Tag: Fiery Angel

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More Things To Do in York & beyond when not only Poirot exercises the little grey cells. Hutch’s List No. 12, from The York Press

Freya Horlsey: Among the 163 artists and makers taking part in York Open Studios

SPRING has sprung, the cue for the arts world to have an extra spring in its step, much to Charles Hutchinson’s joy.

Art event of the weekend: York Open Studios Taster Exhibition, The Hospitium, York Museum Gardens, today and tomorrow, 10am to 4pm

YORK Open Studios will showcase 163 artists and makers at 116 locations on April 5, 6, 11 and 12 in its largest configuration yet in its 24 years. To whet the appetite, this weekend’s Taster Exhibition showcases works by participating artists to “help you choose which studios you would like to visit”. Full details of the April event can be found at yorkopenstudios.co.uk. Admission is free.

Stevie Hook: Spinning The Wheel Of Nouns

Queer cabaret night of the week: York Literature Festival presents Stevie Hook in The Wheel Of Nouns, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 7.30pm

REJOICE…or beware! The Gender Fairy is loose and has found their way to York. What is gender anyway and why should you care? Discover why it may be easier than you think in Hook’s new cabaret comedy: an evening of spinning game show wheels, jokes, bribes, and voluntary audience participation.

Audience interaction and cabaret-style games create a light-hearted, accepting environment to explore key issues around queerness and gender identity in 70 minutes of thought-provoking, mischievous queer cabaret.

The Wheel Of Nouns is presented by York trans, non-binary, neurodivergent mythical creature, writer and cabaret artist Stevie Hook. They are an associate artist with Roots Theatre and uses the pronouns they/them and hehe/hym.

At the heart of everything they create is a passion for subverting expectations, using games and audience interaction mechanics to invite audiences into silly, unapologetically trans worlds. They believe empowering audiences to participate and play in these silly worlds with them can open doors for meaningful change. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Printmaker Pamela Knight: Exhibiting at Bluebird Bakery in Acomb

Exhibition of the week: Three Printmakers, Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, until May 7

YORK Printmakers members Pamela Knight, Vanessa Oo and Sandra Storey are taking part in the Three Printmakers: Energy, Atmosphere & Light exhibition. York artist and former theatre set and costume designer Knight specialises in collagraphy, enjoying the textures and effects she creates using this process, often enriched with monoprint and chine colle.

Oo, from York, is displaying monotypes for the first time. “My work is about capturing the magic of the moment; an unseen energy and rhythm,” she says. Harrogate artist Sandra Storey’s work evokes the “talisman-like quality” of plants, birds and natural objects found within the North York Moors landscape. Admission is free.

Close up for Kim Wilde: Songs from Close and Closer at York Barbican

Pop gig of the week: Kim Wilde: Closer Tour, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.45pm

EIGHTIES’ pop star Kim Wilde performs songs from her sixth album, 1988’s Close, complemented by new numbers from Closer, her 15th studio set, released on January 25. Expect the familiar hits too: Kids In America, You Came, You Keep Me Hangin’ On, Never Trust A Stranger, Four Letter Word et al. Cutting Crew support. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Fiery Angel head to the Grand Opera House from Tuesday with Lucy Bailey’s production of Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express

Thriller of the week: Fiery Angel in Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express, Grand Opera House, York, March 25 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

FIERY Angel follow up November 2023’s visit of And Then There Were None with another Agatha Christie murder mystery directed by Lucy Bailey, this time with Michael Maloney on board for a “deliciously thrilling ride” as Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.

In Winter 1934, an avalanche stops The Orient Express dead in its tracks. Cue a murder. A train full of suspects. An impossible case. Trapped in the snow with a killer still on-board, can the world’s most famous detective crack the case before the train reaches its final destination?

