GEORGIAN glories, Forties’ swing bombshells, the joy of SIX, storytelling with pizza and Pooh and Tigger adventures bring a bounce to Charles Hutchinson’s step.
Children’s show of the week: Disney’s Winnie The Pooh, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday, 5pm; Wednesday, 11am and 2pm
DEEP in the Hundred Acre Wood, a new musical adventure unfolds for A A Milne’s beloved characters Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin and their best friends Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, Owl and Tigger.
Accompanying the modern narrative and life-size puppetry in Jonathan Rockefeller’s show will be Nate Edmondson’s score, featuring Grammy Award-winning songs by the Sherman Brothers, such as The Blustery Day, The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers and Whoop-De-Dooper Bounce, plus Milne’s The More It Snows (with music by Carly Simon) and Sing Ho in a new arrangement. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
7 Days at the races: Craig David at York Racecourse Music Showcase weekend, today
SOUTHAMPTON soul singer Craig David, of 7 Days romancing fame, performs hits galore after today’s racing on Knavesmire. Fill Me In, Walkaway, Rise & Fall, All The Way and I Know You are likely to feature in his early evening set with a finishing time of 7.30pm.
Gates open at 11.15am for the 2.05pm start to the seven-race card. Best bet for a ticket, as the County Stand and Grandstand & Paddock are full already, will be the more informal Clocktower Enclosure. Buy on the gate.
Stilly Fringe storytelling: James Rowland in Piece Of Work, tomorrow, 7.15pm; Wright & Grainger in Helios, tomorrow, 8.45pm, At The Mill, Stillington, near York
AHEAD of his Edinburgh Fringe run, James Rowland opens the Stilly Fringe 2023 storytelling double bill with Piece Of Work, his follow-up to Learning To Fly. Combining story, comedy and music, Piece Of Work takes the form of a road trip searching for the writer of a letter that exploded Rowland’s life. Will he find a sense of home and maybe save a life too?
Edinburgh-bound Alexander Flanagan Wright and Phil Grainger introduce Helios, their latest instalment of stories and songs rooted in Greek myths, in the wake of Orpheus, Eurydice and The Gods The Gods The Gods. Any Stilly Fringe benefits? 1. Pizzas are on the menu from 6.30pm. 2. One ticket covers both shows at tickettailor.com/events/atthemill/957195.
Funday Sunday: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Spark Comedy Fringe, Events Space @ Spark:York, York, tomorrow, 4pm
FOUR acts in one day are on the Burning Duck bill of Edinburgh Fringe previews, kicking off at 4pm with comedian, animator and computer programmer Neil Harris’s Codebreaker show about the Enigma machine, Alan Turing and Bletchley Park, followed by Stanley Brooks’s I Can Make Me Rich, an inspirational, interactive seminar to change your life and bring you cash at 5.30pm.
In Eryn Tett Finds Her Audience at 7pm, this absurdist stand-up misfit combines surreal storytelling with odd observations and wordplay; Tom Lawrinson concludes the cornucopia of comedy with weird, wonderful and completely unexpected punchlines in Hubba Hubba at 8.30pm. Each show costs £5 in advance for guaranteed entry or you can Pay What You Want post-show. A £15 ticket gives entry to all four performances. Box office: wegottickets.com/spark-comedy-fringe.
Musical of the week: SIX The Musical, Leeds Grand Theatre, Tuesday to Sunday
TOBY Marlow and Lucy Moss’s Spouse Girls musical/pop concert wowed York in late-June. Now Leeds awaits the dancing queens with attitude who tell their story in song to decide who suffered most at Henry VIII’s hands once he put a ring on that wedding finger.
Look out for Knaresborough actress Lou Henry in the role of the apparently not-so-squeaky-clean Catherine Howard, short-lived wife number five. Box office (probably for frustration only): 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Forties’ flavour of the week: Blonde Bombshells Of 1943, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Wednesday to August 26
ZOE Waterman directs a cast of eight actor-musicians in the SJT, Bolton Octagon and Keswick Theatre by the Lake’s lavish, lively co-production of Hull playwright Alan Plater’s warm and witty musical play.
