Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny Cash and Christina Bianco’s June Carter Cash duetting in The Ballad Of Johnny & June, on fire at Grand Opera House, York, this week. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
ONE comment stood out in Drama Desk Award nominee Christina Bianco’s interview with CharlesHutchPress ahead of her return to York to play June Carter Cash in The Ballad Of Johnny & June.
“The film [James Mangold’s 2005 biopic Walk The Line] is only about 60 per cent accurate, whereas it’s so special that this show comes from the family,” she said.
The Johnny Cash Musical is directed and co-authored by Jersey Boys director (in tandem with Robert Cary), but the key voice belongs to Johnny and June’s only son, story consultant John Carter Cash, whose books Anchored In Love: An Intimate Portrait of June Carter Cash and House of Cash: The Legacies of My Father, Johnny Cash, inform the script so richly.
What’s more, Ryan O’Donnell’s John Carter Cash narrates the musical, breaking down the fourth wall to engage in informal, home-spun conversation with the Stallls, full of homilies on the thorn pricks of love and marriage as he reflects on the truths behind “country music’s greatest romance”.
After sold-out seasons at La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego, California, and the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Canada, Christopher Ryan Grant has crossed the Big Pond to play Johnny Cash on tour, joined by UK-based New Yorker Bianco, whose acting, singing and impersonating skills were last seen in York as the multi-voiced LV in Jim Cartwright’s tragic-comedy The Rise Of Little Voice at the Theatre Royal in July 2022.
Not that she delivers an impersonation of June here. “I feel a great responsibility to present her as accurately as possible, without doing an impression,” she told CharlesHutchPress. Her performance is all the more truthful for focusing on emotional depth, her June in full bloom in the face of Johnny’s hurricane, while her singing grows ever stronger, the more the show progresses.
The subtitle may be The Johnny Cash Musical, but McAnuff and Cary’s show gives equal time to Johnny and June, even if Ryan’s swarthy, black-eyed Johnny is the last to arrive on stage, the Man in Black held back for maximum impact.
Grant looks the part, physically imposing, moving with a swagger, crystallised in the way he holds his guitar, and then there is that deep-as-a-well Arkansas voice: the rolling thunder of his basso profundo, suited equally to warmth, flirting, righteous fire and darkness in songs that address sorrow, fickle morality and redemption with room for humour too (typified by A Boy Named Sue).
As many as 33 songs feature, some sung by O’Donnell’s affable John in storytelling mode, others by characters denoted as Man and Woman 1, 2 and 3, playing wives, husbands, members of Cash’s Tennessee Three and more besides. Anne Marie Wojna is particularly striking as Johnny’s wife Vivian, who inspired I Walk The Line, rooted in his vow not to stray or consume pills.
As O’Donnell’s narrator reveals, those vows were broken. Cash is drawn to pills & alcohol, as much as to June, although the veracity of how they first met is played out three ways by the show’s end, because Johnny and June may be unreliable witnesses, and so John Carter Cash lets us play judge and jury.
This warts’n’all musical, like Jersey Boys before it, features such career landmarks as Ring Of Fire (with Johnny challenging June’s claim of writing his biggest hit), his Folsom Prison and San Quentin concerts, his television specials and his late-career revival with Trent Reznor’s Hurt.
There is no mention of the cotton farmers’ son’s four years in the American Air Force, nor of producer Rick Rubin’s key contribution to his American Recordings late renaissance, but the tragic death of his brother and Sam Phillips’ early influence at Sun Records do feature, while the typeface on the list of locations and city names above Robert Brill’s wood-dominated set design mirrors the American Recordings album covers.
Throughout, the ‘ballad’ of Johnny & June plays out as a love affair that damaged but fed each other, as son John asks June to admit to her prescription drug habit in later years and Grant’s Johnny has to address his demons, encapsulated in his soul-baring rendition of Hurt.
Connagh Tonkinson’s band is terrific throughout, especially Morgan Rees’s trumpet, while Byron Easley’s delightfully diverse choreography, Sarafina Bush’s costumes, Peter Fitzgerald’s sound design and Sean Nieuwenhuis’s projections all add to the sound and fury signifying everything in the volatile yet boundless love of Johnny and June.
The Ballad Of Johnny & June runs at Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Tom Grennan: Performing after this afternoon’s race card on Knavesmire
VETERANS James Taylor and Tom Jones on the coast, Knavesmire’s music showcase, York Proms and Johnny and June’s country musical stand out in Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations for the week ahead.
Race day concert of the week: York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, Knavesmire, Tom Grennan, today
BEDFORD singer-songwriter Tom Grennan is today’s post-racing performer, drawing on such hits as Little Bit Of Love, Let’s Go Home Together, Remind Me, Here and How Does It Feel, plus songs from his number one albums Evering Road, What Ifs & Maybes and Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn’t Want To Be and top-five debut Lighting Matches. Tickets: yorkracecourse.co.uk; no booking fees; free parking on race day.
Tom Jones: Returning to Scarborough Open Air Theatre tomorrow
Coastal concerts of the week: Scarborough Open Air Theatre, An Evening with James Taylor and His All-Star Band, today; Tom Jones, with Stone Foundation, tomorrow; gates open at 6pm
MASSACHUSETTS singer, songwriter and guitarist, Laurel Canyon folk luminary, six-time Grammy winner and Rock and Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame inductee James Taylor, 78, draws on six decades of songs, from his self-titled 1968 debut to 2021’s 19th studio album, American Standard, tonight.
