Rowntree Players cast members rehearsing for Grimm Tales
ROWNTREE Players will stage Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of Grimm Tales, dramatised by Tim Supple, at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from July 11 to 13.
Ami Carter’s cast will take a journey through a selection of delightfully bizarre stories from the Brothers Grimm collection to reveal their true origins and to discover how the path to a happy ending can, indeed, be a little grim.
Presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals, on behalf of Samuel French, Grimm Tales will be narrated by Chris Meadley, joined by Geoff Walker as Male 1; Graham Smith, Male 2; Joe Marrucci, Male 3; Fergus Green, Male 4; Abbey Follansbee, Female 1; Hannah Wood, Female 2; Meg Badrick, Female 3, and Annie Dunbar, Female 4.
In the ensemble will be Henry Cullen, Jess Whitehead, Britt Brett, Jess Dawson, Libby Roe and Ella Lofthouse.
Alongside Carter in the production team are production and technical manager Mark Lofthouse, scenic painter Anna Jones and Lena Ella, who is in charge of marketing and costumes.
Tickets for next week’s 7.30pm performances are on sale on 01904 501395 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk
Rowntree Players’ poster artwork for Grimm Tales at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
THE deadline to register for auditions for Rowntree Players’ summer production of Grimm Tales is Friday, March 22.
The auditions for the July 11 to 13 run at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, are open to anyone aged 14 or over (on or before the audition date).
Auditions will be held on Sunday (24/3/2024) from 1pm to 4pm at Door 84, Lowther Street, York. To register your interest and to request an audition pack, send an email to info@rowntreeplayers.co.uk.
Adapted by Carol Ann Duffy and dramatised by Tim Supple, Grimm Tales takes a journey through six of the bizarre, whimsical stories collated by the Brothers Grimm: Snow White; The Golden Goose; Ashputtel; The Magic Table, The Good Donkey & The Cudgel In The Sack; Musicians Of Bremman and Hansel & Gretel.
The small cast will play numerous roles, each tale being introduced and linked by the Narrator, who will address the audience directly. Once each story begins, mush of the action will be narrated by the characters themselves, necessitating the performers to be able to deliver narrative clearly as well as perform dialogue and be confident with switching between the two.
All the cast will perform several characters, sometimes even in one story, so versatility and quirkiness are a must.
For the audition day, auditionees will not be required to prepare anything in advance. A script will be provided on the day and everyone will be expected to read a variety of characters, grouping performers in different combinations.
Casting will be for the Narrator, four male and four female roles, in each case one role aged 40 plus, two, 25 to 40, and one under 25.
Tickets for the 7.30pm performances are on sale at rowntreeplayers.co.uk.
The Christmas collection: York ceramicist Ben Arnup, left, and Pyramid Gallery owner Terry Brett with an Anita Klein linocut print behind them
YORK ceramicist Ben Arnup will open Pyramid Gallery’s concluding 40th anniversary exhibition, The Christmas Collection, in Stonegate, York, on Saturday at 12 noon.
Ben will be exhibiting 12 new pieces, having supplied gallery curator and owner Terry Brett with his distinctive trompe l’oeil’ ceramic sculptures for 28 years.
At the heart of The Christmas Collection will be new work by another Pyramid regular, London artist and printmaker Anita Klein. “I’ve invited Anita to fill the walls of this show with 15 large linocut original prints and two paintings,” says Terry.
“The gallery has enjoyed a long, unbroken relationship with Anita as a supplier of her extensive catalogue of prints that form a diary of her family life.
Angel With Gift, linocut print, by Anita Klein
“Over the 28 years in which she has shown more than 800 different pictures at Pyramid Gallery, we’ve watched her career progress to the point where she has become one of the most collectable printmakers in the UK. It seems very fitting that she is the main focus of this year’s final anniversary exhibition.”
As well as showing new linocut prints, Anita will be selling copies of her book Out Of The Ordinary – 40 years Of Print Making, published by Eames Fine Art in October.
For more than 40 years, this artist of the everyday and the personal has produced thousands of paintings, prints and drawings depicting her immediate family – husband, daughters, grandchildren and herself – going about the very ordinary activities of daily life.