Meanwhile, Wise Children’s world premiere of Emma Rice’s theatrical take on Alfred Hitchcock’s North By North West continues at York Theatre Royal until April 5. Box office: GOH, atgtickets.com/york; YTR, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Mark Simmonds in rehearsal for his role as Prospero in Black Sheep Theatre’s The Tempest at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Shakespeare debut of the week: Black Sheep Theatre in The Tempest, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 26 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

AFTER making their mark with musical theatre productions, York company Black Sheep Productions branch out into Shakespeare territory under Matthew Peter Clare’s direction. “Prepare for The Tempest like you’ve never seen it before,” he says, promising magic, music and mayhem in a dark re-telling of the one with “a storm, a shipwreck and the torment of it all”, featuring Mark Simmonds as Prospero, Freya McIntosh as Miranda, Mikhail Lim as Gonzalo, Deathly Dark Tours guide, Kisskisskill singer Gemma-Louise Keane as Ariel, Meg Conway as Antonia and Josh Woodgate as Caliban.

“With a phenomenal cast, a live six-piece band, our production re-imagines Shakespeare’s tale of power, revenge, and redemption in a truly immersive and unforgettable way.” Box office:  tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Public Service Broadcasting: York Barbican debut on March 27

Past meets future in the present: Public Service Broadcasting, York Barbican, March 27, doors 7pm

PUBLIC Service Broadcasting make their York Barbican debut with  J. Willgoose, Esq on guitar, banjo, other stringed instruments, samples and electronic musical instruments; Wrigglesworth on drums, piano and electronic instruments; J F Abraham on flugelhorn, bass guitar, drums and vibraslap and Mr B on visuals and set design.

“Teaching the lessons of the past through the music of the future” for more than a decade, the corduroy-wearing Londoners will select material from their five themed albums, 2013’s Inform – Educate – Entertain, 2015’s The Race For Space, 2017’s Every Valley, 2021’s Bright Magic and 2024’s The Last Flight. She Drew The Gun support. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Laura Veirs: Art meets science via geology in her songs at The Crescent, York, on March 27

Folk gig of the week: Please Please You and Brudenell Presents (CORRECT)present Laura Veirs, supported by Lucca Mae, The Crescent, York, March 27, doors 7pm

PORTLAND, Oregon, folk singer, songwriter, children’s author, artist, Midnight Lightning podcaster, Stanford University songwriting teacher and mother Laura Veirs draws on her 14 albums in her Crescent set. Growing up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, she spent summers camping with her family, inspiring her songwriting as much as her fascination with the intersection of art and science from days of studying geology (and Mandarin Chinese) at Carleton College in rural Minnesota.

Her 25-year career has taken in collaborations with Neko Case and kd lang in case/lang/veirs, Sufjan Stevens, Jim James of My Morning Jacket and The Decemberists. Now she is working on new paintings, an instrumental guitar album and a book about creativity. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Will Smith: Off to the seaside to perform at Scarborough Open Air Theatre in August

Gig announcement of the week: Will Smith, Based On A True Story Tour, TK Maxx Presents  Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 24

WILL Smith, the Grammy Award-winning American screen actor, entertainer and recording artist, will promote his first full-length album in 20 years, Based On A True Story, on his debut UK headline travels that will open on the Yorkshire coast.

Songs from his March 28 release will be complemented by such hits as Jiggy Wit It, Miami, and Summertime. “Yo UK, my first ever tour. You got to go get it. I’m on my way,” says Smith, 56. “That’s my airplane. Scarborough, Cardiff, Manchester, London, it’s going to be hot! I’m about to go to the airport. I’m leaving now!” Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

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Meet the other Belgian in Murder On The Orient Express, Bob Barrett’s Monsieur Bouc. Next stop, Grand Opera House, York

Train of thought: Paul Keating’s Hector MacQueen, left, Bob Barrett’s Monsieur Bouc and Michael Maloney’s Hercule Poirot in discussion in Lucy Bailey’s production of Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, next week

REMEMBER And Then There Were None playing the Grand Opera House in November 2023? And now there is another Agatha Christie thriller on track for the York theatre, again directed by Lucy Bailey for Fiery Angel.

It will be full steam ahead for Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of Murder On The Orient Express from next Tuesday, with Michael Maloney on board for a “deliciously thrilling ride” as Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.

In Winter 1934, an avalanche stops The Orient Express dead in its tracks. Cue a murder. A train full of suspects. An impossible case. Trapped in the snow with a killer still on-board, can the world’s most famous detective crack the case before the train reaches its final destination?