Tom Jones, or Sir Tom Jones since 2006, to be more formal, returns to Scarborough this weekend aged 85 to perform such favourites as It’s Not Unusual, What’s New Pussycat?, Delilah, Green, Green Grass Of Home, A Boy From Nowhere, Kiss, Mama Told Me Not To Come and Sex Bomb. Joining Sir Tom will be the eight-piece soul collective Stone Foundation. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Hannah Maxwell: Fiercely hopeful exploration of human connection in the Information Age at Theatre@41, Monkgate. Picture: Christa Holka
Fringe shows of the week: Halfway To Edinburgh at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, presents Hannah Maxwell: Turn Your ****ing Phones Off (Work in Progress), today,6.30pm; Kate McCabe and Adam Perrott,The Name Of The Dame, tomorrow, 7.30pm
PERFORMED in traverse with an immersive technical design by Benji Huntrods, theatre-maker Hannah Maxwell’s Edinburgh Fringe-bound new performance artwork is a dark, absurd and fiercely hopeful exploration of human connection in the Information Age, expounding playfully on the rise of Big Tech, attention-hacking innovations and surveillance capitalism, while recounting Maxwell’s personal struggles with phone addiction and her bid for a life in analogue.
Dames, detectives, stylish hats and ‘car chases’ combine in comedians Kate McCabe and Adam Perrott’s hour-long film-noir parody. “If you like Airplane and Police Squad, the oeuvre of Mel Brooks, dicey puns and sight gags, this show is probably for you,” they say. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Totally Visible Theatre Company in a scene from Invisible, to be spotted at Friargate Theatre tonight
Bonds of friendship of the week: The Totally Visible Theatre Company in Invisible, Friargate Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm
FIVE women meet up on a Saturday morning, as they have done every week for years, but this time they have a plan. Fast forward one year and their lives have changed irrevocably.
Celebrating the bonds of friendship and the fascinations and pitfalls of contemporary life, Invisible is a frank, fast-paced, all-female comedy-drama that ruminates on how older women are perceived in society, the relationships they forge and, most importantly, their “invisibility” in writer-director Jane Barrie’s exploration of sisterhood, motherhood and the effects of upbringing. Box office: 01904 655317 or ridinglights.org/friargatetheatre.
Ashley Stillburn: York-born tenor making his York Proms debut tomorrow
Picnic concert of the week: York Proms, York Museum Gardens, tomorrow, 5.30pm
RUN by classical chart-topping York soprano Rebecca Newman and now in its ninth year, York Proms features music from the world of classical and opera, film soundtracks and show songs. Increasing the orchestra size this summer enables the inclusion of John Williams cinema compositions.
The soloists are York-born tenor and West End musical actor Ashley Stillburn in his York Proms debut and British/Irish soprano Jennifer Coleman, making her third appearance. Tickets update: Available today but NOT tomorrow at yorkproms.com/collections/tickets-2026.
Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny Cash and Christina Bianco’s June Carter Cash in The Ballad Of Johnny & June, on tour at Grand Opera House, York, next week. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
Musical of the week:The Ballad Of Johnny & June, The Johnny Cash Musical, Grand Opera House, York, July 28 to August 1, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday & Saturday matinees
THIS thrilling musical from Jersey Boys director Des McAnuff celebrates the love, music and mayhem of country music couple Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. Electrifying chemistry marks the performances of Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny and Christina Bianco’s June in a story observed through the eyes of Ryan O’Donnell’s John Carter Cash, their son. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
In addition, the trio gives a special pop-up performance of songs from the show at Forty Five Vinyl Cafe, the Nashville-inspired concert venue, record store and coffee house in Micklegate, on July 29 at 1pm.
“Tribute” show of the week: Songs Of presents The Songs of Joni Mitchell, with Jesca Hoop & Lail Arad, The Citadel, York, July 31, doors 7pm, show 7.45pm
JESCA Hoop & Lail Arad, acclaimed singer-songwriters in their own right, perform intimate interpretations of their favourite Joni Mitchell songs, accompanied by Richard Sears on piano and special guest Naima Bock. Hoop presented Legend: The Joni Mitchell Story, the award-winning six-part BBC radio documentary and podcast on the Canadian singer-songwriter. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Jesca Hoop: Intimate interpretations of Joni Mitchell songs at The Citadel
Political drama of the week: Handbagged, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, July 31 to August 29
MOIRA Buffini’s 2014 Olivier Award-winning play imagines what happened behind closed palace doors when two of the 20th century’s most powerful women, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, locked handbags. Meeting once a week for 11 years, one believed there was no such thing as society; the other committed her life to serving it.
Spanning 1979 to 1990, Handbagged asks if The Queen and the Iron Lady ever found common ground or did their stiff upper lips reign supreme? Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder directs the SJT cast of Pandora Clifford, Liz Garland, Alexandra Mathie, Deven Modha, Simon Darwen and Meriel Scholfield. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Alexandra Mathie, left, and Pandora Clifford in rehearsal for Handbagged at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Shakespeare show of the week: Four Forty Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 31, 7.30pm
FOUR Forty Theatre (or 440 Theatre, as their website uses both names) tackle Shakespeare’s romantic romp of a chaotic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with their trademark irreverence, wit and theatrical ingenuity, directed by Dominic Gee-Burch, formerly of fellow high-speed Shakespeare humorists Oddsocks Productions.
Lovers are enchanted, fairies feud and a troupe of hapless players rehearse their way into disaster, all in a single moonlit night. Inventive staging, breakneck character changes and playful dismantling of tradition mark out Four Forty’s mischief-making take on Shakespeare’s best-loved comedy: part affectionate homage, part riotous reinvention. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Four Forty Theatre: Mischief-making in the woods in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Art event of the week: Carolyn Coles & Mike Marshall, Beyond The Nab, St Mary’s Church, Sandsend, near Whitby, today, tomorrow & Monday, 10am to 5pm
ARTISTS and fossil collectors Carolyn Coles and Mike Marshall are sharing their love of the north east coastline in Beyond The Nab at St Mary’s Church, Sandsend, near Whitby.
Held at this beautiful church located at the end of the Sandsend Valley at the bottom of Lythe Bank, the special four-day event takes place in one of Yorkshire’s prettiest valleys, noted for its picturesque, high-end stone cottages, rich local history, tied to the Mulgrave Estate, and ancient woodlands leading to the ruins of Mulgrave Castle.