From watching television, cooking, reading, driving to school, soaking in the bath and getting dressed, to cleaning the house, choosing a pet, going on holiday, or just cuddling up and sharing tender moments with loved ones, Anita captures these seemingly unremarkable domestic scenes with humour, sensitivity and beauty, creating an intimate visual journal with which everyone can identify.
The book cover for Anita Klein’s Out Of The Ordinary, published in October and on sale at Pyramid Gallery
The book contains 550 of Anita’s best-loved prints, presented as a charming chronological record of the family’s day-to-day life through the decades, seen from the artist-mother’s perspective, as they grow and change in their respective roles within the household.
Out Of The Ordinary also charts her development as a printmaker, from the simple monochrome drypoints of the 1980s, a consequence of the practical and financial demands of being a young stay-at-home mum, through to the more colourful and elaborate prints of recent years.
A personal appreciation of Anita Klein’s work by poet Hollie McNish opens the volume, while texts by publishers Rebecca and Vincent Eames, who have collaborated with the artist for more than two decades, and critic Mel Gooding give an introduction to her practice.
Anita herself provides recollections and further detail with short commentaries on the images and the occasions that they depict, complemented by poetry contributions from Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Hollie McNish and Wendy Cope.
Pangolin, sculpture, by Jennie McCall, from The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery
Taking part in the exhibition too will be sculptors Jennie McCall and Christine Pike; printmaker Mychael Barratt; slipware potter Dylan Bowen; ceramicists Katie Braida, Ilona Sulikova and Drew Caines (from Leeds); glass installation artist and sculptor Monette Larsen and glassmakers Rachel Elliott, Alison Vincent, Keith Cummings, Bruce Marks and David Reekie.
To complement with festive sparkle, the Christmas Collection jewellery displays will feature studio work by more than 50 British makers, including Jane Macintosh.
Saturday’s launch will run from 12 noon to 3pm; the exhibition will continue until January 12, open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday; 11am to 4pm on Sundays.
The poster for The Christmas Collection exhibitiion at Pyramid Gallery
Stand up, comedian: Slam champ, poet, maths graduate, comic, writer and TED talker Harry Bakes takes to the water. Back on dry land, he plays York and Leeds next February
WORLD Poetry Slam champion Harry Baker is taking to the road for his second nationwide solo tour with his new show Unashamed, visiting The Crescent in York on February 8 2023.
After his first tour was extended three times by a combination of popular demand and a global pandemic, followed by asell-out Edinburgh Fringe run for his new show, poet, mathematician, stand-up comedian and writer Baker is undertaking a 31-date tour from September 28 to February 16. Further dates include Left Bank, Leeds, on February 9, with tickets on sale at harrybaker.co
Baker’s bursts of poetry and comedy had been watched by millions online and had allowed him to perform all over the world, until suddenly Covid said No. His knee-jerk reaction was to put out heartfelt poems about missing hugs and to record a German pop music video in his local abandoned playground.
After reviewing loo seats online and writing falafel-based ‘diss’ tracks for radio presenter Chris Evans, he is returning to the stage in his most honest, playful, unashamedly Harry Baker show yet.
Lift-off: Harry Baker likes to write about “important stuff such as hope”
“At its heart, my work is all about connecting with people, whether it’s making them laugh, making them cry, or making them think ‘Hey, I didn’t think I liked poetry but this is actually pretty good’,” says Harry, who “writes about important stuff such as hope, dinosaurs and German falafel-spoons”.
“While I tried to make the best of performing online during various lockdowns, there’s only so many clap emojis you can take on Instagram live before you realise it’s not quite the same. “I’m thrilled to be back doing what I love – poems – in the places I love with the people I love (your delightful readers, who will come along after reading this).”
Summing up Unashamed, Baker says: “The show is a celebration of playfulness, the power of creativity to keep you going when your whole world falls apart, and how, if we are brave enough to be vulnerable with one another, we can build ourselves back to our best unashamed versions of ourselves.”
Since Baker became the youngest-ever World Poetry Slam champion in 2012, the past ten years have seen him perform worldwide, from a sold-out Dubai Opera House alongside Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy, to becoming a festival favourite at Glastonbury, Latitude and Bestival.
Sitting on the duck of the bay? Not quite, but give Harry Baker poetic licence
Rising to the top of the British rap battle scene, he has become a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2’s Pause For Thought, while his work has been shared on TED.com, seen by ten million people and translated into more than 20 different languages.