Bob Barrett takes the role of Poirot’s fellow Belgian and friend, Monsieur Bouc, director of La Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, the Orient Express train company, in a tour well into its stride.

“We started rehearsals last August and our first performance was at The Lowry, in Salford, at the beginning of September, since when we’ve been touring with a very big set,” he says.

Bob Barrett, seated, right, in the Fiery Angel cast for Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None on his last visit to the Grand Opera House, York, in November 2023. Picture: Manuel Harlan

“We’ve gone from playing big theatres like The Mayflower in Southampton to the smallest so far, Richmond, with a capacity of 680, and there are parts of the set we can’t use in the smaller venues, but we have a revolve set design that can be used pretty much in its entirety everywhere, certainly in York, where it will be fantastic because it’s such a wide state – and that’s ideal because what you see is a train!”

Trucks were used in the rehearsal room to give a sense of the carriages. “Once we were off the book, we needed as much of the set as possible to work with, and the music too, which is a huge part of the show. I’ve never had that experience before where we had the music in the rehearsal room all the time, creating the energy and the humour in the production.”

Bob is enjoying bonhomie between Monsieur Bouc and Poirot in Bailey’s production. “They have a wonderful bond, and he is the yin to my yang,” he says. Monsieur Bouc is not the brightest, so it’s like Holmes & Watson or Morecambe and Wise, shall we say!

“Bouc has his back, and we see the plot unfold through Poirot’e eyes, with Bouc giving him his support – and advice, even though he’s invariably wrong!”

Bouc’s accent is most definitely Belgian, not French. “In some ways, it’s like the difference between the Canada and the United States. There’s a warmth to the accent and a slight humour too, with Belgians being jokes to the French.

Keeping track of events: Paul Keating’s Hector MacQueen), left, Bob Barrett’s Monsieur Bouc and Simon Cotton’s Samuel Ratchett in Murder On The Orient Express

“There’s a running joke throughout the play, where someone will say, ‘Is the Frenchman coming to see us?’, and I’ll have to say, ‘No, he’s Belgian’. But we have a Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Fillon, playing the conductor, Michael, so he’s got a really good French accent!”

Joined in the touring production by his wife, Rebecca Charles, in the role of the “weepy and delicate” Greta Ohlsson, Swedish personal assistant to the Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff, Bob is returning to the Grand Opera House after appearing as Doctor Armstrong in Lucy Bailey’s account of And Then There Were None in November 2023.

“That was the first Agatha Christie production that Fiery Angel had done on such a big scale and it was a huge success,” he says. “They’ll be reuniting later this year for Death On The Nile with Lucy teaming up with same designer and production team too.

“Lucy has this wonderful imagination, she’s incredibly positive, and creates these unbelievable moments of energy in her directing, taking you on this rollercoaster, taking you to places that you wouldn’t expect to go to.

“She pushes you collectively, lifting the actors [metaphorically] above her shoulders and just running with it, so that you all feel part of the creative process, and that’s how she gets such energy into the performance.”

Director Lucy Bailey: “She has this wonderful imagination, she’s incredibly positive, and creates these unbelievable moments of energy in her directing,” says cast member Bob Barrett. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Assessing why Agatha Christie remains as popular as ever, whether on page, stage or screen, Bob posits: “Usually writers remain popular if what they’ve done has never been bettered.

“That’s why we go back to Shakespeare, Ibsen, Beckett, and Christie too. What they’ve done has been copied, but never bettered. In Christie’s case, how she creates suspense, intrigue and excitement. Dickens is the greatest English creator of characters but Agatha is not far behind. Poirot is such an iconic figure, even more so than Miss Marple.

“The other day, we found out that she’d written a version of Death On The Nile where she wrote out Poirot and had a vicar solving the crime, as she couldn’t face writing another Poirot story, but then changed her mind.”

Bob continues: “Agatha Christie wrote 75 books, Dickens 15, Jane Austen only six. So you have a lifetime of Christie reading ahead! I always say that she’s very accurate in what she writes, and if you’re that successful, you have to have an understanding of human nature, taking people out of their comfort zone and seeing what happens to them, thinking, ‘how would I behave in that situation?’.”

Fiery Angel presents Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express, Grand Opera House, York, March 25 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york

Did you know?