On show and sale are contemporary paintings with a traditional twist, sculptured fossils, evocative photography, jet jewellery, cards and prints, with both York seascape artist Carolyn Coles and East Coast fossil legend Mike Marshall on hand to guide you through the works.
South Bank Studios artist Carolyn will be demonstrating painting techniques while Mike, who runs Yorkshire Coast Fossils, will be glad to identify any fossil you bring along. A pop-up cafe will serve light refreshment in aid of the church, championed by volunteer Helen Lloyd.
Mike Marshall looking out to sea
Carolyn explains the idea behind the event as a “brilliant medley of art and heritage, combining contemporary art and sculpture with traditional techniques”. “We talked about coming together professionally as our work is a perfect compliment and we have such a shared love of the area,” she says.
Carolyn has had a busy 2026, joining wildlife sculptor Karen Fawcett and PICA Studios ceramicist Emily Stubbs in The Sky’s The Limit exhibition at Pyramid Gallery, York, from late-January to mid-March and taking part in York Open Studios in April.
“My dream is to open a studio and gallery and live by the coast, so this event is a huge pleasure to hold,” she says.
York artist Carolyn Coles enjoying painting in plein air at Sandsend
Christina Bianco in the role of June Carter Cash in The Ballad Of Johnny & June. Picture: Michael Wharley
AFTER sold-out seasons at La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego, California, and the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Canada, Christopher Ryan Grant is playing Johnny Cash on tour in The Ballad Of Johnny & June. Next stop, Grand Opera House, York, from June 30 to June.
Joining him as June Carter Cash will be Drama Desk Award nominee Christina Bianco, the American actress, singer and impersonator last seen in York playing the multi-voiced LV in Jim Cartwright’s tragic-comedy The Rise Of Little Voice at York Theatre Royal in July 2022.
Christina had hankered after the role of the reclusive LV for a decade and what a performance she delivered, mastering an Oldham accent, suitably quiet and diffident yet full of stage presence as she brought the house down with her myriad voices.
“I had the time of my life there because York was one of those places where, when I opened a book, I thought it looked so beautiful, so magical,” she recalls. “Then when Ian [York-born actor and fellow cast member Ian Kelsey] took me around all the sights, it was hard to take it all in, so this time I have a list of things I’d like to see and others I want to go back to.”
Christina Bianco on her guided tour of York with Ian Kelsey, her fellow actor in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice at York Theatre Royal, in July 2022
Christina has been living in the UK for “coming up five years now”. “In fact, it was just before ‘Little Voice’ that I made the move with my husband Bill and our dog Jeff Vader, who’s an adorable Schnauzer/Poodle mix,” she says.
“He’s almost 17 years old, so I guess I started the ‘oodle’ mix trend, though I didn’t know I was trendy at the time! I’m a life-long New Yorker but Jeff Vader’s life has been improved by living in the UK.”
Now Christina is enjoying starring in the new musical co-created and shaped by the recollections of John Carter Cash, Johnny and June’s son, whose role in the show will be played by Ryan O’Donnell, who narrates the story from the son’s perspective.
In that story, love is a burning thing, and no-one burned brighter than Johnny and June. He was a small-town musician and storyteller with a volcanic voice that stirred the soul. She was a multi-talented performer and a music pioneer. The pair married in 1968 and remained together until June’s death in 2003.
“I feel a great responsibility to present June as accurately as possible, without doing an impression,” says Christina
“I’d heard of the show when it was at La Jolla Playhouse, where I had a couple of friends in the cast,” says Christina. “I’m a big fan of Johnny and June Carter Cash, with my dad being a DJ, so I had my eye and ear on it when it was being built, but then I did sort of forget about it.
“But then I remember sitting in my dressing room when playing the Narrator in Joseph And The Amazing Dreamcoat – an absolute dream come true, doing my eight shows a week, when the Narrator does more than usual, playing other roles, working my booty off – and I was thinking it would be great to do more of an acting role next.”
Whereupon she received Des McAnuff and Robert Cary’s script for The Ballad Of Johnny & June from the show’s producers, Trafalgar Theatre Productions. “It was so true to Johnny and June’s story, and the fact the piece has the blessing and input of John Carter Cash makes it a show like none other,” says Christina. “The film [James Mangold’s 2005 biopic Walk The Line] is only about 60 per cent accurate, whereas it’s so special that this show comes from the family.”
No doubt that is music to the ears of John Carter Cash, who has said: “It has meant a great deal to me to be involved in bringing this new musical to the stage and see my parents Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash’s story told with such care, heart and honesty.
“Johnny and June’s music was inseparable from their lives, and this musical captures that truth through powerful story telling by a brilliant company, set to their genre-defining music. I have loved working with the creative team, and my family and I are both delighted and proud that audiences across the UK and Ireland get to see this celebration of their legacy.”
Christina Bianco with Christopher Ryan Grant, her fellow American co-star in The Ballad Of Johnny & June. “We got on like a house on fire immediately, bringing out the New Yorker in me. We just seemed to fit together perfectly,” she says. Picture: Michael Wharley
In turn, Christina is delighted to be working with two-time Tony Award-winning director Des McAnuff, whose credits include Jersey Boys, The Who’s Tommy and Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.
“Des and musical director and arranger Ron Melrose, who worked with Des on Jersey Boys, are names I have respected and revered all my working life, and nothing can prepare you for the first meeting,” she says.
“You know the music well, but there was a pressure to get it right, every word, every line, and it went so well that I was sure I wasn’t going to get the part! But it turned out I got the job very early on, and it did feel like a marriage made in heaven.
Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny Cash and Christina Bianco’s June Carter Cash in a scene from The Ballad Of Johnny & June. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
“I then met Christopher Ryan Grant – who my friends in America said had been so marvellous as Johnny – at the photo-call last November and we got on like a house on fire immediately, bringing out the New Yorker in me. We just seemed to fit together perfectly.”