Meet The Blonde Bombshells, the most glamorous all-girl swing band in the north, whose membership goes down every time they play a GI camp. Now an important BBC job is in the offing and Betty needs to find new musicians fast. Expect Glenn Miller, George Formby, Fats Waller and Andrews Sisters classics aplenty. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Exhibition of the week: Northern Prospects, Janette Ray Rare Books, Bootham, York, Wednesday to Friday, 10am to 5pm, until August 19
LOTTE Inch Gallery’s pop-up show of York and northern paintings, prints and ceramics at Janette Ray’s bookshop is being expanded with ceramics by York artists Ben Arnup, Mark Hearld and Ruth King among the new additions.
As Lotte turns her hand once more to creating artistic showcases in non-traditional exhibition spaces, after her hiatus from curating, she presents works by Tom Wood, Marie Walker Last, David Lloyd Jones, Amy Dennis, Nicky Hirst, Kelly Jayne, Robert H Lee, Isabella Maclure, Geoff Morten and Malcolm Whittaker in “unusual corners” amid the shop’s treasure trove of books on the visual arts.
Festival of the week: York Georgian Festival, Thursday to Sunday
DUST off your petticoat and powder your best wig for a plethora of engagements at York Mansion House, Fairfax House, Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre and elsewhere at the inaugural York Georgian Festival.
Learn to dance the minuet; discover Georgian family life with Horrible Histories writer Terry Deary; revel in Mad Alice’s Georgian Rogues Gallery; solve the mystery of tricky Dick Turpin’s missing corpse in an immersive murder mystery night and take a peep behind-the-scenes with York’s curators. For full festival details and tickets, head to: mansionhouseyork.com/yorkgeorgianfestival.
Fundraiser of the week: Life Is A Cabaret, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Friday, 7.30pm
KATIE Melia returns to Theatre@41 after her February lead role in York Stage’s Sweet Charity to present a concert in aid of Reflect: Pregnancy Loss Support, looking to surpass the £3,000 raised at her first fundraiser for this North Yorkshire charity.
Alexa Chaplin, Jack Hooper and Dale Vaughan sing stage and screen hits from Wicked, Spamalot, Dreamgirls and Grease; West End star and director Damien Poole goes Eurovision with Rise Like A Phoenix; Emily Ramsden and Elf The Musical leading lady Sophie Hammond perform too. Tickets update: sold out. For returns only, tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
In Focus: Meadowfest, Malton’s Boutique Midsummer Music Festival, today, 10am to 10pm
MALTON’S boutique music festival takes place within the riverside meadows and gardens of the Talbot Hotel, Yorkersgate.
Anticipate a relaxed, joyful, family festival of uplifting sunshine bands, all-day feasting and dancing like no one’s watching.
Grab a hay bale, street food and something to sip and enjoy a mix of live music over two stages with Yorkshire bands to the fore.
Be Amazing Arts hosts the pop-up venue The Creativitent, a hive of activity with creative arts workshops, performances and storytelling, arts and craft zones and facepainting!
The Creativitent gives the opportunity for children, young people and their families to “discover their inner creativity, take to the stage, get crafty”.
Music line-up
10am, Malton School Soul Band, Meadow Stage; 10.30am, Graeme Hargreaves, Hay Bale Stage; 11am, Gary Stewart, Hay Bale Stage; 12 noon, The Caleb Murray Band, Meadow Stage; 1pm, Alchemy Live, tribute to Dire Straits, Hay Bale Stage; 2pm, The Alex Hamilton Band, Meadow Stage; 3pm, Arrival, The Hits of Abba, Hay Bale Stage; 4pm, Alistair Griffin & Band, Meadow Stage; 5pm, This House We Built, Hay Bale Stage; 6pm, Huge, York party band, Meadow Stage; 7.15pm, The Y Street Band, Hay Bale Stage; Chesney Hawkes, Meadow Stage headliner, 8.45pm.
Box office: tickettailor.com/events/visitmalton.