BOB Barrett is best known for his BBC television role as Sacha Levy in Holby City since 2010, with further screen credits in EastEnders, The Bill, Shakespeare In Love, Wonderful You, Casualty and Father Brown.

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REVIEW: The 39 Steps, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Safeena Ladha, left, Eugene McCoy, Tom Byrne and Maddie Rice in a scene from The 39 Steps. Picture: Mark Senior

FIERY Angel’s spiffing touring production of The 39 Steps is back on the road after eight years, although Patrick Barlow’s rollercoaster ride through John Buchan’s tale of murder, suspense and intrigue and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller is never far from a Yorkshire stage.

In that touring hiatus, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre has staged it twice (in 2018 and 2023) and Harri Marshall directed York Settlement Community Players at Theatre@41, Monkgate, in November 2021.

Yet not everyone has strapped in previously for Barlow’s delirious, dextrous delight of a comic misadventure. “Brilliant theatre,” kept coming a voice from the dress-circle row behind, experiencing its ingenuity for the first time at Wednesday’s matinee.

Eugene McCoy, left, Safeena Ladha and Tom Byrne in Fiery Angel’s touring production of The 39 Steps. Picture: Mark Senior

Mischief Theatre have a had a field day since the 2012 premiere of The Play That Goes Wrong, with clever, chaotic comedy rooted in mishaps, clowning pratfalls and exquisite comic timing. Yet Barlow’s play – and indeed North Yorkshire company North Country Theatre’s original 1996 concept by Simon Corble & Nobby Dimon that inspired it – pre-dates the Go Wrong brand, debuting at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in June 2005.

It has gone right ever since, especially under the direction of Maria Aitken in Fiery Angel’s tours, and now in the hands of 2024 tour director Nicola Samer, still true to the Aitken template but not exactly. The same, but Samer, as it were.

Tom Byrne, familiar to The Crown devotees from playing Prince Andrew aged 22 to 32 in the Netflix series, now turns his hand to another posh chap, the unflappable Richard Hannay in a helter-skelter play that hitches the storytelling of Buchan to the thrills, spills and daring set-pieces of Hitchcock’s thriller and then entrusts 139 roles to a cast of only four, most of them shared between Eugene McCoy’s Clown 1 and Maddie Rice’s Clown 2.

Tom Byrne: From Prince Andrew in The Crown to Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps

In the ennui of August 1935, Byrne’s lanky Hannay is in an emotional stew in his lonely, rented Portland Place pad, slumped in his leather armchair, pencil-slim moustache downturned, contemplating ending it all, in desperate need of… well, love, as it turns out later.

More immediately, this dashing, clipped and proper fellow must “find something to do…something mindless and trivial. Something utterly pointless. Something – I know! A West End show! That should do the trick!”

Barlow instantly establishes the “meta-theatre” of a play that revels in the possibilities and limitations of theatre, even in self-deprecation at what naysayers consider its ridiculousness, its bloated self-importance, as well as its wonder.

On the run: Tom Byrne’s Richard Hannay seeeks to escape the constabulary in The 39 Steps. Picture: Mark Senior

Hannay heads to the London Palladium for some excitement, but not the kind of excitement that ensues. The gun-firing, mysterious German fräulein in the box opposite him, Annabella Schmidt (Safeena Ladha), demands he must take her home, only to drop dead in his lap, knifed in the back.

Hanney takes flight – or rather a train ride – to Scotland, now murder suspect number one, in urgent need of crucial information to extricate himself from such accusations.

Policemen, secret agents, a farmer, a mysterious professor and assorted women stand in his way, delicered with breathless speed, breathtaking brilliance and comedic brio by the loose-limbed McCoy and the nimble Rice, the first woman to play Clown 2 in a Fiery Angel tour.

Tom Byrne’s Richard Hannay: In need of “something mindless and trivial. Something utterly pointless” in the opening scene to The 39 Steps. A night at the theatre awaits. Picture: Mark Senior

What’s more, as well as evoking Charlie Chaplin and even Samuel Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting For Godot, both are in cross-dressing mode, equally as likely to play a woman or a man, whatever a scene demands, Rice even performing two roles at once, turning back and forth in a half-and-half costume.  