As for playing June, Christina says: “Without giving too much away, the story focuses a lot on June, her story. Like Johnny, she had her problems with addiction [prescription pills in later life], though people didn’t know that, but it’s in John Carter Cash’s book. I feel a great responsibility to present her as accurately as possible, without doing an impression.”
Summing up a show that is as much a play with music as a musical, Christina says: “Like any good musical, it will have you singing along, it will make you laugh, make you cry and hopefully leave you thinking there’s hope in the story of love and redemption – and who doesn’t need that?”
The Ballad Of Johnny & June – The Johnny Cash Musical, Grand Opera House, York, July 28 to August 1, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
The latest tour poster for The Ballad Of Johnny & June, The Johnny Cash Musical
NEWSFLASH
ON July 29 at 1pm, the Grand Opera House has organised a pop-up performance by The Ballad Of Johnny & June principal cast members Christina Bianco (June Carter Cash), Christopher Ryan Grant (Johnny Cash) and Ryan O’Donnell (John Carter Cash) at Forty Five Vinyl Cafe, Micklegate, York’s Nashville-inspired home of concerts by American country acts, record store and coffee house.
“They will play a short selection of songs from the show, which we are really excited about,” says marketing and communications manager Lucy Perrins.
Christina Bianco’s LV performing at Mr Boo’s in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, Glass Half Full Productions, York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm tonight and Friday; 2.30pm, 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
THE Rise And Fall Of Little Voice has a habit of rising again and again on a cycle of major tours.
It might even be argued that Jim Cartwright’s epic yet claustrophobically intimate tragi-comedy has been over-done, but its 30th anniversary is as good a reason as any for another revival.
This week’s run is not playing to big houses – most likely because the cost-of-living crisis is putting a tight squeeze on nights out, with holidays overseas taking priority, rather than Little Voice ennui – but Bronagh Lagan’s superb production deserves bigger audiences.
She has cast brilliantly, not only in the leads, Christina Bianco, Shobna Gulati and York-born Ian Kelsey, but also in the supporting Akshay Gulati, Fiona Mulvaney and the ever-welcome William Ilkley.
Cheesier than Mozzarella: William Ilkley’s tacky club owner Mr Boo. Picture: Pamela Raith
A decade ago, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre opened its Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Stories season with ‘Little Voice’, that theme title summing up Cartwright’s bitter yet tender clash of the blitz and the glitz perfectly.
Lagan and set and costume designer Sara Perks retain the 1992 unspecified northern setting in Mari Hoff’s damp, run-down terrace-end house with its dodgy electrics, worn furniture, empty fridge, stack of booze bottles and on-the-blink meter. Excitement amounts to the installation of a new phone, bought on the never-never.
That only adds to the noise emanating constantly from Shobna Gulati’s heavy-drinking, needy motormouth Mari, flirting in the last chance saloon, while being neglectful of her daughter LV, yet smothering her all the while.
Drowned out by by man-eating Mari’s white noise, LV (American actress, singer and impersonator Christina Bianco) is reclusive (but not agoraphobic, she says). Spending days in her pyjamas, she listens to her late father’s vinyl collection in her bedroom, perfecting the vocal tropes and mannerisms of bygone divas Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Shirley Bassey and Bianco’s new addition, Cilla Black.
As and when necessary, she cleans up after her wild-living mother, whose neediness finds her treating her sugar-guzzling, simple, oversized neighbour Sadie (Fiona Mulvaney) like a comfort blanket to be picked up and discarded on a whim.
Clinging on: Shobna Gulati’s Mari Hoff in a needy moment with Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say. Picture: Pamela Raith
Cartwright depicts a dysfunctional, desperate world where lives are stymied by circumstance, but the wish to fly, to escape, to dream, to live beyond means, is omnipresent. LV does so through those records, kept in immaculate condition; Mari does so by placing her eggs in her latest basket: Ian Kelsey’s viper-tongued artist manager Ray Say, who sees himself as “the king of this gutter”, always on the make, but yet to make it.
When he hears caged songbird LV singing upstairs, while he’s romping with Mari on the sofa, Ray thinks he has a pathway to gold at last, if only he can persuade her to perform in public at Mr Boo’s tacky club in town.
In the wrong hands, Cartwright’s northern drama can become nasty, brutish and brash, even a freakshow, especially Mari, but the key is to locate its heart and to bring balance, to not let the white noise dominate.
Anyone who saw Gulati’s Ray in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Leeds Grand Theatre will not be surprised at her tour-de-force Mari: selfish, grotesque, restless, volatile, relentless, potty-mouthed, over-heated yet devoid of warmth, but vulnerable too, and as funny as she is tiresome.
Bianco has hankered after the role of LV for a decade and what a performance she delivers, mastering an Oldham accent, suitably quiet and diffident yet full of stage presence, and bringing the house down with her myriad voices.
Always on call: Akshay Gulati’s shy phone engineer Billy making one of his multiple unexpected visits to Christina Bianco’s even shier LV. Picture: Pamela Raith
Her contrasting chemistry with Gulati’s volcanic Mari and Akshay Gulati’s tentative, caring, in-the-shadows telephone engineer Billy is impressive too as he tentatively leads her towards the light and freedom. Pent up for so long, when LV finally speaks her mind to Mari, Bianco finds devastating new heights.
Kelsey’s Ray Say has a veneer of charm, but the dark desperation is always bubbling away beneath the sleek yet seedy surface, as the chancer turns to user and abuser. Kelsey’s Theatre Royal debut at 55 is long overdue in his home city, and we can only hope more powerhouse roles will follow here.
Meanwhile, William Ilkley’s Mr Boo, the club boss with the flatlining patter, is a delightfully observed cameo from clubland’s past.
Echoing the heightened language of Greek drama and Shakespeare, yet redolent of Fifties and Sixties’ kitchen-sink dramas too, Cartwright’s world of outsiders and leftovers elicits fears, cheers and finally tears as LV finds her voice.