He has toured the UK and featured on The Russell Howard Hour as one half of the comedy-rap-jazz duo Harry and Chris (with songwriter Chris Read) and has appeared on the BAFTA-winning Sky TV show Life And Rhymesalongside Benjamin Zephaniah.
The 2022-2023 tour is accompanied by the release of Baker’s second poetry collection, also called Unashamed. Published by Burning Eye on October 6, it comprises poems from his latest show and the previous I Am 10,000, his celebration of the crossover between mathematics and poetry that toured the UK over three years, culminating in a run at Soho Theatre in March 2022.
Publisher Clive Birnie says: “We are thrilled to have Harry back with a new book. We are celebrating ten years of publishing this year and having our top-selling author back with a new title is the perfect way to crown ten years in business. We expect this one to outsell Harry’s first book, The Sunshine Kid.” Copies are on sale at gigs, all good bookshops and via harrybaker.co.
Harry Baker’s York gig will be presented by spoken-word musketeers Say Owt; doors open at 7.30pm; box office: thecrescentyork.seetickets.com or harrybaker.co.
Salter of the earth: The ever-candid, sometimes apocalyptic, other times fantasy-seeking York poet Miles Salter
YORK poet, storyteller, journalist, songwriter and radio presenter Miles Salter has come up with his Fix for a seven-year hiatus.
He has released a poetry book of that name on his own new imprint, Winter & May – “it’s a way of saying ‘for all seasons’, reasons Miles – after a burst of writing in the pandemic ended the lull since his second collection, Animals.
In his apocalyptic, sometimes discomfiting yet hopeful miniature narratives and prose poems, Miles’s observational writing spans climate change; the rise and fall-out of love; loneliness and grief; rock’n’roll; the rites of passage through childhood, adolescence and beyond, and life’s flow being put on hold in pandemic lockdown, his tone ranging from deeply dark to darkly witty, quizzical to surrealist.
CharlesHutchPress fixes it for Miles to answer Charles Hutchinson’s frank questions on Fix and more besides.
Why the seven-year hiatus between volumes two and three: had it become a seven-year glitch or itch over that time, Miles?
“I’m a bit of a tortoise. I find that, generally, it takes a while for a project to come to fruition. I can be a real perfectionist. I always think I can do better.
“But the long gap wasn’t intentional. I went through a seismic mid-life crisis. That really slowed everything down. My life was a mess for a while. Some of the poems came out of that. I had a couple of years where I didn’t do much at all, no writing or anything. Just tried to look after myself and keep going. It was very grim.”
At the epicentre of that crisis was the end of your marriage in 2016…
“It took a long time to recover. I was devastated, and suicidal for a while. One of the poems that wasn’t included in the book was about looking for ways to end my life. There was a period in 2017 when I wanted to die. A friend of mine said, ‘You cannot do this to the kids’, and they were absolutely right.
“One poem, Said, details exchanges between me and my ex-wife at the time of our separation. It was a very difficult time; I wanted to save the marriage but it wasn’t possible. That poem reflects what happened. Let’s say I was trying to capture two different voices.”
Simon Armitage: Poet Laureate has been a major influence on Miles Salter
Given your frankness about your marriage coming to an end, and your subsequent suicidal thoughts, is there anything too personal for poetic expression?
“Fix is very confessional. It’s a risk to write about personal things. Some people have read the book and found it a little uncomfortable, because of the subject matter, although they also said it was moving.
“I feel that vulnerability is important in all art. Otherwise, how are you going to touch people? Overall, I think the balance is about right. Those poems are a record of something traumatic. There are funny poems in the book too!
“I talked about it with Carole Bromley, who’s a friend and mentor, and I reeled off a list of confessional poetry books like Stag’s Leap (about the end of Sharon Olds’ marriage), and Carole said, ‘Well, you’ve just listed my favourite poetry book’. That was very heartening.”
How have you changed as a poet over the past seven years?
“I think I’m becoming more careful in the writing, perhaps a bit more lyrical and subtle. I like to think that is a sign of maturity. I always liked muscular writers like Philip Larkin, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage. They all were ‘zero bullshit’ in their writing. But you can have impact without raising your voice too loudly. I think I’m getting better at that.”
How have you changed as a person in that time?