Ladha multi-tasks too, reappearing as an alluring, feisty femme fatale and a shy but obligingly helpful farmer’s wife.

Byrne’s handsome hero lets the darker side of Hannay poke through the surface, but the theatrical sleight of hand prevails, not least in the bargain-basement re-enactment of Hitchcock’s familiar scenes, topped off by a North By North West shadow-play spoof.

The Fiery Angel tour poster for The 39 Steps

The second act slows a tad, but Barlow’s witty, period-pastiche dialogue keeps you on the edge, either suspenseful or in fear of another pardonably terrible pun. All the while, Samer’s cast must battle against the odds, improvising props and scenery, whether with stepladders for a bridge, or chairs for a car, moving the furniture on and off, and defiantly keeping their head above water, even when a ringing phone or dry-ice Scottish mist is miscued.

As the thrilling twists and turns of this Hitchcock homage somehow go off without a hitch, Byrne, Ladha, McCoy and Rice make a fabulous four, never missing a step in the cause of  comedy.

Fiery Angel presents The 39 Steps, Grand Opera House, York, cutting a dash until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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How And Then There Were None became And Then There Were Two in York this autumn in Agatha Christie mystery

And then there was one: Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for their first bite of the And Then There Were None cherry in York

NO productions of Agatha Christie’s house party thriller And Then There Were None in York for ages, but suddenly, like buses…and then there were two.

Andrew Isherwood’s film noir-style nail-biter for York company Pick Me Up Theatre opens at Theatre@41, Monkgate, on Friday, to be followed by Lucy Bailey’s 21st reinvention on tour at the Grand Opera House from November 21 to 25.

In Christie’s murder mystery, Europe is teetering on the brink of war when eight strangers receive an intriguing invitation to a posh house party on Soldier Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast.

These house guests are to be met by the butler and his housekeeper wife…And Then There Were Ten, but not for long.

Andrew Isherwood: Looking judgemental in Pick Me Up Theate’s social media post announcing his role as retired Inspector William Blore in And Then There Were None

All have a wicked past they are unwilling to reveal and a secret destined to seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. As the weather turns, the bloodbath begins and one by one they are brutally murdered in accordance with the lines of a sinister nursery rhyme.

More on Bailey’s touring show for Fiery Angel, ROYO and the Royal & Derngate, Northampton, in November, but first the focus falls on Andrew Isherwood picking up the directorial reins for Pick Me Up for the first time, as well as playing one of the suspects already cast by producer Robert Readman, who had acquired the rights for Christie’s play ahead of the touring production incidentally.

“It’s a fantastic play,” says Andrew. “Having acted for more than ten years now, I’ve been wanting to spread my wings a little, and when this play came up, I jumped at the chance to give it a shot with a fairly sizeable cast for a piece that’s very dialogue heavy.

“Bringing together some of the best actors we have in York, it was too good an opportunity to miss. For the audience, can I find a tone and a pace to the show that keeps people engaged and involved from beginning to end?”

Jess Murray’s Emily Brent, Rory Mulvihill’s Sir Lawrence Wargrave, Martyn Hunter’s butler Rogers, Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong and Flo Poskitt’s Vera Claythorne, seated, rehearsing at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, for And Then There Were None

To do so, combining directing and acting has been challenging. “That’s for sure,” says Andrew. “To switch between performance and honing the performances of the cast, working on the fine details. I’ve focused a lot on developing as a director while maintaining committed to my role. It’s a fine balance.”

He will play retired Inspector William Henry Blore, who should know his way around a crime scene and be a dependable chap in a crisis, but when the killing starts, is this former copper the bookies’ best bet for whodunit?

“I really enjoy the duality and complexity of Blore’s character,” says Andrew. “Having the opportunity to play a character who presents himself as one thing and reveals himself to be another. To play a character within a character as it were. It’s something I’ve not done before, which is always attractive.”

Christie’s abiding popularity, on stage, screen and page, is no mystery to Andrew. “She’s a British icon; her name has instant brand recognition as it were,” he says. “Even if you’ve never even read or seen an Agatha Christie, you know she’s synonymous with intrigue, mystery and drama. I think the success of Poirot, in particular, has permeated our culture in such a way that associates itself with class and quality.”