In the closing words of Mari, “I beseech you, I beseech you, I beseech you” to buy a ticket this week.
Sara Perks’ set design for The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice with its cast of outsiders and leftovers: Christina Bianco’s LV (bedroom), Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say, Shobna Gulati’s Mari Hoff, Fiona Mulvaney’s Sadie and William Ilkley’s Mr Boo. Picture: Pamela Raith
Christina Bianco: Playing LV at last almost a decade after Jim Cartwright’s vow to “make it happen”
YORK has been on New Yorker Christina Bianco’s bucket list of British cities to visit for “the longest time”.
Glory be for the American actress, supreme impressionist and YouTube sensation, she will be at York Theatre Royal all this week, playing reclusive songbird LV in Jim Cartwright’s deeply dark comedy-drama The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice.
“I’m going to be all over that city, taking a million photos,” she vows. “Apologies to the locals of York for my camera being out and my blocking traffic in the streets! It’s one of those places, which, coming from America, you don’t believe is real. It looks like something out of Harry Potter! So yes, to finally be in York is truly amazing.”
Ahead of this week’s run, Christina already had a sneak preview of York in the company of co-star Ian Kelsey, who took her on a guided tour of his home city last month, taking in York Minster, the Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate street sign, a pub and the Theatre Royal stage.
From bucket list to wish list as Christina realises a long-held ambition to play LV. “When I was young growing up in New York, I always did impressions and loved singing many genres of music,” she says. “My parents tell me I had a natural instinct for mimicry, especially when it came to Judy Garland in The Wizard Of Oz.
Christina Bianco acquainting herself with York. Picture: Ant Robling
“For some reason, I always gravitated toward British culture, television, films and comedy, watching the video of Four Weddings And A Funeral when I was little, and later Monty Python, and there was something about the British sensibility that I just loved.
“One of my favourite things in the world to watch was Absolutely Fabulous. I especially loved Jane Horrocks in it, and I love how your comedies have such broad characters but deal with serious subjects. Something hit me about the difference with American comedies.”
Later, Christina’s father saw a review of York director Mark Hearld’s 1998 film adaptation of Cartwright’s play, Little Voice, starring the aforementioned Horrocks. “Given LV’s love for Judy and all the diva impressions, he said we had to see it. I was blown away by Jane Horrocks’ performance and, of course, by the story itself. I became a little obsessed with it!” she says.
First, Christina brought her talent for mimicry to the fore in Forbidden Broadway off-Broadway in 2008. “I was doing impressions in public for the first time and gratefully being well reviewed for doing so,” she recalls.
“It put me on the map as an impressionist, and over the next few years I pushed myself to try more and more impressions and to eventually build my own show – both because I was enjoying it and because I realised there was an audience for this sort of act. It was around this time I posted some impressions videos on YouTube and they started racking up some views.”
Ian Kelsey introduces Christina Bianco to York Theatre Royal on his guided tour of his home city. Picture: Ant Robling
Move the story forward to the summer of 2012, when Christina saw a notice that Little Voice was to go on a British tour, directed by Cartwright himself. “I’d never seen the show on stage before, so my husband and I planned a six-day trip to London…with my ulterior motive being to take a train to Guildford to see the show!” she says.
“My managers at the time suggested ‘Why don’t you write to Jim, introduce yourself and tell him how much you love the show?’.”
Cartwright duly wrote back to say “I’ve just watched your stuff online. You’re fabulous! Come to the stage door and we’ll chat”. “I ended up sitting down with Jim and talking about the show for quite some time,” says Christina.
“We stayed in touch and soon after, when some of my YouTube videos went viral and I had a run of sold-out shows at the Hippodrome, Jim came and said ‘we have to make LV happen for you’! That was in 2013. So, as you can see, doing this show has been a very long journey! Now, to finally get to do it, on this grand scale, with this incredible cast, is just thrilling.”
How come it still took so long to “make LV happen” after Cartwright’s vow? “We definitely have to rule out two years of Covid, of course, but the first reason was that I met him just as he was directing a big production of his play, so I knew I’d have to wait four or five years for another big production,” says Christina.
Christina Bianco’s LV performing her repertoire of diva impersonations at Mr Boo’s Club. Picture: Pamela Raith
“Then I was attached to a production that Jim gave his blessing to that was supposed to go to Broadway, but that didn’t happen after going through three different directors – but that’s the story of showbiz.
“Then, the really tricky thing is that in the UK ‘Little Voice’ is so loved and some people say it’s overdone, being done by regional theatres and colleges as well, so the wait went on.”
Nevertheless, Christina was undaunted in her pursuit of adding LV to her CV, and once producer Katy Lipson attained the rights to the play, she promptly contacted the American actress, having seen her vocal impressions in concert. “She said, ‘I want to work with you; what would you like to do? Come up with a couple of ideas’. I said I’d love to do LV before I can’t do it.”
Sure enough, despite a further delay, Christina’s LV has arrived “when I’m still not too long in the tooth” at 40. “When Jane Horrocks first did it, she was in her late-20s, and in the movie, she was in her 30s. LV is not in her teens; she’s emotionally regressed, staying in the emotional state of a child.”
Christina’s diva impersonations on LV’s bedroom floor and the northern club stage are drawn specifically from the vinyl record collection of LV’s late father. “Everyone probably expects me to come out and do Celine Dion but it’s not the right time period,” she says.
“I don’t like confrontation,” says Christina Bianco, who shares that characteristic with the reclusive LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Here Bianco’s LV keeps her distance from Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say and Shobna Gulati’s Mari Hoff. Picture: Pamela Raith
“What I will be doing, though, is attempting Cilla Black for the first time in my life. Everybody I impersonate in the show will be of the classic musical era LV’s father loved: Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Shirley Bassey…”.
When adding a new diva to her repertoire, how does she master the voice? “It depends on the particular vocalist but typically I immerse myself with them for a couple of days. I listen to lots of their music before I watch any video footage of them.