“Good question. There’s a very long answer to that, but a succinct response would be: more mature, a little older, a little less naive about the world. I know myself better. A bit more determined to not mess about, and keener to be more successful than before. Life is short. I want to make the next few years count.”
How do you define what constitutes a poem: once it was rhyme and rhythm; is it now line breaks and a sense of timing for the content’s maximum impact?
“There are a lot of definitions of poetry; I’m not sure I have a definitive one. For me, it would be ‘tell a story with heart and precision, as fast as you can’. But that reflects my tendency to write stories in my poems. A lot of the poems in Fix are miniature narratives and prose poems.”
Poetic licence to drill: the cover artwork for Miles Salter’s third collection, Fix
Does being a songwriter have an impact on your writing of poetry? How do poems differ from lyrics?
“I do find them to be very different things. My songs are more sloppy and more impressionistic. The poems are more crafted. Paul Simon sang once about ‘words that tear and strain to rhyme’, and he was spot on.
“With songs, you’re trying to match ‘rain’ with ‘pain’ or ‘again’. My poems dispense with that, most of the time, so the poems are much more liberated. I’d like to get closer to Del Amitri’s Justin Currie and Leonard Cohen in their song-writing, closing the the gap between poems and songs.”
Why did you choose “Fix” for the title? The word has multiple meanings: to mend a problem; to fasten; to “fix” a sports result; to be “in a fix”; to decide or settle on a date; to fix your eyes on someone; a drug “fix”. Which “Fix” is it for you?
“The big theme of the book is living in an imperfect world. The title was an allusion to addiction, to being in a fix, to trying to make things better. I liked the ambiguity. [Fellow York poet] Antony Dunn had a book called Bugs, which has three meanings. Maybe that was in the back of my mind.”
If you could fix one problem to improve the world, what would it be?
“Climate change. We’re all in big trouble. I have two children and I am scared for them. It’s very frightening. I keep writing about it, as if warding off a bad dream that keeps coming back.”
Dark humour has its place, but what else drives you in your writing. Is it cathartic?
“The humour is important, because life is funny and ridiculous as well as difficult and sad. Thomas Merton once said, ‘I want to write a book that contains everything’. I know what he means.
“There’s a Justin Currie song called At Home Inside Me, which has a similar feeling. As an artist, you want to encompass everything. There’s something universal about art. It’s funny, beguiling, unsettling, inspiring…”
Does something make more sense to you by the end of a poem than at the beginning?
“The best poems, usually, are the ones where you don’t know where you are going. You just follow an idea, and it takes you down a little rabbit warren. It’s a very exploratory thing. Was it Picasso who said ‘If you knew what you were doing at the start, what would be the point?’ Can’t remember. Somebody like that!”
When do you know a poem is finished? Artists often find it difficult to decide when a work is complete. What about you?
“Fix was exhausting at the end. Multiple revisions and then more, and more. It went through 16 drafts. I’m a bit of perfectionist. I just want stuff to be really, really good. Some of the poems I thought were finished, but I showed them to writer friends and would always try to revise them in light of what people said. I’ve learnt that a dodgy phrase is ‘That will do’. Revision is important. Do it again!”
“I always admired Philip Larkin for the way he was so honest about the more unpleasant aspects of life,” says Miles Salter
Writers are outsiders, whose observations make us look differently at the world around us. Discuss…
“Yes, absolutely. Writers are outsiders, and sometimes they are difficult, prickly people. But we need their perspective, the way they hold a mirror up to the world. What would literature be without George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Philip Larkin, D H Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway? We need outsiders sometimes. They show us how life is, and how it could be different.”
You name your influences as Larkin, Duffy, Armitage. Why that trio?
“They didn’t pull any punches; they talked about life in such an uncompromising way, and they were all brilliant with language. Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings is one of the greatest poems of the last hundred years, I think. It’s so moving.
“He has a bad reputation as a human but the writing is wonderful. I used to stand outside his house in Pearson Park in Hull and go ‘that’s where he was’.
“I always admired Larkin for the way he was so honest about the more unpleasant aspects of life – he wrote beautifully but was never sentimental. Like him, I try to balance the dark elements with some humour, too. I didn’t want Fix to be unremittingly bleak. I really wanted it to feel life-affirming.”
…and Duffy and Armitage?
