Teacher Miss Hedge (Katie Spencer) steps in between school bully Dean Paxton (Cain Branton), left, and dreamer Jamie New (Frankie Bounds) in York Stage’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
FROM a couple all at sea at the SJT to Yorktoberfest in a circus big top, a piratical twist on The Comedy Of Errors to Bison Hip’s blues, Charles Hutchinson recommends ways to stay cheerful.
Bold and unapologetic musical of the week: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday; 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
TOM MacRae and Dan Gillespie’s Sheffield musical plays the Grand Opera House for the first time in Nik Briggs’s production for York Stage that restores the grit to both complement and counter the glitz in the uplifting underdog story of Jamie New (Frankie Bounds), a 16-year-old schoolboy from a Steel City council estate with big dreams and the courage to stand out when it would be easier to stay quiet.
Equipped with the strength to face the world head on, Jamie fights prejudice, finds his voice and discovers the freedom of stepping into the spotlight on his own terms. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Over-reaching strategy: Phil Corbitt’s Colin puts yet another plan to Sarah Belcher’s exhausted Deborah in Alison Carr’s All At Sea
Premiere of the week: Stephen Joseph Theatre and Live Theatre, Newcastle, present All At Sea, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 31
MARIA Crocker directs Phil Corbitt and Sarah Belcher in All At Sea, Alison Carr’s new play inspired by the real-life escapades of John and Anne Darwin in the early 2000s.
Colin and Deborah are a couple with spiralling debt, a sky-high mortgage and seemingly nowhere to turn. Then Colin comes up with the idea of faking his own death in a canoeing accident in the North Sea for an insurance payout. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Amelia Bullmore’s Penelope comes face to face with Charlie Russell’s Odysseus in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
Greek tragedy twist of the week: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Odyssey: Her Story, York Theatre Royal, until October 31
BOOKER Prize winner Margaret Atwood revisits Homer’s The Odyssey in an exuberantly irreverent and darkly humorous retelling where she gives voice to Odysseus’s silenced wife, Penelope – still awaiting his return 20 years after the Trojan War – and her chorus of maids in a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge that exposes the truth behind the myth. Creative director Juliet Forster’s cast is led by Happy Valley and Riot Women star Amelia Bullmore. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Ben Reeves-Rowley and Harry Summers in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Company’s piratical The Comedy Of Errors
Shakespeare shake-up of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Comedy Of Errors, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
KATIE Leckey and Emily Carhart co-direct York Shakespeare Project in “ an exciting take on Shakespeare’s shortest and possibly funniest play”, giving a piratical, gender-swapping twist to The Comedy Of Errors in a convergence of the original text with slapstick, farce and physical comedy and a “celebration of relationships of many kinds, platonic, familial and romantic”.
“The morally questionable, yet still comedic, nature of many (if not all) of the characters put us in mind of some of our favourite piratical anti-heroes,” they say. “We felt like the framing device of piracy gave us the chance to include slapstick violence between ‘masters and servants’ in a way that wouldn’t seem too brutal or alien to a modern audience.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
The poster for The Amy Winehouse Band’s Back To Black 20th Anniversary Tour
Going back to Back To Black: The Amy Winehouse Band, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7.30pm
AMY Winehouse’s original band, who played with her from the very start, are marking the 20th anniversary of her iconic second album, Back To Black, the one that brought her five awards at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Performing with Amy that evening, as these musicians had done since her earliest gigs in London pubs, was her band.
Led by Amy’s long-time musical director and bass player, The Amy Winehouse Band features members who both toured and recorded with her throughout her career. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Hudson & Hudson: Combining the magical and the marital at Helmsley Arts Centre
Magic show of the week: Hudson & Hudson Magicians: Married At First Sleight, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
ORIGINALLY from Hull, husband-and-wife magicians Alan and Kat Hudson appeared separately on Britain’s Got Talent before eventually forming a double act. Ant & Dec had suggested they should work together while they were on the show, but they both said no at the time. Between them, they have appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, ITV’s The Next Great Magician and in the West End production Wonderville.
Married At First Sleight mixes magic, mind-reading, comedy and audience participation with the realities of being married to the person with whom you also rehearse, tour and perform. Cue marital banter alongside the tricks. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
York drag diva Velma Celli leading the Yorktoberfest celebrations in the Big Top with The Bavarian Strollers at York Racecourse
Festival of the week: Jamboree Entertainment presents Yorktoberfest, Clocktower Enclosure, York Racecourse, Friday, 7pm to 1pm; Saturday, 1pm to 5pm & 7pm to 11pm
FOR the first time, James Cundall’s Jamboree Entertainment is staging Yorktoberfest, York’s traditional Bavarian beer festival, inside a Big Top, launched last weekend by aerial artist Zoe Kulyk twisting and tumbling from the rooftop.
Look out on Friday and Saturday for outrageous York drag diva Velma Celli’s powerhouse singing and quick-fire critique of the costumes on display and oompah band The Bavarian Strollers’ traditional drinking songs and disco classics. The Bavarian Bar and the Dog Haus serve up drinks and German-inspired food. Tickets: www.ticketsource.co.uk/yorktoberfest and at the entrance, subject to availability.
Bison Hip: A dose of the Glasgow blues at Ryedale Blues Club
Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents Bison Hip, Milton Rooms, Malton, October 29, 8pm
BISON Hip were formed by long-time friends Paul Sloway, Malcolm Button, Steven Radziwonik, John Gilmour Smith and Graeme Carswell during a lockdown Zoom call in 2020. “Maybe it was the mid-life crisis at play,” says vocalist Sloway.
“We wanted to take our love of blues and rock and mix it up with our experiences of life. Between us, we’ve been through so many things in life, ups and downs, some successes and plenty of failures, we wanted all that in the music. We needed to wrap it up in the DNA of our hometown, Glasgow, and hopefully that’s what we’ve achieved.” Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.