“I like to get the essence of their voice first. Then I study their physicality in more detail. I try to take on as many mannerisms, characteristics and facial expressions as I can. Thank goodness everyone’s liking my Cilla; everyone’s clapping; no-one’s booing! I did have the fear of God put into me about singing You’re My World just right, but I made a point of knowing that she’d been told to sing it with a mid-Atlantic accent, which I’m doing.”
Christina’s biggest challenge is playing an introvert. “It’s very funny timing for me, with my last part being Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, who’s the polar opposite of LV. Fanny couldn’t help attracting attention, whereas LV is happy to fade into the background,” she says.
“Everyone says Fanny Brice is one of the most challenging roles of all time, and I don’t disagree. You never leave the stage except to change costume; you sing 12 songs, laugh, cry, dance and do physical comedy – the list goes on!
Pyjama drama: Christina Bianco’s LV singing in her bedroom. Picture: Pamela Raith
“But I can safely say I’m more nervous about doing Little Voice because I’m not an introvert. There’s the part of me that needs the platform to perform, though [away from the stage] I can be quite shy and I don’t like to stand out, so I’ve channelled that side of me. I don’t like confrontation too, and that part of me hasn’t changed with age.
“What many people wouldn’t know about me is that I’m an only child who’s happy to be alone, and if there’s no ideal platform for me to be on stage, if someone asks me to stand in front of a microphone I’ll shrink.”
Christina fully memorised the script before entering the rehearsal room. “I wanted to be as comfortable with the text as possible, in order to be fully comfortable performing it in a Northern accent,” she reasons.
“Sure, I’m good at accents but it’s a very different thing when you’re doing an accent in the place where that accent actually comes from. I’m not doing this show in New York. I’m doing a Lancashire accent for people in the north. That’s very intimidating!”
For that reason, she did consult a voice coach. “People have this assumption that if you’re good at vocal impressions, you’ll be good at accents too, but it’s so important that you’re comfortable in the accent. It’s either right or wrong, an accent, whereas an impression is an interpretation, and that’s different.
Christina Bianco and Ian Kelsey set out from York Theatre Royal on Ian’s guided tour. Picture: Ant Robling
“I worked with a voice coach on Zoom over lockdown to get the Oldham/Manchester accent, and as Katy Lipson is from Manchester, she’d let me know if I was getting it wrong!”
Christina notes how American and British audiences differ. “I think Americans kind of watch you, leaning back, giving off an ‘entertain me’ vibe. I feel a British audience leans forward a bit more. They come into you and your world. Both are great and I’m not trying to insult my home country but I do feel British audiences are a little more appreciative.
“On the other side of that, Americans are much more likely to leap to their feet at the end of the show! Over here you can give the best performance of your life and the audience cheers like crazy but they don’t always leap to their feet.
“It’ll be interesting to see the reaction to this play. It won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy but I personally don’t see it as a traditional comedy. I see it as a true drama that happens to have a lot of comedic moments – and I know Jim and our director, Bronagh Lagan, are really looking to bring out the heart at the centre of it. How people are imperfect, make mistakes and have rises and falls – but they persevere.
“Fear of ‘starting over’ is a big theme in the show and I think we can say we’re all having to start over now in many ways. On both sides of the pond, and all over the world. It’s very timely.”
“York is one of those places, which, coming from America, you don’t believe is real,” says Christina Bianco, here standing outside York Art Gallery. Picture: Ant Robling
Summing up why Cartwright’s play has resonated with audiences through 30 years, Christina says: “First of all, I think this play is a true love letter to the UK. It celebrates so many great British artists and their music.
“But the story itself is something everybody can relate to, regardless of whether or not they know the music in the play. The idea that no matter how difficult things get, you can still persevere and rise from the ashes. And I think that’s exactly the message we need after the last two years.
“It’s a story about not being afraid to try something different and starting again. We’ve all been through something together that has changed us, just as the characters in the play do.”
Christina hopes audiences will embrace her as an American performer, taking on such an iconic British character. “I’d like to think that I’ve earned some stripes working in the UK quite a bit already, so maybe that will help,” she says. “And I’ve actually just become a resident, along with my husband and our dog Jeff Vader. We all live here now [on a three-year visa in London], so you’re stuck with me!”
Jeff Vader, Christina? “I named the dog after an Eddie Izzard joke,” she reveals of a surrealist shaggy- dog story that took in the Death Star, a cafeteria, Lego, and yes, Jeff Vader.
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, starring Christina Bianco, Shobna Gulati and Ian Kelsey, runs at York Theatre Royal until July 9, 7.30pm, plus 2pm, Thursday and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Shobna Gulati, Christina Bianco and Ian Kelsey in the tour poster for the Glass Half Full Productions tour of The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
York Light Opera Company’s performers and production team for A Night With The Light
FROM open-air films to the Proms, Early Music festival connections to Nordic sunshine, Charles Hutchinson’s summer season is in full bloom.
York Light Opera Company in A Night With The Light, Friargate Theatre, Friargate, York, today at 2.30pm and 7.30pm
UNDER the direction of Jonny Holbek and musical direction of Martin Lay, York Light presents a feel-good programme of powerful, funny, emotive and irreverent numbers from favourite musicals and new ones too.
Look forward to songs from Hamilton, Waitress, Wicked, Chicago, Chess, Avenue Q, The Phantom Of The Opera, Les Misérables, The Sound Of Music and plenty more. “Come join us as we have Magic To Do!” say Jonny and Martin. Box office: 01904 655317 or ridinglights.org/a-night-with-the-light/.
West Side Story: One of the films to be shown at Picturehouse Outdoor Cinema in York Museum Gardens
Films under the stars: Picturehouse Outdoor Cinema, York Museum Gardens, York, tonight and tomorrow; August 5 to 7, 7.30pm
PICTUREHOUSE, owners of City Screen, York, present two weekends of open-air cinema with a summer vibe.
