyone else in York because we are not afraid to be Bolshie!”

The name Bolshee is a reclaiming of that word, ‘bolshie’ (definition: deliberately combative or uncooperative). “Assertive women have always been told they are Bolshie. We want to cast off the negative connotations. We’re ready and proud to be Bolshee women!” says Paula.

Megan is delighted that Bolshee is up and running. “It’s been a long while in the pipeline,” she says. “In those two years during lockdown, we’d sit on Zoom thinking about what we could do to be our own bosses on projects.

“There’s an elite that doesn’t want to let younger, bolshie women challenge what they’ve been doing, sitting in their leadership roles for a long time, but we want to find our space.”

Lizzy points out how the working environment in the arts world has changed. “Now you’re only employed for six months, a year at most,” she says. “All the jobs I went for were for three months; all short-term contracts.”

Paula rejoins: “People are holding on to the idea of arts buildings, but I don’t want to work in that structure. There’s all sorts of forms that can be brought together to involve people in culture. What’s brought the three of us together is that we’re more than just theatre makers.”

“We want to find our space,” says Megan Bailey

Megan, for example, has a background in set design from her theatre degree days at the University of York and has worked on websites too. “I also did an MA at Leeds University in culture, creativity and entrepreneurship because you need to have business acumen to run theatre and arts organisations.

“I definitely feel that can be lacking, particularly in human resources structures, where these things can get forgotten but it’s important to make your workforce happy, and important to learn how to make the arts sustainable financially.

“Because I worked for so long in buildings, doing funding applications and strategies, I’m very aware of what’s needed.”

Paula, 40, feels lucky to be working in tandem with Lizzy, 29, and Megan, 25. “The landscape has changed, and younger people have their finger on the pulse, understanding how things work,” she says. “It’s harder for older people in theatre to understand that, but we have the right mixture: Lizzy and Megan with their finger on the pulse and me with 20 years of experience.

“We don’t need a building, but we have a good understanding of theatre in York and we know that partnerships are a good way to work.”

Lizzy adds: “We want to be collaborative, rather than competitive, bringing some fun, bringing some culture, through the art we make.” Just as she did when she was artistic director of York Theatre Royal’s TakeOver Festival at the National Railway Museum in October 2015, picking up two awards to boot.

“We want to be collaborative, rather than competitive, bringing some fun, bringing some culture, through the art we make,” says Bolshee’s Lizzy Whynes, left

Bolshee may have taken root when all three left their jobs at the time, “but I think it’s important to say, we all love the jobs we’re now doing,” says Paula. “I’ve worked on the York St John University Prison Partnership Project and also work with Stockton ARC as a freelance, as well as with the Listening Project for Pilot Theatre.”

Theatre maker, dance artist, director, movement director and facilitator Lizzy works for CAST’s youth theatre in Doncaster and as a freelance for York Dance Space and Phoenix Dance Theatre’s youth academy in Leeds.

Megan is a creative producer at Kaizen Arts Agency in York, working on York Design Week, the Drawsome Festival and the ArtBank at Spark:York. At the time of this interview, she had just been offered the job of community and participatory knowledge exchange co-ordinator at Leeds Arts University.

“One of the reasons why we think this makes us a little different is that we celebrate all the work we do in different areas,” says Paula. “That keeps us relevant and keeps us connected with different organisations, but Bolshee is what connects us all.”

Megan adds: “Bolshee empowers us in what we want to do and what we want to make, and I’m very much a believer that anyone can be an artist, from a child to someone who has retired and wants a new hobby. We want people to find their voices.

“It’s about wanting to celebrate who we are, what we do, in the city we love, with all the people we get to work with.”

“Because we have a diverse skill set, we can be varied in what we do,” says Lizzy Whynes

A feeling of wellbeing should be encouraged too, says Megan: “We believe in being kind to ourselves. That’s important at a time when we need to respect ourselves, when we all do jobs where contracts are short.”

Paula adds: “Our thing about championing women and girls is that it’s our time. I’m 40, and after all that grafting, I want to have some of the joy with people I like, sharing our imaginations.

“I was a young mum at 19, experienced childhood hardships on more than one occasion, things that make this artistic path a difficult one to choose, and because of that, I will work the hardest, stay the longest, always trying to prove to myself that if I work the hardest, I could be the next manager, working in that hierarchy…

“…but now I believe success is being comfortable with yourself, owning who you are and helping other people in similar circumstances see their opportunities come to fruition.”

Bolshee have already held a free workshop at Young Thugs Studios at the Drawsome Festival in York in May and have funding applications in place with universities, rather than Arts Council England, for future projects.

“Our work will be diverse,” says Lizzy. “It could be a Bolshee open-mic night; a participatory workshop in a school hall or a neighbourhood pop-up installation. You might find us working in a school with at-risk girls. Because we have a diverse skill set, we can be varied in what we do.”

Tuned in: Bolshee trio Paula Clark, left, Lizzy Whynes and Megan Bailey at Dance Dance Dance, A Damn Big Dance Party at At The Mill, Stillington Mill, near York

Paula adds: “We want everyone to feel they belong because everyone is invited. It’s not about stepping into a cultural place; it’s about joining in.”

Megan concurs: “It’s about that connection with people; making work in that space, not putting work on in conventional arts spaces, which won’t be our ambition.”

Paula rejoins: “We want people to feel safe. We want to talk about what matters to women; urgent things that need addressing.”

Lizzy loves taking projects out of theatres, whether in her TakeOver days at the National Railway Museum, or doing community work with young people in informal settings for Harrogate Theatre, or now for a CAST youth theatre production at Danum Gallery, Library and Museum and a York Dance Space project at York Art Gallery. “I have loads of experience of site-specific work and I’m all about getting people together to do amazing things,” she says.

Exit “Bolshie” women; here comes Bolshee. “Being called ‘bolshie’ implies women don’t have a right to be assertive,” says Megan. “But it’s our prerogative to be how we want to be, and we want to be Bolshee,” says Paula.

Bolshee perform Boss B***h at Green Shoots, York Theatre, Royal, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The logo for York creative projects trio Bolshee