Why are the British so fascinated by murder, mystery and death, Andrew? “It’s irresistible. The search for answers. The need to know. The intrigue, The darkness of man’s soul. The exploration of the darker side that’s quite seductive. It’s important to have some mystery to life,” he says.

Joining Isherwood’s Blore in Pick Me Up’s cast will be Flo Poskitt’s Vera Claythorne; Mike Hickman’s Philip Lombard; Rory Mulvihill’s Sir Lawrence Wargrave; husband and wife Martyn and Jeannette Hunter’s butler Rogers and housekeeper wife Mrs Rogers; Andrew Roberts’s Anthony Marston; Ian Giles’s General John MacKenzie; Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong and Jess Murray’s Emily Brent.

Such familiar faces from the York stage scene recalls the old days of repertory theatre, enjoying seeing regulars in new roles. “I’ve certainly been very lucky and blessed to have such a fantastic cast. A lot of known and returning faces gives the sense that this is a company of experienced hands,” says Andrew.

“Directing this production has been such a wonderful experience because I know the roles will be brought so brilliantly to life. It’s certainly a good feeling to know that each scene is in the hands of compelling and experienced actors, and I’ve really enjoyed working with each of them, developing, finding new folds and creases to their characters.”

From one to ten: Pick Me Up Theatre cast members Flo Poskitt, top left, Rory Mulvihill, Mike Hickman, Andrew Isherwood, Martyn Hunter, Jeanette Hunter, Ian Giles, Mark Simmonds, Andrew Roberts and Jess Murray

Producer Readman’s set design will play its part in the thrills and spills. “Robert has designed a fabulous set using levels and lighting to create mood and atmosphere. The design is created to reflect the shape of the island itself, and the lighting will be very evocative and in the style of film noir to fully immerse our audience in this world,” says Andrew. 

In this autumn of And There Were None at the double, he is “glad we’re getting in there first”. “It certainly becomes a part of professional pride that if you come to see our version, we’ll be every bit as good as you would expect from the Opera House show. I’ve felt for a long time that the line between what you would consider an ‘amateur’ show versus a ‘professional’ show is a fine one,” says Andrew.

“Definitely in the shows I’ve been involved with. From Robert Readman’s set to the costumes and the quality of the performances, it’s every bit as good as you would see in London. So come join us on the island!”

Pick Me Up Theatre in Agatha Christie’s And Then There None, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 22 to 30. Performances: 7.30pm, September 22, 23, 26 to 30; 2.30pm, September 23, 24 and 30. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

And then there were two

The artwork for Lucy Bailey’s production of And Then There Were None, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, in November

IN Lucy Bailey’s “bold and exciting” 21st reinvention of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, ten strangers are lured to a solitary mansion off the coast of Devon. When a terrible storm cuts them off from the mainland, and with their hosts mysteriously absent, the true reason for their presence on the island becomes horribly clear, as secrets from their past come back to haunt each and every one of them.

Confirmed in the cast for the York-bound Fiery Angel, ROYO and Royal & Derngate, Northampton touring production are Bob Barrett as Dr Edward Armstrong; Joseph
Beattie as Philip Lombard; Oliver Clayton as Anthony Marston; Jeffery Kissoon as General John MacKenzie and Andrew Lancel as retired Inspector William Blore.

So too are Nicola May-Taylor as Jane Pinchbeck; Katy Stephens as Emily Brent; Lucy Tregear as Georgina Rogers; Sophie Walter as Vera Claythorne; Matt Weyland as Narracott/Understudy and David Yelland as Judge Wargrave. Louise McNulty will be on understudy duty.

And then there were twelve: Lucy Bailey’s cast for And Then There Were None 

Lucy Bailey has previous form for Christie productions, having directed Witness For The Prosecution, now in its sixth year, as well as Frederick Knott’s Dial M For Murder, Baby Doll, Titus Andronicus and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

She is joined in the production team by UK Theatre Award-winning set and costume designer Mike Britton, lighting designer Chris Davey, sound designer and composer Elizabeth Purnell, fight director Renny Krupinski and movement director by Ayse Tashkiran.