Tonight’s Grease (Sing-A-Long) (PG) will be followed by tomorrow’s 70th anniversary celebration of Singin’ In The Rain (U).
Next month’s trio of films opens with a 40th anniversary screening of Blade Runner (15) on August 5; next comes Steven Spielberg’s 2021 re-make of West Side Story (12A) on August 6; last up, Disney’s Encanto (Sing-A-Long) (U) on August 7. Box office: picturehouses.com/outdoor-cinema/venue/york-museum-gardens.
Off to the coast: a-ha head for Scarborough Open Air Theatre tomorrow
The sun always shines on…a-ha, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, tomorrow, gates, 6pm
NORWEGIAN synth-pop trio a-ha head to the Yorkshire coast on their 2022 World Tour of Europe, the United States and South America, 40 years since forming in Oslo.
Vocalist Morten Harket, guitarist Pal Waaktaar-Savoy and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen will be releasing a new album in October, True North, their first collection of new songs since 2015’s I, recorded in two days 25km inside the Arctic Circle.
Will they preview new songs alongside the familiar Take On Me, The Sun Always Shines On TV, Hunting High And Low and Stay On These Roads? Find out on Sunday. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Christina Bianco’s LV and Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice at York Theatre Royal
Play of the week: Glass Half Full Productions in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday
YORK actor Ian Kelsey returns to his home city to play viperous talent-spotting agent Ray Say in his Theatre Royal debut in a new tour of Jim Cartwright’s bittersweet comedy-drama, directed by Bronagh Lagan.
Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati plays louche, greedy, loud mother Mari Hoff and American actress and YouTube sensation Christina Bianco, her daughter LV, the recluse with the hidden singing talent for impersonating Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey et al. Can Ray draw her out of her shell and with what consequences? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The Sixteen: Returning to York Minster for York Early Music Festival2022
Festival of the week: York Early Music Festival 2022, July 8 to 16
YORK Early Music Festival returns to a full-scale live programme for the first time since 2019 under the theme of connections.
“Concerts are linked together through a maze of interconnecting composers,” says festival administrative director Delma Tomlin. “We’re delighted to be able to shine a light on the many connections that hold us together in the past and into the future.”
At the heart of the 2022 festival will be three 7.30pm concerts in York Minster by The Sixteen (July 9, the Nave); The Tallis Scholars (July 11, Chapter House) and the Gabrieli Consort & Players (July 13, the Nave). For the full programme and tickets, head to: ncem.co.uk.
Skylights: Playing their biggest gig yet at Leeds O2 Academy
York gig of the week in Leeds: Skylights, Leeds O2 Academy, July 9, doors, 7pm
YORK indie-rockers Skylights play “the biggest gig of our lives” next weekend up the road in Leeds, where previously they have sold out Leeds University and The Wardrobe and performed at Leeds United’s centenary celebrations in Millennium Square in October 2019.
Four Acomb lads in the 30s, singer Rob Scarisbrick, guitarist Turnbull Smith, drummer Myles Soley and bassist Jonny Scarisbrick, will perform to 2,300 fans in celebration of their debut album, What You Are, reaching number 34 in the charts in May. Box office: academymusicgroup.com.
Natasha Agarwal: Soprano soloist at York Proms
Picnic party of the week: York Proms, York Museum Gardens, York, July 10, gates, 4pm
MUSICAL director Ben Crick conducts the 22-piece Yorkshire Festival Orchestra in next weekend’s performance of classical and film pieces, a special Platinum Jubilee section in the second half and a rousing Proms finale.
Soloists will be soprano and dancer Natasha Agarwal, who performed in Opera North’s Carmen, and bass-baritone John Anthony Cunningham, who has chalked up principal roles with English National Opera, Opera North and the Royal Opera House.
York Proms founder Rebecca Newman’s special appearance includes a tribute to her husband and co-founder, Jonathan Fewtrell, who died suddenly in 2020. The Fireworkers provide a firework finishing flourish. Box office: 01904 555670 or yorkproms.com/tickets.
Calling Planet Earth: Elegy to the Eighties at York Barbican
New Romantic nostalgia in the air: Calling Planet Earth, York Barbican, January 21 2023, 8pm
THIS New Romantic Symphony takes a journey through the electrifying Eighties’ songs of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, The Human League, Ultravox, Tears For Fears, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Japan, ABC and Soft Cell.
Calling Planet Earth combines a live band with symphonic arrangements and vocals in a show designed to “simply define a decade”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk or ticketmaster.co.uk.
Ian Kelsey’s “king of the gutter” Ray Say has a quiet word with Christina Bianco’s reclusive songbird LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith
YORK actor Ian Kelsey returns to his home city to play viperous talent-spotting agent Ray Say in a new tour of Jim Cartwright’s bittersweet comedy The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice from Monday.
In doing so, he will be making his York Theatre Royal stage debut, although the former railway carriage works coach builder did hand out sweets in the guise of Mr Toffee in the foyer before performances of The Railway Children many moons ago in his “first professional gig”.
“I’ve seen many, many pantos and shows there but I’ve never performed there before,” says Ian. “I’m a little bit jittery about the maybe more critical eyes of people I went to school with or who I worked on the railway with. I also hope I don’t meet the Grey Lady [the Theatre Royal ghost]!”
Ian, 55, will be joined in Bronagh Lagan’s production for Glass Half Full Productions by Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati as Mari Hoff and New York actress and YouTube sensation Christina Bianco as LV (Little Voice).
Heavy-drinking, louche, loud Mari and reclusive LV are the contrasting mother and daughter in Cartwright’s fairy-tale, where LV is left to her own devices, embodying the famous divas she plays on repeat in her room, from Judy Garland to Shirley Bassey, from her late father’s record collection.