“I worked with Carol and Simon when I ran the York Literature Festival. I put Carol on three times. That was a buzz.
“Armitage’s Seeing Stars was a big influence on me; it’s an amazing book. He walks a tightrope between humour and horror. Beyond Huddersfield – a bear in a recycling plant. It starts light and funny and gets really dark. Brilliant.”
Your candour within Fix takes in expressing frustration with men being portrayed in a negative light in the poem Shed. Over to you, Miles…
“In the wake of Me Too, there’s been a lot of anger about male behaviour. Some of that is entirely justified – abuse is unacceptable. However, I also see lots of comments that demonise men, and some of that takes place in the poetry world.
“I’m optimistic about what we can do in the future,” says Miles And The Chain Gang frontman Miles Salter, pictured, second from left, with fellow members Billy Hickling, Tim Bruce and Alan Dawson. Picture: Jim Poyner
“Shed is about toxic masculinity, but there’s a redemptive aspect to it: men can be better, we can move on. I’d like to see that reflected in the discourse, instead of ‘aren’t men awful?’ I feel very strongly about it.
“The highest risk category of suicide in the UK is men aged 45 or under, and I was nearly one of those statistics. Voices that demonise men are not helping, frankly. There’s a lot of shame – and shaming – going on out there, and we need to find a more rounded way of talking about things.”
Your poems stretch from realism to surrealism. What draws you to fantasy: a need to escape; a wish for change?
“I like that space where you take a real situation and twist it a little, so it becomes more surreal. I like to have one foot in the real world and one in a place that is much less familiar.
“I always had a slight feeling of guilt about fantasy and escapism, until I saw [artist] Grayson Perry talk about escapism, and how it’s OK and important. That really helped me a lot. I think imagination is hugely important. We need, as a culture and society, to be more imaginative. I hate the way technology is making us less imaginative, I find it really depressing.”
Is that why you have given your book imprint Winter & May the tagline “Books for Humans”?
“In an age of technological dependence, the motto stands as an attempt to reach for human creativity and independence. It scares me how we’ve all been sucked into thinking like machines.
“Part of me longs for a Utopia where we’re much closer to the earth, and much less attached to technology. One of the apocalyptic poems in the book, Witness Statement, foresees a society where machines take over from humanity.”
“He’s so good at wearing different hats, but it’s always about communication and connecting with people,” says Miles Salter of Barnsley Bard Ian McMillan, a guest on his Jorkik Radio programme, The Arts Show
Despite the stultifying frustrations and uncertainties of the pandemic cycle of Government-enforced lockdowns, how have you been keeping artistically busy, aside from publishing Fix?
“My band, Miles And The Chain Gang, released a couple of videos in 2020, When It Comes To You and Drag Me To The Light, and we’re working towards making an album.
“We’ve been going two years, and it’s been a slow burn. That’s partly because of Covid, but the songs are really strong and the band are brilliant. I’m optimistic about what we can do in the future.”
How is your regular Wednesday night slot on Jorvik Radio, hosting The Arts Show, going?
“I’ve interviewed luminaries such as cookery book writer Nigel Slater, young adult author Melvin Burgess and Barnsley bard Ian McMillan.
“Talking to Ian was great. He’s one of those writers who really inspired me; he’s so good at wearing different hats, but it’s always about communication and connecting with people. That’s where I feel happiest. Communicating makes me feel more alive.”
How do people respond when you say you are a poet?
“Ha! I don’t really say that. I say I’m a communicator.”
Musician, poet, broadcaster, communicator: why is communication so important to you?
“I just feel happy when I’m using words or music to make a connection with people, tell a story, create an atmosphere, impart information. It makes me happy. I’m getting better at it. It’s taken a while, but I’m improving.”
Should you be wondering…
Why has Miles Salter called his publishing imprint Winter & May?
“It was a joke. It was a way of saying ‘for all seasons’. It’s a made-up name, I just liked the way it sounded. Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Winter and May.”
Is this new venture mere vanity publishing for you? “I really hope not. I always had an inkling that I might go into publishing, in some way. I’ve always adored books. The feel of them, the smell, the potential held inside pages. I’ve got ideas for possible projects with other writers, so I hope it’s not just a bit of ego.”
Miles Salter’s Fix is available via Ohm Books at info@ohmbooks.com, priced at £8.95.