Fiery Angel, ROYO and Royal & Derngate, Northampton, present And Then There Were None at Grand Opera House, York, November 21 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Did you know?

AND Then There Were None is not only Agatha Christie’s most read work, but also the best-selling crime novel of all time, selling more than 100 million copies worldwide since its first publication in 1939.

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REVIEW: Leeds Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Fiery Angel in Of Mice And Men, Leeds Playhouse, until May 27 ****

William Young’s Lennie in Of Mice And Men at Leeds Playhouse. All pictures: Kris Askey

LIKE a hamster wheel, Of Mice And Men keeps coming round, chiming uncomfortably with our times once more with its themes of economic migration, racism, prejudice, misogyny and exclusion.

Last staged at the Playhouse in March 2014 in Mark Rosenblatt’s risk-taking production with a score by Avant-Americana composer, singer and musician Heather Christian, it returns in a powerhouse Leeds Playhouse collaboration with the Second City’s Birmingham Rep and London producers Fiery Angel.

What’s more, John Steinbeck’s novella of the Great American Depression, adapted into a three-act play by the American writer himself in 1937, is in the hands of last summer’s Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony director Iqbal Khan, Birmingham Rep’s associate director.

Maddy Hill as Curley’s Wife

He parades flair for theatre on a big scale to match the vast and dry American plains – and yet he achieves intimacy too, even in the expanses of the Playhouse’s Quarry Theatre, as the play’s first act charts the bond between two migrant workers, smart George (Tom McCall) and the towering, sweet-natured but dangerously strong Lennie (William Young).

They are men on the move, out of necessity, escaping Lennie’s latest unfortunate incident, desperately looking for work in straitened times and competing with other men to do so. Same story, more than 80 years later, only now men must travel farther against a tide of Brexit bellicosity and Stop The Boats posturing.

Yet, as the itinerant workers establish over a can of beans and a wood fire under the stars, this is a story of durable friendship and survival, one rooted in the hope, always on the horizon, of saving enough nickels to buy their own small farmstead with chickens and rabbits.

Of Mice And Men cast members, from left: Reece Pantry (Crooks), Maddy Hill (Curley’s Wife), William Young (Lennie), Tom McCall (George), Riad Richie (Curley) and Lee Ravitz (Candy)

This is the American Dream at its most primal, with a shared longing for a place they can call home for the protective, cautious, steely George and the innocent Lennie.

The problem is: fantasy always meets the reality of prejudices, in the tinderbox of the bunkhouse and barns of Curley’s Californian ranch, as hired hands George and Lennie start their latest shift of hard graft and hard bunks.

Curley (Riad Richie) is trigger happy, jumped up, restless over what his neglected, desperately lonely, unloved, Hollywood-fixated new wife – the never named Curley’s Wife (Maddy Hill) – may or may not be doing, in need of company and connection amid so much machismo. He has his eye on her roving eye. Trouble this way comes, tragedy too.

Tom McCall’s George

Under Khan’s direction (with resident director Laura Ryder overseeing the tour), the language is muscular, confrontational, enflamed too, carrying the greatest weight, for all the visual impact of Ciaran Bagnall’s set and dustbowl lighting, with its steel frameworks for bunkbeds and huge barns beneath wooden beams that lower as the play progresses to give a sense of compression.

Curley’s Wife is not alone in being subjected to exclusion. So too is Crooks (Reece Pantry), the blacksmith segregated on account of being black, with only his books for company.

McCall, Young, Hill and Pantry go to the heart in devastating, terrific central performances, alongside Lee Ravitz’s Candy, always keen to please as the ultimate team player.

Lee Ravitz’s Candy

As in 2014, music plays its part with dustbowl country songs on guitar and a dramatic soundscape by Elizabeth Purnell. Puppeteer Jake Benson’s work with Candy’s stinking old dog adds poignancy to that ruthless scene and Kay Wilton’s period costume designs are spot on, especially for Curley’s Wife.

Of Mice And Men will return, you know it will, because times move on but the problems do not. Steinbeck’s eloquence shames us and hope is crushed again, like a puppy in Lennie’s hands.  

Box office: 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk

Reece Pantry’s Crooks in Of Mice And Men
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