From New York to old York: Ian Kelsey introduces American actress Christina Bianco to the quirks of his home city. Picture: Ant Robling
When manipulative Ray Say hears that cloistered nightingale sing, he foresees an overnight sensation and a route to a pot of gold in a story of the highs and the lows of small-town dreams, family rivalry and finding your voice in a noisy world.
Ian is in a touring show for the first time since The Verdict in 2019. “I was isolating in Dublin for two weeks in a hotel, doing an ITV drama, when Dublin was in its Lockdown number five, only on set for an hour, and this job came through while I was there,” he recalls. “It was my first audition on Zoom, so I had to embrace this new way of working.”
Ian jumped at the chance to play “king of the gutter” Ray in Cartwright’s painfully truthful northern drama. “I’d not the seen the film or the play before, although I was aware of it and what it’s about. But I just started reading the script and found Ray so funny, as well as horrific at the same time,” he says. “How can you not say yes to playing Ray Say?!” he says.
“He’s a bit of a leech really and so self-centred. He uses people. I think he has a good heart, or he had one, but it’s clear he only thinks of himself when it comes to his relationship with Mari. He’s not interested in her once he realises he can better his life through the singing talents of her daughter.”
Halfway through, Ray’s character changes. “There’s a speech where he just rips into Mari at one point and I was gobsmacked by what he says, but it’s brilliantly written by Jim Cartwright,” says Ian.
“It’s clear Ray only thinks of himself when it comes to his relationship with Mari,” says Ian, pictured with Shobna Gulati’s clinging Mari Hoff. Picture: Pamela Raith
“He’s a fantastic writer and as you’re reading it you can hear it being said. The rhythms are just how people talk in the world in which it’s set. The characters don’t have much money, but they aspire to live above their station, which is also really funny.”
Can 6ft 3ins Ian relate to the intimidating Ray in any way? “I hope not! But when I’m reading a script, it really helps if I have someone in mind and all their nuances start to come into play.
“With Ray, I’ve got a couple of people in mind, although I don’t want to say who they are of course. I’ve met proper northern gangsters, who act like comedians, but all the time you’re thinking, ‘you’ve got something in your boots’. I can say, there’s also a bit of Johnny, who played my father in Coronation Street, in there too.”
After landing the role, Ian resisted any temptation to watch Michael Caine’s award-winning performance in York director Mark Hearld’s 1998 film. “I don’t want to be influenced by it, otherwise for the audience it will feel like I’m doing my take on his take,” he reasons.
“By not seeing the film, it’s all fresh coming off the page, so the vision of how to play Ray comes from my head.”
Ian Kelsey shows Christina Bianco the resplendent glory of York Minster
Before Ray Say, Ian has taken on several roles associated with film versions. “Such as when I played Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, and that was ingrained in me because it’s one of my favourite films,” he says.
“In that instance, you can’t help but give a nod to iconic performances. I’ve done Danny in Grease and I completely pinched Travolta’s walk, the Danny strut. You can’t help pinching from the best.”
This time, Ian has taken a different approach, although he has discussed the role with a fellow actor and Jim Cartwright. “One of the lads out of Coronation Street had played Ray, so we had a really good chat about it, and then, when Jim was in the audience in early June, we got talking about different actors bringing their different trombones to it,” he says.
“You can bring a wheelbarrow of trombones to a comedy, and then after two weeks, you think, ‘OK, I need to hold back those trombones here’!
“What you have to do is to get back to the script and not bring a trombone to the party – although Jim loves trombones!”
Persuasive tongue: Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say tries to talk Christina Bianco’s LV into performing in public in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith
Mark Hearld set Little Voice in Scarborough; Cartwright’s play, premiered in 1992, refers only to being set in a northern town. “I think Scarborough’s too big for it. There are too many Ray Says in that town,” says Ian. “It needs to be a one-club town. It needs to be smaller than Scarborough.
“Ray’s the king of that one-club town, which is why, when he hears LV sing, he can see the potential of exploiting her talent. I can only imagine going to perform in somewhere like Wakefield would be big news!”
Ian reflects on the significance of 1992 in his own life. “It’s weird because, I’m 55 now, and that was the year I came out of drama school at Guildford,” he says.
“I didn’t realise people from York could go to drama school: I’d come out of school at 16, did six years at the railway carriage works, doing a coach-building apprenticeship, and then a year at Carris & Son, at Poppleton, making oak-leaf conservatories.
“It was there that I got my allergy to cedar wood and they told me I’d have to wear a face mask – that sounds familiar! – when working for the rest of my career. That’s when I ‘flipped’ and decided to go to drama school, when I was already in my early 20s.
Shobna Gulati, Christina Bianco and Ian Kelsey in the tour poster for The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
“Three years at drama school, and two years after that I got my first soap role in Emmerdale. They advised me to take five years off my age to get roles!”
Ian – definitely 55! – is enjoying his travels on tour. “Live theatre is different every night and you’re constantly trying to win the audience over. I learned so much doing [John Godber’s] September In The Rain about the set-up for comedy and it’s such a brilliant craft because you’re always learning new things. I don’t think I’ve ever done a job where I’ve not learned something,” he says.
“The thing I’ve been most looking forward to is taking my motorbike with me. One of the most difficult things about being on tour is filling the time between getting up and curtain-up. I’m not one for historical buildings and all that, and if you’ve been on the telly a bit you can’t just go and sit in a coffee bar for the afternoon without being recognised. So, it’s fantastic to just put a crash helmet on and go and explore.”
Already he has taken American co-star Christina Bianco on his own version of a guided tour of York. Come Monday, Ian and his bike will be all revved up with one place to go as he heads home to the city where he cut his performing teeth in Mike Thompson’s Rowntree Youth Theatre productions of Half A Sixpence, Kiss Me Kate and Some Like It Hot at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. Now, he will have his Say at York Theatre Royal at last.
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice runs at York Theatre Royal from July 4 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Home at last: Ian Kelsey looks forward to his belated York Theatre Royal debut. Picture: Ant Robling
